"I don't happen to have any money with me," she explained charmingly. "Of course, I had expected to go back on my wheel, but, since it is broken, perhaps you would be willing to take this until I return to the city and can mail a check?"
She drew a diamond ring from an aristocratic finger and offered it to the clerk. He blushed furiously, and she reproved him for it with a cold stare.
"It's quite irregular," he explained, "but, of course, in the circumstances, it will be all right. It is not necessary for us to keep the ring at all, if you will give us your city address."
"I prefer that you keep it," she insisted firmly, "for, besides, I shall have to ask you to let me have fare back to the city—a couple of dollars? Of course it will be all right?"
It was half an hour before the clerk fully awoke. He had given the Girl two real dollars and held her ring clasped firmly in one hand. She was gone. She might just as well have taken the hotel along with her so far as any objection from that clerk would have been concerned.
Once out of the hotel the Girl hurried on.
"Thank goodness, that's over," she exclaimed.
For several blocks she walked on. Finally her eye was attracted by a "To Let" sign on a small house—it was No. 410 State Street. She walked in through a gate cut in the solid wall of stone and strolled up to the house. Here she wandered about for a time, incidentally tearing off the "To Let" sign. Then she came down the path toward the street again. Just inside the stone fence she left her express package, after scribbling the name of the street on it with a pencil. A dollar bill lay on top. She hurried out and along a block or more to a small grocery.
"Will you please 'phone to the express company and have them send a wagon to No. 410 State Street for a package?" she asked sweetly of a heavy-voiced grocer.
"Certainly, ma'am," he responded with alacrity.
She paused until he had done as she requested, then dropped into a restaurant for a cup of coffee. She lingered there for a long time, and then went out to spend a greater part of the day wandering up and down State Street. At last an express wagon drove up, the driver went in and returned after a little while with the package.
"And, thank goodness, that's off my hands!" sighed the Girl. "Now I'm going home."
Late that evening, Saturday, Miss Dollie Meredith returned to the home of the Greytons and was clasped to the motherly bosom of Mrs. Greyton, where she wept unreservedly.
"A dollar bill lay on top""A dollar bill lay on top"
It was late Sunday afternoon. Hutchinson Hatch did not run lightly up the steps of the Greyton home and toss his cigar away as he rang the bell. He did go up the steps, but it was reluctantly, dragging one foot after the other, this being an indication rather of his mental condition than of physical weariness. He did not throw away his cigar as he rang the bell because he wasn't smoking—but he did ring the bell. The maid whom he had seen on his previous visit opened the door.
"Is Mrs. Greyton in?" he asked with a nod of recognition.
"No, sir."
"Mr. Greyton?"
"No, sir."
"Did Mr. Meredith arrive from Baltimore?"
"Yes, sir. Last midnight."
"Ah! Ishein?"
"No, sir."
The reporter's disappointment showed clearly in his face.
"I don't suppose you've heard anything further from Miss Meredith?" he ventured hopelessly.
"She's upstairs, sir."
Anyone who has ever stepped on a tack knows just how Hatch felt. He didn't stand on the order of being invited in—he went in. Being in, he extracted a plain calling-card from his pocketbook with twitching fingers and handed it to the waiting maid.
"When did she return?" he asked.
"Last night, about nine, sir."
"Where has she been?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Kindly hand her my card and explain to her that it is imperative that I see her for a few minutes," the reporter went on. "Impress upon her the absolute necessity of this. By the way, I suppose you know where I came from, eh?"
"Police headquarters, yes, sir."
Hatch tried to look like a detective, but a gleam of intelligence in his face almost betrayed him.
"You might intimate as much to Miss Meredith," he instructed the maid calmly.
The maid disappeared. Hatch went in and sat down in the reception-room, and said "Whew!" several times.
"The gold plate returned to Randolph last night by express," he mused, "and she returned also, last night. Now what does that mean?"
After a minute or so the maid reappeared to state that Miss Meredith would see him. Hatch received the message gravely and beckoned mysteriously as he sought for a bill in his pocketbook.
"Do you have any idea where Miss Meredith was?"
"No, sir. She didn't even tell Mrs. Greyton or her father."
"What was her appearance?"
"She seemed very tired, sir, and hungry. She still wore the masked ball costume."
The bill changed hands and Hatch was left alone again. There was a long wait, then a rustle of skirts, a light step, and Miss Dollie Meredith entered.
She was nervous, it is true, and pallid, but there was a suggestion of defiance as well as determination on her pretty mouth. Hatch stared at her in frank admiration for a moment, then, with an effort, proceeded to business.
"I presume, Miss Meredith," he said solemnly, "that the maid informed you of my identity?"
"Yes," replied Dollie weakly. "She said you were a detective."
"Ah!" exclaimed the reporter meaningly, "then we understand each other. Now, Miss Meredith, will you tell me, please, just where you have been?"
"No."
The answer was so prompt and so emphatic that Hatch was a little disconcerted. He cleared his throat and started over again.
"Will you inform me, then, in the interest of justice, where you were on the evening of the Randolph ball?" An ominous threat lay behind the words, Hatch hoped she believed.
"I will not."
"Why did you disappear?"
"I will not tell you."
"There was a suggestion of defiance as well as determination on her pretty mouth""There was a suggestion of defiance as well as determination on her pretty mouth"
Hatch paused to readjust himself. He was going at things backward. When next he spoke his tone had lost the official tang—he talked like a human being.
"May I ask if you happen to know Richard Herbert?"
The pallor of the girl's face was relieved by a delicious sweep of colour.
"I will not tell you," she answered.
"And if I say that Mr. Herbert happens to be a friend of mine?"
"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Two distracting blue eyes were staring him out of countenance; two scarlet lips were drawn tightly together in reproof of a man who boasted such a friendship; two cheeks flamed with indignation that he should have mentioned the name. Hatch floundered for a moment, then cleared his throat and took a fresh start.
"Will you deny that you saw Richard Herbert on the evening of the masked ball?"
"I will not."
"Will you admit that you saw him?"
"I will not."
"Do you know that he was wounded?"
"Certainly."
Now, Hatch had always held a vague theory that the easiest way to make a secret known was to intrust it to a woman. At this point he revised his draw, threw his hand in the pack, and asked for a new deal.
"Miss Meredith," he said soothingly after a pause, "will you admit or deny that you ever heard of the Randolph robbery?"
"I will not," she began, then: "Certainly I know of it."
"You know that a man and a woman are accused of and sought for the theft?"
"Yes, I know that."
"You will admit that you know the man was in Burglar's garb, and that the woman was dressed in a Western costume?"
"The newspapers say that, yes," she replied sweetly.
"You know, too, that Richard Herbert went to that ball in Burglar's garb and that you went there dressed as a Western girl?" The reporter's tone was strictly professional now.
Dollie stared into the stern face of her interrogator and her courage oozed away. The colour left her face and she wept violently.
"I beg your pardon," Hatch expostulated. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean it just that way, but——"
He stopped helplessly and stared at this wonderful woman with the red hair. Of all things in the world tears were quite the most disconcerting.
"I beg your pardon," he repeated awkwardly.
Dollie looked up with tear-stained, pleading eyes, then arose and placed both her hands on Hatch's arm. It was a pitiful, helpless sort of a gesture; Hatch shuddered with sheer delight.
"I don't know how you found out about it," she said tremulously, "but, if you've come to arrest me, I'm ready to go with you."
"Arrest you?" gasped the reporter.
"Certainly. I'll go and be locked up. That's what they do, isn't it?" she questioned innocently.
The reporter stared.
"I wouldn't arrest you for a million dollars!" he stammered in dire confusion. "It wasn't quite that. It was——"
And five minutes later Hutchinson Hatch found himself wandering aimlessly up and down the sidewalk.
Dick Herbert lay stretched lazily on a couch in his room with hands pressed to his eyes. He had just read the Sunday newspapers announcing the mysterious return of the Randolph plate, and naturally he had a headache. Somewhere in a remote recess of his brain mental pyrotechnics were at play; a sort of intellectual pinwheel spouted senseless ideas and suggestions of senseless ideas. The late afternoon shaded off into twilight, twilight into dusk, dusk into darkness, and still he lay motionless.
After a while, from below, he heard the tinkle of a bell and Blair entered with light tread:
"Beg pardon, sir, are you asleep?"
"Who is it, Blair?"
"Mr. Hatch, sir."
"Let him come up."
Dick arose, snapped on the electric lights, and stood blinkingly in the sudden glare. When Hatch entered they faced each other silently for a moment. There was that in the reporter's eyes that interested Dick immeasurably; there was that in Dick's eyes that Hatch was trying vainly to fathom. Dick relieved a certain vague tension by extending his left hand. Hatch shook it cordially.
"Well?" Dick inquired.
Hatch dropped into a chair and twirled his hat.
"Heard the news?" he asked.
"The return of the gold plate, yes," and Dick passed a hand across his fevered brow. "It makes me dizzy."
"Heard anything from Miss Meredith?"
"No. Why?"
"She returned to the Greytons last night."
"Returned to the——" and Dick started up suddenly. "Well, there's no reason why she shouldn't have," he added. "Do you happen to know where she was?"
The reporter shook his head.
"I don't know anything," he said wearily, "except——" he paused.
Dick paced back and forth across the room several times with one hand pressed to his forehead. Suddenly he turned on his visitor.
"Except what?" he demanded.
"Except that Miss Meredith, by action and word, has convinced me that she either had a hand in the disappearance of the Randolph plate or else knows who was the cause of its disappearance."
Dick glared at him savagely.
"You know she didn't take the plate?" he demanded.
"Certainly," replied the reporter. "That's what makes it all the more astonishing. I talked to her this afternoon, and when I finished she seemed to think I had come to arrest her, and she wanted to go to jail. I nearly fainted."
Dick glared incredulously, then resumed his nervous pacing. Suddenly he stopped.
"Did she mention my name?"
"I mentioned it. She wouldn't admit even that she knew you."
There was a pause.
"I don't blame her," Dick remarked enigmatically. "She must think me a cad."
Another pause.
"Well, what about it all, anyhow?" Dick went on finally. "The plate has been returned, therefore the matter is at an end."
"Now look here, Dick," said Hatch. "I want to say something, and don't go crazy, please, until I finish. I know an awful lot about this affair—things the police never will know. I haven't printed anything much for obvious reasons."
Dick looked at him apprehensively.
"Go on," he urged.
"I could print things I know," the reporter resumed; "swear out a warrant for you in connection with the gold plate affair and have you arrested and convicted on your own statements, supplemented by those of Miss Meredith. Yet, remember, please, neither your name nor hers has been mentioned as yet."
Dick took it calmly; he only stared.
"Do you believe that I stole the plate?" he asked.
"Certainly I do not," replied Hatch, "but I can prove that youdid; prove it to the satisfaction of any jury in the world, and no denial of yours would have any effect."
"Well?" asked Dick, after a moment.
"Further, I can, on information in my possession, swear out a warrant for Miss Meredith, prove she was in the automobile, and convict her as your accomplice. Now that's a silly state of affairs, isn't it?"
"But, man, you can't believe that she had anything to do with it! She's—she's not that kind."
"I could take oath that she didn't have anything to do with it, but all the same I can prove that she did," replied Hatch. "Now what I am getting at is this: if the police should happen to find out what I know they would send you up—both of you."
"Well, you are decent about it, old man, and I appreciate it," said Dick warmly. "But what can we do?"
"It behoves us—Miss Meredith and you and myself—to get the true facts in the case all together before you get pinched," said the reporter judicially. "Suppose now, just suppose, that we three get together and tell each other the truth for a change, the whole truth, and see what will happen?"
"If I should tell you the truth," said Dick dispassionately, "it would bring everlasting disgrace on Miss Meredith, and I'd be a beast for doing it; if she told you the truth she would unquestionably send me to prison for theft."
"But here——" Hatch expostulated.
"Just a minute!" Dick disappeared into another room, leaving the reporter to chew on what he had, then returned in a little while, dressed for the street. "Now, Hatch," he said, "I'm going to try to get to Miss Meredith, but I don't believe she'll see me. If she will, I may be able to explain several things that will clear up this affair inyourmind, at any rate. If I don't see her—— By the way, did her father arrive from Baltimore?"
"Yes."
"Good!" exclaimed Dick. "I'll see him, too—make a show-down of it, and when it's all over I'll let you know what happened."
Hatch went back to his shop and threatened to kick the office-boy into the waste-basket.
At just about that moment Mr. Meredith, in the Greyton home, was reading a card on which appeared the name, "Mr. Richard Hamilton Herbert." Having read it, he snorted his indignation and went into the reception-room. Dick arose to greet him and offered a hand, which was promptly declined.
"I'd like to ask you, Mr. Meredith," Dick began with a certain steely coldness in his manner, "just why you object to my attention to your daughter, Dorothy?"
"You know well enough!" raged the old man.
"It is because of the trouble I had in Harvard with your son, Harry. Well and good, but is that all? Is that to stand forever?"
"You proved then that you were not a gentleman," declared the old man savagely. "You're a puppy, sir."
"Mr. Meredith ... was reading a card on which appeared the name 'Mr. Richard Hamilton Herbert'""Mr. Meredith ... was reading a card on which appeared the name 'Mr. Richard Hamilton Herbert'"
"If you didn't happen to be the father of the girl I'm in love with I'd poke you in the nose," Dick replied, almost cheerfully. "Where is your son now? Is there no way I can place myself right in your eyes?"
"No!" Mr. Meredith thundered. "An apology would only be a confession of your dishonour!"
Dick was nearly choking, but managed to keep his voice down.
"Does your daughter know anything of that affair?"
"Certainly not."
"Where is your son?"
"None of your business, sir!"
"I don't suppose there's any doubt in your mind of my affection for your daughter?"
"I suppose you do admire her," snapped the old man. "You can't help that, I suppose. No one can," he added naïvely.
"And I suppose you know that she loves me, in spite of your objections?" went on the young man.
"Bah! Bah!"
"And that you are breaking her heart by your mutton-headed objection to me?"
"You—you——" sputtered Mr. Meredith.
Dick was still calm.
"May I see Miss Meredith for a few minutes?" he went on.
"She won't see you, sir," stormed the irate parent. "She told me last night that she would never consent to see you again."
"Will you give me your permission to see her here and now, if she will consent?" Dick insisted steadily.
"She won't see you, I say."
"May I send a card to her?"
"She won't see you, sir," repeated Mr. Meredith doggedly.
Dick stepped out into the hall and beckoned to the maid.
"Please take my card to Miss Meredith," he directed.
The maid accepted the white square, with a little uplifting of her brows, and went up the stairs. Miss Meredith received it languidly, read it, then sat up indignantly.
"Dick Herbert!" she exclaimed incredulously. "How dare he come here? It's the most audacious thing I ever heard of! Certainly I will not see him again in any circumstances." She arose and glared defiantly at the demure maid. "Tell Mr. Herbert," she said emphatically, "tell him—that I'll be right down."
Mr. Meredith had stamped out of the room angrily, and Dick Herbert was alone when Dollie, in regal indignation, swept in. The general slant of her ruddy head radiated defiance, and a most depressing chilliness lay in her blue eyes. Her lips formed a scarlet line, and there was a how-dare-you-sir tilt to nose and chin. Dick started up quickly at her appearance.
"Dollie!" he exclaimed eagerly.
"Mr. Herbert," she responded coldly. She sat down primly on the extreme edge of a chair which yawned to embrace her. "What is it, please?"
Dick was a singularly audacious sort of person, but her manner froze him into sudden austerity. He regarded her steadily for a moment.
"I have come to explain why——"
Miss Dollie Meredith sniffed.
"I have come to explain," he went on, "why I did not meet you at the Randolph masked ball, as we had planned."
"Why you didnotmeet me?" inquired Dollie coldly, with a little surprised movement of her arched brows. "Why you didnotmeet me?" she repeated.
"I shall have to ask you to believe that, in the circumstances, it was absolutely impossible," Dick continued, preferring not to notice the singular emphasis of her words. "Something occurred early that evening which—which left me no choice in the matter. I can readily understand your indignation and humiliation at my failure to appear, and I had no way of reaching you that evening or since. News of your return last night only reached me an hour ago. I knew you had disappeared."
Dollie's blue eyes were opened to the widest and her lips parted a little in astonishment. For a moment she sat thus, staring at the young man, then she sank back into her chair with a little gasp.
"May I inquire," she asked, after she recovered her breath, "the cause of this—this levity?"
"Dollie, dear, I am perfectly serious," Dick assured her earnestly. "I am trying to make it plain to you, that's all."
"Why you didnotmeet me?" Dollie repeated again. "Why youdidmeet me! And that's—that's what's the matter with everything!"
Whatever surprise or other emotion Dick might have felt was admirably repressed.
"I thought perhaps there was some mistake somewhere," he said at last. "Now, Dollie, listen to me. No, wait a minute please! I did not go to the Randolph ball. You did. You eloped from that ball, as you and I had planned, in an automobile, but not with me. You went with some other man—the man who really stole the gold plate."
Dollie opened her mouth to exclaim, then shut it suddenly.
"Now just a moment, please," pleaded Dick. "You spoke to some other man under the impression that you were speaking to me. For a reason which does not appear now, he fell in with your plans. Therefore, you ran away with him—in the automobile which carried the gold plate. What happened after that I cannot even surmise. I only know that you are the mysterious woman who disappeared with the Burglar."
Dollie gasped and nearly choked with her emotions. A flame of scarlet leaped into her face and the glare of the blue eyes was pitiless.
"Mr. Herbert," she said deliberately at last, "I don't know whether you think I am a fool or only a child. I know that no rational human being can accept that as true. I know I left Seven Oaks with you in the auto; I know you are the man who stole the gold plate; I know how you received the shot in your right shoulder; I know how you afterward fainted from loss of blood. I know how I bound up your wound and—and—I know a lot of things else!"
The sudden rush of words left her breathless for an instant. Dick listened quietly. He started to say something—to expostulate—but she got a fresh start and hurried on:
"I recognised you in that silly disguise by the cleft in your chin. I called you Dick and you answered me. I asked if you had received the little casket and you answered yes. I left the ballroom as you directed and climbed into the automobile. I know that horrid ride we had, and how I took the gold plate in the bag and walked—walked through the night until I was exhausted. I know it all—how I lied and connived, and told silly stories—but I did it all to save you from yourself, and now you dare face me with a denial!"
Dollie suddenly burst into tears. Dick now attempted no further denial. There was no anger in his face—only a deeply troubled expression. He arose and walked over to the window, where he stood staring out.
"I know it all," Dollie repeated gurglingly—"all, except what possible idea you had in stealing the miserable, wretched old plate, anyway!" There was a pause and Dollie peered through teary fingers. "How—how long," she asked, "have you been a—a—a—kleptomaniac?"
Dick shrugged his sturdy shoulders a little impatiently.
"Did your father ever happen to tell youwhyhe objects to my attentions to you?" he asked.
"No, but I know now." And there was a new burst of tears. "It's because—because you are a—a—you take things."
"You will not believe what I tell you?"
"How can I when I helped you run away with the horrid stuff?"
"If I pledge you my word of honour that I told you the truth?"
"I can't believe it, I can't!" wailed Dollie desolately. "No one could believe it. I never suspected—never dreamed—of the possibility of such a thing even when you lay wounded out there in the dark woods. If I had, I should certainly have never—have never—kissed you."
Dick wheeled suddenly.
"Kissed me?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, you horrid thing!" sobbed Dollie. "If there had previously been the slightest doubt in my mind as to your identity, that would have convinced me that it was you, because—because—just because! And besides, if it wasn't you I kissed, you ought to have told me!"
Dollie leaned forward suddenly on the arm of the chair with her face hidden in her hands. Dick crossed the room softly toward her and laid a hand caressingly about her shoulders. She shook it off angrily.
"How dare you, sir?" she blazed.
"Dollie, don't you love me?" he pleaded.
"No!" was the prompt reply.
"But you did love me—once?"
"Why—yes, but I—I——"
"And couldn't you ever love me again?"
"I—I don't ever want to again."
"But couldn't you?"
"If you had only told me the truth, instead of making such a silly denial," she blubbered. "I don't know why you took the plate unless—unless it is because you—you couldn't help it. But you didn't tell me the truth."
Dick stared down at the ruddy head moodily for a moment. Then his manner changed and he dropped on his knees beside her.
"Suppose," he whispered, "suppose I should confess that I did take it?"
Dollie looked up suddenly with a new horror in her face.
"Oh, youdiddo it then?" she demanded. This was worse than ever!
"Suppose I should confess that I did?"
"Oh, Dick!" she sobbed. And her arms went suddenly around his neck. "You are breaking my heart. Why? Why?"
"Would you be satisfied?" he insisted.
"What could have caused you to do such a thing?"
The love-light glimmered again in her blue eyes; the red lips trembled.
"Suppose it had been just a freak of mine, and I had intended to—to return the stuff, as has been done?" he went on.
Dollie stared deeply into the eyes upturned to hers.
"Silly boy," she said. Then she kissed him. "But you must never, never do it again."
"I never will," he promised solemnly.
"'Silly boy,' she said""'Silly boy,' she said"
Five minutes later Dick was leaving the house, when he met Mr. Meredith in the hall.
"I'm going to marry your daughter," he said quite calmly.
Mr. Meredith raved at him as he went down the steps.
Alone in her room, with the key turned in the lock, Miss Dollie Meredith had a perfectly delightful time. She wept and laughed and sobbed and shuddered; she was pensive and doleful and happy and melancholy; she dreamed dreams of the future, past and present; she sang foolish little ecstatic songs—just a few words of each—and cried again copiously. Her father had sent her to her room with a stern reprimand, and she giggled joyously as she remembered it.
"After all, it wasn't anything," she assured herself. "It was silly for him to—to take the stuff, of course, but it's back now, and he told me the truth, and he intended to return it, anyway." In her present mood she would have justified anything. "And he's not a thief or anything. I don't suppose father will ever give his consent, so, after all, we'll have to elope, and that will be—perfectly delightful. Papa will go on dreadfully and then he'll be all right."
After a while Dollie snuggled down in the sheets and lay quite still in the dark until sleep overtook her. Silence reigned in the house. It was about two o'clock in the morning when she sat up suddenly in bed with startled eyes. She had heard something—or rather in her sleep she had received the impression of hearing something. She listened intently as she peered about.
Finally shedidhear something—something tap sharply on the window once. Then came silence again. A frightened chill ran all the way down to Dollie's curling pink toes. There was a pause, and then again came the sharp click on the window, whereupon Dollie pattered out of bed in her bare feet and ran to the window, which was open a few inches.
With the greatest caution she peered out. Vaguely skulking in the shadows below she made out the figure of a man. As she looked it seemed to draw up into a knot, then straighten out quickly. Involuntarily she dodged. There came another sharp click at the window. The man below was tossing pebbles against the pane with the obvious purpose of attracting her attention.
"Dick, is that you?" she called cautiously.
"Sh-h-h-h!" came the answer. "Here's a note for you. Open the window so I may throw it in."
"Is it really and truly you?" Dollie insisted.
"Yes," came the hurried, whispered answer. "Quick, someone is coming!"
Dollie threw the sash up and stepped back. A whirling, white object came through and fell noiselessly on the carpet. Dollie seized upon it eagerly and ran to the window again. Below she saw the retreating figure of a man. Other footsteps materialised in a bulky policeman, who strolled by seeking, perhaps, a quiet spot for a nap.
"She opened the note eagerly and sat down upon the floor to read it""She opened the note eagerly and sat down upon the floor to read it"
Shivering with excitement, Dollie closed the window and pulled down the shade, after which she lighted the gas. She opened the note eagerly and sat down upon the floor to read it. Now a large part of this note was extraneous verbiage of a superlative emotional nature—its vital importance was an outline of a new plan of elopement, to take place on Wednesday in time for them to catch a European-bound steamer at half-past two in the afternoon.
Dollie read and reread the crumpled sheet many times, and when finally its wording had been indelibly fixed in her mind she wasted an unbelievable number of kisses on it. Of course this was sheer extravagance, but—girls are wonderful creatures.
"He's the dearest thing in the world!" she declared at last.
She burned the note reluctantly and carefully disposed of the ashes by throwing them out of the window, after which she returned to her bed. On the following morning, Monday, father glared at daughter sternly as she demurely entered the breakfast-room. He was seeking to read that which no man has ever been able to read—a woman's face. Dollie smiled upon him charmingly.
After breakfast father and daughter had a little talk in a sunny corner of the library.
"I have planned for us to return to Baltimore on next Thursday," he informed her.
"Oh, isn't that delightful?" beamed Dollie.
"In view of everything and your broken promise to me—the promise not to see Herbert again—I think it wisest," he continued.
"Perhaps it is," she mused.
"Why did you see him?" he demanded.
"I consented to see him only to bid him good-by," replied Dollie demurely, "and to make perfectly clear to him my position in this matter."
Oh, woman! Perfidious, insincere, loyal, charming woman! All the tangled skeins of life are the work of your dainty fingers. All the sins and sorrows are your doing!
Mr. Meredith rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"You may take it as my wish—my order even," he said as he cleared his throat—for giving orders to Dollie was a dangerous experiment, "that you must not attempt to communicate in any way with Mr. Herbert again—by letter or otherwise."
"Yes, papa."
Mr. Meredith was somewhat surprised at the ease with which he got away with this. Had he been blessed with a little more wisdom in the ways of women he would have been suspicious.
"You really do not love him, anyway," he ventured at last. "It was only a girlish infatuation."
"I told him yesterday just what I thought of him," she replied truthfully enough.
And thus the interview ended.
It was about noon that day when Hutchinson Hatch called on Dick Herbert.
"Well, what did you find out?" he inquired.
"Really, old man," said Dick kindly, "I have decided that there is nothing I can say to you about the matter. It's a private affair, after all."
"Yes, I know that and you know that, but the police don't know it," commented the reporter grimly.
"The police!" Dick smiled.
"Did you see her?" Hatch asked.
"Yes, I saw her—and her father, too."
Hatch saw the one door by which he had hoped to solve the riddle closing on him.
"Was Miss Meredith the girl in the automobile?" he asked bluntly.
"Really, I won't answer that."
"Are you the man who stole the gold plate?"
"I won't answer that, either," replied Dick smilingly. "Now, look here, Hatch, you're a good fellow. I like you. It is your business to find out things, but, in this particular affair, I'm going to make it my business to keep you from finding out things. I'll risk the police end of it." He went over and shook hands with the reporter cordially. "Believe me, if I told you the absolute truth—all of it—you couldn't print it unless—unless I was arrested, and I don't intend that that shall happen."
Hatch went away.
That night the Randolph gold plate was stolen for the second time. Thirty-six hours later Detective Mallory arrested Richard Herbert with the stolen plate in his possession. Dick burst out laughing when the detective walked in on him.
Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, Ph. D., LL. D., F. R. S., M. D., etc., etc., was the Court of Last Appeal in the sciences. He was five feet two inches tall, weighed 107 pounds, that being slightly above normal, and wore a number eight hat. Bushy, yellow hair straggled down about his ears and partially framed a clean-shaven, wizened face in which were combined the paradoxical qualities of extreme aggressiveness and childish petulance. The mouth drooped a little at the corners, being otherwise a straight line; the eyes were mere slits of blue, squinting eternally through thick spectacles. His brow rose straight up, domelike, majestic even, and added a whimsical grotesqueness to his appearance.
The Professor's idea of light literature, for rare moments of recreation, was page after page of encyclopædic discussion on "ologies" and "isms" with lots of figures in 'em. Sometimes he wrote these discussions himself, and frequently held them up to annihilation. His usual speaking tone was one of deep annoyance, and he had an unwavering glare that went straight through one. He was the son of the son of the son of an eminent German scientist, the logical production of a house that had borne a distinguished name in the sciences for generations.
Thirty-five of his fifty years had been devoted to logic, study, analysis of cause and effect, mental, material, and psychological. By his personal efforts he had mercilessly flattened out and readjusted at least two of the exact sciences and had added immeasurably to the world's sum of knowledge in others. Once he had held the chair of philosophy in a great university, but casually one day he promulgated a thesis that knocked the faculty's eye out, and he was invited to vacate. It was a dozen years later that that university had openly resorted to influence and diplomacy to induce him to accept its LL. D.
For years foreign and American institutions, educational, scientific, and otherwise, crowded degrees upon him. He didn't care. He started fires with the elaborately formal notifications of these unsought honours and turned again to his work in the small laboratory which was a part of his modest home. There he lived, practically a recluse, his simple wants being attended to by one aged servant, Martha.
This, then, was The Thinking Machine. This last title, The Thinking Machine, perhaps more expressive of the real man than a yard of honorary initials, was coined by Hutchinson Hatch at the time of the scientist's defeat of a chess champion after a single morning's instruction in the game. The Thinking Machine had asserted that logic was inevitable, and that game had proven his assertion. Afterward there had grown up a strange sort of friendship between the crabbed scientist and the reporter. Hatch, to the scientist, represented the great, whirling outside world; to the reporter the scientist was merely a brain—a marvellously keen, penetrating, infallible guide through material muddles far removed from the delicately precise labours of the laboratory.
Now The Thinking Machine sat in a huge chair in his reception-room with long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip and squint eyes turned upward. Hatch was talking, had been talking for more than an hour with infrequent interruptions. In that time he had laid bare the facts as he and the police knew them from the incidents of the masked ball at Seven Oaks to the return of Dollie Meredith.
"Now, Mr. Hatch," asked The Thinking Machine, "just what is known of this second theft of the gold plate?"
"It's simple enough," explained the reporter. "It was plain burglary. Some person entered the Randolph house on Monday night by cutting out a pane of glass and unfastening a window-latch. Whoever it was took the plate and escaped. That's all anyone knows of it."
"Left no clew, of course?"
"No, so far as has been found."
"I presume that, on its return by express, Mr. Randolph ordered the plate placed in the small room as before?"
"Yes."
"He's a fool."
"Yes."
"Please go on."
"Now the police absolutely decline to say as yet just what evidence they have against Herbert beyond the finding of the plate in his possession," the reporter resumed, "though, of course, that's enough and to spare. They will not say, either, how they first came to connect him with the affair. Detective Mallory doesn't——"
"When and where was Mr. Herbert arrested?"
"Yesterday, Tuesday, afternoon in his rooms. Fourteen pieces of the gold plate were on the table."
The Thinking Machine dropped his eyes a moment to squint at the reporter.
"Only eleven pieces of the plate were first stolen, you said?"
"Only eleven, yes."
"And I think you said two shots were fired at the thief?"
"Yes."
"Who fired them, please?"
"One of the detectives—Cunningham, I think."
"It was a detective—you know that?"
"Yes, I know that."
"Yes, yes. Please go on."
"The plate was all spread out—there was no attempt to conceal it," Hatch resumed. "There was a box on the floor and Herbert was about to pack the stuff in it when Detective Mallory and two of his men entered. Herbert's servant, Blair, was away from the house at the time. His people are up in Nova Scotia, so he was alone."
"Nothing but the gold plate was found?"
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the reporter. "There was a lot of jewelry in a case and fifteen or twenty odd pieces—fifty thousand dollars' worth of stuff, at least. The police took it to find the owners."
"Dear me! Dear me!" exclaimed The Thinking Machine. "Why didn't you mention the jewelry at first? Wait a minute."
Hatch was silent while the scientist continued to squint at the ceiling. He wriggled in his chair uncomfortably and smoked a couple of cigarettes before The Thinking Machine turned to him and nodded.
"That's all I know," said Hatch.
"Did Mr. Herbert say anything when arrested?"
"No, he only laughed. I don't know why. I don't imagine it would have been at all funny to me."
"Has he said anything since?"
"No, nothing to me or anybody else. He was arraigned at a preliminary hearing, pleaded not guilty, and was released on twenty thousand dollars bail. Some of his rich friends furnished it."
"Did he give any reason for his refusal to say anything?" insisted The Thinking Machine testily.
"He remarked to me that he wouldn't say anything, because, even if he told the truth, no one would believe him."
"If it should have been a protestation of innocence I'm afraid nobodywouldhave believed him," commented the scientist enigmatically. He was silent for several minutes. "It could have been a brother, of course," he mused.
"A brother?" asked Hatch quickly. "Whose brother? What brother?"
"As I understand it," the scientist went on, not heeding the question, "you did not believe Herbert guilty of the first theft?"
"Why, I couldn't," Hatch protested. "I couldn't," he repeated.
"Why?"
"Well, because—because he's not that sort of man," explained the reporter. "I've known him for years, personally and by reputation."
"Was he a particular friend of yours in college?"
"No, not an intimate, but he was in my class—and he's a whacking, jam-up, ace-high football player." That squared everything.
"Do you now believe him guilty?" insisted the scientist.
"I can't believe anything else—and yet I'd stake my life on his honesty."
"And Miss Meredith?"
The reporter was reaching the explosive point. He had seen and talked to Miss Meredith, you know.
"It's perfectly asinine to suppose thatshehad anything to do with either theft, don't you think?"
The Thinking Machine was silent on that point.