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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brass Bowl, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
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+Title: The Brass Bowl
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8741]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 6, 2003]
+[Date last updated: November 30, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRASS BOWL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                     THE BRASS BOWL
+
+                           BY
+                   LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
+
+
+                          1907
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+DUST
+
+In the dull hot dusk of a summer's day a green touring-car,
+swinging out of the East Drive, pulled up smartly, trembling, at
+the edge of the Fifty-ninth Street car-tracks, then more sedately,
+under the dispassionate but watchful eye of a mounted member of
+the Traffic Squad, lurched across the Plaza and merged itself in
+the press of vehicles south-bound on the Avenue.
+
+Its tonneau held four young men, all more or less disguised in
+dust, dusters and goggles; forward, by the side of the grimy and
+anxious-eyed mechanic, sat a fifth, in all visible respects the
+counterpart of his companions. Beneath his mask, and by this I do
+not mean his goggles, but the mask of modern manner which the
+worldly wear, he was, and is, different.
+
+He was Daniel Maitland, Esquire; for whom no further introduction
+should be required, after mention of the fact that he was, and
+remains, the identical gentleman of means and position in the
+social and financial worlds, whose somewhat sober but sincere and
+whole-hearted participation in the wildest of conceivable
+escapades had earned him the affectionate regard of the younger
+set, together with the sobriquet of "Mad Maitland."
+
+His companions of the day, the four in the tonneau, were in that
+humor of subdued yet vibrant excitement which is apt to attend the
+conclusion of a long, hard drive over country roads. Maitland, on
+the other hand, (judging him by his preoccupied pose), was already
+weary of, if not bored by, the hare-brained enterprise which,
+initiated on the spur of an idle moment and directly due to a
+thoughtless remark of his own, had brought him a hundred miles (or
+so) through the heat of a broiling afternoon, accompanied by
+spirits as ardent and irresponsible as his own, in search of the
+dubious distraction afforded by the night side of the city.
+
+As, picking its way with elephantine nicety, the motor-car
+progressed down the Avenue--twilight deepening, arcs upon their
+bronze columns blossoming suddenly, noiselessly into spheres of
+opalescent radiance--Mr. Maitland ceased to respond, ceased even
+to give heed, to the running fire of chaff (largely personal)
+which amused his companions. Listlessly engaged with a cigarette,
+he lounged upon the green leather cushions, half closing his eyes,
+and heartily wished himself free for the evening.
+
+But he stood committed to the humor of the majority, and lacked
+entirely the shadow of an excuse to desert; in addition to which
+he was altogether too lazy for the exertion of manufacturing a lie
+of serviceable texture. And so he abandoned himself to his fate, even
+though he foresaw with weariful particularity the programme of the
+coming hours.
+
+To begin with, thirty minutes were to be devoted to a bath and
+dressing in his rooms. This was something not so unpleasant to
+contemplate. It was the afterwards that repelled him: the dinner
+at Sherry's, the subsequent tour of roof gardens, the late supper
+at a club, and then, prolonged far into the small hours, the
+session around some green-covered table in a close room reeking
+with the fumes of good tobacco and hot with the fever of
+gambling....
+
+Abstractedly Maitland frowned, tersely summing up: "Beastly!"--in
+an undertone.
+
+At this the green car wheeled abruptly round a corner below
+Thirty-fourth Street, slid half a block or more east, and came to
+a palpitating halt. Maitland, looking up, recognized the entrance
+to his apartments, and sighed with relief for the brief respite
+from boredom that was to be his. He rose, negligently shaking off
+his duster, and stepped down to the sidewalk.
+
+Somebody in the car called a warning after him, and turning for a
+moment he stood at attention, an eyebrow raised quizzically,
+cigarette drooping from a corner of his mouth, hat pushed back
+from his forehead, hands in coat pockets: a tall, slender,
+sparely-built figure of a man, clothed immaculately in flannels.
+
+When at length he was able to make himself heard, "Good enough,"
+he said clearly, though without raising his voice. "Sherry's in an
+hour. Right. Now, behave yourselves."
+
+"Mind you show up on time!"
+
+"Never fear," returned Maitland over his shoulder.
+
+A witticism was flung back at him from the retreating car, but
+spent itself unregarded. Maitland's attention was temporarily
+distracted by the unusual--to say the least--sight of a young and
+attractive woman coming out of a home for confirmed bachelors.
+
+The apartment house happened to be his own property. A substantial
+and old-fashioned edifice, situated in the middle of a quiet
+block, it contained but five roomy and comfortable suites,
+--in other words, one to a floor; and these were without
+exception tenanted by unmarried men of Maitland's own circle and
+acquaintance. The janitor, himself a widower and a convinced
+misogynist, lived alone in the basement. Barring very special and
+exceptional occasions (as when one of the bachelors felt called
+upon to give a tea in partial recognition of social obligations),
+the foot of woman never crossed its threshold.
+
+In this circumstance, indeed, was comprised the singular charm the
+house had for its occupants. The quality which insured them privacy
+and a quiet independence rendered them oblivious to its many minor
+drawbacks, its lack of many conveniences and luxuries which have
+of late grown to be so commonly regarded as necessities. It boasted,
+for instance, no garage; no refrigerating system maddened those
+dependent upon it; a dissipated electric lighting system never went
+out of nights, because it had never been installed; no brass-bound
+hall-boy lounged in desuetude upon the stoop and took too intimate
+and personal an interest in the tenants' correspondence. The
+inhabitants, in brief, were free to come and go according to the
+dictates of their consciences, unsupervised by neighborly women-folk,
+unhindered by a parasitic corps of menials not in their personal
+employ.
+
+Wherefore was Maitland astonished, and the more so because of the
+season. At any other season of the year he would readily have
+accounted for the phenomenon that now fell under his observation,
+on the hypothesis that the woman was somebody's sister or cousin
+or aunt. But at present that explanation was untenable; Maitland
+happened to know that not one of the other men was in New York,
+barring himself; and his own presence there was a thing entirely
+unforeseen.
+
+Still incredulous, he mentally conned the list: Barnes, who
+occupied the first flat, was traveling on the Continent; Conkling,
+of the third, had left a fortnight since to join a yachting party
+on the Mediterranean; Bannister and Wilkes, of the fourth and
+fifth floors, respectively, were in Newport and Buenos Aires.
+
+"Odd!" concluded Maitland.
+
+So it was. She had just closed the door, one thought; and now
+stood poised as if in momentary indecision on the low stoop,
+glancing toward Fifth Avenue the while she fumbled with a
+refractory button at the wrist of a long white kid glove. Blurred
+though it was by the darkling twilight and a thin veil, her face
+yet conveyed an impression of prettiness: an impression enhanced
+by careful grooming. From her hat, a small affair, something
+green, with a superstructure of grey ostrich feathers, to the tips
+of her russet shoes,--including a walking skirt and bolero of
+shimmering grey silk,--she was distinctly "smart" and interesting.
+
+He had keenly observant eyes, had Maitland, for all his detached
+pose; you are to understand that he comprehended all these points
+in the flickering of an instant. For the incident was over in two
+seconds. In one the lady's hesitation was resolved; in another she
+had passed down the steps and swept by Maitland without giving him
+a glance, without even the trembling of an eyelash. And he had a
+view of her back as she moved swiftly away toward the Avenue.
+
+Perplexed, he lingered upon the stoop until she had turned the
+corner; after which he let himself in with a latch-key, and,
+dismissing the affair temporarily from his thoughts, or pretending
+to do so, ascended the single flight of stairs to his flat.
+
+Simultaneously heavy feet were to be heard clumping up the
+basement steps; and surmising that the janitor was coming to light
+the hall, the young man waited, leaning over the balusters. His
+guess proving correct, he called down:
+
+"O'Hagan? Is that you?"
+
+"Th' saints presarve us! But 'twas yersilf gave me th' sthart,
+Misther Maitland, sor!" O'Hagan paused in the gloom below, his
+upturned face quaintly illuminated by the flame of a wax taper in
+his gaslighter.
+
+"I'm dining in town to-night, O'Hagan, and dropped around to
+dress. Is anybody else at home?"
+
+"Nivver a wan, sor. Shure, th' house do be quiet's anny tomb--"
+
+"Then who was that lady, O'Hagan?"
+
+"Leddy, sor?"--in unbounded amazement.
+
+"Yes," impatiently. "A young woman left the house just as I was
+coming in. Who was she?"
+
+"Shure an' I think ye must be dr'amin', sor. Divvle a female--
+rayspicts to ye!--has been in this house for manny an' manny th'
+wake, sor."
+
+"But, I tell you--"
+
+"Belike 'twas somewan jist sthepped into the vesthibule, mebbe to
+tie her shoe, sor, and ye thought--"
+
+"Oh, very well." Maitland relinquished the inquisition as
+unprofitable, willing to concede O'Hagan's theory a reasonable
+one, the more readily since he himself could by no means have
+sworn that the woman had actually come out through the door. Such
+had merely been his impression, honest enough, but founded on
+circumstantial evidence.
+
+"When you're through, O'Hagan," he told the Irishman, "you may
+come and shave me and lay out my things, if you will."
+
+"Very good, sor. In wan minute."
+
+But O'Hagan's conception of the passage of time was a thought
+vague: his one minute had lengthened into ten before he appeared
+to wait upon his employer.
+
+Now and again, in the absence of the regular "man," O'Hagan would
+attend one or another of the tenants in the capacity of substitute
+valet: as in the present instance, when Maitland, having left his
+host's roof without troubling even to notify his body-servant that
+he would not return that night, called upon the janitor to
+understudy the more trained employee; which O'Hagan could be
+counted upon to do very acceptably.
+
+Now, with patience unruffled, since he was nothing keen for the
+evening's enjoyment, Maitland made profit of the interval to
+wander through his rooms, lighting the gas here and there and
+noting that all was as it should be, as it had been left--save
+that every article of furniture and bric-a-brac seemed to be sadly
+in want of a thorough dusting. In the end he brought up in the
+room that served him as study and lounge,--the drawing-room of the
+flat, as planned in the forgotten architect's scheme,--a large and
+well-lighted apartment overlooking the street. Here, pausing
+beneath the chandelier, he looked about him for a moment,
+determining that, as elsewhere, all things were in order--but grey
+with dust.
+
+Finding the atmosphere heavy, stale, and oppressive, Maitland
+moved over to the windows and threw them open. A gush of warm air,
+humid and redolent of the streets, invaded the room, together with
+the roar of traffic from its near-by arteries. Maitland rested his
+elbows on the sill and leaned out, staring absently into the
+night; for by now it was quite dark. Without concern, he realized
+that he would be late at dinner. No matter; he would as willingly
+miss it altogether. For the time being he was absorbed in vain
+speculations about an unknown woman whose sole claim upon his
+consideration lay in a certain but immaterial glamour of mystery.
+Had she, or had she not, been in the house? And, if the true
+answer were in the affirmative: to what end, upon what errand?
+
+His eyes focused insensibly upon a void of darkness beneath him,--
+night made visible by street lamps; and he found himself suddenly
+and acutely sensible of the wonder and mystery of the City: the
+City whose secret life ran fluent upon the hot, hard pavements
+below, whose voice throbbed, sibilant, vague, strident,
+inarticulate, upon the night air; the City of which he was a part
+equally with the girl in grey, whom he had never before seen, and
+in all likelihood was never to see again, though the two of them
+were to work out their destinies within the bounds of Manhattan
+Island. And yet....
+
+"It would be strange," said Maitland thoughtfully, "if...." He
+shook his head, smiling. "'_Two shall be born,_'" quoted Mad
+Maitland sentimentally,--
+
+"'_Two shall be born the whole wide world apart--_'"
+
+A piano organ, having maliciously sneaked up beneath his window,
+drove him indoors with a crash of metallic melody.
+
+As he dropped the curtains his eye was arrested by a gleam of
+white upon his desk,--a letter placed there, doubtless, by O'Hagan
+in Maitland's absence. At the same time, a splashing and gurgling
+of water from the direction of the bath-room informed him that the
+janitor-valet was even then preparing his bath. But that could
+wait.
+
+Maitland took up the envelope and tore the flap, remarking the
+name and address of his lawyer in its upper left-hand corner.
+Unfolding the inclosure, he read a date a week old, and two lines
+requesting him to communicate with his legal adviser upon "a
+matter of pressing moment."
+
+"Bother!" said Maitland. "What the dickens--"
+
+He pulled up short, eyes lighting. "That's so, you know," he
+argued: "Bannerman will be delighted, and--and even business is
+better than rushing round town and pretending to enjoy yourself
+when it's hotter than the seven brass hinges of hell and you can't
+think of anything else.... I'll do it!"
+
+He stepped quickly to the corner of the room, where stood the
+telephone upon a small side table, sat down, and, receiver to ear,
+gave Central a number. In another moment he was in communication
+with his attorney's residence.
+
+"Is Mr. Bannerman in? I would like to--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why, Mr. Bannerman! How _do_ you do?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're looking a hundred per cent better--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Bad, bad word! Naughty!--"
+
+"Maitland, of course."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Been out of town and just got your note."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Your beastly penchant for economy. It's not stamped; I presume
+you sent it round by hand of the future President of the United
+States whom you now employ as office-boy. And O'Hagan didn't
+forward it for that reason."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Important, eh? I'm only in for the night--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Then come and dine with me at the Primordial. I'll put the others
+off."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Good enough. In an hour, then? Good-by." Hanging up the receiver,
+Maitland waited a few moments ere again putting it to his ear.
+This time he called up Sherry's, asked for the head-waiter, and,
+requested that person to be kind enough to make his excuses to
+"Mr. Cressy and his party": he, Maitland, was detained upon a
+matter of moment, but would endeavor to join them at a later hour.
+
+Then, with a satisfied smile, he turned away, with purpose to
+dispose of Bannerman's note.
+
+"Bath's ready, sor."
+
+O'Hagan's announcement fell upon heedless ears. Maitland remained
+motionless before the desk--transfixed with amazement.
+
+"Bath's ready, sor!"--imperatively.
+
+Maitland roused slightly.
+
+"Very well; in a minute, O'Hagan."
+
+Yet for some time he did not move. Slowly the heavy brows
+contracted over intent eyes as he strove to puzzle it out. At
+length his lips moved noiselessly.
+
+"Am I awake?" was the question he put his consciousness.
+
+Wondering, he bent forward and drew the tip of one forefinger
+across the black polished wood of the writing-bed. It left a dark,
+heavy line. And beside it, clearly defined in the heavy layer of
+dust, was the silhouette of a hand; a woman's hand, small,
+delicate, unmistakably feminine of contour.
+
+"Well!" declared Maitland frankly, "I _am_ damned!"
+
+Further and closer inspection developed the fact that the imprint
+had been only recently made. Within the hour,--unless Maitland
+were indeed mad or dreaming,--a woman had stood by that desk and
+rested a hand, palm down, upon it; not yet had the dust had time
+to settle and blur the sharp outlines.
+
+Maitland shook his head with bewilderment, thinking of the grey
+girl. But no. He rejected his half-formed explanation--the obvious
+one. Besides, what had he there worth a thief's while? Beyond a
+few articles of "virtue and bigotry" and his pictures, there was
+nothing valuable in the entire flat. His papers? But he had
+nothing; a handful of letters, cheque book, a pass book, a
+japanned tin despatch box containing some business memoranda and
+papers destined eventually for Bannerman's hands; but nothing
+negotiable, nothing worth a burglar's while.
+
+It was a flat-topped desk, of mahogany, with two pedestals of
+drawers, all locked. Maitland determined this latter fact by
+trying to open them without a key; failing, his key-ring solved
+the difficulty in a jiffy. But the drawers seemed undisturbed;
+nothing had been either handled, or removed, or displaced, so far
+as he could determine. And again he wagged his head from side to
+side in solemn stupefaction.
+
+"This is beyond you, Dan, my boy." And: "But I've got to know what
+it means."
+
+In the hall O'Hagan was shuffling impatience. Pondering deeply,
+Maitland relocked the desk, and got upon his feet. A small bowl of
+beaten brass, which he used as an ash-receiver, stood ready to his
+hand; he took it up, carefully blew it clean of dust, and inverted
+it over the print of the hand. On top of the bowl he placed a
+weighty afterthought in the shape of a book.
+
+"O'Hagan!"
+
+"Waitin', sor."
+
+"Come hither, O'Hagan. You see that desk?"
+
+"Yissor."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Ah, faith--"
+
+"I want you not to touch it, O'Hagan. Under penalty of my extreme
+displeasure, don't lay a finger on it till I give you permission.
+Don't dare to dust it. Do you understand?"
+
+"Yissor. Very good, Mr. Maitland."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+POST-PRANDIAL
+
+Bannerman pushed back his chair a few inches, shifting position
+the better to benefit of a faint air that fanned in through the
+open window. Maitland, twisting the sticky stem of a liqueur glass
+between thumb and forefinger, sat in patient waiting for the
+lawyer to speak.
+
+But Bannerman was in no hurry; his mood was rather one
+contemplative and genial. He was a round and cherubic little man,
+with the face of a guileless child, the acumen of a successful
+counsel for soulless corporations (that is to say, of a high
+order), no particular sense of humor, and a great appreciation of
+good eating. And Maitland was famous in his day as one thoroughly
+conversant with the art of ordering a dinner.
+
+That which they had just discussed had been uncommon in all
+respects; Maitland's scheme of courses and his specification as to
+details had roused the admiration of the Primordial's chef and put
+him on his mettle. He had outdone himself in his efforts to do
+justice to Mr. Maitland's genius; and the Primordial in its deadly
+conservatism remains to this day one of the very few places in New
+York where good, sound cooking is to be had by the initiate.
+
+Therefore Bannerman sucked thoughtfully at his cigar and thought
+fondly of a salad that had been to ordinary salads as his 80-H.-P.
+car was to an electric buckboard. While Maitland, with all time at
+his purchase, idly flicked the ash from his cigarette and followed
+his attorney's meditative gaze out through the window.
+
+Because of the heat the curtains were looped back, and there was
+nothing to obstruct the view. Madison Square lay just over the
+sill, a dark wilderness of foliage here and there made livid green
+by arc-lights. Its walks teemed with humanity, its benches were
+crowded. Dimly from its heart came the cool plashing of the
+fountain, in lulls that fell unaccountably in the roaring rustle
+of restless feet. Over across, Broadway raised glittering walls of
+glass and stone; and thence came the poignant groan and rumble of
+surface cars crawling upon their weary and unvarying rounds.
+
+And again Maitland thought of the City, and of Destiny, and of the
+grey girl the silhouette of whose hand was imprisoned beneath the
+brass bowl on his study desk. For by now he was quite satisfied
+that she and none other had trespassed upon the privacy of his
+rooms, obtaining access to them in his absence by means as
+unguessable as her motive. Momentarily he considered taking
+Bannerman into his confidence; but he questioned the advisability
+of this: Bannerman was so severely practical in his outlook upon
+life, while this adventure had been so madly whimsical, so
+engagingly impossible. Bannerman would be sure to suggest a call
+at the precinct police station.... If she had made way with
+anything, it would be different; but so far as Maitland had been
+able to determine, she had abstracted nothing, disturbed nothing
+beyond a few square inches of dust....
+
+Unwillingly Bannerman put the salad out of mind and turned to the
+business whose immediate moment had brought them together. He
+hummed softly, calling his client to attention. Maitland came out
+of his reverie, vaguely smiling.
+
+"I'm waiting, old man. What's up?"
+
+"The Graeme business. His lawyers have been after me again. I even
+had a call from the old man himself."
+
+"Yes? The Graeme business?" Maitland's expression was blank for a
+moment; then comprehension informed his eyes. "Oh, yes; in
+connection with the Dougherty investment swindle."
+
+"That's it. Graeme's pleading for mercy."
+
+Maitland lifted his shoulders significantly. "That was to be
+expected, wasn't it? What did you tell him?"
+
+"That I'd see you."
+
+"Did you hold out to him any hopes that I'd be easy on the gang?"
+
+"I told him that I doubted if you could be induced to let up."
+
+"Then why--?"
+
+"Why, because Graeme himself is as innocent of wrong-doing and
+wrong-intent as you are."
+
+"You believe that?"
+
+"I do," affirmed Bannerman. His fat pink fingers drummed uneasily
+on the cloth for a few moments. "There isn't any question that the
+Dougherty people induced you to sink your money in their
+enterprise with intent to defraud you."
+
+"I should think not," Maitland interjected, amused.
+
+"But old man Graeme was honest, in intention at least. He meant no
+harm; and in proof of that he offers to shoulder your loss
+himself, if by so doing he can induce you to drop further
+proceedings. That proves he's in earnest, Dan, for although Graeme
+is comfortably well to do, it's a known fact that the loss of a
+cool half-million, while it's a drop in the bucket to you, would
+cripple him."
+
+"Then why doesn't he stand to his associates, and make them each
+pay back their fair share of the loot? That'd bring his liability
+down to about fifty thousand."
+
+"Because they won't give up without a contest in the courts. They
+deny your proofs--you have those papers, haven't you?"
+
+"Safe, under lock and key," asserted Maitland sententiously. "When
+the time comes I'll produce them."
+
+"And they incriminate Graeme?"
+
+"They make it look as black for him as for the others. Do you
+honestly believe him innocent, Bannerman?"
+
+"I do, implicitly. The dread of exposure, the fear of notoriety
+when the case comes up in court, has aged the man ten years. He
+begged me with tears in his eyes to induce you to drop it and
+accept his offer of restitution. Don't you think you could do it,
+Dan?"
+
+"No, I don't." Maitland shook his head with decision. "If I let
+up, the scoundrels get off scot-free. I have nothing against
+Graeme; I am willing to make it as light as I can for him; but
+this business has got to be aired in the courts; the guilty will
+have to suffer. It will be a lesson to the public, a lesson to the
+scamps, and a lesson to Graeme--not to lend his name too freely to
+questionable enterprises."
+
+"And that's your final word, is it?"
+
+"Final, Bannerman.... You go ahead; prepare your case and take it
+to court. When the time comes, as I say, I'll produce these
+papers. I can't go on this way, letting people believe that I'm an
+easy mark just because I was unfortunate enough to inherit more
+money than is good for my wholesome."
+
+Maitland twisted his eyebrows in deprecation of Bannerman's
+attitude; signified the irrevocability of his decision by bringing
+his fist down upon the table--but not heavily enough to disturb
+the other diners; and, laughing, changed the subject.
+
+For some moments he gossiped cheerfully of his new power-boat,
+Bannerman attending to the inconsequent details with an air of
+abstraction. Once or twice he appeared about to interrupt, but
+changed his mind: but because his features were so wholly
+infantile and open and candid, the time came when Maitland could
+no longer ignore his evident perturbation.
+
+"Now what's the trouble?" he demanded with a trace of asperity.
+"Can't you forget that Graeme business and--"
+
+"Oh, it's not that." Bannerman dismissed the troubles of Mr.
+Graeme with an airy wave of a pudgy hand. "That's not my funeral,
+nor yours.... Only I've been worried, of late, by your utterly
+careless habits."
+
+Maitland looked his consternation. "In heaven's name, what now?"
+And grinned as he joined hands before him in simulated petition.
+"Please don't read me a lecture just now, dear boy. If you've got
+something dreadful on your chest wait till another day, when I'm
+more in the humor to be found fault with."
+
+"No lecture." Bannerman laughed nervously. "I've merely been
+wondering what you have done with the Maitland heirlooms."
+
+"What? Oh, those things? They're safe enough--_in_ the safe
+out at Greenfields."
+
+"To be sure! Quite so!" agreed the lawyer, with ironic heartiness.
+"Oh, quite." And proceeded to take all Madison Square into his
+confidence, addressing it from the window. "Here's a young man,
+sole proprietor of a priceless collection of family heirlooms,--
+diamonds, rubies, sapphires galore; and he thinks they're safe
+enough _in_ a safe at his country residence, fifty miles from
+anywhere! What a simple, trustful soul it is!"
+
+"Why should I bother?" argued Maitland sulkily. "It's a good,
+strong safe, and--and there are plenty of servants around," he
+concluded largely.
+
+"Precisely. Likewise plenty of burglars. You don't suppose a
+determined criminal like Anisty, for instance, would bother
+himself about a handful of thick-headed servants, do you?"
+
+"Anisty?"--with a rising inflection of inquiry.
+
+Bannerman squared himself to face his host, elbows on table.
+"You don't mean to say you've not heard of Anisty, the great
+Anisty?" he demanded.
+
+"I dare say I have," Maitland conceded, unperturbed. "Name rings
+familiar, somehow."
+
+"Anisty,"--deliberately, "is said to be the greatest jewel thief
+the world has ever known. He has the police of America and Europe
+by the ears to catch him. They have been hot on his trail for the
+past three years, and would have nabbed him a dozen times if only
+he'd had the grace to stay in one place long enough. The man who
+made off with the Bracegirdle diamonds, smashing a burglar-proof
+vault into scrap-iron to get 'em--don't you remember?"
+
+"Ye-es; I seem to recall the affair, now that you mention it,"
+Maitland admitted, bored. "Well, and what of Mr. Anisty?"
+
+"Only what I have told you, taken in connection with the
+circumstance that he is known to be in New York, and that the
+Maitland heirlooms are tolerably famous--as much so as your
+careless habits, Dan. Now, a safe deposit vault--"
+
+"Um-m-m," considered Maitland. "You really believe that Mr. Anisty
+has his bold burglarious eye on my property?"
+
+"It's a big enough haul to attract him," argued the lawyer
+earnestly; "Anisty always aims high.... Now, _will_ you do
+what I have been begging you to do for the past eight years?"
+
+"Seven," corrected Maitland punctiliously. "It's just seven years
+since I entered into mine inheritance and you became my
+counselor."
+
+"Well, seven, then. But will you put those jewels in safe
+deposit?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+"But when?"
+
+"Would it suit you if I ran out to-night?" Maitland demanded so
+abruptly that Bannerman was disconcerted.
+
+"I--er--ask nothing better."
+
+"I'll bring them in town to-morrow. You arrange about the vault
+and advise me, will you, like a good fellow?"
+
+"Bless my soul! I never dreamed that you would be so--so--"
+
+"Amenable to discipline?" Maitland grinned, boylike, and, leaning
+back, appreciated Bannerman's startled expression with keen
+enjoyment. "Well, consider that for once you've scared me. I'm
+off--just time to catch the ten-twenty for Greenfields. Waiter!"
+
+He scrawled his initials at the bottom of the bill presented him,
+and rose. "Sorry, Bannerman," he said, chuckling, "to cut short a
+pleasant evening. But you shouldn't startle me so, you know.
+Pardon me if I run; I _might_ miss that train."
+
+"But there was something else--"
+
+"It can wait."
+
+"Take a later train, then."
+
+"What! With this grave peril hanging over me? _Im_possible!
+'Night."
+
+Bannerman, discomfited, saw Maitland's shoulders disappear through
+the dining-room doorway, meditated pursuit, thought better of it,
+and reseated himself, frowning.
+
+"Mad Maitland, indeed!" he commented.
+
+As for the gentleman so characterized, he emerged, a moment later,
+from the portals of the club, still chuckling mildly to himself as
+he struggled into a light evening overcoat. His temper, having run
+the gamut of boredom, interest, perturbation, mystification, and
+plain amusement, was now altogether inconsequential: a dangerous
+mood for Maitland. Standing on the corner of Twenty-sixth Street
+he thought it over, tapping the sidewalk gently with his cane.
+Should he or should he not carry out his intention as declared to
+Bannerman, and go to Greenfields that same night? Or should he
+keep his belated engagement with Cressy's party?
+
+An errant cabby, cruising aimlessly but hopefully, sighted
+Maitland's tall figure and white shirt from a distance, and bore
+down upon him with a gallant clatter of hoofs.
+
+"Kebsir?" he demanded breathlessly, pulling in at the corner.
+
+Maitland came out of his reverie and looked up slowly. "Why yes,
+thank you," he assented amiably.
+
+"Where to, sir?"
+
+Maitland paused on the forward deck of the craft and faced about,
+looking the cabby trustfully in the eye. "I leave it to you," he
+replied politely. "Just as you please."
+
+The driver gasped.
+
+"You see," Maitland continued with a courteous smile, "I have two
+engagements: one at Sherry's, the other with the ten-twenty train
+from Long Island City. What would you, as man to man, advise me to
+do, cabby?"
+
+"Well, sir, seein' as you puts it to me straight," returned the
+cabby with engaging candor, "I'd go home, sir, if I was you, afore
+I got any worse."
+
+"Thank you," gravely. "Long Island City depot, then, cabby."
+
+Maitland extended himself languidly upon the cushions. "Surely,"
+he told the night, "the driver knows best--he and Bannerman."
+
+The cab started off jogging so sedately up Madison Avenue that
+Maitland glanced at his watch and elevated his brows dubiously;
+then with his stick poked open the trap in the roof.
+
+"If you really think it best for me to go home, cabby, you'll have
+to drive like hell," he suggested mildly.
+
+"Yessir!"
+
+A whip-lash cracked loudly over the horse's back, and the hansom,
+lurching into Thirty-fourth Street on one wheel, was presently
+jouncing eastward over rough cobbles, at a regardless pace which
+roused the gongs of the surface cars to a clangor of hysterical
+expostulation. In a trice the "L" extension was roaring overhead;
+and a little later the ferry gates were yawning before them. Again
+Maitland consulted his watch, commenting briefly: "In time."
+
+Yet he reckoned without the ferry, one of whose employees
+deliberately and implacably swung to the gates in the very face of
+the astonished cab-horse, which promptly rose upon its hind legs
+and pawed the air with gestures of pardonable exasperation. To no
+avail, however; the gates remained closed, the cabby (with
+language) reined his steed back a yard or two, and Maitland,
+lighting a cigarette, composed himself to simulate patience.
+
+Followed a wait of ten minutes or so, in which a number of
+vehicles joined company with the cab; the passenger was vaguely
+aware of the jarring purr of a motor-car, like that of some huge
+cat, in the immediate rear. A circumstance which he had occasion
+to recall ere long.
+
+In the course of time the gates were again opened. The bridge
+cleared of incoming traffic. As the cabby drove aboard the boat,
+with nice consideration selecting the choicest stand of all, well
+out upon the forward deck, a motor-car slid in, humming, on the
+right of the hansom.
+
+Maitland sat forward, resting his forearms on the apron, and
+jerked his cigarette out over the gates; the glowing stub
+described a fiery arc and took the water with a hiss. Warm whiffs
+of the river's sweet and salty breath fanned his face gratefully,
+and he became aware that there was a moon. His gaze roving at
+will, he nodded an even-tempered approbation of the night's
+splendor: in the city a thing unsuspected.
+
+Never, he thought, had he known moonlight so pure, so silvery and
+strong. Shadows of gates and posts lay upon the forward deck like
+stencils of lamp-black upon white marble. Beyond the boat's
+bluntly rounded nose the East River stretched its restless, dark
+reaches, glossy black, woven with gorgeous ribbons of reflected
+light streaming from pier-head lamps on the further shore.
+Overhead, the sky, a pallid and luminous blue around the low-swung
+moon, was shaded to profound depths of bluish-black toward the
+horizon. Above Brooklyn rested a tenuous haze. A revenue cutter, a
+slim, pale shape, cut across the bows like a hunted ghost. Farther
+out a homeward-bound excursion steamer, tier upon tier of
+glittering lights, drifted slowly toward its pier beneath the new
+bridge, the blare of its band, swelling and dying upon the night
+breeze, mercifully tempered by distance.
+
+Presently Maitland's attention was distracted and drawn, by the
+abrupt cessation of its motor's pulsing, to the automobile on his
+right. He lifted his chin sharply, narrowing his eyes, whistled
+low; and thereafter had eyes for nothing else.
+
+The car, he saw with the experienced eye of a connoisseur, was a
+recent model of one of the most expensive and popular foreign
+makes: built on lines that promised a deal in the way of speed,
+and furnished with engines that were pregnant with multiplied
+horse-power: all in all not the style of car one would expect to
+find controlled by a solitary woman, especially after ten of a
+summer's night.
+
+Nevertheless the lone occupant of this car was a woman. And there
+was that in her bearing, an indefinable something,--whether it lay
+in the carriage of her head, which impressed one as both spirited
+and independent, or in an equally certain but less tangible air of
+self-confidence and reliance,--to set Mad Maitland's pulses
+drumming with excitement. For, unless indeed he labored gravely
+under a misapprehension, he was observing her for the second time
+within the past few hours.
+
+Could he be mistaken, or was this in truth the same woman who had
+(as he believed) made herself free of his rooms that evening?
+
+In confirmation of such suspicion he remarked her costume, which
+was altogether worked out in soft shades of grey. Grey was the
+misty veil, drawn in and daintily knotted beneath her chin, which
+lent her head and face such thorough protection against prying
+glances; of grey suede were the light gauntlets that hid all save
+the slenderness of her small hands; and the wrap that, cut upon
+full and flowing lines, cloaked her figure beyond suggestion, was
+grey. Yet even its ample drapery could not dissemble the fact that
+she was quite small, girlishly slight, like the woman in the
+doorway; nor did aught temper her impersonal and detached
+composure, which had also been an attribute of the woman in the
+doorway. And, again, she was alone, unchaperoned, unprotected....
+
+Yes? Or no? And, if yes: what to do? Was he to alight and accost
+her, accuse her of forcing an entrance to his rooms for the sole
+purpose (as far as ascertainable) of presenting him with the
+outline of her hand in the dust of his desk's top?... Oh, hardly!
+It was all very well to be daringly eccentric and careless of the
+world's censure; but one scarcely cared to lay one's self open
+either to an unknown girl's derision or to a sound pummeling at
+the hands of fellow passengers enraged by the insult offered to an
+unescorted woman....
+
+The young man was still pondering ways and means when a dull bump
+apprised him that the ferry-boat was entering the Long Island City
+slip. "The devil!" he exclaimed in mingled disgust and dismay,
+realizing that his distraction had been so thorough as to permit
+the voyage to take place almost without his realizing it. So that
+now--worse luck!--it was too late to take any one of the hundred
+fantastic steps he had contemplated half seriously. In another two
+minutes his charming mystery, so bewitchingly incarnated, would
+have slipped out of his life, finally and beyond recall. And he
+could do naught to hinder such a finale to the adventure.
+
+Sulkily he resigned himself to the inevitable, waiting and watching,
+while the boat slid and blundered clumsily, paddle-wheels churning
+the filthy waters over side, to the floating bridge; while the
+winches rattled, and the woman, sitting up briskly in the driver's
+seat of the motor-car, bent forward and advanced the spark; while
+the chain fell clanking and the car shot out, over the bridge,
+through the gates, and away, at a very considerable, even if lawful,
+rate of speed.
+
+Whereupon, writing _Finis_ to the final chapter of Romance,
+voting the world a dull place and life a treadmill, anathematizing
+in no uncertain terms his lack of resource and address, Maitland
+paid off his cabby, alighted, and to that worthy's boundless
+wonder, walked into the waiting-room of the railway terminus
+without deviating a hair's-breadth from the straight and
+circumscribed path of the sober in mind and body.
+
+The ten-twenty had departed by a bare two minutes. The next and
+last train for Greenfields was to leave at ten-fifty-nine.
+Maitland with assumed nonchalance composed himself upon a bench in
+the waiting-room to endure the thirty-seven minute interval. Five
+minutes later an able-bodied washerwoman with six children in
+quarter sizes descended upon the same bench; and the young man in
+desperation allowed himself to be dispossessed. The news-stand
+next attracting him, he garnered a fugitive amusement and two
+dozen copper cents by the simple process of purchasing six "night
+extras," which he did not want, and paying for each with a
+five-cent piece. Comprehending, at length, that he had irritated
+the news-dealer, he meandered off, jingling his copper-fortune in
+one hand, lugging his newspapers in the other, and made a
+determined onslaught upon a slot machine. The latter having
+reluctantly disgorged twenty-four assorted samples of chewing-gum
+and stale sweetmeats, Maitland returned to the washerwoman, and
+sowed dissension in her brood by presenting the treasure-horde to
+the eldest girl with instructions to share it with her brothers
+and sisters.
+
+It is difficult to imagine what folly might next have been
+recorded against him had not, at that moment, a ferocious and
+inarticulate howl from the train-starter announced the fact that
+the ten-fifty-nine was in waiting.
+
+Boarding the train in a thankful spirit, Maitland settled himself
+as comfortably as he might in the smoker and endeavored to find
+surcease of ennui in his collection of extras. In vain: even a
+two-column portrait of Mr. Dan Anisty, cracksman, accompanied by a
+vivacious catalogue of that notoriety's achievements in the field
+of polite burglary, hardly stirred his interest. An elusive
+resemblance which he traced in the features of Mr. Anisty, as
+presented by the Sketch-Artist-on-the-Spot, to some one whom he,
+Maitland, had known in the dark backwards and abysm of time,
+merely drew from him the comment: "Homely brute!" And he laid the
+papers aside, cradling his chin in the palm of one hand and
+staring for a weary while out of the car window at a reeling and
+moonsmitten landscape. He yawned exhaustively, his thoughts astray
+between a girl garbed all in grey, Bannerman's earnest and
+thoughtful face, and the pernicious activities of Mr. Daniel
+Anisty, at whose door Maitland laid the responsibility for this
+most fatiguing errand....
+
+The brakeman's wolf-like yelp--"Greenfields!"--was ringing in his
+ears when he awoke and stumbled down aisle and car-steps just in
+the nick of time. The train, whisking round a curve cloaked by a
+belt of somber pines, left him quite alone in the world, cast
+ruthlessly upon his own resources.
+
+An hour had elapsed; it was now midnight; the moon rode high, a
+cold white disk against a background of sapphire velvet, its
+pellucid rays revealing with disheartening distinctness the
+inanimate and lightless roadside hamlet called Greenfields; its
+general store and postoffice, its _soi-disant_ hotel, its
+straggling line of dilapidated habitations, all wrapped in silence
+profound and impenetrable. Not even a dog howled; not a belated
+villager was in sight; and it was a moral certainty that the local
+livery service had closed down for the night.
+
+Nevertheless, Maitland, with a desperation bred of the prospective
+five-mile tramp, spent some ten valuable minutes hammering upon
+the door of the house infested by the proprietor of the livery
+stable. He succeeded only in waking the dog, and inasmuch as he
+was not on friendly terms with that animal, presently withdrew at
+discretion and set his face northwards upon the open road.
+
+It stretched before him invitingly enough, a ribbon winding
+silver-white between dark patches of pine and scrub-oak or fields
+lush with rustling corn and wheat. And, having overcome his
+primary disgust, as the blood began to circulate more briskly in
+his veins, Maitland became aware that he was actually enjoying the
+enforced exercise. It could have been hardly otherwise, with a
+night so sweet, with airs so bland and fragrant of the woods and
+fresh-turned earth, with so clear a light to show him his way.
+
+He stepped out briskly at first, swinging his stick and watching
+his shadow, a squat, incredibly agitated silhouette in the golden
+dust. But gradually and insensibly the peaceful influences of that
+still and lovely hour tempered his heart's impatience; and he
+found himself walking at a pace more leisurely. After all, there
+was no hurry; he was unwearied, and Maitland Manor lay less than
+five miles distant.
+
+Thirty minutes passed; he had not covered a third of the way, yet
+remained content. By well-remembered landmarks, he knew he must be
+nearing the little stream called, by courtesy, Myannis River; and
+in due course, he stepped out upon the long wooden structure that
+spans that water. He was close upon the farther end when--upon a
+hapchance impulse--he glanced over the nearest guard-rail, down at
+the bed of the creek. And stopped incontinently, gaping.
+
+Stationary in the middle of the depression, hub-deep in the
+shallow waters, was a motor-car; and it, beyond dispute, was
+identical with that which had occupied his thoughts on the
+ferry-boat. Less wonderful, perhaps, but to him amazing enough, it
+was to discover upon the driver's seat the girl in grey.
+
+His brain benumbed beyond further capacity for astonishment, he
+accepted without demur this latest and most astounding of the
+chain of amazing coincidences which had thus far enlivened the
+night's earlier hours; and stood rapt in silent contemplation,
+sensible that the girl had been unaware of his approach, deadened
+as his footsteps must have been by the blanket of dust that
+carpeted both road and bridge deep and thick.
+
+On her part she sat motionless, evidently lost in reverie, and
+momentarily, at least, unconscious of the embarrassing predicament
+which was hers. So complete, indeed, seemed her abstraction that
+Maitland caught himself questioning the reality of her.... And
+well might she have seemed to him a pale little wraith of the
+night, the shimmer of grey that she made against the shimmer of
+light on the water,--a shape almost transparent, slight, and
+unsubstantial--seeming to contemplate, and as still as any
+mouse....
+
+Looking more attentively, it became evident that her veil was now
+raised. This was the first time that he had seen her so. But her
+countenance remained so deeply shadowed by the visor of a mannish
+motoring-cap that the most searching scrutiny gained no more than
+a dim and scantily satisfactory impression of alluring loveliness.
+
+Maitland turned noiselessly, rested elbows on the rail, and,
+staring, framed a theory to account for her position, if not for
+her patience.
+
+On either hand the road, dividing, struck off at a tangent, down
+the banks and into the river-bed. It was credible to presume that
+the girl had lost control of the machine temporarily and that it,
+taking the bit between its teeth, had swung gaily down the incline
+to its bath.
+
+Why she lingered there, however, was less patent. The water, as
+has been indicated, was some inches below the tonneau; it did not
+seem reasonable to assume that it should have interfered with
+either running-gear or motor....
+
+At this point in Maitland's meditations the grey girl appeared to
+have arrived at a decision. She straightened up suddenly, with a
+little resolute nod of her head, lifting one small foot to her
+knee, and fumbled with the laces of her shoe.
+
+Maitland grasped her intention to abandon the machine, with her
+determination to wade! Clearly this would seem to demonstrate that
+there had been a breakdown, irreparable so far as frail feminine
+hands were concerned.
+
+One shoe removed, its fellow would follow, and then.... Out of
+sheer chivalry, the involuntary witness was moved to earnest
+protest.
+
+"Don't!" he cried hastily. "I say, don't wade!"
+
+Her superb composure claimed his admiration. Absolutely ignorant
+though she had been of his proximity, the voice from out of the
+skies evidently alarmed her not at all. Still bending over the
+lifted foot, she turned her head slowly and looked up; and "Oh!"
+said a small voice tinged with relief. And coolly knotting the
+laces again, she sat up. "I didn't hear you, you know."
+
+"Nor I see you," Maitland supplemented unblushingly, "until a
+moment ago. I--er--can I be of assistance?"
+
+"Can't you?"
+
+"Idiot!" said Maitland severely, both to and of himself. Aloud: "I
+think I can."
+
+"I hope so,"--doubtfully. "It's very unfortunate. I ... was running
+rather fast, I suppose, and didn't see the slope until too late.
+_Now_," opening her hands in a gesture ingenuously charming
+with its suggestion of helplessness and dependence, "I don't know
+what _can_ be the matter with the machine."
+
+"I'm coming down," announced Maitland briefly. "Wait."
+
+"Thank you, I shall."
+
+She laughed, and Maitland could have blushed for his inanity;
+happily he had action to cloak his embarrassment. In a twinkling
+he was at the water's edge, pausing there to listen, with
+admirable docility, to her plaintive objection: "But you'll get
+wet and--and ruin your things. I can't ask that of you."
+
+He chuckled, by way of reply, slapping gallantly into the shallows
+and courageously wading out to the side of the car. Whereupon he
+was advised in tones of fluttered indignation:
+
+"You simply _wouldn't_ listen to me! And I _warned_ you!
+Now you're soaking wet and will certainly catch your death of
+cold, and--and what can _I_ do? Truly, I am sorry...."
+
+Here the young man lost track of her remark. He was looking up
+into the shadow of the motoring-cap, discovering things; for the
+shadow was set at naught by the moon luster that, reflected from
+the surface of the stream, invested with a gentle and glamorous
+radiance the face that bent above him. And he caught at his breath
+sharply, direst fears confirmed: she was pretty indeed--perilously
+pretty. The firm, resolute chin, the sensitive, sweet line of
+scarlet lips, the straight little nose, the brows delicately
+arched, the large, alert, tawny eyes with the dangerous sweet
+shadows beneath, the glint as of raw copper where her hair caught
+the light--Maitland appreciated them all far too well; and
+clutched nervously the rail of the seat, trying to steady himself,
+to re-collect his routed wits and consider sensibly that it all
+was due to the magic of the moon, belike; the witchery of this
+apparition that looked down into his eyes so gravely.
+
+"Of course," he mumbled, "it's too beautiful to endure. Of course
+it will all fade, vanish utterly in the cold light of day...."
+
+Above him, perplexed brows gathered ominously. "I beg pardon?"
+
+"I--er--yes," he stammered at random.
+
+"You--er--what?"
+
+Positively, she was laughing at him! He, Maitland the exquisite,
+Mad Maitland the imperturbable, was being laughed at by a mere
+child, a girl scarcely out of her teens. He glanced upward, caught
+her eye a-gleam with merriment, and looked away with much vain
+dignity.
+
+"I was saying," he manufactured, "that I did not mind the wetting
+in the least. I'm happy to be of service."
+
+"You weren't saying anything of the sort," she contradicted
+calmly. "However...." She paused significantly.
+
+Maitland experienced an instantaneous sensation as of furtive
+guilt, decidedly the reverse of comfortable. He shuffled uneasily.
+There was a brief silence, on her part expectant, on his, blank.
+His mental attitude remained hopeless: for some mysterious reason
+his nonchalance had deserted him in the hour of his supremest
+need; not in all his experience did he remember anything like
+this--as awkward.
+
+The river purled indifferently about his calves; a vagrant breeze
+disturbed the tree-tops and died of sheer lassitude; Time plodded
+on with measured stride. Then, abruptly, full-winged inspiration
+was born out of the chaos of his mind. Listening intently, he
+glanced with covert suspicion at the bridge: it proved untenanted,
+inoffensive of mien; nor arose there any sound of hoof or wheel
+upon the highway. Again he looked up at the girl; and found her in
+thoughtful mood, frowning, regarding him steadily beneath level
+brows.
+
+He assumed a disarming levity of demeanor, smiling winningly.
+"There's only one way," he suggested--not too archly--and extended
+his arms.
+
+"Indeed?" She considered him with pardonable dubiety.
+
+Instantly his purpose became as adamant.
+
+"I must carry you. It's the only way."
+
+"Oh, indeed no! I--couldn't impose upon you. I'm--very heavy, you
+know--"
+
+"Never mind," firmly insistent. "You can't stay here all night, of
+course."
+
+"But are you sure?" (She was yielding!) "I don't like to--"
+
+He shook his head, careful to restrain the twitching corners of
+his lips.
+
+"It will take but a moment," he urged gravely. "And I'll be quite
+careful."
+
+"Well--" She perceived that, if not right, he was stubborn; and
+with a final small gesture of deprecation, weakly surrendered.
+"I'm sorry to be such a nuisance," she murmured, rising and
+gathering skirts about her.
+
+Maitland stoutly denied the hideous insinuation: "I am only too
+glad--"
+
+She balanced herself lightly upon the step. He moved nearer and
+assured himself of a firm foothold on the pebbly river-bed. She
+sank gracefully into his arms, proving a considerable burden--
+weightier, in fact, than he had anticipated. He was somewhat
+staggered; it seemed that he embraced countless yards of ruffles
+and things ballasted with (at a shrewd guess) lead. He swayed.
+
+Then, recovering his equilibrium, incautiously glanced into her
+eyes. And lost it again, completely.
+
+"I was mistaken," he told himself; "daylight will but enhance...."
+
+She held herself considerately still, perhaps wondering why he
+made no move. Perhaps otherwise; there is reason to believe that
+she may have suspected--being a woman.
+
+At length, "Is there anything I can do," she inquired meekly, "to
+make it easier for you?"
+
+"I'm afraid," he replied, attitude apologetic, "that I must ask
+you to put your arm around my ne--my shoulders. It would be more
+natural."
+
+"Oh."
+
+The monosyllable was heavy with meaning--with any one of a dozen
+meanings, in truth. Maitland debated the most obvious. Did she
+conceive he had insinuated that it was his habit to ferry armfuls
+of attractive femininity over rocky fords by the light of a
+midnight moon?
+
+No matter. While he thought it out, she was consenting. Presently
+a slender arm was passed round his neck. Having awaited only that,
+he began to wade cautiously shorewards. The distance lessened
+perceptibly, but he contemplated the decreasing interval without
+joy, for all that she was of an appreciable weight. For all
+burdens there are compensations.
+
+Unconsciously, inevitably, her head sank toward his shoulder; he
+was aware of her breath, fragrant and warm, upon his cheek.... He
+stopped abruptly, cold chills running up and down his back; he
+gritted his teeth; he shuddered perceptibly.
+
+"What _is_ the matter?" she demanded, deeply concerned, but
+at pains not to stir.
+
+Maitland made a strange noise with his tongue behind clenched
+teeth. "_Urrrrgh,_" he said distinctly.
+
+She lifted her head, startled; relief followed, intense and
+instantaneous.
+
+"I'm sorry," he muttered humbly, face aflame, "but you ... tickled."
+
+"I'm--so--_sorry!_" she gasped, violently agitated. And
+laughed a low, almost a silent, little laugh, as with deft fingers
+she tucked away the errant lock of hair.
+
+"Ass!" Maitland told himself fiercely, striding forward.
+
+In another moment they were on dry land. The girl slipped from his
+arms and faced him, eyes dancing, cheeks crimson, lips a tense,
+quivering, scarlet line. He met this with a rueful smile.
+
+"But--thank you--but," she gasped explosively, "it was _so_
+funny!"
+
+Wounded dignity melted before her laughter. For a time, there in
+the moonlight, under the scornful regard of the disabled
+motor-car's twin headlights, these two rocked and shrieked,
+while the silent night flung back disdainful echoes of their mad
+laughter.
+
+Perhaps the insane incongruity of their performance first became
+apparent to the girl; she, at all events, was the first to control
+herself. Maitland subsided, rumbling, while she dabbed at her eyes
+with a wisp of lace and linen.
+
+"Forgive me," she said faintly, at length; "I didn't mean to--"
+
+"How could you help it? Who'd expect a hulking brute like myself
+to be ticklish?"
+
+"You are awfully good," she countered more calmly.
+
+"Don't say that. I'm a clumsy lout. But--" He held her gaze
+inquiringly. "But may I ask--"
+
+"Oh, of course--certainly: I am--was--bound for
+Greenpoint-on-the-Sound--"
+
+"Ten miles!" he interrupted.
+
+The corners of her red lips drooped: her brows puckered with
+dismay. Instinctively she glanced toward the waterbound car.
+
+"What am I to do?" she cried. "Ten miles!... I could never walk
+it, never in the world! You see, I went to town to-day to do a
+little shopping. As we were coming home the chauffeur was arrested
+for careless driving. He had bumped a delivery wagon over--it
+wasn't really his fault. I telephoned home for somebody to bail
+him out, and my father said he would come in. Then I dined,
+returned to the police-station, and waited. Nobody came. I
+couldn't stay there all night. I 'phoned to everybody I knew,
+until my money gave out; no one was in town. At last, in
+desperation, I started home alone."
+
+Maitland nodded his comprehension. "Your father--?" he hinted
+delicately.
+
+"Judge Wentworth," she explained hastily. "We've taken the Grover
+place at Greenpoint for the season."
+
+"I see,"--thoughtfully. And this was the girl who he had believed
+had been in his rooms that evening, in his absence! Oh, clearly,
+that was impossible. Her tone rang with truth. She interrupted his
+train of thought with a cry of despair. "What will they think!"
+
+"I dare say," he ventured hopefully, "I could hire a team at some
+farm-house--"
+
+"But the delay! It's so late already!"
+
+Undeniably late: one o'clock at the earliest. A thought longer
+Maitland hung in lack of purpose, then without a word of
+explanation turned and again, began to wade out.
+
+"What do you mean to do?" she cried, surprised.
+
+"See what's the trouble," he called back. "I know a bit about
+motors. Perhaps--"
+
+"Then--but why--"
+
+She stopped; and Maitland forbore to encourage her to round out
+her question. It was no difficult matter to supply the missing
+words. Why had he not thought of investigating the motor before
+insisting that he must carry her ashore?
+
+The humiliating conviction forced itself upon him that he was not
+figuring to great advantage in this adventure. Distinctly a humiliating
+sensation to one who ordinarily was by way of having a fine conceit
+of himself. It requires a certain amount of egotism to enable one
+to play the exquisite to one's personal satisfaction; Maitland had
+enjoyed the possession of that certain amount; theretofore his
+approval of self had been passably entire. Now--he could not
+deny--the boor had shown up through the polish of the beau.
+
+Intolerable thought! "Cad!" exclaimed Maitland bitterly. This all
+was due to hasty jumping at conclusions: if he had not chosen to
+believe a young and charming girl identical with an--an
+adventuress, this thing had not happened and he had still retained
+his own good-will. For one little moment he despised himself
+heartily--one little moment of clear insight into self was his.
+And forthwith he began to meditate apologies, formulating phrases
+designed to prove adequate without sounding exaggerated and
+insincere.
+
+By this time he had reached the car, and--through sheer blundering
+luck--at once stumbled upon the seat of trouble: a clogged valve
+in the carbureter. No serious matter: with the assistance of a
+repair kit more than commonly complete, he had the valve clear in
+a jiffy.
+
+News of this triumph he shouted to the girl, receiving in reply an
+"Oh, thank you!" so fervently grateful that he felt more guilty
+than ever.
+
+Ruminating unhappily on the cud of contemplated abasement, he
+waded round the car, satisfying himself that there was nothing
+else out of gear; and apprehensively cranked up. Whereupon the
+motor began to hum contentedly: all was well. Flushed with this
+success, Maitland climbed aboard and opened the throttle a trifle.
+The car moved. And then, with a swish, a gurgle, and a watery
+_whoosh!_ it surged forward, up, out of the river, gallantly
+up the slope.
+
+At the top the amateur chauffeur shut down the throttle and jumped
+out, turning to face the girl. She was by the step almost before
+he could offer a hand to help her in, and as she paused to render
+him his due meed of thanks, it became evident that she harbored
+little if any resentment; eyes shining, face aglow with gratitude,
+she dropped him a droll but graceful little courtesy.
+
+"You are too good!" she declared with spirit. "How can I thank
+you?"
+
+"You might," he suggested, looking down into her face from his
+superior height, "give me a bit of a lift--just a couple of miles
+up the road. Though," he supplemented eagerly, "if you'd really
+prefer, I should be only too happy to drive the car home for you?"
+
+"Two miles, did you say?"
+
+He fancied something odd in her tone; besides, the question was
+superfluous. His eyes informed with puzzlement, he replied: "Why,
+yes--that much, more or less. I live--"
+
+"Of course," she put in quickly, "I'll give you the lift--only too
+glad. But as for your taking me home at this hour, I can't hear of
+that."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Besides, what would people say?" she countered obstinately. "Oh,
+no," she decided; and he felt that from this decision there would
+be no appeal; "I couldn't think of interfering with your ... arrangements."
+
+Her eyes held his for a single instant, instinct with mischief,
+gleaming with bewildering light from out a face schooled to
+gravity. Maitland experienced a sensation of having grasped after
+and missed a subtlety of allusion; his wits, keen as they were,
+recoiled, baffled by her finesse. And the more he divined that she
+was playing with him, as an experienced swordsman might play with
+an impertinent novice, the denser his confusion grew.
+
+"But I have no arrangements--" he stammered.
+
+"Don't!" she insisted--as much as to say that he was fabricating
+and she knew it! "We must hurry, you know, because.... There, I've
+dropped my handkerchief! By the tree, there. Do you mind--?"
+
+"Of course not." He set off swiftly toward the point indicated,
+but on reaching it cast about vainly for anything in the nature of
+a handkerchief. In the midst of which futile quest a change of
+tempo in the motor's impatient drumming surprised him.
+
+Startled, he looked up. Too late: the girl was in the seat, the
+car in motion--already some yards from the point at which he had
+left it. Dismayed, he strode forward, raising his voice in
+perturbed expostulation.
+
+"But--I say--!"
+
+Over the rear of the seat a grey gauntlet was waved at him, as
+tantalizing as the mocking laugh that came to his ears.
+
+He paused, thunderstruck, appalled by this monstrosity of
+ingratitude.
+
+The machine gathered impetus, drawing swiftly away. Yet in the
+stillness the farewell of the grey girl came to him very clearly.
+
+"Good-by!" with a laugh. "Thank you and good-by--_Handsome
+Dan!_"
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+"HANDSOME DAN"
+
+Standing in the middle of the road, watching the dust cloud that
+trailed the fast disappearing motorcar, Mr. Maitland cut a figure
+sufficiently forlorn and disconsolate to have distilled pity from
+the least sympathetic heart.
+
+His hands were thrust stiffly at full arm's length into his
+trousers pockets: a rumpled silk hat was set awry on the back of
+his head; his shirt bosom was sadly crumpled; above the knees, to
+a casual glance, he presented the appearance of a man carefully
+attired in evening dress; below, his legs were sodden and muddied,
+his shoes of patent-leather, twin wrecks. Alas for jauntiness and
+elegance, alack for ease and aplomb!
+
+"Tricked," observed Maitland casually, and protruded his lower
+lip, thus adding to the length of a countenance naturally long.
+"Outwitted by a chit of a girl! Dammit!"
+
+But this was crude melodrama. Realizing which, he strove to smile:
+a sorry failure.
+
+"'Handsome Dan,'" quoted he; and cocking his head to one side eyed
+the road inquiringly. "Where in thunder d'you suppose she got hold
+of _that_ name?"
+
+Bestowed upon him in callow college days, it had stuck burr-like
+for many a weary year. Of late, however, its use had lapsed among
+his acquaintances; he had begun to congratulate himself upon
+having lived it down. And now it was resurrected, flung at him in
+sincerest mockery by a woman whom, to his knowledge, he had never
+before laid eyes upon. Odious appellation, hateful invention of an
+ingenious enemy!
+
+"'Handsome Dan!' She must have known me all the time--all the time
+I was making an exhibition of myself.... 'Wentworth'? I know no
+one of that name. Who the dickens can she be?"
+
+If it had not been contrary to his code of ethics, he would gladly
+have raved, gnashed his teeth, footed the dance of rage with his
+shadow. Indeed, his restraint was admirable, the circumstances
+considered. He did nothing whatever but stand still for a matter
+of five minutes, vainly racking his memory for a clue to the
+identity of "Miss Wentworth."
+
+At length he gave it up in despair and abstractedly felt for his
+watch-fob. Which wasn't there. Neither, investigation developed,
+was the watch. At which crowning stroke of misfortune,--the
+timepiece must have slipped from his pocket into the water while
+he was tinkering with that infamous carbureter,--Maitland turned
+eloquently red in the face.
+
+"The price," he meditated aloud, with an effort to resume his
+pose, "is a high one to pay for a wave of a grey glove and the
+echo of a pretty laugh."
+
+With which final fling at Fortune he set off again for Maitland
+Manor, trudging heavily but at a round pace through the dust that
+soon settled upon the damp cloth of his trousers legs and
+completed their ruination. But Maitland was beyond being disturbed
+by such trifles. A wounded vanity engaged his solicitude to the
+exclusion of all other interests.
+
+At the end of forty-five minutes he had covered the remaining
+distance between Greenfields station and Maitland Manor. For five
+minutes more he strode wearily over the side-path by the box hedge
+which set aside his ancestral acres from the public highway. At
+length, with an exclamation, he paused at the first opening in the
+living barrier: a wide entrance from which a blue-stone carriage
+drive wound away to the house, invisible in the waning light,
+situate in the shelter of the grove of trees that studded the
+lawn.
+
+"Gasoline! Brrr!" said Maitland, shuddering and shivering with the
+combination of a nauseous odor and the night's coolness--the
+latter by now making itself as unpleasantly prominent as the
+former.
+
+Though he hated the smell with all his heart, manfully
+inconsistent he raised his head, sniffing the air for further
+evidence; and got his reward in a sickening gust.
+
+"Tank leaked," he commented with brevity. "Quart of the stuff must
+have trickled out right here. Ugh! If it goes on at this rate,
+there'll be another breakdown before she gets home." And, "Serve
+her right, too!" he growled, vindictive.
+
+But for all his indignation he acknowledged a sneaking wish that
+he might be at hand again, in such event, a second time to give
+gratuitous service to his grey lady.
+
+Analyzing this frame of mind (not without surprise and some
+disdain of him who weakly entertained it) he crossed the drive and
+struck in over the lawn, shaping his course direct for the front
+entrance of the house.
+
+By dead reckoning the hour was two, or something later; and a
+chill was stealing in upon the land, wafted gently southward from
+Long Island Sound. All the world beside himself seemed to slumber,
+breathless, insensate. Wraith-like, grey shreds of mist drifted
+between the serried boles of trees, or, rising, veiled the moon's
+wan and pallid face, that now was low upon the horizon. In silent
+rivalry long and velvet-black shadows skulked across the ample
+breadths of dew-drenched grass. Somewhere a bird stirred on its
+unseen perch, chirping sleepily; and in the rapt silence the
+inconsiderable interruption broke with startling stress.
+
+In time,--not long,--the house lifted into view: a squat, rambling
+block of home-grown architecture with little to recommend it save
+its keen associations and its comfort. At the edge of the woods
+the lord and master paused indefinitely, with little purpose,
+surveying idly the pale, columned facade, and wondering whether or
+not his entrance at that ungodly hour would rouse the staff of
+house servants. If it did not--he contemplated with mild amusement
+the prospect of their surprise when, morning come, they should
+find the owner in occupation.
+
+"Bannerman was right," he conceded; "any------" The syllables died
+upon his lips; his gaze became fixed; his heart thumped wildly for
+an instant, then rested still; and instinctively he held his
+breath, tip-toeing to the edge of the veranda the better to
+command a view of the library windows.
+
+These opened from ceiling to floor and should by rights have
+presented to his vision a blank expanse of dark glass. But, oddly
+enough, even while thinking of his lawyer's warning, he had
+fancied.... "Ah!" said Maitland softly.
+
+A disk of white light, perhaps a foot or eighteen inches in
+diameter, had flitted swiftly across the glass and vanished.
+
+"Ah, ah! The devil, the devil!" murmured the young man
+unconsciously.
+
+The light appeared again, dancing athwart the inner wall of the
+room, and was lost as abruptly as before. On impulse Maitland
+buttoned his top-coat across his chest, turning up the collar to
+hide his linen, darted stealthily a yard or two to one side, and
+with one noiseless bound reached the floor of the veranda. A
+breath later he stood by the front door, where, at first glance,
+he discovered the means of entrance used by the midnight marauder;
+the doors stood ajar, a black interval showing between them.
+
+So that, then, was the way! Cautiously Maitland put a hand upon
+the knob and pushed.
+
+A sharp, penetrating squeak brought him to an abrupt standstill,
+heart hammering shamefully again. Gathering himself to spring, if
+need be, he crept back toward the library windows, and reconnoitering
+cautiously determined the fact that the bolts had just been withdrawn
+on the inside of one window frame, which was swinging wide.
+
+"It's a wise crook that provides his own quick exit," considered
+Maitland.
+
+The sagacious one was not, apparently, leaving at that moment. On
+the contrary, having made all things ready for a hurried flight
+upon the first alarm, the intruder turned back, as was clearly
+indicated by the motion of the light within. The clink of steel
+touching steel became audible; and Maitland nodded. Bannerman was
+indeed justified; at that very moment the safe was being attacked.
+
+Maitland returned noiselessly to the door. His mouth had settled
+into a hard, unyielding, thin line; and a dangerous light
+flickered in his eyes. Temporarily the idler had stepped aside,
+giving place to the real man that was Maitland--the man ready to
+fight for his own, naked hands against firearms, if it need be.
+True, he had but to step into the gun-room to find weapons in
+plenty; but these must be then loaded to be of service, and
+precious moments wasted in the process--moments in which the
+burglar might gain access to and make off with his booty.
+
+Maitland had no notion whatever of permitting anything of the sort
+to occur. He counted upon taking his enemy unawares, difficult as
+he believed such a feat would be, in the case of a professional
+cracksman.
+
+Down the hallway he groped his way to the library door, his
+fingers at length encountering its panels; it was closed,
+doubtless secured upon the inside; the slightest movement of the
+handle was calculated to alarm the housebreaker. Maitland paused,
+deliberating another and better plan, having in mind a short
+passageway connecting library and smoking-room. In the library
+itself a heavy tapestry curtained its opening, while an equally
+heavy portiere took the place of a door at the other end. In the
+natural order of things a burglar would overlook this.
+
+Inch by inch the young man edged into the smoking-room, the door
+to which providentially stood unclosed. Once within, it was but a
+moment's work to feel his way to the velvet folds and draw them
+aside, fortunately without rattling the brass rings from which the
+curtain depended. And then Maitland was in the passage, acutely on
+the alert, recognizing from the continued click of metal that his
+antagonist-to-be was still at his difficult task. Inch by inch--
+there was the tapestry! Very gently the householder pushed it
+aside.
+
+An insidious aroma of scorching varnish (the dark lantern)
+penetrated the passage while he stood on its threshold, feeling
+for the electric-light switch. Unhappily he missed this at the
+first cast, and--heard from within a quick, deep hiss of breath.
+Something had put the burglar on guard.
+
+Another instant wasted, and it would be too late. The young man
+had to chance it. And he did, without further hesitation stepping
+boldly into the danger-zone, at the same time making one final,
+desperate pass at the spot where the switch should have been--and
+missing it. On the instant there came a click of a different
+caliber from those that had preceded it. A revolver had been
+cocked, somewhere there in the blank darkness.
+
+Maitland knew enough not to move. In another respect the warning
+came too late; his fingers had found the switch at last, and
+automatically had turned it. The glare was blinding, momentarily;
+but the flash and report for which Maitland waited did not come.
+When his eyes had adjusted themselves to the suddenly altered
+conditions, he saw, directly before him and some six feet distant,
+a woman's slight figure, dark cloaked, resolute upon its two feet,
+head framed in veiling, features effectually disguised in a motor
+mask whose round, staring goggles shone blankly in the warm white
+light.
+
+On her part, she seemed to recognize him instantaneously. On
+his.... It may as well be admitted that Maitland's wits were gone
+wool-gathering, temporarily at least: a state of mind not
+unpardonable when it is taken into consideration that he was
+called upon to grapple with and simultaneously to assimilate three
+momentous facts. For the first time in his life he found himself
+nose to nose with a revolver, and that one of able bodied and
+respect-compelling proportions. For the first time in his life,
+again, he was under necessity of dealing with a housebreaker. But
+most stupefying of all he found the fact that this housebreaker,
+this armed midnight marauder, was a woman! And so it was not
+altogether fearlessness that made him to all intents and purposes
+ignore the weapon; it is nothing to his credit for courage if his
+eyes struck past the black and deadly mouth of the revolver and
+looked only into the blank and expressionless eyes of the wind-mask;
+it was not lack of respect for his skin's integrity, but the
+sheer, tremendous wonder of it all, that rendered him oblivious to
+the eternity that lay the other side of a slender, trembling
+finger-tip.
+
+And so he stared, agape, until presently the weapon wavered and
+was lowered and the woman's voice, touched with irony, brought him
+to his senses.
+
+"Oh," she remarked coolly, "it's only you."
+
+Thunderstruck, he was able no more than to parrot the pronoun:
+"_You--you_!"
+
+"Were you expecting to meet any one else, here, to-night?" she
+inquired in suavest mockery.
+
+He lifted his shoulders helplessly, and tried to school his tongue
+to coherence. "I confess.... Well, certainly I didn't count on
+finding you here, Miss Wentworth. And the black cloak, you know--"
+
+"Reversible, of course: grey inside, as you see--Handsome Dan!"
+The girl laughed quietly, drawing aside an edge of the garment to
+reveal its inner face of silken grey and the fluted ruffles of the
+grey skirt underneath.
+
+He nodded appreciation of the device, his mind now busy with
+speculations as to what he should do with the girl, now that he
+had caught her. At the same time he was vaguely vexed by her
+persistent repetition of the obsolescent nickname.
+
+"Handsome Dan," he iterated all but mechanically. "Why do you call
+me that, please? Have we met before? I could swear, never before
+this night!"
+
+"But you are altogether too modest," she laughed. "Not that it's a
+bad trait in the character of a professional.... But really! it
+seems a bit incredible that any one so widely advertised as
+Handsome Dan Anisty should feel surprise at being recognized. Why,
+your portrait and biography have commanded space in every yellow
+journal in America recently!"
+
+And, dropping the revolver into a pocket in her cloak, "I was
+afraid you might be a servant--or even Maitland," she diverted the
+subject, with a nod.
+
+"But--but if you recognized me as Anisty, back there by the ford,
+didn't you suspect I'd drop in on you--"
+
+"Why, of course! Didn't _you_ all but tell me that you were
+coming here?"
+
+"But--"
+
+"I thought _perhaps_ I might get through before you came, Mr.
+Anisty; but I knew all the time that, even if you did manage to
+surprise me--er--on the job, you wouldn't call in the police." She
+laughed confidently, and--oddly enough--at the same time
+nervously. "You are certainly a very bold man, and as surely a
+very careless one, to run around the way you do without so much as
+troubling to grow a beard or a mustache, after your picture has
+been published broadcast."
+
+Did he catch a gleam of admiration in the eyes behind the goggles?
+"Now, if ever they get hold of _my_ portrait and print it....
+Well!" sighed the girl wickedly, lifting slim, bare fingers in
+affected concern to the mass of ruddy hair, "in that event I
+suppose I shall have to become a natural blonde!"
+
+Her humor, her splendid fearlessness, the lightness of her tone,
+combined with the half-laughing, half-serious look that she swept
+up at him, to ease the tension of his emotions. For the first time
+since entering the room, he smiled; then in silence for a time
+regarded her steadfastly, thinking.
+
+So he resembled this burglar, Anisty, strongly enough to be
+mistaken for him--eh? Plainly enough the girl believed him to be
+Anisty.... Well, and why not? Why shouldn't he be Anisty for the
+time being, if it suited his purpose so to masquerade?
+
+It might possibly suit his purpose. He thought his position one
+uncommonly difficult. As Maitland, he had on his hands a female
+thief, a hardened character, a common malefactor (strange that he
+got so little relish of the terms!), caught red-handed; as
+Maitland, his duty was to hand her over to the law, to be dealt
+with as--what she was. Yet, even while these considerations were
+urging themselves upon him, he knew his eyes appraised her with
+open admiration and interest. She stood before him, slight,
+delicate, pretty, appealing in her ingenuous candor; and at his
+mercy. How could he bring himself to deal with her as he might
+with--well, Anisty himself? She was a woman, he a gentleman.
+
+As Anisty, however,--if he chose to assume that expert's identity
+for the nonce,--he would be placed at once on a plane of equality
+with the girl; from a fellow of her craft she could hardly refuse
+attentions. As Anisty, he would put himself in a position to earn
+her friendship, to gain--perhaps--her confidence, to learn
+something of her necessities, to aid and protect her from the
+consequences of her misdeeds; possibly--to sum up--to divert her
+footsteps to the paths of a calling less hazardous and more
+honorable.
+
+Worthy ambition: to reform a burglar! Maitland regained something
+of his lost self-esteem, applauding himself for entertaining a
+motive so laudable. And he chose his course, for better or worse,
+in these few seconds. Thereby proving his incontestable title to
+the name and repute of Mad Maitland.
+
+His face lightened; his manner changed; he assumed with avidity
+the role for which she had cast him and which he stood so ready to
+accept and act.
+
+"Well and good," he conceded with an air. "I suppose I may as well
+own up----"
+
+"Oh, I know _you_," she assured him, with a little, confident
+shake of her head. "There's no deceiving me. But," and her smile
+became rueful, "if only you'd waited ten minutes more! Of course I
+recognized you from the first--down there by the river; and knew
+very well what was your--lay; you gave yourself away completely by
+mentioning the distance from the river to the Manor. And I did so
+want to get ahead of you on this job! What a feather in one's cap
+to have forestalled Dan Anisty!... But hadn't you better be a
+little careful with those lights? You seem to forget that there
+are servants in the house. Really, you know, I find you most
+romantically audacious, Mr. Anisty--quite in keeping with your
+reputation."
+
+"You overwhelm me," he murmured. "Believe me, I have little
+conceit in my fame, such as it is." And, crossing to the windows,
+he loosed the heavy velvet hangings and let them fall together,
+drawing their edges close so that no ray of light might escape.
+
+She watched him with interest. "You seem well acquainted here."
+
+"Of course. Any man of imagination is at pains to study every
+house he enters. I have a map of the premises--house and grounds--
+here." He indicated his forehead with a long forefinger.
+
+"Quite right, too--and worth one's while. If rumor is to be
+believed, you have ordinarily more than your labor for your pains.
+You have taught me something already.... Ah, well!" she sighed, "I
+suppose I may as well acknowledge my inferiority--as neophyte to
+hierophant. Master!" She courtesied low. "I beg you proceed and
+let thy cheela profit through observation!" And a small white hand
+gestured significantly toward the collection of burglar's tools,--
+drills and chisels, skeleton keys, putty, and all,--neatly
+displayed upon the rug before the massive safe.
+
+"You mean that you wish me to crack this safe for you?" he inquired,
+with inward consternation.
+
+"Not for me. Disappointment I admit is mine; but not for the loss
+I sustain. In the presence of the master I am content to stand
+humbly to one side, as befits one of my lowly state in--in the
+ranks of our profession. I resign, I abdicate in your favor;
+claiming nothing by right of priority."
+
+"You are too generous," he mumbled, confused by her thinly veiled
+ridicule.
+
+"Not at all," she replied briskly. "I am entirely serious. My loss
+of to-day will prove my gain, tomorrow. I look for incalculable
+benefit through study of your methods. My own, I confess," with a
+contemptuous toss of her head toward the burglar's kit, "are
+clumsy, antiquated, out of date.... But then, I'm only an
+amateur."
+
+"Oh, but a woman----" he began to apologize on her behalf.
+
+"Oh, but a woman!" she rapped out smartly. "I wish you to
+understand that this woman, at least, is no mean----" And she
+hesitated.
+
+"Thief?" he supplied crudely.
+
+"Yes, thief! We're two of a feather, at that."
+
+"True enough.... But you were first in the field; I fail to see
+why I should reap any reward for tardiness. The spoils must be
+yours."
+
+It was a test: Maitland watched her keenly, fascinated by the
+subtlety of the game.
+
+"But I refuse, Mr. Anisty--positively refuse to go to work while
+you stand aside and--and laugh."
+
+Pride! He stared, openly amazed, at this bewilderingly feminine
+bundle of inconsistencies. With each facet of her character
+discovered to him, minute by minute, the study of her became to
+him the more engrossing. He drew nearer, eyes speculative.
+
+"I will agree," he said slowly, "to crack the safe, but upon
+conditions."
+
+She drew back imperceptibly, amused, but asserting her dignity.
+"Yes?" she led him on, though in no accent of encouragement.
+
+"Back there, in the river," he drawled deliberately, forcing the
+pace, "I found you--beautiful."
+
+She flushed, lip curling. "And, back there, in the river, I
+thought you--a gentleman!"
+
+"Although a burglar?"
+
+"A gentleman for all that!"
+
+"I promise you I mean no harm," he prefaced. "But don't you see
+how I am putting myself in your power? Every moment you know me
+better, while I have not yet even looked into your face with the
+light full upon it. Honor among thieves, little woman!"
+
+She chose to ignore the intimate note in his voice. "You're
+wasting time," she hinted crisply.
+
+"I am aware of that fact. Permit me to remind you that you are
+helping me to waste it. I will not go ahead until I have seen your
+face. It is simply an ordinary precaution."
+
+"Oh, if it's a matter of business----"
+
+"Self-preservation," he corrected with magnificent gravity.
+
+She hesitated but a moment longer, then with a quick gesture
+removed her mask. Maitland's breath came fast as he bent forward,
+peering into her face; though he schooled his own features to an
+expression of intent and inoffensive studiousness, he feared the
+loud thumping of his heart would betray him. As he looked it
+became evident that the witchery of moonlight had not served to
+exaggerate the sensitive, the almost miniature, beauty of her. If
+anything, its charm was greater there in the full glare of the
+electric chandelier, as she faced him, giving him glance for
+glance, quite undismayed by the intentness of his scrutiny.
+
+In the clear light her eyes shone lustrous, pools of tawny flame;
+her hair showed itself of a rich and luminous coppery hue, spun to
+immeasurable fineness; a faint color burned in her cheeks, but in
+contrast her forehead was as snow--the pure, white, close-grained
+skin that is the heritage of red-headed women the world over, and
+their chiefest charm as well; while her lips....
+
+As for her lips, the most coherent statement to be extracted from
+Mr. Maitland is to the effect that they were altogether desirable,
+from the very first.
+
+The hauteur of her pose, the sympathy and laughter that lurked in
+her mouth, the manifest breeding in the delicate modeling of her
+nostrils, and the firm, straight arch of her nose, the astonishing
+allurement of her eyes, combined with their spirited womanliness:
+these, while they completed the conquest of the young man, abashed
+him. He found himself of a sudden endowed with a painful
+appreciation of his own imperfections, the littleness of his ego,
+the inherent coarseness of his masculine fiber, the poor futility
+of his ways, contrasted with her perfections. He felt as if
+rebuked for some unwarrantable presumption.... For he had looked
+into eyes that were windows of a soul; and the soul was that of a
+child, unsullied and immaculate.
+
+You may smile; but as for Maitland, he deemed it no laughing
+matter. From that moment his perception was clear that, whatever
+she might claim to be, however damning the circumstances in which
+she appeared to him, there was no evil in her.
+
+But what he did not know, and did not even guess, was that, from
+the same instant, his being was in bondage to her will. So Love
+comes, strangely masked.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S MADNESS
+
+At length, awed and not a little shamefaced, "I beg your pardon,"
+he stammered wretchedly.
+
+"For what?" she demanded quickly, head up and eyes light.
+
+"For insisting. It wasn't--ah--courteous. I'm sorry."
+
+It was her turn now to wonder; delicacy of perception such as this
+is not ordinarily looked for in the person of a burglar. With a
+laugh and a gibe she tried to pass off her astonishment.
+
+"The thief apologizes to the thief?"
+
+"Unkind!"
+
+Briefly hesitant, with an impulsive gesture she flung out a
+generous hand.
+
+"You're right; I was unkind. Forgive me. Won't you shake hands? I ...
+I do want to be a good comrade, since it has pleased Fate to
+throw us together like this, so--so oddly." Her tone was almost
+plaintive; unquestionably it was appealing.
+
+Maitland was curiously moved by the touch of the slim, cool
+fingers that lay in his palm. Not unpleasantly. He frowned in
+perplexity, unable to analyze the sensation.
+
+"You're not angry?" she asked.
+
+"No--but--but--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Why do you do this, little woman? Why do you stoop to this--this
+trade of yo--of ours? Why sully your hands,--and not only your
+hands,--imperil your good name, to say nothing of your liberty----?"
+
+She drew her hand away quickly, interrupting him with a laugh that
+rang true as a coin new from the mint, honest and genuine.
+
+"And this," she cried, "this from Dan Anisty! Positively, sir, you
+are delightful! You grow more dangerously original every minute!
+Your scruples, your consideration, your sympathy--they are
+touching--in _you_!" She wagged her head daintily in pretense
+of disapprobation. "But shall I tell you?" more seriously,
+doubtfully. "I think I shall ... truly. I do this sort of thing,
+since you must know, because--_imprimis_, because I like it.
+Indeed and I do! I like the danger, the excitement, the exercise
+of cunning and--and I like the rewards, too. Besides----"
+
+The corners of her adorable mouth drooped ever so slightly.
+
+"Besides----?"
+
+"Why.... But this is not business! We must hurry. Will you, or
+shall I----?"
+
+A crisis had been passed; Maitland understood that he must wait
+until a more favorable time to renew his importunities.
+
+"I will," he said, dropping on his knees by the safe. "In my
+lady's service!"
+
+"Not at all," she interposed. "I insist. The job is now yours;
+yours must be the profits."
+
+"Then I wash my hands of the whole affair," he stated in accents
+of finality. "I refuse. I shall go, and you can do as you will,--
+blunder on," scornfully, "with your nitroglycerin, your rags, and
+drills and--and rouse the entire countryside, if you will."
+
+"Ah, but--"
+
+"Will you accept my aid?"
+
+"On conditions, only," she stipulated. "Halvers?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Half shares, or not at all!" She was firm.
+
+"A partnership?"
+
+This educed a moue of doubt, with: "I'm not worthy the honor."
+
+"But," he promised rashly, "I can save you--oh, heaps of trouble
+in other--ah--lays."
+
+She shrugged helplessly. "If I must--then I do accept. We are
+partners, Dan Anisty and I!"
+
+He nodded mute satisfaction, brushed the tools out of his way, and
+bent an attentive ear to the combination.
+
+The girl swept across the room, and there followed a click
+simultaneous with the total extinction of light.
+
+Startled, "Why--?" he demanded.
+
+"The risk," she replied. "We have been frightfully careless and
+thoughtless."
+
+Helplessly Maitland twirled the combination dial; without the
+light he was wholly at a loss. But a breath later her skirts
+rustled near him; the slide of the bull's-eye was jerked back, and
+a circle of illumination thrown upon the lock. He bent his head
+again, pretending to listen to the fall of the tumblers as the
+dial was turned, but in point of fact covertly watching the
+letters and figures upon it.
+
+The room grew very silent, save for the faintly regular
+respiration of the girl who bent near his shoulder. Her breath was
+fragrant upon his cheek. The consciousness of her propinquity
+almost stifled him.... One fears that Maitland prolonged the
+counterfeit study of the combination unnecessarily.
+
+Notwithstanding this, she seemed amazed by the ease with which he
+solved it. "Wonderful!" she applauded, whispering, as the heavy
+door swung outward without a jar.
+
+"Hush!" he cautioned her.
+
+In his veins that night madness was running riot, swaying him to
+its will. With never a doubt, never a thought of hesitancy, he
+forged ahead, wilfully blind to consequences. On the face of it he
+was playing a fool's part; he knew it; the truth is simply that he
+could not have done other than as he did. Consciously he believed
+himself to be merely testing the girl; subconsciously he was
+plastic in the grip of an emotion stronger than he,--moist clay
+upon the potter's whirling wheel.
+
+The interior of the safe was revealed in a shape little different
+from that of the ordinary household strong-box. There were several
+account-books, ledgers, and the like, together with some packages
+of docketed bills, in the pigeon-holes. The cash-box, itself a
+safe within a safe, showed a blank face broken by a small
+combination dial. Behind this, in a secreted compartment, the
+Maitland heirlooms languished, half-forgotten of their heedless
+owner.
+
+The cash-box combination offered less difficulty than had the
+outer dial. Maitland had it open in a twinkling. Then, brazenly
+lifting out the inner framework, bodily, he thrust a fumbling hand
+into the aperture thus disclosed and pressed the spring, releasing
+the panel at the back. It disappeared as though by witchcraft, and
+the splash of light from the bull's-eye discovered a canvas bag
+squatting humbly in the secret compartment: a fat little canvas
+bag, considerably soiled from much handling, such as is used by
+banks for coin, a sturdy, matter-of-fact, every-day sort of canvas
+bag, with nothing about it of hauteur, no air of self-importance
+or ostentation, to betray the fact that it was the receptacle of a
+small fortune.
+
+At Maitland's ear, incredulous, "How did you guess?" she breathed.
+
+He took thought and breath, both briefly, and prevaricated
+shamelessly: "Bribed the head-clerk of the safe-manufacturer who
+built this."
+
+Rising, he passed over to the center-table, the girl following.
+"Steady with the light," he whispered; and loosed the string
+around the mouth of the bag, pouring its contents, a glistening,
+priceless, flaming, iridiscent treasure horde, upon the table.
+
+"Oh!" said a small voice at his side. And again and again: "Oh!
+Oh! Oh!"
+
+Maitland himself was moved by the wonder of it. The jewels seemed
+to fill the room with a flashing, amazing, coruscant glamour,
+rainbow-like. His breath came hot and fast as he gazed upon the
+trove; a queen's ransom, a fortune incalculable even to its owner.
+As for the girl, he thought that the wonder of it must have struck
+her dumb. Not a sound came from the spot where she stood.
+
+Then, abruptly, the sun went out: at least, such was the effect;
+the light of the hand-lamp vanished utterly, leaving a party-colored
+blur swimming against the impenetrable blackness, before his eyes.
+
+His lips opened; but a small hand fell firmly upon his own, and a
+tiny, tremulous whisper shrilled in his ear.
+
+"Hush--ah, hush!"
+
+"What--?
+
+"Steady ... some one coming ... the jewels...."
+
+He heard the dull musical clash of them as her hands swept them
+back into the bag, and a cold, sickening fear rendered him almost
+faint with the sense of trust misplaced, illusions resolved into
+brutal realities. His fingers closed convulsively about her
+wrists; but she held passive.
+
+"Ah, but I might have expected that!" came her reproachful
+whisper. "Take them, then, my--my partner that was." Her tone cut
+like a knife, and the touch of the canvas bag, as she forced it
+into his hands, was hateful to him.
+
+"Forgive me--" he began.
+
+"But listen!"
+
+For a space he obeyed, the silence at first seeming tremendous;
+then, faint but distinct, he heard the tinkle and slide of the
+brazen rings supporting the smoking-room portiere.
+
+His hand sought the girl's; she had not moved, and the cool, firm
+pressure of her fingers steadied him. He thought quickly.
+
+"Quick!" he told her in the least of whispers. "Leave by the
+window you opened and wait for me by the motor-car."
+
+"No!"
+
+There was no time to remonstrate with her. Already he had slipped
+away, shaping a course for the entrance to the passage. But the
+dominant thought in his mind was that at all costs the girl must
+be spared the exposure. She was to be saved, whatever the hazard.
+Afterwards....
+
+The tapestry rustled, but he was yet too far distant to spring. He
+crept on with the crouching, vicious attitude, mental and
+physical, of a panther stalking its prey....
+
+Like a thunderclap from a clear sky the glare of the light broke
+out from the ceiling. Maitland paused, transfixed, on tiptoe, eyes
+incredulous, brain striving to grapple with the astounding
+discovery that had come to him.
+
+The third factor stood in the doorway, slender and tall, in
+evening dress,--as was Maitland,--a light, full overcoat hanging
+open from his shoulders; one hand holding back the curtain, the
+other arrested on the light switch. His lips dropped open and his
+eyes, too, were protruding with amazement. Feature for feature he
+was the counterpart of the man before him; in a word, here was the
+real Anisty.
+
+The wonder of it all saved the day for Maitland; Anisty's
+astonishment was sincere and the more complete in that, unlike
+Maitland, he had been unprepared to find any one in the library.
+
+For a mere second his gaze left Maitland and traveled on to the
+girl, then to the rifled safe--taking in the whole significance of
+the scene. When he spoke, it was as if dazed.
+
+"By God!" he cried--or, rather, the syllables seemed to jump from
+his lips like bullets from a gun.
+
+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-a-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 negligee 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.
+
+His caller seemed partly amused, partly--but very slightly--embarrassed.
+"I have been assigned to cover the affair of last night," he continued
+blandly. "I presume you have no objection to giving me what information you
+may possess."
+
+"Credentials?"
+
+The man's amusement was made visible in a fugitive smile, half-hidden by
+his small and neatly trimmed mustache. Mutely eloquent, he turned back
+the lapel of his coat, exposing a small shield; at which Maitland glanced
+casually.
+
+"Very well," he consented, bored but resigned. "Fire ahead, but make it as
+brief as you can; I've an engagement in"--glancing at the clock--"an hour,
+and must dress."
+
+"I'll detain you no longer than is essential.... Of course you understand
+how keen we are after this man, Anisty."
+
+"What puzzles me," Maitland interrupted, "is how you got wind of the affair
+so soon."
+
+"Then you have not heard?" Mr. Snaith exhibited polite surprise.
+
+"I am just out of bed."
+
+"Anisty escaped shortly after you left Maitland Manor."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Mr. Snaith knitted his brows, evidently at a loss whether to ascribe
+Maitland's exclamation as due to surprise, regret, or relief. Which pleased
+Maitland, who had been at pains to make his tone noncommittal. In point of
+fact he was neither surprised nor regretful.
+
+"Thunder!" he continued slowly. "I forgot to 'phone Higgins."
+
+"That is why I called. Your butler did not know where you could be found.
+You had left in great haste, promising to send constables; you failed to do
+so; Higgins got no word. In the course of an hour or so his charge began to
+choke,--or pretended to. Higgins became alarmed and removed the gag.
+Anisty lay quiet until his face resumed its normal color and then began to
+abuse Higgins for a thick-headed idiot."
+
+Mr. Snaith interrupted himself to chuckle lightly.
+
+"You noticed a resemblance?" he resumed.
+
+Maitland, too, was smiling. "Something of the sort."
+
+"It is really remarkable, if you will permit me to say so." Snaith was
+studying his host's face intently. "Higgins, poor fellow, had his faith
+shaken to the foundations. This Anisty must be a clever actor as well as a
+master burglar. Having cursed Higgins root and branch, he got his second
+wind and explained that he was--Mr. Maitland! Conceive Higgins' position.
+What could he do?"
+
+"What he did, I gather."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"And Anisty?"
+
+"Once loosed, he knocked Higgins over with the butt of a revolver, jumped
+out of the window, and vanished. By the time the butler got his senses
+back, Anisty, presumably, was miles away ... Mr. Maitland!" said Snaith
+sharply.
+
+"Yes?" responded Maitland, elevating his brows, refusing to be startled.
+
+"Why," crisply, "didn't you send the constables from Greenfields, according
+to your promise?"
+
+Maitland laughed uneasily and looked down, visibly embarrassed, acting with
+consummate address, playing the game for all he was worth; and enjoying it
+hugely.
+
+"Why.... I.... Really, Mr. Snaith, I must confess--"
+
+"A confession would aid us materially," dryly. "The case is perplexing. You
+round up a burglar sought by the police of two continents, and listlessly
+permit his escape. Why?"
+
+"I would rather not be pressed," said Maitland with evident candor; "but,
+since you say it is imperative, that you must know--" Snaith inclined
+his head affirmatively. "Why ... to tell the truth, I was a bit under the
+weather last night: out with a party of friends, you know. Dare say we all
+had a bit more than we could carry. The capture was purely accidental; we
+had other plans for the night and--well," laughing shortly, "I didn't give
+the matter too much thought, beyond believing that Higgins would hold the
+man tight."
+
+"I see. It is unfortunate, but ... you motored back to town."
+
+It was not a question, but Maitland so considered it.
+
+"We did," he admitted.
+
+"And came here directly?"
+
+"_I_ did."
+
+"Mr. Maitland, why not be frank with me? My sole object is to capture a
+notorious burglar. I have no desire to meddle with your private affairs,
+but.... You may trust in my discretion. Who was the young lady?"
+
+"To conceal her identity," said Maitland, undisturbed, "is precisely why I
+have been lying to you."
+
+"You refuse us that information?"
+
+"Absolutely. I have no choice in the matter. You must see that."
+
+Snaith shook his head, baffled, infinitely perturbed, to Maitland's hidden
+delight.
+
+"Of course," said he, "the policeman at the ferry recognized me?"
+
+"You are well known to him," admitted Snaith. "But that is a side issue.
+What puzzles me is why you let Anisty escape. It is inconceivable."
+
+"From a police point of view."
+
+"From any point of view," said Snaith obstinately. "The man breaks into
+your house, steals your jewels--"
+
+"This is getting tiresome," Maitland interrupted curtly. "Is it possible
+that you suspect me of conniving at the theft of my own property?"
+
+Snaith's eyes were keen upon him. "Stranger things have been known. And
+yet--the motive is lacking. You are not financially embarrassed,--so far as
+we can determine, at least."
+
+Maitland politely interposed his fingers between his yawn and the
+detective's intent regard. "You have ten minutes more, I'm sorry to say,"
+he said; glancing at the clock.
+
+"And there is another point, more significant yet."
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"Yes." Snaith bent forward, elbows on knees, hat and cane swinging, eyes
+implacable, hard, relentless. "Anisty," he said slowly, "left a tolerably
+complete burglar's kit in your library."
+
+"Well--he's a burglar, isn't he?"
+
+"Not that kind." Snaith shook his head.
+
+"But his departure was somewhat hurried. I can conceive that he might
+abandon his kit--"
+
+"But it was not his."
+
+"Not Anisty's?"
+
+"Anisty does not depend on such antiquated methods, Mr. Maitland; save that
+in extreme instances, with a particularly stubborn safe, he employs a high
+explosive that, so far as we can find out, is practically noiseless. Its
+nature is a mystery.... But such old-fashioned strong-boxes as yours at
+Greenfields he opens by ear, so to speak,--listens to the combination.
+He was once an expert, reputably employed by a prominent firm of safe
+manufacturers, in whose service he gained the skill that has made him--what
+he is."
+
+"But,"--Maitland cast about at random, feeling himself cornered,--"may he
+not have had accomplices?"
+
+"He's no such fool. Unless he has gone mad, he worked alone. I presume you
+discovered no accomplice?"
+
+"I? The devil, no!"
+
+Snaith smiled mysteriously, then fell thoughtful, pondering.
+
+"You are an enigma," he said, at length. "I can not understand why you
+refuse us all information, when I consider that the jewels were yours--"
+
+"Are mine," Maitland corrected.
+
+"No longer."
+
+"I beg your pardon; I have them."
+
+Snaith shook his head, smiling incredulously. Maitland flushed with
+annoyance and resentment, then on impulse rose and strode into the
+adjoining bedroom, returning with a small canvas bag.
+
+"You shall see for yourself," he said, depositing the bag on the desk and
+fumbling with the draw-string. "If you will be kind enough to step over
+here--"
+
+Mr. Snaith, still unconvinced, hesitated, then assented, halting a brief
+distance from Maitland and toying abstractedly with his cane while the
+young man plucked at the draw-string.
+
+"Deuced tight knot, this," commented Maitland, annoyed.
+
+"No matter. Don't trouble, please. I'm quite satisfied, believe me."
+
+"Oh, you are!"
+
+Maitland turned; and in the act of turning, the loaded head of the cane
+landed with crushing force upon his temple.
+
+For an instant he stood swaying, eyes closed, face robbed of every vestige
+of color, deep lines of agony graven in his forehead and about his mouth;
+then fell like a lifeless thing, limp and invertebrate.
+
+The _soi-disant_ Mr. Snaith caught him and let him gently and without sound
+to the floor.
+
+"Poor fool!" he commented, kneeling to make a hasty examination. "Hope I
+haven't done for him.... It would be the first time.... Bad precedent!...
+So! He's all right--conscious within an hour.... Too soon!" he added,
+standing and looking down. "Well, turn about's fair play."
+
+He swung on his heel and entered the hallway, pausing at the door long
+enough to shoot the bolt; then passed hastily through the other chambers,
+searching, to judge by his manner.
+
+In the end a closed door attracted him; he jerked it open, with an
+exclamation of relief. It gave upon a large bare room, used by Maitland as
+a trunk-closet. Here were stout leather straps and cords in ample measure.
+"Mr. Snaith" selected one from them quickly but with care, choosing the
+strongest.
+
+In two more minutes, Maitland, trussed, gagged, still unconscious, and
+breathing heavily, occupied a divan in his smoking-room, while his
+assailant, in the bedroom, ears keen to catch the least sound from
+with-out, was rapidly and cheerfully arraying himself in the Maitland
+grey-striped flannels and accessories--even to the grey socks which had
+been specified.
+
+"The less chances one takes, the better," soliloquized "Mr. Snaith."
+
+He stood erect, in another man's shoes, squaring back his shoulders,
+discarding the disguising stoop, and confronted his image in a pier-glass.
+
+"Good enough Maitland," he commented, with a little satisfied nod to his
+counterfeit presentment. "But we'll make it better still."
+
+A single quick jerk denuded his upper lip; he stowed the mustache carefully
+away in his breast pocket. The moistened corner of a towel made quick work
+of the crow's-feet about his eyes, and, simultaneously, robbed him of a
+dozen apparent years. A pair of yellow chamois gloves, placed conveniently
+on a dressing table, covered hands that no art could make resemble
+Maitland's. And it was Daniel Maitland who studied himself in the
+pier-glass.
+
+Contented, the criminal returned to the smoking-room. A single glance
+assured him that his victim was still dead to the world. He sat down at
+the desk, drew off the gloves, and opened the bag; a peep within which was
+enough. With a deep and slow intake of breath he knotted the draw-string
+and dropped the bag into his pocket. A jeweled cigarette case of unique
+design shared the same fate.
+
+Quick eyes roaming the desk observed the telegram form upon which Maitland
+had written Cressy's name and address. Momentarily perplexed, the thief
+pondered this; then, with a laughing oath, seized the pen and scribbled,
+with no attempt to imitate the other's handwriting, a message:
+
+_"Regret unavoidable detention. Letter of explanation follows."_
+
+To this Maitland's name was signed. "That ought to clear him neatly, if I
+understand the emergency."
+
+The thief rose, folding the telegraph blank, and returned to the bedroom,
+taking up his hat and the murderous cane as he went. Here he gathered
+together all the articles of clothing that he had discarded, conveying the
+mass to the trunk-room, where an empty and unlocked kit-bag received it
+all.
+
+"That, I think, is about all."
+
+He was very methodical, this criminal, this Anisty. Nothing essential
+escaped him. He rejoiced in the minutiae of detail that went to cover up
+his tracks so thoroughly that his campaigns were as remarkable for the
+clues he did leave with malicious design, as for those that he didn't.
+
+One final thing held his attention: a bowl of hammered brass, inverted
+beneath a ponderous book, upon the desk. Why? In a twinkling he had removed
+both and was studying the impression of a woman's hand in the dust, and
+nodding over it.
+
+"That girl," deduced Anisty. "Novice, poor little fool!--or she wouldn't
+have wasted time searching here for the jewels. Good looker, though--from
+what little _he_"--with a glance at Maitland--"gave me a chance to see of
+her. Seems to have snared him, all right, if she did miss the haul....
+Little idiot! What right has a woman in this business, anyway? Well, here's
+one thing that will never land me in the pen."
+
+As, with nice care, he replaced both bowl and book, a door slammed below
+stairs took him to the hall in an instant. Maitland's Panama was hanging on
+the hat-rack, Maitland's collection of walking-sticks bristled in a stand
+beneath it. Anisty appropriated the former and chose one of the latter.
+"Fair exchange," he considered with a harsh laugh. "After all, he loses
+nothing ... but the jewels."
+
+He was out and at the foot of the stairs just as O'Hagan reached the ground
+floor from the basement.
+
+"Ah, O'Hagan!" The assumption of Maitland's ironic drawl was impeccable.
+O'Hagan no more questioned it than he questioned his own sanity. "Here,
+send this wire at once, please; and," pressing a coin into the ready palm,
+"keep the change. I was hurried and didn't bother to call you. And, I say,
+O'Hagan!" from the outer door:
+
+"Yissor."
+
+"If that fellow Snaith ever calls again, I'm not at home."
+
+"Very good, sor."
+
+Anisty permitted himself the slightest of smiles, pausing on the stoop to
+draw on the chamois gloves. As he did so his eye flickered disinterestedly
+over the personality of a man standing on the opposite walk and staring
+at the apartment house. He was a short man, of stoutish habit, sloppily
+dressed, with a derby pulled down over one eye, a cigar-butt protruding
+arrogantly from beneath a heavy black mustache, beefy cheeks, and
+thick-soled boots dully polished.
+
+At sight of him the thief was conscious of an inward tremor, followed by
+a thrill of excitement like a wave of heat sweeping through his being.
+Instantaneously his eyes flashed; then were dulled. Imperturbable,
+listless, hall-marked the prey of ennui, he waited, undecided, upon
+the stoop, while the watcher opposite, catching sight of him, abruptly
+abandoned his slouch and hastened across the street.
+
+"Excuse me" he began in a loud tone, while yet a dozen feet away, "but
+ain't this Mr. Maitland?"
+
+Anisty lifted his brows and shoulders at one and the same time and bowed
+slightly.
+
+"Well, my good man?"
+
+"I'm a detective from Headquarters, Mr. Maitland. We got a 'phone from
+Greenfields, Long Island, this morning--from the local police. Your
+butler----"
+
+"Ah! I see; about this man Anisty? You don't mean to tell me--what? I shall
+discharge Higgins at once. Just on my way to breakfast. Won't you join me?
+We can talk this matter over at our leisure. What do you say to Eugene's?
+It's handy, and I dare say we can find a quiet corner. By the way, have you
+the time concealed about your person?"
+
+Anisty was fumbling in his fob-pocket and inwardly cursing himself for
+having been such an ass as to overlook Maitland's timepiece. "Deuced
+awkward!" he muttered in genuine annoyance. "I've mislaid my watch."
+
+"It's 'most one o'clock, Mr. Maitland."
+
+Flattered, the man from Headquarters dropped, into step by the burglar's
+side.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+EUGENE'S AT TWO
+
+"Since we don't want to be overheard," remarked Mr. Anisty, "it's no
+use trying the grill-room down-stairs, although I admit it is more
+interesting."
+
+"Just as yeh say, sir."
+
+Awed and awkward, the police detective stumbled up the steps behind his
+imperturbable guide; it was a great honor, in his eyes, to lunch in company
+with a "swell." Man of stodgy common-sense and limited education that he
+was, the glamour of the Maitland millions obscured his otherwise clear
+vision completely. And uneasily he speculated as to whether or not he would
+be able to manipulate correctly the usual display of knives and forks.
+
+An obsequious head-waiter greeted them, bowing, in the lobby. "Good
+afternoon, Mr. Maitland," he murmured. "Table for two?"
+
+"Good afternoon," responded the masquerader, with an assumed abstraction,
+inwardly congratulating himself upon having hit upon a restaurant where the
+real Maitland was evidently known. There were few circumstances which he
+could not turn to profit, fewer emergencies to which he could not rise, he
+complimented Handsome Dan Anisty.
+
+"A table for two," he drawled Maitland-wise, "In a corner somewhere, away
+from the crowd, you know."
+
+"This way, if you please, Mr. Maitland."
+
+"By the way," suggested the burglar, unfolding his serviette and glancing
+keenly about the room,--which, by good chance, was thinly populated, "by
+the way, you know, you haven't told me your name yet."
+
+"Hickey--John W. Hickey, Detective Bureau."
+
+"Thank you." A languid hand pushed the pink menu card across the table to
+Mr. Hickey. "And what do you see that you'd like?"
+
+"Well...." Hickey became conscious that both unwieldy feet were nervously
+twined about the legs of his chair; blushed; disentangled them; and in
+an attempt to cover his confusion, plunged madly into consideration of
+a column of _table-d'hote_ French, not one word of which conveyed the
+slightest particle of information to his intelligence.
+
+"Well," he repeated, and moistened his lips. The room seemed suddenly very
+hot, notwithstanding the fact that an obnoxious electric fan was sending a
+current of cool air down the back of his neck.
+
+"I ain't," he declared in ultimate desperation, "hungry, much. Had a bite a
+little while back, over to the Gilsey House bar."
+
+"Would a little drink----?"
+
+"Thanks. I don't mind."
+
+"Waiter, bring Mr. Hickey a bottle of Number Seventy-two. For me--let me
+see--_cafe au lait_," with a grand air, "and rolls.... You must remember
+this is my breakfast, Mr. Hickey. I make it a rule never to drink anything
+for six hours after rising." Anisty selected a cigarette from the Maitland
+case, lit it, and contemplated the detective's countenance with a winning
+smile. "Now, as to this Anisty affair last night...."
+
+Under the stimulus of the champagne, to say naught of his relief at having
+evaded the ordeal of the cutlery, Hickey discoursed variously and at length
+upon the engrossing subject of Anisty, gentleman-cracksman, while the
+genial counterpart of Daniel Maitland listened with apparent but deceptive
+apathy, and had much ado to keep from laughing in his guest's face as the
+latter, perspiringly earnest, unfolded his plans for laying the burglar by
+the heels.
+
+From time to time, and at intervals steadily decreasing, the hand of the
+host sought the neck of the bottle, inclining it carefully above the
+thin-stemmed glass that Hickey kept in almost constant motion. And the
+detective's fatuous loquacity flowed as the contents of the bottle ebbed.
+
+Yet, as the minutes wore on, the burglar began to be conscious that it was
+but a shallow well of information and amusement that he pumped. The game,
+fascinating with its spice of daring as it had primarily been, began to
+pall. At length the masquerader calculated the hour as ripe for what he
+had contemplated from the beginning; and interrupted Hickey with scant
+consideration, in the middle of a most interesting exposition.
+
+"You'll pardon me, I'm sure, if I trouble you again for the time."
+
+The fat red fingers sought uncertainly for the timepiece: the bottle was
+now empty. The hour, as announced, was ten minutes to two.
+
+"I've an engagement," invented Anisty plausibly, "with a friend at two. If
+you'll excuse me----? _Garcon, l'addition!_"
+
+"Then I und'stand, Mister Maitland, we e'n count on yeh?"
+
+Anisty, eyelids drooping, tipped back his chair a trifle and regarded
+Hickey with a fair imitation of the whimsical Maitland smile. "Hardly, I
+think."
+
+"Why not?"--truculently.
+
+"To be frank with you, I have three excellent reasons. The first should be
+sufficient: I'm too lazy."
+
+Disgruntled, Hickey stared and shook a disapproving head. "I was afraid
+of that; yeh swells don't never seem to think nothin' of yer duties to
+soci'ty."
+
+Anisty airily waved the indictment aside. "Moreover, I have lost nothing.
+You see, I happened in just at the right moment; our criminal friend got
+nothing for his pains. The jewels are safe. Reason Number Two: Having
+retained my property, I hold no grudge against Anisty."
+
+"Well--I dunno--"
+
+"And as for reason Number Three: I don't care to have this affair
+advertised. If the papers get hold of it they'll cook up a lot of silly
+details that'll excite the cupidity of every thief in the country, and make
+me more trouble than I care to--ah--contemplate."
+
+Hickey's eyes glistened. "Of course, if yeh want it kept quiet--" he
+suggested significantly.
+
+Anisty's hand sought his pocket. "How much?"
+
+"Well, I guess I can leave that to you. Yeh oughttuh know how bad yeh want
+the matter hushed."
+
+"As I calculate it, then, fifty ought to be enough for the boys; and fifty
+will repay you for your trouble."
+
+The end of Hickey's expensive panetela was tilted independently toward the
+ceiling. "Shouldn't wonder if it would," he murmured, gratified.
+
+Anisty stuffed something bulky back into his pocket and wadded another
+something--green and yellow colored--into a little pill, which he presently
+flicked carelessly across the table. The detective's large mottled paw
+closed over it and moved toward his waistcoat.
+
+"As I was sayin'," he resumed, "I'm sorry yeh don't see yer way to givin'
+us a hand. But p'rhaps yeh're right. Still, if the citizens'd only give us
+a hand onct in a while----"
+
+"Ah, but what gives you your living, Hickey?" argued the amateur sophist.
+"What but the activities of the criminal element? If society combined with
+you for the elimination of crime, what would become of your job?"
+
+He rose and wrung the disconsolate one warmly by the hand. "But there, I am
+sorry I have to hurry you away.... Now that you know where to find me, drop
+in some evening and have a cigar and a chat. I'm in town a good deal, off
+and on, and always glad to see a friend."
+
+At another time, and with another man, Anisty would not have ventured to
+play his catch so roughly; but, as he had reckoned, the comfortable state
+of mind induced by an unexpected addition to his income and a quart of
+champagne, had dulled the official apprehensions of Sergeant Hickey.
+
+Mumbling a vague acceptance of the too-genial invitation, the exalted
+detective rose and ambled cheerfully down the room and out of the door.
+
+Anisty lit another cigarette and contemplated the future with satisfaction.
+As a diplomat he was inclined to hold himself a success. Indeed, all things
+taken under mature consideration, the conclusion was inevitable that he was
+the very devil of a fellow. With what consummate skill he had played his
+hand! Now the pursuit of the Maitland burglar would be abandoned; the news
+item suppressed at Headquarters. And it was equally certain that Maitland
+(when eventually liberated) would be at pains to keep his part of the
+affair very much in shadow.
+
+The masquerader ventured a mystical smile at the world in general.
+One pictured the evening when the infatuated detective should find it
+convenient to drop in on the exclusive Mr. Maitland....
+
+"Mr. Anisty?"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+ILLUMINATION
+
+In a breath was self-satisfaction banished; simultaneously the masquerader
+brought his gaze down from the ceiling, his thoughts to earth, his
+vigilance to the surface, and himself to his feet, summoning to his aid all
+that he possessed of resource and expedient.
+
+Trapped!--the word blazed incandescent in his brain. So long had he
+foreseen and planned against this very moment.
+
+Yet panic swayed him for but a little instant; as swiftly as it had
+overcome him it subsided, leaving him shocked, a shade more pale, but
+rapidly reasserting control of his faculties. And with this shade of
+emotion came complete reassurance.
+
+His name had been uttered in no stern or menacing tone; rather its
+syllables had been pitched in a low and guarded key, with an undernote of
+raillery and cordiality. In brief, the moment that he recognized the voice
+as a woman's, he was again master of himself, and, aware that the result of
+his instinctive impulse to rise and defend himself, which had brought him
+to a standing position, would be interpreted as only the natural action of
+a gentleman addressed by a feminine acquaintance, he was confident that he
+had not betrayed his primal consternation. He bowed, smiled, and with eyes
+in which astonishment swiftly gave place to gratification and complete
+comprehension, appraised her who had addressed him.
+
+She seemed to have fluttered to the table, beside which she now stood,
+slightly swaying, her walking costume of grey shot silk falling about her
+in soft, tremulous petals. Dainty, chic, well-poised, serene, flawlessly
+pretty in her miniature fashion: Anisty recognized her in a twinkling.
+His perceptions, trained to observations as instantaneous as those of
+a snap-shot camera, and well-nigh as accurate, had photographed her
+individuality indelibly upon the film of his memory, even in the
+abbreviated encounter of the previous night.
+
+By a similar play of educated reasoning faculties keyed to the highest
+pitch of immediate action, he had difficulty as scant in accounting for her
+presence there. What he did not quite comprehend was why Maitland had
+used her so kindly; for it had been plain enough that that gentleman had
+surprised her in the act of safe-breaking before conniving at her escape.
+But, allowing that Maitland's actions had been based upon motives vague to
+the burglar's understanding, it was quite in the scheme of possibilities
+that he should have arranged to meet his protegee at the restaurant that
+afternoon. She was come to keep an appointment to which (now that
+Anisty came to remember) Maitland had alluded in the beginning of their
+conversation.
+
+Well and good: once before, within the past two hours, he had told himself
+that he was Good-enough Maitland. He would be even better now....
+
+"But you did surprise me!" he declared gallantly, before she could wonder
+at his slowness to respond. "You see, I was dreaming...."
+
+He permitted her to surmise the object round which his dreams had been
+woven.
+
+"And I had expected you to be eagerly watching for me!" she parried archly.
+
+"I was ... mentally. But," he warned her seriously, "not that name.
+Maitland is known here; they call me Maitland--the waiters. It seems I made
+a bad choice. But with your assistance and discretion we can bluff it out,
+all right."
+
+"I forgot. Forgive me." By now she was in the chair opposite him, tucking
+the lower ends of her gloves into their wrists.
+
+"No matter--nobody heard."
+
+"I very nearly called you Handsome Dan." She flashed a radiant smile at him
+from beneath the rim of her picture hat.
+
+A fire was kindled in Anisty's eyes; he was conscious of a quickened
+drumming of his pulses.
+
+"Dan is Maitland's front name, also," he remarked absently.
+
+"I thought as much," she responded, quietly speculative.
+
+The burglar hardly heard. It has been indicated that he was quick-witted,
+because he had to be, in the very nature of his avocation. Just now his
+brain was working rather more rapidly than usual, even: which was one
+reason why the light had leaped into his eyes.
+
+It was very plain--to a deductive reasoner--from the girl's attitude toward
+him that she had fallen into relations of uncommon friendliness with this
+Maitland, young as Anisty believed their acquaintance to be. There had
+plainly been a flirtation--wherein lay the explanation of Maitland's
+forbearance: he had been fascinated by the woman, had not hesitated to take
+Anisty's name (even as Anisty was then taking his) in order to prolong
+their intimacy.
+
+So much the better. Turn-about was still fair play. Maitland had sown as
+Anisty; the real Anisty would reap the harvest. Pretty women interested
+him deeply, though he saw little enough of them, partly through motives of
+prudence, partly because of a refinement of taste: women of the class of
+this conquest-by-proxy were out of reach of the enemy of society. That is,
+under ordinary circumstances. This one, on the contrary, was not: whatever
+she was or had been, however successful a crackswoman she might be, her
+cultivation and breeding were as apparent as her beauty; and quite as
+attractive.
+
+A criminal is necessarily first a gambler, a votary of Chance; and the
+blind goddess had always been very kind to Mr. Anisty. He felt that here
+again she was favoring him. Maitland he had eliminated from this girl's
+life; Maitland had failed to keep his engagement, and so would never again
+be called upon to play the part of burglar with her interest for incentive
+and guerdon. Anisty himself could take up where Maitland had left off.
+Easily enough. The difficulties were insignificant: he had only to play
+up to Maitland's standard for a while, to be Maitland with all that
+gentleman's advantages, educational and social, then gradually drop back to
+his own level and be himself, Dan Anisty, "Handsome Dan," the professional,
+the fit mate for the girl....
+
+What was she saying?
+
+"But you have lunched already!" with an appealing pout.
+
+"Indeed, no!" he protested earnestly. "I was early--conceive my
+eagerness!--and by ill chance a friend of mine insisted upon lunching with
+me. I had only a cup of coffee and a roll." He motioned to the waiter,
+calling him "Waiter!" rather than "_Garcon!_"----intuitively understanding
+that Maitland would never have aired his French in a public place, and that
+he could not afford the least slip before a woman as keen as this.
+
+"Lay a clean cloth and bring the bill of fare," he demanded, tempering his
+lordly instincts and adding the "please" that men of Maitland's stamp use
+to inferiors.
+
+"A friend!" tardily echoed the girl when the servant was gone.
+
+He laughed lightly, determined to be frank. "A detective, in point of
+fact," said he. And enjoyed her surprise.
+
+"You have many such?"
+
+"For convenience one tries to have one in each city."
+
+"And this----?"
+
+"Oh, I have him fixed, all right. He confided to me all the latest
+developments and official intentions with regard to the Maitland arrest."
+
+Her eyes danced. "Tell me!" she demanded, imperious: the emphasis of
+intimacy irresistible as she bent forward, forearms on the cloth, slim
+white hands clasped with tense impatience, eyes seeking his.
+
+"Why ... of course Maitland escaped."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Fact. Scared the butler into ungagging him; then, in a fit of pardonable
+rage, knocked that fool down and dashed out of the window--presumably in
+pursuit of us. Up to a late hour he hadn't returned, and police opinion is
+divided as to whether Maitland arrested Anisty, and Anisty got away, or
+_vice versa_."
+
+"Excellent!" She clasped her hands noiselessly, a gay little gesture.
+
+"So, whatever the outcome, one thing is certain: Higgins will presently be
+seeking another berth."
+
+She lifted her brows prettily. "Higgins?"--with the rising inflection.
+
+"The butler. Didn't you hear----?"
+
+Eyes wondering, she moved her head slowly from side to side. "Hear what?"
+
+"I fancied that you had waited a moment on the veranda," he finessed.
+
+"Oh, I was quite too frightened...."
+
+He took this for a complete denial. Better and better! He had actually
+feared that she had eaves-dropped, however warrantably; and Maitland's
+authoritative way with the servants had been too convincingly natural to
+have deceived a woman of her keen wits.
+
+There followed a lull while Anisty was ordering the luncheon: something he
+did elaborately and with success, telling himself humorously: "Hang the
+expense! Maitland pays." Of which fact the weight in his pocket was
+assurance.
+
+Maitland.... Anisty's thoughts verged off upon an interesting tangent. What
+was Maitland's motive in arranging this meeting? It was self-evident that
+the twain were of one world--the girl and the man of fashion. But, whatever
+her right of heritage, she had renounced it, declassing herself by yielding
+to thievish instincts, voluntarily placing herself on the level of Anisty.
+Where she must remain, for ever.
+
+There was comfort in that reflection. He glanced up to find her eyes bent
+in gravity upon him. She, too, it appeared, had fallen a prey to reverie.
+Upon what subject? An absorbing one, doubtless, since it held her
+abstracted despite her companion's direct, unequivocally admiring stare.
+
+The odd light was flickering again in the cracks-man's glance. She was then
+more beautiful than aught that ever he had dreamed of. Such hair as
+was hers, woven seemingly of dull flames, lambent, witching! And
+eyes!--beautiful always, but never more so than at this moment, when
+filled with sweetly pensive contemplation.... Was she reviewing the last
+twenty-four hours, dreaming of what had passed between her and that silly
+fool, Maitland? If only Anisty could surmise what they had said to each
+other, how long they had been acquainted; if only she would give him a
+hint, a leading word!...
+
+If he could have read her mind, have seen behind the film of thought that
+clouded her eyes, one fears Mr. Anisty might have lost appetite for an
+excellent luncheon. For she was studying his hands, her memory harking
+back to the moment when she had stood beside the safe, holding the
+bull's-eye....
+
+In the blackness of that hour a disk of light shone out luridly against the
+tapestry of memory. Within its radius appeared two hands, long, supple,
+strong, immaculately white, graceful and dexterous, as delicate of contour
+as a woman's, yet lacking nothing of masculine vigor and modeling; hands
+that wavered against the blackness, fumbling with the shining nickeled
+disk of a combination-lock.... The impression had been and remained one
+extraordinarily vivid. Could her eyes have deceived her so?...
+
+"Thoughtful?"
+
+She nodded alertly, instantaneously mistress of self; and let her gaze,
+serious yet half smiling, linger upon his the exact fractional shade of an
+instant longer than had been, perhaps, discreet. Then lashes drooped long
+upon her cheeks, and her color deepened all but imperceptibly.
+
+The man's breath halted, then came a trace more rapidly than before. He
+bent forward impulsively.
+
+... The girl sighed, ever so gently.
+
+"I was thoughtful.... It's all so strange, you know."
+
+His attitude was an eager question.
+
+"I mean our meeting--that way, last night." She held his gaze again,
+momentarily, and----
+
+"Damn the waiter!" quoth savagely Mr. Anisty to his inner man, sitting back
+to facilitate the service of their meal.
+
+The girl placated him with an insignificant remark which led both into a
+maze of meaningless but infinitely diverting inconsequences; diverting, at
+least, to Anisty, who held up his head, giving her back look for look,
+jest for jest, platitude for platitude (when the waiter was within hearing
+distance): altogether, he felt, acquitting himself very creditably....
+
+As for the girl, in the course of the next half or three-quarters of an
+hour she demonstrated herself conclusively a person of amazing resource,
+developing with admirable ingenuity a campaign planned on the spur of a
+chance observation. The gentle mannered and self-sufficient crook was taken
+captive before he realized it, however willing he may have been. Enmeshed
+in a hundred uncomprehended subtleties, he basked, purring, the while
+she insinuated herself beneath his guard and stripped him of his entire
+armament of cunning, vigilance, invention, suspicion, and distrust.
+
+He relinquished them without a sigh, barely conscious of the spoliation.
+After all, she was of his trade, herself mired with guilt; she would never
+dare betray him, the consequences to herself would be so dire.
+
+Besides, patently,--almost too much so,--she admired him. He was her hero.
+Had she not more than hinted that such was the case, that his example, his
+exploits, had fired her to emulation--however weakly feminine?... He saw
+her before him, dainty, alluring, yielding, yet leading him on: altogether
+desirable. And so long had he, Anisty, starved for affection!...
+
+"I am sure you must be dying for a smoke."
+
+"Beg pardon!" He awoke abruptly, to find himself twirling the sharp-ribbed
+stem of his empty glass. Abstractedly he stared into this, as though
+seeking there a clue to what they had been talking about. Hazily he
+understood that they had been drifting close upon the perilous shoals of
+intimate personalities. What had he told her? What had he not?
+
+No matter. It was clearly to be seen that her regard for him had waxed
+rather than waned as a result of their conversation. One had but to
+look into her eyes to be reassured as to that. One did look, breathing
+heavily.... What an ingenuous child it was, to show him her heart so
+freely! He wondered that this should be so, feeling it none the less a just
+and graceful tribute to his fascinations.
+
+She repeated her arch query. She was sure he wanted to smoke.
+
+Indeed he did--if she would permit? And forthwith Maitland's cigarette case
+was produced, with a flourish.
+
+"What a beautiful case!"
+
+In an instant it was in her hands. "Beautiful!" she iterated, inspecting
+the delicate tracery of the monogram engraver's art--head bended forward,
+face shaded by the broad-brimmed hat.
+
+"You like it? You would care to own it?" Anisty demanded unsteadily.
+
+"I?" The inflection of doubtful surprise was a delight to the ear. "Oh!...
+I couldn't think of accepting.... Besides, I have no use for it."
+
+"Of course you ain't--_are_ not that sort." An hour back he could have
+kicked himself for the grammatical blunder; now he was wholly illuded;
+besides, she didn't seem to notice. "But as a little token--between us----"
+
+She drew back, pushing the case across the cloth; "I couldn't dream...."
+
+"But if I insist----?"
+
+"If you insist?... Why I suppose ... it's awfully good of you." She flashed
+him a maddening glance.
+
+"You do me pro--honor," he amended hastily. Then, daringly: "I don't ask
+much in exchange, only----"
+
+"A cigarette?" she suggested hastily.
+
+He laughed, pleased and diverted. "That'll be enough now--if you'll light
+it for me."
+
+She glanced dubiously round the now almost deserted room; and a waiter
+started forward as if animated by a spring. Anisty motioned him imperiously
+back. "Go on," he coaxed; "no one can see." And watched, flattered, the
+slim white fingers that extracted a match from the stand and drew it
+swiftly down the prepared surface of the box, holding the flickering flame
+to the end of a white tube whose tip lay between lips curved, scarlet, and
+pouting.
+
+There! A pale wraith of smoke floated away on the fan-churned air, and
+Anisty was vaguely conscious of receiving the glowing cigarette from a hand
+whose sheer perfection was but enhanced by the ripe curves of a rounded
+forearm.... He inhaled deeply, with satisfaction.
+
+Undetected by him, the girl swiftly passed a furtive handkerchief across
+her lips. When he looked again she was smiling and the golden case had
+disappeared.
+
+She shook her head at him in mock reproval. "Bold man!" she called him; but
+the crudity of it was lost upon him, as she had believed it would be. The
+moment had come for vigorous measures, she felt, guile having paved the
+way.
+
+"Why do you call me that?"
+
+"To appear so openly, running the gauntlet of the detectives...."
+
+"Eh?"--startled.
+
+"Of course you saw," she insisted.
+
+"Saw? No. Saw what?"
+
+"Why.... Perhaps I am mistaken, but I thought you knew and trusted to your
+likeness to Mr. Maitland...."
+
+Anisty frowned, collecting himself, bewildered. "What are you driving at,
+anyhow?" he demanded roughly.
+
+"Didn't you see the detectives? I should have thought your man would have
+warned you. I noticed four loitering round the entrance, as I came in, and
+feared...."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, then?"
+
+"I have just told you the reason. I supposed you were in your disguise...."
+
+"That's so." The alarmed expression gradually faded, though he remained
+troubled. "I sure am Maitland to the life," he continued with satisfaction.
+"Even the head-waiter----"
+
+"And of course," she insinuated delicately, "you have disposed of the
+loot?"
+
+He shook his head gloomily. "No time, as yet."
+
+Her dismay was evident. "You don't mean to say----?"
+
+"In my pocket."
+
+"Oh!" She glanced stealthily around. "In your pocket!" she whispered.
+"And--and if they stopped you----"
+
+"I am Maitland."
+
+"But if they insisted on searching you...." She was round-eyed with
+apprehension.
+
+"That's so!" Her perturbation was infectious. His jaw dropped.
+
+"They would find the jewels--known to be stolen----"
+
+"By God!" he cried savagely.
+
+"Dan!"
+
+"I--I beg your pardon. But ... what am I to do? You are sure----?"
+
+"McClusky himself is on the nearest corner!"
+
+"_Phew_!" he whistled; and stared at her, searchingly, through a
+lengthening pause.
+
+"Dan...." said she at length.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"There is a way...."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"Last night, Dan"--she raised her glorious eyes to his--"last night, I ...
+I trusted you."
+
+His face hardened ever so slightly; yet when he took thought the tense
+lines about his eyes and mouth softened. And she drew a deep breath,
+knowing that she had all but won.
+
+"I trusted you," she continued softly. "Do you know what that means? I
+trusted _you_."
+
+He nodded, eyes to hers, fascinated, with an odd commingling of fear and
+hope and satisfied self-love. "Now I am unconnected with the affair. No one
+knows that I had any hand in it. Besides, no one knows me--that I--steal."
+Her tone fell lower. "The police have never heard of me. Dan!"
+
+"I--believe----"
+
+"I could get away," she interrupted; "and then, if they stopped you----"
+
+"You're right, by the powers!" He struck the table smartly with his fist.
+"You do that and we can carry this through. Why, lacking the jewels, I _am_
+Maitland--I am even wearing Maitland's clothes!" he boasted. "I went to his
+apartments this morning and saw to that, because it suited my purpose to
+_be_ Maitland for a day or two."
+
+"Then----?" Her gaze questioned his.
+
+"Waiter!" cried Anisty. And, when the man was deferential at his elbow:
+"Call a cab, at once, please."
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+The rest of the corps of servants was at the other end of the big room.
+Anisty made certain that they were not watching, then stealthily passed the
+canvas bag to the girl. She bent her head, bestowing it in her hand-bag.
+
+"You have made me ... happy, Dan," came tremulously from beneath the
+hat-brim.
+
+Whatever doubts may have assailed him when it was too late, by that remark
+were effaced, silenced. Who could mistrust her sincerity?...
+
+"Then when and where may I see you again?" he demanded.
+
+"The same place."
+
+It was a bold move; but she was standing; the waiter was back, announcing
+the cab in waiting, and he dared not protest. Yet his pat _riposte_
+commanded her admiration.
+
+"No. Too risky. If they are watching here, they may be there, too." He
+shook his head decidedly. The flicker of doubt was again extinguished; for
+undoubtedly Maitland had escorted her home that morning; her reference had
+been to that place. "Somewhere else," he insisted, confident that she was
+playing fair.
+
+She appeared to think for an instant, then, fumbling in her pocket-book,
+extracted a typical feminine pencil stub,--its business-end looking as
+though it had been gnawed by a vindictive rat,--and scribbled hastily on
+the back of a menu card:
+
+"_Mrs. McCabe, 205 West 118th Street. Top floor. Ring 3 times._"
+
+"I shall be there at seven," she told him. "You won't fail me?"
+
+"Not if I'm still at liberty," he laughed.
+
+And the waiter smiled at discretion, a far-away and unobtrusive smile that
+could by no possibility give offense; at the same time it was calculated to
+convey the impression that, in the opinion of one humble person, at least,
+Mr. Maitland was a merry wag.
+
+"Good-by ... Dan!"
+
+Anisty held her fingers in his hard palm for an instant, rising from his
+chair.
+
+"Good-by, my dear," he said clumsily.
+
+He watched her disappear, eyes humid, temples throbbing. "By the powers!"
+he cried. "But she's worth it!"
+
+Perhaps his meaning was vague, even to himself. He resumed his seat
+mechanically and sat for a time staring dreamily into vacancy, blunt
+fingers drumming on the cloth.
+
+"No," he declared at length. "No; I'm safe enough ... in _her_ hands."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once secure from the public gaze, the girl crowded back into a corner
+of the cab, as though trying to efface herself. Her eyes closed almost
+automatically; the curve of laughing lips became a doleful droop; a crinkle
+appeared between the arched brows; waves of burning crimson flooded her
+face and throat.
+
+In her lap both hands lay clenched into tiny fists--clenched so tightly
+that it hurt, numbing her fingers: a physical pain that, somehow, helped
+her to endure the paroxysms of shame. That she should have stooped so
+low!...
+
+Presently the fingers relaxed, and her whole frame relaxed in sympathy. The
+black squall had passed over; but now were the once tranquil waters ruffled
+and angry. Then languor gripped her like an enemy: she lay listless in its
+hold, sick and faint with disgust of self.
+
+This was her all-sufficient punishment: to have done what she had done, to
+be about to do what she contemplated. For she had set her hand to the plow:
+there must now be no drawing back, however hateful might prove her task....
+
+The voice of the cabby dropping through the trap, roused her. "This is the
+Martha Washington, ma'am."
+
+Mechanically she descended from the hansom and paid her fare; then,
+summoning up all her strength and resolution, passed into the lobby of the
+hotel and paused at the telephone switchboard.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+DANCE OF THE HOURS
+
+Four P. M.
+
+The old clock in a corner of the study chimed resonantly and with
+deliberation: four double strokes; and while yet the deep-throated music
+was dying into silence the telephone bell shrieked impertinently.
+
+Maitland bit savagely on the gag and knotted his brows, trying to bear it.
+The effect was that of a coarse file rasped across raw quivering nerves.
+And he lay helpless, able to do no more toward endurance than to dig nails
+deep into his palms.
+
+Again and again the fiendish clamor shattered the echoes. Blinding flashes
+of agony danced down the white-hot wires strung through his head, taut from
+temple to temple.
+
+Would the fool at the other end never be satisfied that he could get no
+answer? Evidently not: the racket continued mercilessly, short series of
+shrill calls alternating with imperative rolls prolonged until one thought
+that the tortured metal sounding-cups would crack. Thought! nay, prayed
+that either such would be the case, or else that one's head might at once
+mercifully be rent asunder....
+
+That anguish so exquisite should be the means of releasing him from his
+bonds seemed a refinement of irony. Yet Maitland was aware, between
+spasms, that help was on the way. The telephone instrument, for obvious
+convenience, had been equipped with an extension bell which rang
+simultaneously in O'Hagan's quarters. When Maitland was not at home the
+janitor-valet, so warned, would answer the calls. And now, in the still
+intervals, the heavy thud of unhurried feet could be heard upon the
+staircase. O'Hagan was coming to answer; and taking his time about it. It
+seemed an age before the rattle of pass-key in latch announced him; and
+another ere, all unconscious of the figure supine on the divan against the
+further study wall, the old man shuffled to the instrument, lifted receiver
+from the hook, and applied it to his ear.
+
+"Well, well?" he demanded with that impatience characteristic of the
+illiterate for modern methods of communication. "Pwhat the divvle ails ye?"
+
+"Rayspicts to ye, ma'am, and 'tis sorry I am I didn't know 'twas a leddy."
+
+"He's _not_."
+
+"Wan o'clock, there or thereabouts."
+
+"Faith and he didn't say."
+
+"Pwhat name will I be tellin' him?"
+
+"Kape ut to yersilf, thin. 'Tis none of me business."
+
+"If ye do, I'll not answer. Sure, am I to be climbin' two flights av
+sthairs iv'ry foive minits----"
+
+"Good-by yersilf," hanging up the receiver. "And the divvle fly away wid
+ye," grumbled O'Hagan.
+
+As he turned away from the instrument Maitland managed to produce a sound,
+something between a moan and a strangled cough. The old man whirled on his
+heel. "Pwhat's thot?"
+
+The next instant he was bending over Maitland, peering into the face drawn
+and disfigured by the gag. "The saints presarve us! And who the divvle are
+ye at all? Pwhy don't ye spake?"
+
+Maitland turned purple; and emitted a furious snort.
+
+"Misther Maitland, be all thot's strange!... Is ut mad I am? Or how did
+ye get back here and into this fix, sor, and me swapin' the halls and
+polishin' the brasses fernist the front dure iv'ry minute since ye wint
+out?"
+
+Indignation struggling for the upper hand with mystification in the
+Irishman's brain, he grumbled and swore; yet busied his fingers. In a trice
+the binding gag was loosed, and ropes and straps cast free from swollen
+wrists and ankles. And, with the assistance of a kindly arm behind his
+shoulders, Maitland sat up, grinning with the pain of renewing circulation
+in his limbs.
+
+"Wid these two oies mesilf saw ye lave three hours gone, sor, and I c'u'd
+swear no sowl had intered this house since thin. Pwhat does ut all mane, be
+all thot's holy?"
+
+"It means," panting, "brandy and soda, O'Hagan, and be quick."
+
+Maitland attempted to rise, but his legs gave under him, and he sank
+back with a stifled oath, resigning himself to wait the return of normal
+conditions. As for his head, it was threatening to split at any moment, the
+tight wires twanging infernally between his temples; while the corners of
+his mouth were cracked and sore from the pressure of the gag. All of which
+totted up a considerable debit against Mr. Anisty's account.
+
+For Maitland, despite his suffering, had found time to figure it out to his
+personal satisfaction--or dissatisfaction, if you prefer--in the interval
+between his return to consciousness and the arrival of O'Hagan. It was
+simple enough to deduce from the knowledge in his possession that the
+burglar, having contrived his escape through the disobedience of Higgins,
+should have engineered this complete revenge for the indignity Maitland had
+put upon him.
+
+How he had divined the fact of the jewels remaining in their owner's
+possession was less clear; and yet it was reasonable, after all, to presume
+that Maitland should prefer to hold his own. Possibly Anisty had seen
+the girl slip the canvas bag into Maitland's pocket while the latter was
+kneeling and binding his captive. However that was, there was no denying
+that he had trailed the treasure to its hiding-place, unerringly; and
+succeeded in taking possession of it with consummate skill and audacity.
+When Maitland came to think of it, he recalled distinctly the trend of the
+burglar's inquisition in the character of "Mr. Snaith," which had all been
+calculated to discover the location of the jewels. And, when he did recall
+this fact, and how easily he had been duped, Maitland could have ground his
+teeth in melodramatic rage--but for the circumstance that when first it
+occurred to him, such a feat was a physical impossibility, and even when
+ungagged the operation would have been painful to an extreme.
+
+Sipping the grateful drink which O'Hagan presently brought him, the young
+man pondered the case; with no pleasure in the prospect he foresaw. If
+Higgins had actually communicated the fact of Anisty's escape to the
+police, the entire affair was like to come out in the papers,--all of
+it, that is, that he could not suppress. But even figuring that he could
+silence Higgins and O'Hagan,--no difficult task: though he might be
+somewhat late with Higgins,--the most discreet imaginable explanation of
+his extraordinary conduct would make him the laughing stock of his circle
+of friends, to say nothing of a city that had been accustomed to speak of
+him as "Mad Maitland," for many a day. Unless....
+
+Ah, he had it! He could pretend (so long as it suited his purpose, at all
+events), to have been the man caught and left bound in Higgins' care.
+Simple enough: the knocking over of the butler would be ascribed to a
+natural ebullition of indignation, the subsequent flight to a hare-brained
+notion of running down the thief. And yet even that explanation had its
+difficulties. How was he to account for the fact that he had failed to
+communicate with the police--knowing that his treasure had been ravished?
+
+It was all very involved. Mr. Maitland returned the glass to O'Hagan
+and, cradling his head in his hands, racked his brains in vain for a
+satisfactory tale to tell. There were so many things to be taken into
+consideration. There was the girl in grey....
+
+Not that he had forgotten her for an instant; his fury raged but the higher
+at the thought that Anisty's interference had prevented his (Maitland's)
+keeping the engagement. Doubtless the girl had waited, then gone away in
+anger, believing that the man in whom she had placed faith had proved
+himself unworthy. And so he had lost her for ever, in all likelihood: they
+would never meet again.
+
+But that telephone call?
+
+"O'Hagan," demanded the haggard and distraught young man, "who was that on
+the wire just now?"
+
+Being a thoroughly trained servant, O'Hagan had waited that question in
+silence, a-quiver with impatience though he was. Now, his tongue unleashed,
+his words fairly stumbled on one another's heels in his anxiety to get them
+out in the least possible time. "Sure, an' 'twas a leddy, sor, be the v'ice
+av her, askin' were ye in, and mesilf havin' seen ye go out no longer ago
+thin wan o'clock and yersilf sayin' not a worrud about comin' back at all
+at all, pwhat was I to be tellin' her, aven if ye were lyin' there on the
+dievan all unbeknownest to me, which the same mesilf can not----"
+
+"Help!" pleaded the young man feebly, smiling. "One thing at a time,
+please, O'Hagan. Answer me one question: Did she give a name?"
+
+"She did not, sor, though mesilf----"
+
+"There, there! Wait a bit. I want to think."
+
+Of course she had given no name; it wouldn't be like her.... What was he
+thinking of, anyway? It could not have been the grey girl; for she knew him
+only as Anisty; she could never have thought him himself, Maitland.... But
+what other woman of his acquaintance did not believe him to be out of town?
+
+With a hopeless gesture, Maitland gave it up, conceding the mystery too
+deep for him, his intellect too feeble to grapple with all its infinite
+ramifications. The counsel he had given O'Hagan seemed most appropriate to
+his present needs: One thing at a time. And obviously the first thing that
+lay to his hand was the silencing of O'Hagan.
+
+Maitland rallied his wits to the task. "O'Hagan," said he, "this man,
+Snaith, who was here this afternoon, called himself a detective. As soon
+as we were alone he rapped me over the head with a loaded cane, and, I
+suspect, went through the flat stealing everything he could lay hands
+on.... Hand me my cigarette case, please."
+
+"'Tis gone, sor--'tis not on the desk, at laste, pwhere I saw ut last."
+
+"Ah! You see?... Now for reasons of my own, which I won't enter into, I
+don't want the affair to get out and become public. You understand? I want
+you to keep your mouth shut, until I give you permission to open it."
+
+"Very good, sor." The janitor-valet had previous experiences with
+Maitland's generosity in grateful memory; and shut his lips tightly in
+promise of virtuous reticence.
+
+"You won't regret it.... Now tell me what you mean by saying that you saw
+me go out at one this afternoon?"
+
+Again the flood gates were lifted; from the deluge of explanations and
+protestations Maitland extracted the general drift of narrative. And in the
+end held up his hand for silence.
+
+"I think I understand, now. You say he had changed to my grey suit?"
+
+O'Hagan darted into the bedroom, whence he emerged with confirmation of his
+statement.
+
+"'Tis gone, sor, an'--."
+
+"All right. But," with a rueful smile, "I'll take the liberty of
+countermanding Mr. Snaith's order. If he should call again, O'Hagan, I very
+much want to see him."
+
+"Faith, and 'tis mesilf will have a worrud or two to whispher in the ear av
+him, sor," announced O'Hagan grimly.
+
+"I'm afraid the opportunity will be lacking: ... You may fix me a hot
+bath now, O'Hagan, and put out my evening clothes. I'll dine at the club
+to-night and may not be back."
+
+And, rising, Maitland approached a mirror; before which he lingered for
+several minutes, cataloguing his injuries. Taken altogether, they amounted
+to little. The swelling of his wrists and ankles was subsiding gradually;
+there was a slight redness visible in the corners of his mouth, and a
+shadow of discoloration on his right temple--something that could be
+concealed by brushing his hair in a new way.
+
+"I think I shall do," concluded Maitland; "there's nothing to excite
+particular comment. The bulk of the soreness is inside."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seven P. M.
+
+"Time," said the short and thick-set man casually, addressing no one in
+particular.
+
+He shut the lid of his watch with a snap and returned the timepiece to his
+waistcoat pocket. Simultaneously he surveyed both sides of the short block
+between Seventh and St. Nicholas Avenues with one comprehensive glance.
+
+Presumably he saw nothing of interest to him. It was not a particularly
+interesting block, for that matter: though somewhat typical of the
+neighborhood. The north side was lined with five-story flat buildings,
+their dingy-red brick facades regularly broken by equally dingy brownstone
+stoops, as to the ground floor, by open windows as to those above. The
+south side was mostly taken up by a towering white apartment hotel with
+an ostentatious entrance; against one of whose polished stone pillars the
+short and thick-set man was lounging.
+
+The sidewalks, north and south, swarmed with children of assorted ages,
+playing with that ferocious energy characteristic of the young of Harlem;
+their blood-curdling cries and premature Fourth-of-July fireworks created
+an appalling din: to which, however, the more mature denizens had
+apparently become callous, through long endurance.
+
+Beyond the party-colored lights of a drug-store window on Seventh Avenue,
+the electric arcs were casting a sickly radiance upon the dusty leaves of
+the tree-lined drive. The avenue itself was crowded with motor-cars and
+horse-drawn pleasure vehicles, mostly bound up-town, their occupants
+seeking the cooler airs and wider spaces to be found beyond the Harlem
+River and along the Speedway. A few blocks to the west Cathedral Heights
+bulked like a great wall, wrapped in purple shadows, its jagged contour
+stark against an evening sky of suave old rose.
+
+The short and thick-set body, however, seemed to have no particular
+appreciation of the beauties of nature as exhibited by West One-hundred and
+Eighteenth Street on a summer's evening. If anything, he could
+apparently have desired a cooling breeze; for, after a moment's doubtful
+consideration, he unbuttoned his waistcoat and heaved a sigh of relief.
+
+Then, carefully shifting the butt of a dead cigar from one corner of his
+mouth to the other, where it was almost hidden by the jutting thatch of his
+black mustache, and drawing down over his eyes the brim of a rusty plug
+hat, he thrust fat hands into the pockets of his shabby trousers and
+lounged against the polished pillar even more energetically than before: if
+that were possible. An unromantic, apathetic figure, fitting so naturally
+into his surroundings as to demand no second look even from the most
+observant; yet one seeming to possess a magnetic attraction for the eyes of
+the hall-boy of the apartment hotel (who, acquainted by sight and hearsay
+with the stout gentleman's identity and calling, bent upon him a steadfast
+and adoring regard), as well as for the policeman who lorded it on the St.
+Nicholas Avenue corner, in front of the real-estate office, and who from
+time to time shifted his contemplation from the infinite spaces of the
+heavens, the better to exchange a furtive nod with the idler in the hotel
+doorway.
+
+Presently,--at no great lapse of time after the short and thick-set man had
+stowed away his watch,--out of the thronged sidewalks of Seventh Avenue a
+man appeared, walking west on the north side of the street and reviewing
+carelessly the numbers on the illuminated fanlights: a tall man, dressed
+all in grey, and swinging a thin walking stick.
+
+The short, thick-set person assumed a mien of more intense abstraction than
+ever.
+
+The tall man in grey paused indefinitely before the brownstone stoop of the
+house numbered 205, then swung up the steps and into the vestibule. Here he
+halted, bending over to scrutinize the names on the letter-boxes.
+
+The short, thick-set man reluctantly detached himself from his polished
+pillar and waddled ungracefully across the street.
+
+The policeman on the corner seemed suddenly interested in Seventh Avenue;
+and walked in that direction.
+
+The grey man, having vainly deciphered all the names on one side of the
+vestibule, straightened up and turned his attention to the opposite wall,
+either unconscious of or indifferent to the shuffle of feet on the stoop
+behind him.
+
+The short, thick-set man removed one hand from a pocket and tapped the grey
+man gently on the shoulder.
+
+"Lookin' for McCabe, Anisty?" he inquired genially.
+
+The grey man turned slowly, exhibiting a countenance blank with
+astonishment. "Beg pardon?" he drawled; and then, with a dawning gleam of
+recognition in his eyes: "Why, good evening, Hickey! What brings you up
+this way?"
+
+The short, thick-set man permitted his jaw to droop and his eyes to
+protrude for some seconds. "Oh," he said in a tone of great disgust,
+"hell!" He pulled himself together with an effort. "Excuse _me_, Mr.
+Maitland," he stammered, "I wasn't lookin' for yeh."
+
+"To the contrary, I gather from your greeting that you were expecting our
+friend, Mr. Anisty?" And the grey man smiled.
+
+Hickey smiled in sympathy, but with less evident relish of the situation's
+humor.
+
+"That's right," he admitted. "Got a tip from the C'miss'ner's office this
+evening that Anisty would be here at seven o'clock lookin' for a party
+named McCabe. I guess it's a bum tip, all right; but of course I got to
+look into it."
+
+"Most assuredly." The grey man bent and inspected the names again. "I
+am hunting up an old friend," he explained carelessly: "a man named
+Simmons--knew him in college--down on his luck--wrote me yesterday. There
+he is: fourth floor, east. I'll see you when I come down, I hope, Mr.
+Hickey."
+
+The automatic lock clicked and the door swung open; the grey man passing
+through and up the stairs. Hickey, ostentatiously ignoring the existence of
+the policeman, returned to his post of observation.
+
+At eight o'clock he was still there, looking bored.
+
+At eight-thirty he was still there, wearing a puzzled expression.
+
+At nine he called the adoring hall-boy, gave him a quarter with minute
+instructions, and saw him disappear into the hallway of Number 205. Three
+minutes later the boy was back, breathless but enthusiastic.
+
+"Missis Simmons," he explained between gasps, "says she ain't never heard
+of nobody named Maitland. Somebody rang her bell a while ago an' apologized
+for disturbin' her--said he wanted the folks on the top floor. I guess yer
+man went acrost the roofs: them houses is all connected, and yuh c'n walk
+clear from the corner here tuh half-way up tuh Nineteenth Street, on Sain'
+Nicholas Avenoo."
+
+"Uh-huh," laconically returned the detective. "Thanks." And turning on his
+heel, walked westward.
+
+The policeman crossed the street to detain him for a moment's chat.
+
+"I guess it's all off, Jim," Hickey told him. "Some one must've tipped that
+crook off. Anyway, I ain't goin' to wait no longer."
+
+"I wouldn't neither," agreed the uniformed member. "Say, who's yer friend
+yeh was talkin' tuh, 'while ago?"
+
+"Oh, a frien' of mine. Yeh didn't have no call to git excited then, Jim.
+G'night."
+
+And Hickey proceeded westward, a listless and preoccupied man by the vacant
+eye of him. But when he emerged into the glare of Eighth Avenue his face
+was unusually red. Which may have been due to the heat. And just before
+boarding a down-town surface car, "Oh," he enunciated with gusto, "_hell_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One A. M.
+
+Not until the rich and mellow chime had merged into the stillness did the
+intruder dare again to draw breath. Coming as it had the very moment that
+the door had closed noiselessly behind her, the double stroke had sounded
+to her like a knell: or, perhaps more like the prelude to the wild alarum
+of a tocsin, first striking her heart still with terror, then urging it
+into panic flutterings.
+
+But these, as the minutes drew on, marked only by the dull methodic ticking
+of the clock, quieted; and at length she mustered courage to move from the
+door, against which she had flattened herself, one hand clutching the knob,
+ready to pull it open and fly upon the first aggressive sound.
+
+In the interval her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. The study
+door showed a pale oblong on her right; to her left, and a little toward
+the rear of the flat, the door of Maitland's bed-chamber stood ajar. To
+this she tiptoed, standing upon the threshold and listening with every
+fiber of her being. No sounds as of the regular respiration of a sleeper
+warning her, she at length peered stealthily within; simultaneously she
+pressed the button of an electric hand-lamp. Its circumscribed blaze
+wavered over pillows and counterpane spotless and undisturbed.
+
+Then for the first time she breathed freely, convinced that she had been
+right in surmising that Maitland would not return that night.
+
+Since early evening she had watched the house from the window of a
+top-floor hall bedroom in the boarding-house opposite. Shortly before seven
+she had seen Maitland, stiff and uncompromising in rigorous evening dress,
+leave in a cab. Since then only once had a light appeared in his rooms; at
+about half-after nine the janitor had appeared in the study, turning up the
+gas and going to the telephone.
+
+Whatever the nature of the communication received, the girl had taken it to
+indicate that Maitland had decided to spend the night elsewhere; for the
+study light had burned for some ten minutes, during which the janitor
+could occasionally be seen moving mysteriously about; and something later,
+bearing a suitcase, he had left the house and shuffled rapidly eastward to
+Madison Avenue.
+
+So she felt convinced that she had all the small hours before her, secure
+from interruption. And this time, she told herself, she purposed making
+assurance doubly sure....
+
+But first to guard against discovery from the street.
+
+Turning back through the hall, she dispensed with the hand-lamp, entering
+the darkened study. Here all windows had been closed and the outer shades
+drawn--O'Hagan's last act before leaving with the suit-case: additional
+proof that Maitland was not expected back that night. For the temperature
+was high, the air in the closed room stifling.
+
+Crossing to the windows, the girl drew down the dark green inner shades
+and closed the folding wooden shutters over them. And was conscious of a
+deepened sense of security.
+
+Next going to the telephone, she removed the receiver from the hook and let
+it hang at the full length of the cord. In the dead silence the small
+voice of Central was clearly articulate: "_What number? Hello, what
+number_?"--followed by the grumbling of the armature as the operator tried
+fruitlessly to ring the disconnected bell. The girl smiled faintly, aware
+that there would now be no interruption from an inopportune call.
+
+There remained as a final precaution only a grand tour of the flat; which
+she made expeditiously, passing swiftly and noiselessly (one contemplating
+midnight raids does not attire one's self in silks and starched things)
+from room to room, all comfortably empty. Satisfied at last, she found
+herself again in the study, and now boldly, mind at rest, lighted the brass
+student lamp with the green shade, which she discovered on the desk.
+
+Standing, hands resting lightly on hips, breath coming quickly, cheeks
+flushed and eyes alight with some intimate and inscrutable emotion,
+she surveyed the room. Out of the dusk that lay beyond the plash of
+illumination beneath the lamp, the furniture began to take on familiar
+shapes: the divans, the heavy leather-cushioned easy chairs, the tall clock
+with its pallid staring face, the small tables and tabourettes, handily
+disposed for the reception of books and magazines and pipes and glasses,
+the towering, old-fashioned mahogany book-case, the useless, ornamental,
+beautiful Chippendale escritoire, in one corner: all somberly shadowed and
+all combining to diffuse an impression of quiet, easy-going comfort.
+
+Just such a study as _he_ would naturally have. She nodded silent
+approbation of it as a whole. And, nodding, sat down at the desk, planting
+elbows on its polished surface, interlacing her fingers and cradling her
+chin upon their backs: turned suddenly pensive.
+
+The mood held her but briefly. She had no time to waste, and much to
+accomplish.... Sitting back, her fingers sought and pressed the clasp of
+her hand-bag, and produced two articles--a golden cigarette case and a
+slightly soiled canvas bag. The Maitland jewels were returning by a devious
+way, to their owner.
+
+But where to put them, that he might find them without delay? It must be
+no conspicuous place, where O'Hagan would be apt to happen upon
+them; doubtless the janitor was trustworthy, but still.... Misplaced
+opportunities breed criminals.
+
+It was all a risk, to leave the treasure there, without the protection of
+nickeled-steel walls and timelocks; but a risk that must be taken. She
+dared not retain it longer in her possession; and she would contrive a way
+in the morning to communicate with Maitland and warn him.
+
+Her gaze searched the area where the lamplight fell soft yet strong upon
+the dark shining wood and heavy brass desk fittings; and paused, arrested
+by the unusual combination of inverted bowl and super-imposed book. A
+riddle to be read with facility; in a twinkling she had uncovered the
+incriminating hand-print--incriminating if it could be traced, that is to
+say.
+
+"Oh!" she cried softly. And laughed a little. "Oh, how careless!"
+
+Fine brows puckered, she pondered the matter, and ended by placing her own
+hand over the print; this one fitted the other exactly.
+
+"How he must have wondered! He is sure to look again, especially if...."
+
+No need to conclude the sentence. Quickly she placed bag and case squarely
+on top of the impression, the bowl over all, and the book upon the bowl;
+then, drawing from her pocket a pair of long grey silk gloves, draped one
+across the book; and, head tilted to one side, admired the effect.
+
+It seemed decidedly an artistic effect, admirably calculated to attract
+attention. She was satisfied to the point of being pleased with herself: a
+fact indicated by an expressive flutter of slim, fair hands.... And now,
+to work! Time pressed, and.... A cloud dimmed the radiance of her eyes;
+irresolutely she shifted in her chair, troubled, frowning, lips woefully
+drooping. And sighed. And a still small whisper, broken and wretched,
+disturbed the quiet of the study.
+
+"I can not! O, I can not!... To spoil it all, _now_, when...."
+
+Yet she must. She must forget herself and steel her determination with the
+memory that another's happiness hung in the balance, depended upon her
+success. Twice she had tried and failed. This third time she _must_
+succeed.
+
+And bowing her head in token of her resignation, she turned back squarely
+to face the desk. As she did so the toe of one small shoe caught against
+something on the floor, causing a dull jingling sound. She stooped, with a
+low exclamation, and straightened up, a small bunch of keys in her hand:
+eight or ten of them dangling from a silver ring: Maitland's keys.
+
+He must have dropped them there, forgetting them altogether. A find
+of value and one to save her a deal of trouble: skeleton keys are so
+exasperatingly slow, particularly when used by inexpert hands. But how to
+bring herself to make use of these? All's fair in war (and this was a sort
+of war, a war of wits at least); but one should fight with one's own arms,
+not pilfer the enemy's and turn them against him. To use these keys to
+ransack Maitland's desk seemed an action even more blackly dishonorable
+than this clandestine visit, this midnight foray.
+
+Swinging the notched metal slips from a slender finger, she contemplated
+them: and laughed ruefully. What qualms of conscience in a burglar
+self-confessed! She was there for a purpose, a recognized, nefarious
+purpose. Granted. Then why quibble?... She would not quibble. She would be
+firm, resolute, determined, cold-blooded, unmindful of all kindness and
+courtesy and.... She would use them, accomplish her purpose, and have done,
+finally and for ever, with the whole hateful business!
+
+There was a bright spot of color on either cheek and a hot light of anger
+in her eyes as she set about her task. It would never be less hideous,
+never less immediate.
+
+The desk drawers yielded easily to the eager keys. One by one she had them
+open and their contents explored--vain repetition of yesterday afternoon's
+fruitless task. But she must be sure, she must leave no stone unturned.
+Maitland Manor was closed to her for ever, because of last night. But here
+she was safe for a few short hours, and free to make assurance doubly sure.
+
+There remained the despatch-box, the black japanned tin box which had
+proved obdurate yesterday. She had come prepared to break its lock this
+time, if need be; Maitland's carelessness spared her the necessity.
+
+She lifted it out of a lower drawer, and put it in her lap. The smallest
+key fitted the lock at the first attempt. The lid came up and....
+
+Perhaps it is not altogether discreditable that one should temporarily
+forget one's compunctions in the long-deferred moment of triumph. The girl
+uttered a little cry of joy.
+
+Crash!--the front door down-stairs had been slammed.
+
+She was on her feet in a breath, faint with fear. Yet not so overcome
+that she forgot her errand, her success. As she stood up she dropped the
+despatch-box back into the drawer, without a sound, and, opening her
+hand-bag, stuffed something into it.
+
+No time to do more: a dull rumble of masculine voices was distinctly,
+frightfully audible in the stillness of the house: voices of men conversing
+together in the inner vestibule. One laughed, and the laugh seemed to
+penetrate her bosom like a knife. Then both strode across the tiling and
+began to ascend, as was clearly told her by footsteps sounding deadened on
+the padded carpet.
+
+Panic-stricken, she turned to the student lamp and with a quick twirl and
+upward jerk of the chimney-catch extinguished the flame. A reek of smoke
+immediately began to foul the close, hot air: and she knew that it would
+betray her, but was helpless to stop it. Besides, she was caught, trapped,
+damned beyond redemption unless ... unless it were not Maitland, after all,
+but one of the other tenants, unexpectedly returned and bound for another
+flat.
+
+Futile hope. Upon the landing by the door the footsteps ceased; and a key
+grated in the wards of the lock.
+
+Blind with terror, her sole thought an instinctive impulse to hide and so
+avert discovery until the last possible instant, on the bare chance of
+something happening to save her, the girl caught up her skirts and fled
+like a hunted shadow through the alcove, through the bed-chamber, thence
+down the hall toward the dining-room and kitchen offices.
+
+The outer door was being opened ere she had reached the hiding-place she
+had in mind: the trunk-closet, from which, she remembered remarking, a
+window opened upon a fire-escape. It was barely possible, a fighting
+chance.
+
+She closed the door, grateful that its latch slipped silently into place,
+and fairly flung herself upon the window, painfully bruising her soft hands
+in vain endeavor to raise the sash. It stuck obstinately, would not yield.
+Too late, she remembered that she had forgotten to draw the catch--fatal
+oversight! A sob of terror choked in her throat. Already footsteps were
+hurrying down the hall; a line of light brightened underneath the door;
+voices, excitedly keyed, bandied question and comment, an unmistakable
+Irish brogue mingling with a clear enunciation which she had but too great
+reason to remember. The pair had passed into the next room. She could hear
+O'Hagan announcing: "No wan here, sor."
+
+"Then it's the dining-room, or the trunk-closet. Come along!"
+
+One last, frantic attempt! But the window catch, rusted with long disuse,
+stuck. Panting, sick with fear, the girl leaped away and crushed herself
+into a corner, crouching on the floor behind a heavy box, her dark cloak
+drawn up to shield her head.
+
+And the door opened.
+
+A flood of radiance from the relighted student lamp fell athwart the floor.
+The girl lay close and still, holding her breath.
+
+Ten seconds, perhaps, ticked on into Eternity: seconds that were in
+themselves eternities. Then: "No one here, O'Hagan."
+
+The door was closed, and through its panels more faintly came: "Faith, and
+the murdhering divvle must've flew th' coop afore ye come in, sor."
+
+The girl tried to rise, to make again for the window; but it was as though
+her limbs had turned to water; there was no strength in her; and the
+blackness swam visibly before her eyes, radiating away in whirling, streaky
+circles.
+
+Even such resolution and strong will as was hers could not prevail against
+that numbing, deathly exhaustion. Her eyes closed and her head fell back
+against the wall.
+
+It seemed but an instant (though it was in point of fact a full five
+minutes) ere the sound of a voice again roused her.
+
+She looked up, dazzled by a gush of warm light.
+
+He stood in the doorway, holding the lamp high above his head, his face
+pale, grave, and shadowed as he peered down at her.
+
+"I have sent O'Hagan away," he said gently. "If you will please to come,
+now----"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+PROCRASTINATION
+
+The cab which picked Maitland up at his lodgings carried him but a few
+blocks to the club at which he had, the previous evening, entertained his
+lawyer. Maitland had selected it as the one of all the clubs of which he
+and Bannerman were members, wherein he was least likely to meet the latter.
+Neither frequented its sober precincts by habit. Its severe and classical
+building on a corner of Madison Avenue overlooking the Square, is but the
+outward presentment of an institution to be a member of which is a duty,
+but emphatically no great pleasure, to the sons of a New York family of any
+prominence.
+
+But in its management the younger generation holds no suffrage; and is not
+slow to declare that the Primordial is rightly named, characterizing the
+individual members of the Board of Governors as antediluvians, prehistoric
+monsters who have never learned that laughter lends a savor to existence.
+And so it is that the younger generation, (which is understood to include
+Maitland and Bannerman), while it religiously pays its dues and has
+the name of the Primordial engraved upon its cards, shuns those deadly
+respectable rooms and seeks its comfort elsewhere.
+
+Maitland found it dull and depressing enough, that same evening, something
+before seven. The spacious and impressive lounging-rooms were but sparsely
+tenanted, other than by the ennuied corps of servants; and the few members
+who had lent the open doors the excuse of their presence were of the
+elderly type that hides itself behind a newspaper in an easy chair and
+snorts when addressed.
+
+The young man strolled disconsolately enough into the billiard-room, thence
+(dogged by a specter of loneliness) to the bar, and finally, in sheer
+desperation, to the dining-room, where he selected a table and ordered an
+evening paper with his meal.
+
+When the former was brought him, he sat up and began to take a new interest
+in life. The glaring head-lines that met his eye on the front page proved
+as bracing as a slap in the face.
+
+"'The Maitland Jewels,'" he read, half aloud: "'Daring Attempt at Burglary.
+"Mad" Maitland Catches "Handsome Dan" Anisty in the Act of Cracking His
+Safe at Maitland Manor. Which was Which? Both Principals Disappear.'"
+
+A dull red glow suffused the reader's countenance; he compressed his lips,
+only opening them once, and then to emit a monosyllabic oath, which can
+hardly have proved any considerable relief to his surcharged emotional
+nature.
+
+The news-story was exploited as a "beat"; it could have been little else,
+since nine-tenths of its "exclusive details" had been born full-winged from
+the fecund imagination of a busy reporter to whom Maitland had refused an
+interview while in his bath, some three hours earlier. Maitland discovered
+with relief that boiled down to essentials it consisted simply of
+the statement that somebody (presumably himself) had caught somebody
+(presumably Anisty) burglarizing the library safe at Maitland Manor that
+morning: that one of the somebodies (no one knew which) had overpowered the
+other and left him in charge of the butler, who had presently permitted his
+prisoner to escape and then talked for publication.
+
+It was not to this so much that Maitland objected. It was the illustrations
+that alternately saddened and maddened the young man: the said
+illustrations comprising blurred half-tone reproductions of photographs
+taken on the Maitland estate; a diagram of the library, as fanciful as
+the text it illuminated, and two portraits, side by side, of the heroes,
+himself and Anisty, excellent likenesses both of the originals and of each
+other.
+
+Mr. Maitland did not enjoy his dinner.
+
+Anxious and preoccupied, he tasted the dishes mechanically; and when they
+had all passed before him, took his thoughts and a cigar to a gloomy corner
+of the smoking-room, where he sat for two solid hours, debating the matter
+pro and con, and arriving at no conclusion whatever, save that Higgins was
+doomed.
+
+At ten-fifteen he began to contemplate with positive pleasure the prospect
+of discharging the butler. That, at least, was action, something that he
+could do; wherever else he thought to move he found himself baffled by the
+blank darkness of mystery, or by his fear of publicity and ridicule.
+
+At ten-twenty he decided to move upon Greenfields at once, and telephoned
+O'Hagan, advising him to profess ignorance of his employer's whereabouts.
+
+At ten-twenty-two, or in the midst of his admonitions to the janitor,
+he changed his mind and decided to stay in New York; and instructed the
+Irishman to bring him a suit-case containing a few necessaries; his
+intention being to stay out the night at the club, and so avoid the
+matutinal siege of his lodgings by reporters and detectives.
+
+At ten-forty-five a club servant handed him the card of a representative of
+the _Evening Journal_. Maitland directed that the gentleman be shown into
+the reception-room.
+
+At ten-forty-six he skulked out of the club by a side entrance, jumped
+into a cab and had himself driven to the East Thirty-fourth Street ferry,
+arriving there just in time to miss the last train for Greenfields.
+
+Denied the shelter alike of his lodgings, his club, and his country home,
+the young man in despair caused himself to be conveyed to the Bartholdi
+Hotel, where, possessed of a devil of folly, he preserved his incognito by
+registering under the name of "M. Daniels." And straightway retired to his
+room.
+
+But not to rest. The portion of the mentally harassed, sleeplessness, was
+his; and for an hour or more he tossed upon his bed (upon which he had
+thrown himself without troubling to undress), pondering, to no profit of
+his, the hundred problems, difficulties, and disadvantages suggested or
+created by the events of the past twenty-four hours.
+
+The grey girl, Anisty, the jewels, himself: unflagging, his thoughts
+circumnavigated the world of his romance, touching only at these four
+ports, and returning always to linger longest in the harbor of sentiment.
+
+The grey girl: strange that her personality should have come to dominate
+his thoughts in a space of time so brief! and upon grounds of intimacy so
+slender!... Who and what was she? What cruel rigor of circumstance had
+impelled her to seek a livelihood in ways so sinister? At whose door
+must the blame be laid, against what flaw in the body social should the
+indictment be drawn, that she should have been forced into the ranks of the
+powers that prey--a girl of her youth and rare fiber, of her cultivation,
+her charm, and beauty?
+
+The sheer loveliness of her, her grace and gentleness, her ingenuous
+sensitiveness, her wit: they combined to make the thought of her, to him,
+at least, at once terrible and a delight. Remembering that once he had
+held her in his arms, had gazed into her starlit eyes, and inhaled the
+impalpable fragrance of her, he trembled, was both glad and afraid.
+
+And her ways so hedged about with perils! While he must stand aside,
+impotent, a pillar of the social order secure in its shelter, and see her
+hounded and driven by the forces of the Law, harried and worried like
+an unclean thing, forced, as it might be, to resort to stratagems and
+expedients unthinkable, to preserve her liberty....
+
+It was altogether intolerable. He could not stand it. And yet--it was
+written that their paths had crossed and parted and were never again to
+touch. Or was it?... It must be so written: they would never meet again.
+After all, her concern with, her interest in, him, could have been nothing
+permanent. They had encountered under strange auspices, and he had treated
+her with common decency, for which she had repaid him in good measure by
+permitting him to retain his own property. Their account was even, and
+she for ever done with him. That must be her attitude. Why should it be
+anything else?
+
+"Oh, the devil!" exclaimed the young man in disgust. And rising, took his
+distemper to the window.
+
+Leaning on the sill, he thrust head and shoulders far out over the garish
+abyss of metropolitan night. The hot breath of the city fanned up in
+stifling waves into his face, from the street below, upon whose painted
+pavements men crawled like insects--round moving spots, to each his romance
+under his hat.
+
+The window was on the corner, overlooking the junction of three great
+highways of humanity: Twenty-third Street, with its booming crosstown cars,
+stretching away into the darkness on either hand; Broadway, forking off to
+the left, its distances merging into a hot glow of yellow radiance;
+Fifth Avenue, branching into the north with its desolate sidewalks oddly
+patterned in areas of dense shadow and a cold, clear light. Over the way
+the park loomed darkly, for all its scattered arcs, a black and silent
+space, a well of mystery....
+
+It was late, quite late; the clock in front of Dorlon's (he craned his neck
+to see), made the hour one in the morning; the sidewalks were comparatively
+deserted, even the pillared portico of the Fifth Avenue Hotel destitute of
+loungers. A timid hint of coolness, forerunning the dawn, rode up on the
+breeze.
+
+He looked up and away northward, for many minutes, over housetops stenciled
+black against the glowing sky, his gaze yearning into vast distances of
+space, melancholy tingeing the complexion of his mind. He fancied himself
+oppressed by a vague uneasiness, unaccountable as to cause, unless....
+
+From the sublime to the ridiculous with a vengeance, his thoughts tumbled.
+Gone the glamour of Romance in a twinkling, banished by rank materialism.
+He could have blushed for shame; he got slowly to his feet, irresolute,
+trying to grapple with a condition that never before in his existence had
+he been called upon to consider.
+
+He had just realized that he was flat-strapped for cash. He had given his
+last quarter to the cabby, hours back. He was registered at a strange
+hotel, under an assumed name, unable to beg credit even for his breakfast
+without declaring his identity and thereby laying himself open to
+suspicion, discourtesy, insult....
+
+Of course there were ways out. He could telephone Bannerman, or any
+other of half a dozen acquaintances, in the morning; but that involved
+explanations, and explanations involved making himself the butt of his
+circle for many a weary day. There was money in his lodgings, in the
+Chippendale escritoire; but to get it he would have to run the gauntlet
+of reporters and detectives which had already dismayed him in prospect.
+O'Hagan--ah!
+
+At the head of his bed was a telephone. Impulsively, inconsiderate of the
+hour, he turned to it.
+
+"Give me Nine-o-eight-nine Madison, please," he said; and waited, receiver
+to ear.
+
+There was a slight pause; a buzz; the voice of the switchboard operator
+below stairs repeating the number to Central; Central's appropriately
+mechanical reiteration; another buzz; a silence; a prolonged buzz; and
+again the sounding silence....
+
+"Hello!" he said softly into the transmitter, at a venture.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+Then Central, irritably: "Go ahead. You've got your party."
+
+"Hello, hello!"
+
+A faint hum of voices, rising and falling, beat against the walls of his
+understanding. Were the wires crossed? He lifted an impatient finger to
+jiggle the hook and call Central to order, when--something crashed heavily.
+He could have likened the sound, without a strain of imagination, to a
+chair being violently overturned. And then a woman's voice, clear, accents
+informed with anger and pain: "_No!_" and then....
+
+"Say, that's my mistake. That line you had's out of order. I had a call for
+them a while ago, and they didn't answer. Guess you'll have to wait."
+
+"Central! Central!" he pleaded desperately. "I say, Central, give me that
+connection again, please."
+
+"Ah, say! what's the matter with you, anyway? Didn't I tell you that line
+was out of order? Ring off!"
+
+Automatically Maitland returned the receiver to its rest; and rose,
+white-lipped and trembling. That woman's voice....
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+CONSEQUENCES
+
+Breathing convulsively, wide eyes a little wildly fixed upon his face in
+the lamplight, the girl stumbled to her feet, and for a moment remained
+cowering against the wall, terribly shaken, a hand gripping a corner of the
+packing-box for support, the other pressed against the bosom of her dress
+as if in attempt forcibly to quell the mad hammering of her heart.
+
+In her brain, a turmoil of affrighted thought, but one thing stood out
+clearly: _now_ she need look for no mercy. The first time it had been
+different; she had not been a woman had she been unable then to see
+that the adventure intrigued Maitland with its spice of novelty, a new
+sensation, fully as much as she, herself, the pretty woman out of place,
+interested and attracted him. He had enjoyed playing the part, had been
+amused to lead her to believe him an adventurer of mettle and caliber
+little inferior to her own--as he understood her: unscrupulous, impatient
+of the quibble of _meum-et-tuum_, but adroit and keen-witted, and
+distinguished and set apart from the herd by grace of gentle breeding and
+chivalric instincts.
+
+How far he might or might not have let this enjoyment carry him, she had no
+means of surmising. Not very far, not too far, she was inclined to believe,
+strongly as she knew her personality to have influenced him: not far
+enough to induce him to trust her out of sight with the jewels. He had
+demonstrated that, to her humiliation.
+
+The flush of excitement waning, manlike soon had he wearied of the
+game--she thought: to her mind, in distorted retrospect, his attitude
+when leaving her at dawn had been insincere, contemptuous, that of a man
+relieved to be rid of her, relieved to be able to get away in unquestioned
+possession of his treasure. True, the suggestion that they lunch together
+at Eugene's had been his.... But he had forgotten the engagement, if ever
+he had meant to keep it, if the notion had been more than a whim of the
+moment with him. And O'Hagan had told her by telephone that Maitland
+had left his rooms at one o'clock--in ample time to meet her at the
+restaurant....
+
+No, he had never intended to come; he had wearied; yet, patient with her,
+true to the ethics of a gentleman, he had been content to let her go,
+rather than to send a detective to take his place....
+
+And this was something, by the way, to cause her to revise her theory as to
+the manner in which Anisty had managed to steal the jewels. If Maitland
+had gone abroad at one, and without intending to keep his engagement at
+Eugene's, then he must have been despoiled before that hour, and without
+his knowledge. Surely, if the jewels had been taken from him with his
+cognizance, the hue and cry would have been out and Anisty would not have
+dared to linger so long in the neighborhood!
+
+To be just with herself, the girl had not gone to the restaurant with much
+real hope of finding Maitland there. Curiosity had drawn her,--just to see
+if.... But it was too preposterous to credit, that he should have cared
+enough.... Quite too preposterous! It was her cup, her bitter cup, to know
+that _she_ had learned to care enough--at sight!... And she recalled (with
+what pangs of shame and misery begged expression!) how her heart had been
+stirred when she had found him (as she thought) true to his tryst: even as
+she recalled the agony and distress of mind with which she had a moment
+later fathomed Anisty's impersonation.
+
+For, of course, she had known that Maitland was Maitland and none other,
+from the instant when he told her to make good her escape and leave him to
+brazen it out: a task to daunt even as bold and resourceful a criminal as
+Anisty, and more especially if he were called upon to don the mask at a
+minute's notice, as Maitland had pretended to. Or, if she had not actually
+known, she had been led to suspect: and it had hardly needed what she had
+heard him say to the servants, when he thought her flying hotfoot over the
+lawn to safety, to harden suspicion into certainty.
+
+And now that he should find her here, a second time a trespasser, doubly
+an ingrate,--that he should have caught her red-handed in this abominably
+ungrateful treachery!... She could pretend, of course, that she had
+returned merely to restore the jewels and the cigarette case; and he would
+believe her, for he was generous.... She could, but--she could not. Not
+now. Yesterday, the excitement had buoyed her; she had gained a piquant
+enjoyment from befooling him, playing _her_ part of the amateur crackswoman
+in this little comedy of the stolen jewels. But therein lay the difference:
+yesterday it had been comedy, but to-day--ah! to-day she could no longer
+laugh. For now she cared.
+
+A little lie would clear her--yes. But it was not to be cleared that she
+now so passionately desired; it was to have him believe in her, even
+against the evidence of his senses, even in the face of the world's
+condemnation; and so prove that he, too, cared--cared for her as his
+attitude toward her had taught her to care....
+
+Ever since leaving him in the dawn she had fed her starved heart with the
+hope, faint hope though it were, that he would come to care a little, that
+he would not utterly despise her, that he would understand and forgive,
+when he learned why she had played out her part, nor believe that she was
+the embodiment of all that was ignoble, coarse, and crude; that he would
+show a little faith in her, a little faith that like a flickering taper
+might light the way for ... Love.
+
+But that hope was now dead within her, and cold. She had but to look at
+him to see how groundless it had been, how utterly unmoved he was by her
+distress. He waited patiently--that was all--seeming so very tall, a pillar
+of righteous strength, distinguished and at ease in his evening clothes:
+waiting, patient but cold, dispassionate and disdainful.
+
+"I am waiting, you see. Might I suggest that we have not all week for
+our--our mutual differences?"
+
+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 jardiniere 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."
+
+"Uh-huh," agreed the detective sourly, "I guess that's a hot one, too." He
+scowled blackly in Maitland's amazed face and seemed abruptly to swell
+with mysterious rage. "My name's Hickey," he informed him venomously, "and
+don't yeh lose sight of that after this. It's somethin' it won't hurt yeh
+to remember. Guess yer mem'ry's taking a vacation, huh?"
+
+"My dear man," said Maitland, "you speak in parables and--if you'll pardon
+my noticing it--with some uncalled-for spleen. Might I suggest that you
+moderate your tone? For," he continued, facing the man squarely, "if you
+don't, it will be my duty and pleasure to hoist you into the street."
+
+"I got a photergrapht of yeh doing it," growled Hickey. "Still, seeing as
+yeh never saw me before, I guess it won't do no harm for yeh to connect
+with this." And he turned back his coat, uncovering the official shield of
+the detective bureau.
+
+"Ah!" commented Maitland politely. "A detective? How interesting!"
+
+"Fire-escape winder's broke, all right." This was the policeman, returned.
+"And some one's let down the bottom length of ladder, but there ain't
+nobody in sight."
+
+"No," interjected Hickey, "'nd there wouldn't 've been if you'd been
+waitin' in the back yard all night."
+
+"Certainly not," Maitland agreed blandly; "especially if my burglar had
+known it. In which case I fancy he would have chosen another route--by the
+roof, possibly."
+
+"Yeh know somethin' about roofs yehself, donchuh?" suggested Hickey.
+"Well, I guess yeh'll have time to write a book about it while yeh--"
+
+He stepped unexpectedly to Maitland's side and bent forward. Something
+cold and hard closed with a snap around each of the young man's wrists. He
+started up, face aflame with indignation, forgetful of the girl hidden in
+the alcove.
+
+"What the devil!" he cried hotly, jingling the handcuffs.
+
+"Ah, come off," Hickey advised him. "Yeh can't bluff it for ever, you
+know. Come along and tell the sarge all about it, Daniel Maitland,
+_Es_-quire, _alias_ Handsome Dan Anisty, gentleman burglar....
+Ah, cut that out, young fellow; yeh'll find this ain't no laughin' matter.
+Yeh're foxy, all right, but yeh've pushed yer run of luck too hard."
+
+Hickey paused, perplexed, finding no words wherewith adequately to voice
+the disgust aroused in him by his prisoner's demeanor, something far from
+seemly, to his mind.
+
+The humor of the situation had just dawned upon Maitland, and the young
+man was crimson with appreciation.
+
+"Go on, go on!" he begged feebly. "Don't let _me_ stop you, Hickey.
+Don't, please, let me spoil it all.... Your Sherlock Holmes, Hickey, is one
+of the finest characterizations I have ever witnessed. It is a privilege
+not to be underestimated to be permitted to play Raffles to you.... But
+seriously, my dear sleuth!" with an unhappy attempt to wipe his eyes with
+hampered fists, "don't you think you're wasting your talents?"
+
+By this time even the policeman seemed doubtful. He glanced askance at the
+detective and shuffled uneasily. As for the cabby, who had blustered in at
+first with intent to demand his due in no uncertain terms, apparently
+Maitland's bearing, coupled with the inherent contempt and hatred of the
+nighthawk tribe for the minions of the law, had won his sympathies
+completely. Lounging against a door-jamb, quite at home, he genially
+puffed an unspeakable cigarette and nodded approbation of Maitland's every
+other word.
+
+But Hickey--Hickey bristled belligerently.
+
+"Fine," he declared acidly; "fine and dandy. I take off my hat to yeh, Dan
+Anisty. I may be a bad actor, all right, but yeh got me beat at the post."
+
+Then turning to the policeman, "I got him right. Look here!" Drawing a
+folded newspaper from his pocket, he spread it open for the officer's
+inspection. "Yeh see them pictures? Now, on the level, is it
+_natural_?"
+
+The patrolman frowned doubtfully, glancing from the paper to Maitland. The
+cabby stretched a curious neck. Maitland groaned inwardly; he had seen
+that infamous sheet.
+
+"Now listen," the detective expounded with gusto. "Twice to-day this here
+Maitland, or Anisty, meets me. Once on the stoop here, 'nd he's Maitland
+'nd takes me to lunch--see? Next time it's in Harlem, where I've been sent
+with a hot tip from the C'mmiss'ner's office to find Anisty, 'nd he's
+still Maitland 'nd surprised to see me. I ain't sure then, but I'm doin'
+some heavy thinkin', all right. I lets him go and shadows him. After a
+while he gives me the slip 'nd I chases down here, waitin' for him to turn
+up. Coming down on the car I buys this paper 'nd sees the pictures, and
+then I'm _on_. See?"
+
+"Uh-huh," grunted the patrolman, scowling at Maitland. The cabby caressed
+his nose with a soiled forefinger reflectively, plainly a bit prejudiced
+by Hickey's exposition.
+
+"One minute," Maitland interjected, eyes twinkling and lips twitching.
+"How long ago was it that you began to watch this house, sleuth?"
+
+"Five minutes before yeh come home," responded Hickey, ignoring the
+insult. "Now--"
+
+"Took you a long time to figure this out, didn't it? But go on, please."
+
+"Well, I picked the winner, all right," flared the detective. "I guess
+that'll be about all for yours."
+
+"Not quite," Maitland contradicted brusquely, wearying of the
+complication. "You say you met me on the stoop here. At what o'clock?"
+
+"One; 'nd yeh takes me to lunch at Eugene's."
+
+"Ah! When did I leave you?"
+
+"I leaves yeh there at two."
+
+"Well, O'Hagan will testify that he left me in these rooms, in
+dressing-gown and slippers at about one. At four he found me on this
+divan, bound and gagged, by courtesy of your friend, Mr. Anisty. Now,
+when was I with you in Harlem?"
+
+"At seven o'clock, to the minute, yeh comes--"
+
+"Never mind. At ten minutes to seven I took a cab from here to the
+Primordial Club, where I dined at seven precisely."
+
+"And what's more," interposed the cabman eagerly, "I took yer there, sir."
+
+"Thank you. Furthermore, sleuth, you say that you followed me around town
+from seven o'clock until--when?"
+
+"I said--" stammered the plain-clothes man, purple with confusion.
+
+"No matter. I didn't leave the Primordial until a quarter to eleven. But
+all this aside, as I understand it, you are asserting that, having given
+you all this trouble to-day, and knowing that you were after me, I
+deliberately hopped into a cab fifteen minutes ago, came up Fifth Avenue
+at such breakneck speed that this officer thought it was a runaway, and
+finally jumped out and ran up-stairs here to fire a revolver three times,
+for no purpose whatsoever beyond bringing you gentlemen about my ears?"
+
+Hickey's jaw sagged. The cabby ostentatiously covered his mouth with a
+huge red paw and made choking noises.
+
+"Pass it up, sarge, pass it up," he whispered hoarsely.
+
+"Shut yer trap," snapped the detective. "I know what I'm doin'. This
+crook's clever all right, but I got the kibosh on him this time. Lemme
+alone." He squared his shoulders, blustering to save his face. "I don't
+know why yeh done it----"
+
+"Then I'll tell you," Maitland cut in crisply. "If you'll be good enough
+to listen." And concisely narrated the events of the past twenty-four
+hours, beginning at the moment when he had discovered Anisty in Maitland
+Manor. Save that he substituted himself for the man who had escaped from
+Higgins and eliminated all mention of the grey girl, his statement was
+exact and convincing. As he came down to the moment when he had called up
+from the Bartholdi and heard mysterious sounds in his flat, substantiating
+his story by indicating the receiver that dangled useless from the
+telephone, even Hickey was staggered.
+
+But not beaten. When Maitland ceased speaking the detective smiled
+superiority to such invention.
+
+"Very pretty," he conceded. "Yeh c'n tell it all to the magistrate
+to-morrow morning. Meantime yeh'll have time to think up a yarn
+explainin' how it come that a crook like Anisty made three attempts in
+one day to steal some jewels, 'nd didn't get 'em. Where were they all
+this time?"
+
+"In safe-keeping," Maitland lied manfully, with a furtive glance toward
+the alcove.
+
+"Whose?" pursued Mr. Hickey truculently.
+
+"Mine," with equanimity. "Seriously--_sleuth!_--are you trying to
+make a charge against me of stealing my own property?"
+
+"Yeh done it for a blind. 'Nd that's enough. Officer, take this man to the
+station; I'll make the complaint."
+
+The policeman hesitated, and at this juncture O'Hagan put in an
+appearance, lugging a heavy brown-paper bundle.
+
+"Beg pardon, Misther Maitland, sor----?"
+
+"Well, O'Hagan?"
+
+"The crowd at the dure, sor, is dishpersed," the janitor reported. "A
+couple av cops kem along an' fanned 'em. They're askin' fer the two av
+yees," with a careless nod to the policeman and detective.
+
+"Yeh heard what I said," Hickey answered the officer's look.
+
+"I'm thinkin'," O'Hagan pursued, calmly ignoring the presence of the
+outsiders, "thot these do be the soot that domned thafe av the worruld
+stole off ye the day, sor. A la-ad brought ut at ayeleven o'clock, sor,
+wid particular rayquist thot ut be daylivered to ye at once. The paper's
+tore, an'----"
+
+"O'Hagan," Maitland ordered sharply, "undo that parcel. I think I can
+satisfy you now, sleuth. What kind of a suit did your luncheon
+acquaintance wear?"
+
+"Grey," conceded Hickey reluctantly.
+
+"An' here ut is," O'Hagan announced, arraying the clothing upon a chair.
+"Iv'ry domn' thing, aven down to the socks.... And a note for ye, sor."
+
+As he shook out the folds of the coat a square white envelope dropped to
+the floor; the janitor retrieved and offered it to his employer.
+
+"Give it to the sleuth," nodded Maitland.
+
+Scowling, Hickey withdrew the inclosure--barely glancing at the
+superscription.
+
+"'Dear Mr. Maitland,'" he read aloud; "'As you will probably surmise, my
+motive in thus restoring to you a portion of your property is not
+altogether uninfluenced by personal and selfish considerations. In brief,
+I wish to discover whether or not you are to be at home to-night. If not,
+I shall take pleasure in calling; if the contrary, I shall feel that in
+justice to myself I must forego the pleasure of improving an acquaintance
+begun under auspices so unfavorable. In either case, permit me to thank
+you for the use of your wardrobe,--which, quaintly enough, has outlived
+its usefulness to me: a fat-headed detective named Hickey will tell you
+why,--and to extend to you expression of my highest consideration.
+Believe me, I am enviously yours, Daniel Anisty'--Signed," added Hickey
+mechanically, his face working.
+
+"Satisfied, Sleuth?"
+
+By way of reply, but ungraciously, the detective stepped forward and
+unlocked the handcuffs.
+
+Maitland stood erect, smiling. "Thank you very much, sleuth. I shan't
+forget you ... O'Hagan," Tossing the janitor the keys from his desk,
+"you'll find some--ah--lemon-pop and root-beer in the buffet, this officer
+and his friends will no doubt join you in a friendly drink downstairs.
+Cabby, I want a word with you.... Good morning, gentlemen, _Good Morning,_
+sleuth."
+
+And he showed them the door. "I shall be at your service officer," he
+called over the janitor's shoulder, "at any time to-morrow morning. If not
+here, O'Hagan will tell you where to find me. And, O'Hagan!" The Janitor
+fell back. "Keep them at least an hour," Maitland told him guardedly, "and
+say nothing."
+
+The Irishman pledged his discretion by a silent look. Maitland turned back
+to the cabby.
+
+"You did me a good turn, just now," he began.
+
+"Don't mention it, sir; I've carried you hoften before this evenin',
+and--excuse my sayin' so--I never _'ad_ a fare as tipped 'andsomer.
+It's a real pleasure, sir, to be of service."
+
+"Thank you," returned Maitland, eying him in speculative wise. "I
+wonder--"
+
+The man was a rough, burly Englishman of one of the most intelligent, if
+not intellectual, kind; the British cabby, as a type, has few superiors
+for sheer quickness of wit and understanding. This man had been sharpened
+and tempered by his contact with American conditions. His eyes were
+shrewd, his face honest if weather-beaten, his attitude respectful.
+
+"I've another use for you to-night," Maitland decided, "if you are at
+liberty and--discreet?" The final word was a question, flung over his
+shoulder as he turned toward the escritoire.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the man thoughtfully. "I allus can drive, sir, even when
+I'm drinkin' 'ardest and can't see nothink."
+
+"Yes? You've been drinking to-night?" Maitland smiled quietly, standing at
+the small writing-desk and extracting a roll of bills from a concealed
+drawer.
+
+"I'm fair blind, sir."
+
+"Very well." Maitland turned and extended his hand, and despite his
+professed affliction, the cabby's eyes bulged as he appreciated the size
+of the bill.
+
+"My worrd!" he gasped, stowing it away in the cavernous depths of a
+trousers pocket.
+
+"You will wait outside," said Maitland, "until I come out or--or send
+somebody for you to take wherever directed. Oh, that's all right--not
+another word!"
+
+The door closed behind the overwhelmed nighthawk, and the latch clicked
+loudly. For a space Maitland stood in the hallway, troubled, apprehensive,
+heart strangely oppressed, vision clouded by the memory of the girl as he
+had seen her only a few minutes since: as she had stood beneath the
+chandelier, after acting upon her primary clear-headed impulse to give her
+rescuer the aid of the light.
+
+He seemed to recall very clearly her slight figure, swaying, a-quiver with
+fright and solicitude,--care for him!--her face, sensitive and sweet
+beneath its ruddy crown of hair, that of a child waking from evil dreams,
+her eyes seeking his with their dumb message of appeal and of.... He dared
+not name what else.
+
+Forlorn, pitiful, little figure! Odd it seemed that he should fear to face
+her again, alone, that he should linger reluctant to cross the threshold
+of his study, mistrustful and afraid alike of himself and of her--a thief.
+
+For what should he say to her, other than the words that voiced the hunger
+of his heart? Yet if he spoke ... words such as those to--to a thief ...
+what would be the end of it all?
+
+What did it matter? Surely he, who knew the world wherein he lived and
+moved and had his being, knew bitter well the worth of its verdicts. The
+world might go hang, for all he cared. At least his life was his own,
+whether to make or to mar, and he had not to answer for it to any power
+this side of the gates of darkness. And if by any act of his the world
+should be given a man and a woman in exchange for a thief and an idler,
+perhaps in the final reckoning his life might not be accounted altogether
+wasted....
+
+He set back his shoulders and inspired deeply, eyes lightening; and
+stepped into the study, resolved. "Miss--" he called huskily; and
+stopped, reminded that not yet did he even know her name.
+
+"It is safe now," he amended, more clearly and steadily, "to come out, if
+you will."
+
+He heard no response. The long gleaming folds of the portieres hung
+motionless. Still, a sharp and staccato clatter of hoofs that had risen in
+the street, might have drowned her voice.
+
+"If you please--?" he said again, loudly.
+
+The silence sang sibilant in his ears; and he grew conscious of a sense of
+anxiety and fear stifling in its intensity.
+
+At length, striding forward, with a swift gesture he flung the hangings
+aside.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+ON RECONSIDERATION
+
+Gently but with decision Sergeant Hickey set his face against the
+allurement of the wine-cup and the importunities of his fellow-officers.
+
+He was tired, he affirmed with a weary nod; the lateness of the hour
+rendered him quite indisposed for convivial dalliance. Even the sight of
+O'Hagan, seduction incarnated, in the vestibule, a bottle under either
+arm, clutching a box of cigars jealously with both hands, failed to move
+the temperate soul.
+
+"Nah," he waved temptation aside with a gesture of finality. "I don't
+guess I'll take nothin' to-night, thanks. G'night all."
+
+And, wheeling, shaped a course for Broadway.
+
+The early morning air breathed chill but grateful to his fevered brow.
+Oddly enough, in view of the fact that he had indulged in no very violent
+exercise, he found himself perspiring profusely. Now and again he saw fit
+to pause, removing his hat and utilizing a large soiled bandana with grim
+abandon.
+
+At such times his face would be upturned, eyes trained upon the dim
+infinities beyond the pale moon-smitten sky. And he would sigh
+profoundly--not the furnace sigh of a lover thinking of his mistress, but
+the heartfelt and moving sigh of the man of years and cares who has drunk
+deep of that cup of bitterness called Unappreciated Genius.
+
+Then, tucking the clammy bandana into a hip pocket and withdrawing his
+yearning gaze from the heavens, would struggle on, with a funereal
+countenance as the outward and visible manifestation of a mind burdened
+with mundane concerns: such as (one might shrewdly surmise) that
+autographed portrait of a Deputy Commissioner of Police which the
+detective's lynx-like eyes had discovered on Maitland's escritoire,
+unhappily, toward the close of their conference, or, possibly, the mighty
+processes of departmental law, with its attendant annoyances of charges
+preferred, hearings before an obviously prejudiced yet high-principled
+martinet, reprimands and rulings, reductions in rank, "breaking,"
+transfers; or--yet a third possibility--with the prevailing rate of wage
+as contrasted between detective and "sidewalk-pounder," and the cost of
+living as contrasted between Manhattan, on the one hand, and Jamaica,
+Bronxville, or St. George, Staten Island, on the other.
+
+A dimly lighted side-entrance presently loomed invitingly in the
+sergeant's path. He glanced up, something surprised to find himself on
+Sixth Avenue; then, bowed with the fatigue of a busy day, turned aside,
+entering a dingy back room separated from the bar proper (at that illicit
+hour) by a curtain of green baize. A number of tables whose sloppy
+imitation rosewood tops shone dimly in the murky gas-light, were set
+about, here and there, for the accommodation of a herd of sleepy-eyed,
+case-hardened habitues.
+
+Into a vacant chair beside one of these the detective dropped, and
+familiarly requested the lantern-jawed waiter, who presently bustled to
+his side, to "Back meh up a tub of suds, George.... Nah," in response to a
+concerned query, "I ain't feelin' up to much to-night."
+
+Hat tilted over his eyes, one elbow on the chairback, another on the
+table, flabby jowls quivering as he mumbled the indispensable cigar, puffy
+hands clasped across his ample chest, he sat for many minutes by the side
+of his unheeded drink, pondering, turning over and over in his mind the
+one idea it was capable of harboring at a time.
+
+"He c'u'd 've wrote that letter to himself.... He's wise enough.... Yeh
+can't fool Hickey all the time.... I'll get him yet. Gottuh make good 'r
+it's the sidewalks f'r mine.... Me, tryin' hard to make an 'onest
+livin'.... 'Nd him with all kinds of money!"
+
+The fat mottled fingers sought a waistcoat pocket and, fumbling therein,
+touched caressingly a little pellet of soft paper. Its possessor did not
+require to examine it to reassure himself as to its legitimacy as a work
+of art, nor as to the prominence of the Roman C in its embellishment of
+engraved arabesques.
+
+"A century," he reflected sullenly; "one lonely little century for mine.
+'Nd _he_ had a wad like a ham ... _on_ him.... 'Nd I might've had
+it all for my very own if...." His brow clouded blackly.
+
+"_Sleuth!_" Hickey ground the epithet vindictively between his teeth.
+And spat. "Sleuth! Ah hell!"
+
+Recalled to himself by the very vehemence of his emotion, he turned
+hastily, drained to its dregs the tall glass of lukewarm and vapid beer
+which had stood at his elbow, placed a nickel on the table, and, rising,
+waddled hastily out into the night.
+
+It was being borne in upon him with much force that if he wished to save
+his name and fame somethin' had got to be done about it.
+
+"I hadn't oughtuh left him so long, I guess," he told himself; "but ...
+I'll _get_ him all right."
+
+And turning, lumbered gloomily eastward, rapt with vain imaginings, squat,
+swollen figure blending into the deeper, meaner shadows of the Tenderloin;
+and so on toward Maitland's rooms--morose, misunderstood, malignant,
+coddling his fictitious wrongs; somehow pathetically typical of the force
+he represented.
+
+On the corner of Fifth Avenue he paused, startled fairly out of his dour
+mood by the loud echo of a name already become too hatefully familiar to
+his ears, and by the sight of what, at first glance, he took to be the
+beginning of a street brawl.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+FLIGHT
+
+In the alcove the girl waited, torn in the throes of incipient hysteria:
+at first too weak from reaction and revulsion of feeling to do anything
+other than lean heavily against the wall and fight with all her strength
+and will against this crawling, shuddering, creeping horror of nerves,
+that threatened alike her self-control, her consciousness, and her reason.
+
+But insensibly the tremor wore itself away, leaving her weary and worn but
+mistress of her thoughts and actions. And she dropped with gratitude into
+a chair, bending an ear attentive to the war of words being waged in the
+room beyond the portieres.
+
+At first, however, she failed to grasp the import of the altercation. And
+when in time she understood its trend, it was with incredulity,
+resentment, and a dawning dread lest a worse thing might yet befall her,
+worse by far than aught that had gone before. But to be deprived of his
+protection, to feel herself forcibly restrained from the shelter of his
+generous care--!
+
+A moment gone she had been so sure that all would now be well with her,
+once Maitland succeeded in ridding himself of the police. He would shut
+that door and----and then she would come forth and tell him, tell him
+everything, and, withholding naught that damned her in her own esteem,
+throw herself upon his mercy, bruised with penitence but serene in the
+assurance that he would prove kind.
+
+She had such faith in his tender and gentle kindness now.... She had
+divined so clearly the motive that had permitted Anisty's escape in order
+that she might be saved, not alone from Anisty, not alone from the shame
+of imprisonment, but from herself as well--from herself as Maitland knew
+her. The burglar out of the way, by ruse, evasion, or subterfuge she would
+be secreted from the prying of the police, smuggled out of the house and
+taken to a place of safety, given a new chance to redeem herself, to clean
+her hands of the mire of theft, to become worthy of the womanhood that was
+hers....
+
+But now--she thrust finger-nails cruelly into her soft palms, striving to
+contain herself and keep her tongue from crying aloud to those three
+brutal, blind men the truth: that she was guilty of the robbery, she with
+Anisty; that Maitland was--Maitland: a word synonymous with "man of
+honor."
+
+In the beginning, indeed, all that restrained her from doing so was her
+knowledge that Maitland would be more pained by her sacrifice than
+gladdened or relieved. He was so sure of clearing himself.... It was
+inconceivable to her that there could be men so stupid and crassly
+unobservant as to be able to confuse the identity of the two men for a
+single instant. What though they did resemble each other in form and
+feature? The likeness went no deeper: below the surface, and rising
+through it with every word and look and gesture, lay a world-wide gulf of
+difference in every shade of thought, feeling, and instinct.
+
+She herself could never again be deceived--no, never! Not for a second
+could she mistake the one for the other.... What were they saying?
+
+The turmoil of her indignation subsided as she listened, breathlessly, to
+Maitland's story of his adventures; and the joy that leaped in her for his
+frank mendacity in suppressing every incident that involved her, was all
+but overpowering. She could have wept for sheer happiness; and at a later
+time she would; but not now, when everything depended on her maintaining
+the very silence of death.
+
+How dared they doubt him? The insolents! The crude brutish insolence of
+them! Her anger raged high again ... and as swiftly was quenched,
+extinguished in a twinkling by a terror born of her excitement and a bare
+suggestion thrown out by Hickey.
+
+"... _explainin' how a crook like Anisty made three tries in one day to
+steal some jewels and didn't get 'em. Where were they, all this time?_"
+
+
+Maitland's cool retort was lost upon her. What matter? If they disbelieved
+him, persisted in calling him Anisty, in natural course they would
+undertake to search the flat. And if she were found.... Oh, she must spare
+him that! She had given him cause for suffering enough. She must get away,
+and that instantly, before.... From a distance, to-morrow
+morning,--to-night, even,--by telegraph, she could communicate with him.
+
+At this juncture O'Hagan entered with his parcel. The rustle of the paper
+as he brushed against the door-jamb was in itself a hint to a mind keyed
+to the highest pitch of excitement and seeking a way of escape from a
+position conceived to be perilous. In a trice the girl had turned and
+sped, lightfooted, to the door opening on the private hall.
+
+Here, halting for a brief reconnaissance, she determined that her plan was
+feasible, if hazardous. She ran the risk of encountering some one
+ascending the stairs from the ground floor; but if she were cautious and
+quick she could turn back in time. On the other hand, the men whom she
+most feared were thoroughly occupied with their differences, dead to all
+save that which was happening within the room's four walls. A curtain hung
+perhaps a third of the way across the study door, tempering the light in
+the hall; and the broad shoulders of the cabby obstructed the remainder of
+the opening.
+
+It was a chance. She poised herself on tiptoe, half undecided, and--the
+rustling of paper as O'Hagan opened the parcel afforded her an opportunity
+to escape, by drowning the noise of her movements.
+
+For two eternal seconds she was edging stealthily down toward the outer
+door; then, in no time at all, found herself on the landing
+and--confronted by a fresh complication, one unforeseen: how to leave the
+house without being observed, stopped, and perhaps detained until too
+late? There would be men at the door, beyond doubt; possibly police,
+stationed there to arrest all persons attempting to leave....
+
+No time for weighing chances. The choice of two alternatives lay before
+her: either to return to the alcove or to seek safety in the darkness of
+the upper floors--untenanted, as she had been at pains to determine. The
+latter seemed by far the better, the less dangerous, course to pursue. And
+at once she took it.
+
+There was no light on the first-floor landing--it having presumably been
+extinguished by the janitor early in the evening. Only a feeble twilight
+obtained there, in part a reflected glow from the entrance hall, partly
+thin and diffused rays escaping from Maitland's study. So it was that the
+first few steps upward took the girl into darkness so close and unrelieved
+as to seem almost palpable.
+
+At the turn of the staircase she paused, holding the rail and resting for
+an instant, the while she listened, ere ascending at a more sedate pace to
+a haven of safety more complete in that it would be more remote from the
+battle-ground below.
+
+And, resting so, was suddenly chilled through and through with fear, sheer
+childish dread of the intangible and unknown terrors that lurked in the
+blackness above her. It was as if, rendered supersensitive by strain and
+excitement, the quivering filaments of her subconsciousness, like
+spiritual tentacles feeling ahead of her, had encountered and recoiled
+from a shape of evil, a specter of horror obscene and malign, crouching,
+ready to spring, there, in the shadow of night. . . .
+
+And her breath was smothered in her throat and her heart smote so madly
+against the frail walls of its cage that they seemed like to burst, while
+she stood transfixed, frozen in inaction, limbs stiffening, roots of her
+hair stirring, fingers gripping the banister rail until they pained her;
+and with eyes that stared wide into the black heart of nothingness, until
+the night seemed pricked with evanescent periods of dim fire, peopled with
+monstrous and terrible shadows closing about her. . . .
+
+Yet--it was absurd! She must not yield to such puerile superstitions.
+
+There was nothing there. . . .
+
+There _was_ something there . . . something that like an incarnation
+of hatred was stalking her. . . .
+
+If only she dared scream! If only she dared turn and fly, back to the
+comfort of light and human company!...
+
+There arose a trampling of feet in the hallway; and she heard Maitland's
+voice like a far echo, as he bade the police good night. And distant and
+unreachable as he seemed, the sound of his words brought her strength and
+some reassurance, and she grew slightly more composed. Yet, the instant
+that he had turned away to talk to the cabman, her fright of that
+unspeakable and incorporeal menace flooded her consciousness like a great
+wave, sweeping her--metaphorically--off her feet. And indeed, for the
+time, she felt as if drowning, overwhelmed in vast waters, sinking,
+sinking into the black abyss of syncope....
+
+Then, as a drowning person--we're told--clutches at straws, she grasped
+again at the vibrations of his voice.... What was he saying?
+
+"_You will wait outside, please, until I come out or send somebody, whom
+you will take wherever directed_...."
+
+----Speaking to the cabman, thinking of her, providing for her escape!
+Considerate and fore-sighted as always! How she could have thanked him!
+The warmth of gratitude that enveloped her almost unnerved her; she was
+put to it to restrain her impulse to rush down the stairs and....
+
+But no; she must not risk the chance of rebuff. How could she foretell
+what was in his mind and heart, how probe the depths of his feeling toward
+her? Perhaps he would receive her protestations in skeptic spirit. Heaven
+knew he had cause to! Dared she.... To be repulsed!...
+
+But no. He had provided this means for flight; she would advantage herself
+of it and ... and thank him by letter. Best so: for he must ever think the
+worst of her; she could never undeceive him--pride restraining and
+upholding her.
+
+Better so; she would go, go quickly, before he discovered her absence from
+the flat.
+
+And incontinently she swung about and flew down the stairs, silently,
+treading as lightly on the heavily padded steps as though she had been
+thistledown whirled adrift by the wind, altogether heedless of the
+creeping terror she had sensed on the upper flight, careless of all save
+her immediate need to reach that cab before Maitland should discover that
+she had escaped.
+
+The door was just closing behind the cabby as she reached the bottom step;
+and she paused, considering that it were best to wait a moment, at least,
+lest he should be surprised at the quickness with which his employer found
+work for him; paused and on some mysterious impulse half turned, glancing
+back up the stairs.
+
+Not a thought too soon; another instant's hesitation and she had been
+caught. Some one--a man--was descending; and rapidly. Maitland? Even in
+her brief glance she saw the white shield of a shirt bosom gleam dull
+against the shadows. Maitland was in evening dress. Could it be
+possible...?
+
+No time now for conjecture, time now only for action. She sprang for the
+door, had it open in a trice, and before the cabby was really enthroned
+upon his lofty box, the girl was on the step, fair troubled face upturned
+to him in wild entreaty.
+
+"Hurry!" she cried, distracted. "Drive off, at once! Please--oh, please!"
+
+Perhaps the man had expected something of the sort, analyzing Maitland's
+words and manner. At all events he was quick to appreciate. This was what
+he had been engaged for and what he had been paid for royally, in advance.
+
+Seizing reins and whip, he jerked the startled animal between the shafts
+out of its abstraction and----
+
+"I say, cabby! One moment!"
+
+The cabman turned; the figure on the stoop of the house was undoubtedly
+Maitland's--Maitland as he had just seen him, with the addition of a hat.
+As he looked the man was at the wheel, clambering in.
+
+"Changed my mind--I'm coming along, cabby," he said cheerfully. "Drive us
+to the St. Luke Building, please and--hurry!"
+
+"Yessir!"
+
+Bitter as poverty the cruel lash cut round the horse's flanks; and as the
+hansom shot out at break-neck speed toward Fifth Avenue, the girl cowered
+back in her corner, shivering, staring wide-eyed at the man who had so
+coolly placed himself at her side.
+
+This, then, was that nameless danger that had stalked her on the
+staircase, this the personality whose animosity toward her had grown so
+virulent that, even when consciously ignorant of its proximity, she had
+been repelled and frightened by its subtle emanations! And now--and now
+she was in his power!
+
+Dazed with fear she started up, acting blindly on the primitive instinct
+to fly; and in another moment, doubtless, would have thrown herself boldly
+from the cab to the sidewalk, had her companion not seized her by the
+forearm and by simple force compelled her to resume her seat.
+
+"Be still, you little fool!" he told her sharply. "Do you think that I'm
+going to let you go a third time? Not till I'm through with you.... And if
+you scream, by the powers, I'll throttle you!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+She sank back, speechless. Anisty glanced her up and down without visible
+emotion, then laughed unpleasantly,--the hard and unyielding laugh of
+brute man brutishly impassioned.
+
+"This silly ass, Maitland," he observed, "isn't really as superfluous as
+he seems. _I_ find him quite a convenience, and I suppose that ought
+to be totted up to his credit, since it's because he's got the good taste
+to resemble me.... Consider his thoughtfulness in providing me this cab!
+What'd I've done without it? To tell the truth I was quite at a loss to
+frame it up, how to win your coy consent to this giddy elopement, back
+there in the hall. But dear kind Mis-ter Maitland, bless his innocent
+heart! fixes it all up for me.... And so," concluded the criminal with
+ironic relish,--"and so I've got _you_, my lady."
+
+He looked at her in sidelong fashion, speculative, calculating,
+relentless. And she bowed her head, assenting, "Yes--"
+
+"You're dead right, little woman. Got you. Um-mmm."
+
+She made no reply; she could have made none aside from raising an outcry,
+although now she was regaining something of her shattered poise, and with
+it the ability to accept the situation quietly, for a little time (she
+could not guess how long she could endure the strain), pending an
+opportunity to turn the tables on this, her persecutor.
+
+"What is it," she said presently, with some effort--"what is it you wish
+with me?"
+
+"I have my purpose," with a grim smile.
+
+"You will not tell me?"
+
+"You've guessed it, my lady; I will not--just yet. Wait a bit."
+
+She spurred her flagging spirit until it flashed defiance. "Mr. Anisty!"
+
+"Yes?" he responded with a curling lip, cold eyes to hers.
+
+"I demand--"
+
+"No you don't!" he cut her short with a snarl. "You're not in a position
+to demand anything. Maybe it would be as well for you to remember who
+you're dealing with."
+
+"And----?"--heart sinking again.
+
+"And I've been made a fool of just as long as I can stand for it. I'm a
+crook--like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in
+being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll
+spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today
+I've been within an ace of being nabbed--kindness of you and your
+Maitland. Now--I'm desperate and determined. Do you connect?"
+
+"What--?" she asked breathlessly.
+
+"I can make you understand, I fancy. Tonight, instead of dropping to the
+back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape
+up to the top flat--something a copper would never think of--and went
+through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tete-a-tete
+Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet
+been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks.
+Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted
+it." The criminal's voice fell a note or two, shaking with somber passion.
+"I'll have that pup's hide yet!" he swore.
+
+The girl tried to nerve herself. "It--it doesn't seem to strike you," she
+argued, controlling her hysteria by sheer strength of purpose, "that I
+have only to raise my voice to bring all Broadway to my rescue."
+
+For by now the cab had sheered off into that thoroughfare, and was rocking
+rapidly south, between glittering walls of light. A surface car swooped
+down upon them, and past, making night hideous with gong and drumming
+trucks, and drowning Anisty's response. For which reason he chose to
+repeat it, with added emphasis.
+
+"You try it on, my lady, and see what happens."
+
+She had no answer ready, and he proceeded, after waiting a moment: "But
+you're not going to be such a fool. You have no pleasure in the prospect
+of seeing the inside of the Tombs, yourself; and, besides, you ought to
+know me well enough to know...."
+
+"What?" she breathed, in spite of herself.
+
+Anisty folded his arms, thrusting the right hand beneath his coat.
+
+"Maitland got only one of my guns," he announced ironically. "He'd've got
+the contents of the other, only he chose to play the fool and into my
+hands. Now I guess you understand,"--and turning his head he fixed her
+with an inflexible glare, chill and heartless as steel,--"that one squeal
+out of you will be the last. Oh, I've got no scruples; arrest to me means
+a living death. I'll take a shorter course, by preference, and--I'll take
+you with me for company."
+
+"You--you mean you would shoot me?" she whispered, incredulous.
+
+"Like a dog," he returned with unction.
+
+"You, a man, would--would shoot a woman?"
+
+"You're not a woman, my lady: you're a crook. Just as I'm not a man:
+_I'm_ a crook. We're equals, sexless, soulless. You seem to have
+overlooked that. Amateurs often do.... To-night I made you a fair
+proposition, to play square with me and profit. You chose to be haughty.
+Now you see the other side of the picture."
+
+Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she
+crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly
+reptile.
+
+He understood this; and regarded her with a confident leer, inscrutably
+strong and malevolent.
+
+"And there is one other reason why you will think twice before making a
+row," he clinched his case. "If you did that, and I weakly permitted the
+police to nab and walk us off, the business would get in the papers--your
+name and all; and--what'd Maitland think of you then, my lady? What'd he
+think when he read that Dan Anisty had been pinched on Broadway in company
+with the little woman he'd been making eyes at--whom he was going, in his
+fine manlike way, to reach down a hand to and yank up out of the gutter
+and redeem and--and all that slush? Eh?"
+
+And again his low evil laugh made her shudder. "Now, you won't risk that.
+You'll come with me and behave, I guess, all right."
+
+She was dumb, stupefied with misery.
+
+He turned upon her sharply.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Her lips moved in soundless assent,--lips as pallid and bloodless as the
+wan young face beneath the small inconspicuous hat.
+
+The man grunted impatiently; yet was satisfied, knowing that he had her
+now completely under control: a condition not hard to bring about in a
+woman who, like this, was worn out with physical fatigue and overwrought
+with nervous strain. The conditions had been favorable, the result was
+preeminently comfortable. She would give him no more trouble.
+
+The hansom swerved suddenly across the car-tracks and pulled up at the
+curb. Anisty rose with an exclamation of relief and climbed down to the
+sidewalk, turning and extending a hand to assist the girl.
+
+"Come!" he said imperatively. "We've no time to waste."
+
+For an instant only she harbored a fugitive thought of resistance; then
+his eyes met hers and held them, and her mind seemed to go blank under his
+steadfast and domineering regard. "Come!" he repeated sharply. Trembling,
+she placed a hand in his and somehow found herself by his side. Regardless
+of appearances the man retained her hand, merely shifting it beneath his
+arm, where a firm pressure of the elbow held it as in a vise.
+
+"You needn't wait," he said curtly to the cabby; and swung about, the girl
+by his side.
+
+"No nonsense now," he warned her tensely, again thrusting a hand in his
+breast pocket significantly.
+
+"I understand," she breathed faintly, between closed teeth.
+
+She had barely time to remark the towering white facade of upper
+Broadway's tallest sky-scraper ere she was half led, half dragged into the
+entrance of the building.
+
+The marble slabs of the vestibule echoed strangely to their
+footsteps--those slabs that shake from dawn to dark with the tread of
+countless feet. They moved rapidly toward the elevator-shaft, passing on
+their way deserted cigar- and news-stands shrouded in dirty brown clothes.
+By the dark and silent well, where the six elevators (of which one only
+was a-light and ready for use) stood motionless as if slumbering in utter
+weariness after the gigantic exertions of the day, they came to a halt;
+and a chair was scraped noisily on the floor as a night-watchman rose,
+rubbing his eyes and yawning, to face them.
+
+Anisty opened the interview brusquely. "Is Mr. Bannerman in now?" he
+demanded.
+
+The watchman opened his eyes wider, losing some of his sleepy expression;
+and observed the speaker and his companion--the small, shrinking,
+frightened-looking little woman who bore so heavily on her escort's arm,
+as if ready to drop with exhaustion. It appeared that he knew Maitland by
+sight, or else thought that he did.
+
+"Oh, ye're Mister Maitland, ain't yous?" he said. "Nope; if Misther
+Bannerman's in his offis, I dunno nothin' about it."
+
+"He was to meet me here at two," Anisty affirmed. "It's a very important
+case. I'm sure he must be along, immediately, if he's not up-stairs.
+You're sure--?"
+
+"Nah, I ain't sure. He may've been there all night, f'r all I know. But
+I'll take yous up 'f you want," with a doubtful glance at the girl.
+
+"This lady is one of Mr. Bannerman's clients, and in great trouble." The
+self-styled Maitland laid his hand in a protecting gesture over the
+fingers on his arm; and pressed them cruelly. "I think we will go up,
+thank you. If Bannerman's not in, I can 'phone him. I've a pass-key."
+
+The watchman appeared satisfied: Maitland's social standing was guaranty
+enough.
+
+"All right, sir. Step in."
+
+The girl made one final effort to hang back. Anisty's brows blackened. "By
+God!" he told her in a whisper. "If you dare...!"
+
+And somehow she found herself at his side in the steel cage, the gate's
+clang ringing loud in her ears. The motion of the car, shooting upwards
+with rapidly increasing speed, made her slightly giddy. Despite Anisty's
+supporting arm she reeled back against the wall of the cage, closing her
+eyes. The man observed this with covert satisfaction.
+
+As the speed decreased she began to feel slightly stronger; and again
+opened her eyes. The floor numbers, black upon a white ground, were
+steadily slipping down; the first she recognized being 19. The pace was
+sensibly decreased. Then with a slight jar the elevator stopped at 22.
+
+"Yous know the way?"
+
+"Perfectly," replied Anisty. "Two flights up--in the tower."
+
+"Right. When yous wants me, ring."
+
+The car dropped like a plummet, leaving them in darkness--or rather in a
+thick gloom but slightly moderated by the moonlight streaming in at
+windows at either end of the corridor. Anisty gripped the girl more
+roughly.
+
+"Now, my lady! No shennanigan!"
+
+A futile, superfluous reminder. Temporarily at least she was become as wax
+in his hands. So complex had been the day's emotions, so severe her
+nervous tension, so heavy the tax upon her stamina, that she had lapsed
+into a state of subjective consciousness, in which she responded without
+purpose, almost dreamily, to the suggestions of the stronger will.
+
+Wearily she stumbled up the two brief flights of stairs leading to the
+tower-like cupola of the sky-scraper: two floors superimposed upon the
+roof with scant excuse save that of giving the building the distinction of
+being the loftiest in that section of the city--certainly not to lend any
+finishing touch of architectural beauty to the edifice.
+
+On the top landing a door confronted them, its glass panel shining dimly
+in the darkness. Anisty paused, unceremoniously thrusting the girl to one
+side and away from the head of the staircase; and fumbled in a pocket,
+presently producing a jingling bunch of keys. For a moment or two she
+heard him working at the lock and muttering in an undertone,--probably
+swearing,--and then, with a click, the door swung open.
+
+The man thrust a hand inside, touched an electric switch, flooding the
+room with light, and motioned the girl to enter. She obeyed passively,
+thoroughly subjugated: and found herself in a large and well-furnished
+office, apparently the outer of two rooms. The glare of electric light at
+first partly blinded her; and she halted instinctively a few steps from
+the door, waiting for her eyes to become accustomed to the change.
+
+Behind her the door was closed softly; and there followed a thud as a bolt
+was shot. An instant later Anisty caught her by the arm and, roughly now
+and without wasting speech, hurried her into the next room. Then,
+releasing her, he turned up the lights and, passing to the windows, threw
+two or three of them wide; for the air in the room was stale and lifeless.
+
+"And now," said the criminal in a tone of satisfaction, "now we can talk
+business, my dear."
+
+He removed his overcoat and hat, throwing them over the back of a
+convenient chair, drew his fingers thoughtfully across his chin, and,
+standing at a little distance, regarded the girl with a shadow of a
+saturnine smile softening the hard line of his lips.
+
+She stood where he had left her, as if volition was no longer hers. Her
+arms hung slack at her sides and she was swaying a trifle, her face
+vacant, eyes blank: very near the breaking-down point.
+
+The man was not without perception; and recognized her state--one in
+which, he felt assured, he could get very little out of her. She must be
+strengthened and revived before she would or could respond to the direct
+catechism he had in store for her. In his own interest, therefore, more
+than through any yielding to motives of pity and compassion, he piloted
+her to a chair by a window and brought her a glass of clear cold water
+from the filter in the adjoining room.
+
+The cold, fresh breeze blowing in her face proved wonderfully
+invigorating. She let her head sink back upon the cushions of the easy,
+comfortable leather chair and drank in the clean air in great deep
+draughts, with a sense of renewing vigor, both bodily and spiritual. The
+water helped, too: she dabbled the tip of a ridiculously small
+handkerchief in it and bathed her throbbing temples. The while, Anisty
+stood over her, waiting with discrimination if with scant patience.
+
+What was to come she neither knew nor greatly cared; but, with an
+instinctive desire to postpone the inevitable moment of trial, she
+simulated deadly languor for some moments after becoming conscious of her
+position: and lay passive, long lashes all but touching her cheeks,--in
+which now a faint color was growing,--gaze wandering at random out over a
+dreary wilderness of flat rectangular roofs, livid in the moonlight,
+broken by long, straight clefts of darkness in whose depths lights gleamed
+faintly. Far in the south the sky came down purple and black to the
+horizon, where a silver spark glittered like a low-swung star: the torch
+of Liberty.
+
+"I think," Anisty's clear-cut tones, incisive as a razor edge, crossed the
+listless trend of her thoughts: "I think we will now get down to business,
+my lady!"
+
+She lifted her lashes, meeting his masterful stare with a look of calm
+inquiry. "Well?"
+
+"So you're better now? Possibly it was a mistake to give you that rest, my
+lady. Still, when one's a gentleman-cracksman----!" He chuckled
+unpleasantly, not troubling to finish his sentence.
+
+"Well?" he mocked, seating himself easily upon an adjacent table. "We're
+here at last, where we'll suffer no interruptions to our little council of
+war. Beyond the watchman, there's probably not another soul in the
+building; and from that window there it is a straight drop of twenty-four
+stories to Broadway, while I'm between you and the door. So you may be
+resigned to stay here until I get ready to let you go. If you scream for
+help, no one will hear you."
+
+"Very well," she assented mechanically, turning her head away with a
+shiver of disgust. "What is it you want?"
+
+"The jewels," he said bluntly. "You might have guessed that."
+
+"I did...."
+
+"And have saved yourself and me considerable trouble by speaking ten
+minutes ago."
+
+"Yes," she agreed abstractedly.
+
+"Now," he continued with a hint of anger in his voice, "you are going to
+tell."
+
+She shook her head slightly.
+
+"Oh, but you are, my lady." And his tone rasped, quickened with the latent
+brutality of the natural criminal. "And I know that you'll not force me to
+extreme measures. It wouldn't be pleasant for you, you know; and I promise
+you I shall stop at nothing whatever to make you speak."
+
+No answer; in absolute indifference, she felt, lay her strongest weapon.
+She must keep calm and self-possessed, refusing to be terrified into a
+quick and thoughtless answer. "This afternoon," he said harshly, "you
+stole from me the Maitland jewels. Where are they?"
+
+"I shall not tell."
+
+He bent swiftly forward and took one of her hands in his. Instinctively
+she clenched it; and he wrapped his strong hard fingers around the small
+white fist, then deliberately inserted a hard finger joint between her
+second and third knuckles, slowly increasing the pressure. And watched
+with absolute indifference the lines of agony grave themselves upon her
+smooth unwrinkled forehead, and the color leave her cheeks, as the pain
+grew too exquisite. Then, suddenly discontinuing the pressure, but
+retaining her hand, he laughed shortly.
+
+"Will you speak, my lady, or will you have more?"
+
+"Don't," she gasped, "please...!"
+
+"Where are the jewels? Will you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you given them to Maitland?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Stop that nonsense unless.... Where did you leave them?"
+
+"I won't tell--I won't.... Ah, please, _please!_"
+
+"Tell me!"
+
+"Never.... Ah-h!..."
+
+An abrupt and resounding hammering at the outer door forced him to leave
+off. He dropped her hand with an oath and springing to his feet drew his
+revolver; then, with a glance at the girl, who was silently weeping, tears
+of pain rolling down her cheeks, mouth set in a thin pale line of
+determination, strode out and shut the door after him.
+
+As it closed the girl leaped to her feet, maddened with torture, wild eyes
+casting about the room for a weapon of some sort, of offense or defense;
+for she could not have endured the torture an instant longer. If forced to
+it, to fight, fight she would. If only she had something, a stick of wood,
+to defend herself with.... But there was nothing, nothing at all.
+
+The room was a typical office, well but severely furnished. The rug that
+covered the tile floor was of rich quality and rare design. The
+neutral-tinted walls were bare, but for a couple of steel engravings in
+heavy wooden frames. There were three heavily upholstered leather
+arm-chairs and one revolving desk-chair; a roll-top desk, against the
+partition wall, a waste-paper basket, and a flat-topped desk, or table.
+And that was all.
+
+Or not quite all, else the office equipment had not been complete. There
+was the telephone!
+
+But he would hear! Or was the partition sound-proof?
+
+As if in contradiction of the suggestion, there came to her ears very
+clearly the sound of the hall door creaking on its hinges, and then a
+man's voice, shrill with anger and anxiety.
+
+"You fool! Do you want to ruin us both? What do you mean----"
+
+The door crashed to, interrupting the protest and drowning Anisty's reply.
+
+"I was passing," the new voice took up its plaintive remonstrance, "and
+the watchman called me in and said that you were telephoning for me----"
+
+"Damn the interfering fool!" interrupted Anisty.
+
+"But what's this insanity, Anisty? What's this about a woman? What----"
+The new-comer's tones ascended a high scale of fright and rage.
+
+"Lower your voice, you ass!" the burglar responded sternly. "And----"
+
+He took his own advice; and for a little time the conference was conducted
+in guarded tones that did not penetrate the dividing wall save as a deep
+rumbling alternating with an impassioned squeak.
+
+But long ere this had come to pass the girl was risking all at the
+telephone. Receiver to ear she was imploring Central to connect her with
+Ninety-eighty-nine Madison. If only she might get Maitland, tell him where
+the jewels were hidden, warn him to remove them--then she could escape
+further suffering by open confession..
+
+"What number?" came Central's languid query, after a space. "Did you say
+Nine-ought-nine-eight?"
+
+"No, no, Central. Nine-o-eight-nine Madison, please, and hurry------
+hurry!"
+
+"Ah, I'm ringin' 'em. They ain't answered yet. Gimme time.... There they
+are. Go ahead."
+
+"Hello, hello!"
+
+"Pwhat is ut?"
+
+Her heart sank: O'Hagan's voice meant that Maitland was out.
+
+"O'Hagan--is that you?... Tell Mr. Maitland------"
+
+ "He's gawn out for the noight an'------"
+
+"Tell him, please------"
+
+"But he's out. Ring up in the marnin'."
+
+"But can't you take this message for him? Please...."
+
+The door was suddenly jerked open and Anisty leaped into the room, face
+white with passion. Terrified, the girl sprang from the desk, carrying the
+instrument with her, placing the revolving chair between her and her
+enemy.
+
+"The brass bowl, please,--tell him that," she cried clearly into the
+receiver.
+
+And Anisty was upon her, striking the telephone from her grasp with one
+swift blow and seizing her savagely by the wrist. As the instrument
+clattered and pounded on the floor she was sent reeling and staggering
+half-way across the room.
+
+As she brought up against the flat-topped desk, catching its edge and
+saving herself a fall, the burglar caught up the telephone.
+
+"Who is that?" he shouted imperatively into the transmitter.
+
+Whatever the reply, it seemed to please him. His brows cleared, the wrath
+that had made his face almost unrecognizable subsided; he even smiled. And
+the girl trembled, knowing that he had solved her secret; for she had
+hoped against hope that the only words he could have heard her speak would
+have had too cryptic a significance for his comprehension.
+
+As, slowly and composedly, he replaced the receiver on its hook and
+returned the instrument to the desk, a short and rotund figure of a man,
+in rumpled evening dress and wearing a wilted collar, hopped excitedly
+into the room, cast at the girl one terrified glance out of eyes that
+glittered with excitement like black diamonds, set in a face the hue of
+yeast, and clutched the burglar's arm.
+
+"Oh, Anisty, Anisty!" he cried piteously. "What is it? What is it? Tell
+me!"
+
+"It's all right," returned the burglar. "Don't you worry, little man. Pull
+yourself together." And laughed.
+
+ "But what--what----" stammered the other.
+
+"Only that she's given herself away," chuckled Anisty: "beautifully and
+completely. 'The brass bowl,' says she,--thinking I never saw one on
+Maitland's desk!--and 'O'Hagan, and who the divvle are you?' says the man
+on the other end of the wire, when I ask who he is."
+
+"And? And?" pleaded the little man, dancing with worry.
+
+"And it means that my lady here returned the jewels to Maitland by hiding
+them under a brass ash-receiver on his desk--ass that I was not to
+know!... You are 'cute, my lady!" with an ironic salute to the girl, "but
+you've met your match in Anisty."
+
+"And," demanded the other as the burglar snatched up his hat and coat,
+"what will you do, Anisty?"
+
+"Do?"--contemptuously. "Why, what is there to do but go and get them?
+We've risked too much and made New York too hot for the two of us, my dear
+sir, to get out of the game without the profits."
+
+"But I beg of you----"
+
+"You needn't,"--grimly. "It won't bring you in any money."
+
+"But Maitland--"
+
+"Is out. O'Hagan answered the 'phone. Don't you understand?"
+
+"But he may return!"
+
+"That's his lookout. I'm sorry for him if he does." Anisty produced the
+revolver from his pocket, and twirled the cylinder significantly. "I owe
+Mr. Maitland something," he said, nodding to the white-faced girl by the
+table, "and I shouldn't be sorry to----"
+
+"And what," broke in the new-comer, "what am I going to do meanwhile?"
+
+"Devil the bit _I_ care! Stay here and keep this impetuous female
+from calling up Police Headquarters, for a good guess.... Speaking of
+which, I think we had best settle this telephone business once and for
+all."
+
+The burglar turned again to the desk and began to work over the instrument
+with a small screwdriver which he produced from his coat pocket, talking
+the while.
+
+"Our best plan, my dear Bannerman, is for you to come with me, at least as
+far as the nearest corner. You can wait there, if you're too cowardly to
+go the limit, like a man.... I'll get the loot and join you, and we can
+make a swift hike for the first train that goes farthest out of town....
+A pity, for we've done pretty well, you and I, old boy: you with your
+social entree and bump of locality to locate the spoils, me with my
+courage and skill to lift 'em, and an equitable division.... Oh, don't
+worry about _her_, Bannerman! She's as deep in it as either of us,
+only she happens to be sentimental, and an outsider on this deal. She
+won't blab. Besides, you're ruined anyway, as far as New York's
+concerned.... Come along. That's finished: she won't send any important
+messages over that wire to-night, I guess."
+
+"My dear young lady!" Rising and throwing the overcoat over his arm, he
+waved his hat at her in sardonic courtesy. "I can't say it has been a
+pleasure to know you but--you have made it interesting, I admit. And I bid
+you a very good night. The charwoman will let you out when she comes to
+clean up in the morning. Adieu, my dear!"
+
+The little man bustled after him, bleating and fidgeting; and the lock
+clicked.
+
+She was alone ... utterly and forlornly alone ... and had lost ... lost
+all, all that she had prized and hoped to win, even ... even him....
+
+She raised fluttering, impotent white hands to her temples, trying to
+collect herself. In the outer room a clock was ticking. Unconsciously she
+moved to the doorway and stood looking for a time at the white,
+expressionless dial. It was some time--a minute or two--before she
+deciphered the hour.
+
+Ten minutes past two!... Ah, the lifetime she had lived in the past
+seventy minutes! And the futility of it all!
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+THE PRICE
+
+Slowly Maitland returned to the study and replaced the lamp upon his desk;
+and stood briefly in silence, long fingers stroking his well-shaped chin,
+his face a little thin and worn-looking, a gleam of pain in his eyes. He
+sighed.
+
+So she was gone!
+
+He laughed a trace harshly. This surprise was nothing more than he might
+have discounted, of course; he had been a fool to expect anything else of
+her, he was enjoying only his just deserts both for having dared to
+believe that the good in human nature (and particularly in woman's nature)
+would respond to decent treatment, and for having acted on that asinine
+theory.
+
+So she was gone, without a word, without a sign!...
+
+He sat down at the desk, sidewise, one arm extended along its edge,
+fingers drumming out a dreary little tune on the hard polished wood; and
+thought it all over from the beginning. Nor spared himself.
+
+Why, after all, should it be otherwise? Why should she have stayed? Why
+should he compliment himself by believing that there was aught about him
+visible through the veneer acquired in a score and odd years of
+purposeless existence, to attract a young and pretty woman's heart?
+
+He enumerated his qualities specifically; and condemned them all.
+Imprimis, he was a conceited ass. A fascinating young criminal had but to
+toss her head at him to make him think that she was pleased with him, to
+make him forget that she was what she was and believe that, because he was
+willing to stoop, she was willing to climb. And he had betrayed himself so
+mercilessly! How she must have laughed in her sleeve all the time, while
+he pranced and bridled and preened himself under her eyes, blinded to his
+own idiocy by the flame of a sudden infatuation--how she _must_ have
+laughed!
+
+Undoubtedly she had laughed; and, measuring his depth,--or his
+shallowness,--had determined to use him to her ends. Why not? It had been
+her business, her professional duty, to make use of him in order to
+accomplish her plundering. And because she had not dared to ask him for
+the jewels when he left her in the morning, she had naturally returned in
+the evening to regain them, very confident, doubtless, that even if
+surprised a second time, she would get off scot-free. Unfortunately for
+her, this fellow Anisty had interfered. Maitland presumed cynically that
+he ought to be grateful to Anisty.... The unaccountable scoundrel! Why had
+_he_ returned?
+
+How the girl had contrived to escape was, of course, more easy to
+understand. Maitland recalled that sudden clatter of hoofs in the street,
+and he had only to make a trip to the window to verify his suspicion that
+the cab was gone. She had simply overheard his concluding remarks to the
+cabby, and taken pardonable advantage of them. Maitland had footed the
+bill.... She was welcome to that, however. He, Maitland, was well rid of
+the whole damnable business.... Yes, jewels and all!
+
+What were the jewels to him?... Beyond their sentimental associations, he
+did not hold them greatly in prize. Of course, since they had been worn by
+his mother, he would spare no expense or effort to trace and re-collect
+them, for that dim sainted memory's sake. But in this case, at least, the
+traditional usage of the Maitland's would never be carried out. It had
+been faithfully observed when, after his mother's death, the stones had
+been removed from their settings and stored away; but now they would never
+be reset, even should he contrive to reassemble them, to adorn the bride
+of the Maitland heir. For he would never marry. Of course not....
+
+Maitland was young enough to believe, and to extract a melancholy
+satisfaction from this.
+
+Puzzled and saddened, his mind harked back for ever to that carking
+question: Why had she returned? What had brought her back to the flat? If
+she and Anisty were confederates, as one was inclined at times to
+believe,--if such were the case, Anisty had the jewels, and there was
+nothing else of any particular value so persistently to entice such expert
+and accomplished burglars back to his flat. What else had they required of
+him? His peace of mind was nothing that they could turn into cash; and
+they seemed to have reaved him of nothing else.
+
+But they had that; unquestionably they had taken that.
+
+And still the riddle haunted him: Why had she come back that night? And,
+whatever her reason, had she come in Anisty's company, or alone? One
+minute it seemed patent beyond dispute that the girl and the great
+plunderer were hand-in-glove; the next minute Maitland was positively
+assured that their recent meeting had been altogether an accident. From
+what he had heard over the telephone, he had believed them to be
+quarreling, although at the time he had assigned to O'Hagan the masculine
+side to the dispute. But certainly there must have arisen some difference
+of opinion between Anisty and the girl, to have drawn from her that
+frantic negative Maitland had heard, to have been responsible for the
+overturning of the chair,--an accident that seemed to argue something in
+the nature of a physical struggle; the chair itself still lay upon its
+side, mute witness to a hasty and careless movement on somebody's part....
+
+But it was all inexplicable. Eventually Maitland shook his head, to
+signify that he gave it up. There was but one thing to do,--to put it out
+of mind. He would read a bit, compose himself, go to bed.
+
+Preliminary to doing so, he would take steps to insure the flat against
+further burglarizing, for that night, at least. The draught moving through
+the hall stirred the portiere and reminded him that the window in the
+trunk-room was still open, an invitation to any enterprising sneak-thief
+or second-story man. So Maitland went to close and make it fast.
+
+
+As he shut down the window-sash and clamped the catch he trod on something
+soft and yielding. Wondering, he stooped and picked it up, and carried it
+back to the light. It proved to be the girl's hand-bag.
+
+"Now," admitted Maitland in a tone of absolute candor, "I am damned. How
+the dickens did this thing get there, anyway? What was she doing in my
+trunk-closet?"
+
+Was it possible that she had followed Anisty out of the flat by that
+route? A very much mystified young man sat himself down again in front of
+his desk, and turned the bag over and over in his hands, keenly
+scrutinizing every inch of it, and whistling softly.
+
+That year the fashion in purses was for capacious receptacles of grained
+leather, nearly square in shape, and furnished with a chain handle. This
+which Maitland held was conspicuously of the mode,--neither too large,
+nor too small, constructed of fine soft leather of a gun-metal shade, with
+a framework and chain of gun-metal itself. It was new and seemed
+well-filled, weighing a trifle heavy in the hand. One face was adorned
+with a monogram of cut gun-metal, the initials "S" and "G" and "L"
+interlaced. But beyond this the bag was irritatingly non-committal.
+
+Undoubtedly, if one were to go to the length of unsnapping the little,
+frail clasp, one would acquire information; by such facile means would
+much light be shed upon the darkness. But Maitland put a decided negative
+to the suggestion.
+
+No. He would give her the benefit of the doubt. He would wait, he would
+school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,--and
+explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,--and get an
+explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his
+wish to pry into her secrets, even if--even if....
+
+It was something to be smoked over.... Strange how it affected him to
+have in his hands something that she had owned and touched!
+
+Opening a drawer of the desk, Maitland produced an aged pipe. A brazen
+jar, companion piece to the ash receiver, held his tobacco. He filled the
+pipe from the jar, with thoughtful deliberation. And scraped a match
+beneath his chair and ignited the tobacco and puffed in contemplative
+contentment, deriving solace from each mouthful of grateful, evanescent
+incense. Meanwhile he held the charred match between thumb and forefinger.
+
+Becoming conscious of this fact, he smiled in deprecation of his
+absent-minded mood, looked for the ash-receiver, discovered it in place,
+inverted beneath the book; and frowned, remembering. Then, with an
+impatient gesture,--impatient of his own infirmity of mind: for he simply
+could not forget the girl,--he dropped the match, swept the book aside,
+lifted the bowl....
+
+After a moment of incredulous awe, the young man rose, with eyes a-light
+and a jubilant song in the heart of him. Now he knew, now understood, now
+believed, and now was justified of his faith!
+
+After which depression came, with the consciousness that she was gone, for
+ever removed beyond his reach and influence, and that by her own wilful
+act. It was her intelligible wish that they should never meet again, for,
+having accomplished her errand, she had flown from the possibility of his
+thanks.
+
+It was so clear, now! He perceived it all, plainly. Somehow (though it was
+hard to surmise how) she had found out that Anisty had stolen the jewels;
+somehow (and one wondered at what risk) she had contrived to take them
+from him and bring them back to their owner. And Anisty had followed.
+
+Poor little woman! What had she not suffered, what perils had she not
+braved, to prove that there was honor even in thieves! It could have been
+at no inconsiderable danger,--a danger not incommensurate with that of
+robbing a tigress of her whelps,--that she had managed to filch his loot
+from that pertinacious and vindictive soul, Anisty!
+
+But she had accomplished it; and all for him!
+
+If only he could find her, _now!_
+
+There was a clue to his hand in that bag, of course, but by this act she
+had for ever removed from him the right to investigate _that_.
+
+If he could only find that cabby.
+
+Perhaps if he tried at the Madison Square rank, immediately....
+
+Besides, it was clearly his duty not to remain in the flat alone with the
+jewels another night. There was but one attainable place of safety for
+them; and that the safe of a reputable hotel. He would return to the
+Bartholdi at once, merely pausing on his way to inquire of the cabmen if
+they could send their brother-nighthawk to him.
+
+Maitland shook himself into his topcoat, jammed hat upon head, dropped the
+jewels into one pocket, the cigarette case into another, and--on
+impulse--Anisty's revolver, with its two unexploded cartridges, into a
+third; and pressed the call button for O'Hagan, not waiting, however, for
+that worthy to climb the stairs, but meeting him in the entry hall.
+
+"I'm going back to the Bartholdi, O'Hagan, for the night. You may bring me
+my letters and any messages in the morning. I should like you to sleep in
+the flat to-night and answer any telephone calls."
+
+"Yiss, Misther Maitland, sor."
+
+"Have the police gone, O'Hagan?"
+
+"There's a whole bottle full yet, sor."
+
+"You've not been drinking, I trust?"
+
+The Irishman shuffled. "Shure, sor, an' wud that be hosphitible?"
+
+Laughing, Maitland bade him good night and left the house, turning west to
+gain Fifth Avenue, walking slowly because he was a little tired, and
+enjoying the rather unusual experience of being abroad at that hour
+without company. The sky seemed cleaner than ordinarily, the city quieter
+than ever he had known it, and in the air was a sweet smell, reminiscent
+of the country-side ... reminding one unhappily of the previous night when
+one had gone whistling to one's destiny along a perfumed country road....
+
+"Good 'eavings, Mister Maitland, sir! It carn't be you!"
+
+Maitland looked up, bewildered for the instant. The voice that hailed him
+out of the sky was not unfamiliar....
+
+A cab that he had waited on the corner to let pass, was reined back
+suddenly. The driver leaned down from the box and in a thunderstruck tone
+advertised his stupefaction.
+
+"It aren't in nature, sir--if yer'll pardon my mentionin' it. But 'ere I
+leaves you not ten minutes ago at the St. Luke Building and finds yer
+'ere, when you 'aven't 'ad time--"
+
+Maitland woke up. "What's that?" he questioned sharply. "You left me where
+ten minutes--?"
+
+"St. Luke Buildin', corner Broadway an'--."
+
+"I know it," excited, "but--"
+
+"--'avin' took yer there with the young lady--"
+
+"Young lady!"
+
+"--that comes outer the 'ouse with yer, sir--"
+
+"The devil!" Maitland hesitated no longer: his foot was on the step as he
+spoke. "Drive me there at once, and drive for all you're worth!" he cried.
+"If there's an ounce of speed in that plug of yours and you don't get it
+out--"
+
+"Never fear, sir! We'll make it in five minutes!"
+
+"It'll be worth your while."
+
+"Right-O!"
+
+Maitland dropped into his seat, dumbfounded. "Good Lord!" he whispered;
+and then savagely: "In the power of that infamous scoundrel------!" And
+felt of the revolver in his pocket.
+
+The cab had been headed north; the St. Luke rears its massive bulk south
+of Twenty-third Street. The driver expertly swung his vehicle almost on
+dead center. Simultaneously it careened with the impact of a heavy bulk
+landing upon the step and falling in a heap on the deck.
+
+"My worrd, what's that?" came from aloft. Maitland was altogether too
+startled to speak.
+
+The heap sat up, resolving itself into the semblance of a man; who spoke
+in decisive tones:
+
+"If yeh're goin' there, I'm goin' with yeh, 'r yeh don't go--see?"
+
+"The sleuth!" gasped Maitland, astounded.
+
+"Ah, cut that, can't yeh?" Hickey got on all fours, found his cigar, stuck
+it in his mouth, and fell into place at Maitland's side.
+
+"Hickey, I mean. But how--"
+
+"If yeh're Maitland, 'nd Anisty's at the St. Luke Buildin', tell that fool
+up there to drive!"
+
+Maitland had no need to lift the trap; the cabby had already done that.
+
+"All right," the young man called. "It's Detective Hickey. Drive on!"
+
+The lash leaped out over the roof--_cr-rack!_--and the horse, presumably
+convinced that no speed other than a dead-run would ever again be demanded
+of it, tore frantically down the Avenue, the hansom rocking like a
+topsail-schooner in a heavy gale.
+
+Maitland and the detective were battered against the side and back of the
+vehicle and slammed against one another with painful regularity. Under
+such circumstances speech was difficult; yet they managed to exchange a
+few sentences.
+
+"Yeh gottuh gun?"
+
+"Anisty's--two good cartridges."
+
+"Jus' as well I'm along, I guess."
+
+And again: "How'd yeh s'pose Anisty got this cab?"
+
+"I don't know--must've been in the house--I told cabby to wait--Anisty
+seems to have walked out right on your heels."
+
+"Hell!" And a moment later: "What's this about a woman in the case?"
+
+Maitland took swift thought on her behalf.
+
+"Too long to go into now," he parried the query. "You help me catch this
+scoundrel Anisty and I'll put in a good word for you with the deputy
+commissioner."
+
+"Ah, yeh help _me_ nab him," grunted the detective, "'nd I won't need
+no good word with nobody."
+
+The hansom swung into Broadway, going like a whirlwind; and picked up an
+uniformed officer in front of the Flatiron Building, who, shouting and
+using his locust stridently, sprinted after them. A block further down
+another fell into line; and he it was who panted at the step an instant
+after the cab had lurched to a stop before the entrance to the St. Luke
+Building.
+
+Hickey had rolled out before the policeman had a chance to bluster.
+
+"'Lo, Bergen," he greeted the man. "Yeh know me--I'm Hickey, Central
+Office. Yeh're jus' in time. Anisty's in this buildin'--'r was ten minutes
+ago. We want all the help we c'n get."
+
+By way of reply the officer stooped and drummed a loud alarm on the
+sidewalk with his night-stick.
+
+"Say," he panted, rising, "you're a wonder, Hickey--if you get him."
+
+"Uh-huh," grunted the detective with a sidelong glance at Maitland. "C'm
+'long."
+
+The lobby of the building was quite deserted as they entered, the
+night-watchman invisible, the night elevator on its way to the roof--as
+was discovered by consultation of the indicator dial above the gate.
+Hickey punched the night call bell savagely.
+
+"Me 'nd him," he said, jerking the free thumb at Maitland, "'ll go up
+and hunt him out. Begin at th' top floor an' work down. That's th' way,
+huh? 'Nd," to the policeman, "yeh stay here an' hold up anybody 't tries
+tuh leave th' buildin'. There ain't no other entrance, I s'pose, what?"
+
+"Basement door an' ash lift's round th' corner," responded the officer.
+"But that had ought tuh be locked, night."
+
+"Well, 'f anybody else comes along yeh put him there, anyway, for luck....
+What 'n hell's th' matter with this elevator?"
+
+The detective settled a pudgy index-finger on the push button and elicited
+a far, thin, shrill peal from the annunciator above. But the indicator
+arrow remained as motionless as the car at the top of the shaft. Another
+summons gained no response, in likewise, and a third was also disregarded.
+
+Hickey stepped back, face black as a storm-cloud, summed up his opinion of
+the management of the building in one soul-blistering phrase, produced his
+bandana and used it vigorously, uttered a libel on the ancestry of the
+night-watchman and the likes of him, and turned to give profane welcome to
+the policeman who had noticed the cab at Twenty-third Street and who now
+panted in, blown and perspiring.
+
+Much to his disgust he found himself assigned to stand guard over the
+basement exits, and waddled forth again into the street.
+
+Meanwhile the first officer to arrive upon the scene was taking his turn
+at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of
+his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged
+defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard
+of belated wayfarers,--messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers,
+and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable
+grooves,--who were drifting in at the entrance to line the lobby walls
+with blank, curious faces. Forerunners of that mysterious rabble which is
+apparently precipitated out of the very air by any extraordinary happening
+in city streets, if allowed to remain they would in five minutes have
+waxed in numbers to the proportions of an unmanageable mob; and the
+policeman, knowing this, set about dispersing them with perhaps greater
+discretion than consideration. They wavered and fell back, grumbling
+discontentedly; and Maitland, his anxiety temporarily distracted by the
+noise they made, looked round to find his erstwhile cabby at his elbow. Of
+whom the sight was inspiration. Ever thoughtful, never unmindful of her
+whose influence held him in this coil, he laid an arresting hand on the
+man's sleeve.
+
+"You've got your cab--?"
+
+"Yessir, right houtside."
+
+"Drive round the corner, away from the crowd, and wait for me. If she--the
+young lady--comes without me, drive her anywhere she tells you and come to
+my rooms to-morrow morning for your pay."
+
+"Thankee, sir."
+
+Maitland turned back, to find the situation round the elevator shaft _in
+status quo_. Nothing had happened, save that Hickey's rage and vexation
+had increased mightily.
+
+"But why don't you go up after him?"
+
+"How 'n blazes can I?" exploded the detective. "He's got th' night car. 'F
+I takes the stairs, he comes down by th' shaft, 'nd how'm I tuh trust this
+here mutt?" He indicated his associate but humbler custodian of the peace
+with a disgusted gesture.
+
+"Perhaps one of the other cars will run--" Maitland suggested.
+
+"Ah, they're all dead ones," Hickey disagreed with disdain as the young
+man moved down the row of gates, trying one after another. "Yeh're only
+wastin'--"
+
+He broke off with a snort as Maitland, somewhat to his own surprise
+managing to move the gate of the third shaft from the night elevator,
+stepped into the darkened car and groped for the controller. Presently his
+fingers encountered it, and he moved it cautiously to one side. A vicious
+blue spark leaped hissing from the controller-box and the cage bounded up
+a dozen feet, and was only restrained from its ambition to soar skywards
+by an instantaneous release of the lever.
+
+By discreet manipulation Maitland worked the car down to the street floor
+again, and Hickey with a grunt that might be interpreted as an apology for
+his incredulity, jumped in.
+
+"Let 'er rip!" he cried exultantly. "Fan them folks out intuh th' street,
+Bergen, 'nd watch ow-ut!"
+
+Maitland was pressing the lever slowly wide of its catch, and the lighted
+lobby dropped out of sight while the detective was still shouting
+admonitions to the police below. Gradually gaining in momentum the car
+began to shoot smoothly up into the blackness, safety chains clanking
+beneath the floor. Hickey fumbled for the electric light switch but,
+finding it, immediately shut the glare off again and left the car in
+darkness.
+
+"Safer," he explained, sententious. "Anisty'll shoot, 'nd they says he
+shoots straight."
+
+Floor after floor in ghostly strata slipped silently down before their
+eyes. Half-way to the top, approximately, Hickey's voice rang sharply in
+the volunteer operator's ear.
+
+"Stop 'er! Hold 'er steady. T'other's comin' down."
+
+
+Maitland obeyed, managing the car with greater ease and less jerkily as he
+began to understand the principle of the lever. The cage paused in the
+black shaft, and he looked upward.
+
+Down the third shaft over, the other cage was dropping like a plummet, a
+block of golden light walled in by black filigree-work and bisected
+vertically by the black line of the guide-rail.
+
+"Stop that there car!"
+
+Hickey's stentorian command had no effect; the block of light continued to
+fall with unabated speed.
+
+The detective wasted no more breath. As the other car swept past, Maitland
+was shocked by a report and flash beside him. Hickey was using his
+revolver.
+
+The detonation was answered by a cry, a scream of pain, from the lighted
+cage. It paused on the instant, like a bird stricken a-wing, some four
+floors below, but at once resumed its downward swoop.
+
+"Down, down! After 'em!" Hickey bellowed. "I dropped one, by God! T'other
+can't--"
+
+"How many in the car?" interrupted Maitland, opening the lever with a firm
+and careful hand. "Only two, same's us, I hit th' feller what was runnin'
+it--"
+
+"Steady!" cautioned Maitland, decreasing the speed, as the car approached
+the lower floor.
+
+The other had beaten them down; but its arrival at the street level was
+greeted by a short chorus of mad yells, a brief fusillade of shots--
+perhaps five in all--and the clang of the gate. Then, like a ball
+rebounding, the cage swung upwards again, hurtling at full speed.
+
+Evidently Anisty had been received in force which he had not bargained
+for.
+
+Maitland instinctively reversed the lever and sent his own car upward
+again, slowly, waiting for the other to overtake it. Peering down through
+the iron lattice-work he could indistinctly observe the growing cube of
+light, with a dark shape lying huddled in one corner of the floor. A
+second figure, rapidly taking shape as Anisty's, stood by the controller,
+braced against the side of the car, one hand on the lever, the other
+poising a shining thing, the flesh-colored oval of his face turned upwards
+in a supposititious attempt to discern the location of the dark car.
+
+Hickey, by firing prematurely, lent him adventitious aid. The criminal
+replied with spirit, aiming at the flash, his bullet spattering against
+the back wall of the shaft. Hickey's next bullet rang with a bell-like
+note against the metal-work, Anisty's presumably went wide--though
+Maitland could have sworn he felt the cold kiss of its breath upon his
+cheek. And the lighted cage rocketed past and up.
+
+Maitland needed no admonition to pursue; his blood was up, his heart
+singing with the lust of the man-hunt. Yet Anisty was rapidly leaving
+them, his car soaring at an appalling pace. Towards the top he evidently
+made some attempt to slow up, but either he was ignorant of the management
+of the lever, or else the thing had got beyond control. The cage rammed
+the buffers with a crash that echoed through the sounding halls like a
+peal of thunder-claps; it was instantaneously plunged into darkness. There
+followed a splintering and rending sound, and Maitland, heart in mouth,
+could make out dimly a dark, falling shadow in the further shaft. Yet ere
+it had descended a score of feet the safety-clutch acted and, with a third
+tremendous jar, shaking the building, the car halted.
+
+Hickey and Maitland were then some five floors below. "Stop 'er at
+Nineteen," ordered the detective. There was a lilt of exultancy in his
+voice. "We got him now, all right, all right. He'll try to get down by--
+There!" Overhead the crash of a gate forced open was followed by a scurry
+of footsteps over the tiling. "Stop 'er and we'll head him off. So now--
+_eee_asy!"
+
+Maitland shut off the power as the car reached the nineteenth floor.
+Hickey opened the gate and jumped out. "Shut that," he commanded sharply
+as Maitland followed him, "in case he gets past us."
+
+He paused a moment in thought, heavy head on bull-neck drooping forward as
+he stared toward the rear of the building. He was fearless and
+resourceful, for all his many deficiencies. Maitland found time, quaintly
+enough, to regard him with detached curiosity, a rare animal, illustrating
+all that was best and worst in his order. Endowed with unexceptionable
+courage, his address in emergencies seemed altogether admirable.
+
+"Yeh guard them stairs," he decided suddenly. "I'll run through this hall,
+'nd see what's doing. Don't hesitate to shoot if he tries to jump yeh."
+And was gone, clumping briskly down the corridor to the rear.
+
+Maitland, yielding the initiative to the other's superior generalship,
+stood sentinel, revolver in hand, until the detective returned, overheated
+and sweating, from his tour, to report "nothin' doin'," with
+characteristic brevity. He had the same report to make on both the
+twentieth and twenty-first floors, where the same procedure was observed;
+but as the latter was reached unexpected and very welcome reinforcements
+were gained by the arrival of a third car, containing three patrolmen and
+one roundsman. Yet numbers created delay; Hickey was seized and compelled
+to pant explanations, to his supreme disgust.
+
+And, suddenly impatient beyond endurance, Maitland left them and alone
+sprang up the stairs.
+
+That this was simple foolhardiness may be granted without dispute. But it
+must be borne in mind that he was very young and ardent, very greatly
+perturbed on behalf of an actor in the tragedy in whom the police, to
+their then knowledge, had no interest whatsoever. And if in the heat of
+chase he had for an instant forgotten her, now he remembered; and at once
+the capture of Anisty was relegated to the status of a matter of secondary
+importance. The real matter at stake was the safety of the girl whom
+Anisty, by exercise of an infernal ingenuity that passed Maitland's
+comprehension, had managed to spirit into this place of death and darkness
+and whispering halls. Where she might be, in what degree of suffering and
+danger,--these were the considerations that sent him in search of her
+without a thought of personal peril, but with a sick heart and overwhelmed
+with a stifling sense of anxiety.
+
+More active than the paunch-burdened detective, he had sprinted down and
+back through the hallway of the twenty-second floor, without discovering
+anything, ere the police contingent had reached an agreement and the
+stairhead.
+
+There remained two more floors, two final flights. A little hopelessly he
+swung up the first. And as he did so the blackness above him was riven
+by a tongue of fire, and a bullet, singing past his head, flattened itself
+with a vicious spat against the marble dado of the walls. Instinctively he
+pulled up, finger closing upon the trigger of his revolver; flash and
+report followed the motion, and a panel of ribbed glass in a door overhead
+was splintered and fell in clashing fragments, all but drowning the sound
+of feet in flight upon the upper staircase.
+
+A clamor of caution, warning, encouragement, and advice broke out from the
+police below. But Maitland hardly heard. Already he was again in pursuit,
+taking the steps two at a leap. With a hand upon the newel-post he swung
+round on the twenty-third floor, and hurled himself toward the foot of the
+last flight. A crash like a rifle-shot rang out above, and for a second he
+fancied that Anisty had fired again and with a heavier weapon. But
+immediately he realized that the noise had been only the slamming of the
+door at the head of the stairs,--the door whose glazed panel loomed above
+him, shedding a diffused light to guide his footsteps, its opalescent
+surface lettered with the name of
+
+        HENRY M. BANNERMAN
+        _Attorney & Counselor-at-Law_
+
+the door of the office whose threshold he had so often crossed to meet a
+friend and adviser. It was with a shock that he comprehended this, a
+thrill of wonder. He had all but forgotten that Bannerman owned an office
+in the building, in the rush, the urge of this wild adventure. Strange
+that Anisty should have chosen it for the scene of his last stand,--
+strange, and strangely fatal for the criminal! For Maitland knew that from
+this eyrie there was no means of escape, other than by the stairs.
+
+Well and good! Then they had the man, and--
+
+The thought was flashing in his mind, illumining the darkness of his
+despair with the hope that he would be able to force a word as to the
+girl's whereabouts from the burglar ere the police arrived; Maitland's
+foot was on the upper step, when a scream of mortal terror--_her_
+voice!--broke from within. Half maddened, he threw himself bodily against
+the door, twisting the knob with frantic fingers that slipped upon its
+immovable polished surface.
+
+The bolt had been shot, he was barred out, and, with only the width of a
+man's hand between them, the girl was in deathly peril and terror.
+
+A sob that was at the same time an oath rose to his lips. Baffled,
+helpless, he fell back, tears of rage starting to his eyes, her accents
+ringing in his ears as terribly pitiful as the cry of a lost and wandering
+soul.
+
+"God!" he mumbled incoherently, and in desperation sent the pistol-butt
+crashing against the glass. It was tough, stout, stubborn; the first blow
+scarcely flawed it. As he redoubled his efforts to shatter it, Hickey's
+hand shot over his shoulder to aid him.... And with startling abruptness
+the barrier seemed to dissolve before their eyes, the glass falling inward
+with a shrill clatter.
+
+Quaintly, with the effect of a picture cast by a cinematograph in a
+darkened auditorium, there leaped upon Maitland's field of vision the
+picture of Anisty standing at bay, face drawn and tense, lips curled back,
+eyes lurid with defiance and despair. He stood, poised upon the balls of
+his feet, like a cat ready to spring, in the doorway between the inner and
+outer offices. He raised his hand with an indescribably swift and vicious
+gesture, and a flame seemed to blaze out from his finger-tips.
+
+At the same instant Hickey's weapon spat by Maitland's cheek; the young
+man felt the hot furnace breath of it.
+
+The burglar reeled as though from a tremendous blow. His inflamed features
+were suddenly whitened, and his right arm dropped limply from the
+shoulder, revolver falling from fingers involuntarily relaxing.
+
+Hickey covered him. "Surrender!" he roared. And fired again. For Anisty
+had gone to his knees, reaching for the revolver with his uninjured arm.
+
+The detective's second bullet winged through the doorway, over Anisty's
+head, and bit through the outer window. As Anisty, with a tremendous
+strain upon his failing powers, struggled to his feet, Maitland, catching
+the murderous gleam in the man's eye, pulled trigger. The burglar's
+answering shot expended itself as harmlessly as Maitland's. Both went wide
+of their marks.
+
+And of a sudden Hickey had drawn the bolt, and the body of police behind
+forced Maitland pell-mell into the room. As he recovered he saw Hickey
+hurling himself at the criminal's throat--one second too late. True to his
+pledge never to be taken alive, Anisty had sent his last bullet crashing
+through his own skull.
+
+A cry of horror and consternation forced itself from Maitland's throat.
+The police halted, each where he stood, transfixed. Anisty drew himself
+up, with a trace of pride in his pose; smiled horribly; put a hand
+mechanically to his lips....
+
+And died.
+
+Hickey caught him as he fell, but Maitland, unheeding, leaped over the
+body that had in life resembled him so fatally, and entered Bannerman's
+private office.
+
+The grey girl lay at length in a corner of the room, shielded from
+observation by one of the desks. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks wore the
+hue of death; the fair young head was pillowed on one white and rounded
+forearm, in an attitude of natural rest, and the burnished hair, its heavy
+coils slipping from their fastenings, tumbled over her head and shoulders
+in shimmering glory, like a splash of living flame.
+
+With a low and bitter cry the young man dropped to his knees by her side.
+In the outer office the police were assembled in excited conclave, blind
+to all save the momentous fact of Anisty's last, supremely consistent act.
+For the time Maitland was utterly alone with his great and aching
+loneliness.
+
+After a little while timidly he touched her hand. It lay upturned, white
+slender fingers like exotic petals curling in upon the rosy hollow of her
+palm. And it was soft and warm.
+
+He lifted it tenderly in both his own, and so held it for a space,
+brooding, marveling at its perfection. And inevitably he bent and touched
+it with his lips, as if their ardent contact would warm it to
+sentience....
+
+The fingers tightened upon his own, slowly, surely; and in the blinding
+joy of that moment he was made conscious of the ineffable sweetness of
+opening, wondering eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+RECESSIONAL
+
+"_Hm, hrumm!_" Thus Hickey, the inopportunely ubiquitous, lumbering
+hastily in from the other office and checking, in an extreme of
+embarrassment, in the middle of the floor.
+
+Maitland glanced over his shoulder, and, subduing a desire to flay the man
+alive, released the girl's hand.
+
+"I say, Hickey," he observed, carefully suppressing every vestige of
+emotion, "will you lend me a hand here? Bring a chair, please, and a glass
+of water."
+
+The detective stumbled over his feet and brought the chair at the risk of
+his neck. Then he went away and returned with the water. In the meantime
+the girl, silently enough for all that her eyes were speaking, with
+Maitland's assistance arose and seated herself.
+
+"You will have to stay here a few minutes," he told her, "until--er--"
+
+"I understand," she told him in a choking tone.
+
+Hickey awkwardly handed her the glass. She sipped mechanically.
+
+"I have a cab below," continued Maitland. "And I'll try to arrange it so
+that we can get out of the building without having to force a way through
+the crowd."
+
+She thanked him with a glance.
+
+"There's th' freight elevator," suggested Hickey helpfully.
+
+"Thank you.... Is there anything I can do for you, anything you wish?"
+continued Maitland to the girl, standing between her and the detective.
+
+She lifted her face to his and shook her head, very gently. "No," she
+breathed through trembling lips.
+
+"You--you've been--" But there was a sob in her throat, and she hung her
+head again.
+
+"Not a word," ordered Maitland. "Sit here for a few minutes, if you can,
+drink the water and--ah--fix up your hat, you know," (damn Hickey! Why the
+devil did the fellow insist on hanging round so!) "and I will go and make
+arrangements."
+
+"Th-thank you," whispered the small voice shakily.
+
+Maitland hesitated a moment, then turned upon Hickey in sudden
+exasperation. His manner was enough; even the obtuse detective could not
+ignore it. Maitland had no need to speak.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," he said, standing his ground manfully but with a trace
+more of respect in his manner than had theretofore characterized it, "but
+there's uh gentleman--uh--your fren' Bannerman's outside 'nd wants tuh
+speak tuh yeh."
+
+"Tell him to--"
+
+"Excuse _me_. He says he's gottuh see yeh. If yeh don't come out,
+he'll come after yeh. I thought yeh'd ruther--"
+
+"That's kindly thought of," Maitland relented. "I'll be there in a
+minute," he added meaningly.
+
+Hickey took an impassive face to the doorway, where, whether or not with
+design, he stood precisely upon the threshold, filling it with his burly
+shoulders. Maitland bent again over the girl, and took her hand.
+
+"Dearest," he said gently, "please don't run away from me again."
+
+Her eyes were brimming, and he read his answer in them. Quickly--it was no
+time to harry her emotions further; but so much he had felt he must say--.
+he brushed her hand with his lips and joined Hickey. Thrusting the
+detective gently into the outer room, with a not unfriendly hand upon his
+shoulder, Maitland closed the door.
+
+"Now, see here," he said quietly and firmly, "you must help me arrange to
+get this lady away without her becoming identified with the case, Hickey.
+I'm in a position to say a good word for you in the right place; she had
+positively nothing to do with Anisty," (this, so far as he could tell, was
+as black a lie as he had ever manufactured under the lash of necessity),
+"and--there's a wad in it for the boys who help me out."
+
+"Well...." The detective shifted from one foot to the other, eying him
+intently. "I guess we can fix it,--freight elevator 'nd side entrance. Yeh
+have the cab waitin', 'nd--"
+
+"I'll go with the lady, you understand, and assume all responsibility. You
+can come round at your convenience and arrange the details with me, at my
+rooms, since you will be so kind."
+
+"I dunno." Hickey licked his lips, watching with a somber eye the
+preparations being made for the removal of Anisty's body. "I'd 've give a
+farm if I could've caught that son of a gun alive!" he added at apparent
+random, and vindictively. "All right. Yeh be responsible for th' lady, if
+she's wanted, will yeh?"
+
+"Positively."
+
+"I gottuh have her name 'nd add-ress."
+
+"Is that essential?"
+
+"Sure. Gottuh protect myself 'n case anythin' turns up. Yeh oughttuh know
+that."
+
+"I--don't want it to come out," Maitland hesitated, trying to invent a
+plausible lie.
+
+"Well, any one can see how you feel about it."
+
+Maitland drew a long breath and anticipated rashly. "It's Mrs. Maitland,"
+he told the man with a tremor.
+
+Hickey nodded, unimpressed. "Uh-huh. I knowed that all along," he replied.
+"But seein' as yeh didn't want it talked about...." And, apparently
+heedless of Maitland's startled and suspicious stare: "If yeh're goin' to
+see yer fren', yeh better get a wiggle on. He won't last long."
+
+"Who? Bannerman? What the deuce do you mean?"
+
+"He's the feller I plugged in the elevator, that's all. Put a hole through
+his lungs. They took him into an office on the twenty-first floor, right
+opp'site the shaft."
+
+"But what in Heaven's name has he to do with this ghastly mess?"
+
+Hickey turned a shrewd eye upon Maitland. "I guess he can tell yeh
+better'n me."
+
+With a smothered exclamation, Maitland hurried away, still incredulous and
+impressed with a belief, firmer with every minute, that the wounded man
+had been wrongly identified.
+
+He found him as Hickey had said he would, sobbing out his life, supine
+upon the couch of an office which the janitor had opened to afford him a
+place to die in. Maitland had to force a way through a crowded doorway,
+where the night-watchman was holding forth in aggrieved incoherence on the
+cruel treatment he had suffered at the hands of the lawbreakers. A phrase
+came to Maitland's ears as he shouldered through the group.
+
+"....grabbed me an' trun me outer the cage, inter the hall, an' then
+the shootin' begins, an' I jumps down-stairs t' the sixteent' floor...."
+
+Bannerman opened dull eyes as Maitland entered, and smiled faintly.
+
+"Ah-h, Maitland," he gasped; "thought you'd ... come."
+
+Racked with sorrow, nothing guessing of the career that had brought the
+lawyer to this pass, Maitland slipped into a chair by the head of the
+couch and closed his hand over Bannerman's chubby, icy fingers.
+
+"Poor, poor old chap!" he said brokenly. "How in Heaven--"
+
+But at Bannerman's look the words died on his lips. The lawyer moved
+restlessly. "Don't pity me," he said in a low tone. "This is what I might
+have ... expected, I suppose ... man of Anisty's stamp ... desperate
+character ... it's all right, Dan, my just due...."
+
+"I don't understand, of course," faltered Maitland.
+
+Bannerman lay still a moment, then continued: "I know you don't. That's
+why I sent for you.... 'Member that night at the Primordial? When the
+deuce was it? I ... can't think straight long at a time.... That night I
+dined with you and touched you up about the jewels? We had a bully salad,
+you know, and I spoke about the Graeme affair...."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Well ... I've been up to that game for years. I'd find out where the
+plunder was, and ... Anisty always divided square.... I used to advise
+him.... Of course you won't understand,--you've never wanted for a dollar
+in your life...."
+
+Maitland said nothing. But his hand remained upon the dying man's.
+
+"This would never have happened if ... Anisty hadn't been impatient. He was
+hard to handle, sometimes. I wasn't sure, you know, about the jewels; I
+only said I thought they were at Greenfields. Then I undertook to find out
+from you, but he was restive, and without saying anything to me went down
+to Greenfields on his own hook--just to have a look around, he said. And
+so ... so the fat was in the fire."
+
+"Don't talk any more, Bannerman," Maitland tried to soothe him. "You'll
+pull through this all right, and--You need never have gone to such
+lengths. If you'd come to me--"'
+
+The ghost of a sardonic smile flitted, incongruously, across the dying
+man's waxen, cherubic features.
+
+"Oh, hell," he said; "you wouldn't understand. Perhaps you weren't born
+with the right crook in your nature,--or the wrong one. Perhaps it's
+because you can't see the fun in playing the game. It's that that counts."
+
+He compressed his lips, and after a moment spoke again. "You never did
+have the true sportsman's love of the game for its own sake. You're like
+most of the rest of the crowd--content with mighty cheap virtue, Dan.... I
+don't know that I'd choose just this kind of a wind-up, but it's been fun
+while it lasted. Good-by, old man."
+
+He did not speak again, but lay with closed eyes.
+
+Five minutes later Maitland rose and unclasped the cold fingers from about
+his own. With a heavy sigh he turned away.
+
+At the door Hickey was awaiting him. "Yer lady," he said, as soon as they
+had drawn apart from the crowd, "is waitin' for yeh in the cab
+down-stairs. She was gettin' a bit highsteerical 'nd I thought I'd better
+get her away.... Oh, she's waitin' all right!" he added, alarmed by
+Maitland's expression.
+
+But Maitland had left him abruptly; and now, as he ran down flight after
+echoing flight of marble stairs, there rested cold fear in his heart. In
+the room he had just quitted, a man whom he had called friend and looked
+upon with affectionate regard, had died a self-confessed and unrepentant
+liar and thief.
+
+If now he were to find the girl another time vanished,--if this had been
+but a ruse of hers finally to elude him,--if all men were without honor,
+all women faithless,--if he had indeed placed the love of his life, the
+only love that he had ever known, unworthily,--if she cared so little who
+had seemed to care much....
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+CONFESSIONAL
+
+I
+
+But the cab was there; and within it the girl was waiting for him.
+
+The driver, after taking up his fare, had at her direction drawn over to
+the further curb, out of the fringe of the rabble which besieged the St.
+Luke Building in constantly growing numbers, and through which Maitland,
+too impatient to think of leaving by the basement exit, had elbowed and
+fought his way in an agony of apprehension that brooked no hindrance,
+heeded no difficulty.
+
+He dashed round the corner, stopped short with a sinking heart, then as
+the cabby's signaling whip across the street caught his eye, fairly hurled
+himself to the other curb, pausing at the wheel, breathless, lifted out of
+himself with joy to find her faithful in this ultimate instance.
+
+She was recovering, whose high spirit and recuperative powers were to him
+then and always remained a marvelous thing; and she was bending forth from
+the body of the hansom to welcome him with a smile that in a twinkling
+made radiant the world to him who stood in a gloomy side street of New
+York at three o'clock of a summer's morning,--a good hour and a half
+before the dawn. For up there in the tower of the sky-scraper he had as
+much as told her of his love; and she had waited; and now--and now he had
+been blind indeed had he failed to read the promise in her eyes. Weary she
+was and spent and overwrought; but there is no tonic in all the world like
+the consciousness that where one has placed one's love, there love has
+burgeoned in response. And despite all that she had suffered and endured,
+the happiness that ran like soft fire in her Veins, wrapping her being
+with its beneficent rapture, had deepened the color in her cheeks and
+heightened the glamour in her eyes.
+
+And he stood and stared, knowing that in all time to no man had ever woman
+seemed more lovely than this girl to him: a knowledge that robbed his mind
+of all other thought and his tongue of words, so that to her fell the task
+of rousing him.
+
+"Please," she said gently--"please tell the cabby to take me home, Mr.
+Maitland."
+
+He came to and in confusion stammered: Yes, he would. And he climbed up on
+the step with no other thought than to seat himself at her side and drive
+away for ever. But this time the cabby brought him to his senses, forcing
+him to remember that some measure of coherence was demanded even of a man
+in love.
+
+"Where to, sir?"
+
+"Eh, what? Oh!" And bending to the girl: "Home, you said--?"
+
+She told him the address,--a number on Park Avenue, above Thirty-fourth
+Street, below Forty-second. He repeated it mechanically, unaware that it
+would remain stamped for ever on his memory, indelibly,--the first
+personal detail that she had granted him: the first barrier down.
+
+He sat down. The cab began to move, and halted again. A face appeared at
+the apron,--Hickey's, red and moon-like and not lacking in complacency:
+for the man counted of profiting variously by this night's work.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Maitland, 'nd"--touching the rim of his derby--"yeh, too,
+ma'am, f'r buttin' in--"
+
+"Hickey!" demanded Maitland suddenly, in a tone of smoldering wrath, "what
+the--what do you want?"
+
+"Yeh told me tuh call round to-morrow, yeh know. When'll yeh be in?"
+
+"I'll leave a note for you with O'Hagan. Is that all?"
+
+"Yep--that is, there's somethin' else...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Excuse me for mentionin' it, but I didn't know--it ain't generally known,
+yeh know, 'nd one uh th' boys might've heard me speak tuh yer lady by name
+'nd might pass it on to a reporter. What I mean's this," hastily, as the
+Maitland temper showed dangerous indications of going into active
+eruption: "I s'pose yeh don't want me tuh mention't yeh're married, jes'
+yet? Mrs. Maitland here," with a nod to her, "didn't seem tuh take kindly
+tuh the notion of it's bein' known--"
+
+"Hickey!"
+
+"Ah, excuse _me!_"
+
+"Drive on, cabby--instantly! Do you hear?"
+
+Hickey backed suddenly away and the cab sprang into motion; while Maitland
+with a face of fire sat back and raged and wondered.
+
+Across Broadway toward Fourth Avenue dashed the hansom; and from the
+curb-line Hickey watched it with a humorous light in his dull eyes.
+Indeed, the detective seemed in extraordinary conceit with himself. He
+chewed with unaccustomed emotion upon his cold cigar, scratched his cheek,
+and chuckled; and, chuckling, pulled his hat well down over his brows,
+thrust both hands into his trousers pockets, and shambled back to the St.
+Luke Building--his heavy body vibrating amazingly with his secret mirth.
+
+And so, shuffling sluggishly, he merges into the shadows, into the mob
+that surges about the building, and passes from these pages.
+
+II
+
+In the clattering hansom, steadying herself with a hand against the
+window-frame, to keep from being thrown against the speechless man beside
+her, the girl waited. And since Maitland in confusion at the moment found
+no words, from this eloquent silence she drew an inference unjustified,
+such as lovers are prone to draw, the world over, and one that lent a
+pathetic color to her thoughts, and chilled a little her mood. She had
+been too sure....
+
+But better to have it over with at once, rather than permit it to remain
+for ever a wall of constraint between them. He must not be permitted to
+think that she would dream of taking him upon his generous word.
+
+"It was very kind of you," she said in a steady, small voice, "to pretend
+that we--what you did pretend, in order to save me from being held as a
+witness. At least, I presume that is why you did it? "--with a note of
+uncertainty.
+
+"It is unnecessary that you should be drawn into the affair," he replied,
+with some resumption of his self-possession. "It isn't as if you were--"
+
+"A thief?" she supplied as he hesitated.
+
+"A thief," he assented gravely.
+
+"But I--I am," with a break in her voice.
+
+"But you are not," he asserted almost fiercely. And, "Dear," he said
+boldly, "don't you suppose I _know?_"
+
+"I ... what do you know?"
+
+"That you brought back the jewels, for one minor thing. I found them
+almost as soon as you had left. And then I knew ... knew that you cared
+enough to get them from this fellow Anisty and bring them back to me, knew
+that I cared enough to search the world from end to end until I found you,
+that you might wear them--if you would."
+
+But she had drawn away, had averted her face; and he might not see it; and
+she shivered slightly, staring out of the window at the passing lights. He
+saw, and perforce paused.
+
+"You--you don't understand," she told him in a rush. "You give me credit
+beyond my due. I didn't break into your flat again, to-night, in order to
+return the jewels--at least, not for that alone."
+
+"But you did bring back the jewels?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Then doesn't that prove what I claim, prove that you've cleared
+yourself--?"
+
+"No," she told him firmly, with the firmness of despair; "it does not.
+Because I did not come for that only. I came with another purpose,--to
+steal, as well as to make restitution. And I ... I stole."
+
+There was a moment's silence, on his part incredulous. "I don't know what
+you mean. What did you steal? Where is it?"
+
+"I have lost it--"
+
+"Was it in your hand-bag?"
+
+"You found that?"
+
+"You dropped it in the trunk-closet. I found it there. There is something
+of mine in it?"
+
+Dumb with misery, she nodded; and after a little, "You didn't look, of
+course."
+
+"I had no right," he said shortly.
+
+"Other men wo-would have thought they had the right. I th-think you had,
+the circumstances considered. At all events," steadying her voice, "I say
+you have, now. I give you that right. Please go and investigate that
+hand-bag, Mr. Maitland. I wish you to."
+
+He turned and stared at her curiously. "I don't know what to think," he
+said. "I can not believe--"
+
+"You mu-must believe. I have no right to profit by your disbelief.... Dear
+Mr. Maitland, you have been kind to me, very kind to me; do me this last
+kindness, if you will."
+
+The young face turned to him was gravely and perilously sweet; very nearly
+he forgot all else. But that she would not have.
+
+"Do this for me.... What you will find will explain everything. You will
+understand. Perhaps"--timidly--"perhaps you may even find it in your heart
+to forgive, when you understand.... If you should, my card-case is in the
+bag, and ...." She faltered, biting her lip cruelly to steady a voice
+quivering with restrained sobs. "Please, please go at once, and--and see
+for yourself!" she implored him passionately.
+
+Of a sudden he found himself resolved. Indeed, he fancied that it were
+dangerous to oppose her; she was overwrought, on the verge of losing her
+command of self. She wished this thing, and though with all his soul he
+hated it, he would do as she desired.
+
+"Very well," he assented quietly. "Shall I stop the cab now?"
+
+"Please."
+
+He tapped on the roof of the hansom and told the cabby to draw in at the
+next corner. Thus he was put down not far from his home,--below the
+Thirty-third Street grade.
+
+Neither spoke as he alighted, and she believed that he was leaving her in
+displeasure and abhorrence; but he had only stepped behind the cab for a
+moment to speak to the driver. In a moment he was back, standing by the
+step with one hand on the apron and staring in very earnestly and soberly
+at the shadowed sweetness of her pallid face, that gleamed in the gloom
+there like some pale, shy, sad flower.
+
+Could there be evil combined with such sheer loveliness, with features
+that in every line bodied forth the purity of the spirit that abode
+within? In the soul of him he could not believe that a thief's nature fed
+canker-like at the heart of a woman so divinely, naively dear and
+desirable. And ... he would not.
+
+"Won't you let me go?"
+
+"Just a minute. I ... I should like to.... If I find that you have done
+nothing so very dreadful." he laughed uneasily, "do you wish to know?"
+
+"You know I do." She could not help saying that, letting him see that far
+into her heart. "You spoke of my calling, I believe. That means to-morrow
+afternoon, at the earliest. May I not call you up on the telephone?"
+
+"The number is in the book," she said in a tremulous voice.
+
+"And your name in the card-case?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And if I should call in half an hour--?"
+
+"O, I shall not sleep until I know!... Good night!"
+
+"Good night!... Drive on, cabby."
+
+He stood, smiling queerly, until the hansom, climbing the Park Avenue
+hill, vanished over its shoulder. Then swung about and with an eager step
+retraced his way to his rooms, very confident that God was in His Heaven
+and all well with the world.
+
+III
+
+The cab stopped. The girl rose and descended to the walk. The driver
+touched his hat and reined the horse away. "Goodnight, ma'am," he bade her
+cheerfully. And she told him "Good night" in her turn.
+
+For a moment she seemed a bit hesitant and fearful, left thus alone. The
+house in front of which she stood, like its neighbors, reared a high
+facade to the tender, star-lit sky, its windows, with drawn shades and no
+lights, wearing a singular look of blind patience. It had a high stoop and
+a sunken area. There was a dull glow in one of the basement windows.
+
+It was very late,--or extremely early. The moon was down, though its place
+was in some way filled by the golden disk of the clock in the Grand
+Central Station's tower. The air was impregnated with the sweet and
+fragrant breath of the new-born day. In the tunnel beneath the street a
+trolley-car rumbled and whined and clanked lonesomely. A stray cat
+wandered out of a cross-street with the air of a seasoned debauchee;
+stopped, scratched itself with inimitable abandon, and suddenly,
+mysteriously alarmed at nothing, turned itself into a streak of shadow
+that fled across the street and vanished. And, as if affected by its
+terror, the grey girl slipped silently into the area and tapped at the
+lighted window.
+
+Almost immediately the gate was cautiously opened. A woman's head looked
+out, with suspicion. "Oh, thank Heavens!" it said with abrupt fervor. "I
+was afraid it mightn't be you, Miss Sylvia. I'm so glad you're back. There
+ain't--hasn't been a minute these past two nights that I haven't been in a
+fidget."
+
+The girl laughed quietly and passed through the gateway (which was closed
+behind her) into the basement hall, where she lingered a brief moment.
+
+"My father, Annie?" she inquired.
+
+"He ain't--hasn't stirred since you went out, Miss Sylvia. He's sleepin'
+peaceful as a lamb."
+
+"Everything is all right, then?"
+
+"Now that you're home, it is, praises be!" The servant secured the inner
+door and turned up the gas. "Not if I was to be given notice to-morrow
+mornin'," she announced firmly, "will I ever consent to be a party to such
+goin's-on another night."
+
+"There will be no occasion, Annie," said the girl. "Thank you, and--good
+night."
+
+A resigned sigh,--"Good night, Miss Sylvia,"--followed her up the stairs.
+
+She went very cautiously, careful to brush against no article of movable
+furniture in the halls, at pains to make no noise on the stairs. At the
+door of her father's room on the second floor she stopped and listened for
+a full moment; but he was sleeping as quietly, as soundly, as the servant
+had declared. Then on, more hurriedly, up another flight, to her own room,
+where she turned on the electric bulb in panic haste. For it had just
+occurred to her that the telephone bell might ring before she could change
+her clothing and get down-stairs and shut herself into the library, whose
+closed door would prevent the bell from being audible through the house.
+
+In less than ten minutes she was stealing silently down to the
+drawing-room floor again, quiet as a spirit of the night. The library door
+shut without a sound: for the first time she breathed freely. Then,
+pressing the button on the wall, she switched on the light in the
+drop-lamp on the center-table. The telephone stood beside it.
+
+She drew up a chair and sat down near the instrument, ready to lift the
+receiver off its hook the instant the bell began to sound; and waited, the
+soft light burning in the loosened tresses of her hair, enhancing the soft
+color that pulsed in her cheeks, fading before the joy that lived in her
+eyes when she hoped....
+
+For she dared hope--at times; and at times could not but fear. So greatly
+had she dared, who greatly loved, so heavy upon her untarnished heart was
+the burden of the sin that she had put upon it, because she loved....
+Perhaps he would not call; perhaps the world was to turn cold and be for
+ever grey to her eyes. He was even then deciding; at that very moment her
+happiness hung in the scales of his mercy. If he could forgive....
+
+There was a click. And her face flamed scarlet, as hastily she lifted the
+receiver to her ear. The armature buzzed sharply. Then Central's voice cut
+the stillness.
+
+"Hello! Nine-o-five-one?"
+
+"Yes...."
+
+"Wait a minute."
+
+She waited, breathless, in a quiver. The silence sang upon the wire, the
+silence of the night through which he was groping toward her....
+
+"Hello! Is this Nine-o--"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Is this the residence of Alexander C. Graeme?"
+
+"Yes." The syllable almost choked her.
+
+"Is this Miss Graeme at the 'phone?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Miss Sylvia Graeme?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is Daniel Maitland ... Sylvia!"
+
+"As if I did not know your voice!" she cried involuntarily.
+
+There followed a little pause; and in her throat the pulses tightened and
+drummed.
+
+"I have opened the bag, Sylvia...."
+
+"Please go on."
+
+"And I've sounded the depths of your hideous infamy!"
+
+"Oh!" He was laughing.
+
+"I've done more. I've made a burnt offering, within the last five minutes.
+Can you guess what it is?"
+
+"I--I--don't want to guess! I want to be told."
+
+"A burnt offering on the altar of your happiness, dear. The papers in the
+case of the Dougherty Investment Company no longer exist."
+
+"Dan!"
+
+"Sylvia.... Does it please you?"
+
+"Don't you _know_?... How can it do anything but please me? If you
+knew how I have suffered because my father suffered, fearing the.... No,
+but you must listen! Dan, it was wearing him down to his grave, and I
+thought--"
+
+"You thought that if you could get the papers and give them to him--"
+
+"Yes. I could see no harm, because he was as innocent as you--"
+
+"Of course. But why didn't you ask me?"
+
+"_He_ did, and you refused."
+
+"But how could I tell, Sylvia, that you were his daughter, and that I
+should--"
+
+"Hush! Central will hear!"
+
+"Central's got other things to do, besides listening to early morning
+confabulations. I love you."
+
+"Dan...."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I love--to hear you say so, dear."
+
+"Please say that last word over again. I didn't get it."
+
+"Dear...."
+
+"And that means that you'll marry me?"
+
+A pause.
+
+"I say, that means--"
+
+"I heard you, Dan."
+ "But it does, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Whenever you please."
+
+"I'll come up now."
+
+"Don't be a silly."
+
+"Well, when then? To-day?"
+
+"Yes--_no_!"
+
+"But when?"
+
+"To-morrow--I mean next week--I mean next month."
+
+"No; to-day at four. I'll call for you."
+
+"But, Dan...."
+
+"Sweetheart!"
+
+"But you mustn't!... How can I--"
+
+"Easily enough. There's the Little-Church-Around-the-Corner--"
+
+"But I've nothing to wear!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Another pause.
+
+"Dan.... You don't wish it--truly?"
+
+"I do wish it, truly. To-day, at four. The Church of the Transfiguration.
+Yes, I'll scare up a best man if you'll find bridesmaids. Now you will,
+won't you?"
+
+"I--if you wish it, dear."
+
+"I'll have to ask you to repeat that."
+
+"I shan't. There!"
+
+"Very well," meekly. "But will you tell me one thing, please?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Where on earth did you get hold of that kit of tools?"
+
+She laughed softly. "My big Brother caught a burglar once, and kept the
+kit for a remembrance. I borrowed them."
+
+"Give me your big brother's address and I'll send 'em back with my
+thanks--No, by George! I won't, either. I've as much right to keep 'em as
+he has on _that_ principle."
+
+And again she laughed, very gently and happily. Dear God, that such
+happiness could come to one!
+
+"Sylvia?"
+
+"Yes, dear?"
+
+"Do you love me?"
+
+"I think you may believe it, when I sit here at four o'clock in the
+morning, listening to a silly boy talk nonsense over a telephone wire."
+
+"But I want to hear you say so!"
+
+"But Central--"
+
+"I tell you Central has other things to do!"
+
+At this juncture the voice of Central, jaded and acidulated, broke in
+curtly:
+
+"Are you through?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brass Bowl, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRASS BOWL ***
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