Part 5

From that moment the game progressed merrily for nearly an hour. Barry did not exert himself at first. He wanted to test the stranger's cleverness, so he confined himself to entering one door of a department store or hotel, and hastily departing by another; leaping on a surface car just as it was starting, only to alight as swiftly a few blocks farther on, and take one going in the opposite direction.

These, and half a dozen other tricks of a like nature, he tried, only to end up at Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue with the blond fellow sticking to him like a leech.

"He's no slouch," Barry reflected, as he turned slowly eastward. "I reckon I'll have to be a little spryer."

Turning uptown at Fifth Avenue, he kept a sharp lookout for a solitary taxi. When one finally came along behind him, he hailed it swiftly, ran out into the street, and leaped in almost before the car had come to a stop.

"Metropolitan Building--Madison Avenue entrance," he said quickly. "Hustle!"

The chauffeur did hustle, and Lawrence, glancing back through the little window, was pleased to see his pursuer swiftly lost in the crowd of noon-day pedestrians.

There was a short delay at the Flatiron Building, then the car sped up the west side of the square, on account of traffic regulations, east along Twenty-sixth, and thence into Madison. It was just as they rounded the last corner that Lawrence spied another flying taxi which seemed to be following them.

He had a bill ready, however, and, as the car slowed down, he leaped out, thrust it into the chauffeur's hand, and darted into the building.

The arcade was full of people moving in both directions, and Barry, hurrying through them, slipped suddenly into a little cigar store midway to Fourth Avenue, which had another entrance on Twenty-third Street. Less than a minute later he was diving into the subway entrance.

Fortunately a local was just drawing into the station, and, as he took his seat, he chuckled a little to himself.

"You'll have some trouble in following that trail, my friend," he murmured.

He got out at Fourteenth Street, and took an uptown train, but long before reaching Fifty-ninth Street the smile had vanished, and a puzzled frown furrowed his forehead.

There seemed no doubt now that his encounter with the bearded man last night had not been the result of chance. He was being followed deliberately, and there were at least two men who seemed tremendously interested in every move he made. What was their object? What motive governed this inexplicable pursuit?

Try as he would, Barry could find no answer to the questions. If they had been attracted by the emerald ring, and were following him for the purpose of robbery--and last night's experience certainly pointed strongly toward that solution--what earthly sense was there in the actions of the blond stranger? Did he expect to sandbag and rob a victim in broad daylight, amid the crowds which swarmed the city streets? It was absurd, Barry told himself, yet what else was there to think?

The problem occupied him on his way over to the Plaza, and made him somewhat absent during the progress of the simple luncheon he ordered. He did not, in fact, really pay much attention to his surroundings until an odd event effectually brought him to himself.

He had arisen from his table, and was making his way slowly to the door, his progress somewhat impeded by the simultaneous departure of a large luncheon party. As he trailed along behind the laughing crowd of girls, he happened to glance casually to the left, and encountered the gaze of a woman sitting at a table near the wall.

She was not young, but there was a stately distinction in her looks and manner which impressed Lawrence. Her face was a perfect oval, showing remnants of great beauty, and Barry had a vague impression that he had seen her before. She was perfectly gowned, and wore no jewels, save a single strand of wonderful pearls. Her companions were much younger, and wholly charming. The head waiter hovered obsequiously about the table.

As their eyes met, Barry saw her start slightly and stare for a second, a look of puzzled astonishment on her face. The next instant she smiled and bowed in a manner which was even more than cordial.

Automatically Lawrence returned the bow with what grace he could assume, and passed on. At the door he turned for a backward glance. and was surprised to see that the lady had moved a little in her chair, and was following him with her eyes.

"I suppose I've met her somewhere," he thought, pausing in the doorway. "I wish I could remember her name. She's certainly somebody."

An instant later he caught the eye of the head waiter, and summoned him with a slight gesture.

"Who is the lady at the fourth table from the door?" he asked briefly. "I seem to have forgotten her name."

The haughty functionary followed the direction of Barry's glance, and then turned back, an odd expression in his eyes.

"That is Mrs. Winslow Courtney, sir," he answered stiffly.

For a second Lawrence was almost feezed. Then, with a short nod, he passed on into the corridor.

Mrs. Winslow Courtney! No wonder he could not recall meeting her before. He doubted whether he had ever even seen her, save, perhaps, in her box at the opera; for it was she, more than any other woman, who ruled New York society. With family, vast wealth, and a charming personality, she had taken her place in that innermost circle around which the social life of the entire country revolved. One of her daughters was the wife of Prince von Lauenberg, the wealthiest nobleman in Prussia; another was the Duchess of Wilton.

Decidedly Barry had no right to that charming smile from Mrs. Winslow Courtney.

"I suppose she took me for some one else," he murmured, as he left the Plaza. "I wouldn't mind knowing her, though. Her friends, her acquaintances, have to be somebody."

*CHAPTER XV.*

*THE GIRL WHO VANISHED.*

Having grown a little weary of dodging people, Lawrence decided not to give those who seemed so interested in his movements a chance to pick up his trail again that afternoon. He was fond of motoring, so he proceeded at once to hire a good car, and, with only a chauffeur for company, went spinning out over the snowy, level roads of Westchester County.

In spite of the cold, he enjoyed it so much that it was nearly a quarter past five before he entered the yacht club, and sent up his name to Hamersley.

The latter descended at once, and, when he had finished upbraiding Barry, they went up to the famous model room, and, settling down in a corner with cigars, chatted, and joked each other for over an hour.

Two or three times Lawrence was on the point of asking his friend whether he had an opening for a good stenographer in his office, but each time he could not seem to bring himself to make the inquiry. And so they parted without Miss Rives and her very pressing necessities being mentioned.

"I'll talk it over with her to-night, and ask her if she won't let me find her a position," Barry decided, as he walked around to the hotel.

Having dressed with unusual care, he took a taxi to the Waldorf and dined there again in solitary state.

Though he kept his eyes open throughout the meal, he saw nothing of the blond fellow he had outwitted that morning, or of the bearded man. There was apparently no one in the dining room or about the hotel corridors who paid any more attention to him than would be accorded to any handsome, well-dressed, prosperous-looking chap. Instead of being relieved at this, Barry was affected in quite the opposite manner. The sudden cessation of interest struck him as being decidedly unnatural, and made him wonder whether it was not a bluff to hide the real intentions of the unknown spies.

After he had dined, he had a taxi summoned, and not until it was at the door did he leave the lighted corridor for the street.

Giving the Forty-eighth Street address, he stepped in and took up a position that would enable him easily to glance through the back window every now and then, and see whether he was being followed.

Until they turned out of Longacre Square it was impossible to tell this with any certainty. The streets were full of taxis and motor cars, carrying people to theaters or the opera or coming away empty. But, having turned into the comparatively deserted cross street, Barry kept an extra sharp lookout. Before the taxi reached Eighth Avenue he was rewarded by seeing another car skid around from Broadway in their wake.

With a slight frown of annoyance, he wondered how they had managed it. It is always more or less trying to miss a trick of any sort, and Lawrence rather prided himself on his keenness of observation.

The slowing down of his car as they approached the house made him thrust the matter from his mind in favor of more agreeable things. After all, his pursuer could accomplish nothing here.

Stepping out on the sidewalk, Barry told the chauffeur to wait, and ran up the steps. After a prolonged wait, a rather untidy-looking maid answered his ring, holding the door only partially open, and peering doubtfully through the crack.

"Is Miss Rives at home?" Lawrence inquired.

The girl stared. "Miss--who did you say?"

"Miss Rives--Miss Shirley Rives!" Barry's tone was slightly impatient. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the second taxi had crawled past, and come to a stop a few doors beyond. "She arrived last night, I believe."

The maid sniffed. "It's news to me," she remarked pertly. "Mebbe you've got the wrong house. There ain't no Miss Rives, nor anybody like it, stopping here just now."

Lawrence's eyes flashed, but he restrained his anger with an effort. He had never seen quite such a stupid creature in his life.

"I have made no mistake in the house," he retorted abruptly. "Kindly ask your mistress to see me for a moment."

"She ain't in." The girl's tone was plainly triumphant. Evidently she sensed the irritation in Barry's voice, and was glad of a chance to retaliate.

For an instant Lawrence was stumped. It was intolerable that he should be cheated out of something he had been looking forward to all day by the stupidity of a saucy maid. Whether it was anything more than stupidity he did not know, but he was determined not to give in yet.

"Then take my card to Miss Sally, the young lady who has your top floor front," he said tersely, slipping one hand into his pocket, and drawing forth a cardcase.

The maid hesitated, frowning. For an instant it seemed as if she meant to close the door in his face, and Barry was all ready to thrust a foot into the crack. Then something in his determined expression must have decided her, for she grudgingly stood aside for him to enter.

Taking out a gold pencil, Lawrence hastily scrawled a few words on his card, and handed it to her in silence.

The girl took it and glanced insolently at the hatrack. Finding that there was nothing there or anywhere else in the hall of an easily portable nature, she tossed her head and flounced to the stairs.

It seemed an eternity to the impatient Lawrence before a door closed hastily above, and he heard the sound of light footsteps hurrying down from the top floor. Presently a girl came in sight on the stairs, a rather nice-looking girl, with trim black hair and fresh coloring. As she saw Barry, she slackened her pace, and made the last few steps very slowly, indeed, pausing at the foot with one hand still resting on the balustrade.

"I'm very sorry, indeed, to have troubled you," Lawrence said, with a pleasant smile, "but I came to see Miss Rives, and the girl insists she isn't here."

The blank stare of amazement she gave him struck Barry with a chill sense of foreboding.

"Miss Rives!" the girl repeated slowly. "You can't be talking about Shirley Rives?"

"That's just who I mean. She came here last night. She had--er--left her boarding place rather suddenly, and when I--met her downtown she was on her way to see you."

For a second the girl looked keenly into his eyes, without speaking. Then she gave her head an odd shake.

"You don't look like a person who is joking," she said quietly, "so I s'pose you've made a mistake some way. I haven't seen Shirley Rives in two months, and more."

Barry's jaw dropped, and some of the ruddy glow left his cheeks. The thing was impossible. He had left Shirley on this very doorstep not twenty-four hours before--had even seen her enter the house on her way to this friend's room. And now they had the audacity to tell him that she had never been here. There was something queer about the whole matter, and he meant to find out what it was before he left the place.

"I haven't made a mistake," he said sternly. "I brought Miss Rives to this door myself a little before eleven last night. She looked up at your window, and when she saw it lighted she said it was all right; that Sally must still be here, because she used to read till all hours. She rang the bell, and I waited till the door opened and she went inside. And now you want me to believe that you never----"

He broke off abruptly, startled at the look on the girl's face. She had grown pale, and her eyes were dilated until they looked like holes burned in a white sheet. Her hands--slender, well-kept hands they were--were clenched tightly, and as Barry stopped she flung them up with an odd, eloquent gesture.

"It's the truth!" she gasped, in a frightened voice. "I haven't seen her--I swear it!" Her lips were trembling, and she caught them swiftly between her teeth. "Something's happened to her--it must have! Was she down in her luck? Had she lost her job?"

Barry nodded miserably. He was dazed--bewildered. But overtopping every other sensation was cold, deadly fear; fear for another one cares for, which is infinitely more gripping and powerful than an emotion involving self alone.

"Yes," he stammered. "She'd lost her job. She'd been turned out of her room--turned into the street last night. Do you know what that might have meant if I hadn't found her?"

The swift, horrified intake of her breath told him that she knew only too well. For a second she stood absolutely still, her mouth working. Then suddenly she put up both hands swiftly to her face, and began to sob. Almost as swiftly, she snatched them away again, and stared at him out of eyes filled with tears.

"What's come to her?" she demanded fiercely. "Why'd she leave this house without seeing me? What made her go, and where's she gone? Tell me that! She didn't vanish into air, did she? Where's she gone, and--where--is she--now?"

Lawrence did not answer her. For some seconds that same question had been pounding through his brain with the dull, rhythmical iteration of a hammer on an anvil.

Where was she now?

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*ANOTHER WOMAN.*

As Barry departed a little later he was conscious of a maddening sensation of helplessness. There seemed no question in his mind that Shirley Rives had left the house of her own accord. The fact that she had made not the slightest attempt to see her friend, Sally Barton, proved that conclusively. It was possible, of course, that the head of the establishment, a Mrs. Weston, could throw some light upon the mystery; but she had gone over to Long Island, and was not expected back until the following morning.

Barry's first impulse had been to go at once to the station house, make inquiries there, and possibly send out a general alarm; but he realized almost at once that such a step would be unwise. Miss Rives had given him no right to interfere in her affairs. She was a perfectly free agent to come and go as she liked, and where she chose; but the fact that she had disappeared in this utterly inexplicable manner drove Lawrence distracted.

Wild thoughts of suicide, under the burden of her troubles, flashed through his mind. Girls, even of her high mental caliber, had been driven to such desperate acts. Mrs. Weston's reception of her might have been the last straw to an already staggering load, and driven her impulsively forth into the street again. Worse yet, it might not have been Mrs. Weston at all who opened the door. There was quite as good a chance of its being some lodger on his way out. And Sally Barton's estimate of some of the lodgers was far from reassuring.

The maid had been summoned again, and interrogated sharply by the girl, but to no purpose. She had gone to bed about half past nine, leaving her mistress making up accounts in the back room. She knew nothing further, had heard nothing out of the way; and in the morning there had not been the slightest sign of any stranger having been in the house.

And there Lawrence was obliged to leave the matter. Think as he would, he could hit upon nothing else he might do. The stenographer promised to telephone him the instant she learned anything from Mrs. Weston; but Barry had already determined to call at the house directly after breakfast next morning. How he was going to remain in suspense for even that length of time he did not understand.

It was barely nine as he left the house, and for a moment or two he hesitated on the curb, wondering where he should go. Then a whimsical, absurd notion came to him, and, having ordered the chauffeur to drive to the northwest corner of Madison Square, he stepped into the taxi.

There was not the slightest hope in his mind of thus finding any clew. The vagaries of chance were strange and improbable enough, to be sure, but they could scarcely be expected to bring about such an utterly wild coincidence as that. He simply had a feeling that he wanted to return to that spot where he had first met her, and anything in the way of action was better than moping alone in his rooms.

As the car jerked forward and sped across town, Barry paid little attention to the second taxi, except to notice that it was following about half a block behind. At the corner of the square he got out, told the chauffeur to wait, and walked slowly down the winding walk.

As before, the place was deserted. The great, glittering tower still loomed high above the branches of the gaunt trees. The fountain had that same look of dreariness and desolation. The cold was as bitter; but the wind had died away, and everything was still.

As he rounded the ice-rimmed basin, Barry's heart leaped into his throat. Entering the square, just as she had entered it last night, was a slight, slim figure, who came toward him hurriedly, yet with that same odd sense of hesitation in her movements. As they approached each other, Lawrence's heart was thudding so loudly that he fancied he could hear the beats. It was impossible--utterly impossible; and yet he hoped.

She came on hurriedly, and his pace slackened the barest trifle as he tried to penetrate the shadow beneath the black hat brim. Then he saw that it was not Shirley Rives. It was a girl, pinched and worn with fatigue and hunger.

Half a dozen steps he took blindly, fairly sick with disappointment, before he stopped abruptly and turned around. The girl was hurrying on; she had almost reached the fountain.

"Stop!" Barry cried impulsively. "Wait a minute."

Instinctively she obeyed, twisting her head backward to watch his coming; and the thin, white wedge of face, ghastly in the pitiless electric light streaming down upon it, smote Lawrence with a new pang. By the time he reached her he held a thin leather case with gold corners in his hand.

"Here!" he said harshly, yet with a certain throbbing undercurrent of pity in his voice. "Take this and get something to eat. Do you understand?"

She stared at the bill he held out, then her fingers closed over it convulsively.

"Thanks," she said hoarsely. She stood for a second or two, gazing into his face. Then she shivered. "Thanks," she repeated, and this time it seemed as if a whole world of despair and misery was in that little word.

Barry made no answer. There was nothing more to say, and he knew it. Still he lingered for a second before he uttered a brief good night, and turned toward his waiting taxi.

It was the old, old tragedy, but somehow the strange coincidence of time and place filled Lawrence with an awful, unreasoning dread, and made his ride back to the hotel a torture.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*BEYOND BELIEF.*

At first Barry was tempted to phone Hamersley, and tell him he could not come to the dance. He had never felt less like such a thing in his life, but, as he slowly approached the instrument, trying to think up a plausible excuse, he realized that anything would be better in his present state of mind than sitting alone in his room.

So he ordered a taxi to be ready for him at ten. When that time came he descended, and was driven to the Hamersley house, just off upper Fifth Avenue. He saw that the other car was still trailing him persistently, but somehow he did not care. That seemed no longer a very important matter.

There was a considerable delay in getting started, for Jock's mother and sister were going along, and, as the big chap expressed it: "To be ready in time for a dance, a woman ought to start dressing when she gets up in the morning."

They came down at length, however, and, after a little conversation, all four got into the limousine, which had been waiting nearly an hour, and were soon bowling down Fifth Avenue.

It was after eleven when they entered the great ballroom at Sherry's, and the dance was apparently in full swing. The glittering lights, the flowers, the wonderful, intoxicating music, the gleam of jewels and bright eyes, could not but arouse Barry from his abstraction and make him glad that he had come.

Large as the room was, it seemed crowded with dancers, while about the walls and in the anterooms sat patronesses, chaperons, and other non-participants, watching the brilliant scene, chatting among themselves, or here and there indulging in a rubber of the inevitable bridge.

"It's very mixed, of course," Miss Hamersley was saying, as they glided over the perfect floor. "That's always the way with a big affair like this. If there's any one you want to meet just make Jock introduce you. He knows everybody. Yes, surely, Peter. Thanks, very much, Mr. Lawrence."

Before the latter could collect his wits, she was whirled away on the arm of the young fellow who had cut in; and Barry backed up against the wall, diverted by the kaleidoscopic scene, his eyes roving about the room in search of possible acquaintances.

For a time he saw no one he knew. There were plenty of charming faces, beauties of every type, and not a few of whom glanced curiously in his direction. There were many girls whom he would have liked immensely to meet twenty-four hours before; but, somehow, now that he had seen Shirley Rives, he ceased to be enthusiastic over others.

The thought of her, leaping back into his mind after a brief distraction, brought a faint pucker into Barry's forehead. Presently, still thoughtful, he moved slowly from his place, drifting toward the end of the room where the line of ladies stood to receive the belated guests who still dribbled in at intervals.

Presently his eyes fell upon a group at some distance from him, and he gave a great start. The group consisted of a girl surrounded by five or six men. Her back was squarely toward Lawrence, but there was something about her slim, graceful figure, tiny but exquisitely proportioned, and the tilt of her head, with its wonderful crown of coppery hair, which was so like Shirley Rives that it almost hurt.

She wore a close-fitting gown of shimmering golden tissue, in which sequins gleamed and winked with every movement. A gorgeous string of pearls was wound twice about her neck. On her arms were several costly bracelets.