NRLF FIND BURGES FIND THE WOMAN I rOh«!»I beg your pardon" FIND THE WOMAN GELETT BURGESS Author of VIDETTE, THE HEART LINE. ETC. ILLUSTRATIONS BY HANSON BOOTH INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1911 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. TO SCHEHEREZADE, BARON MUNCHAUSEN JACQUES CASANOVA ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND GLENMORE DAVIS THESE FEEBLE ATTEMPTS OF FANCY TO RIVAL FACT ARE HUMBLY DEDICATED 12795 CONTENTS CHAPTER I Prologue PAGE In which is explained how an architectural draftsman came to possess three sets of names before he was twenty-one, and how a portrait disturbed him 1 CHAPTER II The House of the Fortune Teller How John Fenton went downtown without an object, and became involved in a picturesque adventure with a cer tain strange lady 15 CHAPTER III Schcffel Hall How our hero, in the pursuit of his adventure, met at his rendezvous a friend of his youth, and heard a tale of j ewels and horror 24 CHAPTER IV The Liars' Club How our amateur adventurer fell a victim to his own in experience, was relieved of his treasure, and fell in with a precious company 49 CHAPTER V The Reporter of "The Item" How John Fenton achieved a pair of trousers and at tempted assault and battery unsuccessfully, but was res cued by a chubby scribbler 95 CONTENTS— Continued CHAPTER VI The Suite at the Plaza PAGE How John Fenton encountered a friendly gentleman and was given the possession of his home, and of the lady who appeared there in tears 116 CHAPTER VII The Caxton Dining-Room How Fenton met Belle Charmion a second time, was en tertained by two professional beauties, became a hero, and secured his car fare 149 CHAPTER VIII The Subway Express Concerning the philosophic theory of profanity as an art, and its practical application as a science; and the doings of Fenton's ex-master 187 CHAPTER IX The St. Paul Building. Wherein John Fenton discovers a dead body, regains pos session of certain jewels, and is besought to take the place of a titled imposter 204 CHAPTER X Wycherley Court In which John Fenton assists at a social function in high life, wears evening dress for the first time, and again sees Belle Charmion... . 229 CONTENTS— Continued CHAPTER XI The Norcross Apartments PAGE How John Fenton helps out a criminal scheme, witnesses an arrest and an escape, waits in a deserted flat and gets a new name 259 CHAPTER XII A Harlem Lodging House Describing Fenton's return home in a top hat and how he was welcomed by a friend and a letter, and how he profited by each of them 296 CHAPTER XIII The Brewster Mansion In which is explained, at last, how and why Belle Char- mion was so ubiquitous and the reason she offered a re ward for a missing fiance 313 FIND THE WOMAN i PROLOGUE IN WHICH IS EXPLAINED HOW AN ARCHITECTURAL DRAFTSMAN CAME TO POSSESS THREE SETS OF NAMES BEFORE HE WAS TWENTY-ONE, AND HOW A PORTRAIT DISTURBED HIM WHO was Belle Charmion? If you really care to know, as John Fenton did, you must go with him on his quest, hither and yon over New York, into strange houses and through side streets at midnight, a shuttle in the secret loom of fate, weaving in and out through many-colored threads, until the pattern of the mystery is made clear. For the warp of his strange, adventurous career — love and beauty and diamonds. For the woof — some few cross currents of crime and misery. There, in brief, is the web of his drama. So, if you ask for such di version, the narrative must perforce begin with a I 2 FIND THE WOMAN prelude, that you may make acquaintance with the hero, and see what manner of youth and tempera ment sped him on his way. To explain why an engineer's draftsman of no especial talent should, at twenty-one, have already had three sets of names, the review of his history should be divided into five epochs. The first, a pre historic era, that of his babyhood, was, in his mem ory, a mere blur of confused, faded pictures, amongst which stood out one vivid, sharp recollec tion — a scene on a ferry boat, swept by keen brisk winds, cool under a watery spring sun. He was playing on deck with a little yellow-haired girl un der the careless supervision of two indefinite elders. With a small boy's insistence he was teasing his companion, clutching at a gold heart-shaped locket with a white star, which hung about her neck. She pulled away from him, the chain broke, and she ran crying to her guardian, leaving the locket in his hands. . . . The second epoch, that of his childhood between the ages of four and eight, was somewhat more clear in his mind, although there were many gaps he could never account for. He was living in South PROLOGUE 3 Boston, and now his name was Michael O'Shea. His scarlet hair had gained for him amongst the children of his street the easy sobriquet of "Reddy" ; and at first he had not consented to the name with out many savage protests. Living with an uncle and an aunt, the O' Sheas, hard by the Blind Asylum, his life was a street urchin's career of conflict and rov ing, with intermittent enforced sessions at the pri mary school. He roamed from the Point to the Dover Street Bridge; he knew the docks to the last pile, from the land and from the water ; he felt, too often, the missile of an opponent gang — a snowball enclosing a rock. Of his lineage he heard only that his mother had been a mill hand in Fitchburg and that his father had died at sea — this information, embroidered by diverse details which, little by little, he perceived as lies, was always told him with winks and smiles, as if, concealed within their falsehoods, was some consummate joke. He grew tired of ques tioning, finally, and brooded sullenly over the puzzle of his birth. When he was eight years old the O'Sheas, with a shiny black valise and a paper-covered trunk, moved to New York. They took two rooms in a tenement on the east side — a place of multitudinous fire es- 4 FIND THE WOMAN capes, waving blankets, screaming children and dented ash barrels. But in that place, "Reddy" O'Shea was not to stay long. The day after moving in, while Mrs. O'Shea was unpacking the trunk and Mangus O'Shea was shav ing at a broken triangle of mirror stuck in the win dow, the boy's eyes caught a shiny something in an open cardboard box. In wonder, with a queer, sick- ish feeling of recognition he stooped down and took it — a little golden heart with a star of white stones on the cover. Strange memories, as if of a long for gotten dream, stirred him uneasily as he handled it. The next moment he was knocked down by a violent cuff on the ear, and Mangus O'Shea stood over him, his small reddish eyes blazing, ugly with anger, his snarling lips, parted, revealing a broken row of lit tle black teeth, horribly distinct in the middle of his lathered face. "Look at that what's ye've done now!" he ex claimed to his wife. "After four years av hidin' and pullin' the wool over his eyes ! It'll be your fault now if he begins to prick up his ears. Why didn't ye lock it up from him ?" He turned to the boy and shook a great scarred hairy fist. "If I ketch you snooping round after things again, I'll break every PROLOGUE 5 rib in your body, and mind ye that!" He struck "Reddy" again viciously to enforce the warning, and returned to his shaving. No sooner had he turned his back than the boy slipped out, ran down the narrow, dirty stairs of the tenement and was out on the street. He hurried down-town as fast as his legs would carry him. There followed two days of wandering, starva tion, cold. . . . He crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and lost himself in a wilderness of narrow streets with rows of dreary looking houses. . . . When Dr. Hopbottom found him, he was only half con scious. .. . . The third epoch, that of his adolescence, was the wretchedest of all. A household drudge, enslaved by Mrs. Hopbottom for domestic assistance, wash ing dishes, sweeping, cooking, a hundred other de- gradingly feminine tasks which went even to sewing and darning the doctor's woolen socks. Joe Hop- bottom, as he was now called, almost forgot that he was a boy. He lived in squalor, gnawing scraps in the kitchen, scolded by Mrs. Hopbottom continually, and continually preached at by the doctor, a hoary old hypocrite, whose face Joe loathed. 6 FIND THE WOMAN The doctor's favorite occupation was to lecture the boy on the simple life. "Plain living and high thinking, Joe/' he would say, his cheeks bulging with mince pie or suet pudding. "Don't make your belly your god!" as he shoveled in loaded knife fulls of hot pork. The doctor's face was greasy with exud ing fat. His hands were pudgy. "Manners make the man, Joe, not clothes!" he often said to his miser able, ragged ward, as he strung a heavy gold watch chain across his embroidered waistcoat. "I think that suit of yours will do another year, with a little brushing." And so it went. The doctor did not drink or swear. He had all the virtues of the Pharisees, including a goat's beard ; but for every worldly vice he had an efficient substitute. Instead of alcohol he used coffee with an equally stimulating effect, injecting it under his skin till he was as yellow as a Moor. In the place of pro fanity, he made use of a highly original but perfectly adequate diction composed of scientific terms. To poor, terrified Joe this jargon seemed worse than any oaths sanctified by custom. "You toxoleuco- cyte," he would exclaim to the boy, "what do you want to make a phenyltrybrompropionic hypothe- PROLOGUE jr nuse of yourself for?" To such mysterious apos trophes Joe could make no answer. Only once did he see Mangus O'Shea. That was when he went to New York with the doctor to at tend the meeting of a committee investigating the white slave traffic. They were walking up the Bow ery, the doctor absorbed in the theatrical posters, when the Irishman passed them. He stopped and stared. Joe, turning around fearfully to see if he had been observed, caught O' Shea's eager red eyes upon him. He clung to the doctor's hands and urged him forward. Dr. Hopbottom reluctantly resumed his journey. At the next stand, bearing the picture of "Pulchritude's Peacherino Bur- lesquers," the boy turned round and saw that O'Shea had followed. At Canal Street he was lost in the crowd. Joe dreamed of him for seven nights run ning, but then a new interest diverted his thoughts. Rummaging in the dusty attic one day while Mrs. Hopbottom was at her sewing-circle, Joe discovered some old numbers of the "Studio" left by a lodger; and, between his washings and his darnings, he pored over wonderful photographs of paintings and sculpture, hiding the book under the eaves when 8 FIND THE WOMAN he went back to work. At night, when he had a few moments to himself, he copied the pictures with pen cil, patiently, lovingly, abominably. The Hopbottoms did, at least, permit him an edu cation ; and he had almost finished his course at the high school, before the crash came. The "Studio" and a boy in his own class brought on the crisis. His friend was a member of a private life class which rented a studio on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, hired an inexpressibly ugly model and drew therefrom in charcoal. The class was com posed mainly of architects' ambitious draftsmen, and with his friend's influence, Joe was permitted to join. Finding money for paper and charcoal and board seemed at first impossible, but the sale of old rags and bottles filched from the Hopbottoms' cellar at last sufficed for the purchase of his material, and the men allowed him to attend for a while, gratis. The boy was already a personable, good-natured youth and soon became popular. His explanation of his absence was that he was attending a Bible class at the Y. M. C. A. His industry was great, if not his talent. By the time he was sixteen years old, a fat roll of ter rible studies from the nude was hidden away in the PROLOGUE 9 attic. Joe had become so enthusiastic in the 'pursuit of art that he had almost forgotten the chaste point of view of the Philistines. Dr. Hopbottom still preached asceticism (for others) gesticulating with his pie ; and still his fat increased. Still he preached the simple life, the renunciation of the flesh, the temptation of the senses. One night Joe and his friend left a vaudeville the ater in shocked disgust at the row of vulgar, half- clad females, who were performing a suggestive burlesque. As he went out, he saw Dr. Hopbottom's unctuous grinning face in the audience, his eyes de vouring the charms of the actresses. It was the next morning the explosion came. Mrs. Hopbottom, climbing up-stairs for a spring clean ing, discovered Joe's charcoal studies from the nude. There was a hysterical tumult, lightnings of her flashing eye, thunder of her expostulation, a storm of tattered charcoal drawings. Joe put his head through the doorway to find the cause of her tem per. With his ear in one hand, and the sole survivor of his sketches (as a sample of sin) in her other, the lady stalked into the doctor's study. His wrath was sublime — moral precepts, sermonettes, warnings, prayers, reproaches, quotations from the Bible, Tim- io FIND THE WOMAN othy iv, 12; Leviticus xxvi, 27-29. He invoked pictures of future torment — and made a closer in spection of the drawing. He put it away carefully in his desk, waving his wife's itching fingers aside, and invoked Heaven, raising his eyebrows. Joe could stand it no longer, told, pithily, of the previous evening's vaudeville horrors (it was prayer meeting night) then left the doctor and his blazing spouse to fight it out together. He packed a few clothes with deliberation, and walked calmly, hap pily, back across the Brooklyn Bridge. He was free ; a great peace was in his soul. Half way across he wafted a gorgeous resolution forth upon the breeze. The loathly name of Hopbottom sailed from his body, never to return. Stealing a new one from the first theatrical bill-board he passed, he entered New York as John Fenton. So began his youth. We may pass lightly over the next five years of his life. He had been trained to take hard knocks, he had industry and a savor of humor — he made his way. Some of his draftsmen friends busied them selves for him and he soon found a position as an office boy for a firm of architects. Between his petty duties, he practised lettering, copied the orders, made PROLOGUE ii blue prints and tracings. What he lacked in genius he made up in determination; and, at the age of twenty-one, he earned eighteen dollars a week, and by frugality and a cheap Harlem lodging house saved the half of it. The red of his hair had toned to a deep auburn ; gymnasium work, long walks and simple living had improved his looks till many a girl's eyes gave him a second glance as he passed. He had, even in his obscurity, the habits of a gen tleman and a way of wearing his ready-made clothes that took off the curse of cheapness. His landlady was wont to gossip over his charms and his aristocratic manners. She let many a room on the strength of them. Once, five or six years after he had escaped from Brooklyn, he came upon Dr. Hopbottom in a penny arcade. The doctor was looking into a moving pic ture machine bearing the legend, 'The Story of an Artist's Model." He was turning the crank slowly — very slowly. Something arrested his attention ; he looked up with a guilty face. "Good morning," said John affably, wondering why he had ever feared this senile old fool. "You correlated dimorphic appendix, you, what 12 FIND THE WOMAN are you doing? Some blastodermic correlations mis chief, I suppose?" The doctor tried to look dignified. "Oh, I'm going in for architecture. I see you're at your old game, though!" said John; and, giving him a withering smile, passed on. And so at last we come to the picture which in augurated John Fenton's fifth epoch. ******* Lucky for men that all have not the same tastes ! Lucky for men that each chooses his own type of beauty! Lucky that no one woman can please all men ! Else, every woman might be a Helen of Troy and war would rage amongst men over her everlast ingly. Unlucky for "Melton's Magazine," however, that there were not more John Fentons to mob the news stands and buy up a certain edition of that periodical. Comparatively few men, perhaps, would call the girl's face pretty. Most, at least, would turn the page with small regret. But to John Fenton, the sight of that face was the starting of many emo tions ; in that glance he achieved maturity ; his youth ended on page two hundred twelve, manhood began at page two hundred thirteen. He came across the magazine in a friend's studio, and, not daring to confess how much the picture af- PROLOGUE 13 fected him, he sought a chance, cut out the page and concealed it under his coat. It showed the face of a girl of perhaps twenty years, with soft, parted hair rolling away from her forehead, eyes wide apart under level brows and a smiling mouth at once de mure and whimsical. So much for the outward aspect. Beauty, however, is subjective. In John Fenton's mind something responded as to a message — the secret call of a subconscious desire — potent as a magic charm. To win that girl he would have ploughed across Arctic snows, fought his way through tropical jungles, chanced peril, war or pesti lence. So much he resolved at first glance. When he got the page safely home he smoothed out its wrinkles and studied it, perturbed and trem bling. By a sorry trick of chance some one, cutting a paragraph from the opposite side of the page, had deleted the name of the girl. Not till he had had the portrait on his wall for a week, not till a new ele ment had begun to creep into its attraction for him, did he realize that he had been a fool not to look at the magazine and see its name and date, that he might procure an undisfigured copy. It was now impossible to trace it, and the girl must remain un- riamed. 14 FIND THE WOMAN As he studied it, day by day, its charm grew more potent. Something more than the girl's mere phys ical attraction moved him. The romance and mystery of the face became more and more magnetic — at first vague and troublesome, it at last absorbed him; it seemed to promise some hidden meaning for him alone. The talk of a Theosophical fellow- worker at his office began to simmer in his brain. Had he per chance known this girl in some previous life? Were their destinies linked ? Had they made Karma to gether ? In such wise he mused. At times the strain on his imagination grew so tense that he would put the picture away and busy himself with prosaic sub jects — some competition for court house or pergola. But the lady did not long hide her face. Back she came to his wall again, now as expensively framed as a dry-point Helleu etching — and again John Fen- ton's thoughts roved on the wings of romance. II THE HOUSE OF THE FORTUNE TELLER HOW JOHN FENTONWENT DOWN-TOWN WITHOUT AN OBJECT, AND BECAME INVOLVED IN A PICTUR ESQUE ADVENTURE WITH A CERTAIN STRANGE LADY JOHN FENTON returned from tfie office one April evening and as usual gazed long at the picture. He went out with the spell still upon him; it charmed him even in the heated, sordid, common place atmosphere of the cheap restaurant where he habitually dined. Aforetimes, he had held inter rupted jocose intercourse with Millie, his favorite waitress ; but of late Millie's charms had faded. He had begun to notice that her hands and ears were large. After his small, squat cup of adulterated boiled coffee, he took a subway express to Times Square and, as was his wont, wandered down Broadway — into the splendor of modern Babylon. New York was waking up to its per fervid night life. The electric signs blazed convulsively, throw- 15 16 FIND THE WOMAN ing spasms of red and white and green against the darkling sky. The taxicabs grew nervous, hurried, searching here and there like roaches in a dirty kitchen. The women of the shadow began to emerge into the glare, overtly stalking their prey. John Fenton, still wrapped in his dream, walked on un- regarding, like a machine. At the opera house he waked up enough to take his accustomed place in a shy corner to watch the influx of wealth and fashion. He had a new measure for their grace and beauty, now; and as they en tered, one by one they failed. Once he had a sudden, clutching gasp of surprise as a girl passed him cool and imperious, in her long cloak of chinchilla. He stared. At first he wildly thought his time had come and she was the girl of the picture. But she turned full upon him and he saw her mouth was selfish, cruel, false. He turned and walked down-town, trembling; and after a while passed still dreaming, into a side street to escape the crowd. He had not gone far when his idly roving eyes encountered a sign on a door, reading "Madame Os wald, Palmist and Medium." He stopped and stared at it curiously. Why not, for once, seek that vulgar shrine, consult the oracle and illumine his fate? HOUSE OF THE FORTUNE TELLER 17 Life, of late, while seeming duller of fact, had to his fancy become suddenly stimulated. That fancy must be fed — a mere portrait could no longer satisfy him. He was in a mood for romance, and here was one of Romance's immemorial priestesses. He slowly as cended the steps, rang the bell, waited. A negro servant opened to him, and led him into a front parlor, lighted by a single lamp on a table. He sat down, already embarrassed, upon an uncom fortable red plush sofa and gazed, fascinated, at a huge painted panel on the opposite wall, whereon some audacious amateur had copied some wearied professional's conception of Francesca da Rimini and her lover. The black eyes of the heroine held him till Madame Oswald appeared, massive, blonde, swathed in a purple gown. There were the usual preliminaries; Madame's quick, close scrutiny appraising him at a glance — an attempt to secure a "full life reading" at double the ordinary price, — the production of a velvet pad upon which his hand should rest — and the drone of prophecy began. She prodded his palm with a little ivory pointer, noted extraordinary lines, stars and mounts, and brought forth her three inevitable themes. The gentleman was of a strangely sensi- 18 FIND THE WOMAN tive nature, and was much misunderstood. He was worried over something, and didn't know quite what to do. He had intuition, psychic power, mediumship, but it was undeveloped. A course of developing seances, now, at five dollars a week, would bring out unexpected powers. . . . No? Well, then, let him ask a question. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Fenton watched her bulky satin chest heave heavily as she breathed. Her large placid face, with its one hairy mole, fascinated him. Then the picture came into his mind, and he asked in a whisper: "Who is she?" "Who is she?" she repeated, as if to some spirit guide. Her voluminous bust expanded in a gasp. She quivered, rolled her head, and finally answered : "I see the letters B. C." She opened her eyes sud denly and shot at him, "Ain't that right?" "Darned if I know," he replied. At that she plucked up courage and went on with out hesitation. "B. C.," she repeated. "It's Belle, or Blanche or Bessie. I ain't sure which. But she's in your life current, and she's attracting you her way. Yes, yes, — you're going to marry her, and marry with money, too. I ain't sure if it's hers or yourn. But look out for one thing, and that's a man with a HOUSE OF THE FORTUNE TELLER 19 split ear. Don't you trust him! Is they anything else you wanted to know ? Fifty cents, please !" Fenton never paid the fee ; for, no sooner had she spoken than, with a terrified expression, she jumped up and ran to the window. She turned back to him a large white anguished face. "My God ! The police ! They are a-goin' to pull me !" She began to pluck at her breast and moan. Fenton rose, beginning to be frightened himself. "What the devil's the matter?" He grabbed up his hat and his coat. "Oh, I knew they was a-roundin* up the mediums and palmists this week," she cried, "but I come across with my tax to the captain all right, only last Tuesday, and he swore they'd never touch me. This means a hundred dollars out for me, an' I ain't got ten ! Say, kid, you get out quick, or they'll hold you for a witness ! I don't want no more evidence than I can help — hurry, for God's sake ! Get out through the back parlor, there !" Even as she spoke the front door bell rang, and the handle was rattled to enforce the summons. Fenton did not stay to see the issue, but ran in be tween the folding doors to a room cluttered by fem inine garments in scandalous disorder. He opened 20 FIND THE WOMAN a door into the hall, but, on the instant, heard the officers entering. He could not escape that way. If he could not find some other exit he would be caught like a rat in a trap. He darted to the window and saw a fire-escape landing. Out he climbed. The back yard showed no feasible route of egress. He ran up the iron ladder, peered into a window, tried it and found it locked, then hurried up to the next floor. Here the window was opened and the room lighted. He glanced in and gave a suppressed cry of surprise. Stooping down to the floor, a woman, dressed in Russian sables, was gathering into a traveling bag, by handfuls, a profusion of gems, that, scattered upon the carpet, made the place a miracle. By the vivid flashes of red, blue, yellow and green that daz zled his eyes, there must have been, in all, some two hundred precious stones, set and unset — rings, brace lets, necklaces, pins and pendants. Where there was not the prismatic fire of precious stones, there was the dull sheen of gold. For the most part the jewels lay in a puddle of gorgeous color; but, spattered from this, all over the floor single sparks of radiant light twinkled as if a rainbow had exploded in the room, and lay in splendid fragments. I swear I am innocent HOUSE OF THE FORTUNE TELLER 21 As he stood there transfixed, the woman turned, caught sight of his white face and screamed. With a sudden movement she threw herself full length upon the floor like a hen trying to protect her chicks at the approach of a hawk. Fenton was too aston ished to think of his own peril, too astonished even to speak ; it was the woman who broke the silence. "Who are you, for God's sake ?" she moaned. Still Fenton stared, aghast, inarticulate. "Are you a burglar ?" His tongue loosened at last. "The house is raided ! The police are down stairs — they've got Madame Os wald. What in Heaven's name does all this mean?" She paled, she faltered; then, with a shocked face, arose and stood, with her hand to her head, as if panic stricken. Fenton got a good look at her now and saw that she was beautiful, with a piquant, eager face, exquisite scarlet lips, and deep brown eyes suffused with tears. Her skin had an olive cast and her hair was dark. Altogether she was unlike any woman he had ever seen — an exotic type with a sensuous prettiness made delicate, refined by great intelligence. Was she Oriental ? There was at least something tropical about her beauty — it was too vivid, too moving for an Anglo-Saxon. 22 FIND THE WOMAN She had stood staring at him, thinking intently; now she darted to the window and laid a gracile hand upon his arm, as she looked sharply into his face. She spoke under her breath: "You look honest and brave. Will you help me? I have not a moment to lose, if the police are in the house. Quick!" Without waiting an answer she dragged him over the window sill into the room. Before he had col lected his wits she was scrabbling the jewels from the floor and loading them into his pockets. "I swear I am innocent of any crime!" she ex claimed passionately, as she gathered a handful of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds from the floor and dropped them into his overcoat pocket. "You've got to help me out — there is no one else to save me — and the honor of a great family." She ran to the door, listened, and returned with compressed lips, to stoop for more jewels. They dripped from her fingers as she rose, great drops of iridescent color, the hues of blood and poison, to be gathered again in her little hands. "All I want is that these things should be restored to their rightful owner. Why, if the police find them here it will be awful — I can never explain — a terrible scandal will HOUSE OF THE FORTUNE TELLER 23 come out !" Again she scraped up her hands full — chains of fire opals, brooches of carved emeralds, topazes and sapphires, a tiny enameled watch, a half dozen rings, dazzling with rubies. Already his inside pockets were full, the stones pressed hard against his sides. She opened the flaps of his outside pockets and thrust in more gems. "Don't ask any questions — there's no time. I hope to God you can get away safe — you must do your best — I am being followed, but they won't suspect you. Now then, be quick !" By this time the last jewel was concealed, and Fen- ton, his coat bulging with the treasure, stood before her pale and trembling with excitement. Just then there came a noise from the stairway, a bang upon the hall door. "Out the window !" she hissed. "Get away some how, for heaven's sake — and meet me at Scheffel Hall — and wait till I come!" In another instant she had hustled him out onto the fire escape, shut the window behind him and turned off the gas. As he climbed the next flight of iron steps, out of sight, he heard the pounding on the door grow louder; some one was shouting for her to open. Ill SCHEFFEL HALL HOW OUR HERO, IN THE PURSUIT OF HIS ADVEN TURE, MET AT HIS RENDEZVOUS A FRIEND OF HIS YOUTH, AND HEARD A TALE OF JEW ELS AND HORROR SO up Fenton went with his heart pumping, ob structed by his overcoat, gained the next land ing and looked about for a means of escape. Three or four feet away from him the roof of an ell stood, its flat roof level with his landing. With no definite plan of escape, he jumped across the opening, landed upon the gravel roof and hurried along, dodging under telephone wires, to where another roof rose, a few feet higher. Up this he scrambled and looked about. There was a trap door a few yards away. He made his way to it, tried it, and found it un locked. Lifting it, he gazed down into a black hole. At first he could see nothing, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he made out a ladder leading down. With terror in his soul, he cautiously 24 SCHEFFEL HALL 25 groped his way to the foot, bumped his head, felt about for a door, opened one and found himself, to his immense relief, in the upper hallway of an apart ment house. Here he paused for a moment to regain his breath and his courage. There was nothing for it but to descend boldly and trust his luck not to be observed. He got down the first flight in safety, meeting no one, but at the next landing was suddenly confronted by a young girl coming up. She started in surprise, eyed him keenly, but said nothing. He felt her eyes upon him as he went down. In the lowest hall a negro lad was dozing at a telephone desk. He did not move. Fen- ton opened the front door; the boy waked, caught sight of him and shouted something. Fenton hur ried out, not daring to run, got down the front steps with his pulse quickened to fever speed, and turned toward Broadway. One glance over his shoulder showed the patrol wagon still standing at the door of Madame Os wald's, a few houses away, and, by the opposite curb was a shabby coupe, with its driver on the box watching the excitement. Men were running up to the scene of the raid; one large, pompous-looking man jostled Fenton and nearly knocked him down; 26 FIND THE WOMAN but at last he was free of the crowd and walked south, his hands in his pockets, his fingers burrowing in the diamonds. Judging the lights of Broadway safer than dark side streets, he kept down to the Flat- iron Building, and then, looking suspiciously to right and left, crossing the street whenever he saw a pedes trian approaching, he zig-zagged to Fourth Avenue and gained Eighteenth Street. Once a bedizened woman accosted him with a wheedling voice. Once a shabby loafer hailed him, requesting money for a cup of coffee. . . . "Up against it, sir. Can't get work — nothing to eat for two days." Fenton did not reply. The burden of his treasure was a horror and a menace; it seemed as if he would never reach the restaurant. But, at last, he entered the swinging doors and sat down at a table with a sigh of relief. Here was respite for a while — till the woman should arrive — if she ever did arrive. What if she did not ? He ordered beer and pretzels and took up a copy of the Fliegende Blaetter to distract his thoughts. The German letters danced on the page. The pic tures had no meaning. Then, seeing a ragged copy of "Melton's" on the table he took it up. It was a tired looking old magazine, half the pages SCHEFFEL HALL 27 torn, spotted with eggs and gravy, having evidently been left in the restaurant by some patron, and read to death by subsequent guests. He turned the pages listlessly, his mind on other things than storiettes or descriptive articles. But, when he came to the pages of fair women he stopped suddenly at a half page. It was the desecrated portrait of the Girl — his wonderful girl with the whimsical smile and the level eyebrows. His heart stopped — then he glanced at the caption under the half-tone. Half of it was gone. What remained read as follows : "Miss Belle Ch One of the season's most" "Belle Ch — " it was maddening. Then, in a flash, he recalled the fortune teller's prediction. What was it Madame Oswald had said? "B. C— Belle, or Blanche, or Bessie — she's in your life current — you're going to marry her — and marry with money." Strange how the girl pursued him! Would fate in deed bring them together? He cut out the half page and put it in his pocket. There was no time to muse upon this fancy, his present situation was too com pelling. He resumed his lookout for the mysterious woman who had promised to meet him. 28 FIND THE WOMAN He had been there a scant half hour when he saw her enter the door and give a quick glance about the room. Seeing Fenton, she walked smiling toward his table. "Thank God, you got here all right !" she said as she sat down. "I had a narrow escape, myself. The police came in, but found no evidence to hold me. I told them I was rooming in the house and knew nothing. All the same I have been followed, and I daren't take the gems. You will have to help me further." "See here," said Fenton, "I've had enough of this. It's a little too suspicious for me, and I don't care to get into trouble with the police." "It's not the police you have to fear most," she exclaimed. "Who is it, then ?" he demanded nervously. "Won't you help me?" She shot a languishing look at him. Surely she was beautiful — but her beauty had a savage note in it — it was the beauty of a tigress — there was strange electric force in her glance, in her mysterious smile. "I won't help you till you tell me what it all means," was his answer. She kept her gaze on him steadily, and spoke as if SCHEFFEL HALL 29 to herself. "I hardly know how to tell you. . . . It's such a great responsibility. ... A family's good name is in your power. . . . But I must have help." Still she stared at him. Fenton turned away his head, embarrassed. He was upon the point of refusing her outright, hand ing over the jewels and making his escape back into the peace of commonplace things. There was some thing sinister about it all. It was too dangerous. As he looked abstractedly toward the door it opened and a man entered. Fenton felt his blood run cold. Who was the man? At first he did not know, and yet there was something familiar about him, in his furtive walk rather than his face, which stirred vague memories. The man passed, gave a blank stare at Fenton ; and Fenton recognized him. It was Mangus O'Shea, with whom he had lived in South Boston, whom he had always been told was his own uncle. The man had grown old, but, by the small reddish eyes and the broken black teeth, Fen ton knew him indubitably. As the Irishman passed it was as if a chill wind had swept after him, mak ing Fenton shiver with apprehension. At this look at O'Shea, the first for so many years, Fenton saw him as a cruel and an evil thing, a man to shun and 30 FIND THE WOMAN dread. It was as if his own sub-conscious mind had been for years pondering a problem and needed but this encounter to fan hidden coals of thought into a fierce flaming idea. He was sure now that O'Shea was not his uncle, sure that the Irishman knew the secret of his birth, had done him some fearful wrong, perhaps. His look was criminal; Fenton, with his pockets sagging with precious stones, felt his peril increase every minute. If the woman opposite him had noticed the epi sode she did not «how it. Her eyes were still on him, but her thoughts seemed far away. Now she ap peared to awake and cast some horrid apprehension from her. She leaned forward and touched his hand. "Listen," she said, "I'm going to tell you why and how much I need you. If you have any chivalry in your nature you can not refuse me." With this preamble she began her story. THE DEAD FARE I am going to make you my confidant in two se crets — one, my lover's I hoped never to divulge. The other is my own I hoped to keep that for ever SCHEFFEL HALL 31 also; but it doesn't matter now. ... I have negro blood in my veins; I am an octoroon. Will that kill your sympathy? I hope not, . . . but I have to tell you — it will explain everything. Perhaps you have noticed it already. Have you suspected me, under my powder, under my wig — • this horrible thing that I've worn so long? Well, my lover never suspected it, I know. Perhaps he wouldn't have cared if he had. I like to think so — for he loved me. Gordon Brewster rescued me from hell. Do you know what it means to have negro blood in your veins — mixed with white — to have sensibility, re finement — surely I have that — and to be for ever outside the pale? I can mingle freely with neither my own people nor yours. One sort is too low, the other too high for me. I have a college education — I studied for four years at Tuskegee Institute — after that I tried to teach. Then for three years I was alone in New York, seeing almost no one. I write special stories for the papers, never going near the offices, and supporting myself fairly well. I have a little apartment on East Thirty-third Street, with a colored maid — I am afraid of any other. 32 FIND THE WOMAN It doesn't matter how I met Gordon Brewster. There is no need of your knowing — that part of my life is sacred. But, in spite of everything, we fell in love. Can you imagine what that meant to me ? A man like him — a gentleman? It was a dream come true — it was a fairy tale. Can you see how I hid my secret — my shame ? I think that my soul is as white as ... well, never mind. I couldn't tell Gordon ; how could I risk it ? I was so happy ! I was sure of his love, but I was afraid of something stronger than himself, some instinct, some inevitable revul sion of race feeling. ... I didn't know how it would end — I didn't care, only that I resolved never to marry him — unless ... I wonder if I could have told him ? . . . Well, it's too late now . . . All I have now is his honor to protect and cherish. The happiness of knowing him was all I ever had. . . . We walked all that three years on the edge of a precipice that he never saw. ... I saw it al ways. . , . He had plenty of money, at first. It was all I could do to prevent his spending it all on me. No one ever knew, no one ever talked about us — no one at least, except an intimate friend of his, Harry Hay. SCHEFFEL HALL 33 Mr. Brewster had a string of race horses — no other business — the family is old, and rich. He put all his money into his stable — and lost steadily. If I had known of it in time, I might have saved him . . . but it was not to be. ... Last evening, at about half past seven o'clock, when I was dressing for the evening, the door bell rang, and Eliza, my maid, came in to tell me that Mr. Brewster had come. It was so early I had not expected him for some time yet. I told Eliza to show him into my little parlor while I completed my toilet. As she helped me with my dressing I heard him tramping up and down the room, and wondered at it. Before I had finished, he knocked on my door and called out for me to hurry. His voice was so harsh and excited that it alarmed me. I threw my things^ on hurriedly and ran in. He was terribly excited. He told me to get rid of Eliza — he wanted to talk to me alone. So I sent her away, and he walked nervously up and down till she had left. Then he came up to me and took both my Hands in his. "Get your things packed up at once!" he said. "Enough to travel with, at least. I am going to marry you right away! We're going to 34 FIND THE WOMAN take the train to New Orleans to-night, and then by a fruit steamer for Central America. I'm dished !" No, I didn't cry. It was too critical a situation. I thought then that the time had come when I would have to tell him my secret. Oh, he had asked me to marry him scores of times; I had always been able to put him off with an indefinite answer. I couldn't bear to lose him, but I was determined not to be his wife until I had confessed what I was. But now I saw he was as determined as I. I said, "What has happened, Gordon?" Then he told me — told me what I dread to tell you — only, of course, you see, then I didn't under stand how awful it was. He was ruined. His favorite filly had cost him every cent he had in the world, and he owed money everywhere. He had even ... I don't think I need tell you all of it ... perhaps that can be covered up, too . . . At any rate he was desperate. Nothing would do but for us to be married that night and get away before he was arrested. Think of it! The temptation to be alone with him — his wife — sure of one friend for ever! But the cost ! I couldn't do it ! How could I think of his losing* his honor, his good name — SCHEFFEL HALL 35 I don't know what I said, but I refused. I told him that he couldn't marry me, that he must stay and face his trouble — stay and make a fight for it — then, when he was square with the world, if he chose, I would be his wife — wasn't I right? I loved him too much ! I never had time to finish. You see, he had brought two pieces of luggage with him. One was a suit-case, the other a smallish traveling bag. Be fore I had ended my talk he was fumbling in the bag. I didn't realize what he was doing till he had pulled out a revolver. His look was horrible — he could hardly speak through his passion, but he cried out : "Well, if I can't have you— I'll end it all now !" Then he pulled the trigger — shot himself in the tem ple. ... I fainted on the floor beside him. . . . The next thing I knew the bell was ringing. I don't know how long it had been ringing ... it was some time before I could get up, and it kept ringing persistently, horribly. It wouldn't stop ringing. ... I shut my ears to it, hoping who ever was there would go away . . . but the bell kept on ringing . . . can you hear it? Gordon dead on my parlor floor, and the bell ringing . . , God ! — I can hear it yet ... ringing. 36 FIND THE WOMAN I managed to open the door part way — a crack — and saw Harry Hay — Gordon's best friend — the only one who knew of our friendship. "For God's sake," he said, "is Gordon here?" He pushed past me — I couldn't answer — he got into the parlor — and saw. ... I sat down on the sofa and began to cry, then ... it was such a relief to have somebody there. I couldn't look . . . Gordon was dead, sure enough. There was no doubt about it. ... He felt of Gordon's heart . . . and closed his eyes. . . . Then he told me Gordon had been to see him yesterday to borrow money. Harry Hay didn't have it, and, not knowing how serious it was, had refused. Then, afterward, hearing a few things about Gordon's affairs, he had raised a few thou sands in a hurry and had come to offer it to him . . . knowing Gordon would be at my place. . . . Think of it! Ten minutes too late. . . . wasn't it ironic? Harry was a good friend, God knows. . . . Harry Hay was wonderful . . . what I would have done alone, I don't know. Of course, the sui cide itself was awful enough; but for Gordon to be found in my room, in the room of an octoroon! Think of the scandal ! It would be terrific ! . . . SCHEFFEL HALL 37 Then, there were Gordon's debts, his dishonesty. . . . It couldn't be. I plead with Harry to find some way out. Then we discovered the jewels, and we understood how far poor Gordon had fallen ! They were in the traveling bag which he had opened to take the pistol from. It was half full. The Brewster jewels . . . thousands of dollars' worth of them. . . . Gordon had taken them from the family safe. He had the combination, and his parents were away from home, in Europe, or rather, they were expected back any day. Well, we talked it over. What could we do? I took a dose of strychnia and it braced me up. . . . Finally Harry thought of a plan. "There's a hack stand around the corner," he said. "I'll go round there and see if I can jolly the driver into renting his carriage. If I can, perhaps we can make it. If not, the thing will have to come out. It's our only chance, anyway." So he left to try it. I locked the door behind him, and went into my room and lay on my bed thinking . . . you can imagine how my mind worked. ... I could see Gordon lying on the floor as plainly as if I were in that room with him . . . hours seemed to go ,by before Harry Hay rang the bell. 38 FIND THE WOMAN When I opened the door I didn't know him at first; I was terrified. He had on a cab driver's smelly coat and old high hat, borrowed, I don't know how — I believe he told the cabby it was a prac tical joke. ... He told me to get on my hat and coat and wait for him in my room. He went into the parlor. . . . Once he came to my door and asked for warm water and towels. Then he returned for cotton wool . . . Oh, God! ... I didn't dare ask him what for. . . . The third time he knocked he told me that everything was ready. I gulped down a drink of brandy, clenched my teeth and went in. ... I wish I could ever forget what I saw. . . . Gordon was huddled on the sofa, his hat and gloves were on ... he seemed to be asleep . . . his head was turned away . . . the hole in his temple was filled with cotton. ... I felt myself fainting again, went to the bath room and dashed my face with water, then returned. . . . Harry had the hall door open. Well, we got the body down-stairs somehow, one supporting each arm. ... I held Gordon while Harry looked out to see if there was any one who might see ... then we carried him into the cab. . . . We got the body on to the seat and I fol- SCHEFFEL HALL 39 lowed and sat down and held it up. ... Then Harry ran up-stairs for the suit-case and bag, threw them into the floor of the cab, got on the box, and we drove off. Was there ever such a drive, I wonder ? Past the Waldorf-Astoria, past Sherry's and Delmonico's, in and out through a stream of automobiles and car riages ... the body lurched and swayed . . . once it fell on the floor — I had to lift him up. Past the Cathedral, the great hotels at the plaza, and then we plunged into the Park ... it was cool and dark . . . my last ride with Gordon Brewster . . . the last time I would touch his hand ! It was the last service I would ever do for him, I thought, . . . but there is still another . . . you must help me ... can you have the heart to refuse, after this? . . . Gordon had lived alone in the Brewster house on Seventy-second Street, with nobody but an old care taker — Flint, his name is — I didn't quite trust him, but he was our only hope. Would Flint consent to help us? That was the question; if he would, we could manage it. We stopped at the house, and Harry Hay left me alone and went in to break the news to the old man. ... He was gone some time. He 40 FIND THE WOMAN must have paid Flint money — big money. Had that body been any one's but Gordon's, I would have died, or lost my senses right then. The suspense, you know. But how can you abhor the body of one you love ? Our last ride together . . . was over. Harry Hay came out at last with Flint, who was shivering with terror, expostulating. Harry Hay took one arm of the body, Flint the other — touched it, that is, and then ran back into the house, sobbing, terrified. . . . Aren't men cowards? ... I had to help . . . the body was stiffened with the cold ... we had to fairly drag it into the house . . . the boots scraped on the sidewalk ... at the basement entrance, Flint was white as ashes, holding the door . . . then into the shooting gal lery, where Gordon had his bowling alley, his foils and gloves . . . and rifles. . . . We laid him on the floor. . . . Harry Hay took a target pistol from a case and asked the way to the coal cellar ... he went with Flint through a little low door . . . then I heard a shot. My God! It made me shriek, my nerves were so on edge. It was only Harry shooting into the coal to empty the cartridge. He came back and laid the pistol down beside the body. . . . SCHEFFEL HALL 41 Then I turned away, sick. He was removing the cotton ... we were afraid the wound wouldn't bleed. . . . Oh, God ! ... it bled fast enough. Flint was told to wait fifteen minutes, then tele phone to the nearest police station. . . . He was to s'ay he had heard a shot . . . that Gor don had let himself in alone while Flint was up-stairs . . . that he probably was practising, as he often did. You see, he was a noted shot ... we hoped the death might perhaps pass as accidental . . . that was the plan. ... I think it worked all right, . . . but the police suspect something I think. . . . Did you read the papers ? There was a notice . . . there is to be an inquest . . . the house is guarded, We came out, at last. Harry Hay got up on the box and drove off. I felt relieved. So far as we knew, nobody had seen us come. I thought it was all over, the strain of it, the horror, and my strength began to go ... I collapsed ... it had been too much. ... I was roused out of a sort of stupor by finding myself slipping to the floor as we slewed round a corner. When I tried to get up my feet struck something — the suit-case and bag. Do you see? We had been so worked up over the thing, so 42 FIND THE WOMAN excited, so nervous, we had forgotten to leave Gor don's luggage at the house. Both of us had forgot ten — God knows we had enough else to think about — it isn't strange we forgot. Well, I thought it wouldn't matter much about the things — only clothes. I was too upset to remember what was in the small bag. Then, as we passed an electric light I happened to look down at my feet. The small bag had become unfastened in some way, and the whole floor of the cab was covered with jewels! . . . You've seen them, too — on the floor — you know how I must have felt. Thousands of dollars' worth of jewels! I gathered them up and stuffed them into the bag. At the next street lamp I looked and found more in the corners, and still more ... it seemed as if I'd never find them all. . . . First I thought I'd stop Harry Hay and tell him, . . t but I waited till we got to my house, . . . then I told him. What were we to do? We couldn't take them back; it was too late, then, for the police had un doubtedly been notified — there would be officers there, and the coroner's men. Harry Hay was get ting nervous about the cab-driver, and anxious to return the carriage. He told me that I would have SCHEFFEL HALL 43 to see about the jewels — told me to telephone Flint and see what could be done to return them safely, so that no one would know they had been taken. ... It was a tremendous responsibility for me, but, to save Gordon's honor, I consented to do it. I got Flint on the telephone, after a while, and told him. He was awfully excited, and said he had found the safe door open, and had suspected the theft. He proposed that I should carry the jewels up to his brother's house in Harlem, where, as soon as he could get away, he would meet me. Then he would return them to the safe and lock the combina tion. No one would ever know. But, owing to the coroner, he couldn't get away till late to-night. . . . I promised to come. . . . I tried to sleep to-day, . . . but how could I forget? . . . After I had concealed the suit-case, my mind went over and over the horror of it all, and I thought I should go mad . . . the forenoon was bad enough — but the afternoon was worse. . . . As I was trying to eat my dinner the bell rang. Eliza came back, grinning, to say a man wanted to speak to me. ... I couldn't understand why she was laughing. Then, when I saw him . . . for a moment my heart stopped beating. I thought it was 44 FIND THE WOMAN Harry Hay, in the cabman's coat and top hat again. ... It was as if I had to go through that horrible ride again. ... I couldn't believe my sight. . . . It was the cab-driver himself ... he had vicious cross eyes. . . . He began with a horrible, sneering grin, to tell me that my friend had damaged the cab. . . . I de nied knowing anything about it, but he said he had followed Harry, and had watched at the corner . . . he had seen us coming out . . . with Gordon. Think of it! For one moment I couldn't tell how much he knew, and I was tempted to kill him then and there ... I almost wish I had ! . . . Then he spoke of "my friend with the jag," and I saw he didn't know the truth. But he knew something queer had happened. He said he wanted a hundred dollars. ... I gave it to him and told him to go away. Wasn't I a fool ? Of course it was a fatal thing to do. . . . The moment I had done it I was in despair. He would be sure something wrong had happened ... he would come again . . . and again ... he would find out. ... I went wild. I didn't dare stay at home any longer, then; and so, putting all the jewels loose into a velvet work- SCHEFFEL HALL 45 bag, I hid that in a large mink muff and went out ... I didn't know where. ... I decided to go to some restaurant, or to a theater — anywhere to be in a crowd, safe . . . and wait until Flint could take the things. . . . I had scarcely turned from Thirty-third Street into Fourth Avenue, when I saw a cab driving up slowly behind me. ... I was afraid it was the man, but was not sure. ... I walked hurriedly along ... he followed . . . like a horrible creeping thing. Why didn't I take a car? Oh, I don't know! I was distracted . . . and, anyway, he would have followed me. ... I turned west at Twenty-ninth Street . . . the cab crawled along after me . . . down Broadway — I couldn't shake it off. I turned into Twenty-sixth, and for a few minutes I thought I had lost him. ... I crossed Seventh Avenue, past little bake-shops, groceries, cobblers' cubby holes and sticky-faced children. Then, half way up the block, came a cab jogging along toward me. I was terrified ; I lost my head — I turned and ran. . . . There was no doubt that it was the cross-eyed cab man. I knew him now, a quarter of a mile away. ... I became confused, fearing he would stop 46 FIND THE WOMAN me . . . discover the jewels. ... I looked about for some escape, saw a fortune-teller's sign, and ran up the steps. The front door was unlatched. I went in and darted up-stairs. ... I had lost my reason, now. ... I was acting through blind in stinct . . . taking the first chance that occurred to me. . . . Up two flights, and I came to a door ajar. I went in and locked it. Then I looked about for a place to conceal the jewelry. Not a closet, nor a cupboard, nor a bed. ... I knelt to rip up the carpet, think ing I could stuff the things underneath, when I heard a pounding down-stairs. ... I got up and grabbed the muff — the jewels came flying out of the bag and scattered all over the floor. Then I looked up and saw your face ! God, how you terrified me ! . . . Well, you know the rest. For some minutes neither spoke. The girl, as if relieved of some physical burden, sighed, and rested her head on her hand, gazing at the young man. Fenton looked at her amazed at her story. He un derstood, now, something of her strange beauty — the sensuous charm of the octoroon spiritualized by love. That beauty which had before been tantalrz- SCHEFFEL HALL 47 ing, troublesome, urgent, disturbed him no more. He looked through it to the woman whose character had been revealed. With a quick toss of his head he reached over and held out his hand. She took it without a word, and smiled sadly. "What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Take the jewels to Flint's rendezvous, five-fifty- five West One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street." "You think it is dangerous ?" "I'm sure of it. That cabman is still tracking me. But you don't lack courage, I know." "I think I'll try it," said Fenton calmly. "I'll do my best, at any rate. Where can I find you to let you know the result?" "I don't dare go home," said the octoroon. "I'll take a room at the King William Hotel, and you can telephone me there. Call for Miss Green." She rose, cast a look about, and added : "If there is anything I can ever do for you — " "Oh, that's all right," said Fenton. "You'd bet ter get away now while you can. Good night." She bowed to him soberly, gave him another long, heartbroken look, and then walked away. Fenton, freed from the potent charm of her per sonality, looked about, almost, wondering if she had 48 FIND THE WOMAN indeed been there at all. The German restaurant seemed to be the abode of the commonplace — how could Romance have entered ? All about were peace ful, prosaic patrons, intent upon their meal. . . . Then he remembered O'Shea. Was he still there? He scanned the people at the tables, one by one. No. Fenton felt relieved. His eyes fell idly upon a stout, muscular looking man leaning against a table near him. He wore a shepherd's plaid suit. A protuber ance behind his hip looked as if it might be a con cealed revolver. Fenton wondered if he were a detective. . . . But the time had come for him to act, himself, and he rose to go. IV THE LIARS' CLUB HOW OUR AMATEUR ADVENTURER FELL A VICTIM TO HIS OWN INEXPERIENCE, WAS RELIEVED OF HIS TREASURE, AND FELL IN WITH A PRECIOUS COMPANY FULLY convinced of the truth of this extraordi nary woman's tale, and with all the chivalry of a romantic youth aroused, John Fenton set out to re store the jewels. With his overcoat pockets still clumsy with the treasure, he left Scheffel Hall and went out into a chill, misty night, intent upon his adventurous errand. What danger lay in wait he did not know, nor care. He was no longer a poor, unknown draftsman; he was a knight-errant bent upon the rescue of imperiled honor. The city had become, of a sudden, strange, mysterious; every shadow was a suggestion of malice. So he walked hurriedly along Eighteenth Street to the Subway entrance. Once he turned round, and saw two men following him ... he increased his speed. The 49 50 FIND THE WOMAN lights of the glazed entrance promised a safe haven. His haste, however, brought disaster. At the en trance a step was raised a scant inch from the bricks of the sidewalk, upon that low projection his toe caught, and he fell, sprawling, hitting his forehead upon the iron plate. And as he fell his overloaded pockets disgorged jewelry and precious stones all about him. For a moment he lay there, stunned, only half conscious. The next thing he knew, two men were helping him to rise. His head was buzzing, blood was drip ping from his face; he would have fallen again but for their assistance. In another moment he smelt the sickish odor of chloroform, and he lost con sciousness for a moment. Before he went off, voices sounded strangely in his ears, and his half-opened eyes caught sight of Mangus O'Shea supporting him ... he was too dazed even to realize his danger. When he regained partial use of his senses he was walking, still supported by the two men. He could scarcely support his own weight, and they held him up by sheer strength of arm. He caught a few words. "There's a stable round the corner. I'll get a cab, THE LIARS' CLUB 51 and we'll take him to ..." It was Mangus O'Shea who was speaking. Then, as in a dream, he walked on, tottering. It seemed to last for hours, that horrible journey. Slowly he began to revive, and started to protest. "Hist! He's coming round again," said another voice. "Give him another whiff." A damp hand kerchief was held hard to his nostrils for a few sec onds; he struggled weakly and went back into oblivion. So, alternately walking and dozing off again, trying to shake himself free, as from some awful nightmare, he was dragged on, and on, and on. ... The next thing he knew, he was in a cab. This time he had wit enough not to show signs of reviv ing, but sat, huddled between two men, listening. His pockets were being deliberately rifled; O'Shea was filling his own with the spoil as he talked. "To Peter Stow's loft," he was saying. "Peter won't be there to-night; he'll be at the club, telling his fool stories. . . . We can make a good get away . . . take his pants off, and he'll stay awhile. . . . We'll divvy up at the Norcross, and catch the first boat over the pond." Then, an indiscreet movement of Fenton's head 52 FIND THE WOMAN attracted the notice of his captors. The chloroform handkerchief was pressed firmly to his nose again, and Fenton knew no more. * * * He awoke, he had no idea how long afterward, with chilled legs, to find himself lying on his back, sick with nausea, his trousers missing. He was in some dark place, and could see nothing except at one side a row of dim spots that were from time to time obliterated, one by one, and reappeared again like holes in the dark, admitting the merest trace of light. He was not out of doors, though the floor he lay on felt as if covered with gravel. There was a close, unfamiliar smell in his nostrils, and in his ears a confused noise like cooing, a low, persistent, gut tural sound he could not at first explain. So soon as his brain cleared, he made out, by the fluttering of wings back and forth, and the peep of chicks, that he was in some sort of a large dove-cote or pigeon house. Every little while he felt a sharp peck at his bare legs, and feathers brushed his face. ... He reached out his hand cautiously, felt a bird slip away from him, and his hand fell upon some small eggs, still warm from the mother. He lay there a while longer in wonderful discom fort, trying to puzzle out his situation. As the nau- THE LIARS' CLUB 53 sea wore off he arose and, stumbling over pigeons and smashing eggs at every step, groped his way toward the light The windows were too small for him to see anything outside. He started to explore the garret. Bang! — he suddenly fell, just escaping being precipitated into a hole in the floor, square, like the opening for a ladder, though no ladder was there. He thanked his lucky stars that he had only barked his shins, and rubbed them till he found they were sticky — whether with blood or broken eggs he could not, in the darkness, be sure. No light came from the trap in the floor — all he could see about him were vague forms that flitted to and fro, all he could hear was the monotonous, brooding murmur of doves. There seemed no es cape till some one came. He shouted aloud, shouted again and again, waited and listened. His overcoat was gone, and the pockets of his coat had been rifled. He found a single match. Lighting it, he gave one glance about, which revealed nothing more than his imagination had pictured — hundreds of pigeons on the floor, on the rafters, flying hither and yon. He was trying to devise some means of escape, yelling with all his might, meanwhile, when a light flickered in the hole below him, and a voice came up to him. 54 FIND THE WOMAN "Who's there?" Fenton stuck his head through the trap, and dis cerned a spectacled old man with scrawny beard, holding a lantern, and looking up at him, mouth agape in wonder. "Let me out, for heaven's sake !" Fenton cried. "Who the devil are you, anyway, up in my pig eon-cote?" "Come up and I'll explain. I've been drugged and left here. By robbers !" "You're drunk!" said the old man, holding the lantern above his head. Then chuckling inanely, he walked off, to return with a ladder which he lifted to the trap. Fenton protested volubly against the accusation and with exclamatory eloquence described what had taken place after having left the restaurant. The old man still laughed as he climbed up. Fenton grew more vehement, but his tale was in credible. The old man sat down on the floor, with his feet on the ladder, and roared till he wept. "I say," he shouted, "I know where you belong, and there you go, too, and that's the Liars' Club, right away. That story will get the prize to-night, all right. Robbed, eh? Pockets full of diamonds THE LIARS' CLUB 55 and rubies and truck? Fine! Say, by the time we get down there you can touch that tale up a bit and make it hum ! Never drunk in your life, then ? Say, you certainly must have been up against some merry jags this evening! Well, I like a practical joke as well as any one, provided it ain't on me. Come on down, and I'll have you initiated right away !" "But I've got to hurry up to Harlem!" Fenton insisted. "I must give notice right away that the jewels have been stolen." "You're coming with me to the Liars' Club first !" the old man repeated. "What the devil is that ?" Fenton wondered if he had to do with a crazy man. "Oh, just a crowd of good fellows that meet every night to swap yarns, that's all. We have to tell a tale apiece, lies or truth, it don't matter, so long as the story's good. Only, no one can peep about any thing afterward. That's the only rule; that, and no newspaper men. Because why; some of our stories come pretty near being the truth — not like this fairy tale of yours— " and he poked Fenton in the ribs. "Well, I have no time for fooling around. I don't care how much fun you have. You must get me a hat and a pair of trousers somewhere, and let me go!" 56 FIND THE WOMAN "Not a bit of it ; don't you think of it !" The old man grew surly. "You come with me, or you go out half naked, whichever suits you best. But if you're a good fellow and don't make trouble, I'll see if I can't get you something, to cover your legs." And, so saying, he went down the ladder. Fenton had no desire to go abroad upon the street in his present condition. A combination of blood and birds' eggs had streaked his shins with scarlet and yellow. The droppings upon the floor of the garret had left his coat a sight for mirth. More over, he found he had no hat, and no money. He picked his way down the ladder, therefore, in no jubilant frame of mind, but determined to make the best of his situation. Perhaps some of the members of this extraordinary club would take his tale seri ously. But, willy-nilly, there was nothing to do but follow his chuckling guide. Peter Stow, the pigeon fancier, led the way down a flight of stairs, and through a door in the rickety partition abruptly into the next stable loft. A whoop of laughter greeted his entry, as Fenton found himself in a large room filled with tobacco smoke, roughly fitted up with straw chairs and a long table. About a keg of beer in the corner a THE LIARS' CLUB 57 group of men turned in amazement to see his ridic ulous figure, and came forward to make a hilarious inspection of him. The pigeon fancier introduced him. "Gents, here's the prize live liar of the evening, captured, after a hard struggle, in my pigeon loft, making omelets and murdering my squabs. I say keep his story till the last; cause why, it's dead sure for the prize." He turned to Fenton and exhibited him as if he were a curiosity. "Gentlemen, I've been robbed !" Fenton exclaimed angrily. "I appeal to you to give me assistance !" "Don't spoil the point of the story!" cried the old man. "I had a fortune of precious stones in my pockets — I've been captured and drugged— A heavy, horsey looking man with a square jaw, in a striped sweater, stepped forward and laid a massive hand on Fenton's shoulder. "See here, kiddo, you follow instructions, see ? They's enough of us here to handle you all right, if you kick up a row. You'll have your chance in good time. Sit down in that chair and have a mug of beer and a pipe. Now then, boys, we'll have another story." Seeing by the cynical faces that further objections 58 FIND THE WOMAN would be useless, Fenton sat down and hid his bare legs under the table. Beer was set in front of him, and tobacco offered. It was evident, now he had time to observe the crowd, that the meeting had been interrupted by his advent, so he decided to make the best of it and watch his chance for escape. The man addressed as the next speaker was a merry-looking, red-faced man of forty, with a patch over one eye. By his fat stomach and his tinted nose he had apparently once lived well and at the expense of others. Fenton labeled him as a second- rate gambler or a confidence man, now out of the running. His voice was good-natured and easy. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, stared at the presi dent with his good eye, and proceeded to tell, with winks and chuckles, his story. THE TIME OF HIS LIFE My mother's cousin was in town last Sunday. Seventy-two years old, and never been in New York. Lives down on Cape Cod. Keeps a sort of tavern for summer boarders, runs a general mer chandise store, lets cat-boats and horses, the main Henry B. Manager of the town of Barnstable. He THE LIARS' CLUB 59 came up to have the time of his life — at seventy- two — can you beat it? I used to know Uncle Jerdon when I was a boy. He was postmaster then, in the days when there was so little mail that he could read off the names of all the letters, morning and evening, beginning with "Huldah Hoxey" and ending with "Jeremiah Phillpots, all done!" Nowadays the whole town is full of summer folks, and the natives pick 'em good and plenty while the weather lasts. Uncle Jerdon was a deacon in the Methodist church, and always led the experience meetings with telling how big a sinner he used to be. But, lord, everybody knew he'd never done anything worse than swear at his old blue mare when she wanted to stop at the watering trough. "Go 'long, thee darned old slut!" was his idea of profanity. You see, his folks brought him up to be a Quaker, and early in fluence stuck. Well, those experiences he used to make up were the only outlet for as good a little streak of hellish- ness as any man ever had. They were the only chance he had to make good as a sport, and it kind of got on his nerves. I remember going down to Barnstable for a vacation, once, a couple of years 6o FIND THE WOMAN after I'd moved to New York. Say, the old man's questions would have made you yelp. He knew no more about life than a Brooklyn baby, but he made it up in curiosity. I recall how he used to take me into a corner behind the shoe counter and ask me, "Jared, did thee ever go on a bust?" And what I hadn't done I had to invent, the same as him. Lord, I made myself out a red-hot hellion for his benefit! I liked the old man. Well, he talked with all the drummers that came along, asked about the Tenderloin and the theaters and masked balls — he took a particular fancy to masked balls, did the old man — and all the sporty eating houses in this old burg. The drummers must have strung him good and plenty. When I saw him next he seemed to have an idea that millionaires skated down Broadway in dominos and red masks, and artists' models in scant attire rioted on the trol ley cars. Madison Square Garden, to him, was something like the three-ringed palace of Nebuchad nezzar or who's-this that built the tower of Babylon in Sodom — or was it Gomorrah? He was dying to see a real gambler. Well, leading such a confounded virtuous life in Barnstable that it got on his nerves, he figured it out THE LIARS' CLUB 61 that he'd just got to have one good fling at real life in the Metropolis to get it out of his blood, and then settle down to the cat-boats and prayer meetings and clams and be good for ever after. They's nothing for itching like scratching, and he'd never be satis fied till he'd had his time. So he started to sow his belated wild oats crop, with the cunning of a bank cashier contemplating a trip to Morocco. He squared his insurance and his mortgage debts, laid in a good stock of doodads for the summer trade, bought his wife a new silk dress and filled in details all along the line till they wasn't a duty undone nor a debt unpaid. Meanwhile, little by little, he began to salt away the coin for the trip to the great city. Boston wasn't half wicked enough for him, lord, no! He was going to do it big and fling his hard-earned money into the Great White Way. So he scrimped and saved for pretty near three years, and in that time he scraped up a thou sand dollars, which was what the drummers had told him a good spender would need for one week in Gotham. On top of that he had to collect enough for the trip back and forth — something like fifty dollars. Ain't that the beginning of a bumper crop of 62 FIND THE WOMAN adventure ? Can you see that old hypocrite, singing psalms every Sunday and Thursday night, and read ing the "Police Gazette" behind the counter in be- tween-times ? I say, when I met him at the train I near laughed my head off. If you can imagine a healthy sixteen- months infant calling for cocktails and smoking a Carolina Perfecto at the Hoffman House bar, you'll understand how it struck me. Well, he wanted me to show him the sights, no limit, and him to pay all the expenses. If he didn't have the time of his life, / certainly was going to. Well, he blew in on a Saturday night, and, feeling a little groggy myself, I induced him to turn in at "the La Marquette Hotel, and said I'd call around next forenoon, and not to do anything rash till he saw me. It was all I could do to hold him in; he wanted to do Chinatown right away that night, see Chuck Connors, do a roof garden and see somebody shot and go on a joy ride with chorus girls. Finally I persuaded him to go in and take a long breath be fore he jumped into the gayety of city life. "But it'll be Sunday," says he. "They ain't no such thing as Sunday in New York!" I told him. "They ain't had a Sunday for THE LIARS' CLUB 63 forty years !" And I believed it. A lot I knew about it, rounder as I was. Well, you don't always know how the other half lives! Live and learn! I slept late that night and .didn't get round to the hotel till about one o'clock next day — Sunday. There he was in the lobby, with a big carpet bag and a face like a drowning horse. Buncoed? Well, yes, but you'll never guess how. This is what hap pened. He had got up at about 6 q. m. like all hayseeds, and went down to the news stand in his slipper feet for a morning paper. Then who did he run into, bang ! but the Methodist minister who had preached at Barnstable four years before. A Reverend Wil- ley, it was. And Uncle Jerdon simply couldn't get 'away. He said he was on business, buying boats or something, but the Reverend insisted he'd got to go to church with him that morning. They was no visible way out of it, with Uncle Jerdon's pious rep utation, and so, cursing inside, he pulled his Sunday face and trotted along, clean over to Brooklyn. Wasn't that rubbing it in ? It was a clean red brick church they went to, with a new minister who was crazy on Foreign Missions. And at the end, after the sermon, just before the 64 FIND THE WOMAN contribution, the minister turned himself loose to persuade money out of stingy pockets. "Just think of it !" he says, "one dollar will pro vide red calico enough to cover the nakedness of twelve of our heathen sisters! One dollar will buy tooth brushes enough for a whole savage tribe in the South Seas ! One dollar will provide a Bible to convert a cannibal king, and one dollar will buy a marriage certificate for poor pagans who have previ ously lived in sinful polygatude !" He got the house. Misers who had never put in a dime before sweetened up the plate. Uncle Jerdon had to make good. It cost him a pang to spend a cent for the Lord on this trip — this was his time with his long-lost cousin, the devil. But he dipped into his pocket and, thinking a dollar would make a good show, threw a bill into the plate. The deacon counted the contribution while the congregation sang "From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand!" There was a hush while the audience rubbered. Then the treasurer of the church tiptoed up with them religious squeaky shoes to the pulpit and whispered behind his hand to the minister. The minister got up, coughed, and rolled his eyes to heaven. THE LIARS' CLUB 65 "Beloved brethren," he said, "the Lord hath moved us in wondrous manner this day, and has shed His blessing upon our efforts. The sum col lected at the contribution is one thousand and twenty-five dollars and thirty-one cents. The Lord be praised!" "Amen!" from the congregation, and everybody looked at everybody else to see if Carnegie or Rock efeller was there in disguise. Uncle Jerdon was as puzzled as anybody, till he put his hand into his vest pocket and felt for the unbroken thousand-dollar bill he had put aside to spend on the primrose path. It wasn't there ! He had put it into the plate, think ing it was the one-dollar bill he had left from his traveling expenses. Can you beat it ? And the man with the patch on his eye reached into his hip pocket for a well-gnawed plug of to bacco and took a plenteous bite. The roars of laughter had not subsided before the big president rose with a surly face and pointed dramatically across the table to where a young man sat in the shadow of the lamp, his chair tilted back against the partition. He had a chubby face with a huge, good-natured mouth, and had been puffing in- '66 FIND THE WOMAN cessantly during the recital, as if he wished to con ceal himself behind a cloud of smoke. A couple of boxes emptied of their Havana cigarettes and the butts of some two dozen on the floor testified to his industry. Now every one turned to look at him. He stared back at them without embarrassment. "Who is that chap?" demanded the president. "I never saw him here before." "Oh, this is Jack Richmond," said a thin, cadav erous looking youth with a chauffeur's cap, who had been coughing behind his hand. "Friend of mine. He's all right, I guess. Met up with him at a mov ing picture show. Want to hear my yarn?" "He's a reporter!" thundered the president. "I can tell by the shape of his head. Whenever you see a chap with a long egg-shaped coco that hangs over behind, you can bet he writes for the papers." "Rats!" said the chauffeur. "Richmond's all right, I guess." But before he had finished, the massive president strode over to the suspicious character, took hold of the lapel of his coat and threw it open. With a quick movement he snatched a card from the young man's vest. "Look at that !" he yelled. "What did I tell you? The Morning Item — reporter's card! THE LIARS' CLUB 67 Now get out of here ! Against the by-laws to have newspaper men present. These stories don't get into print if I know it." He shook his heavy hand in the young man's face. "Will you leave easy — or hard ?" "I think," said the chubby young man, rising hastily and drawing on a soft hat, "I'll say good- by while the walking is good. I apologize for hav ing that card. It was lent me by a friend to get inside the fire lines while my own house and family was burning up alive, last night. But of course, being a liars' club, I have no place here, and the plain unvarnished truth is at a discount. I'm a vic tim of circumstantial evidence. Good day, gents! Saint Ananias guide thee!" And he made his exit two feet ahead of the toe of the president's brogan. "Say, that's a shame !" said the thin young chauf feur, scratching his head. "We lost a peach of a good story when he threw him out, I'll bet! I'll have to hump myself if I want to make up for it. My turn next, ain't it ?" "If you've got anything on your chest," the presi dent announced affably, "this here's the time to cough it off." "My text is the Psychological Rule of Three," said the chauffeur. 68 FIND THE WOMAN "Say, this ain't no Browning Club!" objected the pigeon fancier. "No Browning sharp could ever explain the psy chology of three consecutive coincidences," said the youth. "It's a case for Henry James." "Is he a member?" asked the ex-gambler. "I never heard of him. What is he, a chofer, or what ?" "He is a literary chauffeur, as you have guessed. And he always exceeds the speed limit. When he comes in next, I'm going to put it up to him straight : Why is it that no man can stand three strokes of lightning without expecting a fourth? I'll put it another way. When a man has three bad lucks run ning, he'll manufacture the fourth himself in trying to escape what he considers inevitable." "Faster, kid, faster! Your act is flopping! Steer out of the tall-word contest, and harness on to your pet prevarication." "I'll do it," said the thin one. "Take it from me, the only living gasoline-eater who never eloped with a rich man's wife, I'm telling you the unenameled truth. I've got a tale with a wallop. This is a song of my brother's submerged E-flat luck. I'm re minded of the trilogy of sad events by the announce ment in to-day's papers of the death of a young THE LIARS' CLUB 69 swell named Brewster, who blew his brains out yes terday on account of losing his wad backing a bandy-legged mule named Belcharmion." Fenton looked up in amazement. Surely the name of Brewster was familiar! Then the other name rang queerly in his ears. He thought of the picture in his pocket — "Belle Ch— Could Charmion by any streak of chance be the name of his dream-girl? He began to tremble; he could not take his eyes from the chauffeur's face, as the thin young man, coughing between sentences, told to the circle about him his story. THE RULE OF THREE My brother Bill had been running a hog ranch near Temple, Arizona. Despite the fact that this particular town is ten degrees hotter than the boiling lava of Vesuvius, he had prospered sufficiently to retire a year ago with a bank roll of eleven thousand dollars. With the wad and a hunger for something to eat better than canned peaches, cactus and Bull Durham tobacco, he pulled up stakes for Chicago, spent a couple of days in the Annex Bar and hit the trail for the Big Noise at the mouth of the Hudson. 70 FIND THE WOMAN When it came time for him to quit the buffet car and hunt his mat, he mosied back through the train until he came to a sleeper named Belcharmion. In it he had lower berth number three — a fact which may or may not be significant. Upon awakening in the morning he tried to negotiate some eight dollars' worth of ham and eggs, with a grape fruit on the side, but was attacked with a violent nausea. He retired to the observation car and remained there, shivering and shaking with ague until the flyer rolled into New York. Then, piling into a taxicab, he told the driver to take him to the nearest hospital. The doctors analyzed him hurriedly, pronounced his trouble a sort of cross between typhoid and the bubonic plague — clapped him into bed in ward num ber three, and there he remained for three weeks. Three separate and distinct times he would have died but for the thought of the pink-haired nurse and his bank roll. It's a pity he didn't take the count then and there. He would have missed a lot of trouble. On the third of May the doctors declared him graduated, and with seventy- four hundred dollar notes in his wallet he wobbled to the exit, where he collided with a weak-eyed quik whose shaky legs and THE LIARS' CLUB 71 shop-worn appearance stamped him as a fellow-con valescent. "Just getting well?" says Bill. "Yep," says the live dish rag. "Where you bound for ?" says Bill again. "Me for the race track," says the other, leaning against the elevator shaft and panting for ozone. "The docs have all my coin, but I'm good for a marker, and before the last goat comes rompin' home to the paddock my pants is goin' to be lined with yellow-backs or it's me for a Brodie into the brine." Bill hungered for excitement enough to hire a benzine buggy, and together the two cripples went to the race track. In the first race Bill backed a Hag- gin horse named Tatters and spilled a hundred. In the second a skate named Melon Boy went to pieces in the stretch and stung my brother twelve hundred dollars. Bill was feeling blue, but his friend was talking pert. He was a couple of centuries ahead, and together they walked into the paddock to take a squint at the ponies and jocks that were getting ready for the third race. "See that swell girl there with the black plumes, the big eyes, the parasol and the aristocratic ankles ? 72 FIND THE WOMAN That's Miss Charmion, a society pet/' says the little fellow, who was so weak he could hardly stand. "They's a zebra in this race named after her. Bel- charmion's the filly, and young Brewster, the son of the millionaire, owns the beast." "Sufferin' Spanish mackerel!" thinks Bill. "Ty phus fever in berth three of a sleeping car named Belcharmion. Miss Belle Charmion on the third of May, and a horse named Belcharmion in the third race ! What's the answer ?" The bell sounded, and everybody started to run toward the grand stand or betting ring. Bill waited long enough to take another look at the filly, then hustled for the ring as fast as his bum legs would carry him. Belcharmion was favorite at three to five. Removing a single hundred-dollar note from his roll and sticking it in an inside pocket, Bill handed the entire remainder — five thousand, two hundred dollars — to a greasy-faced bookie, got a card showing that he played the filly across the board, and went out. on the lawn to hold his breath. They got away in a bunch and swung round the track so fast that Bill couldn't see which was ahead. Coming into the stretch ten million people com menced to pound each other on the head and yell THE LIARS' CLUB 73 "Come on you Belcharmion ! Oh, you Belchar- mion !" and Bill knew his nag was in the lead. A hundred yards from the finish, just as the lead ers were right in front of Bill, the filly stumbled, turned a double somersault, slid into the fence and killed her jockey. My brother crumpled up on the grass. When he came to, somebody had frisked him for the hundred, and he was flat broke in a strange land. He hunted up his hospital friend, who slipped him a wad of sympathy, a five-case note and his ad dress. "Come round and sleep in my folding bed," said he. Bill said he would. The address was a hundred and twelve East Twenty-sixth Street, and at six o'clock that night Bill, after a fifteen-cent meal at Child's and a ride on the Third Avenue "L," finally located the place and, half dead with weakness and a grouch, made for the entrance. His mind was so fussed that he didn't notice anything until his feet collided- with a rubber door mat in the outer lobby. On it in white letters appeared the name of the house — "Belchar mion." "Not for mine!" thinks Bill. "Nothing with that 74 FIND THE WOMAN tag to it will ever make a hit with me. I'm onto my luck, this time. If I enter this cursed shack, I'll be skun out of my clothes in a pinochle game, or be arrested for blackmail, or fall in love with a blond chambermaid, or pitch down the elevator well, or something as fierce. That name Belcharmion is the wrong recipe for my health, I've found that out!" And so he turns out in a hurry, thanking his stars that he'd found sense at last. Just as he reached the sidewalk somebody yelled "Look out!" and whing! — a forty- foot swing stage hit him on the top of the head for a ten week's trip to the hospital again. What did I tell you ? Moral : Don't dally with the Rule of Three ! The iteration of the name Belle Charmion smote upon John Fenton's ears like the ringing of a bell far away in some secret chamber of his mind, behind some locked door. Why should that name excite him? He did not know. It seemed to be vaguely familiar, but he could place it nowhere in his mem ory. He was puzzling over it when his attention was called to the next speaker of the evening — then, suddenly, a new thought excite-d him. The man addressed by the president was a cross- THE LIARS* CLUB 75 eyed, coarse-faced individual, who, by the cut of his coat and the battered top hat on the back of his head was indubitably a cab-driver. Immediately Fenton's mind went back to the Octoroon's story. She had been pursued by a cross-eyed cabman — could this be the man ? Fenton listened eagerly to see if anything in his speech would confirm this surmise. "This is a perfectly true story," the cabman was saying. "Stop there !" the president thundered. "If a story is funny, it's not true, and if it's true, it's not funny. That principle has been proved in this club beyond peradventure. Cut out this 1-knew-the-man-that- died' stuff ! We want no true stories here : we want good ones! Wherever a good story travels, there's always some fool who wants to tack it onto some maternal aunt of his — and ten to one he actually believes what he says. All good stories come from Herodotus, and the best we can do is to cut 'em over to a nineteen hundred and eleven model, touch 'em up with rouge and powder and send 'em out as The Latest.' No man can invent a good story : but he can improve a poor one. No true tale is fit to tell — the naked truth must be adorned." Peter Stow, the pigeon fancier, awoke from his ;6 FIND THE WOMAN doze. "Well, is this a Browning Club or not?" he asked, sleepily. "Why not play ball?" - "I second the motion !" said the chauffeur. The president nodded, and the cab-driver shifted his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other and began. THE SLEEPY BRIDEGROOM It was a funny story how young Michael Carnar von got married. I never heard of such a wedding in my life. You see, young Carnarvon was really what you might call roped in. The Schufelt girl was a mani cure working in the Hotel Persimmon, and from the day she laid eyes on him she began to wire things up to marry him. I s'pose all women do that, one way or another ; she done it by listening instead of talking. When he began to call on her — she lived over on Charles Street with her mother — she kept him talking about himself till he thought she was the cleverest girl in New York, which, in some ways, she was. What with playing the innocent sympathetic, keeping her mother out o' the way and padlocking her temper, which was something sav- THE LIARS' CLUB 77 age, she got him going till he popped the question. She certainly managed it great. Carnarvon's folks was wild when they heard about the engagement, but by this time he was deaf and blind to the fact that the Schufelt girl was only after his money, and had the reputation around Chelsea village of being a regular Rocky Mountain catamount when she got mad. Lord! It must have been a strain for that girl to hold her tongue, some times, but she never boiled over till after the wed ding. You'd have thought she was half-witted, almost; she was so tame when Carnarvon was around. But Lord, how her mother used to catch it when he left the flat! — and her mother could put up a pretty good jaw-fight, too. Well, three days before the wedding Carnarvon had to work like a donkey-engine to get his business straightened up, so he could get off on his honey moon. He was at the office night and day working himself to a frazzle. In that time he hadn't slept more than three or four hours, all told, and on the morning of his marriage he was about as near all in as a man can be, and keep awake. In fact, he couldn't keep awake, and that was the trouble. They tell me that last forenoon he was practically walk- 78 FIND THE WOMAN ing and talking in his sleep. Black coffee didn't do no good at all, for he'd been living on it for a week, practically. He dictated his letters staggering up and down the room, and every time he sat down at the desk to sign his name to 'em, the typewriter had to stick hat pins into him to wake him up. He took snuff to make him sneeze, he washed his face in cold water every ten minutes, he kept the windows wide open — everything he could think of to brace him up, but he just naturally got drowsier and drowsier every minute. They was things that simply had to be done, if he was going to git off next day, and so he kept to it till late in the afternoon, so dopey he couldn't talk American. "Blub-blub" was about all he could say. It was something awful. His clerks implored him to let them finish up, but he didn't dare trust them, so he stuck to the ship. At six o'clock he was like a living corpse, half blind with sleep, yawning con tinually and having to be hauled up off the floor every five minutes. He was living on sheer nerve. Blind staggers was nothing to it. But he left to go home declining help from the boys — and of course, owing to ructions in his family, not likely to get much assistance when he did get there. THE LIARS' CLUB 79 Well, on the way home he dropped in at a drug store for a dose of something, strychnia or some such stuff, to brace him up through the ceremony. After that he didn't care, just so long as he made good with the minister. How he asked for the dope, I don't know. He must have said something about sleeping, I suppose; but anyway, the clerk thought he wanted a sleeping draught, and he gave him what turned out to be a twenty per cent, solution of mor phine. See? There he was, hardly able to see straight anyway, with a double dose of dope on top of it. He took a cab home, and the driver had to pry him out of the seat when they got there. He crawled up-stairs, wondering how he was ever going to make it that evening. His medicine didn't seem to help, much, so he took another swig at it. How he ever got his clothes on, his man can't exactly explain. It was a job for an undertaker, not a valet. But after a regular nightmare of it Carnarvon started for the Schufelt flat. He didn't dare take a cab this time, for fear he'd be found asleep and they'd think he was drunk. So he walked. It must have been hor rible. Most of the time he staggered along with his eyes shut, hoping he'd run into somebody who'd 8o FIND THE WOMAN punch him in the head or give him a good kick to wake him up. No such luck. Well, he got to the Schufelt flat, somehow, and just before going in, he emptied the bottle in hopes it would carry him through the ceremony. That last dose made him feel as if he was living inside a blanket soaked in molasses, with his arms and legs tied. Lord, that man was game! He just got in, and that was about all, for he stumbled on the first rug, fell feet down on the floor and began to snore. Mrs. Schufelt picked him up, and she and Nanny lugged him into a bed-room and tried to wake him up. By this time he was just mut tering to himself something like "I don't give a durn for anything. I'm tired of swimming through jelly — blub, blub — blub — I want to lay down and die decent." Of course they thought he was drunk. What else was they to think? But so long as she was safely spliced to him, Nanny didn't care — she was deter mined not to make a miss of it, and as soon as she was Mrs. Michael Carnarvon she knew she'd give him a tongue-lashing that would sober him up. So they slapped wet towels at his face, stepped on his toes, tickled the soles of his feet, used a few needles, THE LIARS' CLUB 81 brushed up his hair backwards, and dragged him in to greet the friends of the family. .Wow! He tried to crawl on his hands and knees, but they wouldn't have it. Everybody thought it was a disgrace; but he was rich, and that always explains a lot. After he was introduced to the minister he melted down into a chair, shut his eyes and opened his mouth. Nanny pinched him good. He got up, in a kind of a trance, fell into Mother Schu felt's sister's lap, stepped into the rubber plant, upset a table full of wedding presents, and then the old lady decided to hurry things and get the agony over. How she induced the minister to do the job I don't know. Perhaps it was the hundred dollar bill Car narvon had in his vest pocket did the trick. Anyway, they propped him up on each side and one behind ; and the parson done his act. Everybody present swore, afterwards, that they heard him say "I will." And as soon as it was over he collapsed and they laid him out on a sofa and covered him up with a table cloth, while Nanny changed her clothes. The guests went into the dining-room to feed and drink his health. Now, whether it was the champagne young Car narvon had paid for, or just the natural tendency 82 FIND THE WOMAN of wedding guests to play the goat, I dunno. But, anyway, they fixed up a joke on the happy pair. There was one cut-up there, a rising young plumber, he was, named O' Square, and first I knew of the thing, he come round to my stand and wanted to hire my hack. It was him what put me onto the whole thing. He was fairly busting with it. He of fered me twenty dollars for the use of my cab and my hat and overcoat, and I surrendered. Naturally, I followed round the corner to see the fun. He sent away the taxicab Carnarvon had waiting, and went up-stairs to see if all was ready. The rest of them had everything fixed. They got young Carnarvon down-stairs, holding him up the way you do a drunk, and they rammed him into the cab. Then they brought down Nanny, who was be ginning to talk. Lord, you ought to have heard her remarks — they was something bloodthirsty. The guests only screamed and laughed at her. O' Square got on the box — we all tied up the trunks with rib bons, and off they went, Nanny's language dripping- out of that cab like a leaky watering cart. O' Square brought back my cab toward one o'clock next morning. He didn't say nothing, but I heard afterward that he dumped 'em out, Carnarvon dead THE LIARS' CLUB 83 asleep, Nanny fighting mad, and the trunks covered with old boots and white ribbons, on a little cross road in the middle of Van Cortlandt park. That was his idea of a joke. What happened after that I don't know, except that a week afterward Michael Carnarvon brought suit for the annulment of his marriage, on the grounds that he was asleep during the ceremony. The cross-eyed cabman paused, and felt in his in side coat pocket. "If you don't believe it," he re marked, "look at this here thing! I found it tucked into a nook in the seat cushion of my cab, when I cleaned her out the next day." He held up a locket — heart-shaped, with a star of white stones. It flashed like a handful of sparks in that smoky, dusty room. f "I ain't sure it was Carnarvon's wedding present to his wife," he explained. "It wasn't never advertised for, and so I never said nothing about it. You know us cab-drivers has got to have some perquisites." The suspicions which had arisen in Fenton's mind at first sight of the cross-eyed cab-driver were con firmed long before the story was finished. As it progressed, Fenton was amazed at the man's au- 84 FIND THE WOMAN dacity in weaving in, point after point, the facts of the octoroon's narrative. The sleepy bridegroom could, of course, be none other than the dead fare, Gordon Brewster — the picture which the cabby had seen as he watched from a near-by corner was almost the identical one the octoroon had described — the tragic truth dis guised in this comedy recital. As chorus after chorus of guffaws applauded the tale, Fenton won dered at the cleverness of the man who was, no doubt, adapting some old narrative to fit the needs of his case. At sight of the locket, however, Fenton's thoughts took a new turn. The ornament had a mystery of its own connected in some incomprehensible way with his own life. He had but a glimpse of it, as it was displayed, but he was sure there was no mistake. It was exactly the same as the one he recalled — first, during that half-forgotten scene on the ferry-boat, when he was a mere child, afterward in the O' Shea's tenement, after they had come to New York. What did it mean? How did the cabby really get it? There was only one possible answer. Undoubtedly it was one of the Brewster jewels, spilled out of the traveling bag, as the octoroon had THE LIARS' CLUB 85 said, while the dead body was being driven to Sev enty-Second Street. If so, the cabby's suspicions of queer work must have gained ground — he had, per haps, already communicated with the police. At any rate, Fenton now had a double reason for wanting to gain possession of it, and he was determined that at the first opportunity, he would attempt to get it. He would watch his chance. With all this flashing through his mind, it did not take him long to perceive that he could not safely tell his own story before the driver. Once he was connected with the jewels, the cabby would be on his track. He determined, therefore, to invent some fantastic tale — anything would do — which might rescue him from his embarrassing dilemma. The cab-driver's story suggested a plot. It was vague, but he relied upon inspiration for some amusing nar rative. His mind was already busy upon the fiction when he was called upon for his contribution to the evening's entertainment. "We have with us to-night," said the president, impressively — "Hooray!" from the circle of au ditors — "a newcomer to our glorious midst. As an amateur liar, we expect little — and yet the gentle man's costume warrants some hope of amusement." 86 FIND THE WOMAN He turned to Fenton. "Now, bare-legs, you can spiel your tale. What's all this about being robbed of seventeen million dollars' worth of diamonds, anyway? Make it short, for we're getting tired. And don't spare the ginger — we need to be waked up. All ready — fire away !" He sat down. Every one looked at Fenton, and laughed again. He did not, in truth, present a very dignified aspect. The blood and egg-yolk had dried upon his shins, and he had brushed some of the dirt from his coat — but there was excuse enough for mirth. "He looks like a bum Highland scavenger," was the chauffeur's comment. Fenton invoked the muse of comedy, and rose to his feet. "Of course that yarn about the stolen mil lions was all a bluff. I wanted to get away quick, and when you hear my lively tale, you'll understand why I didn't care to explain just how many different kinds of a fool I was to our friend, the aged pigeon- charmer, here. It was bad enough as it was. But I see you're all good fellows, and perhaps if I throw myself wide open, you may be moved to help me out. The fact is, also, that the cabby's story is just enough like mine to encourage me to go ahead and tell the truth." THE LIARS' CLUB 87 He was proud of himself. Already he had made an impression. From the looks of the men he knew he had his audience, and it inspired him. He gave free rein to imagination, therefore, and warming gradually to his lie, he began the story. THE THREE WEDDINGS I am going to be married to-night — if you fel lows will help me out. That will explain why I touch lightly on parts of the narrative. I haven't much time to lose, if I'm to capture my blushing bride, the pride of Harlem — a lady you'll excuse me for denominating Miss Daisy Peach. The name don't matter, for I expect it to be Howich by twelve- one to-morrow morning. My name's Claude Ken sington Van Proul Howich. Age, twenty-one. All right. Skip the love-at-first-sight stuff, skip the coy proposal and lovers' quarrels, skip the violets and confectionery. Most all men make love alike. Every chap thinks his chicken is a bird of paradise. The only difference is, I know mine is. The story, therefore, boils down to a question of too much mother-in-law before marriage. By too much, I merely insinuate that she was too much for 88 FIND THE WOMAN me. Why? She wanted Daisy to marry six foot of blonde Englishman with a decorated name. Call him the Honorable Algernon Mudde. That'll do fine. Daisy, being foolish about me, said nay, nay; and set the date for our nuptials. In fact, she named the day three times. Let's take 'em chronologically ; which, being interpreted, oh grave and reverend signiors, means each by one. Wedding Number One : Parson ready, four mil lion guests of the bride arrived, presents set out, la beled and guarded by detectives in the billiard-room. House decorated. Floral arch, orange blossoms ga lore, potted plants, orchids. Little sisters in silk voile, carrying baskets of rose leaves to walk on. In short, everything but the happy groom, which was me, who was fighting his way into an elephant's dress suit, many miles away. No wedding bells for her. Puzzle. Here's the answer. Wedding was to be at nine. My best man, think ing me sane, sober and responsible, had promised to call at eight, with a taxi. At six-thirty (as I thought) I began to dress for the execution. Now, though I may not look it in my present war-paint, I keep a valet — or rather I share him with four other chaps. Up to date that valet had been an ex- THE LIARS' CLUB 89 pert, but at seven o'clock he began to go crazy. I. Spilt a bottle of mucilage inside my union suit — you know no man wants to wear another kind of skin. 2. Couldn't find a clean suit ; valet had to hike out and buy one. Red flannels was all he could find, and me to be married at nine ! 3. Upset the ink all over my "King of Broadway" dress shirt. Found every other white shirt was three sizes too small. Never had been before. Again to the haberdasher's. Haberdasher closed, had to put oh a soft silk ar rangement, like the leading man in a musical com edy. 4. Laid down my dress coat on some sticky; fly-paper we had there to catch early crop of mos quitoes. 5. Went to telephone and found the thing was struck deaf and dumb. I was furious by this time, paranoiac, ready to chew glass and split blood. You may wonder why I didn't tumble before this, and suspect my valet. I suppose it was because I was dreaming of my beauteous bride. Anyway, it wasn't till I sent him out to a friend to borrow a black suit that I began to think anything. Then I went out to the elevator boy and asked the time. It was nine twenty-five! That blasted menial had put back my watch and all the clocks an hour and a half. .Well, by that time I was seeing red. I went down 90 FIND THE WOMAN the hall and pounded at every door, begging for a dress suit. Nobody at home, or only shocked fe males, who barricaded the entrance. At last I found a Dutchman who let me in, and offered me a suit he had owned for thirteen years. I took it to my place and got into it — I wrapped it around me, so to speak — I got lost in it. Fit ? It would have fitted a Dino- saurus better. It flapped and waved about me. " I looked like the last potato in the sack. But it was my last hope, and in that mass of black broadcloth I made my appearance at the Mansion de Peach, to find every guest gone, the old man swearing mad, mother-in-law-to-be calm as an iceberg, and my Daisy in tears. How I squared myself I don't know. I sent Miss Peach all the violets in the world, and we postponed the wedding for a week. I promised to be careful. When I got back I found my valet waiting as cool as a marble-top table. I promised not to murder him if he'd tell me exactly why he did it. What d'you think ! Honorable Mudde had tipped him one hundred dollars to queer me for the festivity. Well, it was worth knowing. Somewhere around the con spiracy, I smelled my mother-in-law but I couldn't follow up the trail. THE LIARS' CLUB 91 Wedding Number Two : No valet this time, you bet. My best man on guard, buttoning me up and giving good advice, telephoning to Central for the time every ten minutes. I was all ready to start at eight o'clock when the bell rang like an alarm clock. We didn't hurry, and bing, the door was nearly blown in. Best man opens the door. Enter a hoity- toity-chorus girl made up for leading ingenue, and one big, big, bull-necked policeman. "That's him," says Tootsy Footlights, and the cop lays a fist like a ham on my shoulder. What d'you think? Tootsy sprang a song about my hav ing stolen six hundred dollars and banged her eye at Jack's two nights before, said we were engaged, but it was all off, and "Arrest him, Mr. Officer, he's handsome, but he's false!" Protests from Yours Affectionately, heap big talk from best man. No go. Officer McUgly shows a warrant for my arrest. I'm properly identified and if I want to go to the station in a taxi I can — otherwise, he'll call for the patrol. I tried to coax him with a fifty, but it wouldn't work. My best man flew loose on a search for bail, and I made the journey to jail. The ser geant winked when I told the marriage story. I telephoned I'd arrive at the Peach palace in a 92 FIND THE WOMAN minute, but before we raised the hundred dollars bail the wedding was a fizzle. Simultaneously, Tootsy Footlights wired in that she'd found the ring inside one of her rats, and she wouldn't prose cute. Who was Tootsy? Hired by Honorable Mudde, of course, like the valet. She came round afterward and told me all about it, giggling, and tried to get me to take her out to dinner ! She had a nerve like a frog. No? Yes? Well, such are the petted favorites of the mimic world. The next day I got a session of live-wire talk from Daisy Peach that gave me the shivers. "See here, Claude," she says, "I'm getting tired of get ting married on the instalment plan. I know that ma and Mr. Mudde are trying to queer you, but if you can't beat a pink Englishman out on a game like this, I'll be darned if I don't marry the Briton, for he's the cleverest man of the two. I like you, Claude, and in times of peace you seem to make good. But the war is on, and I'm going to marry the victor. We'll get married on the thirtieth of April, and I'll give you this last chance. I am aware that Mr. Mudde may have cooked up a good one this time to put you out of business, but if you can't de fend yourself after being warned, you're no good THE LIARS' CLUB 93 to me as a husband. I can't use that kind. So I'll give you till midnight to show up. When the clock strikes twelve, if you're not visible to the naked eye, I'll become Mrs. Mudde, and begin to train for high society in Surrey and that town house in Park Lane. Good-by, boyo — I'll always be a sister, if he wins. But I do hope you won't be lost in the shuffle again !" Wedding Number Three: All goes well till six p. M. of the fatal day — to-day. I had laid in three dress suits, a small gent's furnishing shop, a couple of welter-weight thugs from Casey's, and my best man and I each had a magazine pistol ready. At six the telephone bell rings and Ma Peach croons out her siren song. Daisy, she said, had cold toes over something. Would I come right over to see her, or else the match would be off. She had sent the limou sine. See the game ? Yes ? No ? What could I do? Disobey the summons of the queen of the solar system, my brave, sweet Daisy- kins? Not so! I fell for it. Out I walked through my barricades, jumped into the limousine. The min ute I was in, two large, adult men jumped in after me. One on each side. I had no time to put up a fight before they got to my nose with chloroform — and — well, I woke up in our friend's pigeon ranch, 94 FIND THE WOMAN with my trousers gone. A quick finish? By Juno! Yes! Now, gents, I put it to you ! Are you going to al low me to lose a twenty-six carat bride at the last moment for want of five cents and a pair of trousers? Seriously, my friends, I'm in a hole. I ask you, man to man, help me out! I can make it yet. Are you willing to stand for me or not? If you ever were married, you know how nervous a man is — I believe, honest, I've a temperature of a hundred and four this blessed minute. For Cupid's sake, give me a lift! If I had a hat, I'd pass it around. I only need pants and a taxi. What do you say ? Fenton paused, and looked anxiously around at the members of the Liars' Club. V THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM" HOW JOHN FENTON ACHIEVED A PAIR OF TROUSERS AND ATTEMPTED ASSAULT AND BATTERY UN SUCCESSFULLY, BUT WAS RESCUED BY A CHUBBY SCRIBBLER THERE was an instant's hush when Fenton fin ished. His charm and personality had carried his hearers along with absorbed attention; but he had little practice in impromptu romances, and his tale could scarcely convince the crowd of men be fore him, who were used to all manner of pictur esque narratives. So, as Fenton sat down, a gust of laughter applauded him. They had been well en tertained by his freak of fancy, but not enough to contribute the funds he had hoped might be his re ward. He made another tentative appeal, but a cynical laugh was his only answer, and the company began to break. Men rose and yawned, started to look for their hats, and began talking with one an other. The president came forward and laid his massive hand on Fenton's shoulder. 95 96 FIND THE WOMAN "Very good, lad. You nearly got us going and that's no joke for a beginner. We'll have to have you round again. Nothing like new blood. Well, good night, kid. Come round whenever you feel like hitting the pipe." "But how the devil am I to get out of here ?" Fen- ton asked anxiously. "I can't go this way. If I can't borrow any money I might at least get a pair of trousers." "Oh, I guess Gerrish will fix you up all right," said the president, easily, and he turned away and began to turn out the lamps. The cab driver had already come and joined them. "I got an old pair of overalls, if that'll do you any good," he suggested. Fenton jumped at the proposal, for, indeed, it would enable him to kill two birds with one stone. If he could once get the cab-driver alone he was de termined to gain the locket, and, when he might, restore it to its owner — and then discover, if pos sible, the secret of his old memories of the trinket. He accepted Gerrish's offer, therefore, and after farewells to those of the club who had not already gone, he left and went down a flight of stairs with the cabby. THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM" 97 He had already measured his man with his eye. Gerrish was a gin-soaked obese wreck, and Fenton felt sure of being able to overcome him in a fair fight. He watched carefully, and knew that the driver had slipped the locket into a lower vest pocket. It should be easy to gain possession of it. First, however, the overalls must be secured. They went down into a stable next door, now tenanted only by a few sorry nags and two disrepu table looking cabs. It was lit by an oil lamp on a bracket. Gerrisn went to a locker in the rear, beside a small door in the wall, and drew out the garment. The overalls were of brown denim, streaked with oil and spotted with dirt, but they would at least cover his bare shins. Fenton drew them on, watch ing his man sharply. When he was clad he manceu- vered toward a wagon stave that was lying on the floor, seized it, and whirled suddenly upon the cab- driver. "Now then/' he exclaimed harshly, "give me that locket! It's mine." Gerrish looked up at him through bleary eyes. "Well, you son of a plumber!" he ejaculated, and then, with remarkable agility and force, his foot shot out, caught his opponent in the diaphragm and 98 FIND THE WOMAN Fenton dropped doubled up, with the wind knocked out of him. Before he could recover the cabby had fallen on him, and was throttling him. He began to punch with fervor. Fenton saw stars, then every thing went black. 5} ****** He opened his eyes to find Richmond, the chubby reporter who had been ejected from the club, sitting on a keg, watching him curiously. Fenton sat up on the floor and looked groggily about. The cabman was lying a few feet from him, supine, with his eyes shut, evidently knocked out. The reporter smiled. "Coup de savatte," he said. "That cabby must have come from Paris. Dirty low trick. How d'you feel?" Fenton rose, stretched his arms and legs, and then, recollecting his object, turned to the cabman and felt quickly in his greasy vest pockets. In one was a large nickel watch, the other was empty. "I've got it," remarked the reporter. Fenton sized him up, and took a step forward. "Give it tome!" "What?" "The locket, of course. You say you've got it." Fenton realized now how foolish he had been ever THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM" 99 to speak of the robbery. He resolved to humor the reporter till he could get rid of him. "That story about the stolen jewels was all a joke," he added. "It was no joke, son. I'm not a fool. But what about the locket?" "That locket," said Fenton, "has something queer to do with me — I don't know just what. There's something mysterious about it, and I want it. I don't know who it belongs to, but I know I have a better right to it than you have. As for the robbery, if you want to believe in it you may, but I won't tell you anything about it." "In which case I keep the locket," said the re porter. "And now what are you going to do in that rig?" "I'm going to borrow a quarter from you to get up town with." "Right, all right ; but you'll have to earn it. Now I'll tell you what I'll do. I've got to fool around for a half hour or so, looking for a girl a few blocks from here. Now I don't care to hang round in the slums alone, and if you'll stay with me I'll give you a dollar for car fare and the locket to boot when the deed is did. All I want is your name and address. Otherwise I follow you till I find out for myself." TOO FIND THE WOMAN "All right. My name is John Fenton, and I live at 69 West a Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street." "We'll see. If you don't mind, I'll corroborate that. Have you anything to prove it?" Fenton pulled a letter from his pocket which showed the truth of his confession. "Looks all right to me," said Richmond, and he wrote it down on his cuff. Then, he looked at the cabby. "I see our cross-eyed friend is stirring in his sleep. Let's get out of here pronto, and go where we can talk. Don't do anything foolish like running away, though; and remember that I used to be the feather-weight champeen of the Rosebud Social and Outing Club." By this time they were walking rapidly away from the stable, proceeding toward Canal Street. To emphasize his warning, the reporter had taken Fenton by the arm. "Now see here, son," he went on, "you're already somewhat in my debt. That pirate would have gouged your eyes out in another minute if I hadn't been in ambush. You've got a story, and I want it. Give up what you know, and I'll return the jewelry. Or else there's nothing doing." He stopped under a lamp post, and looked Fenton over deliberately. His THE REPORTER OF "THE LT&M." 101 words were coercive, but his eyes twinkled with good nature. "You'll have to keep it, then, unless I can get it away from you," said Fenton gloomily. "I don't see that the story's any of your business." "All news is my business. I represent the people of New York, who have a right to know what's go ing on — especially when it's as queer as you hinted at. When I saw you up there they all thought that yarn about a jewel robbery was a bluff. I knew well enough it wasn't. I don't know what story you told, finally, but I'll bet it wasn't the right one. So when they bounced me, I hung around to see what you'd do. Murder was the last thing I expected. And even now, if you've lost seven millions worth of dia monds, more or less, I fail to see how it is worth your while to jump this cabby just to get back one gold locket set with rhinestones. To the casual debu tante, it doesn't seem to be worth the risk. Hence, this request. Put me onto the story. At present I'm out on another assignment, but I may be able to work 'em both. What are you afraid of? If you want honestly to get your fortune back, I may be able to help you. If you know anything, you know that a good reporter can beat any detective in the 102 F?ND THE WOMAN central office. And I'm the star of the "Morning Item." "The fact is," said Fenton, "I've given my word of honor not to tell." "Ah," said the reporter, "compounding a felony? All right, then, I'll tell you what I'll do. One last proposition; going, going, gone! I've got to hang round Eldridge Street to catch a girl who ought to be due there pretty soon, according to my tip. My paper wants her, and also I have some important news to give her — I've got to break a sad tale. We reporters get queer jobs. Now if you'll come along with me decent, while I wait for her, I'll stake you to a cab afterward, and you can get up town for your pants. Meanwhile, I keep this locket as an evi dence of good faith. It's your bail, till I get ready to go after you professionally. That's the best I can do. While we wait, I'll enliven the vigil by as pretty a little tale of middle-class life as you ever heard in the papers." Fenton reluctantly consented. He was not anxious to become conspicuous by attacking the reporter, much as he wanted the locket — and Richmond's proposition seemed the easiest way of getting up town. They walked along Canal Street, therefore, I'm going to tell you why I need you THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM" 103 and turned into Eldredge Street. In the middle of the block Richmond turned Fenton up to a pair of tenement-house steps that commanded a view of both sidewalks. They sat down, perched a little above the dirty pavement where the submerged tenth traded, played or promenaded in front of them. Keeping his quick eye alert upon the passers-by, Richmond produced a roll of Havana cigarettes and, lighting one from the other, smoked them in a chain as he narrated his tale. THE MIDDLE-CLASS GIRL Take it from me, Old Top, the bromidic center of New York City is situated at the corner of Broad way and Ninetieth Street. That's where Mr. Mid dle Class lives ; call him a bromide, a philistine, or a man-in-the-street, he's bound to have his nine-room apartment and bath somewhere thereabouts. Mr. Average Man is a broker. He owns an eighteen hundred dollar motor car and hunts in the Adiron- dacks or up in Maine two weeks every fall. His wife is a good looking, middle-aged woman in black satin, with the gray spots in her hair modestly 104 FIND THE WOMAN touched up. She plays bridge and has a manicure- masseuse come in every Friday or so. There's one son who seldom leaves Broadway at night, and who is putting up margins during his lunch hour, and al ways getting stung. Such was the Baker menage — business and theaters and bridge and an occasional dance. But Miss Baker — Bessie Baker — was the lovely duckling in this family of male and female hens. At thirteen Bessie changed her name to Eliza beth, did up her hair, lengthened her skirts and began to open her eyes to the fact that she was hope lessly middle-class, and doomed to marry an insur ance agent if she didn't look sharp — thence to a small flat on a Hundred and twenty-sixth street, a baby and a gossiping life across the dumb waiter of the next apartment. Elizabeth had aspirations, and began to make plans for Bryn Mawr. She went through the high school (pa was strong for the public schools and no nonsense about swell semi nary life), and was just about to try for the en trance examinations when a flurry in P. D. & Q. put father Baker in a hole, and zip! the university edu cation was out of the game for poor Elizabeth. Did the old man care? Not so; he never took THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM/' 105 much to the idea of making high-brow of Bessie. He thought it would spoil her chances for matri mony — you know the old idea. But the girl was really terribly cut up. Middle-class society was be ginning to get on her nerves. All she heard talked was bridge and business, theaters and teas, from morning till night. In her world romance was un known. Nobody ever eloped, nobody ever did any thing great or criminal. Girls grew up, had children and died without ever knowing an adventure. Men had mysterious vices — she knew of them as shame ful, sordid acts that could never attract her — but to her vision gents were always well dressed, gloved and caned, paying silly compliments, talking bosh and sending violets. What was over the other side of the wall which surrounded her? — that was what she wanted to know. She knew no millionaires and no paupers. Not even a suffragette. No friend of hers ever got into the papers. No girl had a secret she could not and did not babble to all her friends. In her world the fairyland of science was unknown, the charm of philosophy unheard of. Literature was confined to the fifteen-cent magazines and art to the thirty-five. And there was a great big world outside her door — a world brilliant with blood, bru- io6 FIND THE WOMAN tality, crime, poverty, suffering, private yachts, di vorces and luxury. She had never been south of Twenty-third Street. She had never seen the water except from Riverside Drive. Oh, for a man who could explain Nietzsche to her ! Oh, for a man who knew the difference between De Maupassant and Balzac! Can you tell why Mendel has superseded Darwin? No more could Bessie. What was Prag matism? Who were these new post-impressionists she read of in skimpy paragraphs in Scribner's? How could intelligent men and women perceive charm in Debussy's discords? Yes, she had been abroad with her mother and Baedeker — but they had to stay indoors every night in Paris. They had never seen an anarchist or a slum, or a tea-taster or a live poet. Now a girl who had something to do with the Delancy Street settlement house happened to meet Bessie at a toy tea one day, and when the two got together for four minutes Bessie's horizon moved north, south, east and west ten degrees. The lit tle middle class girl discovered that while she and her ilk wandered through the desert of culture far from both the upper and the lower strata of society, the prince and the pauper foregathered at wonderful THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM." 107 houses in the purlieus and communed with each other at close range. She heard of university exten sion courses, of celebrated men who lectured to shop girls, of artists who made music, of socialist million aires who married working girls — exhibitions of paintings and books and classes and clubs and politi cal economy and sometimes W. and Y. An^i Bessie dreamed a dream. How she made the break and got away I don't know. She didn't tell me, but from what I saw of her I knew that her will was stronger than the old man's — and her mother merely fainted away when Bessie packed her suit case. Was it the socialist millionaire story which reconciled them, finally ? All I know is that Bessie Baker moved down to Riving- ton Street and got a job rolling cigars in a little to bacco factory at six dollars a week. She roomed with two Jew girls, over a delicatessen shop and spent every night making hay with the social ad vantages presented by the Delancy Street Social Set tlement. Nobody knew that she wasn't a poor girl, and so she was allowed to mix with millionaires and philosophers and high society ladies and visiting "Who's- Whos" to her heart's content. Perhaps you think I'm exaggerating; but if I io8 FIND THE WOMAN could describe one week of her new existence you'd see how much fussier her life was on the east side than in Philistia. There were automobile rides to the residences of wealthy patrons on Long Island. There were boxes at the opera for the sweat-shop girls ; they were even taken to the horse show. That first week Bessie met Paderewski ; she held the basin when he dipped his $25,000 hands into warm water before doing his stunt, and her eyes were within four feet of his facile fingers when he played his own minuet! Henry James? When he called and gave a talk on the "Metaphysics of Rhetoric" she almost ate him alive ! She was one of thirteen wom en wage workers who dined with the Prince of Bul garia, then studying American Sociology; and she got to know the Swami Gecchachavanda so well he told her his real name ! Say, you ought to have seen Bessie dancing with President Roosevelt at a shirt waist ball! And meanwhile she was learning to speak in double negatives and rubbing burnt matches into her finger nails for local color, building out her pompadour and wearing brass rings so as not to be caught as a middle-class impostor in that ineffable mixture of extremes. Nobody ever suspected that she worked because she liked it. By means of a few THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM." 109 choice solecisms she had butted into the most exclu sive circles of brains and fashion and wealth. She was clever, all right. I'm for Bessie, strong ! Meanwhile she was working, and working plenty. She made cigars so much faster than the Yiddish girls in the factory that she got into trouble and the foreman had to rescue her. For the first time in her life she saw a man knocked down — the foreman did it to a chap who called her a scab — and then she realized that her blood was as red as a squaw's. The foreman took a fancy to her after that, and used to sit on the steps of the tenement where she lived and talk to her till midnight. He was a Rus sian, and had been in the fighting organization of the Revolutionists all through the campaign of '05. He explained the theory of the Terror, he told of shooting behind barricades, of the manufacture of bombs, of plots, conspiracies, heroes and martyrs of fifteen, spies and assassinations and gore till she gripped his wrist and gasped for breath. He had killed men — he had seen men hanged, he had worked in the Siberian mines, and had had five es capes from prison. Life was opening up big for poor little Elizabeth of West Ninetieth Street. Meanwhile she rolled stogies by day, and by night no FIND THE WOMAN she put on a hand-washed shirtwaist and did high society at the settlement. Celebrities came and went, lectures and musicales exemplified to her all that was finest and best in modern culture. Just watch Elizabeth, the president of a club of eighty women who did things! They fought for a public play ground and got it, they shut up thirteen saloons, they established a self-supporting day nursery, they gave a fair and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Billion was on the same committee as Elizabeth Baker. Didn't this beat life as lived at the corner of Ninetieth and Broadway? Elizabeth drank the intellectual life to the dregs — and listened spellbound to the foreman's prophecies of the great Social Revolution. Then, just like in the yellow papers, came the Millionaire Socialist. He lectured, he spent his money on Braun photographs, Barye lions and trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he started equality leagues and co-operative consumers' fed erations, he contributed to the Settlement Magazine, fraternized with the working class — and, at last he met Bessie Baker. Fate rang the bell — her time had come! When Mrs. Baker, up at Ninetieth Street, anxiously waiting for news from the front, heard of it she was measured for a new forty dollar tailor- THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM." in made corset and an acreage hat, and .began to make a study how the mother-in-law of a millionaire ought to eat asparagus. She cut a few old outworn friends and began to study restaurant French. She at last realized that Bessie had made good. The socialist millionaire was a rather effeminate youth who wore soft collars and black Windsor ties, glib spoken and so frightfully anxious to be a work ing man that he laid bricks in overalls on his coun try place. The wall had to be pulled down and rebuilt, but Tolstoi's precepts had been obeyed. From the moment he set eyes on Elizabeth Baker, any woman could have seen what was coming. He haunted her, discussed propaganda, the materialistic conception of history, the child-labor law and the adulteration of milk. He made love, sterilized with philosophy, and for a month or so they engineered a precarious courtship, in the committee rooms of the Settlement House, in the subway and in chilly art galleries. And then he proposed. I'd like to have heard it. The man was dead in earnest — he was quite fond of Bessie, but marriage was mainly an opportunity for co-operatively managing a higher life for the welfare of the race. He believed in eugenics. 112 FIND THE WOMAN .Well, Bessie had about forgotten her high-school English by this time. She made a wild effort to atavize back to the idiom of Ninetieth Street, but her fascinating life in a cigar shop had accustomed her to the speech of those who really live. She was actually human at last. "I'm sorry, Mr. Seymour," she said. "It's tough on you to throw you down, but when I marry my husband he's got to be something more than a mere theory. I've seen all kinds, now — rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief — and I know what's good. Me and the fore man Petrovsky's going to hitch up and have a cigar factory of our own, after Christmas. Take it from me, he's the only white man in the world !" The reporter rose, yawned, and pulled out his watch. "Ten fifteen. Yes, fate moves in a mys terious way her wonders to perform, et cetera, et cetera. It just shows that water will reach its own level. Elizabeth Petrovsky is going to be the Joan of Arc of the Labor Movement. No, Mrs. Baker didn't show up at the wedding — I hear the family has moved to Philadelphia to live down the disgrace. But you ought to have seen Bessie, the pride of the " By Jove ! I believe that's her now," he whispered THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM." 113 Ghetto — in cotton lace and silkolene, as happy as a queen, last night. It was she gave me the tip about this Belle Charmion affair." "Belle Charmion?" Fenton was on his feet at a bound. "Would you mind telling me who the devil Belle Charmion is? I've been hearing about her all the evening." "You have?" It was the reporter, now, who was eager. "What have you heard about her?" There was little enough for Fenton to tell, except that the name had come to him, repeated time after time, often enough to arouse his curiosity. He men tioned the fortune teller's prediction, the chauffeur's story and the magazine mention he had found. The reporter was disappointed. "I thought I told you she was the girl I was trail ing," he explained. "There's a big story broken to night, and she's wanted, bad." "But what is Belle Charmion doing down in this part of town?" Fenton asked puzzled. "Oh, she's got the sociological bug or something, too. Why, it was Miss Charmion told Elizabeth Baker about How the Other Half Lives and all that. I knew she was interested in settlements and so on, and so I hiked down here, and chased up the Social ii4 FIND THE WOMAN Uplifters. I got a tip that she was living along here somewhere under an assumed name, and gets home about half past ten. That's why I wanted to wait. If she doesn't show up by eleven you can have my best breeches." He suddenly darted back into the doorway, pulling Fenton with him. "By Jove, I believe that's her, now !" he whispered. Fenton saw a young lady approaching, walking briskly toward them. She was quietly clad in gray, and neither her carriage nor her costume were those of a working girl. There was a street lamp in front of the entrance to the tenement house, and as she approached it she was more and more clearly illu minated. Something about her face struck him clearly — as if he half recognized it — then, just be fore the shadow of the lamp blotted it out, his heart suddenly stopped beating. It was the girl of the photograph — it was the girl of his dream — it was the girl with the level eyebrows, the whimsical smile — " It is Miss Charmion, by jimminy!" the reporter exclaimed, and he advanced toward her. The girl appeared to catch the words, for she turned with a quick glance at the two young men. Her eyes fell upon Fenton, and rested there for a THE REPORTER OF "THE ITEM." 115 moment, with an expression of surprised interest. Her glance met his, and in that instant a flash almost of recognition seemed to pass between them. Then Richmond approached and accosted her. She an swered without stopping, and, still speaking to her, he walked along by her side. In another minute the two, conversing with animation, Miss Charmion showing eager interest, had turned the corner and were gone. VI THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA HOW JOHN FENTON ENCOUNTERED A FRIENDLY GEN TLEMAN AND WAS GIVEN THE POSSESSION OF HIS HOME AND OF THE LADY WHO AP PEARED THERE IN TEARS THERE he was, therefore, alone, without a cent in his pockets, without a hat, without any thing to pawn for his fare up town — in dirty brown overalls. He had not even the locket to gain which he had taken so desperate a risk. But worse, far worse than all that, he had lost his only chance of finding the girl whose picture had for four months exercised so potent an effect upon his heart. He knew, now, from that one glance at her face that he was in love with her. All that he had read into her features, during his lonely hours of com munion with the portrait, he had seen, living and charming and piquant and kissable, as she paused under the lamp. And now she was gone again into the night, into the mystery. . . . Their paths had crossed once — would they cross again ? When ? 116 THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 117 He wandered along with this thought, up to the Bowery, where at the curb beside a taxicab he saw a large well-dressed man in a shaggy overcoat and silk hat lighting a cigar. Instantly Fenton awoke to his mission, and the necessity for getting up town. The octoroon and the care-taker should be notified as soon as possible of the loss of the diamonds. He walked up and touched the gentleman's arm just as he was about to enter the cab. Before Fen- ton could speak the man threw him an angry look. "See here," said Fenton, "I'm not a beggar. I've just had an accident, that's all, and I want to get up town. I haven't a cent on me." The man looked him up and down, through his eye-glasses, then began to laugh. "Well," he said, "that's a new story on me. What's the little game ?" "As I said," Fenton insisted, "I've got to get up to Harlem, where I can get some money and a hat and a pair of trousers. Will you give me a lift or not?" Again the gentleman looked him over, pulling his long black mustache the while. His face was hand some and genial, a type of the affable, experienced man about town. Finally he laughed and said: "Well, I'll take a chance. I'm only going up as far n8 FIND THE WOMAN as the Plaza, but you can come along if you want to. Jump in." They entered the cab and it started off up town. The stranger still eyed Fenton interestedly. "Bun coed ?" he asked finally. By this time Fenton had learned discretion. "Oh, no — a rather poor practical joke, that's all. A lot of my fool friends got me drunk. My wedding day, you know. That's why I'm in a joyous hurry." The explanation went as it had gone before, and again the stranger laughed. "Oh, if that's the case," he said, "I guess I can fix you up. Come up to my place and I'll give you a hat and a pair of trousers, anyway. Make it a whole suit, if you like. That coat of yours is hardly fit for a marriage ceremony." Fenton played his part, thanked the man effu sively, and the trip was made up town with consid erable friendly conversation. The man's name, he learned, was Sproule. He was married, but his wife was out of town and not expected home till to-morrow. Sproule had just finished up a big busi ness deal, and was off for a three months' trip on another as soon as he could pack his grip at the Plaza and get away. He had an easy good nature, a facile manner, and had evidently seen much of the THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 119 world. But, in spite of his jokes and glib stories, Fenton noticed that Mr. Sproule had something serious on his mind. Was it his intended trip to South America on business ? Why, then, should he keep such a sharp lookout to right and left, as the cab drove rapidly up Fifth Avenue? Once, when the cab was forced to 'Stop because of a block near Thirty-fourth Street, Sproule grew visibly nervous, and cursed under his breath. At the Plaza Hotel he jumped out, gave a quick look around, told the chauffeur to wait, and mo tioned to Fenton to follow. As he entered the ele vator Fenton caught in the tail of his eye a man coming into the hotel — where had he seen him before? As the elevator stopped at the tenth floor he placed him — the man in the shepherd's plaid suit he had noticed at Scheffel Hall ! It was queer. On the Fifth Avenue side Sproule opened a door with a key he took from his pocket. Fenton entered with him. They found themselves in the private hall of the suite, already lighted, and Sproule led the way to a small bedroom, opened a closet and took out a suit of gray tweeds and a derby hat. "Here you are," he said. "Get into these, and 120 FIND THE WOMAN you can return them when you have time. No hurry about it. They belong to my man, and I think they'll fit you well enough. Not much of a wedding suit, but I guess the blushing bride won't care. Now, excuse me a minute; that confounded telephone bell's ringing." He left Fenton and walked to the end of the hall, and into a parlor. Here his voice could be heard speaking, though the words could not be distin guished. Fenton began to take off his overalls, looking about the room with curiosity. It seemed to have been used by Sproule's valet. A few flashy pictures had been pinned to the walls, photo graphs of race horses, actresses and flying machines were stuck about the mirror. Fenton, getting into the tweed trousers, walked to the glass. Upon the dresser was a business card reading "Nailery Mining and Investment Company, St. Paul Building, New York." He was half dressed when Sproule came in, look ing anxious. "See here," he said, "I've had an important call, and I've got to get down town in a hurry. D'you mind if I leave you here? You can just shut the door when you're dressed. I guess I can trust you." THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 121 Fenton stared at him in amazement. "What! Leave me here all alone in your apartment — a stranger ?" "Sure !" said Sproule. "You're all right. I know faces pretty well, and I'll take a chance that you're honest. Anyway, I got to go right away." "I can be ready in a minute," said Fenton. "I can't wait a minute. It'll be all right. Good by!" And cramming on his top hat and lighting a cigar, Sproule waved his hand and disappeared. Fenton, left alone, stood for a while in wonder, then slowly finished dressing, and finally looked about. As he had entered the private hall the suite showed by its furnishings evidences of wealth, luxury, taste. How could the proprietor trust him there alone ? It was too much for him. At any rate, he would leave as soon as possible, before anything happened. Per haps it was some clever trick — to accuse him of theft — or worse. It looked bad. . . . He had just opened the door of the chamber to make his exit, when he heard a key turn in the door to the corridor. Instantly he drew back, almost closed the door, and listened. Somebody came in. Then he heard sobbing — a woman's heart-broken 122 FIND THE WOMAN voice. She passed into the parlor, at the end of the hall; the electric lights were turned on. The weep ing kept on continuously, now rising in hysterical bursts of agony, now falling into low convulsive sobs. What was he to do? Leave silently, unper- ceived ? But he might be caught in the act. For a while he hesitated, then he sat down on a chair to think. Suddenly he sprang up ; steps were coming down the hall — he heard the clack of heels upon the par quetry. Then, before he could think what to do, his door was slowly opened and a woman came in, still weeping, caught sight of him, and stood still, star ing, her lips parted, her blue eyes dewy with tears. She was a lady of some thirty years, tall and beautiful — blond, with masses of fluffy yellow hair under an enormous white beaver hat, picturesque with white plumes. Her mouth was curved in a tremulous bow, and little white teeth sparkled de- liciously. As she stood there, framed in the opening of the door, all in white broadcloth, touched at the neck and wrists with white fur, she looked like some sudden delightful apparition come to haunt him. But great as was his surprise, hers was evidently greater — forbidding, for a moment, her speech. She THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 123 stood with a smallish black leather case in her hand, looking at him. "I beg your pardon," Fenton began, in embarrass ment, "but Mr. Sproule left me here to put on these clothes he lent me." "Who?" she stammered. "Why, Mr. Sproule — your husband, I presume — is he not?" "My name is Mrs. Elkhurst — I don't see what you're doing here — I don't understand." And she backed into the hall, still staring as if frightened of him. "He said he lived here. A large gentleman with a black mustache and a red face — he wore glasses—" "Oh !" She gave a little cry and covered her face with her hands. The package she had been holding dropped to the floor. • "He lent me this suit — as by an accident I had — injured mine." She was sobbing again. "He said his wife wouldn't be back till to-mor row." "Where has he gone?" she demanded, turning to him, her face suddenly set, hard and stern. 124 FIND THE WOMAN "He was called away on urgent business. He had a telephone call. I don't know from whom." Without replying, the lady turned, ran into an adjoining chamber, and Fenton could hear her pull ing open drawers, opening and shutting doors, searching here and there. He waited a few minutes, uncertain what to do, when, looking down, he saw on the floor the package she had dropped. The case had opened, and half in and half out of it lay a string of brilliant red stones shining' like hot coals of fire. He bent down and was picking up the neck lace when she burst out of the room. Disregarding Fenton, she walked unsteadily to the end of the hall and into the parlor. He followed her, awkwardly enough, the necklace dangling from his hand, to find her with her head on her arms, sitting at a boule secretary. Fenton approached her with misgivings. "Here's something you dropped," he said, and placed the jewels upon the table. Then, distressed at her emotion, he added : "Can't you tell me what the matter is? Of course I am a stranger to you, but Fate seems to have led me here, and perhaps it was that I might help you. I wish I might do some thing — if you could trust me." THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 125 She threw up her head and dashed away the tears, then looked at him with her brows knitted. Fenton saw that she held, crushed between her fingers, a letter. "Who are you?" she asked. For a moment Fenton hesitated. At first his im pulse was to confide in her, but the events of the night had made him cautious. He told her, there fore, only his name and business, and of his meeting with Sproule on the Bowery. The mention of the man renewed her distress. She rose, walked up and down a moment, then returned to him as if decided upon something. "It is good of you to offer to help me," she said, "but I am afraid my trouble is past mending. You look kind and honest. I believe that you have told me the truth. You must believe the same of me, for I am going to tell you my story. You will see that I have good enough cause for tears." She took the ruby necklace and sat down on a huge couch. As she told her story she fingered the jewels nervously, pausing to control herself from time to time as her emotions swept over her like a storm. 126 FIND THE WOMAN THE TWENTY-SEVEN DROPS OF BLOOD We have to pay for everything, in this world, everything. Even when we think we've paid, there's more, and still more. I thought I had paid for this necklace, paid in blood and tears ; but I've had to pay again and again. And still it isn't paid for. I wonder when it will be over and the score crossed off! You have heard of kleptomania? No doubt you've often smiled and thought it a polite name for common theft. It isn't ! Oh, believe me it isn't. It isn't a mere habit, either — it's a disease ; it's one of the hardest things in the world to cure. Ask any alienist. All the same, I have cured myself. But, God ! what a fight ; night and day, day and night for years — before I won. It cost me years of struggle; my sufferings have been indescribable, but I per sisted against all kinds of temptation. But even then I knew I would never have won but for my love for a man. And now — but let me begin at the beginning. I want you to understand. My family is one of the best known and most highly respected in Philadelphia. I have had every thing — youth, beauty, wealth, education, social po- THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 127 sition. You wouldn't think it possible for such a girl to go wrong, would you? And yet, somehow, it is usually just such persons who have this disease. Why is it? I don't know — some subtle perversity in human nature, some complex reaction to environ ment — well, it doesn't matter. Psychologists seem to know little about this abnormal condition. I've talked to all the authorities on nervous disorders. Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Prince — everybody of any fame. I've tried Moll and the English authorities, the Salpetriere people in Paris — hypnotists, even The- osophists and Christian Scientists. They simply don't know anything about it. My own theory is that it's a form of dissociated personality — a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde duality struggling in one for the mastery. Perhaps it's a form of insanity. I don't know. Nobody knows. It's a curious thing, kleptomania. Oh, it's inter esting enough to one outside of it ! I can talk about it, now. One of its peculiar features is that one becomes so extraordinarily sly — there seems to be a sympathetic intellectual stimulus that sharpens one's faculties wonderfully. One's mind has, while one has the obsession, a touch of genius. It is like de generacy — we can scarcely tell cause from effect, 128 FIND THE WOMAN There's a "vicious circle" — one can't tell whether mental keenness produces the desire to steal, or the desire to steal educates one's wits. The point is, one becomes clever at it. I know now, positively, how great criminals think — how they plot and contrive — how they stake their brains against law and order. I know how they develop, how they progress. Their first, amateurish schemes are intricate and complicated. It isn't till later in life that they achieve the more daringly simple crimes which succeed by their very audacity. Have you read Poe's "Purloined Letter" ? You know — the man who hid a valuable letter in plain sight ? That's the sort of acumen we have, the best of us — those who have developed a special sense for it, a craft, a refined cunning. You hear of the arrest of ordinary shoplifters every day, but my kind is seldom caught. They can't be detected. They are inspired by something too sapient, shrewd, acute. Well, the first time — let's see ... I was about eighteen. I was visiting an old school friend in the South. She had a Scotch cairngorm, one of those common brooches with colored stones you can buy in any shop in Edinburgh for ten shillings. Some how it attracted my fancy. You see, it seems to be THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 129 characteristic of our mania to be fascinated by ob jects without regard to their intrinsic value. I've stolen things I'd never think of using — burnt matches, old newspapers, tooth brushes, even. When the fatal impulse conies, one has to steal, that's all. I've risked my reputation for a birch- bark napkin ring! That's the way we are. The cairngorm lay on Ethel's dressing table. She and I were in the room, with a colored maid. When neither was looking I took the brooch and hid it in my dress ; I waited till the maid had gone, and then I asked for it. The maid was accused, and, when she denied all knowledge of it, poor girl, was dis missed. She had been with the family all her life. Wasn't it awful? But it was curious how little it affected me. There's some sort of moral opium it distills. One doesn't care what wretchedness or in justice one inflicts. Oh, it's hideous ! So it went on, year after year, the stealing. Some times in shops, sometimes in the houses of my friends, in public buildings — anywhere the fit seized me. I took everything my mania fancied. Often I threw the things away as soon as I had secured them. Sometimes I replaced them. You have no idea what queer vagaries one has, how one will 130 FIND THE WOMAN wait for days, weeks, for a chance to act. The ob session is, for the time being, the most important thing in one's life. But there's one thing you must understand, and believe. It was only one particular detail that was wrong with my moral sense, not a general perver sion. It's like paranoia ; it seems to have nothing to do with other parts of one's morality. One can be kind, pure, temperate, unselfish in everything else — in everything that doesn't bear on this special act. You're a man, and you must perceive how such a thing can be. Haven't you known dissipated men who are generous and loyal? If a man is selfish, he's usually bad all over, but if he is a drunkard, he can still be affectionate. So, I hope you won't think of me then as wholly vile. I stole in this freakish way because I was irresistibly impelled to; but otherwise I think I was as good as any woman could be. Indeed, knowing my fault, I tried the harder to make my life better in other ways. Have you ever heard that sometimes, when a man's shot, they don't remove the bullet? If it lodges in a part where there's no danger or incon venience, they let it stay, and a cyst is formed around it so that it is completely surrounded and it THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 131 can't poison the system. Well, this thing seemed like that, with me. It seemed to be apart from my normal moral sense. But a moral sore can't really heal like that, I suppose. It's always malignant. It has to be cut out, or it grows. Well, this trait did grow. I took more and more. I became more cunning. I have never been caught or even suspected to this day. I grew bolder with every success; bolder, but never reckless. Every move was thought out like a game of chess. Then came the necklace affair. That was the climax. A year ago I was in Paris with my mother. We had many acquaintances in the best circles, in the Sorbonne, in the Academy, in the Deputies, in the old noblesse of the Faubourg Saint Germain. One of my best friends was the Contessa da Scarpi, a Roman lady of an old Italian family. She had a little necklace of rubies. . . . Here it is. Pretty, isn't it? Yet I always think of it as twenty-seven drops of blood. That necklace I had to have! I knew I should try for it, knew I should get it, knew I should not be discovered in the theft. I did succeed. Here it is! Have you examined it? The stones are small, but flawless. It is exquisitely designed — seven- 132 FIND THE WOMAN teenth century workmanship; it is worth, I should say, about forty thousand dollars. But I have never worn it, scarcely even looked at it, since I got it. All my pleasure was in the winning of it. It cost me nothing, I thought. Nothing? God! The cost was terrific ! Listen : Because of my theft two sisters became estranged. An ambitious and talented young naval lieutenant shot himself. Oh, he was so handsome, so splendid ! A half dozen family servants lost their places and could never find other employment. All this I knew, but I didn't care. Can you imagine it? I didn't care! It was as if I were drugged. All I thought was, "The necklace is mine !" You must loathe me, now, but you must hear me out. I want you to know to what degradation I had fallen — how lost I was, how hopeless, how pitiful. I want you to see what I had to climb out of. I got out of the country with it — all sorts of re wards were offered for it, numberless detectives put on the search — and I sailed for home. When I passed through the custom-house I hid it in my hair. You should have seen me look that young inspector in the eye ! I had a sort of insolence, I was so sure of myself. I'm sure all great criminals must feel THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 133 that sense of power. It's wonderful, exhilarating! It's like the courage of a brave soldier under fire. Nothing could possibly harm me, I was sure. It was as if I dealt in potent magic. So I got home with my mother. Poor mother ! — if she only knew ! Strange, one can never tell the most important things in our lives to one's best friends! One lies only to those one loves. . . . Then, I met a man — the man of all the world for me — the only human being who could ever change me. Love has a strange alchemy one can't explain. Why try to explain it? One is attracted, or one is repelled in spite of one's self. Schopenhauer calls it the Spirit of the Race, seeking reincarnation. . . . I prefer the poetic interpretation . . . "for me, Romance!" . . . never mind! . . . Anyway, I fell in love immediately, desperately. Love is a ter rible thing ... it took hold of me. . . . To me Herbert was perfect — all that was best and finest of manhood. I thought of him almost as one thinks of the great heroes of history — Wash ington, Goethe, Alexander — he was my Bonnie Prince Charlie ; my king could do no wrong. And so, as soon as I found my heart was gone, I got my first real sight of my mania — I saw the horrible 134 FIND THE WOMAN thing it had become. I felt as if I were a leper. If he had found me out I would have died of shame. And later, when I saw that he actually loved me, . . . it was wonderful! . . . I spent night after night weeping at the impossibility of my ever mar rying him. For to me he was as spotlessly pure and honorable as a god; and I was unworthy to be his wife. So when he proposed, I refused him. When he wanted to know my reason I couldn't tell. Then he began to make love to me so ardently that I was alternately delirious with joy and tortured with hor rible remorse. It was unbearable. One night he swept me off my feet and I accepted him. Oh, in my heart, I promised myself, at the same time, that I would never marry him till I had cast out the devil that was possessing me. It seemed so easy at the time ! His strength seemed to make me strong. I felt that the inspiration of his love and trust would exalt my will. Wait! — can you imagine a young man who has sown his wild oats, converted, and taking holy orders, and feeling sure that nothing could ever tempt him again? That was how I felt. I thought that my love would change my whole character in a single day. Things aren't so easy as that, in this world. We have to THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 135 pay, always we have to pay ! We have to pay again and again ! I suppose you have never taken morphine, or opium, or cocaine ? I hope not. But you must have heard what a fight it is, how terribly difficult it is to stop the habit. It isn't impossible, though. Why! one time I took cocaine steadily, every day, for two months — I just had to see if my will was diseased, too, if I had any strength at all left in me. Pshaw! I stopped in a day. I laughed at it. It was nothing. But this thing was different. It had grown like a monster in me — I was so in its power that, to keep my fingers from anything I craved — well, can you refrain from drinking when you're thirsty? It was like that — worse, a thousand times worse ! I fought it night and day, though. I was determined to win — for his sake. I fought it as one fights a terrible nightmare. For a long time I made no headway. I stole things even while I was with him! Can you imagine anything more horrible? Remember how I loved him. It was damnable. . . . Then, one day, I was nearly caught. I had slipped a red morocco-bound book into my muff, at a house where I was calling for the first time. I dropped my muff — by a queer chance it fell on end, 136 FIND THE WOMAN and stood on the floor, curiously upright. He bent down to pick it up for me — I was just a second too quick for him. How my heart beat! He would certainly have seen the book — I couldn't have ex plained it, possibly. It would have ended every thing. So I redoubled my efforts to cure myself by sheer will. I went scarcely anywhere, and never alone. I had pockets put in my coat, and kept my hands in them. I schooled myself to think every minute, to be on my guard incessantly. Well, I improved rapidly after that. When I had taken nothing for six months I set the day tor the wedding. That was a happy time. . . . My only bugbear was the necklace. You've been wondering why I had not already returned it? It was impos sible. Even had I been able to go abroad I knew of no safe way of returning it. Had I sent it, it would surely have been traced. Think it over (as I did through many a sleepless night) and you'll see huw difficult it would have been. There were the cus toms again — the post-office authorities to suspect and examine any package — the express company's invoice — there was the danger of theft. But the Scarpis were traveling in the Far East; I didn't THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 137 even know their address. The only thing I could do was to wait for my chance. I had no one to trust, no one I dared tell. After we were married I kept the necklace hidden in a secret compartment of my jewel chest. I dreamed of it, all through my honeymoon — the most delicious honeymoon any bride ever spent — except for that. That was six months ago . . . now it seems six years. Ah, well ! . . . When I first met Her bert I thought he was a broker. Every one thinks that now — except those few that know. But after I was married he confessed to me that he was a de tective. He told me he was employed by several big corporations at a large salary to work on espe cially difficult or delicate cases. His value depended upon people not knowing his real occupation. Pass ing as a broker, he could go into the best society and no one suspected him. It was a shock to me at first, but I got used to it. Now that I had recovered from my mania, my spir its went up sky high. It was like getting my youth back again. I was like a young girl. How Herbert used to laugh at my spirits! I was free, now, to love him freely, as wildly as I wished. I let myself 138 FIND THE WOMAN go. No woman was ever so proud of her husband. And I was proud of myself, too. Why shouldn't I be? I had conquered as desperate an evil as any woman ever fought. But — there was still the neck lace — twenty-seven drops of blood. ... A de tective is a dangerous person to attempt to hide a thing from. I was mortally afraid he would dis cover my secret. We went everywhere — I had a wide acquaintance — Baltimore, Washington, New York. Herbert went with me. He seemed to like the dinners, the musicales, dances, teas, bridge parties. I was proud of him. Everybody liked him. He was a social success. He never refused an invitation unless his duties called him away. Sometimes he had to be absent for a week or so at a time; and, of course, owing to the nature of his profession he could tell me nothing of his affairs. Occasionally he was un expectedly out all night. Except for these ab sences — and the necklace — I was gloriously happy. Herbert was still a lover more than a husband. He gave me presents often. A week ago an old Vassar friend of mine came to me with such a pathetic story ! It's her private af fair, and I can't tell it to you. It doesn't matter. THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 139 anyway, except that, for a particular reason, she was most anxious to make an impression at a dance in New Haven. Her whole future was at stake. She was awfully hard up — she had nothing — and asked me to help her. So I lent her a gown, gloves, and a few things like that. She was so pathetically grateful and happy that, just before she left, I thought of the necklace, and, carried away by my sympathy, I offered it to her for the dance. At first she didn't want the responsibility of it; she refused; but I could see that she was crazy to wear it. It was the finishing touch to her costume. So I in sisted and she took it away. I was glad, after all. The necklace had caused so much suffering that it seemed to me it was right to use it, for once, to make some one happy. Last night, when my husband came home, I felt something was wrong. You know a woman gets things — I didn't feel "right" near him — I can't ex press it in any other way. There was some con straint about him I had never felt before. I simply "got" something near him, and it made me fear fully nervous, depressed. But outwardly he was the same as ever, and my first impression wore off a little. Then, when he said he had a present for me 140 FIND THE WOMAN I was all rieftt again, and hated myself for thinking anything sinister. The reaction carried me into high spirits ; I loved him more than ever ; I thought him the purest and the best. Oh, how I tried to make up for my momentary injustice! A present! He had such an adorable way of presenting things — it made them vastly more valuable. I buzzed round him like a humming-bird in my delight. He took a package out of his pocket and handed it to me, after I had paid him in kisses. I was as happily impatient as a child. I snapped the string, laughing, tore off the paper, opened the little leather case . . . this necklace was inside! . . . my necklace, which I had lent my friend a few days before . . . twenty-seven drops of blood ! I suppose I must have thanked him, somehow. I may have kissed him again, with that horrible thing in my hand. Women are strange creatures. , . . The most ignorant woman can become a great ac tress, under the stress of emotion. . . . The ages have taught us to defend ourselves . . . some ma ternal instinct inspires us. . . . But what I did, or what I said, I don't know. It seems so long ago — and it was only last night! I think he suspected nothing. I remember that I THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 141 pleaded a headache, and got off to my room, some how, locked the door, and went to bed. He knocked later and said "Good night, girlie!" It comes back to me now, but at the time I hardly realized it. The ruby necklace! My brain whirled with it! It was the most horrible night I had ever spent. What did it mean ? Oh, I went over and over it till I thought I should go mad. Had he discovered my secret? Had he had a similar necklace made? I thought of every explanation except the right one. This morning I found I couldn't stand it unless I learned the truth immediately. When he left I told him I was going to visit a friend in Pough- keepsie over night. He said he might be gone him self when I returned. We parted as we had never parted before — something horrible was between us — I thought at the time that he felt it too. Now I know he did. I took the first train to New Haven. On th^ way there a fearful thought came to me. You know I told you we used to visit together ? Well, I recalled that soon after my marriage we spent a week-end with some friends in Wilmington. A few days afterward burglars entered the house and stole con siderable jewelry and silverware, Nobody thought 142 FIND THE WOMAN anything of it till another house was robbed in Richmond, shortly after we had been there. Then they began to call me a hoodoo, and laugh at me. It was a good joke for a while, especially as it hap pened once or twice later. I thought of it only as a queer coincidence. Now, as I recalled the facts, the idea grew like wildfire — it burned me up ! I couldn't stand the suspense. It seemed as if I pushed the train all the way to New Haven. I found my little friend in tears. Oh, I suppose you have guessed what I never suspected. Her house had been robbed the day after the dance, and the necklace was gone. I was the wife of a burglar, or at least my husband was the associate of bur glars. The man for whom I had fought my fight, for whom I had won, the man whose love inspired me, was a criminal! You can imagine my situation. I had to comfort my friend, who was almost distracted at the loss of the necklace — and I had it in my purse all the time ! I had to tell her I was sure it would be found — I had to leave her with that burden on her conscience — knowing that she would probably work her fin gers off trying to make up the loss to me. How could I tell her the truth! What could I say! I THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 143 could only hope some time to arrange it so that the thing might seem to be recovered. I left her with a broken heart. Well, mine was breaking, too ! Then, on the way back to New York, I began to see things more plainly. My love pleaded for him. After all, was he much worse than I? He was a thief; but had not I been a thief myself for ten years ? I had fought for my own salvation and won. Couldn't I fight for his and win, also? My love came back in a great flood. I determined to save him. I almost rejoiced at the opportunity it would give me of showing how much I loved him. Wasn't it my duty — what a wife should do? The thought uplifted me. None the less, when I entered the door, here, and saw all the old, familiar sights, the place where I had been so happy, I couldn't help breaking down and crying. I thought it was all over for ever, the secrecy, the pain, the struggle, the danger. But I nerved myself, and determined to go on through with that, and worse, if necessary, for Herbert's sake. And, God willing, I would win him back as I had won myself. Well, you must have heard me crying. Do you know what stopped my tears, what was too deep, 144 FIND THE WOMAN oh, far too deep for tears? On my dressing table I found a note saying that he had left me for ever. John Fenton, confronted a second time that night with a woman's broken heart, knew not what to say. Mrs. Elkhurst arose deliberately, with a hard, set face, and replaced the ruby necklace in the case. Then she shrugged her shoulders and turned to him. "You understand, now, why I think of those stones as drops of blood! Well, what shall I do? That's the question. Of course, I can arrange to have the necklace found, to say it is, without pub licity, or else my friend's life will be ruined also. But what about my husband ?" "I can't think of him as a burglar," Fenton said. "It seems impossible. He was so good-natured, so refined. He had so much charm." "Oh, it was precisely that which made him use ful," said Mrs. Elkhurst. "Of course he did none of the actual work himself — he didn't have that kind of skill. I've been thinking it over, and I have come to the conclusion that he must have merely located the jewels or whatever they were after. Don't you see? That's why he was so willing to visit at my friends' houses. I can remember, now, THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 145 that he used sometimes to excuse himself, when we were all down-stairs, and run up for a handkerchief, or something like that for an excuse. He was look ing about. I have no doubt that he watched outside, too, while the house was being entered. " "Do you know any others of the gang?" Fenton asked. "I suspect only one, an Irishman. He came once or twice here to see Herbert, but my husband always managed to keep me away from him." "An Irishman?" Fenton immediately thought of Mangus O'Shea. "A rough, ugly-looking man, with little reddish eyes, and black, broken teeth. I think his name was Nailery." Fenton jumped up and ran back to the room where he had changed his clothes, returning with the business card he had seen on the valet's bureau. He handed it to Mrs. Elkhurst. "Do you know anything about that ?" he asked. She looked at it and knit her brows. "Look in the telephone book," she said finally, "and see what the number is. I think it's — let's see — a queer num ber — something like Wall nine, nine, nine, one. I've heard my husband call it up." 146 FIND THE WOMAN Fenton picked up the telephone directory and found it. "Wall nine, one, nine, one," he read. "Yes, I think that's it. And now I remember overhearing Herbert talking about some diamonds, once or twice." "Perhaps it is the headquarters of his gang. I believe it will pay investigating, at any rate." Fen- ton arose as if to go. "Investigating! What d'you mean?" said Mrs. Elkhurst. "Are you — you're not a detective ?" She grew pale. Fenton narrated the incidents that had made that night for him one long, extravagant adventure. The tale was so incredible that he was almost ashamed to tell it, but the lady's interest was keen and deep. When he came to the Mangus O'Shea part of his story she frowned and nodded. "Ah," she said when he had finished, "that settles it. I can see now what happened. Herbert and Nailery, or O'Shea, as you call him, have undoubtedly been on the track of the jewels, watching their chance. How they ever suspected the octoroon had them I can't see, but the rest is easy. Once having followed her, and seen you, they suspected that she had given them to you for safe keeping. I would eliminate the cross- THE SUITE AT THE PLAZA 147 eyed cabman entirely — he probably stumbled on to a part of the thing accidentally, and was only trying for blackmail. Still, the gang may have got hold of him, too. When they took you to the pigeon loft Herbert stayed outside on the watch, and perhaps he was given a few of the smaller stones to raise ready money upon at some pawn shop. It's the more likely, because of late my husband has been complaining of being hard up — I remember he said he had bought the ruby necklace on credit. At the time I was too excited to wonder at that. What can we do? If I can not reform my husband, I can at least try to prevent his crime from being success ful. It seems to me I must do that." "There is nothing you can do, that I see," said Fenton. "But as for me, I am determined to follow them up right away. I doubt if I can do anything against them, for the gang must be clever and des perate. But I can at least try. Now I am into this plot, I am going to do what I can. The first thing is to get hold of the octoroon and report." He took up the telephone and called up the King William Hotel. No Miss Green was registered there. That puzzled and worried him, but he got, after much talk with "Information," the number of 148 FIND THE WOMAN the Flint Flat at One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street, though there was no answer to the 'phone. He hung up the receiver in disgust. "Well," he said, "I must get down-town immedi ately. What shall you do ?" "I am going to my mother in Philadelphia, the first thing in the morning,", she said. "I am going to tell her everything. I hope it will not break her heart, but, oh, I am so lonely!" After Fenton had pressed her hand, bid her good- by and walked to the door, he turned back to look at her. She was sitting at the table with her head bowed in her hands, sobbing. VII THE CAXTON DINING ROOM HOW FENTON MET BELLE CHARMION A SECOND TIME, WAS ENTERTAINED BY TWO PROFESSIONAL BEAUTIES, BECAME A HERO, AND SE CURED HIS CARFARE JOHN FENTON did not forbear casting a glance at himself in the narrow mirror as he descended the elevator. The gray tweed suit fitted him miracu lously — and it bore the cut of a good tailor. The change of costume excited him deliciously — he felt ready, now, for a new adventure, ready to play a courageous part. He fingered the fine, soft wool with surreptitious delight. He set the brown derby hat at a careless angle on the back of his head. He flattered himself that he knew how to wear clothes, and was not averse to showing himself in this spotless, well-pressed costume in the lobby of the hotel. Mrs. Elkhurst's narrative had steadied him, but he was still young and full of the joy of life. The touch of vanity in him only gave him a trace of boyishness. 149 150 FIND THE WOMAN He plunged into the aromatic maze of feathers, silks and furs that thronged the lobby, with his head erect. He was as good as anybody. He wove jauntily in and out between the ladies and gentle men in evening dress that crowded the corridors, caught glimpses of merry diners, kindled to the strains of an orchestra, drinking in the atmosphere of wealth and pleasure. Then, round a corner came Belle Charmion! It was as sudden as that. She gave him a quick look and paused. He got as an impression of her, only two soft hazel eyes glancing humorously at him, and the smooth shad ows of black lynx furs. He came to a stop to gaze at her, and she suddenly turned. "I beg pardon," she said, "but aren't you — " Then she blushed vividly. "Oh, I beg your par don," she added hastily, "I thought you were — someone else." She cast down her eyes, confused, and walked hurriedly away. John Fenton turned and stared after her, his heart beating. What new mystery was this that brought his dream-girl to him, face to face ; that made her pause, speak, only to hasten away? For a moment he was inclined to start after her — but already she was lost in the crowd. He had, a second time, let his opportunity THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 151 slip away from him. Who was she? For whom had she taken him ? What had she wished to say ? Belle Charmion ! Too much excited by the encounter to enjoy the scene any longer, he went out the revolving door, and turned west at Fifty-ninth Street toward Col umbus Circle, making for the subway. He was half-way across Seventh Avenue before his mind, wandering from Belle Charmion for an instant, lit upon the subject of carfare. Eagerly he went through the pockets of the gray tweed suit. Not a dime, nickel or penny did he find. Nothing save a quill toothpick and a leaf from the wrapper of a Wheeling stogie! He had dallied too long at the Plaza; already the lady of the ruby necklace must have left for the train to Philadelphia. From Fifty-ninth Street to Wall Street is five hard, weary miles. To walk it would take an hour and a half, at least. If he could not think of some way to raise at least five cents his adventure would conclude in nothing more exciting than a midnight tramp to a lonely bed, there to vanish in misty dreams of what might have been. He turned down Seventh Avenue, therefore, his wits working at the problem, keeping his eyes open, 152 FIND THE WOMAN the while, for any possible answer to it which might casually approach him. But Seventh Avenue was almost free of wayfarers. A policeman re garded him with an icy eye. He passed a flushed youth saying good-by to a pretty girl with an eighty-five-dollar hat. He passed a small horde of waiting conductors and motormen at the car barns. In none of these did he find the answer to his rid dle. Past the blinking electric signs heralding the glad fact that "H. & L. Corsets make the Female Form Divine," past theaters just ready to belch forth their victims, John Fenton, betweeded and anxious, strolled. He was thinking, thinking. Not of Belle Charmion or Mrs. Elkhurst, now, not of the octoroon or the Liars, but of the one elusive nickel he needed for carfare to carry him further on this Arabian Night's Entertainment. He came to the Hotel Caxton and paused. Here he was at the center of New York's night life, the half-way station of gay rounders, one of the light houses of Longacre Square, one of the many pal aces of oysters, lobsters and champagne. Fenton was a sober enough youth — he knew this aspect of the metropolis mainly through the newspapers, but he was stimulated by feeling that he was now in the THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 153 locus of lively things. In a minute a rush of thea ter-goers was upon him and he was swept along. Hardly knowing why, he entered the Caxton and stood in the lobby to devise some plan. He won dered how confidence men worked their games. He knew that in this part of the city clever wits were as good as ready money. How could he work it? But there was little need for Fenton's solici tude. Fate had him in hand that night and there in the lobby of the hotel two lovely ladies had already marked him for their own. They might have posed as "Night and Day," so brilliantly were they contrasted. One was a spark ling brunette, black of hair and eye, red of cheek, vivacious, radiant, most gorgeously alive. The other was a super-blonde. Her hair, sportive in ringlets, charmingly careless, was shaded from gold to silver, her eyes were violets. She was the sunny- languorous type, passive, yet more compelling than she of the dark, darting eye. Fenton, at his first glance at her, knew that hundreds of men must have been inflamed by her beauty. In it there was little subtlety; it was a highwayman beauty, it cried: "Hands up!" The other, the brunette, was, however, something more than pretty — one looked 154 FIND THE WOMAN twice, and found something new to admire. Her attraction had depths one longed to penetrate. They stood, these two, attired in furs and feathers, silks and lace, waiting by the door of the dining-room and looked at him. Fenton felt some thing extraordinary in their glance — it was sus piciously friendly. When they smiled and nodded at him he felt uncomfortable; their beauty was something too dangerous, and he walked uneasily away. In a moment, however, a hall-boy overtook him. Fenton was informed that the two ladies wished to speak with him., So, amazed at the honor, and wondering what new trick was now to be turned, he walked over to them, and lifted the brown derby. The brunette's black eyes sparkled and she showed her pretty teeth as she held out a white-gloved hand. "Say, kid, you ain't going to cut an old friend, are you ? Don't do anything like that !" Fenton mumbled a kind of blurred apology. "Why, I believe you don't remember me!" she complained. The blonde's lip curled in a faint smile; she shrugged her fur-clad shoulders and looked away. "Where was it I saw you ?" said Fenton puzzled. THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 155 fishing for some hint that would give him his cue. The brunette laughed merrily. "The last time I see you, you was hanging to the ropes when Jack Ketchell was given the decision. No wonder you forgot me!" The blonde looked dreamily off to ward the theater office desk. She seemed to be in a world of her own. Fenton realized that the mistake was sincere. He had evidently been taken for some pugilist with whom the brunette had had a passing acquaintance. The question was, who was he? He searched his memory for the name of Jack Ketchell's unfor tunate opponent. No answer. The only knowledge Fenton had of current fistic events was derived from the smart talk of a precocious office boy at the drafting-room. Still, any port was good in a storm, and Fenton thought he might turn the mistake to his advantage in some way. Perhaps these two beauties would pilot him out of his straits. He grinned his best, therefore, and shifted his feet. "So you was at the fight?" he asked. Then it occurred to him that the part of pugilist needed more color. He emulated the tough office boy and his talk. "Say," he said, getting into the swing of it, 156 FIND THE WOMAN "say, was you wise to the fact that I fit them last t'ree rounds with a broke thumb? Look at there !" He held out his j-ight hand and wiggled the thumb trickily. The brunette felt of it daintily. "Wot you expect I could do with a pin like that?" he asked triumphantly. "I thought you was a little off your feed," the brunette said. "I was overtrained. Too fine," said Fenton. "Next time I'll get him, and I'll get him good!" Then, hoping to discover his name by the ruse, he added, "Say, give me a knock-down to your friend, Miss Peach-a-/a Melba." The blonde so designated turned her head, and seemed to approach slowly, from miles away. Her smile was but a shadow, as she looked at him, as if for the first time conscious of his presence. "Miss Diamond," said the brunette, "shake hands with Whack Harrison, ex-middle-weight champion of the U. S." She turned to Fenton. "Is that right, Whack?" Fenton was thus much relieved. He at least knew his name. How long he could maintain the impersonation was another matter. It was a par lous role. The blonde named Diamond extended THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 157 her fingers. Fen ton thought it not out of character to squeeze them with a nut-cracker grip. It might at least bring the yellow-haired girl to life. It did. "Gee!" she exclaimed, shaking her hand in pain, "you must think you're shaking with Kilgore before a fight. That ain't no way to shake hands with a lady !" She tossed up her head in scorn. "That's right," said Fenton, "but you see when I do make connections with a wonder-worker like you, it's hard work breaking away from the clinch. I guessed you hypnotized me for fair. I ain't used to gold queens, much. Sort of takes my breath away and I act foolish." The blonde could not help smiling, and the ice was broken. Fenton began to wonder what the brunette's name was, and how to find out, when Miss Diamond herself supplied the information. She elevated her golden eyebrows and said, "Say, Millie, how about the eats ? I'm all in !" "That's right," said the brunette. "Whack, we was just going in to dissect a lobster and do a little drown in the fizz. Won't you be among them pres ent?" Her black eyes tore through him. Fenton was conscious that every one in the hotel lobby was staring at them. "Sure thing," he said, 158 FIND THE WOMAN and then added, commandingly, "That is, if you eat on me." "Nothing like that in my family," said Millie gayly. "I just drew my alimony. I'm just padded with greenbacks." "None of that suffragette stuff!" said Fenton sternly, keenly conscious that he could not pay for a postage stamp. "Don't you get gay, boyo ! Don't you know I in vited you? Be good, now, and come on in!" "Well, we'll settle it later," said Fenton, and threw all responsibility to the winds, leading the way to a table. He threw out his chest and his el bows as he walked, strutting as nearly like the pic tures he had seen in "Puck" as he could do it. Oh, if he had only listened more carefully to that office boy! As they sat down, every one in the restaurant turned to look at the party. Was it on account of the miraculous blonde? She would have attracted attention in a herd of angels. Was it on account of the saucily pretty brunette, the dainty devil in petti coats, with her flashing eyes ? No. Fenton realized, with a sudden pang of alarm, that they had turned to stare at Whack Harrison, the ex-welter-weight THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 159 champion of America. The responsibility of his role almost overcame him. If he were to act the pugilist there might be deeds as well as words re quired. Who could tell what turn of the wheel might force him to make good with his fists? Such hero-worship as that with which the two ladies flat tered him might be a bit too dangerous. He had never had a real, out-and-out fight in his life ! Lo, he had swaggered into the hotel full of cheek and confidence ! Already the admiration he had so vicari ously received had made him three parts a coward. Would he have to make his exit in an ambulance ? "Say, Whack," said Millie, leaning to him confi dentially, "D'you know why I wanted to see you so bad? I'll put you wise. There's a fresh little crab out there in the lobby that's been getting too gay with us girls altogether. D'you mind going out there a minute and stroking him just one jab for luck?" Fenton's stomach flattened with fear. Miss Dia mond turned her violet eyes upon him. He could scarcely bear to look at her. "Hand him one for me, Mr. Harrison," she said dreamily, and smiled a bewitching smile. "I won't have no appetite till I know he's good and lame," 160 FIND THE WOMAN "Who is he ?" Fenton inquired, trying to keep his knees from knocking together. "That's him, now!" Millie pointed to a man standing in the narrow doorway. He had an evil face. Fenton estimated his weight at over two hun dred pounds. "It's Billy Presto, you know, Whack, — 'Lightning' O'Donnell's sparring partner. Lord, you can eat him up ! Don't be long !" and she sped him to his doom with a flashing smile. Fenton rose and walked out, trembling all over. His only coherent idea was to make a quick escape. The cloakroom boy had taken his hat, but he would forego that. He would escape out the side entrance. He had, indeed, already hurriedly started that way, when Mr. Presto approached him, and slapped a heavy hand upon his shoulder. "Hello, Whack," he said. "How goes it? Have a cigar !" Fenton's wits buzzed. "Say, I was just looking for you, Presto," he said. "They was a couple of swell skirts round here looking for you a half an hour ago." "Oh, is that so? Who were they?" Presto was immediately intrigued. "In a limousine car, they were. A little one and THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 161 a bigger one. Nectarines!" Fenton improvised. "Crazy to find you. But wouldn't tell their names. Said if I see you to say they'd wait for you at the Cafe Martin. Important!" Fenton gazed, with a fine air of candor, at Billy Presto, but ready to jump away from his fist at the first sign of incre dulity. The scheme worked. "Thanks, old man, bye-bye, I'll skip right down there!" and Mr. Presto had gone. Fenton returned to the dining-room a little faint and wobbly. "Well, I threw a good scare into him," he explained, as he sat down. "I guess he won't try to do no more goo-goo work round here for one while. What d'you want to eat, Millie?" "Oh, we've ordered." Millie looked at him ad miringly. "Say, you're a wiz," she commented. "Now, if that guy over at that table there don't try any cute business on me, we can have supper." "Where is he ?" Fenton demanded. "Now, Millie, we don't want no fuss here," said Miss Diamond. Millie subsided, but was pleased. Fenton's appe tite was gone. With every fond look his compan ions lavished upon him he became more craven. 162 FIND THE WOMAN Well, he must at least put on a "front." He cud geled his brain for memories of the office boy's talk. "When are you going to meet Jake Kilgore again?" Millie asked him. "Next month, I guess. Say, you leave it to me this time! I'm going to train on nitric acid and iron filings and live rats. Take it from me, girl, I'll make him think of home and mother before the first round is over. When I unhook my right and connect with his dial, he'll act like a ferry boat with a boy captain in a smoky fog. Say, did you ever see a Mogul locomotive run over a pin ? That's me and Kilgore. I'm the choo-choo, see? Why, he'll be a Royal Stuart plaid all over when I finish.5' At this moment the waiter, pouring Millie's champagne, hit the chair with his elbow, and the wine spilled in Millie's lap. She gave a cry of anger and began to mop her skirt with her napkin. Fenton turned pale. Must he kill the waiter? He jumped up and looked wildly about him for an es cape. Miss Diamond put a fairy hand upon his arm. "Oh, don't make a fuss, Mr. Harrison !" she be sought. "I'll smash him into a biscuit Tortoni !" he roared. THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 163 Millie laughed. "Oh, Whack, really it was my fault! Don't hurt him !" Fenton heaved a sigh of relief, sat down, glow ering, and the waiter made bold to approach and tender his apologetic services. It was a narrow escape. "If I'd unloosed that lariat wallop of mine," said Fenton deliberately, glowering at the unfortunate waiter, "I'd have cut his head off just like slicing an apple. But, good Lord, what's the use of muti lating a Swede? It would muss me all up." He turned modestly to his oysters. "My, but you're savage !" murmured the blonde, and she looked at him in a dreamy rhapsody that made Fenton turn his eyes away for fear of being hypnotized. Yes, she was too beautiful; she made him feel weak. A dozen admiring sentences rose to his lips — but he knew so well she had heard them all before that he would not speak them. He turned to Millie, better able to compete with her sprightly smile. It stimulated him. She plied him with ques tions. She was curious as to everything connected with his supposititious profession. Between her catechism and Miss Diamond's ravishing smiles Fenton found it hard to keep his head. His fictions 1 64 FIND THE WOMAN grew wilder; he narrated impossible battles in the squared ring. He professed to know every one they mentioned, and indulged in fanciful flights of biography. But, all the while, he was waiting for his bluff to be called. His exposure was momentar ily imminent. He was aroused from these forebodings by the sight of a colossal man standing in the doorway, looking over the throng. He was a human masto don, with a sour and ugly look that made Fenton's flesh creep on his bones. The man's face was bat tered and crooked, he had the jaw of a bulldog. To Fenton's horror, he looked over at the ladies and scowled meaningly. "My God," said Millie, "it's Jim! What'll we do? He'll be terrible jealous. Oh, Whack, you will protect me, won't you?" She laid her hand on Fenton's with a quick, convulsive grasp. Even Miss Diamond awakened from her dreamy pose. "He'll make a fuss, sure! Oh, Mr. Har rison, don't hit him ! We'd better get away quick !" Her eyes shot blue sparks, now; she was wide awake and without coquetry. Fenton trembled. He half arose to fly, but was held by Millie's eager hand, The man stalked sullenly over to the table. THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 165 "See here; what the devil does this mean, Mil lie? I thought you was a-goin' to eat with me?" His voice thundered. All eyes in the room turned to him. Millie was too frightened to speak. So, for that matter, was Fenton. "Who is this little shrimp, anyway ?" the stranger demanded. "Say, young fellow, you better light out before I kick you out." Fenton jumped up and looked about, ready to dodge the first blow. "What's that you called me?" he demanded, with what belligerency he could muster. His heart was in his mouth. "For God's sake, Whack, don't hit him! Don't make a scene." It was the violet-eyed blonde who screamed. "Hit me!" the big man ejaculated. "Why, I'll make mashed potatoes of him in three minutes, if he don't get out of here!" Millie shrieked. "Don't you touch him, Jim! He'll kill you, if he turns himself loose. Why, it's Whack Harrison, you fool!" The big man stared. At that minute a waiter came by with an armful of dishes, looking the other way. — Smash! he charged full tilt into Fenton's i66 FIND THE WOMAN back. Fenton fell forward toward Jim, and put out his hands to save himself. At the same instant, a fat German with a napkin tucked into his collar, who was stolidly cutting a dill pickle at the next table, punctured the rind, and the juice gushed forth. The two accidents were exactly timed. Fen- ton's outstretched hands fell hard on the big man's chest, and a stream of brine hit Jim in the right eye. He stumbled, fell backward, wildly waving his hands. All over the room spectators shouted and rose to their feet to witness the fray. The head waiter came running up. Fenton, too, had fallen, and fallen upon his prostrate foe. His companions mingled their shrieks with those of the crowd. "Don't let him get at him! He'll murder him!" the girls entreated. "If he gets mad, he'll beat him to pieces! He's Whack Harrison!" Fenton hardly knew what had happened before three waiters pulled him off Jim's supine body. They raised him respectfully, however, anxiously protecting themselves from his rage. The head waiter came up to him and tried to calm Fenton down, apologized, promised no further annoyance, protested his own regrets, and then majestically ordered the stranger to be removed from the room. THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 167 Angry as a trapped gorilla, shouting out hideous oaths, Jim struggled against some seven or eight waiters and guests. The war raged all the way to the door of the dining-room, where the porters took a hand. There the house detective had already tele phoned for the police. The lobby was rilled with strugglers and profanity till the law arrived and two stalwart officers hustled the unfortunate man into the patrol wagon. Then the guests who had left their tables to watch the riot returned, gossiping and laughing, to the cafe. Men stared at Fenton in awe. Ladies gazed at him and talked under their breaths. It took some time for the confusion to simmer down and order to be restored. All this while Fenton sat, proudly, staring at vacancy with a forced smile upon his lips. The talk around him buzzed of upper cuts and hooks, punches, wallops and knockouts. The blonde tim idly put the question that was agitating the whole room. "What was that punch you gave him, Mr. Har rison?" she inquired with the lovelight in her melt ing violet eyes. Fenton considered it at leisure. "Oh, that smash ? That was a new one — my own invention. I call 1 68 FIND THE WOMAN it the straight-arm double dill jab. It's got the corkscrew to the solar plexus beaten to a whisper. You work it like this." And Fenton illustrated a complicated evolution with his left fist directed against a champagne bottle. "What are you doing now ?" Fenton asked, as the supper proceeded. So far he knew little of his com panions, and, if he was to get help from them, he must make haste. " The Girl in Red/ " said Millie. "Ain't you been to see the show yet?" Fenton confessed his ignorance of the play. "Pm wearing twelve thousand dollars' worth of costumes," said Miss Diamond. "Four changes. You ought to come." It was then Fenton disclosed the full depths of his innocence. "What part do you play?" he asked. The ladies screamed with mirth. "Play a part! That's good! Say, Whack, do we look foolish enough to spend our time learning lines, with our shape? What's the use of being a 'perfect thirty- six?' Forget it. You can always get girls to work for a living. We're clothes-horses. Why, kid, d'you really think we could keep motor cars and wear gen- THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 169 nine blue fox, if we had to bark, mew and bray when a dub stage manager told us? Not on your mezzotint !" "Oh," said Fenton, edified. "Then you're show girls?" "Professional beauties," murmured Miss Dia mond. "We're what men buy opera-glasses for." "But I had no idea showgirls got such good sal aries!" The girls looked at each other, shook their heads, and then smiled at their interlocutor. Millie patted Fenton's hand. "Say, kid, you may be all right with your ring tactics, but you never ought to be caught thinking in public when they's ladies present. Eighteen a week is our regular pay. The rest is perquisites." "Oh, I got a trade, too. Ever traveled on the subway?" Miss Diamond added. "I'm the lady with 'After-Dinner Gumdrops' — on a three-sheet. That's right. Also the T. D. Slick Overshoes' and the 'O-I-Wansum Beer.' " She yawned and tapped her red lips the while, as if she were playing a tune. "I say, Millie, did you read in the paper where Janey Davis had made a horrible punch in London?" 1 70 FIND THE WOMAN "Sure. She's starring — what d'you think of that! Why, I knew her when she was an extra girl, too! She was a freak, for fair. Did I ever tell you about her and Mansfield ?" Miss Diamond shook her head disinterestedly, but as Fenton politely professed a desire to hear, Millie took a final sip of champagne and began the story : THE GIRL WHO KNEW MANSFIELD Yes, her real name was Jane Davis. Ain't that a scream? For Heaven's sake, what's the use of going on the stage if you can't beat the label you had when you lived back in Baraboo ? When I asked her about it she only said : "Why, that's my mother's name; and I guess if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me." Then she looked at me with her big, hungry, brown eyes, like a little kid on the corner watching a hokey-pokey cart. She certainly was a queer one. Never had no use for men — and not much for women, either, at least not them in the company. She used to sit around in corners watching the rehearsals while the bunch was carrying on and having fun. She used to talk THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 171 queer, too. Never was up-to-date at all; couldn't jolly up for a cent. Remember how we used to guy her for saying "not having had" and "were it not that?" Why, she couldn't understand our slang half the time. Sort of country, you know. Talked like a reading-book. That was when we was in the "Sinfire" company — my name then was Gloria Moyle and I was just one of the bunch in the chorus trying to get solid with the stage manager. Jane Davis was drawing twelve a week. She had one line in the third act. She lived with her mother in one room way over on East Nineteenth Street. Well, say, she was hard up, all right. Believe me, she used to walk all over New York barefoot. D'you know what I mean? She had what looked like shoes, but they wan't nothing really but a pair of uppers. The soles were wore clear through, and so was her stockings, I give her an old pair of rubbers one day, and she wore 'em regular after that. The girls used to guy her about it something fierce. Hard up ? You bet ! Didn't I tell you her mother had rheumatic fever? That's right! The landlady put her out of the house once, she groaned so loud 1 72 FIND THE WOMAN when she was took bad. O' course it cost Jane about all she could hold out for doctors and medi cines and all that. Twelve dollars don't go far. Nobody in the company ever thought Jane was anything more than a fool. You see, she was so queer, and she'd never make up to men or anything. She wasn't pretty, but Lord, she could have grafted all the free eggs she wanted if she'd just thrown a grin or two round — plenty of the boys would have staked her to an eat. But no, nothing doing with Janey. Strictly on the prim. She had straight black hair that she wore funny — not a blessed rat in it- — a freak style of her own; say, it was a scream! She did have pretty hands, though ; and that was a funny thing, too; she could almost talk with 'em. Her mouth was just like a baby's — sort of trembly and changing all the time, always different — you know how a kid's face works — no repose. All the same, when Janey Davis got mad — believe me, then she was a devil! She could just make the chills crawl up and down your back. But you'd never believe it, to see her sitting in a corner reading a book. You could almost tell what the story was about just by watching her face. Now, what was I going to tell you? Oh, yes! THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 173 About Mansfield. Why, a gentleman friend of mine, Dusty Mclntyre, it was, him and me was pretty thick that year, he gave me a couple of seats for Mansfield at the New Amsterdam one day. He got 'em off one of the stage managers — you know how Mansfield used to carry around about twenty- seven different varieties of 'em? Of course, I nat urally didn't go much on that high-brow stuff like "Peer Gynt," and I was sore the pass wasn't for the "Follies of 1907." But Janey was in the dressing- room when I got a piece of a burnt match in my eye, and she took it out for me after everybody else wouldn't do it, and so I asked her did she want to go. Say, you ought to seen that girl! She was as excited as if Rockefeller had asked her to get mar ried. So we went. Believe me, I near went to sleep in the theater. The show didn't have no gin ger in it. Slow. Well, you take it from me, if that girl had just come intoi town from southwestern Missouri, she couldn't have acted more like a fool. She didn't hardly speak only just twice in the whole show. In the first act, you know, where Peer Gynt comes on like a fourteen-year-old boy and lays down on the stage and kicks up his heels, Janey turned round i/4 FIND THE WOMAN and looks at me with her big brown eyes, and she whispers, "Who's that?" I says, uWhy, that's Mansfield, you little jay!" "Oh," she says, "I thought he was a man!" Lord, how she stared! Then in a minute what does she do but begin to cry. Can you beat it? There he was, as funny as a kitten with a catnip ball, doing kid stunts so you'd split laughing, and Janey blubbering away for fair. Didn't I tell you she was queer? I never got an other word out of the girl till the last act. You know where they have that auction scene and Mansfield comes on as an old man. Then Janey asked me again just like before. She says, "Who's that?" I says, "Ain't you got a program, or what? That's Mansfield, o' course ! Who else would it be — Clyde Fitch ?" And then she begins to cry again, soft, to herself. I sat and watched the tears drip down her face like a leaky hot water bag. She certainly was a fool. Well, we blew into Riker's to have a pistache soda after the show and I just asked her what she was crying at. She says, "Oh, he made me see all sorts of things that wan't on the stage, at all. I thought I was somewheres else," she says. What d'you think of that! What's a theater for, any- THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 175 way ? It's to show the act the author wants showed, and that's all. Ain't that right? But I couldn't make Janey see it that way. Would you think a yap like her could ever act ? Well, next noon I run down to her room to get her to put a touch on a hat I'd just bought. I'd paid eighteen dollars for it, but it wan't quite right. Janey had a way of pulling ribbons round so you'd swear a hat was just imported. Clever, she was, too, in a way. Ought really to have been a milliner. Her mother was in bed as usual, groaning away something fierce, and Janey was writing on an old brown paper bag, ironed out flat. I offered to give her some paper, but no, she wouldn't never take nothing from nobody. I asked her what it was, and she looked up kind of queer and she said she was writing a letter to Mr. Mansfield. Can you beat it? Mashed! And him getting his thousands a week! "What are you writing to him?" I says. She smiled awful queer, and she says, "I'm tell ing him something I'll bet nobody has ever told him before," she says. "I know a lot of things about him nobody knows," she says. Well, that got me mad. Didn't she have a nerve? Nothing but an 1 76 FIND THE WOMAN extra girl, practically, at twelve a week, and him a star! I was paralyzed. "If you know all that," I says, "it's a wonder you ain't starring yourself !" And she says, "there's an other day coming," she says, "and I'll have my chance yet !" She made me sick. Just one line was all she had in the production. Why, she never even had her name on the program! Mine was in with the Butterflies and Patagonian Peasants and the Merry-Marys, — three times in all ! You may not believe it, but about a week after that she come into our dressing-room and says, "See here, I want to show you something!" What d'you think? She sure had a photograph of Richard Mansfield, with his name, and some writing on it, too. "What is it, Latin?" I says. "No," says Janey, "it's French." I asked her what did it say, and she smiled and said, "You wouldn't understand, Moyle, but it's something like — 'Look inside!'' Well, I certainly didn't understand, all right, nor I don't yet; and I doubt if she did. I s'pose Mans field only sent it to her just for a cod. Say, it was funny, though, when you come to think of it, wan't it? Why, Mansfield was a holy horror — everybody knows that. Nobody could ever THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 177 get along with him, women or men. Why, his peo ple used to leave him every week. He used to fire about twenty every night — and then take 'em back. What in the world d'you figure he sent Janey that photo for? It beats me! Anyway, Janey was tickled to death with it. You'd think it was a doll ; she used to carry it round with her all the time. One time Floradora Billings gate found it and drawed, a mustache on it with grease paint, and say, wasn't Janey mad? She snatched up a pair of scissors and went at Flo like a Rocky Mountain wildcat, and the girls had to pull her off. That was just before Janey was put into the caste. We never knew how she made that jump. Some said she had money left her, and bought the part; but I know better, — Janey never had a cent in them days. I expect she wasn't quite as country as she looked, after all, and worked the manager. She couldn't act, anyway! Lord, didn't I know her when she was an extra woman ? The idea ! I guess I know something about the stage. Why, Janey actually had an idea that it didn't matter where you put your feet or your hands. Now, anybody who's ever been to a dramatic school knows when you put 178 FIND THE WOMAN out your right hand you have to put out your right foot, and a lot of rules like that. And Janey couldn't read a line right to save herself. It sounded just like ordinary talking — it wasn't acting at all. And she knew no more about how to use her eye-brows than a cat. Oh, she paid for her pro motion some way, you bet ! That's always the way. Talent ain't no use whatever, compared to influence. The day she was given the part of Alfalfa, in "Sinfire," I came across her back near the property- room. She had Mansfield's photo in her hand, and she was a-kissing it. Ain't that the limit? I was kind of mad to see a gawk like her put ahead and I says to her, "If you got to kiss him, why the devil don't you kiss him on the mouth?" She just give me one scared look, and she says, "Oh, Moyle," she says, "he's married!" What d'you know about that ! Didn't I tell you she was a fool ? She made me sick. "What, are you stuck on him?" I says. She says, "If it hadn't been for him, I'd never have been promoted." Now you couldn't make me believe he had anything to do with it — I ain't so easy as all that. So I asked her what she meant. She was half laughing and half crying, and sort of silly. THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 179 She says, "I've learned how to look inside !' " she said. Can you beat it? She was foolish. Just naturally foolish! Hadn't never seen him off the stage ! Well, it was about three weeks after that Janey's mother died. Janey was all broke up. Anybody'd expect she'd be glad to have it over with. Wouldn't you think it would have got on her nerves to have the old lady mewing like a tomcat every time her shoulder-blade ached? She sure was an awful bother. I didn't see Janey — a stage hand we called "Violets" told me. He had blue eyes and a broad grin. He must have been kind of stuck on her — he used to claim she could act. You know how them stage hands are, they think they know a lot. He had an awful nerve. But wait. He told me the funeral was going to be Sunday, but I'd just made a date with Dusty Mclntyre to motor down to Luna Park, and so of course I couldn't go. At least I had no idea I could, at the time. Dusty looked too good to me. So I just dropped Janey a post-card telling her I was sorry, and all that, and if I could do anything to let me know. That was on a Friday. After the matinee next aft- i8o FIND THE WOMAN ernoon, Janey come round to see me, and she asked me would I lend her a quarter to pay for a telegram. Of course I told her I'd send it for her. I felt kind of sorry for the little mouse, and she handed it over. Oh — her mother was at a little cheap undertaker's over on the East Side. Well, when I read that wire, I nearly had a fit. Who d'you think it was to? Richard Mansfield! He was down at his country place in New London. It only said : "Mother died yesterday. JANE DAVIS." Wasn't she the crazy thing? She'd got just one photo out of him, and on the strength of that she'd gone to work and took him right into the family ! O' course I never sent it. I knew it wouldn't do at all. He'd have been wild. I told "Violets" about it, though, and he said it was a nervy thing to do. I've often wondered since if he didn't send it himself, though, after all. We started out on Sunday, Dusty and me, about ten o'clock, in his Panhard. I had one o' them two- toned violet auto veils and a yellow silk coat on. Just as we was half-way over the Williamsburgh bridge something happened to the car and Dusty got out. I looked back and I seen a funeral coming and I got awful nervous, You know it's bad luck THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 181 to have one overtake you. But I looked round. First come an open barouche, just crammed with flowers. I give you my word, if they was one dol lar's worth, they was five hundred. They was fairly spilling into the road. After that was the tackiest hearse I ever see. Then come one solitary hack — that's all. Gee ! It was the bummest funeral procession I ever seen. Just as the hack passed I saw Janey through the window, with a man setting side of her; I couldn't catch his face. Then they went by and Dusty fixed his machine and got in. I told him about it, and I says to him, "Dusty, you got to follow that funeral wherever they go. We can run down to Luna Park later. They's certainly something doing when Jane Davis has a hack-load of flowers for her mother's funeral, and I want to see who's putting up for it !" So we run along easy behind 'em. I thought, of course, it would be the potter's field for hers, 'cause Janey hadn't got any relations at all only her mother. But no, where did they go but out to Greenwood Cemetery, and turned in up to a lot under a big elm tree. Of course we couldn't take the car in, but we stopped where we could see who was there. First 182 FIND THE WOMAN a man got out of the hack with a silk hat on; I couldn't make him out, at first. Then come Janey. Will you believe it, she didn't wear black — and it was her own mother's funeral, too ! She had on the bum little blue suit she always wore. Wan't that disgraceful? She might have shown some respect, even if her mother had led her a life. Then the man turned round, and my God, I see it was Rich ard Mansfield! Say, can you beat it? Richard Mansfield in a Prince Albert coat and a top hat with his arm round Janey Davis like she was his own daughter! And I give you my word he'd never seen her before that day ! Well, I just sat there and gasped! Wouldn't you think that a man like Mansfield would be above be ing there at a little, miserable two-cent funeral — with a girl nobody had ever heard of, too? I should think he'd have been ashamed of himself! If a man don't respect himself, who is going to respect him, anyway? Well, that was queer enough, but when I see they didn't have no minister I nearly died. And, what d'you think? When they had the coffin on the ground, side of the grave, I couldn't see that Janey was crying a bit — Mansfield took a little black book THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 183 out of his pocket and stood up straight at the head of the coffin and begun to read. His voice was so loud and clear we could almost hear it from where we were. I was almost ashamed of the profession by that time. But then, I always did think Mansfield was a good deal of a bluff. Then Dusty says to me, "Glo, I ain't never seen Mansfield act. I'm going to sneak up near there and get a good look at him and hear him. This is where I get an orchestra seat free!" Well, I let him go, and I waited there in the car. Well, Dusty walked up near 0ie lot. I could see him standing there, listening, and after a while he drew up nearer. When they begun to lower the coffin into the grave Dusty come walking back slow. I called out to him to hurry, for I was terrible afraid Janey'd spot me rubbering. In that yellow coat, too! When he got a little nearer I see the tears was just rolling down his cheeks. Dusty Mc- Intyre was crying like a kid ! Ain't that the limit ? I asked him what in the world he was crying about, and he said it was something about his voice — Mansfield's voice. It got to him, some way, I dun- no. I guyed him about it all the way to Luna Park, but somehow Dusty wan't like himself all day. 184 FIND THE WOMAN That was in nineteen seven. You know Mans field died about six months after that; in Septem ber, it was. Well, I met Jane Davis at an agency the week after he died, and what d'you think ! She was all in black ! When I said something to her about Mans field she broke right down and cried. Now, what d'you know about that! A girl who wouldn't put on mourning nor shed a tear for her own mother, had the nerve to rig out in black for the swellest star in the business! I call her a thoroughbred snob! Fenton looked at the girl, now, with a revulsion of feeling. She no longer amused him, and Miss Diamond seemed less beautiful. Already he had stayed too long. And yet his object had not been accomplished. Miss Diamond yawned again. "Say, Millie, I got to get home," she said. "Let's go." At that, Millie called the waiter hovering near, and asked for the check. He handed it to her. Fen- ton made a feeble protest, but she waved it aside, and tossed him a gold-linked purse across the table cloth. Fenton glanced at the bill, found it was THE CAXTON DINING ROOM 185 $9.40, and took out a crisp, new ten-dollar bill. The waiter fled. There would be sixty cents change, thought Fen- ton. Part of that he must have — and make his escape. He watched the waiter to the cashier's desk and saw him returning. He calculated the time to a second, and, just as the man was within six feet of him, he called out, pointing to the door : "Gosh! there's your friend back already!" The girls turned and gazed. Fenton took the dime from the proffered plate, slipped it into his pocket, and handed Millie her purse. It was a vic tory. The waiter stood and stared contemptuously. What did Fenton care ? Not a whit ! Now, to get away! The cloak room boy brought him his hat, and, as he waited for a tip, Fenton eagerly collogued the blonde. The three walked to the hotel lobby. Obsequious head waiters gazed at them in admira tion. A buzz went through the corridor when Fen ton, alias Whack Harrison, appeared. He was the hero of the place. He glanced at the clock. Both hands stood at eleven. He must hurry. "Say, you can take us home, if you want, Whack !" Millie's fond eyes shot sparks at him, i86 FIND THE WOMAN "All right," he said, "just wait till I get some cigarettes." He turned, walked to the cigar counter and be yond. Once out of sight, he ran for the side door. VIII THE SUBWAY EXPRESS CONCERNING THE PHILOSOPHIC THEORY OF PROFAN ITY AS AN ART, AND ITS PRACTICAL APPLICA TION AS A SCIENCE; AND THE DOINGS OF FENTON'S EX-MASTER WITH a grim smile upon his lips and a great strain off his mind, John Fenton emerged stealthily from the side entrance of the Hotel Cax- ton and walked rapidly toward Times Square. His adventure had been like a dream — like a dream it had been silly, but splendid. What he had been through that evening, since first he approached Times Square, as he was approaching now ! He had a dime in his pocket as he walked into the lobby of the Hotel Knickerbocker to collect his thoughts and lay his plans. Should he try again to get the octoroon on the telephone and leave it to chance to get back from down-town? He sat down at a table and looked at his dime thoughtfully, then grimly decided to leave i88 FIND THE WOMAN it to Fate. Fate evidently had him in mind, that night, so let come what would. Heads for precau tion, and the saving of five cents for his return; tails for communication with the octoroon and luck. He tossed up the coin, and it fell tails up. So mote it be! He walked to a drug store and rang up the King William Hotel. Miss Green had registered, said the clerk, but did not answer. Selah! The fates would provide, and, with a smile on his lips, like a desperate traveler who casts himself into a stream without a ford, hoping to get to the other side safely, Fenton plunged into the subway and took a local train to the Grand Central Station, where he transferred to a down-town express. He must get to the St. Paul Building. What he could accomplish there, how he could possibly re cover the jewels, he had no idea. But, once launched upon this adventurous emprise, he was determined to see it through and make what fight he could. It worried him that he had to work in the dark, with no help or guidance, but he had no choice. There were only two passengers in the car he en tered. One was a stout man-o'-war Jackie consid erably under the influence of a joyous shore-leave, the other a globular, puffy gentleman with a pirat- THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 189 ical mustache which he seemed to be continually eating. Fenton sank into a reverie, and his thoughts wandered like a homing dove to Belle Charmion. Who was she? — what had she intended to say to him? — what mysterious fate was bringing them continually together? Suddenly, he awoke from his musing to find the train had stopped. He waited for several minutes and it did not start. Local after local passed them by, with the exasperating way that locals have of beating the express when the track is blocked. He went forward to speak to the guard, and found the door locked. There was some trouble ahead. The sailor began to swear. His impatience grew more and more profane. He would lose his ship, he would be rebuked, he didn't care so much for the money, but to think that he had to be at the mercy of a landlubber's hole-in-the-ground. All this em bellished with horrid adjectives. Fenton smiled and returned to his seat. The puffy gentleman came over and asked what was the matter. Fenton didn't know. Well, they had to make the best of it. The man-o'-war's man became more and more abusive. Again the man with the fierce whiskers remarked 190 FIND THE WOMAN that one had to make the best of it. Nobody could hurry a subway train. One couldn't put a burr un der its tail to make it jump, you know. When he was not chewing his mustache he was wiping it off with the flat of his hand. 'That Jackie can sure swear some/' said Fenton, finally. "Swear? Nonsense! Profanity is a fine art! That illiterate chap knows only the merest rudi ments." "Well, they're good Anglo-Saxon rudiments, any way," Fenton said, smiling at his friend's serious tone. "H'm! Anglo-Saxon! It takes an Arab to really swear. You can get a real sensation in Semetic — • we're afraid to really use English to its greatest ef fect. Queer, isn't it, how we are the domination of language? We have certain words that are arbi trarily considered vulgar. And we so-called civil ized people have come to the point when the only way we know to emphasize our sentiments is by spicing them with impropriety. If that is the correct method, why the Spanish have done the best of all. The English come next, perhaps — especially the Elizabethan literature — great power of invective THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 191 they had — look at John Webster ! — but Lord ! think of the French and the Germans! Child's play, sir! Mere child's play ! How can an intelligent man con sider he gains force by mentioning a pot of thunder or a sacred color ? Or calling upon the thunder and lightning." "Oh, the secret of it is sacrilege, I fancy," said Fenton, willing to humor him. "Men like to defy higher powers — it shows courage." "Is Thousand Pots a higher power ?" the stranger replied. "No, sir. The basis of all profanity is sound. The appeal is not to the mind, but to the ear. I defy you to name a single oath, modern or ancient, that is not euphonious — that doesn't have an oral magnificence. Wait a minute. We will probably have to stay here a while. I'll tell you a story to prove what I mean. There's one man in Brooklyn who has perfected profanity and made a science of it." "Here we go, now," said Fenton. "I guess that was only a fuse blown out. I once knew a man — " he began. The train had started, but the little man had al ready started also, and, as station after station was slowly passed, he narrated his story. 192 FIND THE WOMAN THE AFFILIATED NON-CURSERS' PARADE D'you know, Brooklyn is one of the queerest places in the whole world! All sorts of strange, un canny things happen; when you once cross the bridge, you're in a new world. Your brain changes — you begin to see things pink. I live in Brooklyn myself — in some ways it's as good as living abroad. I imagine Mars, when they have an election on, is something like the Borough of Brooklyn. They call it the City of Churches. Huh! I call it the City of Brainkinks. Nobody really knows anything definite about the town. Ask a cop how to get to Flatbush Park Terrace, and he doesn't know. Nobody knows. If you get there, you'll never find the way back. You wouldn't believe half the things that are true about Brooklyn. Ever hear of the "King's County Croquet Club" that meets at Prospect Park? I thought not. What did I tell you? What sane person would believe that there was a city in the United States that played croquet nowadays? Championship games, too. Ain't it awful? Why, there's a chess club that you can see work ing at the job in full daylight from the Brooklyn THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 193 "L"! Believe me some of these games last for years at a stretch — like a Chinese drama. Men grow old during a single gambit. Then there's the "Flatbush Brides' Cooking Class." Can you beat that? Think of the biscuits like-your-wife used to make! Why, mister, I know human beings, over there, that sleep under violet glass all night to cure sore eyes. The banks fail regularly every year. They have a children's procession in May — nobody knows what for. They sell real estate that's under water, and you have to get a glass-bottomed boat to find your front yard. No, if you're a Brooklynite, when you come back from work at night you have no idea what your wife's been elected to, during the day. It's all one co-operative, co-educational madhouse; but the one craziest thing of all is the Affiliated Non-Cursers. Ever heard of it? No? I thought not! Well, a lot of religious high-brows, a few years ago, formed this society to suppress swearing. Every member is pledged never to use a cuss-word, and to frown on all blasphemy and sundry. Oh, when the executive committee gets into a good, fat row, it's worth being present. They have to mix Volapiik and Esperanto ! 194 FIND THE WOMAN Well, the president of the society, this year, is old Dr. Hopbottom. What's the matter? Every heard of him? An old, yellow-skinned, goat-bearded quack doctor, one of these psalm-singing skinflints — you know ! This year he proposed a parade of the Affiliated Non-Cursers; and the idea caught on great. It was a big show, but Brooklyn thought nothing of it. Why, over there, when the circus comes to town, they have to paint the elephants in Scotch plaids and put side whiskers on the zebras before any one will turn round and look. People in Brooklyn see too much woozly stuff every day to be surprised at anything. So the parade didn't at tract much attention — at first. They had all the school children out — little girls in white muslin and blue ribbons, boys in pink sailor suits with little white flags. P. D. Q. Y. M., the Social Uplifters, the Sons of Jehu, the Ethical Army, the Ancient Order of Goheevians, the Mys tic Livers, the Anti-Dope Fiends, the Shu'pm-pu- pm and everything. Dr. Hopbottom certainly rounded up a good big bunch of non-cursers. He had 'em in platoons, with banners and badges and brass bands and decorated drays and marshals with batons, just like a regular procession of the Native THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 195 Sons of the Golden West. He was at the head of the parade on a white horse, with a tall hat tied round with white ribbons, like Napoleon crossing the Delaware, solemn as the Archangel Gabriel. Pleased ? Why, the doctor was one broad, voluptu ous grin! He took off his hat right and left regular, every block. So far, so good. The parade was a great success till it got to a given point down by the Borough Hall. Then came the big wind. There was an ex-sailor named Gilhooligan driv ing up a side street on a dray loaded with railroad iron — bingety-bang-slam-smash-rumble-rattle-£z/>- clattery-c?w#/ You know how a load of steel rails can yelp, when they're properly loaded on a truck. Gilhooligan had four big black Percherons, and he had an idea he was operating an ancient Roman chariot and the whole world had to get out of his way. He tried to drive smack through the middle of the procession, but the non-swearing enthusiasts wouldn't have it ; they sat tight. Then for a few minutes, there was a sprightly duel of verbiage and diction. Gilhooligan went at them with a thousand franetic figures of speech, and the white-ribbon purists came back with a lot 196 FIND THE WOMAN of sterilized and highly perfumed talk on the other side of the question. Gilhooligan got rather the best of it— "Fiddlesticks!" and "Oh, bother" and "Mercy me!" had no show at all with the way he handled English. Why, he swung eighteen-syllabled oaths round by the tail, hitting right and left. But still, they didn't let him through. The little boys yelled "Oh, pickles!" and the ladies attacked him with "Ain't he horrid!" Of course they couldn't go farther — though for a little while, several resig nations from the society were momentarily expected. Gilhooligan talked to them the way an army driver pets a mule. Yes, the gift of tongues certainly de scended upon Gilhooligan, till the air was a deep, exquisite magenta for miles around. You could actually smell his language. At last the news traveled from one Sunday school to another, clear up to the head of the procession where Dr. Hopbottom was straddling his stately steed. When he found out what was doing, he turned that white horse, and came back toward Borough Hall at a wild-bull gallop, the white rib bons streaming out from his top hat and his whis kers flying. It was like General Sheridan twenty THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 197 miles away. It was like Paul Revere — it was like the ride from Ghent to Aix. You say you've heard of Dr. Hopbottom? Well, then, you know what an ingenious old crank he is. Of course he doesn't swear — it's wicked! But he had long ago figured it out, like I told you, what was the psychological motive for curses. Brain storms have just got to happen, sometimes, and what a man needs at such times is a good, satisfac tory bunch of exclamations to hurl into the mess. Being a scientific man he knew not only the cause, but the remedy. So it was easy; he invented his own inocuous expletives whenever the time came. Well, he came galloping down toward the row. Gilhooligan's profanity carried for about thirteen city blocks, so that by the time the doctor got with in range, he had his fires lighted and steam up. He reined up, and let out a stream of talk, something like this : "What the hypo-fenyltry-brom-propionic-hiatus is the purple matter here, anyway? Why the syn- . copated, Senegambian high-ball don't you move on, what?" A thousand voices answered; a thousand trem- 198 FIND THE WOMAN bling hands pointed angrily to Gilhooligan. The doctor two-stepped his horse up to the Irishman. "You get the deoxidized Dalmation way out of here, you epigrammatic blastoderm, d'you hear?" Gilhooligan broke loose again. I can't really quote his speech aright. Shorn of its linguistic splendors it read something like: "Move your blankety-blank-dashed line of unquotable objects open, and let me get through, you blanked dash of an indescribable animal, I want to get by !" The doctor then proceeded to get mad. He shook his fist at Gilhooligan and yelled: "See here, you clavodeltoid compresbyterial galravaging Gonop- teryx, do you think I'll take any of your pansper- matic post-eocene retromorphosed labefaction? You inebriant heliometric hallan-shaker, you; you giscoderm, you green-gilled sesquipedalian, if you give me any more of your cognominate gargaristic fumentatious benzaldehyde, I'll have you pragmati cally arrested." I wish I could give Gilhooligan's answer, but I daren't. If it were printed for use in the public schools, it would have to be printed almost exclu sively in dashes and asterisks. But it made the doctor really angry. The mem- THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 199 bers of the league held their breaths, and gathered round in a circle now, knowing that the event of the evening was about to take place. A hush. The Hop- bottom mouth got ready to act. The doctor shook his fist again and started in earnest. His voice be gan with calmness and deliberation, but soon rose high — it swept forth in a majestic declamation full of all sorts of forte, staccato and crescendo effects to the noble climax. "See here, you slack-salted transubstantiated in- terdigital germarium, you rantipole sacrosciatic rock-barnacle you, if you give me any of your cap- rantipolene paragastrular megalopteric jacitation, I'll make a lamellibranchiate gymnomixine parabolic lepidopteroid out of you ! What diacritical right has a binominal oxypendactile advoutrous holoblastic rhizopod like you got with your trinoctial ustilagi- nous Westphalian holocaust blocking up the teleos- tean way for, anyway ! If you give me any more of your lunarian, snortomaniac hyperbolic pylorectomy, I'll skive you into a megalopteric diatomeriferous auxospore! You queasy Zoroastrian son of a heli- copteric hypotrachelium, you, shut your logarithmic epicycloidal mouth! You let this monopolitan ma- crocosmic held form procession go by and wait right 200 FIND THE WOMAN here in the anagological street. And no more of your hedonistic primordial supervirescence, you rec tangular quillet-eating, vice-presidential amoeboid, either!" Mr. Gilhooligan slowly descended from his dray, approached Dr. Hopbottom, and took off his hat. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, weakly, "but would you mind repeating them last three remarks ? I didn't rightly hear." The doctor, with sweat dripping from his yellow cheeks, did it again, and then some. By the time he had finished the dictionary was pretty well disem boweled. The crowd cheered. "I beg your humble pardon," said Gilhooligan, when the doctor had finished. "I had no idea it was as bad as that. I take off my hat to you. Man and boy, I have followed the sea for forty years. I have been a Mississippi River pilot, I have run a whaler. I have been the mate of a cockroach schooner and I've blackbirded all along the west coast of Africa. I know mules and I know niggers, and how to coax 'em. But I see a plain, sea-faring man has no show with a doctor when it comes to exhibiting language in public. I'll say this for you ; they ain't your beat for square-rigged, black-and-tan cursing in the seven THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 201 seas. And I think that if this here society what's running this here procession can turn out graduates of the noble art of profanity like you are, I want to say this : Give me the pledge, and I'll sign it. I need some of your talk in my business!" The doctor led the way, amidst awed thousands, to a great white dray, decorated with lilies. There, upon a black walnut reading desk was exhibited the pledge book, a huge brass-bound tome, covered with white vellum. Gilhooligan mounted the dray, and, with great effort, and much chewing of his tongue, he signed his name. A chorus of hurrahs was given, followed by the Chautauqua salute of waving hand kerchiefs. Then, after tying white ribbons to the tails of Gil- hooligan's black horses, and pinning a pink satin badge two feet long on the breast of Gilhooligan's jumper, the procession parted in the middle. He drove his clanking truck-load of railroad iron into the space and Dr. Hopbottom, victorious, galloped proudly back to the head of the line. Twenty little blue-eyed girls in white muslin were lifted up beside Gilhooligan the convert, and, as the procession slowly started they set up, in their child ish treble, their marching song; 202 FIND THE WOMAN "Angry words ! Oh let them never From the tongue, unbridled slip ! May the heart's best impulse ever Check them ere they soil the lip!'' Fenton laughed freely, for the first time that eventful evening. His memory of Dr. Hopbottom was still fresh enough in his mind for him to pic ture the scene. "What's the doctor up to, lately?" he inquired. "Why, the last time I saw him, he told me he had some great scheme to make a thousand dollars easy," was the reply. "It seems he's doing a little detective work, on the side." The train now began to slow down, approaching a station. Fenton glanced out, saw the sign "Wall Street" and rose to go. "Detective work?" he in quired, hurriedly, "what did he mean?" "He's looking after some lost boy, I believe. There's a big reward offered for him, and — " The train had already stopped. Fenton had no time to hear more, and the words bore no meaning for him. After he had run out, however, and had begun to ascend the stairs of the subway exit, the words came back like a retarded echo — "a lost boy — a big reward," and he stopped suddenly and be- THE SUBWAY EXPRESS 203 gan to think. Dr. Hopbottom after a lost boy? Per haps it was he himself, Fenton! The reappearance of Mangus O'Shea into his life had already stirred up conjectures. If it were himself — what could it mean? Well, there seemed to be no answer — of all the strange questions he had put to himself con cerning this night's adventures nothing as yet had any answer for him. He seemed destined to go from one mystery to another blindfold. Of one thing, however, he was sure ; the one mystery he most de sired to have solved was the riddle : "Who is Belle Charmion?" IX THE ST. PAUL BUILDING WHEREIN JOHN FENTON DISCOVERS A DEAD BODY, REGAINS POSSESSION OF CERTAIN JEWELS, AND IS BESOUGHT TO TAKE THE PLACE OF A TITLED IMPOSTOR HIS mind was busy with her, as he walked down Broadway. Belle Charmion! Surely she was worth conjecture. Belle Charmion! The two glimpses he had had of her, the few words they had exchanged, had fanned the flame of fancy which her portrait had first ignited. Her whimsical face, her graceful, expressive hands, her lithe, slim fig ure — something in the quality of her warm, fresh, olive skin made him feel actually weak when he thought of her. He confessed to himself that he was pretty far gone. Belle Charmion ! Belle Charmion ! He wanted her more than anything on earth ! But, meanwhile, he had to go through what he had planned to do. A wild-goose chase, no doubt, but he would follow it to a finish. He finally reached the entrance of the St. Paul 204 THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 205 building, a twenty-one story pile of granite carved into Romanesque shapes, and had turned in to enter, when he saw a man waiting in a doorway he had just passed. Fenton stopped and took a second look at him — a muscular man in a brown derby hat, and a shepherd's plaid suit. There was no possible doubt of it; it was the same man he had first seen in Schef- fel Hall with the outline of a revolver bulging from his hip pocket — it was the same man he had caught a quick glimpse of in the lobby of the Hotel Plaza. Here was another puzzle ! Was he being followed, and if so, why? A mad night, indeed! How would it end? He went in, struggling with this new problem, looked at the directory table on the wall, and found the name of "Nailery & Co." Opposite was the num ber of the firm's office, 1376. Only one of the three elevators was running. In the car a negro boy was sitting on a stool, reading "Middlemarch." Fenton entered. "Thirteenth floor," he said, and the boy reluc tantly closed his book, slammed the door and pulled back the controller. The elevator shot up. "Round on the left," said the boy, as Fenton emerged, and the car descended. 206 FIND THE WOMAN Fenton walked round a corner of the corridor and came point-blank to a door painted with the name of "Nailery & Co., Mining Brokers." There he knocked. He had no idea what he should do when the door was opened; he had made no plan. He would make up his mind what part to play as soon as the situation was found. Meanwhile, as he waited, he thought he heard a hurried sound of feet . . . the soft click of a closed door. ... He listened now, more carefully. Still there was no answer. He knocked again, louder. All was silence. Then, angry at the delay, wishing to bring matters to a crisis, he turned the handle, opened the door and walked in. He found himself in a small office, part of which was shut off by a wooden railing. Behind this were a couple of roll-top desks, a letter press, a type writer, a filing cabinet, and other ordinary pieces of cheap office furniture. There was nobody there, however, and so, seeing a door in one wall marked "Private" Fenton went through the gate, strode up to it and knocked with determination. Still no answer. He hesitated for a moment. It was carrying things rather far to force himself in, this way, but he wanted to come to an end of the adventure as soon as possible. He knocked again, THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 207 then, impatient at the silence, boldly opened the door. He saw a carpeted room with a single roll-top desk and several chairs. Two of these were over turned and, between them, supine upon the floor was the body of a man, lying in a puddle of blood. Fenton stood, for a moment, in the doorway, fas cinated by the aw fulness of it — he was unable to move. It seemed unreal, impossible, like a wild dream. His first impulse was to stifle his exclama tion of alarm, shut the door and make his escape as quietly and quickly as possible. Next, despite his sick feeling of horror, despite a dominant fancy that this thing was not, could not be true, came the realization that he should go to the rescue of the man, and give him aid, if it was not already too late. He forced his will to move his body, stepped for ward and knelt beside the form. One look into those open, staring eyeballs told him that the man was dead. But, as he looked at the pale face more deliber ately, the horror gave way to pathos. The dead man was wonderfully beautiful, picturesque, even poetic. By his crisp, curling hair, the finely molded fea tures, the width of his forehead, the small delicate 208 FIND THE WOMAN mustache, the body might have been that of Edgar Allan Poe. The skin was as fair as a child's, the lips sensitively parted, showed perfect teeth ; the slender hands were like a woman's gracefully expressive in their relaxed gesture. All this would have pre vented the corpse seeming dreadful, had not that oozing red spot upon the shirt front told a tale of murder. Fenton drew down the lids over the glassy eyeballs with scarcely a feeling of revulsion, and then slowly arose, still held by the potent fascination of death. Then his eyes wandered about the room, and stopped at a gray ooze-leather bag some little distance away from the body. He walked over to it and picked it up. He pulled it open and received a new sensation. The bag was crammed with jewels ! For the sec ond time, that night he was in possession of the Brewster collection. That fact decided him. What ever had happened in this dreadful office, it was his plain duty to take the jewels, and deliver them as he had promised. His own safety and theirs, de manded that he make his escape without delay — there was no knowing when some one might come — it would be dangerous, disastrous to be discovered there with the corpse. THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 209 Buttoning the bag under his coat, therefore, he gave one swift look at the dead man, and went into the outer office. Here he paused a moment to con sider. It was improbable that any other exit than the front door of the building would, at this time of night, be open. The safest way, if indeed, not the only way, would be to go boldly down the elevator, as he had come up. He must take his chance, at any rate. A glimpse into a mirror showed his face a deathly white. He took a towel from the washbowl and rubbed his cheeks violently, till the color had returned. If he could only efface the horror in his heart as easily ! The image in his eyes had faded so that, now the door was closed, he could hardly be lieve that what he had seen was true, but a feeling of faintness warned him that the shock had gone deep. He waited a moment for his weakness to pass, then summoning all his resolution, left the office and rang the elevator bell. He scarcely dared look at the elevator boy as the car descended. The air seemed close and stifling. Without a glance to right or left he walked unstead ily out the great doorway. On the sidewalk the night breeze revived him, and he started to walk briskly north along Broadway. At each step his courage 210 FIND THE WOMAN and his relief increased. He shook off his obsession, pacified his conscience with the thought that there was nothing he could haye done, and turned his thoughts to planning his next move in the curious game of chance which he seemed destined to play that night. Here he was again with the Brewster treasure, but again without a cent in his pocket and now still farther away than ever from his destination. As he walked along the canyon of high buildings the clocks rang midnight. How was he to get up-town ? He had not gone many blocks deliberating this question, when he heard a motor-car coming his way, behind him. It was proceeding slowly, a chauf feur driving, and a gentleman muffled up in a pep per-and-salt coat in the tonneau. He was a little blonde man of forty with a patient, resigned look, a man with a pale, careworn face and a lizard's chin. His mouth was slightly open; he had white eye brows; altogether, his face betokened no great strength of will. He looked at Fenton anxiously, as he passed, and turned to look again almost as if he intended to speak, but didn't quite dare. Fenton grasped the possibility and hailed the car. "Give me a lift up-town?" he asked. THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 211 The man looked him up and down. "How far d'you want to go ?" he asked, almost whining. "Harlem," said Fenton. For some moments the man in the car stared, without speaking. Fenton grew embarrassed; he wondered if the bag, concealed under his coat, showed too plainly. But the man finally changed his expression. A wan smile spread over his face, fol lowed by an expression of timid resolution. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "If you'll do me a small favor — it won't take more than half an hour — I'll send you up to Harlem in this car after ward — anywhere you want to go." "What is the favor?" asked Fenton. "Get in here, and I'll tell you." Fenton opened the door and entered. The man who had invited him was so mild that there could be no great danger to the jewels. "Go on home, Karl," said the stranger, "but go slowly; I want time to talk to this gentleman." Then he turned to Fenton, stared at him anxiously for a few moments, and then asked, "Can you act ?" "What d'you mean ? I'm not an actor, of course !" "What I want you to do, is to impersonate a Hun garian count for about ten minutes." 212 FIND THE WOMAN Fenton gasped. "Me? A count?" In spite of the tremor he was still in, he laughed. "Count Capricorni," the stranger explained. "I've got to produce him at my house this night, and oh, if you would do it! I'll fit you out with a dress suit and a red ribbon, and introduce you to a few guests. As soon as that's over, you can be taken sick — cholera infantum, gout, epilepsy or housemaid's knee — anything you like — and then you can go up to Harlem. What d'you say? Will you, please!" "Are you talking in your sleep, or what?" Fenton inquired. "I'm trying to save my sister's reputation, that's all. Perhaps, if you're incredulous, I'd better give you a few details." The gentleman sighed. "I think so, too," Fenton replied, "this seems to be my night in Arabia, and I might as well do it good. I've already crowded about sixty ordinary years' experiences into six hours of this evening. Romance seems to have it in for me to-night. Well, I guess I can stand a little more of it. What's your line, comedy, tragedy, farce, musical drama or bur lesque?" "Say, you're not crazy, are you?" The stranger seemed anxious. THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 213 "No, are you?'' "Well, sometimes I think I am. I'm a fool, any way. Perhaps I'd better tell you my story and let you decide." "All right," said Fenton, leaning back in the cushions. The stranger folded his arms, scowling ludi crously, and began: "My name is Stillwell Mor gan." Fenton sat up and looked at him eagerly. "Not the Stillwell Morgan? Not the nephew of James Pierpont?" "No, not that one!" the stranger replied, sadly. "And that's the whole story !" "It's a mighty short one !" Fenton grunted. "Oh, what I mean," said Morgan, "is that that very natural mistake of yours is what's just got me into trouble. Everybody makes that mistake. And thereat he proceeded to tell his tale . COUNT CAPRICORNI I have a sister named Marguerite Maganel Mor gan. She's part angel, part Vassar, and part darned fool. Being her only brother, of course I adore her FIND THE WOMAN on six days of the week, and swear at her on the seventh. If you've ever had that kind of a sister you know. Sisters either run you, or you run them. I'm not ashamed of admitting that Marg runs me. It saves a lot of trouble. Everybody seems to think I'm rich, because my name is Morgan, but I'm not. Oh, well, I make a fair income. Real estate. Wait — I'll give you my card. We live a plain, self-respecting life — up-town in an $85 apartment — that is, we did, till a month ago. Ah, well ! I wish we lived there now ! We had a pretty good sized bath-room where I could do my pulley-weights, and we had a view of the Hudson — only about one inch of it, but I was satisfied. We had a Swedish maid, too, and on Thursdays Marg made a Welsh rabbit, we're Welsh, you know, and I opened the beer. I never drink anything stronger than that Doesn't agree with me. We were happy and contented. I was, anyway. All I want is to go to a good musical show once in a while, and wear slippers when I'm home. I never had much use for style ; I hate those stiff stand-up collars, for instance. I believe in comfort and bath robes and things — you know, good American habits with no nonsense about them. Marg goes in for the latest thing. But then THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 215 she's ambitious. So she made me a velvet smoking jacket — I smoke three cigars a day, one after each meal. 'Well, last month Marg began to fret. She wasn't a bit interested in real estate or musical shows. I'm reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" this winter, and even that seemed to bore her. You see, she's higher spirited than I am, somehow. She likes a crowd. So, to please her, I said we'd spend a week at Atlantic City — at a real swell hotel. She bright ened up right away. I was glad of a week off, too — it would give me a chance to finish up the "Decline and Fall" and perhaps I could start in on "The An atomy of Melancholy." I've never had time to read that. I took a small suite. At first they thought we were a bridal couple and I nearly died of mortification. But it was worse than that when I found the bell boys thought that we were the Stillwell Morgans — the rich ones. I gave only dime tips, but that didn't seem to convince them. I suppose some rich people are stingy sometimes. Of course I told the clerk all about myself, but people stared at us so I dreaded to go into the dining-room. The second day after we arrived at the Bucking- 2i6 FIND THE WOMAN ham Hotel I met a nice looking fellow in the bil liard-room, while I was watching a game of pool. I don't often speak to strangers, but I was so lone some with no business to do, that I offered him a ten cent cigar, and afterwards we played a game of pool. Oh, not the regular game — I never tried that — it's a bit hard for a beginner — this was that game where you roll the balls from one corner. I beat the stranger two games. Nice fellow, I thought. Af fable, you know. Interested in things. I didn't care much for women, neither did he. We got on beau tifully. After he left I asked the clerk who he was, and the clerk switched round the visitor's book and pointed to a name. Well, I nearly fainted. "Count Capricorni and valet, Bnda-Pesth." There I had been laughing and joking with a real, live count ! When I told Marg about it she got awfully ex cited — sent for the manicure girl and asked her all about the count — then she interviewed the telephone girl and the chambermaid. Marg has a way of get ting right at things. She's resourceful, by Jove ! She told me I must invite the count to dinner, but I said I'd never dare in the world, now I knew who he was. I'd never seen Marg with men much. I usually THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 217 go into my room and read when they come, they're so silly. She was a revelation to me now, the way she went at it. She got into my lap and began to fool with my hair and teased me to introduce her to the count. I told her how the count had made fun of American women, and I guess that made her mad. When Marg gets her blood up, she's great. She said that I'd simply have to have him to dinner. I tried to get out of it, and then she began to cry. What can you do when a woman cries ? I agreed to let her have her own way. Not that I blamed Marg much. If you'd seen the count you'd have been impressed. Any one would. He looked just like a count — sort of distinguished looking, poetical kind of chap, he was. Wide fore head, crisp black curly hair, and a little bit of a mustache — say, I'll tell you! He looked for all the world like Edgar Allan Poe, at twenty-five. What's the matter? He did, really! Slender hands, like a woman's and he used them in a foreign sort of way when he talked. Then he wore a black soft tie with his evening dress, and a broad ribbon on his glasses, and some kind of a little red button in his button hole. I liked him when I got better ac quainted. I don't mind admitting it, I really did. 2i8 FIND THE WOMAN Marg had only twenty-four hours to get up a cos tume. She sent six or seven telegrams to Faustine, on Fifth Avenue, and had a hair dresser from Philadelphia. I had to buy a lot of orchids, and we got mother's pearls out of the safe deposit. It cost about four hundred dollars in all, but Marg was happy. The only thing was I didn't have a dress suit. Marg wanted me to hire one of a waiter, but I drew the line. I can be firm when I want to! I hate those hard shirts. The count came up to our sitting-room and Marg came in smelling of some kind of cologne she bought for four dollars a bottle. That was the first time she had ever had her hand kissed, in the European fashion — except in private theatricals, of course — but it didn't embarrass her one bit. She acted just as if they did it to her every day. Ain't women won derful? We went down to dinner, with me behind, and when we walked into the dining-room there was a buzz that you could have heard to the board-walk. You see, every girl in the hotel had been hot after the count for a week, and he never had paid any at tention to any of them. I was proud of Marg, then. Every woman there was hating her like mischief; and you know how that improves a woman's looks THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 219 — the one they hate, I mean. The count was lan guid and aristocratic and talked to Marg all the time. I didn't have a chance to say much. Marg was awfully animated, though. When we went up-stairs somehow I felt in the way, so I took my "Decline and Fall" and went into my room to read. I heard them laughing afterward, for an hour an a half. Then, when he left, Marg came in to see me. She told me she was dead in love with Count Capricorni, and what were we going to do? If he ever discovered we weren't the Still well Morgans she was afraid he'd cut us, and she'd pine away and die. That was how the trouble began. You see, Marg wanted to entertain him in New York, but how could we invite him to our little flat ? He'd scorn it. Marg said we'd have to move, and move quick. When Marg decides on a thing I give up the fight. Just then Aunt Jane died, and we knew that she'd surely leave us some money. Marg figured on a hundred thousand or so, but I doubted it. On the strength of it, however, Marg began to make her plans. She went up to the city next day and rented a suite at Wycherley Court. Ever seen Wycherley Court? It's on Riverside 220 FIND THE WOMAN Drive — a French Renaissance pile, Marg calls it — with an entrance hall that looks as if it was carved out of different kinds of colored soaps. There is a lot of plush and hall boys and bronze tables and fountains and things when you go in, and a mar quise in front. You know the kind. Our suite cost $15,000 a year. Marg spent a day in those antique furniture dens on Fourth Avenue, and got in a lot of Sheraton stuff and Turkish rugs to take the nouveau riche look off. I didn't mind the expense so much, although I was sailing pretty close to the wind by this time. It was the style we had put on that I hated. Of course, it wouldn't do for the Count Capricorni to find us living the bourgeois way we always had, so she got a lot of gowns — I thought they were awfully low- necked — and she made me get into a dress suit when the clock struck six every night, whether we had company or not. I tried to learn to drink Burgundy — but it's no use — I hate it ! Then she got a butler. Ever tried to act natural with an English butler looking at you? You can't do it, unless you're a woman. Women love it — it really seems to stiffen 'em up — but I always felt shriveled when he was in the room. THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 221 The count didn't like ordinary American cooking, so Marg got a chef and I never had any appetite after that. That Swedish girl we used to have could made grand griddle cakes — but that was all over! We only had stewed-up stuff in little casseroles, and everything tasted of onions. Marg said she loved his cooking, but I noticed she didn't eat much. But then, she was in love, I admit. The count came several times a week. He seemed to like the place, though I thought by the way he talked it was nothing compared to his castles in Hungary. He used to sit and smoke cigarettes out of a mouth-piece six inches long and tell us about his family. He told us that he was going to come into a whole lot of money when he married. He showed us a little miniature of his mother and an other of a young countess his mother was trying to make him marry. That picture got Marg furious; she used to go and order a new hat and two or three new gowns after every time he showed it to her. Well, at the pace we were going, I didn't see how we could last. It was all I could do to pay running expenses, and I had to work down town almost every night figuring on new deals to put us through. What with wages and tips and things at Wycherley 222 FIND THE WOMAN Court, I was at my wit's end. Marg said it didn't matter if she only married the count; because then we'd all have plenty of money. But all the same it worried me. Of course Marg talked to folks about her count, and naturally all our friends got pretty curious to see him. She gave several teas, but somehow he never managed to come to any of them. The first time he sent word he was ill, the second he had to go out of town, the third time he promised to come but didn't — and so it went. Her girl friends began to laugh at her, and then they got nasty. They said she was awfully stingy with her old count, prob ably afraid that some of them would catch him. Some of them even said they didn't believe she had any count at all. I was kept busy explaining about him, and apologizing and everything. Marg felt dreadfully upset about it. Well, one night she came into my room half cry ing and half laughing, and said that the count had proposed to her and she was going to marry him and be a countess and wear a coronet and live in a ruined castle just like in a story book. Of course, then, I knew I was in for it. Her picture would be in the Sunday papers, and perhaps mine, and there'd be THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 223 reporters and all sorts of things. It made me groan to think of it. Marg just loved it. She decided that she'd have to give a big recep tion to announce the engagement and introduce the count. That would stop all gossip, and people would see that we were just as good as the Vanderbilts and Goulds and Astors, and wasn't I proud of my little sister ? Well, I was proud enough of her, but I shud dered when I thought of the expense and the pub- licity and the style we'd have to put on. I only hoped that after it was all over, I could get a big sunny room somewhere near Forty-second Street, and wear my bath-robe and slippers every evening I didn't go to a show. So I went in for it. I sold my mother's pearls and got an automobile because the count said trol ley cars and subways were vulgar. I mortgaged a little farm in Connecticut that had belonged to the family for a hundred years and Marg hired a foot man and a lady's maid and a valet for me. I used to send him on errands all the time to get rid of him, but her maid worked hard. The count began to call me Stillwell and said Americans weren't so bad after you knew them well. He also began to talk about my investing in Hungarian mines, and I con- 224 FIND THE WOMAN sidered it favorably until Aunt Jane's will was filed for probate. Marg and I were left two hundred and fifty dollars apiece, which I spent for garage ex penses, and a portrait of her third husband, which Marg insisted on hanging up in the dining-room. It was our ancestral portrait. The count said he had 'em by dozens in his castles We set to-day for the reception, and the count promised on his honor he'd be there on time to meet all our friends. We invited about three hundred peo ple, but all the week folks have been telephoning to Marg to ask couldn't they bring a friend or two, so that this afternoon, to be on the safe side, I tele phoned the caterer to provide for seven hundred guests. Marg insisted on my hiring an empty suite below us for dancing, and got an orchestra and a whole lot of gilt chairs. I figured it out to-day that I was about $37,000 in a hole up to date. The count had come high, but Marg had to have him, and so long as she was happy and I could keep out of jail I didn't care. Knowing that it was a love match, and the count wasn't after Marg's money, it didn't matter. I could stand it. That's the way it stood this morning, when I went THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 225 down town to my grind. Florists all over the house, men nailing down canvas on the floors, footmen in everybody's way, a lot of extra maids and servants fussing about, and the caterers stewing things in the kitchen. I was glad to clear out and get down to my office where I could be quiet. Worked like a China man all day, and tried to forget we were marrying into the nobility. I was so nervous and excited, though, that I couldn't stand eating lunch in a restaurant where I would be likely to meet any of my friends, so I dropped into one of those little cheap quick lunch ham-and-egg places under the Brooklyn Bridge. I ordered some weak tea and milk toast, and was try ing to read the paper when I heard a voice that sim ply paralyzed me. It was behind a flimsy wooden partition — in the kitchen — and it was yelling "draw one !" or something like that. Perhaps it was "ham and over!" Then a waiter in a dirty duck suit came out of the doorway, with about sixteen dishes balanced along his arm, and an apron on. It was the Count Capricorni. Yes, that's right! That miserable waiter was the man that about eighteen servants and 226 FIND THE WOMAN six hundred guests were preparing for up at Wych- erley Court. And I had spent something like $37,- 000 so that he wouldn't be ashamed of Marguerite ! Morgan stopped and smiled sadly. "I don't think he saw me at all. He turned to put some things on a table, and I bolted without waiting for my lunch. You see how I'm fixed, don't you? I thought that if he did show up to-night, so that we would get the reception over with, I coul'd get rid of him to-mor row, forever. But he didn't appear." Fenton shook his head. "No," he answered, "and 1 don't think you'll ever see him again. I guess he's done for, poor fellow." Morgan construed the remark according to his own lights, probably thinking that the count had suspected that his real identity had been discovered. Fenton did not explain; he dared not say that he was virtually sure that the bogus Count Capricorni lay dead in an office on the thirteenth story of the St. Paul building. He wanted to forget what he had seen — at least until he had performed his duty. The reverie it threw him into was broken by Morgan. "You see what I was up against." "Must have been embarrassing," said Fenton. THE ST. PAUL BUILDING 227 "Embarrassing? Well, I guess! When eleven o'clock came, and he hadn't come, I told Marg all about it, and she near went crazy. What are we go ing to do?' she said — as if I knew! There we were again without the guest of honor. Hamlet, with the prince left out. The place was beginning to fill up and everybody was asking questions." "Well, what did you do ?" said Fenton, beginning to be amused. "Marg was splendid; she took right hold of it. She told me that I'd simply got to get somebody to impersonate the count, or she would be disgraced forever, and meanwhile she'd tell everybody that the count had been delayed in Washington, and would arrive at midnight. That would give me an hour to work it out. I confess I was frightened to death. I didn't like to deceive people, but what else could I do? Marg would be insane if I didn't save her repu tation. "Well, the only person I could think of was Har old Ringrose, a college mate of mine. We often played bezique together. He's a manufacturing chemist, down on Vesey Street. I rung up his house, but they said he was down town. I tried his office ; no answer. There was nothing for me to do but go 228 FIND THE WOMAN down there and find him, and try to get him to play the part. I thought I could play the old friendship and family honor strong enough to induce him. He knows hardly anybody, and no one would ever sus pect him. So I drove down there. There was a light in the sixth story window, but I couldn't get any answer to the bell ; and after I'd shouted as loud as I dared, a policeman told me to move on. So I drove back, not knowing what to do, till I met you." Morgan suddenly turned and grasped Fenton's arm with both his hands. "Do this for me, for Heaven's sake," he exclaimed, and weakly burst into tears. "God knows I never wanted all this fluff and feathers," he sobbed. "I'm a simple man with sim ple ways. I don't like fashion and footmen and things — I want to be let alone — only, Mar- guer — ite !" "Oh, brace up, old man," Fenton cried heartily. "I'll save your face for you. Depend on me. It'll be a good joke on all these snobs. Is everything ready?" "Yes. Here, we're aimost home, now. Home! God, I wish I'd never seen Wycherley Court." X WYCHERLEY COURT IN WHICH JOHN FENTON ASSISTS AT A SOCIAL FUNC TION IN HIGH LIFE, WEARS EVENING DRESS FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND AGAIN SEES BELLE CHARMION THEY had been going up Riverside Drive, and, as Morgan spoke, they approached a tall mar ble apartment house from which an awning stretched, across the sidewalk, to the curb. Here a line of carriages and automobiles were in line wait ing to discharge their passengers. Morgan leaned forward and tapped his chauffeur on the shoulder. "Round to the side entrance!" he commanded. Here he and Fenton got out, and made their way rapidly in, and along a corridor to the back stairs. They climbed ten stories and arrived panting at the back door of the Morgan apartment, were let in by a staring servant, and conducted rapidly along the hall. As they passed, Fenton heard the continuous 229 230 FIND THE WOMAN sound of gabble — the intermingled talk and laugh ter of many guests, inarticulate, confused, an un steady murmur of voices. It sounded to him as if it might come from some monstrous, horrid beast with innumerable mouths. Servants of all kinds skeltered past him as he made his way — waiters loaded with dishes, maids with ladies' wraps, men servants, gos siping, loafing, gaping. A high, clear laugh rose over all this subdued tumult. "Marg's holding the fort!" said Morgan, admir ingly, and led the way in to his own chamber. "Now, for heaven's sake, hurry !" he exclaimed. Fenton had but time to see a wide white bed laid out with a complete outfit, evening dress clothes, shirt, tie — when two man-servants fell upon him and tore off his coat, vest and trousers with the fury of maniacs. As they held the dress trousers for him, a young lady put her head through the door, ex citedly. "Has he come ?" she cried. And then, "Oh, there you are ! Thank goodness !" Fenton took a leap into the black trousers and turned his back just as she burst into the room. "Is he ready?" she cried, eagerly. "For heaven's sake hurry, you idiots ! I can't wait a minute longer. For heaven's sake, hurry ! " WYCHERLEY COURT 231 Stillwell, put on his shoes, quick! Here, you crazy loon, you've got that collar upside down! For heaven's sake, let me do it, if you're all half-wit ted!" And Fenton found himself suddenly con fronted by a tall, pretty, blue-eyed girl with flushed cheeks, all in white, with three ostrich feathers nod ding in her hair. "Hold 'your head still!" she commanded. "I can't do anything if you move that way! Here, you, put his gloves on quick!" A man attacked each hand. Stillwell Morgan still fussed at the bows of Fenton's shoes. Marguerite Maganel Mor gan, in white gloves, with orchids on her breast, her flushed face within an inch of his, worked over Fenton like a window dresser with a wax figure. Her sweet breath was in his face, her curls brushed his cheeks as she patted and pulled at his tie. He saw her pretty mouth working with nervousness. Then she stepped back and looked at him. "Mercy!" she shrieked, "this isn't Mr. Ringrose! Who is it?" She stared at him with big eyes, and turned scarlet. "I believe I have the honor of being Count Capri- corni," said Fenton, bowing low. A maid tapped at the door, and entered half way. 232 FIND THE WOMAN "Mrs. Grahamson-Davis wants to see you, Miss Morgan," she said. "She has to go home. Says she can't wait any longer." Miss Morgan grabbed Fenton by one arm. "Come!" she commanded, savagely, "I don't care who you are — you'll do! If I can only satisfy that old Mrs. Grahamson-Davis, I'm safe!" and she dragged him out of the room into the hall. Here he asserted himself, offered his other arm, tossed his head erect, and stepped off with her. If he were to play a part he decided it would be that of a man, not a puppet. Miss Morgan looked up at him with admiration. "It was awfully good of you to come!" she breathed. "It's about time for something like that to be said," he replied, haughtily. "You treat me right, or I'll spoil the show." "Oh, I'll do anything — anything!" she exclaimed, then, dropping her voice she added, "I wish you were the Count Capricorni !" With this exquisite compliment pleasantly ring ing in his ears, he navigated his way through star ing, whispering groups of guests and entered the reception room. A buzz of comments greeted them. WYCHERLEY COURT 233 Everybody stared; they were immediately sur rounded, innumerable introductions began. Fenton, for the first time in his life in evening dress, with a foolish wild longing that Belle Char- mion might see him, played his part like a veteran. As one eager, curious person after another was pre sented, he bowed, shook hands, uttered a pleasantry, laughed and gestured and shrugged his shoulders as if he had been the petted hero of society all his life. Of all the remarkable situations he had found himself in that mad night, this was perhaps the most dangerous. The very peril of it, however, in spired him. The gayety of the scene went to his head like a cocktail; his mind worked like an ex quisitely adjusted high-speed machine. The crowd, elaborately dressed, wove about him, smiling, pretty women and attentive men, the lights of electroliers and cut glass and precious stones flashed in his eyes, the perfume of frangipanni and peau d'Es- pagne mingled with the wafted odors, from the dining] room, of oysters and terrapin. The clink of glasses tinkled with laughter-laden voices. The music of an orchestra sobbed and swelled, with the voices of heart-broken strings and twittered with love-lorn wood instruments. 234 FIND THE WOMAN It all stimulated his imagination to the boiling point. He talked as he had never talked before — of things he knew nothing of, things he didn't be lieve, things as far outside of his life as Chimbo- raza or Cambodia. It was the more easy when he perceived that nobody listened — every one was hys terical, hypnotized, eager to add his or her nonsense to the general babel. He talked wildly of bridge and golf, of plays he had never seen, of countries he had never visited. But he might as well have said anything — that he was dead and buried — that he had forgotten to wear a shirt, that his mother had whiskers. No one would have noticed. He gossiped of kings and princesses, he mentioned at least seven new wonders of the world. The ladies giggled, the men said "Really!" and no one knefw but that he had been speaking commonplaces. "You're doing fine — fine!" Miss Morgan whis pered to him at the first respite. "I'm proud of you !" She looked up under her lashes coquettishly, "What a pity we're not really engaged ! The poor Count!" At that there came to him, suddenly, a flash of remembrance of the adventurer, dead in the St. Paul building. The memory swept like a chill wind WYCHERLEY COURT 235 over his soul — and awakened him to his almost for gotten duty. The jewels! He had forgotten all about them. At this minute he should be speeding up-town to Harlem, to keep his promise. What right had he here, in this absurd disguise! The charm of the adventure had gone to his head. Now he must be about his business without delay. Just as he was casting about for a pretext to go, his ears caught the sound of a name — "Miss Belle Charmion," and he turned, shocked and trembling, to see before him the girl of his dreams. There she was, olive skin and soft hazel eyes, whimsical mouth — the pretty, slender girl he had already seen twice that evening. She was staring at him, and her brows were knitted. "Haven't we — met before?" she asked, hesitat ingly, as she held out her hand. What could he say? Surely he could not dis claim her acquaintance, neither could he stultify his hostess. For a moment everything seemed to go black in front of him, then that very feeling sug gested an excuse for not answering. He put his hand to his heart and dropped upon a chair. "I feel faint!" he murmured. "Will you pardon me, Miss Morgan, if I — " 236 FIND THE WOMAN "You'd better go into Still's room for a mo ment," she suggested. She beckoned to her brother, who came crowding up. "Take him out, he's faint ing!" she commanded. "This crush is too much for him — you know he hasn't recovered from that at tack of yesterday, yet." Fenton staggered out on Morgan's arm, and, as the crowd made way for him, he saw Miss Char- mion's eyes still upon him, with a puzzled, question ing expression. He felt base and mean. "I must get out of here right away!" he ex claimed, as soon as they were alone in Morgan's chamber. "I've spent too much time already — I've neglected a terribly important errand." "You've saved my life, old man," said Stillwell Morgan, effusively. "I don't know what we ever would have done. You've made an awful hit. Peo ple are crazy about you ! Why, Marguerite says — " "Damn Marguerite! Where's that bag I brought?" Fenton looked eagerly about the room. "I don't know who you are, but I'd be glad to have you consider me your friend, and if I can do — " "Find that bag!" Fenton exclaimed excitedly. "Lord, man, if you knew what was in it — " He groped under the bed. WYCHERLEY COURT 237 "Why, isn't it here? Say, I'll call one of the men.'* Morgan went to the door. "If that isn't found I'm ruined!" cried Fenton. "Haven't you any detectives here?" Morgan's valet came running up. "A bag, sir? What kind of a bag?" *'A soft bag — gray ooze-leather! Hurry — find it right away. What did you do with it ? By heav ens, I'll send for the police!" "Perhaps it was taken into the ladies' room, sir; I'll see!" While he left to inquire, Fenton fumed. Morgan fussed about, anxious and embarrassed. "Was it really valuable?" he asked, weakly. Fenton did not answer, but opened drawers, looked in closets, overturned piles of overcoats, looked in hats, in frantic haste. Every instant he grew more excited. At last, as he stood, flushed and tumbled, trying to think what to do — whether to call for the police, ask that everyone be searched, or appeal to Miss Morgan — the valet returned with the lost bag. Fenton grabbed it from him, and tremblingly looked inside. A blaze of color flashed up from its dark interior. "Miss Charmion had it, sir," the valet explained. 238 FIND THE WOMAN "They thought, of course, it belonged to one of the ladies, and she was there getting ready to go home." "Did she look into it?" Fenton demanded with anxiety. "Oh, no sir, she just took it, looked at it, and said it wasn't hers. She was too worried to pay much attention. Some one had just telephoned to her, and she was rather upset over it, sir." Fenton heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to Morgan. "Is your automobile ready ?" he asked. The valet interposed. "Ready at the door, sir." "I've got to get away in a hurry, then." Morgan laid a hand on his arm. "If you don't wish to wait to change your clothes, Mr. — Mr. — " "Fenton. John Fenton." "Mr. Fenton, you can send back the suit you have on when you find it convenient. It's no importance, really, and I'll give you a silk hat and an over coat—" Even in the whirl of his excited haste, even with the memory of the dead man always in the back of his mind, even with the responsibility of the jewels keeping him in a fever of unrest, even with the thrill of Belle Charmion's near presence disturbing him, the offer tingled a pleasant fancy. He had WYCHERLEY COURT 239 never worn a silk hat in his life — how he had longed to! — now, in evening clothes, it would be a satisfaction to go forth, robed as a gentleman, clad, cap-a-pie in formal garb! He grinned, blushingly accepted the hat, and gazed at it. He smoothed the nap against his sleeve. Perhaps he might catch a glimpse of Belle Charmion again — but no, how dis appointing! He had, of course, to exit by way of the servants' staircase. It was too bad. In two minutes he had slipped out and was run ning down-stairs with Morgan's valet. The motor car was not at the side entrance; they went round to the front of the building in search of it. They found it, drawn up in the line of waiting vehicles, and Fenton was just about to enter when, turning, he saw Belle Charmion coming out under the awn ing. He paused in surprise; she looked eagerly to right and left. Catching sight of him, she smiled faintly, and walked rapidly up. "Could you take me up-town?" she asked. "I've ordered a taxicab, but it hasn't come, and I'm in a great hurry. I've had an important message — a relative is dangerously ill — I must get up there im mediately. I'm awfully worried about it!" "Why, I shall be delighted!" said Fenton. He 240 FIND THE WOMAN was trembling in every limb. The idea of being alone with her at last sent him into a fever of ex citement. He turned to lead the way. "Right over here," he said. As he turned suddenly the bag he was holding in one hand struck sharply against one of the iron stanchions of the awning. It fell to the sidewalk. He looked down; to his horror some half dozen pieces of jewelry had fallen out — a ring or two, a brooch, a bracelet, and, half in, half out, a con fused pile of precious stones, sparkling under the light. He looked up to see Miss Charmion star ing pale-faced at the revelation. The next min ute a uniformed porter ran up to her and touched his cap. "Your taxi, Miss Charmion/' he said, and, bow ing, pointed the way to where a green car waited at the curb. Fenton was too embarrassed to speak. He stood foolishly staring as she looked at him coldly, and said: "Then I shall not need to impose on you, Count. But thank you just the same." And, drawing herself up, she walked proudly to the taxi- cab, turned and gazed at him, then got in and drove away. WYCHERLEY COURT 241 Not till her car skived the corner and disap peared did Fenton take his eyes from her. Then, with a sigh, he stooped, scraped the jewels into the bag as the porter stared, and walked to the Mor gan's touring car. "Where shall I drive, sir?" the chauffeur in quired. It was some moments before Fenton could col lect his senses enough to recall the address the octo roon had given him. Where was it? The stirring events of the night had all but obliterated her words. Somewhere in Harlem. . . . Oh, yes, The Norcross, 505, no, 555 West One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street. That was it. He gave the ad dress, got into the car beside Karl, the chauffeur, and they whirled away. He crammed his silk hat down hard over his ears and leaned back in the car to enjoy the ride. The brisk, mild wind ran merrily past him. I The winking lights on the Jersey shore flashed brightly across the Hudson. His brain cleared. Surely he had much to think of; much had happened since he left his Harlem home a careless, thoughtless boy. But there was only one thing he could think of now • — he put all other things aside, and revelled in his 242 FIND THE WOMAN dream. He thought of nothing but Belle Charmion. He wanted no one but Belle Charmion. Belle Charmion, in low cut, pale blue voile, Belle Char mion of the olive skin and whimsical smile — who was Belle Charmion? What fate had led him con tinually in crossing and recrossing paths towards Belle Charmion ? Did she know, or care, what des tiny allied them in this mysterious way — John Fen- ton and Belle Charmion? He loved Belle Char mion; could Belle Charmion love him? When would they meet in peace, in joy? When would they talk and tell what he so longed to hear, he and Belle Charmion? Oh, the smooth, soft contour of her cheek, the exquisite gesture of her hand! So he dreamed, fancy-free in joyous abandon of Belle Charmion! Belle Charmion! Belle Charmion! "Say, this is one great night, ain't it?" Fenton came down with a thud from the clouds of romance to the chauffeur's commonplace. He gave the remark a mumbling reply: "Fine!" "Yes ; 'it's the wrong kind of a night to go home in/ as Ruby Diamond used to say." " 'Diamond ?' " Fenton queried, remembering the phenomenal blonde of the Caxton, "do you happen to know Miss Diamond? That's queer." WYCHERLEY COURT 243 The chauffeur laughed. "Know her? I drove the front cab with her and young Framingham when they busted up the Yale funeral !" "D'you know a girl she runs with named Millie something — a little black-eyed devil?" "Millie St. Valentine ? Well, I guess yes ! She's the one that drove the hearse with John Adams Quincy, 3d." "The hearse ! What the deuce w as the Yale fu neral, anyway? Say, I guess you'd better tell me about it — if it isn't too long a story." The chauffeur chuckled to himself. "It was lucky for Quincy it wasn't a longer story," he said. "It was short, but it certainly was lively. I'll tell jyou about it." And, as he gave the steering wheel a sharp turn and turned the car into Ninety- fourth Street, he began : THE GREAT YALE FUNERAL Why, this was Thanksgiving Day — a year ago — you remember the football game when Harvard trimmed Yale for the first time in nine years ? Six to four the score was, and every Cambridge man in New Haven went crazy. I wasn't there, but I 244 FIND THE WOMAN hear it was like a matinee in an ancient Roman am phitheater. After the preliminary orgies the Har vard rioters went to Boston to celebrate. The pride and chivalry of Yale was due in New York to drown their sorrows in a theater party at the "Mar rying Mary" show. Well, there was one Harvard rooter who was so spifflicated by the triumph that he couldn't box the compass any more. That was John Adams Quincy 3d. He was genially kidnapped by some of the speedy Sons of Eli with no hard feelings, and the first thing he knew they had him in the Yale train pulling out for New York. When he began to look out the window for New London he suspected that something was wrong, but it was too late to do any thing by that time. He would have to miss the crimson fire and the gilding of John Harvard and the Cambridge police after all. The Yale men gave him the "ha-ha" and told him little old New York would have to do. So he made the best of it and went, reminding them of the score and the snake- dance every time he opened a bottle, which was plenty often. He was a thoroughbred, that Quincy 3d. He was a spender, and he had money to spend. He WYCHERLEY COURT 245 was fairly poisonous with greenbacks. Old man Quincy was a triple-dyed billionaire, in the first place; and in the second, young Quincy had backed the Harvard eleven for about $5,000 at 2 to 5. He had something like $16,000 in his pants when he got off the train at the Grand Central Station. By that time almost every Yale man in his car was down and out, but John Adams Quincy 3d was walking on the atmosphere, shedding $10 bills at the slightest provocation. I was running a taxicab then, and of course I never knew anything about his start till afterwards when Millie told me all about it. My first sight of the fun come when I was standing in front of the Abbots', on Forty-fifth street, waiting for a fare, and young Quincy blew round the corner from "Jack's." Now I wouldn't want to say Quincy was soused, exactly. That's an ugly word for a gent like him. But you might say he was — well — glorified, like. Exhilarated — transmogrified — I don't know what you'd call it. I never had $i 5,000 between me and working- for-a-living, and I ain't sure how it feels — • but Quincy was happy, there was no doubt about that. His hat was dented in and his collar was 246 FIND THE WOMAN marked all over "6 to 4," and he was singing his Harvard lay to the tune of "Three Blind Mice." "Yale is dead, Yale is dead, Yale is dead, Eli said, Eli said, Eli said, 'They might grow crimson, but we'd grow blue!' They gobbled our money at five to two ; We let them have it, then WHAT DID WE DO? Yale is dead !" You know the Abbots' ? It's mostly a press agents' club — theatrical men, anyway. Well, Johnny Hobbs of the Hippodrome was just coming out the door with Nat Goodwin and a bunch of actors. Quincy recognized the big chap, so he come up and slapped him on the back and said : "Hello, Nat; how are you?" Goodwin beamed. "Why, I'm a hygienic dream!" he said. "Yale's dead !" says Quincy. "Then you ought to give her a first-class fu neral," says Nat Goodwin. He took Quincy's arm and spoke confidentially. "None of these cloth-cov ered pine boxes with two hacks at $85 — you ought to have at least twenty-seven carriages and a band!" "By the jumping John Harvard, I will!" says WYCHERLEY COURT 247 Quincy. "But not twenty-seven hacks — twenty- seven hearses — and then some!" Nat walked away with his bunch, laughing; Quincy stood thinking it out. Johnny Hobbs looked him over thoughtfully. "D'you mean it?" he asked. "If you do, I got an idea." "Do I mean it! Ain't I alone in a great city after the first time we've busted into Yale in nine years? I'm certainly going to celebrate if it costs me my inheritance!" And Quincy pulls a roll of yellow-backs out of his hip pocket and shows enough money to make Johnny Hobbs fairly sick to his stomach. "You come right in here," says Johnny. "I'll fix you, for fair! Wait till I get to the telephone and I'll have all the dead wagons in New York here in half an hour. You won't have to celebrate alone neither. I'll present you to the smashingest little brunette in town, and if she don't drive that Yale hearse for you, she'll never get another engagement on the stage while I'm alive!" With that he pulls Quincy into the Abbots'. My fare come out just then, and I clocked him to the., Astor Hotel. 248 FIND THE WOMAN Well, just as I was pocketing my tip, this young Framingham chap come by with a bunch of men with Yale flags, all as sizzy as sky-rockets. Ever heard of Montrose Framingham? Why, old President Framingham's son, you know ; the N. Y. & Penn. R. R. man — the man they used to call "Gold Socks" Framingham after he cornered that western timber pool. The old man had money enough to wrap up the Metropolitan tower in and tie it with a gold string; and he never was stingy ,with Montrose. It was him give Yale that big Ancient History building in his freshman year. That's why he never got fired, although he certainly was some lively round about New Haven. Well, as I was saying, young Framingham come up to me (I'd driven him all over town — once I took him to Richmond, Va., in my cab on a bet), and he says — "Hello, Squash" (the fellows call me that be cause I like squash pie with a layer of red pepper on top of it) — "What the name of Eli are you driv ing a red taxi for? I thought you was a good Yale man." "I hear Yale's dead !" says I, grinning. "You yellow-eyed clockwork crook," he says, WYCHERLEY COURT 249 "for two cents I'd drown you in cylinder oil ! Who told you that?" "I got it from John Adams Quincy 3d/' I says "and what's more, he's going to give Eli a funeral in New York right away to-night!" "Is that right?" he says; "Honest?" I told him what I'd heard in front of the Abbots' and he called after his gang to come back and hear. When I gave them the tale they yelled like Co- manches. "Get into here," says Framingham, and he gets up side of me and the rest pile into the back, and I took 'em round to the front of the Astor. There Framingham got out and ran up to the cab starter. "Order all the taxicabs you can get!" he says. The starter was staggered. "What d'you mean, sir?" he says. "How many do you need?" "Anything up to a hundred — and have 'em here in half an hour round the corner!" says Framing- ham. Then he comes up to me and asks me who is the press agent for the Metropolis Theater. I told him it was Abey Moonstone, and we started to look him up. 250 FIND THE WOMAN "What are you going to do?" I asked Framing* ham. • "I'm going to bust up that funeral," he says, "if it costs me my degree !" And I knew he meant it. Well, it didn't take us long to find Abey at the Knickerbocker bar, and it didn't take Abey long to see what they was in it for him and the Metropolis Theater. He hurried out and rung up Ruby Dia mond, his first prize show girl, and by the time we got round to the Woodstock Hotel, where she lived, she was ready for us in a pale blue slippery skin tight dress and a millionaire hat. The rest was jewelry and ermine. Say, you've seen Ruby Dia mond — no man can look on her and live! She's the ultimate peach ! Abey introduced the two prin cipals of the anti-funeral crusade and we proceeded to get out and look for a band. Well, there wasn't a blessed band we could get — Quincy had caught the only one for sale, coming home from a Schiitzenverein hullabaloo, and we was up against it good. "Say," says Ruby, "what's the matter with a Sal vation Army band? They make a whole lot of noise, and they wear blue." "You can't get 'em," I says. WYCHERLEY COURT 251 "I'll endow a hospital!" says Framingham. "I'll give 'em a million new uniforms — I'll put up for the Christmas dinner for all the bums east of the Alleghenies! You drive down to the headquarters and I'll fix the commander-in-chief if I have to de posit my gold-bearing bonds! I'm going to have a female band in blue, or I'll eat it! 'Rah for Yale!" So we clocks down to see the general. I never heard what it cost young Framingham. They must have taxed him something savage, but he got three bands. They was on their way to the big Thanks giving Day free feed, and was ordered to meet us at the Flatiron Building. When we got back to the Astor we found a pro cession of taxicabs about three-quarters of a mile long, waiting. There was red, green, yellow and black cars, and a Yale man in each. Moreover, about every one of 'em had a chorus girl out of the Metropolis — "The Curly Girlies" was running then — and the crowd was beginning to gather some plenty — the traffic cops was near crazy. I took the head of the line and led the string down Eighth avenue and across Twenty-second to where the three bands was waiting — then we set 252 FIND THE WOMAN out looking for Quincy's funeral and trouble. Our scouts had come in and located a line of about thir ty-three hearses forming on Second avenue and Thirty-fourth street. Anyone who had any sense could be sure that that procession would head straight for Times Square. John Adams Quincy 3d was no yap, and we were sure he'd calculate to hit the middle of New York City good and hard — before he got pulled. So Montrose Framingham give the word to steer up Broadway. The Salva tion lassies struck up "Are you washed, Are you washed, Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?'* and off we went. There was some good yelling when we struck the Great White Way, and you needn't think we didn't draw a crowd ! It was about half past seven by this time and the Tenderloin was beginning to get busy. At Thirty- fourth street we formed in line two abreast, and the cornets switched to "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" It was going fine. The cops couldn't stop the Salvation Army because they had WYCHERLEY COURT 253 permits — and as for the taxis — ain't they got a right to the street ? It was smooth sailing till we got to Forty-second Street and we sighted the funeral. There it was, held up east of Broadway with the Schtitzen band playing the "Dead March" in Saul and a row of hearses as far as the eye could reach, and a crowd running up and growing bigger every minute. And what d'you think? Driving every hearse was a Hippodrome chorus girl in evening dress! Johnny Hobbs had certainly done it well. Abey Moonstone was wild. Our fares give the Yale yell and it was answered by Harvard "Rahs !" from the Hippodrome girls — Quincy stood up and begun to sing "Yale is Dead !" — and then they got the traffic cop's whistle to cross Broadway. On they come. It was so funny you wanted to cry. By this time they was a million people spilled around there — and some fool pulled the fire alarm just to help it along. Now, whether the traffic cop at the corner got rattled and really did blow his "come on" whistle, or whether it was a riot-call or something, I never 254 FIND THE WOMAN knew. The cop denied it. Anyway we all heard a whistle, and young Framingham yells to me : "By the seven pink Salamanders of Shiraz, Squash, go at 'em! If you'll bust -that Harvard guy's hearse I'll give you a hundred dollars and go bail!" I turned back and waved to the line — "Come on!" I says, and on we went. There was a yell from the mob you could have heard to the Flatiron, and I charged for Quincy. I caught his nigh hind wheel and busted it right to smithereens. Then a mounted cop galloped up and got me. Well, it sure was funny ! The hearse keeled over on the hubs and spilled out Quincy and Millie St. Valentine. They jumped just in time and landed on their feet. And in less than two minutes the place was so tangled up with hearses and taxicabs and Schiitzenvereins and Salvationists that you couldn't tell which was which. The crowd swarmed into the mess like flies and then come the fire en gines — two steamers from each point of the com pass, and after them the ladder trucks and the water tower and then two patrol wagons full of reserves. Then the police got busy. Well, I was taken to the station about that time, WYCHERLEY COURT 255 and so I missed it. But I got the story from Millie St. Valentine. The minute John Adams Quincy 3d struck the ground he seemed to come to, and wake up to the fact that he'd got in bad. "By Jupiter!" he says to Millie, "this is going to cost me about four million dollars !" "Oh, it ain't so bad as all that !" says Millie. "It'll probably be only 'ten dollars or ten days.' ' "Don't you believe it!" says Quincy. "I know better. Why, I'm ruined. We've got to beat it!" Millie said she thought he was a piker for fair, then ; she didn't have any idea that he'd more'n just got cold feet. He took her hand and ducked through the crowd with her and rushed her into Rector's. Then she found out what he was worrying about. It seems young Quincy had been in hot water be fore and his folks was sore. He'd been featured in the police news in Boston papers so often, in fact, that his old man had give it to him straight that if it ever happened again he'd disinherit him. See how it was? Quincy had already kicked up a row that would make more talk on Broadway than anything that had happened since the Dewey parade. The morning's papers would be full of it 256 FIND THE WOMAN — he could just see the scare-heads "Young Million aire Plays Ghastly Joke on the Rialto" — and all like that. Millie kind of felt for him. Quincy was a nice boy and she liked him. So she said, "Well, the only thing to do is to fix the papers — but it'll cost a lot !" "I don't care if it costs two hundred thousand," says Quincy. "It'll be cheap at the price. Will you come with me, O Queen?" She said she would. Well, if you know anything about city editors you can imagine what happened. The minute they see the girl it was all off, and the more money Quincy offered, the more stubborn they got. What ! kill a story like that — son of a millionaire and the prettiest brunette in N. Y. C. ? Not much. Look at the pictures ! Look at the society slush they could throw in! Think of the "well-known clubman" stuff and the "strikingly beautiful brunette." It was too good to keep back. Quincy was no sooner out of the office with his grouch than the city editor was telephoning to the police stations, ordering photographs and sending for his star reporter. That was the tale all over town. Quincy was per fectly sick. WYCHERLEY COURT 257 Well, he took Millie home and she tried to jolly him up but it was no use. He figured that he was out three millions at least by his folly, and he left her reception-room talking a lot about suicide. Millie allows she was pretty badly scared. Well, of course all this time Johnny Hobbs had been good and busy. He 'phoned in the story as a "friend of the paper" to every city editor, he sent about a thousand photographs of Millie down-town by messengers, and then he waylaid the "Ten O'Clock Club" — the theater details from the papers. He tipped them off with all sorts of fancy details he'd doped up, and then he went to bed happy; so did Abey Moonstone, who'd been on the same job with three stenographers. Of course that was what saved Quincy — them press agents done it too well. Every city editor in town smelled a "plant" and give orders at midnight to "kill" the story. So when John Adams Quincy 3d got up at five o'clock next morning at the Plaza and sent down for the papers, expecting to see his name in a three- column scare-head — he spent two hours going through them with a fine- tooth comb to find that the funniest thing that happened on Broadway within 258 FIND THE WOMAN the memory of man hadn't been so much as men tioned in a single paper ! All the same it didn't save him his money. Millie married him three weeks afterward and got most of it after all. XI THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS HOW JOHN FENTON HELPS OUT A CRIMINAL SCHEME, WITNESSES AN ARREST AND AN ESCAPE, WAITS IN A DESERTED FLAT AND GETS A NEW NAME. THE chauffeur had hardly finished his story be fore the car drew up to the curb in front of a brick apartment house on One Hundred and Sev enty-fifth Street, and stopped. Fenton descended, felt in his pockets in vain for a tip, and bade the chauffeur an apologetic good-night. He went into the vestibule and looked along the row of letter boxes for the name of "Flint," and pressed the electric button above. A muffled "hello" came, di minished and faint, through the speaking tube. He replied. "What the devil is it?" the invisible speaker asked. "I've got the jewels," Fenton shouted through the mouthpiece. 259 26o FIND THE WOMAN A spasmodic clicking of the electric latch came in answer. By its nervous rapidity Fenton could easily imagine that his information had caused some ex citement. He pushed open the front door and ran up-stairs. The halls were dimly lighted, and he looked in vain for any indications of a greeting. Up to the second, up to the third floor, and then, look ing higher, he heard a man's gruff voice calling stealthily, "One flight more!" Up Fenton went with his bag. At the top a man, unrecognizable in the semi- darkness, seized his arm and hurried him toward a lighted hallway, spun him round and looked at him eagerly. "Who are you, anyway?" "My name doesn't matter," said Fenton. "I've got the stuff right here." "Well, I'll be hanged!" he ejaculated, and then he looked at Fenton again. "Where in the devil did you get 'em?" Fenton had, by this time, learned discretion, and replied only by a question. "Is Flint here ?" The man stared; his expression changed, then he controlled himself. "Yes, I'm Flint," he said finally. THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 261 Fenton breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, then, I suppose it's all right. You'll take 'em right back to the Brewster house, I suppose? You'll lose no time?" "Oh, that's all right, I'll get 'em back, the first thing in the morning." Fenton handed him the bag somewhat reluctantly. There seemed to be nothing else to do, but it seemed a mild ending to his night of adventure. There was no doubt that it was Flint, by the octoroon's de scription. He grabbed the bag fiercely and looked inside, then snapped it shut. Fenton became un easy. "Then I can tell Miss — you know, the girl, that it's all right?" he said. "Yes, it's all right, son." Flint held the bag be hind his back. "They'll be in the safe by nine o'clock, before the coroner comes. But you'd bet ter skip, now. There's no need of exciting sus picion. Go home and go to bed. You've done well." He crowded Fenton to the doorway nerv ously and stood guarding it. Fenton turned hesitatingly. "I hope I can find her," he said. "She was awfully worried about this — but I've done all I can, I suppose." 262 FIND THE WOMAN "Good night!" said the man abruptly, and sud denly slammed the door. Fenton heard the lock dick. Then, for the first time, he grew actively sus picious. Flint was a tall, gaunt, grizzled creature, wrinkled and weatherbeaten, with deep-set gray eyes. As he turned for his final word, he showed a great, misshapen ear. The lower lobe was split half in two. Suddenly, as if spoken by an audible voice, came the fortune-teller's words — "beware of a man with a split ear!" Fenton's suspicions grew blacker. But he had done exactly what he had been asked to do — if there were any mistake it was surely not his. He turned slowly to the staircase, and walked down, thinking. Well, it was too late, now. Perhaps it was all right. Why should he worry? So thinking he went down-stairs and out to the street. Should he go home ? He smiled at his costume — his dress clothes and top hat seemed to demand an other adventure. He felt abstractedly in his pockets for a cigarette, and noticed for the first time that again his pockets were absolutely empty. What a night ! He yawned, and walked up One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street thinking of Belle Charmion. THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 263 Just as he turned the corner two men, walking rapidly, passed him. He caught but a momentary look, but that sight made him turn eagerly and gaze at them again. There was something familiar about both of them — by Jove! It was O'Shea and Elk- hurst — or, as it appeared both had aliases, Nailery and Sproule. Neither had recognized him, for tunately. He stopped, in a trance of wonder. What did this encounter mean ? He could still see them walking rapidly toward the Norcross Apartments. As Fenton stood there, gaping at the sight, they turned up the steps and entered the building. Then, in a flash he began to suspect them. Of course both were after the jew els — and, if they, were going up to the apartment, either they would attack Flint — or wait! Now he had it! Flint was probably a member of the same gang! It was as plain as a photograph, at last. Evidently Flint had been notified of the capture of the gems. Well, no wonder he had been surprised when Fenton had handed them back to one of the gang itself! Fenton cursed himself for his stu pidity. But all this was surmise. He wanted to make sure, and hurried back to the entrance of the Nor- 264 FIND THE .WOMAN cross Apartments, and found that, by some accident, the outer door had not latched. He crept up four flights, approached the door of Flint's apartment, put his ear to the keyhole and listened. A hoarse burst of laughter greeted his ears. There was no doubt of it. Even now, no doubt, with blood on their hands, they were dividing the spoil. What could he do ? Nothing, it seemed ; and yet he would not leave the place. He walked down stairs trying to think of some plan to retrieve his blunder. On the floor below he looked about, saw a door without a nameplate, tried it, and found it was unlocked. He opened it and walked in — there was no carpet on the floor. It was evident the flat was vacant. He groped his way along the inner, hall, a long, straight passage toward the rear; and emerged, finally, after bumping into several corners, into a small kitchen faintly illuminated by the moon. Through the windows he saw a fire-escape. He left his precious silk hat upon the washtubs, lifted the sash, crawled out, and cautiously ascended the iron ladder. The windows of the kitchen above, however, were dark, and they were fastened. There could be nothing done that way, and he returned. THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 265 Cruising about on a little voyage of discovery, he found a candle end and a few matches on the kitchen shelf. He struck a light and sat down on the top of the tubs to think. He had not waited long be fore he heard footsteps on the floor above; then there was a rattle in the shaft, and he heard the dumb waiter descending. Holding his lighted candle in one hand, Fenton opened the sheet-iron door and saw the rope run ning. He held the candle nearer and looked up. The dumb waiter was now visible, slowly descend ing. He watched it, with his heart in his mouth. It came to the level of his eyes, and he saw that both shelves were empty. The next moment he was sur prised to see two feet, patent leathered, shining in the candle-light, standing on top of the apparatus. Slowly the waiter moved down, creaking. Panta loons appeared, a coat, then hands carefully work ing at the rope. Another minute and the lower half of the body had disappeared in the hole and he was confronted by the astonished eyes of Elkhurst, alias Sproule. The little car stopped. Sproule looked as queer as an actor in a Punch and Judy show, — like some curious Jack-in-the-pulpit, though too amazed, too fearful, apparently, to speak. Fenton 266 FIND THE WOMAN stood with the lighted candle dripping grease upon his evening coat, with his tall hat rakishly ajar upon his head. The moment was dramatic ; there was an instant of fine sustained suspense, and then the gentleman who had seen the more of the world spoke. "By Jove ! it's the chap I gave that tweed suit to ! For Heaven's sake help me out, and be quick about it." There was indeed need of haste, for above were now heard cries of rage and anger, hurrying foot steps, and finally a bang at the door of the shaft in the kitchen overhead. Sproule made a quick dive from his perch and landed in Fenton's arms. This extinguished the little light. The cries, meanwhile, had increased in vigor, and some one began violently pulling up the dumb waiter. Sproule landed with stocking feet upon the kitchen floor. He released himself from Fenton's arms, then silently shut the door of the shaft. There was a riot overhead. "Wait till I lock the front door! Are the win dows bolted? Fasten them and we'll wait in the passage-way. Is there a key to this confounded door ? Yes, all right. Now then, come on, quick !" THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 267 Fenton fastened the kitchen windows and joined Sproule in the hallway. The kitchen door was locked, then Sproule went to the door to the stair way and saw that it was also fastened. The clamor up-stairs had ceased, or at least it could not be heard from where they stood. But, in another moment they heard men rushing up the stairs, a pounding at the hall door above, then a smash as it was bro ken in. "What's that?" Fenton asked, anxiously. "By Jove, I believe they're pulled!" said Sproule. "I got out just in time." "The police ?" Fenton inquired breathlessly. "There has been a plain-clothes man following me all the evening. I thought we had thrown him off the scent at the Knickerbocker, before we came up here. But he must be up there with the cops. Wait till they come down." They waited for ten minutes without speaking, listening to the excitement up-stairs, and finally the clumping of footsteps was heard on the stairs as a half-dozen men came down. As soon as they had passed Sproule opened the door a crack and looked out, then, seeing that they were almost down the next flight, ran to the banisters and 268 FIND THE WOMAN looked over. Fenton joined him, and saw the last of the group go round the corner: It was the man in the shepherd's-plaid suit whom he had already seen that evening, at Scheffel Hall, at the Plaza, and at the St. Paul building entrance. "Jove, that was a narrow squeak — if they don't search the house! Let's come into the front room and look." He led the way to a small front parlor, and up to the window, where they saw a patrol wagon standing. O'Shea and Flint were being helped in, and the man in the shepherd's-plaid suit was talking to a policeman on the sidewalk. As Fenton watched, these two also got into the wagon — and it drove off. "He's been watching me for a week, trying to lo cate the rest of the gang," said Sproule in a low voice. By Jove, if I could only get out of here — they wouldn't see me in New York for one while ! Say, boy," he took Fenton by the arm, "it may be hard for you to believe that I'm straight, but I can prove it. O'Shea knows it by this time, but luckily he daren't revenge himself on me for trying to queer this job with the Brewster jewels. For a week I've been trying to give him the double cross." Fenton drew back suspiciously, but, despite the THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 269 evidence against the man, his manner had candor. It was hard to believe him a murderer, yet it was hard, too, to believe his last assertion. "A week ! — I don't see how that can be," he said. "Why, the jewels were stolen only yesterday!" "Yes, but they might have gone at any minute. Flint and O'Shea have been planning to blow that safe at the Brewster house for a long while. Before they had things ready, Brewster got away with the stuff himself. As he left the safe door partly open, of course Flint discovered it, and when that girl brought home Brewster's body he sus pected where the jewels must be. He was sure when she 'phoned him about them, and promised to bring them up to-night. But O'Shea was sus picious of her — he judged every one by himself — they were too valuable to trust to her care, at any rate. So he watched her. She acted so queerly that I doubted her honesty myself, and was soon convinced that she was trying to get away with the stuff. "Well, we shadowed her to the fortune-teller's house, and saw you go into the same place. After the raid you came out of another house, so I fol lowed you, leaving O'Shea to chase the girl. 270 FIND THE WOMAN When we found you two together at Scheffel Hall we were sure that you had fixed up some game; in fact, we could see easily enough by the look of you — you were pretty scared — that you had the jewels. So we didn't take any chances; O'Shea and Phillips- born went after you. I was half a block behind, watching for the police, when they got you." "Phillipsborn ?" Fenton queried. "Why, yes. He was a waiter O'Shea had known for some time. Queer chap, and clever, too. He had just about pulled off a queer game with a young chap named Morgan. He made up to Miss Mor gan, posing as a foreign count, and got engaged to her. He was after a batch of pearls they had. O'Shea got him to help us follow the girl we sus pected this evening, and as soon as that was finished, Phillipsborn was going back to the Morgans as Count Capricorni and close up that job." "But he's dead !" said Fenton. "He must be the man I saw on the floor of Nailery's office in the St. Paul building!" He drew away from Sproule with renewed suspicion. "That's right," said Sproule soberly. "And it was a pretty bad piece of business, too. Do you wonder I'm anxious to get away? But it was THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 271 O'Shea that murdered him, and O'Shea will go to the chair for it, safe enough. You see, as soon as we had the jewels, I took a couple of stones and pawned them for ready money — as we were terribly short of cash — arranging to meet them and Flint at the Bartholdi to divide up the loot. Flint was to wait up at the Norcross, here, in case we missed you. Well, after I got up to the Plaza for my grip, so as to be all ready to leave town, O'Shea telephoned me that he was afraid that he was followed, and asked me to meet him in the St. Paul building, where he had his fake office, as Nailery & Co. I went down there, hoping to get some chance to get away with the stuff myself; at any rate, I was determined that this would be my last job with O'Shea. Phillipsborn stood out for a full quarter, as his share, but O'Shea wouldn't have it. Phillipsborn pulled a gun — and then O'Shea went at him with a dirk, like a butcher. Phillipsborn went down with O'Shea's knife be tween his ribs. It was horrible ; he was gasping and bleeding on the rug when O'Shea and I were terri fied by a knock at the office door." "It was I," said Fenton breathlessly. "Well, we had to decide everything in a few sec onds. We hadn't money enough to get away with ; 272 FIND THE WOMAN the only thing to do was to get up to Flint's and get him to give us some. I couldn't escape from O'Shea, anyway. He was frightened white, and he clung like a leech. I knew that there was a detec tive after me; he had followed me from Scheffel Hall to the Plaza, and was probably in the St. Paul building. But I had to take a chance that he wouldn't arrest me till I had led him to the rest of the gang he was after. He was running down a New Haven burglary, I was sure — something we had pulled off a few days before. I could only hope that we could get up to Flint's, where I could get away from O'Shea before the place was pulled. Well, I saw that plain-clothes man out of the tail of my eye as we left, and we led him a chase, dodg ing up one street and down another, in and out of saloons, into hotels, even into one theater. He kept on our trail like grim death for an hour, then I thought I had thrown him off the scent. By this time O'Shea was a pulp of fear and suspense. When we got to Flint's, though, and when Flint told of how you had handed over the jewels, O'Shea laughed like a fool. Flint didn't laugh, though, when he saw O'Shea in the light. The man's coat was streaked with blood, antf his hands THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 273 were red with it. Flint took the Irishman into the bathroom to clean up a little, leaving me in the kitchen. That's when I grabbed the bag and jumped into the dumb-waiter." He paused, rose and looked out of the window anxiously. "They'll want you as a witness, anyway, won't they?" Fenton asked. "I expect they will, but they won't have me. They've got evidence enough. They'll convict O'Shea easily. This isn't the first thing they've got on him. Why, they're after him now for that Courtenay kidnapping business, and that was sev enteen years ago!" Seventeen years ago! Fenton's mind had, more than once that night gone back to O' Shea's part in his own childhood. He knew he must have been about four years old when he first knew O'Shea and the house in South Boston. Fenton was now twenty-one ; he made a rapid subtraction, and trem bled at a sudden thought. He had begun to suspect that O'Shea was not his uncle — what if the mys tery were at last to be explained ! He tried to speak calmly, but his mind was whirling as he asked : "What was that case? I never heard of it." 274 FIND THE WOMAN "I'll tell you about it while we wait," said Sproule-Elkhurst. "It was certainly a curious af fair. The story of a 'biter bit/ you know." So, taking a position where he could look out of the window, he began. THE COURTENAY KIDNAPING CASE Seventeen years ago, Mangus O'Shea was a petty crook who was ready for any odd job that would bring him in a few dollars. He had begun life as a plumber, but gradually drifted into evil ways and had already done a two years' "stretch" in San Quentin, California, for sneak-thieving. After leaving the "pen" he came east where his face was not so well known to the police, and worked, off and on, at his trade, trying to keep straight. You see, he was one of those uncertain, half-way char acters whom you can respect neither as an honest man nor as an out-and-out crook courageously pit ting his wits against the police. His face was ugly, red eyes and little black teeth — a mongrel with a mongrel's temper. He was pretty generally dis liked in South Boston, where he lived. Well, he picked up an acquaintance with a bunch THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 275 of crooks that frequented the "Nucleus" saloon, on the Point, and they soon had him back in the game. He was quick-witted enough ; cunning, rather than clever, though ; a good man to do their dirty work. It was about this time — let's see, in '94, it must have been — that he met Pye. "Lemon" Pye they used to call him, on account of his red hair. "Lemon" was a Nova Scotian, and he was a genius. Bold and clever and versatile he was, a big man every way. He had a big body, a big voice and a big laugh — with a mind that could bore through things like a gimlet. "Lemon" was one of the finest confidence men in the business, and he put over some sensational jobs in his time. He had absolutely no moral sense — he believed the world was his oyster and he opened it. He would have made a great general, if he had had the chance. Well, Pye, "Lemon" Pye, tolerated O'Shea, be cause the Irishman could be so easily teased. "Lemon" would sit drinking with him, chuckling at O'Shea's temper, and every little while landing a jab that would make O'Shea writhe. I never saw two men who were not friends fraternize so. It seemed as if O'Shea sought "Lemon's" company all the time, always hoping to get even with the big 276 FIND THE WOMAN man. But try as O'Shea would, "Lemon" always won, and O'Shea grew surlier and surlier; which pleased Pye immensely. One night O'Shea read in his paper that a mil lionaire named J. O'H. Courtenay, down in Jersey, had made a couple of millions on a big deal in cop per, and mentioned it to the big fellow who was with him. Pye remarked that he'd like to get a slice of that profit; then he rolled his cigar over to the other corner of his mouth calmly and added that he in tended to get it, too. "Why, you fool," said O'Shea, "you don't expect he carries it around with him, or keeps it in the dining-room silver safe, do you?" "Oh, something like that," Pye answered, confi dently. "I happen to know where he does keep one prize piece of portable property." And "Lem on" rose and yawned like a menagerie lion. "I suppose you think you can con him out of his money," snarled O'Shea. "You'll find these big chaps know that game themselves." "Well, if I start anything, I'll have a pretty good argument to make him come across, O'Shea. You ought to study psychology. But you can't teach a THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 277 rat mathematics." He grinned down into O'Shea's angry little red eyes, chuckled, and walked out. O'Shea forgot all about the conversation till one day, about two months later, he picked up a paper and stared, fascinated, at a three-column scare- head. Courtenay's little four-year-old son Bruce had been kidnapped and there was the devil to pay about it. Of course you're too young to remember the af fair, but it was the talk of the country. The story ran on the front pages of the newspapers for three weeks, and inside for at least two months more. Every sheriff and policeman in the country was try ing to get the reward. Old man Courtenay nearly beggared himself paying for detectives and the thousand expenses of the search. Now, as soon as O'Shea read the news he made up his mind that Pye had the child. So, having in side information, and a few hundred dollars laid up against a rainy day, O'Shea decided to have a try for the reward. So far, so good ; but what had become of "Lemon?" O'Shea started to find out. First he located Mrs. Pye in a lodging house on Tremont street, Boston, and took a room there. Then he began to watch her mail. Three days after 278 .FIND THE WOMAN he moved in, he noticed a letter addressed to her, on the hall stand. He sneaked it up into his room, opened it with a knitting needle, and read this : "Am holding the goods for a rise. Expect to make a good sale. Add. H. C. Stevens, 325 Duluth Place, Chicago." O'Shea grinned and patted himself on the back for getting ahead of Pye at last. He considered his fortune as good as made. He resealed the en velope, put the letter back on the stand and jumped on to the first train for Chicago. No police assist ance for him. He knew that if he tipped them off they would collect the reward themselves and give him the laugh. What he had to do was to locate the kid, and then wire Courtenay to come on. As matters stood then there was a reward of five thousand dollars for the return of the child. Mr. Courtenay had offered three thousand, the City of Orange a thousand, and the police a thousand more. It was well worth working for. O'Shea was jubi lant. He found that the address given in Pye's note was that of a small family hotel. O'Shea took a front room and interviewed the chambermaid who THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 279 corroborated the note. Mr. Stevens and a young boy with black hair — not red, mind you — had a two-room suite on the floor below. O'Shea spent three hours at the window watching the street. At about four o'clock he saw "Lemon" coming in with the boy, and he was sure of his quarry. He ran out and wired Courtenay to come on immediately. When he returned from the telegraph office he found, from the chambermaid, that Mr. Stevens and his pseudo son had already left. O'Shea was wild. Not only had the boy slipped through his fingers, but he had given Courtenay evi dence against himself, and he might be followed. There was nothing to do but get away and start on a new search. He cursed his indiscretion with the chambermaid, packed up his valise and came back to Boston, determined, next time he located "Lem on," to steal the child himself. Meanwhile, Mr. Courtenay had raised his reward to five thousand dollars, making seven thousand in all. Mrs. Pye had moved. It cost O'Shea fifty-odd dollars, two weeks' time and a lot of trouble to dis cover her. She was found, finally, in Plymouth, where she was living alone in the Samoset House, as Mrs. Stevens. O'Shea made the acquaintance of 280 FIND THE WOMAN the clerk, posing as a federal secret service agent, and finally got possession of a letter from Pye, giv ing his address in Detroit. O'Shea was off again, mad and tired and anxious. This time, when he got to the address, he ran bang into Pye, who was coming out the door alone. O'Shea had tried to disguise himself with a red wig, some court-plaster patches and a bandage, but his little red eyes and his little black teeth gave him away. "Lemon" gave one look at him — "Lemon's" eyes bored in like a corkscrew — and he chuckled. "Well," he said good-naturedly, "was you look ing for me, Mr. O'Shea?" He was no more afraid of O'Shea than a bull would be of a puppy, and it made O'Shea furious. "I'm looking for that Courtenay kid," said the Irishman, "and you'd better let me in on the deal, or I'll make it hot for you !" Pye looked him over. Pye laughed till he shook. "Oh, you can have the kid when I'm through with him," he said. "I didn't know you wanted him so bad. I'll let you know when it's your turn." And Pye walked off as cool as a snowball. O'Shea nosed about a bit; found "Lemon" was living alone in the house. No trace of Bruce Cour- THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 281 tenay. Next day he got a clue that led him post haste to Minneapolis. Nothing doing. It was hard work. No chance for him to get his linen washed, economizing with his food, his money giving out, hot, tired, mad — fighting mad — but more and more determined to get that boy. From Minneapolis to Charleston, in a smoking-car — he couldn't afford a sleeper now — and there the trail fizzled out. And meanwhile he was reading in the papers that the reward was raised to fifteen thousand. Sometimes he almost had his fingers on the kid; next day he was miles off the scent. Why, Pye just played with him ; it was a game of hare and hounds. After a month of this sort of thing, O'Shea stumbled against a woman named Lily Dean, Pye used to know. Lily said he had gone back on her, and told O'Shea, weeping into a lace handkerchief, that Pye was in Washington up against it, and out of cash. O'Shea followed up the tip, and found it was straight. Pye was hiding with a little boy with red hair, in the negro quarter of town. O'Shea pawned his vest, his watch and his revolv er, and went after the kid. He watched his chance till Pye left the house, then broke into his room and found a little boy crying in a rocking chair. 282 FIND THE WOMAN O'Shea went wild. He not only had the kid, but he found forty dollars in bills in the top bureau drawer. With these he got to Wilmington, took a room in a hotel, and wired a red hot message to Mr. Courtenay again. Then it occurred to him to search the child for marks of identification. The kid began to talk about "Lily" and O'Shea had a panic. Finally, he found a note in the little boy's trousers' pocket. It read, "Not yet, but soon" O'Shea caved in, and cried. It wasn't the Courtenay kid at all, but some boy Pye had borrowed for the purpose of throwing O'Shea off the track. Well, that broke up what was left of O'Shea's enthusiasm for the reward. He left the kid in the hotel, and went home stone broke. His wife was away in Fitchburg with her sister, who was ill, and O'Shea sulked about the house, hungry, cold, and disappointed, till, in de spair, he got a job at his trade and tried to forget the reward. Meanwhile the reward had been increased again till it stood at twenty thousand dollars. O'Shea, knowing Pye had the child, was, of course, crazy to use that information, but his telegrams to Mr. Courtenay, and his stealing of the other child pre- yented his daring to use what he knew. THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 283 Well, as I said, Pye was a genius. The way he collected ransom for Bruce Courtenay has never been beaten. Of course Mr. Courtenay was nearly insane by this time, and ready to do anything to get his son back. The police seemed able to do noth ing. One day he received a letter accurately de scribing Bruce and offering to give him up for five thousand dollars. With the advice of his detectives Mr. Courtenay decided to accept the bargain, pay over the money and arrest the one who received it. The letter directed him to leave the money, in thousand dollar bills, tucked into the cushion of a certain easy chair in the public parlor of a New York hotel, at a certain time. This was done, and the chair was watched. A stylishly dressed young lady — Pye's friend Lily Dean, it was — sat down in the chair, took a letter from her bag, read it calmly, then rose, and walked to another chair and sat awhile. The detectives watched her till she left the parlor. Then they nabbed her. Of course she pro tested her innocence, but in spite of her anger she was taken to a room and searched. No money was found on her, and, after some delay, in the hope of identifying her, she was discharged from cus tody. D'you see how the trick was done ? She had 284 FIND THE WOMAN removed the money from the first chair, gone over to the second and hidden it there, in a similar place. Then, during the excitement of her arrest, another person had gone to chair number two, got the bills, and made off. It was a daringly simple plan and succeeded perfectly. The girl's confederates were never traced. The money was obtained, but the kid nappers did not return the child. No doubt they were afraid of the risk. It made a tremendous amount of talk when the facts were published; the whole subject became prominent in the papers again. O'Shea read of it, of course; and his opinion of "Lemon's" cleverness went up. He was consider ably afraid, too, that his own part in the business might be traced, and kept pretty quiet. He was des perately hard up now, and kept his eyes open for a means of raising money more easily than by work ing for it. His wife's sister, meanwhile, had died. He had to pay the funeral expenses and send his nephew to an orphan asylum. O'Shea was not happy, these days. One day he was riding in a Columbus Avenue car, in Boston, when two men came in and sat down be side him. They were discussing something ear^ THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 285 nestly, and O'Shea, always with his ears open for news, listened. For a while he couldn't make out what they were talking about, but finally it devel oped that one was telling of a basket of silverware. A large basket, it appeared, fitted up in compart ments, containing a complete assortment of solid silver dining plate. This sounded good to O'Shea. He listened more closely. The house, one said, was vacant, the family being away in the country. "Seems to me it's kind of dangerous leaving that silver there alone all night," said one of the men. "Oh, it's all right ; you get it early in the morning and ship it down to Marblehead. I can't bother to stay out there all night," said the other. "Pretty handy for burglars, though. Easy to get away with. All packed up like that." "Oh, they never have burglars out Brighton way. It's a small house and don't look like they'd ever be anything worth stealing there." "On Harvard Street, is it? How'll I know which house it is?" "Why, it's just the other side of the Brighton road, toward Allston village. Don't you remember that little yellow house with the stable on a rise of land at the turn of the road?" 286 FIND THE WOMAN "Oh, I expect I can find it all right. I'll call about seven o'clock. Where is it, in the dining-room ?" "Yep." The first speaker handed over a house key. "You can't miss it. Be sure and have it in sured. It's all sealed up and addressed." The two men got off the car and O'Shea grinned. He decided to go after that silver himself that night, giet it home and melt it up as soon as he could get a furnace. He could easily sell it at one of the "fences" he knew. That evening he hired an old covered wagon, and drove out over the milldam, and out the Brighton road to Harvard Street. The house was easily found. O'Shea left his wagon outside, slipped round to the back of the house and jimmied the din ing-room window. It was nothing at all to do. He got in, found a huge wicker basket tied up, sealed and addressed, as had been described, and lifted it. It was heavier than he expected, but he opened the front door and got it out that way, though it was a hard job. He watched till he was sure there was no one passing, hoisted the basket into his cart and drove back home in a high good humor. It was two o'clock when he reached the little side street where he lived, and got the basket into his house, THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 287 and called his wife. She was anxious as he was, to see the swag. They; cut the ropes and threw up the lid. There, resting on old bed quilts, carefully ar ranged so that he could not be harmed, was a child of four years of age apparently dead. O'Shea stared in horror; his wife nearly fainted. One look at the child told the story. It was Bruce Courtenay — the boy O'Shea had spent three months and his last dol lar trying to capture. His hair, at first sight, seemed black, but at the roots it showed reddish, proving that it had been dyed. Around his neck was a gold locket set with a star in diamonds, pictures of which had appeared in all the newspapers. If there had been any doubt about the boy's identity, the note pinned to his breast would have settled it. It was from "Lemon" Pye and said : "You can have him, now. I'm through with him. L. P." You can imagine O' Shea's feelings. With the hue-and-cry after Bruce Courtenay, it was like re ceiving a present of a stick of dynamite with the fuse lighted. Despite the fact that twenty thousand dollars' reward had been offered for the boy, his presence was the most dangerous thing possible. 288 FIND THE WOMAN How could O'Shea ever explain how he had found him? He could not confess to a burglary — he was already in none too good repute with the police — and his movements where the boy had undoubtedly been could probably be traced if he disclosed the inform ation. But, worse than this, what if the boy were dead ? It would be almost impossible to dispose of the corpse. The case was desperate. O'Shea sum moned his nerve, took up the boy, and found that he was still breathing, but in a deep stupor. At all hazards he must be revived if it were possible. While O'Shea hurried out for a 8octor, Mrs. O'Shea undressed the child, put him to bed and dis posed of the basket. It was two in the morning when the doctor arrived. He looked at the boy, and looked again. Then he turned to O'Shea. "Is this your child ?" he asked sharply. Mrs. O'Shea answered, quickly, as women will in an emergency. "It's my sister's boy, Doctor. She died last week and we're going to adopt the poor little fellow. Will he live, d'you think?" She burst into tears. Well, that settled it. Luckily she had talked with her neighbors of her sister's death, and they all knew of the boy. The O' Sheas took the bull by the THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 289 horns and made the best of a pretty bad bargain. Bruce Courtenay became Michael O'Shea. He re covered from the drugs, had his head shaved, and, in a week was in a fair way to grow into a South Boston tough. But when the reward was again raised for the re turn of Courtenay's son, O'Shea looked at his wife and sighed. "He's worth twenty-five thousand dollars as he stands," he groaned, "and I dassent claim one cent of it. This kidnapping business ain't what it's cracked up to be. You can't get no money easy, in this world. We'll have to put the boy to work ; he's a bad investment for them what can't afford him." This thought was rubbed into him well by "Lem on" Pye who, fat and complacent at the end of his victorious campaign, one day met O'Shea as he was going to work with his soldering iron and lead pipes. "You was in too much of a hurry for that silver, O'Shea," he said. "We had bare time to feed the poor kiddie the knock-out drops before you was in at the window. I would have come down-stairs and helped you with the basket, only I was laughing that hard I couldn't move. I hated to part with the lad for I was growing fond of him, but the detec- 29o FIND THE WOMAN lives was getting too lively for me — and, besides, you wanted him so bad I thought it was a shame not to let you have him." Long before Sproule-Elkhurst had finished his story, Fenton, or, as he undoubtedly must begin to call himself, Bruce Courtenay, had gone off into a reverie. Was he Bruce Courtenay? There could be no doubt of it. Everything tallied with what he knew of his own history — and the evidence of the golden locket was alone sufficiently convincing. What it could mean to him, in the future, he could not guess; but it kindled his imagination and his pride. If this could be proved he would be no longer the obscure, unknown architectural drafts man. He would have a legal name, relatives, and perhaps money. It came to him in a flash that, above all, this might give him a position which would enable him to meet Belle Charmion more easily. He dared not trust himself to speak, how ever; he was not yet sure of Sproule. There were the Brewster jewels, too, to be accounted for. What had become of them? Should he still have to fight for them. Sproule, who had given another long, careful THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 291 look out of the window, now returned and inter rupted Fenton's day-dream, by a light touch on the shoulder. "Do you believe I'm straight?" he asked seri ously. It was hard for Fenton to reply. He knew Sproule for a pal of O'Shea's, a crook — and perhaps worse. Might he not, in spite of what he had told, be an accomplice to the murder, as he was undoubt edly an accessory after the fact? And yet, the man also had candor that could scarce be doubted. There was something Fenton liked about him; he had charm. "Oh, I don't know!" Fenton stammered. "How do I know you're telling me the truth? You say you tried to queer O'Shea's job, but here I find you with him right in the game all through!" "I think I can prove it," said Sproule, calmly. He unbuttoned his coat, drew forth a soft leather bag, and poured from it a glittering collection of jewelry, sparkling with precious stones, upon the floor. Fenton stared. For the third time that night he had come strangely across the Brewster jewels! It seemed impossible. Despite the seriousness of the 292 FIND THE WOMAN occasion, he had to smile, as at some grotesque joke. It seemed that, despite all his blunders, he could not lose this mysterious treasure. He looked up at Sproule in wonder. "Will you take this stuff back to the Brewster house ?" Sproule asked quietly. Fenton nodded, still staring with wonder. Then he added, "I'll try it again; but for heaven's sake explain your part in all this !" "All right," said Sproule. "I will. I admit that I have been a crook. For five years I have been a member of one of the cleverest and most desperate gangs in the country. But I've broken away — or tried to. To-night, if I succeeded, was to end it all. Maybe I can do it yet. I hardly know how to make you believe what I want to say. If you only knew my wife I think you might understand." "I do know your wife," said Fenton. "She came into your apartment at the Plaza before I left. I had a long talk with her." "You did ?" Sproule's voice trembled with excite ment. "Did she — but of course you couldn't know » — she'd never tell if she suspected — " "She knows that you're a crook," said Fenton quietly. THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 293 "Oh God !" Sproule buried his face in his hands. Fenton put his hand on the man's shoulder. "See here, old man," he said kindly. "If you're honest, if you want to be straight, the best thing you can do is to go right to her — if you can possibly get away. She's going to take the first train to Philadelphia to-morrow. You'd better meet her there." "Oh, I can't face her! I daren't!" "You must. You'll find she'll forgive you — she'll do more than that — she'll help you to turn over a new leaf. I know, for she has said so to me." Sproule spoke between gritted teeth. "If you knew how I love her, you'd believe me. My love for her has kept me in hell for a year trying to break away from this gang. You don't know what a fight it has been. O'Shea is a devil — he has it on me for so many things I've done — in the past — that she doesn't know about. Oh, I'd have done my time and been happy enough in jail to get away from O'Shea, but I couldn't disgrace her; she loved me so — trusted me so. I've tried and tried to break with him, but each time he's pulled me back into the net, threatening to expose me. It was no use. So, yesterday, I decided to leave her. If I was caught, at least it wouldn't drag her name into it. I had an 294 FIND THE WOMAN idea she had already begun to suspect me, so I de cided never to come back to her, and let her think what she would. Do you really think that she'd give me a chance ?" "If you'd explain a matter of a ruby necklace, I think she would." "Oh God! Did she tell you that? That was something I've almost died about, since. It was a horrible thing to do, but I was distracted. I didn't know what I was doing, really. I knew. I had to leave her, and I wanted to give her something in re membrance of me. We had cleaned up a house in New Haven — I got hold of this necklace out of the swag, without O' Shea's knowing it — and I gave it to her. It was a crazy, horrible thing to do, I see it now — it might be discovered on her any time — but I was distracted, I tell you. I didn't think. I only knew I loved her, and I had lost her for ever. I had to do something." "That necklace has been her curse, but you can make it her blessing if you want to," said Fenton. "Go to her and she will tell you something about it — and something that should make you two love each other more than ever." "I'll try!" said Sproule. "If I get out of this THE NORCROSS APARTMENTS 295 safe, I'll take her abroad somewhere and begin all over again!" It was nearly four o'clock by this time. Fenton, cramped and stiff, rose and walked about the room and looked out for the first signs of dawn, while Sproule-Elkhurst reconnoitered from the hall door. After fifteen minutes he came back. "Well, I'm going to try it," he said. "Good-by! And, — if they get me — I want you to do one thing for me." "I know," said Fenton. "You want me to tell your wife that you had tried to be straight?" "For love of her," Sproule added. Then he wrung Fenton's hand and slipped down the stairs. Fenton watched from the window, saw him walk with an apparently careless, leisurely stride along the street toward Broadway, and disappear round the corner. Then Fenton brushed his silk hat lov ingly, put it on, buttoned the bag of jewels inside his waistcoat and walked down-stairs. XII A HARLEM LODGING HOUSE AND HOW HE WAS WELCOMED BY A FRIEND AND A LETTER, AND HOW HE PROFITED BY EACH OF THEM THE sky was streaked red with the flush of dawn when John Fenton emerged from the Norcross Apartments and set out at last for his home. There was no hurry now, he had no further fear of pursuit. O'Shea and Flint were in custody, and Sproule had proved his honesty. So, with the leather bag of jewels buttoned snugly under his waistcoat, Fenton decided to walk. He had much to think over. The events of the past night passed before his eyes like a dazzling, in credible moving-picture show, but ever in and out of its fantastic scenes appeared and disappeared a mysterious, fascinating heroine, Belle Charmion. Would she ever re-enter his melodrama? Some in tuition told him that she would — that, in some 296 A HARLEM LODGING HOUSE 297 strange way their lives were entangled, and the threads of their destinies must meet again. The fresh, cool air revived him and he strode along with as much spirit as if he had but just awakened from a restful night. As the sun rose, it grew warmer; there was a touch of spring in the air. It sent his spirits several degrees higher. He grew more boyish, and swung along, whistling a lively march. So down Broadway boulevard all the way to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and then eastward. As he approached his boarding house, one of a row of dreary looking wooden buildings with high stoops, painted each one a separate color, lead, and molasses yellow, and brown, he saw, with sur prise, that some one was sitting on the front steps, drinking from a milk bottle. Who was it? The figure was familiar, and something about the jaunty, audacious attitude still more so. Fenton stopped to watch. The man rose and waved a newspaper. It was Jack Richmond, the star reporter of the Item. Fenton's heart sank. For a moment he was in clined to turn and escape rather than encounter this persistent news-gatherer. He feared the report er's inquisition. Once on the scent of a story, Fen- 298 FIND THE WOMAN ton knew well enough that the man would not soon let go. But Richmond could not easily be evaded; Fenton knew that well enough, too. He could run and he could fight as well as he could question. Fen- ton's momentary indecision settled the question, at any rate, for Richmond came running up before Fenton could flee. "Well, by Jove, you've decided to show up at last, have you?" Richmond called jovially. "I've been waiting two solid hours for you, and I'm nearly frozen stiff. If a milkman hadn't happened past I'd have been starved as well. Say, you seem to have gone up in the world some, old man ! Some different from that Highlander costume with broken eggshells for stockings!" And he tapped Fenton's white tie. "Where in the devil have you been, I'd like to know?" He took Fenton's arm familiarly and walked toward the boarding house. "Where have you been ?" Fenton asked. "I have as good a right to ask as you." He tried to shake himself loose, but Richmond held him close. "What are you chasing me for, anyway?" he demanded sullenly. "Because I want that story," said the reporter. "The jewel robbery, you know." A HARLEM LODGING HOUSE 299 "Oh, that was all a fake," Fenton began. "Bosh! But how about that locket?" Fenton stopped suddenly. "Well, so far as that goes, how about Belle Charmion? Who is she? Where is she? What do you know about her? Where is the locket? What have you found out? Where did you go? Where can I find her?" Richmond laughed and laughed. "Say, you ought to be a reporter, not me ! You could beat Li Hung Chang for questions ! See here, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll swap you story for story. You tell me what you've been up to, and I'll tell you where I've been!" Fenton hesitated. "I'm afraid I can't, Rich mond. You see, it isn't my story — it mustn't get into the papers — it's a question of honor." "See here, old man !" Richmond drew him down on the doorsteps. "You don't seem to be onto this newspaper game. I'm as keen for news as any one in the business, but I'm a gentleman as well, and when I give a promise, I'll keep it. Not a word will be published that you don't consent to. If you know anything about the ethics of the profession, you ought to know that any information is safer with a good newspaper man than with any one else 300 FIND THE WOMAN in the world. Why, the president of the United States tells things to correspondents in Washington that politicians would give their heads to know! And that confidence has never been violated in the history of journalism. I'll just remark that I'm straight." The reporter's manner put Fenton's mind at rest. After all, it would be a great relief to get such a man's help and advice. "All right," he said. "Go ahead first, though. Tell me about Belle Charmion." "Good. It isn't too much, old man, but here goes. It's this way. Early this forenoon we got the tip from police headquarters that a man named Gordon Brewster had committed suicide in his house on West Seventy-second Street. There was some thing funny about it, and I was sent out on the story. The coroner had viewed the remains, and he had had the body removed to an undertaker's place on Broadway because there was nobody there in the house. That's the first queer thing. The caretaker had skipped out while the cops were there. The only relative was his half-sister — your beaute ous friend, Belle Charmion. What's the matter?" "Belle Charmion is Gordon Brewster's half-sis ter?" Fenton cried. A HARLEM LODGING HOUSE 301 "Why not ? Didn't you know it ? .Why shouldn't she be?" Like an electric shock the thought swept