Chapter 10

His tone was altogether changed; she would hardly have known it for his voice. Its incisive, clipped accents were like a knife to her sensitiveness.... She summoned the reserve of her strength, stood erect, unsupported, and moved forward without a word. He stood aside, holding the lamp high, and followed her, lighting the way down the hall to the study.

Once there, she sank quivering into a chair, while he proceeded gravely to the desk, put down the lamp,--superfluous now, the gas having been lighted,--and after a moment's thought faced her, with a contemptuous smile and lift of his shoulders, thrusting hands deep into his pockets.

"Well?" he demanded cuttingly.

She made a little motion of her hands, begging for time; and, assenting with a short nod, he took a turn up and down the room, then abstractedly reached up and turned out the gas.

"When you are quite composed I should enjoy hearing your statement."

"I ... have none to make."

"So!"--with his back to the lamp, towering over and oppressing her with the sense of his strength and self-control. "That is very odd, isn't it?"

"I have no--no explanation to give that would satisfy you, or myself," she said brokenly. "I--I don't care what you think," with a flicker of defiance. "Believe the worst and--and do what you will--have me arrested----"

He laughed sardonically. "Oh, we won't go so far as that, I guess; harsh measures, such as arrest and imprisonment, are so unsatisfactory to all concerned. But I am interested to know why you are here."

Her breathing seemed very loud in the pause; she kept her lips tight, fearing to speak lest she lose her mastery of self. And hysteria threatened: the fluttering in her bosom warned her. She must be very careful, very restrained, if she were to avert that crowning misfortune.

"I don't think I quite understand you," he continued musingly; "surely you must have anticipated interruption."

"I thought you safely out of the way----"

"One presumed that." He laughed again, unpleasantly. "But how about Maitland? Didn't you have him in your calculations, or--"

He paused, unfeignedly surprised by her expression. And chuckled when he comprehended.

"By the powers, I forgot for a moment! So you thought me Maitland, eh? Well, I'm sorry I didn't understand that from the first. You're so quick, as a rule, you know,--I confess you duped me neatly this afternoon,--that I supposed you were wise and only afraid that I'd give you what you deserve.... If they had sent any one but that stupid ass, Hickey, to nab me, I'd be in the cooler now. As it was, you kindly selected the very best kind of a house for my purpose; I went straight up to the roofs and out through a building round the corner...."

But the shock of discovery, with its attendant revulsion of feeling, had been too much for her. She collapsed suddenly in the chair, eyes half closed, face pallid as a mask of death.

Anisty regarded her in silence for a meditative instant, then, taking up the lamp, strode down the hall to the pantry, returning presently with a glass brimming with an amber-tinted, effervescent liquid.

"Champagne," he announced, licking his lips. "Wish I had Maitland's means to gratify my palate. He knows good wine.... Here, my dear, gulp this down," placing the glass to the girl's lips and raising her head that she might swallow without strangling.

As it was, she choked and gasped, but after a moment began to show some signs of having benefited by the draught, a faint color dawning in her cheeks.

"That's some better," commended the burglar, not unkindly. "Now, if you please, we'll stop talking pretty and get down to brass tacks. Buck up, now, and answer my questions. And don't be afraid; I'm holding no great grudge for what you did this afternoon. I appreciate pluck and grit as much as anybody, I guess, though I do think you ran it pretty close, peaching on a pal after you'd lifted the jewels. By the way, why did you do it?"

"Because.... But you wouldn't understand if I told you."

"I suppose not. I'm not much good splitting sentimental hairs. But Maitland must have been pretty decent to you to make you go so far.... Speaking of which, where are they?"

"They?"

"Don't sidestep. We understand one another. I _know_ you've brought back the jewels. Where have you stowed them?"

The wine had fulfilled its mission, endowed her with fresh strength and renewed spirit. She was thinking quickly, every wit alert.

"I won't tell you."

"Won't, eh? That's an admission that they're here, you know. And you may as well know I propose to have 'em. Fair means or foul, take your pick. Where are they?"

"I have told you I wouldn't tell."

"I've known pluckier women than you to change their minds, under pressure." He came nearer, bending over, face close to hers, eyes savage, and gripped her wrists none too gently. "Tell me!"

"Let me go."

He proceeded calmly to imprison both small wrists in one strong, bony hand. "Better tell."

"Let me go!" she panted, struggling to rise.

His voice took on an ugly tone. "Tell!"

She was a child in his hands, but managed nevertheless to rise. As he applied the pressure more cruelly to her arms she cried aloud with pain and, struggling desperately, knocked the chair over.

It went down with a crash appallingly loud in that silent house and at that hour; and taking advantage of his instant of consternation she jerked free and sprang toward the door. He was upon her in an instant, however, hard fingers digging into her shoulders. "You little fool!"

"No!" she cried. "No, no, no! Let me go, you--you brute!----"

Abruptly he thought better of his methods and released her, merely putting himself between her and the doorway.

"Don't be a little fool," he counseled. "You kick up that row and you'll have us both pinched inside of the next five minutes."

Defiance was on her tongue's tip, but the truth in his words gave her pause. Palpitating with the shock, every outraged instinct a-quiver, she subdued herself and fell back, eying him fixedly.

"They're here," he nodded thoughtfully. "You wouldn't have stood for that if they weren't. And since they are, I can find them without your assistance. Sit down. I shan't touch you again."

She had scant choice other than to obey. Desperate as she was, her strength had been severely overtaxed, and she might not presume upon it too greatly. Fascinated with terror, she let herself down into an easy chair.

Anisty thought for a moment, then went over to the desk and sat himself before it.

"Keys," he commented, rapidly inventorying what he saw. "How'd you get hold of them?"

"They are Mr. Maitland's. He must have forgotten them."

The burglar chuckled grimly. "Coincidences multiply. It is odd. That harp, O'Hagan, was coming in with a can of beer while I was picking the lock, and caught me. He wanted to know if I'd missed my train for Greenfields, and I gave him my word of honor I had. Moreover, I'd mislaid my keys and had been ringing for him for the past ten minutes. He swallowed every word of it.... By the way, here's a glove of yours. You certainly managed to leave enough clues about to insure your being nabbed even by a New York detective."

He faced about, tossing her the glove, and with it so keen and penetrating a glance that her heart sank for fear that he had guessed her secret. But as he continued she regained confidence.

"I could teach you a thing or two," he suggested pleasantly. "You make about as many mistakes as the average beginner. And, on the other hand, you've got the majority beaten to a finish for 'cuteness. You're as quick as they make them."

She straightened up, uneasy, oppressed by a vague surmise as to whither this tended.

"Thank you," she said breathlessly, "but hadn't you better----"

"Plenty of time, my dear. Maitland has gone to Greenfields and we've several hours before us.... Look here, little woman, why don't you take a tumble to yourself, cut out all this nonsense, and look to your own interests?"

"I don't understand you," she faltered, "but if----"

"I'm talking about this Maitland affair. Cut it out and forget it. You're too good-looking and valuable to yourself to lose your head just all on account of a little moonlight flirtation with a good-looking millionaire. You don't suppose for an instant that there's anything in it for yours, do you? You're nothing to Maitland--just an incident; next time he meets you, the baby-stare for yours. You can thank your lucky stars he happened to have a reputation to sustain as a village cut-up, a gay, sad dog, always out for a good time and hang the expense!--otherwise he'd have handed you yours without a moment's hesitation. I'm not doing this up in tin-foil and tying a violet ribbon with tassels on it, but I'm handing it straight to you: something you don't want to forget.... You just sink your hooks in the fact that you're nothing to Maitland and that he's nothing to you, and never will be, and you won't lose anything--except illusions."

She remained quiescent for a little, hands twitching in her lap, torn by conflicting emotions--fear of and aversion for the man, amusement, chill horror bred of the knowledge that he was voicing the truth about her, the truth, at least, as he saw it, and--and as Maitland would see it.

"Illusions?" she echoed faintly, and raised her eyes to his with a pitiful attempt at a smile. "Oh, but I must have lost them, long ago; else I shouldn't be...."

"Here and what you are. That's what I'm telling you."

She shuddered imperceptibly; looked down and up again, swiftly, her expression inscrutable, her voice a-tremble between laughter and tears: "Well?"

"Eh?" The directness of her query figuratively brought him up all standing, canvas flapping and wind out of his sails.

"What are you offering me in exchange for my silly dream?" she inquired, a trace of spirit quickening her tone.

"A fair exchange, I think ... something that I wouldn't offer you if you hadn't been able to dream." He paused, doubtful, clumsy.

"Go on," she told him faintly.... Since it must come, as well be over with it.

"See here." He took heart of desperation. "You took to Maitland when you thought he was me. Why not take to me for myself? I'm as good a man, better _as_ a man, than he, if I do blow my own horn.... You side with me, little woman, and--and all that--and I'll treat you square. I never went back on a pal yet. Why," brightening with enthusiasm as his gaze appraised her, "with your looks and your cleverness and my knowledge of the business, we can sweep the country, you and I."

"Oh!" she cried breathlessly.

"We'll start right now," he plunged on, misreading her; "right now, with last night's haul. You'll chuck this addled sentimental pangs-of-conscience lay, hand over the jewels, and--and I'll hand 'em back to you the day we're married, all set and ... as handsome a wedding present as any woman ever got...."

She twisted in her chair to hide her face from him, fairly cornered at last, brain a-whirl devising a hundred maneuvers, each more helpless than the last, to cheat and divert him for the time, until ... until....

The consciousness of his presence near her, of the sheer strength and might of will-power of the man, bore upon her heavily; she was like a child in his hands, helpless.... She turned with a hushed gasp to find that he had risen and come close to her chair; his face was not a foot from hers, his eyes dangerous; in another moment he would have his strong arms about her. She shrank away, terrified.

"No, no!" she begged.

"Well, and why not? Well?"--tensely.

"How do I know?... This afternoon I outwitted you, robbed and sold you for--for what you call a scruple. How can I know that you are not paying me back in my own coin?"

"Oh, but little woman!" he laughed tenderly, coming nearer. "It is because you did that, because you could hold those scruples and make a fool of me for their sake, that I want you. Don't think I'm capable of playing with you--it takes a woman to do that. Don't you know,"--he bent nearer and his breath was warm upon her cheek,--"don't you know that you're too rare and fine and precious for a man to risk losing?... Come now!"

"Not yet." She started to her feet and away.

"Wait.... There's a cab!"

The street without was echoing with the clattering drum of galloping hoofs. "At this hour!" she cried, aghast. "Could it be--"

"No fear. Besides--there, it's stopped."

"In front of this house!"

"No, three doors up the street, at least. That's something you must learn, and I can teach you to judge distance by sound in the darkness--"

"But I tell you," she insisted, retreating before him, "it's a risk.... There, did you hear that?"

"That" was the dulled crash of the front door.

Anisty stepped to the table on the instant and plunged the room in darkness.

"Steady!" he told her evenly. "Steady. It can't be--but take no chances. Go to the trunk-closet and get that window open. If it's Maitland,"--grimly--"well, I'll follow."

"What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"Leave that to me ... I've never been caught yet."

Cold fear gripped her heart as, in a flash of intuition, she divined his intention.

"Quick!" he bade her savagely. "Don't you want--"

"I can't see," she invented. "Where's the door? I can't see...."

"Here."

Through the darkness his fingers found hers. "Come," he said.

"Ah!"

Her hand closed over his wrist, and in a thought she had flung herself before him and caught the other. In the movement her hand brushed against something that he was holding; and it was cold and smooth and hard.

"Ah! no, no!" she implored. "Not that, not that!"

With an oath he attempted to throw her off, but, frail strength magnified by a fury of fear, she joined issue with him, clinging to his wrists with the tenacity of a wildcat, though she was lifted from her feet and dashed this way and that, brutally, mercilessly, though her heart fell sick within her for the hopelessness of it, though....

XI

"DAN"----QUIXOTE

Leaving the hotel, Maitland strode quietly but rapidly across the car-tracks to the sidewalk bordering the park. A dozen nighthawk cabbies bore down upon him, yelping in chorus. He motioned to the foremost, jumped into the hansom and gave the fellow his address.

"Five dollars," he added, "if you make it in five minutes."

An astonished horse, roused from a droop-eared lethargy, was yanked almost by main strength out of the cab-rank and into the middle of the Avenue. Before he could recover, the long whip-lash had leaped out over the roof of the vehicle, and he found himself stretching away up the Avenue on a dead run.

Yet to Maitland the pace seemed deadly slow. He fidgeted on the seat in an agony of impatience, a dozen times feeling in his waistcoat pocket for his latch-keys. They were there, and his fingers itched to use them.

By the lights streaking past he knew that their pace was furious, and was haunted by a fear lest it should bring the police about his ears. At Twenty-ninth Street, indeed, a dreaming policeman, startled by the uproar, emerged hastily from the sheltering gloom of a store-entrance, shouted after the cabby an inarticulate question, and, getting no response, unsheathed his night-stick and loped up the Avenue in pursuit, making the locust sing upon the pavement at every jump.

In the cab, Maitland, turning to watch through the rear peep-hole, was thrown violently against the side as the hansom rocketed on one wheel into his street. Recovering, he seized the dashboard and gathered himself together, ready to spring the instant the vehicle paused in its headlong career.

Through the cabby's misunderstanding of the address, in all likelihood, the horse was reined in on its haunches some three houses distant from the apartment building. Maitland found himself sprawling on his hands and knees on the sidewalk, picked himself up, shouting "You'll wait?" to the driver, and sprinted madly the few yards separating him from his own front door, keys ready in hand.

Simultaneously the half-winded policeman lumbered around the Fifth Avenue corner, and a man, detaching himself from the shadows of a neighboring doorway, began to trot loutishly across the street, evidently with the intention of intercepting Maitland at the door.

He was hardly quick enough. Maitland did not even see him. The door slammed in the man's face, and he, panting harshly, rapped out an imprecation and began a frantic assault on the push-button marked "Janitor."

As for Maitland, he was taking the stairs three at a clip, and had his pass-key in the latch almost as soon as his feet touched the first landing. An instant later he thrust the door open and blundered blindly into the pitch-darkness of his study.

For a thought he stood bewildered and dismayed by the absence of light. He had thought, somehow, to find the gas-jets flaring. The atmosphere was hot and foul with the odor of kerosene, the blackness filled with strange sounds and mysterious moving shapes. A grunting gasp came to his ears, and then the silence and the night alike were split by a report, accompanied by a streak of orange flame shooting ceilingward from the middle of the room.

Its light, transient as it was, gave him some inkling of the situation. Unthinkingly he flung himself forward, ready to grapple with that which first should meet his hands. Something soft and yielding brushed against his shoulder, and subconsciously, in the auto-hypnosis of his excitement, he was aware of a man's voice cursing and a woman's cry of triumph trailing off into a wail of pain.

On the instant he found himself at grips with the marauder. For a moment both swayed, dazed by the shock of collision. Then Maitland got a footing on the carpet and put forth his strength; the other gave way, slipped, and went to his knees. Maitland's hands found his throat, fingers sinking deep into flesh as he bore the fellow backward. A match flared noiselessly and the gas blazed overhead. A cry of astonishment choked in his throat as he recognized his own features duplicated in the face of the man whose throat he was slowly and relentlessly constricting. Anisty! He had not thought of him or connected him with the sounds that had thrilled and alarmed him over the telephone wire coming out of the void and blackness of night. Indeed, he had hardly thought any coherent thing about the matter. The ring of the girl's "No!" had startled him, and he had somehow thought, vaguely, that O'Hagan had surprised her in the flat. But more than that....

He glanced swiftly aside at the girl standing still beneath the chandelier, the match in one hand burning toward her finger-tips, in the other Anisty's revolver. Their eyes met, and in hers the light of gladness leaped and fell like a living flame, then died, to be replaced by a look of entreaty and prayer so moving that his heart in its unselfish chivalry went out to her.

Who or what she was, howsoever damning the evidence against her, he would believe against belief, shield her to the end at whatever hazard to himself, whatever cost to his fortunes. Love is unreasoning and unreasonable even when unrecognized.

His senses seemed to vibrate with redoubled activity, to become abnormally acute. For the first time he was conscious of the imperative clamor of the electric bell in O'Hagan's quarters, as well as of the janitor's rich brogue voicing his indignation as he opened the basement door and prepared to ascend. Instantly the cause of the disturbance flashed upon him.

His strangle-hold on Anisty relaxed, he released the man, and, brows knitted with the concentration of his thoughts, he stepped back and over to the girl, lifting her hand and gently taking the revolver from her fingers.

Below, O'Hagan was parleying through the closed door with the late callers. Maitland could have blessed his hot-headed Irish stupidity for the delay he was causing.

Already Anisty was on his feet again, blind with rage and crouching as if ready to spring, only restrained by the sight of his own revolver, steady and threatening in Maitland's hand.

For the least part of a second the young man hesitated, choosing his way. Then, resolved, in accents of determination, "Stand up, you hound!" he cried. "Back to the wall there!" and thrust the weapon under the burglar's nose.

The move gained instant obedience. Mr. Anisty could not reasonably hesitate in the face of such odds.

"And you," Maitland continued over his shoulder to the girl, without removing his attention from the burglar, "into the alcove there, at once! And not a word, not a whisper, not a sound until I call you!"

She gave him one frightened and piteous glance, then, unquestioning, slipped quietly behind the portieres.

To Anisty, again: "Turn your pockets out!" commanded Maitland. "Quick, you fool! The police are below; your freedom depends on your haste." Anisty's hands flew to his pockets, emptying their contents on the floor. Maitland's eyes sought in vain the shape of the canvas bag. But time was too precious. Another moment's procrastination and----

"That will do," he said crisply, without raising his voice. "Now listen to me. At the end of the hall, there, you'll find a trunk-closet, from which a window----"

"I know."

"Naturally you would. Now go!"

Anisty waited for no repetition of the permission. Whatever the madness of Mad Maitland, he was concerned only to profit by it. Never before had the long arm of the law stretched hungry fingers so near his collar. He went, springing down the hall in long, soundless strides, vanishing into its shadows.

As he disappeared Maitland stepped to the door, raised his revolver, and pulled the trigger twice. The shots detonated loudly in that confined space, and rang coincident with the clash and clatter of shivered glass. A thin cloud of vapor obscured the doorway, swaying on the hot, still air, then parted and dissolved, dissipated by the entrance of four men who, thrusting the door violently open, struggled into the hallway.

Blue cloth and brass buttons moved conspicuously in the van, a grim face flushed and perspiring beneath the helmet's vizor, a revolver poised menacingly in one hand, locust as ready in the other. Behind this outward and visible manifestation of the law's majesty bobbed a rusty derby, cocked jauntily back upon the red, shining forehead of a short and thick-set person with a black mustache. O'Hagan's agitated countenance loomed over a dusty shoulder, and the battered silk hat of the nighthawk brought up the rear.

"Come in, everybody," Maitland greeted them cheerfully, turning back into the study and tossing the revolver, shreds of smoke still curling up from its muzzle, upon a divan. "O'Hagan," he called, on second thought, "jump down-stairs and see that all New York doesn't get in. Let nobody in!"

As the janitor unwillingly obeyed, policeman and detective found their tongues. A volley of questions, to the general purport of "What's th' meanin' of all this here?" assailed Maitland as he rested himself coolly on an edge of the desk. He responded, with one eyebrow slightly elevated: "A burglar. What did you suppose? That I was indulging in target practice at this time of night?"

"Which way'd he go?"

"Back of the flat--through the window to the fire-escape, I suppose. I took a couple of shots after him, but missed, and inasmuch as he was armed, I didn't pursue."

Hickey stepped forward, glowering unpleasantly at the young man. "Yeh go along," he told the uniformed man, "'nd see 'f he's tellin' the truth. I'll stay here 'nd keep him company."

His tone amused Maitland. In the reaction from the recent strain upon his wits and nerve, he laughed openly.

"And who are you?" he suggested, smiling, as the policeman clumped heavily away. Hickey spat thoughtfully into a Satsuma jardinière and sneered. "I s'pose yeh never saw me before?"

Maitland bowed affirmation. "I'm sorry to say that that pleasure has heretofore been denied me."