Chapter 5

The words shattered the tableau. On their echo Maitland sprang and fastened his fingers around the other's throat. Carried off his feet by the sheer ferocity of the assault, Anisty gave ground a little. For an instant they were swaying back and forth, with advantage to neither. Then the burglar's collar slipped and somehow tore from its stud, giving Maitland's hands freer play. His grasp tightened about the man's gullet; he shook him mercilessly. Anisty staggered, gasping, reeled, struck Maitland once or twice upon the chest,--feeble, weightless elbow-jabs that went for nothing, then concentrated his energies in a vain attempt to wrench the hands from his throat. Reeling, tearing at Maitland's wrists, face empurpling, eyes staring in agony, he stumbled. Mercilessly Maitland forced him to his knees and bullied him across the floor toward the nearest lounge--with premeditated design; finally succeeding in throwing him flat; and knelt upon his chest, retaining his grip but refraining from throttling him.

As it was, all strength and thought of resistance had been choked out of Anisty. He lay at length, gasping painfully.

Maitland glanced over his shoulders and saw the girl moving forward, apparently making for the switch.

"No!" he cried, peremptory. "Don't turn off the light--please!"

"But--" she doubted.

"Let me have those curtain cords, if you please," he requested shortly.

She followed his gaze to the windows, interpreted his wishes, and was very quick to carry them out. In a trice she was offering him half a dozen of the heavy, twisted silk cords that had been used to loop back the curtains.

Soft yet strong, they were excellently well adapted to Maitland's needs. Unceremoniously he swung his captive over on his side, bringing his neck and ankles in juxtaposition to the legs of that substantial piece of furniture, the lounge.

His hands the first to be secured, and tightly, behind his back, Anisty lay helpless, glaring vindictively the while gradually he recovered consciousness and strength. Maitland cared little for his evil glances; he was busy. The burglar's ankles were next bound together and to the lounge leg; and, an instant later, a brace of half-hitches about the man's neck and the nearest support entirely eliminated him as a possible factor in subsequent events.

"Those loops around your throat," Maitland warned him curtly, "are loose enough now, but if you struggle they'll tighten and strangle you. Understand?"

Anisty nodded, making an incoherent sound with his swollen tongue. At which Maitland frowned, smitten thoughtful with a new consideration.

"You mustn't talk, you know," he mused half aloud; and, whipping forth a handkerchief, gagged Mr. Anisty.

After which, breathing hard and in a maze of perplexity, he got to his feet. Already his hearing, quickened by the emergency, had apprised him of the situation's imminent hazards. It needed not the girl's hurried whisper, "_The servants_!" to warn him of their danger. From the rear wing of the mansion the sounds of hurrying feet were distinctly audible, as, presently, were the heavy, excited voices of men and the more shrill and frightened cries of women.

Heedless of her displeasure, Maitland seized the girl by the arm and urged her over to the open Window. "Don't hang back!" he told her nervously. "You must get out of this before they see you. Do as I tell you, please, and we'll save ourselves yet! If we both make a run for it, we're lost. Don't you understand?"

"No. Why?" she demanded, reluctant, spirited, obstinate--and lovely in his eyes.

"If he were anybody else," Maitland indicated, with a jerk of his head toward the burglar. "But didn't you see? He must be Maitland--and he's my double. I'll stay, brazen it out, then, as soon as possible, make my escape and join you by the gate. Your motor's there--what? Be ready for me...."

But she had grasped his intention and was suddenly become pliant to his will. "You're wonderful!" she told him with a little low laugh; and was gone, silently as a spirit.

The curtains fell behind her in long, straight folds; Maitland stilled their swaying with a touch, and stepped back into the room. For a moment he caught the eye of the fellow on the floor; and it was upturned to his, sardonically intelligent. But the lord of the manor had little time to debate consequences.

Abruptly the door was flung wide and a short stout man, clutching up his trousers with a frantic hand, burst into the library, brandishing overhead a rampant revolver.

"'Ands hup!" he cried, leveling at Maitland. And then, with a fallen countenance; "G-r-r-reat 'eavins, sir! _You_, Mister Maitland, sir!"

"Ah, Higgins," his employer greeted the butler blandly.

Higgins pulled up, thunderstruck, panting and perspiring with agitation. His fat cheeks quivered like the wattles of a gobbler, and his eyes bulged as, by degrees, he became alive to the situation.

Maitland began to explain, forestalling the embarrassments of cross-examination.

"By the merest accident, Higgins, I was passing in my car with a party of friends. Just for a joke I thought I'd steal up to the house and see how you were behaving yourselves. By chance--again--I happened to see this light through the library windows." And Maitland, putting an incautious hand upon the bull's-eye on the desk, withdrew it instantly, with an exclamation of annoyance and four scorched fingers.

"He's been at the safe," he added quickly, diverting attention from himself. "I was just in time."

"My wor-r-rd!" said Higgins, with emotion. Then quickly: "Did 'e get anythin', do you think, sir?"

Maitland shook his head, scowling over the butler's burly shoulders at the rapidly augmenting concourse of servants in the hallway--lackeys, grooms, maids, cooks, and what-not; a background of pale, scared faces to the tableau in the library. "This won't do," considered Maitland. "Get back, all of you!" he ordered sternly, indicating the group with a dominant and inflexible forefinger. "Those who are wanted will be sent for. Now go! Higgins, you may stay."

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But wot an 'orrid 'appenin', sir, if you'll permit me--"

"I won't. Be quiet and listen. This man is Anisty--Handsome Dan Anisty, the notorious jewel thief, wanted badly by the police of a dozen cities. You understand?... I'm going now to motor to the village and get the constables; I may," he invented desperately, "be delayed--may have to get a detective from Brooklyn. If this scoundrel stirs, don't touch him. Let him alone--he can't escape if you do. Above all things, don't you dare to remove that gag!"

"Most cert'inly, sir. I shall bear in mind wot you says----"

"You'd best," grimly. "Now I'm off. No; I don't want any attendance--I know my way. And--don't--touch--that--man--till I return."

"Very good, sir."

Maitland stepped over to the safe, glanced within, cursorily, replaced a bundle of papers which he did not recall disturbing, closed the door and twirled the combination.

"Nothing gone," he announced. An inarticulate gurgle from the prostrate man drew a black scowl from Maitland. Recovering, "Good morning," he said politely to the butler, and striding out of the house by the front door, was careful to slam that behind him, ere darting into the shadows.

The moon was down, the sky a cold, opaque grey, overcast with a light drift of cloud. The park seemed very dark, very dreary; a searching breeze was sweeping inland from the Sound, soughing sadly in the tree-tops; a chill humidity permeated the air, precursor of rain. The young man shivered, both with chill and reaction from the tension of the emergency just past.

He was aware of an instantaneous loss of heart, a subsidence of the elation which had upheld him throughout the adventure; and to escape this, to forget or overcome it, took immediately to his heels, scampering madly for the road, oppressed with fear lest he should find the girl gone--with the jewels.

That she should prove untrue, faithless, lacking even that honor which proverbially obtains in the society of criminals--a consideration of such a possibility was intolerable, as much so as the suspense of ignorance. He could not, would not, believe her capable of ingratitude so rank; and fought fiercely, unreasoningly, against the conviction that she would have followed her thievish instincts and made off with the booty.... A judgment meet and right upon him, for his madness!

Heart in mouth, he reached the gates, passing through without discovering her, and was struck dumb and witless with relief when she stepped quietly from the shadows of a low branching tree, offering him a guiding hand.

"Come," she said quietly. "This way."

Without being exactly conscious of what he was about he caught the hand in both his own. "Then," he exulted almost passionately,--"then you didn't----"

His voice choked in his throat. Her face, momentarily upturned to his, gleamed pale and weary in the dreary light; the face of a tired child, troubled, saddened; yet with eyes inexpressibly sweet. She turned away, tugging at her hand.

"You doubted me, after all!" she commented, a trifle bitterly.

"I--no! You misunderstand me. Believe me, I----"

"Ah, don't protest. What does it make or mar, whether or not you trusted me?... You have," she added quietly, "the jewels safe enough, I suppose?"

He stopped short, aghast. "I! The jewels!"

"I slipped them in your coat pocket before----"

Instantly her hand was free, Maitland ramming both his own into the side pockets of his top-coat. "They're safe!"

She smiled uncertainly.

"We have no time," said she. "Can you drive--?"

They were standing by the side of her car, which had been cunningly hidden in the gloom beneath a spreading tree on the further side of the road. Maitland, crestfallen, offered his hand; the tips of her fingers touched his palm lightly as she jumped in. He hesitated at the step.

"You wish me to?"

She laughed lightly. "Most assuredly. You may assure yourself that I shan't try to elude you again----"

"I would I might be sure of that," he said, steadying his voice and seeking her eyes.

"Procrastination won't make it any more assured."

He stepped up and settled himself in the driver's seat, grasping throttle and steering-wheel; the great machine thrilled to his touch like a live thing, then began slowly to back out into the road. For an instant it seemed to hang palpitant on dead center, then shot out like a hound unleashed, _ventre-à-terre_,--Brooklyn miles away over the hood.

It seemed but a minute ere they were thundering over the Myannis bridge. A little further on Maitland slowed down and, jumping out, lighted the lamps. In the seat again,--no words had passed,--he threw in the high-speed clutch, and the world flung behind them, roaring. Thereafter, breathless, stunned by the frenzy of speed, perforce silent, they bored on through the night, crashing along deserted highways.

In the east a band of pallid light lifted up out of the night, and the horizon took shape against it, stark and black. Slowly, stealthily, the formless dawn dusk spread over the sleeping world; to the zenith the light-smitten stars reeled and died, and houses, fields, and thoroughfares lay a-glimmer with ghostly twilight as the car tore headlong through the grim, unlovely, silent hinterland of Long Island City.

The gates of the ferry-house were inexorably shut against them when at last Maitland brought the big machine to a tremulous and panting halt, like that of an over-driven thoroughbred. And though they perforce endured a wait of fully fifteen minutes, neither found aught worth saying; or else the words wherewith fitly to clothe their thoughts were denied them. The girl seemed very weary, and sat with head drooping and hands clasped idly in her lap. To Maitland's hesitant query as to her comfort she returned a monosyllabic reassurance. He did not again venture to disturb her; on his own part he was conscious of a clogging sense of exhaustion, of a drawn and haggard feeling about the eyes and temples; and knew that he was keeping awake through main power of will alone, his brain working automatically, his being already a-doze.

The fresh wind off the sullen river served in some measure to revive them, once the gates were opened and the car had taken a place on the ferry-boat's forward extreme. Day was now full upon the world; above a horizon belted with bright magenta, the cloudless sky was soft turquoise and sapphire; and abruptly, while the big unwieldy boat surged across the narrow ribbon of green water, the sun shot up with a shout and turned to an evanescent dream of fairy-land the gaunt, rock-ribbed profile of Manhattan Island, bulking above them in tier upon tier of monstrous buildings.

On the Manhattan side, in deference to the girl's low-spoken wish, Maitland ran the machine up to Second Avenue, turned north, and brought it to a stop by the curb, a little north of Thirty-fifth Street.

"And now whither?" he inquired, hands somewhat impatiently ready upon the driving and steering-gear.

The girl smiled faintly through her veil. "You have been most kind," she told him in a tired voice. "Thank you--from my heart, Mr. Anisty," and made a move as if to relieve him of his charge.

"Is that all?" he demanded blankly.

"Can I say more?"

"I ... I am to go no further with you?" Sick with disappointment, he rose and dropped to the sidewalk--anticipating her affirmative answer.

"If you would please me," said the girl, "you won't insist...."

"I don't," he returned ruefully. "But are you quite sure that you're all right now?"

"Quite, thank you, dear Mr. Anisty!" With a pretty gesture of conquering impulse she swept her veil aside, and the warm rose-glow of the new-born day tinted her wan young cheeks with color. And her eyes were as stars, bright with a mist of emotion, brimming with gratitude--and something else. He could not say what; but one thing he knew, and that was that she was worn with excitement and fatigue, near to the point of breaking down.

"You're tired," he insisted, solicitous. "Can't you let me----?"

"I am tired," she admitted wistfully, voice subdued, yet rich and vibrant. "No, please. Please let me go. Don't ask me any questions--now."

"Only one," he made supplication. "I've done nothing----"

"Nothing but be more kind than I can say!"

"And you're not going to back out of our partnership?"

"Oh!" And now the color in her cheeks was warmer than that which the dawn had lent them. "No ... I shan't back out." And she smiled.

"And if I call a meeting of the board of management of Anisty and Wentworth, Limited, you will promise to attend?"

"Ye-es...."

"Will it be too early if I call one for to-day?"

"Why...."

"Say at two o'clock this afternoon, at Eugene's. You know the place?"

"I have lunched there----"

"Then you shall again to-day. You won't disappoint me?"

"I will be there. I ... I shall be glad to come. Now--_please_!"

"You've promised. Don't forget."

He stepped back and stood in a sort of dreamy daze, while, with one final wonderful smile at parting, the girl assumed control of the machine and swung it out from the curb. Maitland watched it forge slowly up the Avenue and vanish round the Thirty-sixth Street corner; then turned his face southward, sighing with weariness and discontent.

At Thirty-fourth Street a policeman, lounging beneath the corrugated iron awning of a corner saloon, faced about with a low whistle, to stare after him. Maitland experienced a chill sense of criminal guilt; he was painfully conscious of those two shrewd eyes, boring gimlet-like into his back, overlooking no detail of the wreck of his evening clothes. Involuntarily he glanced down at his legs, and they moved mechanically beneath the edge of his overcoat, like twin animated columns of mud and dust, openly advertising his misadventures. He felt in his soul that they shrieked aloud, that they would presently succeed in dinning all the town awake, so that the startled populace would come to the windows to stare in wonder as he passed by. And inwardly he groaned and quaked.

As for the policeman, after some reluctant hesitation, he overcame the inherent indisposition to exertion that affects his kind, and, swinging his stick, stalked after Maitland.

Happily (and with heartfelt thanksgiving) the young man chanced upon a somnolent and bedraggled hack, at rest in the stenciled shadows of the Third Avenue elevated structure. Its pilot was snoring lustily the sleep of the belated, on the box. With some difficulty he was awakened, and Maitland dodged into the musty, dusty body of the vehicle, grateful to escape the unprejudiced stare of the guardian of the peace, who in another moment would have overtaken him and, doubtless, subjected him to embarrassing inquisition.

As the ancient four-wheeler rattled noisily over the cobbles, some of the shops were taking down their shutters, the surface cars were beginning to run with increasing frequency, and the sidewalks were becoming sparsely populated. Familiar as the sights were, they were yet somehow strangely unreal to the young man. In a night the face of the world had changed for him; its features loomed weirdly blurred and contorted through the mystical grey-gold atmosphere of the land of Romance, wherein he really lived and moved and had his being. The blatant day was altogether preposterous: to-day was a dream, something nightmarish; last night he had been awake, last night for the first time in twenty-odd years of existence he had lived....

He slipped unthinkingly one hand into his coat pocket, seeking instinctively his cigarette case; and his fingers brushed the coarse-grained surface of a canvas bag. He jumped as if electrified. He had managed altogether to forget them, yet in _his_ keeping were the jewels, Maitland heirlooms--the swag and booty, the loot and plunder of the night's adventure. And he smiled happily to think that his interest in them was Fifty-percent depreciated in twenty-four hours; now he owned only half....

Suddenly he sat up, with happy eyes and a glowing face. _She_ had trusted him!

V.

INCOGNITO

At noon, precisely, Maitland stirred between the sheets for the first time since he had thrown himself into his bed--stirred, and, confused by whatever alarm had awakened him, yawned stupendously, and sat up, rubbing clenched fists in his eyes to clear them of sleep's cobwebs. Then he bent forward, clasping his knees, smiled largely, replaced the smile with a thoughtful frown, and in such wise contemplated the foot of the bed for several minutes,--his first conscious impression, that he had something delightful to look forward to yielding to a vague recollection of a prolonged shrill tintinnabulation--as if the telephone bell in the front room had been ringing for some time.

But he waited in vain for a repetition of the sound, and eventually concluded that he had been mistaken; it had been an echo from his dreams, most likely.

Besides, who should call him up? Not two people knew that he was in town: not even O'Hagan was aware that he had returned to his rooms that morning.

He gaped again, stretching wide his arms, sat up on the edge of the bed, and heard the clock strike twelve.

Noon and.... He had an engagement at two! He brightened at the memory and, jumping up, pressed an electric call-button on the wall. By the time he had paddled barefoot to the bath-room and turned on the cold-water tap, O'Hagan's knock summoned him to the hall door.

"Back again, O'Hagan; and in a desperate rush. I'll want you to shave me and send some telegrams, please. Must be off by one-thirty. You may get out my grey-striped flannels"--here he paused, calculating his costume with careful discrimination,--"and a black-striped negligée shirt; grey socks; russet low shoes; black and white check tie--broad wings. You know where to find them all?"

"Shure yiss, sor."

O'Hagan showed no evidence of surprise; the eccentricities of Mr. Maitland could not move him, who was inured to them through long association and observation. He moved away to execute his instructions, quietly efficient. By the time Maitland had finished splashing and gasping in the bath-tub, everything was ready for the ceremony of dressing.

In other words, twenty minutes later Maitland, bathed, shaved, but still in dressing-gown and slippers, was seated at his desk, a cup of black coffee steaming at his elbow, a number of yellow telegraph blanks before him, a pen poised between his fingers.

It was in his mind to send a wire to Cressy, apologizing for his desertion of the night just gone, and announcing his intention to rejoin the party from which the motor trip to New York had been as planned but a temporary defection, in time for dinner that same evening. He nibbled the end of the pen-holder, selecting phrases, then looked up at the attentive O'Hagan.

"Bring me a New Haven time-table, please," he began, "and--"

The door-bell abrupted his words, clamoring shrilly.

"What the deuce?" he demanded. "Who can that be? Answer it, will you, O'Hagan?"

He put down the pen, swallowed his coffee, and lit a cigarette, listening to the murmurs at the hall door. An instant later, O'Hagan returned, bearing a slip of white pasteboard which he deposited on the desk before Maitland.

"'James Burleson Snaith,'" Maitland read aloud from the faultlessly engraved card. "I don't know him. What does he want?"

"Wouldn't say, sor; seemed surprised whin I towld him ye were in, an' said he was glad to hear it--business pressin', says he."

"'Snaith'? But I never heard the name before. What does he look like?"

"A gintleman, sor, be th' clothes av him an' th' way he talks."

"Well.... Devil take the man! Show him in."

"Very good, sor."

Maitland swung around in his desk chair, his back to the window, expression politely curious, as his caller entered the room, pausing, hat in hand, just across the threshold.

He proved to be a man apparently of middle age, of height approximating Maitland's; his shoulders were slightly rounded as if from habitual bending over a desk, his pose mild and deferential. By his eyeglasses and peering look, he was near-sighted; by his dress, a gentleman of taste and judgment as well as of means to gratify both. A certain jaunty and summery touch in his attire suggested a person of leisure who had just run down from his country place, for a day in town.

His voice, when he spoke, did nothing to dispel the illusion.

"Mr. Maitland?" he opened the conversation briskly. "I trust I do not intrude? I shall be brief as possible, if you will favor me with a private interview."

Maitland remarked a voice well modulated and a good choice of words. He rose courteously.

"I should be pleased to do so," he suggested, "if you could advance any reasons for such a request."

Mr. Snaith smiled discreetly, fumbling in his side pocket. A second slip of cardboard appeared between his fingers as he stepped over toward Maitland.

"If I had not feared it might deprive me of this interview, I should have sent in my business card at once," he said. "Permit me."

Maitland accepted the card and elevated his brows. "Oh!" he said, putting it down, his manner becoming perceptibly less cordial. "I say, O'Hagan."

"Yessor?"

"I shall be busy for--Will half an hour satisfy you, Mr. Snaith?"

"You are most kind," the stranger bowed.

"In half an hour, O'Hagan, you may return."

"Very good, sor." And the hall door closed.

"So," said Maitland, turning to face the man squarely, "you are from Police Headquarters?"

"As you see." Mr. Snaith motioned delicately toward his business card--as he called it.

"Well?"--after a moment's pause.

"I am a detective, you understand."

"Perfectly," Maitland assented, unmoved.