Part 13

"I followed your instructions to the letter," said Baldwin, eager to justify himself. "You said to arrest any man that asked for that package. This man asked for it."

"Sure," said Jack quickly. "You did right. I'm disappointed, that's all."

"I haven't done anything," whined the prisoner. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Shall I let him go, sir?" boomed Connolly.

Jack roused himself. "Not on your life," he said. "He's got to give an account of himself. Bring him in and shut the door." To the weedy youth he said: "Who sent you here?"

The answer came voluble and craven: "I don't know who the guy was. I never seen him before. Honest, I didn't know there was anything crooked in it. I'm no crook, boss."

"Describe the man who sent you here."

The answer came readily: "A medium old guy, stoutish, not real fat. Had his hair brushed in a funny way, old-fashioned-like, and a little chin whisker."

"That's my man!" said Jack grimly. "Where did you meet him?"

"I was standin' in front of the pitcher theater on Seventh below Forty-Second with some other fellows when a big black limousine car came along and stopped at the curb. We all took notice of it, it was such a long car, long as an ambulance. The door opened a little way, and an old guy leaned out and held up a finger to me.

"He asks me if I want to earn a dollar, and I says sure. So he tells me to go to the desk of the Madagascar, and ask for a package for Mr. Amos Tewkesbury, and bring it to him. But he said he wouldn't be in the car when I got back. He said he'd be standing on the northwest corner of Forty-Second Street and Seventh, and I wasn't to stop when I saw him, but just slip him the package, and take the dollar he'd be holding in his hand. That's all. I didn't see no wrong in it."

"Maybe he's lying, sir," said Connolly.

Jack shook his head. "Sounds like my man," he said.

"What'll I do with him, sir?"

"Let him have the package and let him go," said Jack.

To the prisoner he said sternly: "Your story may be true, but this is an ugly business you've mixed yourself up in. You'd have a hard time proving your innocence in court. The only way you can square yourself is by helping us pinch this crook."

The sallow youth turned a shade paler. "He's stronger than me, and he's heeled," he muttered.

"I don't want you to lay hands on him. I'll take care of that. You follow your instructions just as he gave them to you. Hand him the package without stopping. Go quickly, and don't look behind you."

To Connolly Jack said: "Take a taxi to the corner of Eighth and Forty-Second, and walk back on Forty-Second. You've heard the description of the man I want, and the car he rides in. If he gives me the slip, and tries to escape towards the West, nab him."

It was still raining. Jack snatched up an umbrella and, opening it with his penknife, made a little triangular cut midway in the silk.

"My disguise," he said.

The sallow youth, clasping the package, hurried out of the hotel with Jack at his heels. Jack raised the umbrella and held it low over his head. Thus while his face was hidden from the passersby, he could still see ahead through the little hole. The stretch of pavement between the Madagascar and Forty-Second street was as thronged as it is twenty hours out of the twenty-four, even in the rain.

They had crossed Forty-Third street and were within two hundred feet of the appointed place. Jack was peering eagerly ahead through his peep-hole, when suddenly his umbrella was knocked sideways, and a clawlike hand clutched his wrist. A cracked voice squalled:

"Stop him! He snatched my pocketbook!"

It was a bent little old woman in a queer rusty bonnet over a brown wig. She wore glasses so thick, that her eyes were like little points far behind them. She redoubled her cries.

"He's a thief! He stole my pocketbook!"

Jack crimsoned with anger and mortification. He was helpless. To knock the old woman out of the way would only have been to convict himself of her preposterous charge. In five seconds a great crowd was pushing and shoving around them.

"All my money! All my money!" wailed the old woman, and actually two tears rolled down her withered cheeks. It was the perfection of acting.

A loud murmur of sympathy went up from the crowd, and violent threats were made in Jack's face. He ground his teeth in impotent rage. Anything he might have said would only have made matters worse. He retained the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut.

"Hold him!" cried the old woman. "I'll get a policeman!"

Half a dozen pairs of hands seized Jack roughly. The old woman threaded her way with surprising celerity through the crowd.

Jack permitted himself to say: "You'll never see her again. It's a frame-up to let her and her partner make a getaway."

"Shut up, you thief!" they roared. "Shut up, or we'll smash your hat over your eyes." Those behind who had little idea of what was going on roared out of sympathy.

But the temper of a crowd is subject to abrupt changes. A minute passed and the old woman did not return. It suddenly struck the people that the well-dressed Jack, proud, angry and silent, did not much resemble a purse-snatcher. Jack, feeling the change, said scornfully:

"Do you see her coming back? I tell you it's a frame-up."

The men who had hold of Jack became uncertain, and finally let go. Jack elbowed his way out, and none sought to stop him now. The crowd dissolved. The whole incident had occupied less than two minutes, but that was long enough to do the mischief. The packet presumably had been handed over, and both messenger and principal swallowed up.

Jack hastened over the remaining distance to the corner of Forty-Second street. Neither the sallow youth nor the old gentleman with the imperial was visible of course. Jack hesitated at a loss which way to turn. There was a chance that the old man, having received the money, had turned Westward and so might be intercepted by Connolly, but it was a faint one.

While Jack stood there the traffic officer at that important crossing gave the signal for the East and West-bound traffic to cross, and a double line of cars darted across Seventh Avenue. Fourth in the line of those bound East Jack saw the long black limousine that had been so often described to him.

As it flashed by he had a glimpse of a silk-hatted head with gray hair brushed forward of the ears, ruddy complexion, gray moustache and imperial. Alongside was the rusty black bonnet and the brown wig. The man's head was down, and his attitude suggested he was counting something in his lap. The woman's glance followed his.

It was Jack's first glimpse of his quarry, and his hunting instinct was spurred to action. He made a zig-zag dash across the street under the very wheels of motors and trolley cars. The black limousine was out of his reach, but by great good luck he found a taxicab standing by the curb with its engine running.

He flung himself in, crying: "Four times your fare if you can keep that car in sight. A hundred dollars if I am able to arrest the couple in it!"

The taxi leaped ahead. Jack lowered the front window, and leaning forward, pointed out the right car to the chauffeur. In a wild spurt down Forty-Second street they gained half a block on the limousine. They just managed to get across Sixth avenue before the whistle blew. At Fifth the whole line was held up for perhaps half a minute. The press was so great here, Jack could not see the black car, but he had carefully marked its position, about six cars ahead.

When the whistle blew for the East and West traffic to resume they saw it turn down Fifth with a burst of speed. They followed. In and out of the close traffic the big car threaded its way with a wonderful exhibition of sang-froid on the part of the chauffeur. Jack had a good chauffeur too. But a race through such a crowd is purely a matter of luck. They never succeeded in getting within less than five car lengths of their prize. Jack saw that the black car now bore a Georgia license. He made note of the number.

At Thirty-Fourth street the line was held up again. The whistle had just blown, and this promised to be a longer stoppage. Jack jumped out of the taxi, and ran ahead down the line with fast beating heart.

The black limousine was empty.

Jack gritted his teeth. "The devil's own luck favors him," he thought. "They must have left the car during the block on Forty-Second."

The chauffeur had not seen him. Jack did not approach him, thinking it better to take a chance of following him to his garage. The line got in motion again, and Jack swung himself aboard his taxi as it passed.

At Twenty-Eighth street the whistle blew just as the black car was crossing. It continued blithely down the avenue, the chauffeur waggling a derisive hand outside his car. Jack would have risked defying the whistle, but his way was effectually blocked by other cars in front and on both sides.

"My luck again!" he groaned.

They were held up there while a ten-horse truck bearing a steel girder crawled across the Avenue. When the whistle gave them leave to move again, the limousine had disappeared into a side street. They saw it no more.

Jack had the license number, but an investigation instituted by telegraph only proved as he expected, that that number had been issued to some one giving a mythical address in Atlanta. As for notifying the New York police, he knew very well that within half an hour the license tags on the black limousine would be changed.

24

The most indomitable spirits have their dark hours, and this was Jack's. He returned to the Madagascar feeling that he had come to the end of his resources. It was hard to bear with the commiseration of the hotel detective and clerk on his failure; and he was in no mood to put up with Bobo's selfish complaints.

Bobo's reasoning powers, as has been seen, were of a primitive simplicity. Like a child or a savage he was always under the complete sway of the feeling of the moment. Just now he was, or thought he was, broken-hearted over the loss of Miriam. Forgetting that he had given her up of his own free will, and for good cause, he blamed Jack for all his present misery.

"Did you get him?" he asked when Jack came in.

"No."

To say that Bobo was pleased at the escape of "Mr. B." would be putting it too strongly, but he was certainly not sorry to see Jack's discomfiture.

"Huh! You're too sure of yourself!" he said.

Jack flashed an angry look at him, but said nothing.

"You always think you know more than anybody else!" Bobo unwisely went on. "You're always making up your mind what people are, and telling them what, to do, and all. You want to regulate the universe."

"Still thinking about that girl!" said Jack. "Will you please tell me what Mr. B.'s giving me the slip has got to do with her?"

"I'm just telling you you don't know everything," said Bobo with a superior air.

It was too much. Jack's patience snapped suddenly. "You fool! Your talk has as much sense as barnyard cackle! Is it my fault that you lost your head over an adventuress? This is the thanks I get for trying to save you! For Heaven's sake, go and marry her and be damned to you! But stop grousing about it to me!"

He went out slamming the door, and leaving a much-scared Bobo behind him. Passing through the suite, he crossed to Gyde's old rooms, and let himself through the vault into his room in Kate's house. There was a great change in this room. Under the present régime it was a model of neatness and comfort.

Here Jack lit his pipe and flung himself down, and a measure of peace returned to him. There was comfort in the silence, and in the thought of the locks that secured him from the chatter of fools.

"The old boy wasn't so far wrong when he built himself a refuge like this," he thought.

But by and by when the fragrant smoke had steadied his nerves, he began to tire of solitude. To particularize, he desired the society of a certain person, to wit: the mistress of the house.

In order to see her it was necessary for him to assume the Pitman make-up. Much against his will--he was thinking of putting Mr. Pitman out of the way now, he arrayed himself in that character, and sallied forth in search of Kate.

He found her in her own sunny sitting-room on the floor above. The old-fashioned mother was there too. Mrs. Storer was not in the secret of Jack's disguise. She considered Mr. Pitman rather a common fellow, but was always polite. Now after a few minutes' small conversation, she recollected an errand in her well-trained way, and left the room.

Kate was sewing. The needle became her better than the typewriter. As mistress of a house she seemed to have discovered her true vocation. It may be mentioned in passing that this establishment was a success, and was already paying its way.

"We don't see much of you now," said Kate.

"It's not from not wanting to on my part," he said, watching her dreamily. "But a twenty-four hour day scarcely gives you time enough to play one part, let alone two or three." The sunlight behind her was making a little halo in the edges of her dark hair, and he scarcely knew what his tongue was saying.

"How are things going?" she asked.

The consciousness of defeat still rankled in Jack's breast; he felt a very natural desire to shine in somebody's eyes, so he said carelessly:

"My net is closing around the old man. He can't escape me now. I'll gather him in, when my case is complete."

"Fine!" said Kate.

But Jack could not be sure there was not a faint ring of irony in her voice. He never could be sure of Kate.

"All my lines are working well," he went on. "I had a glimpse of the old man to-day, but I thought it was better to let him go for awhile. I'm not sure of being able to convict him."

"This morning when you left this house I believe you were followed," said Kate.

Jack was not going to admit just then that there was anything he had overlooked. "Oh, I think not."

"Well, I noticed a man standing at the corner looking at this house. His hat was pulled down over his eyes. As soon as you went out he disappeared."

"I take precautions against being trailed," said Jack.

"And I believe somebody has been tampering with the servants," Kate went on. "Yesterday I found Bessie, the upstairs girl, exhibiting entirely too much curiosity as to the arrangements of your room. I shall let her go at the end of the week."

"It isn't possible they could have discovered the secret of this house," said Jack. Something told him he was talking fatuously, but a little devil of perversity held sway over him for the time being.

"You know best of course," said Kate.

This time he was almost sure he heard the ironical note, and he glanced at her uneasily. But the dark head was bent too low over her work for him to read her face. He felt a mighty desire to humble this cool and scornful maid, and changed his tack.

"You're looking very charming to-day."

"Thank you."

He got up, and sat as close to her as he could pull a chair.

"Go back where you were," she said calmly.

"I won't!" he said masterfully.

"Then I will." And she changed to the chair he had left.

Jack glowered at her. "One would think I spread a contagion."

"Well, you know I don't care particularly for Mr. Pitman."

"That's only an excuse. It's me you don't care for."

She laughed tantalizingly. Jack saw now that he had started wrong but didn't quite see how to repair the original mistake. He got up to go. He knew that if he lost his temper, he would be completely at her mercy.

"I'd better go if we're only going to quarrel," he muttered.

"Who's quarreling? Can't you take a joke?"

"It's like a flick of the whip on the raw."

He had sounded the right note at last. She heard the real pain in his voice, and jumped up, careless of where the sewing went.

"Jack, wait a minute! What's the matter?"

He paused with his hand on the door-knob. "Nothing."

"What's the matter?" she repeated. "I insist on knowing!"

"Oh, well, things have gone a bit wrong. What do you care?"

She actually stamped her foot. "How dare you speak to me that way! You came in here like the Lord Hereditary Marshal of England. How was I to know?"

"Well, I didn't want to let on that I had balled things up," he said sheepishly.

"You idiot! Will you ever learn the first rudiments of sense? Sit down here!" She pulled him down beside her Pitman make-up and all. "Now tell me all about it!"

Jack looked at her a little dazed by this sudden change of front. "Why--I thought you were just having a little fun with me."

"Certainly I was. You asked for it. Whenever you take that 'my poor little woman' tone with me, you simply give me a pain. But if you are really up against it--Ah!"

Her voice caught on a deep low note of tenderness. Jack gave up all thoughts of mastery; he would have been quite content to kiss her hand.

"Well, I am up against it," he said quite humbly and naturally--and told her all about it.

She said nothing until he was through; then: "There's no occasion to be cast down that I can see. You and the old man are playing a close game, and he's turned a trick on you. But the game's not over yet."

"He's so darn sure of himself!" grumbled Jack. "He knows what I have on him, but he goes around quite openly in his old black hearse! Shows himself everywhere. Goes on making his blackguardly collections right under my nose. He seems to enjoy playing with me."

"That's a kind of vanity," said Kate. "I have read that criminals often display it. It is that very thing that will surely deliver him into your hands in the end if you bide your time. Some day he is bound to take a chance too many."

Jack began to feel comforted. "I believe I could have him arrested to-morrow if I gave his description to the police," he said.

"Then why don't you?"

He shook his head obstinately. "I've got to do this myself. I've sworn it.--But how does he know I'm not going to turn over my case to the police? He seems to be able to read my mind!"

"Oh, there's no magic in that. He watches you of course, and anybody who knew anything about you must know that you would feel that way."

There was subtle flattery in this, and Jack began to feel warm about the heart once more.

"Well, he hasn't put me out of the game yet, though on this deal he has certainly called all my tricks. The minute I tried to use Mrs. Cleaver he trumped her. He has called the Pitman disguise, and he must know about my connection with Anderson. If he has spotted me coming out of this house, he must have guessed that there is a way through from the hotel. I'll have to think up an entirely new combination."

"How does the situation stand with the anarchists?" asked Kate.

"Nothing new down there since I told you. I am now a full member of the circle that Emil Jansen belonged to, but so far I have not succeeded in establishing 'Mr. B's' connection with it. I know there is a connection, because the murderers of both Ames Benton and Silas Gyde graduated from that circle. I have to move slowly there."

"Then there is the girl Miriam," suggested Kate. "I believe you could do something with her. Do you know where she is now?"

"Bobo told me she was at the Hotel Bienvenu. But she hates me like poison."

Kate smiled a little. "From what you've told me about her I gathered that she had a weakness of vanity, too. She was piqued because you resisted her charms. Why don't you look her up and well--not resist them quite so hard?"

"Kate!" he said scandalized.

"What?" she said with an innocent air.

"You recommend me to do that!"

"Why not? We don't owe her any consideration, I suppose."

"Oh, it's not that. But if you cared about me the least little bit, you wouldn't be handing me over to another woman."

"That's up to you. I couldn't be jealous of one like Miriam. If you are in any danger from that source, Mercy! I don't want you."

"In other words you know you've got me thrown and hog-tied!" he said scowling.

"Don't be vulgar. This is simply business. You really have a chance of getting somewhere through her. The old man will be sending her remittances now. If you could trace one of those back to its source----"

"Good! That's an idea! I think I see my way, too." His lassitude was gone. A fresh determination filled him. "Kate, you are my good fairy!" he cried. "You have put new life into me! I am going to start to work again this very minute!"

She said nothing, but her eyes were bright.

At the door of the room he paused, holding her hand. "You might let me kiss you before I go," he said diffidently. "Just as a kind of encouragement to go in and win."

Kate smiled. "That's the first time you ever asked me with becoming modesty.--Once. Right here." She put her finger on the dimple in her right cheek.

He did.

25

When Jack got back to the Madagascar, Bobo had gone out. Jack was relieved not to find him. Full of his new plans, he went on down to the office. He was now attired again his proper person as Mr. Robinson of course. He looked up Baldwin at the desk. Baldwin naturally was keen to know more about the mysterious case that Jack was engaged on.

"Baldwin, I've got a new line on my man," said Jack. "Do you happen to know any of the men behind the desk at the Bienvenu?"

"Surest thing you know. I've got a pal there. Name of Dick Starr."

"What's his job?"

"Room clerk. One of the head men."

"Will you introduce me?"

"Sure! When?"

"The sooner the better."

"I'm coming off duty now. I'll go right down there with you."

Starr of the Bienvenu proved to be just such another suave and irreproachable man of the world as Baldwin, but somewhat older. He knew all about Jack; no doubt the two friends had discussed him. While the real secret of Jack's identity was safe, it was understood among those whose business it was to inform themselves of such matters, that the secretary was the real power behind the Norman throne. Consequently he enjoyed more than the usual consideration shown to a multi-millionaire's secretary.

Starr took them into a little room behind the office.

Jack said: "The fact is, I'm doing a bit of detective work for my employer, and one of my clues leads to the Bienvenu. I want your help."

"Anything in my power!" Starr assured him.

"You have a young lady stopping here called Miriam Culbreth?"

Starr nodded. "Some Cleopatra!" he murmured.

"The same," said Jack. "Now some time during the next few days I have reason to believe that a package will be sent her by messenger. Small, flat packet about three inches by seven."

"Packages don't go through the desk."

"But in this case I am pretty sure the boy will be instructed to hand it to her personally."

"Oh, in that case--Want me to have a look in it?"

"Simpler than that!" said Jack. "Just get me that boy's number so I can trace him."

Starr assured Jack that he would be happy to serve him. He seemed a little disappointed that he was not called upon to play a more important part.

They strolled out into the lobby again, and at that identical instant Miriam herself came through the revolving doors. But Jack saw her first.

"Duck, you fellows! Duck!" he whispered swiftly. "Make out you don't know me!"

Messrs. Baldwin and Starr being experienced men of the world, knew how to act. They inconspicuously faded from Jack's side.

Miriam in sables and paradise plumes swam into the Bienvenu like a swan. Not a man in the place but drew a long breath of longing at the sight of her and looked enviously at the man slinking at her heels. Your haughty beauty always brings a man with her like a small dog on a leader.

This man was Bobo.

Jack went up to them with glad smiles. "Hello! This is a surprise!"