CHAPTER XII

THE SECRET OF THE DOLL.

As they were passing out to the sidewalk Hilda’s hand fell on Frank’s arm and her voice whispered in his ear:

“What can we do? He is close behind. If you turn on him, he will meet you with knife or pistol. It will be in the papers to-morrow. The whole truth will come out, and I shall be arrested.”

He saw that she, usually so brave, was in great terror of something, and he did not believe her fear was inspired entirely by Jones.

What caused it?

Had this girl committed a crime of some sort that caused her to fear the relentless hand of the law?

Even so, he pitied her. Even so, he would stand by her and try to aid her. What better could be expected of the daughter of Enos Dugan, the smuggler! She had been brought up in an atmosphere of lawlessness; had been taught as a little child that the law was an oppressor and that it was not wrong to defy and defeat it.

No matter what happened to her, she should not lack for a friend. She had dreamed heroic things of this youth at her side, and he would not disappoint her in the supreme moment.

But Frank was uncertain of the proper course to pursue. He did not doubt that she had spoken the truth in warning him that the man close behind would be ready to meet him with a deadly weapon the moment they reached the sidewalk. Not only that, but Merry had no heart for a street fight while accompanied by a woman.

How otherwise was Jones to be shaken? He would cling to them like a leech. Frank was turning this over in his mind as they passed out by the door and descended the steps to the sidewalk.

The moment the sidewalk was reached Jones stepped forward till he was at the other side of Hilda, saying:

“We will all take a cab to the place where you are stopping. There you can quietly hand the doll over to me. I give you my promise to depart quietly and never trouble you again in case my property has been returned to me in full. You will be free of me forever, and that is what you have paid——”

At that moment, with a snarling cry, a man who had been lingering in front of Shanley’s launched himself on Jones, whom he clutched by the throat.

Frank had seen the figure dart forward and spring, and he swung Hilda out of the way of harm.

“You!” cried the assailant, as he grasped Jones’ throat. “You are the worst one of them all! You would ruin her body and soul! But your time has come!”

“It’s Tom Stevens!” gasped Hilda.

It was the maniac who had twice attacked Merry, and he was handling Jones roughly just then.

“Let go, you fool!” gasped the man who had been attacked.

Then he twisted about and grappled with the other. A moment later both were sprawling on the paving. Frank saw his opportunity. Grasping Hilda’s arm, he quietly said:

“Come!”

He hurried her straight to the nearest empty hansom.

“Down Seventh Avenue in a hurry!” he said to the driver, as he sprang in after Hilda.

As the hansom turned they caught a glimpse of one of the combatants, who dragged himself from the other and ran toward them shouting. The whip of the driver cracked, the horse leaped forward, and they were away, the cool wind whistling into their faces.

“A piece of luck,” said Frank. “If that fellow had not jumped on Jones just then, I know not how we would have given him the slip.”

“Have we?” asked Hilda, still agitated.

“I think so.”

“Are you sure?”

Merriwell tried to look back. Then he rattled the little trap-door in the roof of the cab till the driver opened it and looked down.

“Look out, driver,” said Frank, “that we are not followed. Look back and tell me if you think any one tries it.”

A moment later the driver called down:

“I believe somebody is coming after us in a hansom.”

“Jones!” cried Hilda, clinging to Frank’s arm.

“Dodge that hansom, driver,” said Frank, “and I will give you ten dollars!”

“I’ll try it, sir.”

Into Fortieth Street they whirled, the horse flying along. Down Eighth Avenue they sped for a distance, and then again they turned to the west. Down Ninth Avenue cut the hansom for a single block, and then it doubled back to Eighth.

At every turn Frank and Hilda had been able to look back and see the cab in pursuit, which held after them persistently. That is, at every turn until the double back toward Eighth Avenue. When that was made the other cab had not yet turned the corner into Ninth.

“You are getting away from him, driver!” shouted Frank, having thrust up the little door; but the wheels were rumbling over the rough paving so it is doubtful if the man above heard or understood.

Back to Eighth they went, and the driver promptly turned up the avenue. But he wheeled to the west again at the next corner and was once more driving toward Ninth. Frank laughed with satisfaction.

“We struck the right man,” he said.

“What do you mean?” questioned the girl.

“This fellow must have done some dodging before, for he knows all the tricks, and he can double on his own tracks in the most artistic manner. He will earn his tenner, all right.”

“Then do you think we’ll give Jones the slip?”

“I think we have done so already.”

At Ninth they turned northward and proceeded three or four blocks, when the cab rounded a corner into a side street and the driver called down that he had lost the fellow.

“And earned your money handsomely,” declared Merry. “You shall get the coin.”

“Where will you go now, sir?”

Merry consulted Hilda.

“I shall permit you to take me home now,” she said. “I am going to tell you all the story and ask your advice, for I am in sore need of it.”

She told him the street and number, which he gave to the driver, who took them to the destination. Merriwell paid the driver the ten dollars in addition to his regular charge, and the hansom rolled away.

“Here is where I have been hiding,” said the girl. “I have taken pains to slip out and in when I fancied I would not be observed by any one who might be looking for me. I did not like to let you come here, Mr. Merriwell, but circumstances compelled me to do so.”

“You know I stand ready to aid you, Miss Dugan, in any possible way.”

They were on the steps, and she seemed hesitating over something.

“Oh!” she finally exclaimed, “I wish I had a friend here!”

“You have; I am your friend.”

“I do not mean that. I wish I had a friend in this, house—a girl friend. But even then, I could not trust the secret to her. It is for your ears alone. Mr. Merriwell, you will understand better when you hear my story and see what I have to show you. To make everything clear to you, I must show you the doll.”

Again the doll!

“I am willing to look at it,” he said, with a laugh.

“It is in my room,” she said, with sudden determination. “You must come there to see it.”

She had a key in her hand, and now she unlocked the door. Frank followed her into the house. A dim light burned in the hall. But from above came the sound of children at play.

They ascended the stairs. A door was standing slightly open, and the children’s voices came from that room. Hilda’s room was on the same floor. Frank stood outside the door until she had entered and lighted the gas. Then he came in, and she asked him to leave the door standing open. The room was small and rather poorly furnished.

“If there had been any other way, I would not have asked you here,” she again declared.

She gave him a chair and he sat down. From the distant room came the sound of the romping children, shouting to each other as they played.

Hilda’s trunk was in the room. She unlocked it and took something out. When she turned to Frank she held in her hands a handsome wax doll, which had been carefully and expensively dressed.

“Here,” she said, noting the wonder in his face, “is what has caused all the trouble.”

All along he had fancied it might not really be a doll, but now he saw it was. She smiled as she heard him whistle softly to himself.

“Isn’t she handsome?” asked the girl.

“Very pretty,” he acknowledged, his wonder increasing.

“Oh, I think she is perfectly lovely!” Hilda declared, caressing the doll.

“Great Scott!” thought Frank. “Is the girl daffy, too?”

“I’ve always admired dolls,” Hilda explained. “When I was a little girl I had no doll save an old rag one, but I loved it and petted it and talked to it, for it was my only companion during many a long, weary day.”

She sat down facing Frank and continued:

“As I grew older my love for dolls seemed to grow with me, instead of lessening. In Vanceborough, I had seen some dolls with china heads, and to my eyes they were the most beautiful things in all the world. When father brought one home to me I was filled with joy too deep for words. But the china head was broken one day, and it nearly broke my heart at the same time. I had heard of large wax dolls that closed their eyes when put to sleep and said ‘ma-ma’ when squeezed, but such stories seemed far too marvelous to be true.

“However, when I went away to school I saw one of them, and then I could never be satisfied till I had one for my very own. Of course I got it, and I kept it many years, dressing and undressing it, talking to it, telling it all my little secrets and having it to keep me from loneliness there on that dreary island. Maybe you can see, living as I did without other companions, that it was not strange that my love for dolls clung to me as I grew to be a young woman. When I went to Boston I took my doll and had it with me in my room, though I was careful not to let people know much about it, for I had begun to be ashamed.

“But Huck Jones, who was my father’s companion during so many years, came to know all about my fondness for dolls. He knew it clung to me even after I was a girl in long dresses. Sometimes he laughed at me and tried to tease me about it, but I had a temper and I soon convinced him that he had better keep still.

“After father died Jones made arrangements to go abroad. He did so, but all the while he led me to believe there was something coming to me when he returned. I had refused to marry him, but I still hoped against hope that he might relent and turn over to me a part of the money I felt confident my father had left.

“He wrote to me several times while he was on the other side. At last he wrote that he was coming back by the way of Canada, asking me to meet him in Montreal. His letter was most ingenious, for he promised to reveal to me something I wished to know very much, and he added that he had purchased the handsomest doll he could find in all Europe, which he was bringing to me.

“I met him as appointed. He had the doll, which he gave me, but he refused to tell me the secret till we met again in Boston, for he declared he had some business that would delay him a few days, while I was to go on to Boston the following day. It seems that he had met a lady with two charming children who would be on the same train with me, and he urged me to permit the oldest girl, who was nine, to hold the doll as much as she liked on the way to Boston. But I was to take the doll when the time came for us to leave the train and care for it till he met me at the Adams House. If the doll was in my hands and all right he would tell me the secret then.

“Well, I followed his directions. Everything went well, but I kept thinking over his curious directions. As we crossed into the United States the little girl was sleeping with my doll hugged to her heart. She cried a little when she had to give it up as Boston was reached.

“That night in my room at the Adams House I learned the secret of the doll—the secret Jones was to reveal to me when we met. I also learned that I had committed a crime. This doll looks pretty and expensive, does it not? Well, Mr. Merriwell, I’ll wager you can’t guess how much it is worth.”

Frank shrugged his shoulders.

“Ten dollars, perhaps,” he said.

“Ten thousand, if a cent!” declared Hilda Dugan.

He wondered if she could be in her right mind.

“I knew you would stare!” she laughed excitedly, her face flushed and her hands trembling. “But you will stare still more when I show you the secret of the doll. Look!”

She opened the doll’s dress, exposing the body, and then, as she touched a hidden spring, a coverlike lid flew upward.

The doll lay on its back across Hilda’s knees, and a cry broke from Frank as he stared at it, for he saw that its body was literally stuffed with glittering diamonds!