CHAPTER XXVIII

FLORENCE CRASHES IN

At that moment Florence was involved in an affair which threatened to bring her brief career to a tragic end.

It had begun innocently enough. The back of a man's head, seen in a crowd, had interested her. She had made a study of men's heads. "There's as much character to be read in the back of one's head as in one's face," a psychologist had said to her. Doubting his statement, she had taken up this study to disprove his theory. She had ended by believing. For truly one may read in the carriage of the head stubbornness, indecision, mental and physical weakness; yes, and a capacity for crime.

It was this last, revealed in the neck of the man in the throng, that had set her on his trail.

She had not long to wait for confirmation. At a turn in the street the man offered her a side view. At once she caught her breath. This man was dark of visage. He had an ugly red scar on his chin.

"Jeanne's shadow!" she whispered to herself. "And such a shadow!" She shuddered at the very thought.

For this young man was not unknown to her. Not ten days before, in a crowded police court he had been pointed out to her as one of the most dangerous of criminals. He was not, at this time, in custody. Just why he was there she had not been told. Though suspected of many crimes, he had been detected in none of them.

"And it is he who has been dogging Jeanne's footsteps!" she muttered. "I must warn her.

"He, too, it was, who sank the package in Snowball's net. Meg's birthday present." She smiled. Then she frowned. "I must warn her. It may be a bomb. Stranger discoveries have been made."

For a moment she considered another theory regarding the package. A moment only--then all this was driven from her mind. Drama was in the making, real drama from life. The evil-eyed one had paused before a doorway. He had remained poised there for a moment like a bird of prey: then the prey appeared, or so it seemed to Florence.

A short, foreign-appearing man with a military bearing all but came to a position of salute before the dark one of the evil eye. That one essayed a smile which, to the girl, seemed the grin of a wolf.

The short man appeared not to notice. He uttered a few words, waved his hands excitedly, then turned as if expecting to be led away.

"A Frenchman," Florence thought. "Who else would wave his arms so wildly?"

Then a thought struck her all of a heap. "This is Jeanne's little Frenchman, the one who bears a message for her, who has come all the way from France to deliver it."

At once she became wildly excited. She had notions about that message. Strangely fantastic notions they were; this she was obliged to admit. But they very nearly drove her to committing a strange act. In a moment more she would have dashed up to the little Frenchman. She would undoubtedly have seized him by the arm and exclaimed:

"You are looking for Petite Jeanne. Come! I will lead you to her!"

This did not happen. There was a moment of indecision. Then, before her very eyes, the dark one, after casting a suspicious glance her way, bundled his prey into a waiting taxi and whisked him away.

"Gone!" Consternation seized her. But, suddenly, her mind cleared.

"What was that number?" She racked her brain. Tom Howe, the young detective who had pointed out the dark-faced one, had given her the street number believed to be his hangout.

"One, three," she said aloud. "One, three, six, four, Burgoyne Place. That was it!

"Oh, taxi! Taxi!" She went dashing away after a vacant car.

Having overtaken the cab, she gave the driver hasty instructions, and then settled back against the cushions.

Her head was in a whirl. What was it she planned to do? To follow a dangerous criminal? Alone? To frustrate his plans single-handed? The thing seemed tremendous, preposterous.

"Probably not going to his haunt at all. May not be his haunt."

Pressing her hands against her temples, she closed her eyes. For a space of several moments she bumped along.

Then she straightened up. The cab had ceased its bumping. They were rolling along on smooth paving. This was not to be expected.

"Driver! Driver!" she exclaimed, sliding the glass window to one side with a bang. "Where are we?"

"Kinzie and Carpen."

"Oh, oh!" She could have wept. "You're going north. The address I gave you is south."

"It can't be, Miss."

"It is!"

"Then I'm wrong."

"Of course! Turn about and go south to 2200. Then I'll tell you the way."

Once again they glided and jolted along. In the end they pulled up before a stone building. A two-story structure that might once have been a mansion, it stood between two towering warehouses.

"That's the place. There's the number."

She hesitated. Should she ask the driver to remain? "No, they'll see him and make a run for it." She had thought of a better way. She paid him and as if frightened by his surroundings he sped away.

"Not a moment to lose!" she whispered. Some sixth sense seemed to tell her that this was the place--that the dark one and his victim were inside.

Speeding to a corner where a boy cried his papers, she thrust half a dollar into his hand, and whispered a command:

"Bring a policeman to that house!" She poked a thumb over her shoulder.

"You'll need three of 'em!" the boy muttered, as he hurried away. She did not hear. She was speeding back.

"Now!" she breathed, squaring her shoulders.

Up the stone steps, a thrust at the doorbell. Ten seconds. No answer. A vigorous thump. A kick. Still no response.

Examining the door, she found it to be a double one.

"Rusty catches. Easy!

"But then?"

She did not stand on ceremony. Stepping back a pace, she threw her sturdy form against the door. It gave way, letting her into a hallway. To the right of the hallway was a door.

A man was in the act of springing at her when someone from behind exclaimed:

"Wait! It's a frail!"

The words appeared to upset the other's plans, or at least to halt them for a second.

During that second the girl plunged head foremost. Striking him amidships, she capsized him and took all the wind from his sail in one and the same instant.

She regained her balance just in time to see a long, blue gun being leveled at her. It was in the hand of the evil-eyed one.

Not for naught had she labored in the gymnasium. Before the gun flashed, it went whirling through space, crashed a window and was gone.

As for the evil-eyed one, he too vanished. At the same moment three stolid policemen came stamping in. The newsboy had done yeoman duty.

The offender who had been overturned by Florence was duly mopped up. The evil-eyed one was sought in vain. Groaning in a corner was the short Frenchman.

His arms were bound behind him in a curious fashion; in fact they were so bound by ropes and a stick that his arms might have been twisted from their sockets, and this by a few simple turns of that stick.

"Kidnappin' an' torture!" said one of the police, standing the captured offender on his feet. "You'll get yours, Mike."

"It was Blackie's idea," grumbled the man.

"And where's Blackie?"

The man shrugged.

"Left you to hold the bag. That's him. Anyway, now we got it on him, we'll mop him up! Blamed if we don't! Tim, untie that man." He nodded toward the little Frenchman.

"Now then," the police sergeant commanded, "tell us why you let 'em take you in."

"They--they told me they would take me to a person known as Petite Jeanne."

"Pet--Petite Jeanne!" Florence could have shouted for joy. "And have you money for her, a great deal of money?"

"No, Miss." The little man stared at her.

Florence wilted. Her pet dream had proven only an illusion. "At any rate," she managed to say after a time, "when the police are through with you I'll take you to her lodgings. I am her friend and pal."

The little man looked at her distrustfully. He had put his confidence in two American citizens that day, and with dire results.

"We'll see about that later." The police sergeant scowled.

"I think--" His scowl had turned to a smile when, a few moments later, after completing his investigation and interrogating Florence, he turned to the Frenchman. "I think--at least it's my opinion--that you'll be safe enough in this young lady's company.

"If she'd go to the trouble of hirin' a taxi and followin' you, then breakin' down a door and riskin' her life to rescue you from a bloody pair of kidnappers and murderers, she's not goin' to take you far from where you want to go."

"I am overcome!" The Frenchman bowed low. "I shall accompany her with the greatest assurance."

So, side by side, the curious little Frenchman and the girl marched away.

"But, Mademoiselle!" The Frenchman seemed dazed. "Why all this late unpleasantness?"

"Those two!" Florence threw out her arms. "They'd have tortured you to death. They thought, as I did, that you were in possession of money, a great deal of money."

"In France," the man exclaimed in evident disgust, "we execute such men!"

"In America," Florence replied quietly, "we mostly don't. And what a pity!

"The elevated is only three blocks away." She took up a brisk stride. "We'll take it. I hate taxis. Drivers never know where you want to go. Outside the Loop, they're lost like babes in the wood."

A taxi might indeed have lost both Florence and the polite little Frenchman. Under Florence's plan only the Frenchman was lost. And this, to her, was just as bad, for she _did_ want Petite Jeanne to meet this man and receive the message from him, even though the message was not to be delivered in the form of bank notes.

It was the little man's extreme politeness that proved his undoing. In the Loop they were obliged to change trains. Florence had waited for the right train, and then had invited him to go before her, when, with a lift of his hat, he said, bowing:

"After you, my dear Mademoiselle!"

This was all well enough. But there were other Madams and Mademoiselles boarding that train.

Again and yet again the little man bowed low. When at last the gates banged and the train rattled on its way, Florence found to her consternation that she was alone.

"We left him there bowing!" There was a certain humor in the situation. But she was disappointed and alarmed.

Speeding across the bridge at the next station, she boarded a second train and went rattling back. Arrived at her former station, she found no trace of the man.

"He took another train. It's no use." Her shoulders drooped. "All that and nothing for it."

Her dejection lasted but for a moment.

"To-morrow," she murmured. "It is not far away. And on the morrow there is ever something new."