PLEASURE AND PERIL.
Frank Merriwell did not lose his presence of mind. Like a flash, he
caught up the thing, which was a short piece of gas pipe, and pinched
off the burning fuse with his thumb and finger, burning his hand as he
did so.
Placing the bomb carefully on the table, he leaped up and plunged after
the crowd, having caught sight of the person who dropped the thing on
the cloth before him.
It was the woman who wore the mask!
Ephraim was dazed for some minutes, and then he tried to follow his
friend, but found Frank had disappeared.
Frank did not stop until he was outside of the Ambassadeurs’ and some
distance away. Then he realized that Ephraim was not with him, and he
looked around.
“I can’t bother with him now,” he muttered. “He will find his way back
to the hotel. That woman is somewhere just ahead.”
He saw a woman that seemed to look like the unknown, but when he reached
her side, he found that her face was not masked, and the look she gave
him made him turn quickly away.
Still he was not satisfied. That might be the woman, it might be she had
disposed of the mask. So he followed her to the Jardin de Paris, and
there he lost her in the mad mob that was making merry about the
band-stand.
The place was thronged with people who were shouting and laughing and
racing about the asphalt pavement. Handsome women, gorgeously gowned and
bedecked with diamonds, had joined hands with swells in evening dress
and they were sweeping through the crowd, yelling boisterously. The
French swells had cut down the Chinese lanterns with their sticks,
removed the dripping candles, and stuck them on the tops of their silk
hats with the burning tallow, thus making living torches of themselves.
Now, for the first time, Frank fully realized what was meant by the
expression, “Gay Paris.” Never before had he seen anything like this.
Past him raced a youth in evening dress, dripping with candle grease,
holding by the hand a beautiful girl in a dinner gown, with her silk and
velvet opera cloak slipping from her shoulders, both screaming with
laughter.
A band of roysterers, with joined hands, were spinning around a stately
dignitary, who could not escape from the circle. Another party was
storming the women who were running the shooting gallery. A girl in a
linen blouse and flat straw hat was dancing vis-a-vis with another girl
who wore diamonds in ropes, surrounded by admiring and applauding men.
“Great Scott!” gasped Frank, in a bewildered way. “What have I struck
here! This lays over anything I have yet seen in this rather lively
little town!”
The merrymaking spirit was catching. Frank forgot the strange woman of
the masked face, and he longed to join in the rushing, the shouting, the
waltzing and the singing. His warm boyish blood was tingling in his
veins.
Of a sudden the band struck into an air that was hailed with a howl of
recognition and delight from three thousand throats.
It was “The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.”
The musicians seemed to know they had hit something that would please
that crowd, and they were not mistaken. The three thousand who had
howled with joy as the first note struck into the song, marching and
strutting and yelling till the mad chorus could be heard as far as the
boulevards.
Frank felt that he had been repaid for visiting Paris. At last he had
seen the class of Parisians that he had heard about and read about, yet
had failed to discover up to this night. He realized that they appeared
only at unusual intervals, but now he felt certain they lived up to
their reputation when they did appear.
And Frank found himself singing with the rest. He had been seized by the
delirium of revelry, and he entirely forgot himself. It seemed that the
occasion had been made for his especial delight, and he threw himself
into the spirit of the moment.
When the high note of the chorus was reached the three thousand men and
women stood on their tiptoes, and the musicians leaped upon their
chairs, holding their instruments as high above their heads as they
could without losing control of the note.
When the piece was ended Frank was ready for anything. He would have
plunged into the whirling vortex of humanity, but a voice in his ear
arrested him. That voice hissed:
“_A mort, espion!_”
He whirled like a panther, and in a twinkling had caught the speaker’s
wrist.
It was the masked unknown!
Frank was not a little surprised by his success in grasping her. She
made a sharp effort to break away, failed, and then panted:
“Let go!”
The words were spoken in French, but Frank could understand and speak
French very well.
“Not so fast,” he returned, quickly. “I have had considerable trouble
with you. Will you be kind enough to grant me a few moments?”
He spoke smoothly, suavely, politely.
“Let go!” she panted again, her free hand disappearing in the folds of
her dress. “Release me, sir!”
“In a moment. I beg you to grant me one favor—remove that mask.”
For the third time she hissed:
“Let go!”
“Grant me the favor I ask—a look at your face.”
“You will not let go? Then you shall have this!”
Her hand came out from the folds of her dress, it swept through the air,
something bright glinted in the gaslight.
She had struck straight at Frank Merriwell’s heart with a dagger!
But the boy was watching her with the eyes of a hawk, and he had taken
note of the movement when that hand disappeared from view. He saw it
flash forth with the knife, and he caught and held it, although the
force of the stroke was so great that the point of the dagger cut his
coat slightly.
“I beg a thousand pardons for this seeming rudeness,” he said, still
with the utmost politeness, and without lifting his voice. “It is
unavoidable, you know.”
The masked unknown felt that she was helpless in his hands.
“If you do not let go, I shall scream, and I will swear you have
insulted me,” she swiftly said.
“What, then?”
“You will see how swiftly this crowd will resent an insult to a lady. If
you would escape harm, let me go.”
“I will take my chances. This is Grand Prix night, and you will make
yourself ridiculous if you accuse me of insulting you. Ladies who are
abroad to-night without escorts are not in a position to be too
particular.”
“I am not alone.”
“No?”
“I have friends near at hand.”
“They should be with you.”
“If I cry out, they will come.”
“And then—what?”
“I failed to stab you in the breast; they will strike at your back.”
“Brave friends! Why should they do so? What have I done to make myself
the enemy of you and your friends?”
“You know. Why do you ask?”
“But I do not know, and that is why I ask. Twice you have tried to kill
me to-night, and——”
“Only once.”
“How about the bomb at the Ambassadeurs’?”
“It was not a real bomb—it was harmless.”
“Harmless? And do you mean to say it was dropped before me for a joke?
Is that what you would have me believe?”
“No, no—there was no joke about it. It was the second warning. You
received the first in front of the Café de la Paix.”
“Then that was meant for me?”
“Yes.”
“But why? I do not understand it at all. What have I done that you
should warn me? And why did you warn me?”
“So you would leave Paris without delay. To save your life. If you
remain in this city forty-eight hours longer nothing can save you.”
“Well, that is very interesting! I had begun to think I should see Paris
without any adventure in particular, but I have changed my mind. Things
are coming with a rush. You claim to be very friendly toward me—to have
a desire to save my life; and yet you would have finished me just now if
I had not caught your hand. I do not think I quite understand you. If
you are so much my friend, pray remove that mask for a moment. I always
wish to know my friends, so I can salute them when we meet.”
The unknown was growing angry. She made a quick, panther-like struggle,
but Frank was a young athlete, wonderfully strong in his hands, and she
was helpless.
Nevertheless, that struggle attracted the attention of those near at
hand, and they saw there was something more than the usual rollicking
going on. They began to gather about the two with a rush.
And then Frank felt a heavy blow on the side of the head. It sent him
staggering. He heard some one cry out something about assaulting a lady,
and he knew the masked mystery had freed her wrists from his grasp.
At that moment it would not have surprised the boy if another attempt
had been made on his life. He was expecting it, and he whirled on his
feet like a cat.
The unknown female had disappeared into the throng.
“Slipped away again!” muttered Frank, in dismay. “And I know as little
about her now as I did the first time I saw her.”
Some of the crowd demanded to know just what had happened, and some
seemed to look on Frank as a ruffian who had attacked a lady.
Frank had no fancy to explain then and there, so he quickly moved away,
and escaped from the inquisitive throng.
But he found that the roystering had suddenly ceased to interest or
amuse him. He was seized with an intense desire to solve the mystery of
the masked unknown, and he wandered away from the merry throng into the
streets.
It was not difficult to find quiet streets, for the people had
congregated in the restaurants, the squares, the show-places and the
gardens.
Frank wondered if Ephraim had returned safely to the hotel, and if the
professor had found anything at the Moulin Rouge livelier than could be
seen at the Jardin de Paris.
Then he thought of Harvey Wynne. What had become of the fellow? He had
started in pursuit of the elusive woman in the mask. Had he overtaken
her? If so, what had befallen Wynne?
He would have given something to meet the dauntless newspaper
correspondent just then and compare notes with him. He fancied he could
tell Wynne a few things of interest.
And so, wondering not a little over what had happened, he finally came
to a place that he had once visited in company with a guide, who had
agreed to take him to see “the thieves of Montmartre.” He had been in
the guide’s care, and so none of the disreputable frequenters of the
place had molested him, although he had paid well for the privilege of
being taken there, going without Professor Scotch’s knowledge.
Frank remembered that he had seen some individuals in this place who
looked like anarchists of the fierce and unwashed sort, and a sudden
desire to visit the place once more took possession of him. He did not
stop to think it over, but, almost before he realized what he was doing,
he was rapping on the heavy door set in the dark wall.
Frank had noted the signal given by his guide, and he rapped in exactly
the same manner.
In a few seconds a panel in the door slid open, and a ray of light shot
into the boy’s face. Frank knew he was being inspected by Henri Bornier,
the keeper of the Red Flag, as the place was called.
That inspection seemed to satisfy Bornier, for he opened the door and
admitted the boy, although he asked:
“Why do you come alone? You should be with a guide. I know you. You were
here four days ago.”
“That’s right,” nodded Frank, “and I did not come with a guide to-night
because guides are not easy to find.”
Bornier muttered something, and Frank followed him into a room where
there were three long tables, at which a number of persons were sitting,
smoking, drinking, talking covertly, with sidelong glances, and
appearing suspicious of all around them.
The walls were decorated with fantastic bill posters, unframed
oil-paintings of a lurid order, beer mugs, death-masks, and so forth.
There was no bar.
Beyond this room there was yet another, which was reached by a narrow
door. The walls of this room were painted with scenes of celebrated
murders, executions on the guillotine, photographs of anarchists,
together with famous police officers. It was a ghastly room, lighted by
yellow lamps, which gave out an uncanny glow.
In this room men and women were, the men crafty and cunning in their
movements, the women bold and unwomanly. They were drinking, talking and
laughing, but their voices were unpleasant, and their laughter
mirthless.
Yet it was said that any one could visit this place in company with a
guide and be quite safe. He would be expected to pay liberally for
drinks, and to treat everybody. The guide would charge him an exorbitant
price for his services, and would collect the sum before the Red Flag
was left behind. If the sight-seeing individual objected, and made a
rumpus, he would be held till the price was collected by force; but,
even though he had much money about his person, no more than the sum
named would be taken. The rest would be returned to his pockets.
Henri Bornier was shrewd. He would not permit out and out robbery in his
place, knowing the police would make short work of him if he did. The
police did not mind if the guides charged exorbitant prices for their
services, and Bornier sold his wine for five times its worth; and they
laughed at the manner of forcibly collecting these charges.
Frank was obliged to pause for inspection in the first room. The
suspicious-eyed men looked him over. Bornier explained that he had been
there once before, and had proved himself a very good customer. He added
that the young American would be pleased to have everybody drink with
him.
So Frank paid for the drinks without a murmur, and then, in due time,
passed on into the next room, when he met with a surprise that nearly
took his breath.
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