thoughts had been on discovering the five-hundred-dollar bill in his
waistcoat pocket.
"Yes, I ran across them," he returned. "They'd had about all they could
hold, sure enough. Well, I'll try and rope them in. I'll have a car
meet me at the Waldorf at a quarter to eight. That'll give me time to
pick you fellows up. Show doesn't begin till eight-fifteen, I suppose?"
"Nearer eight-thirty," Jock corrected, setting down his empty glass, and
tapping the bell.
Lawrence declined further refreshment, however, and they presently arose
and made for the door.
It would have been rather interesting for Barry to observe the behavior
of the nervous broker after their departure. Their backs were no sooner
turned than the financial page seemed to lose all interest for him. He
leaned forward a bit, and peered after their retreating figures. Then,
as they passed through the turnstile door, he sprang to his feet and
hastened after them into the street.
*CHAPTER XXII.*
*THE TOUCH Of COLD STEEL.*
The two friends made their way briskly up Madison Avenue to Forty-fifth
Street, and thence turned to the left toward Fifth Avenue. At the
entrance to the St. Albans they paused a minute, while Jock finished the
diverting story he had commenced.
"Good, ain't it?" he chuckled. "Jimmie Toler has the greatest raft of
'em you ever heard. Well, see you around eight or after, I s'pose.
S'long." He took a few long strides, and then wheeled around. "Say,
you missed the time of your life cutting away early last night, Barry,"
he called back. "Greatest little queen you ever saw. Miss Rives was
her name--Shirley Rives, from Virginia."
Lawrence caught his breath swiftly, and took a single, impulsive step
toward his friend. But Hamersley had already resumed his chuckling way,
and, with a sigh, Barry went into the hotel and up to his rooms.
"So that was really her name," he murmured, in a puzzled way, as he was
dressing a little later. "I'll be hanged if I can understand it. The
whole business is one too many for me."
The problem occupied his mind throughout his entire toilet; and
afterward, as he bowled down to the Waldorf, he quite forgot to keep his
eyes open for the persistent followers. So he failed to notice that the
trailing taxi was conspicuous by its absence.
As he ate his oysters, the wonderful, deep eyes of the Southern girl
looked at him in spirit from across the table. It seemed impossible
that such eyes could be false, yet what else was there for him to
believe? Again he saw, as clearly as if he had been gazing on it in the
flesh, that bewitching mouth, with the tragic, little droop at the
corners of the sensitive lips. How could such lips have voiced the
things they had to him, if each word they uttered was a lie?
He could not believe it. Suddenly there came to him a conviction that
he had been a fool to act as he had last night. There must be something
about it all which he could not understand; some mystery which could be
explained in a simple, logical way, if only he had the key. And, as he
remembered the things he had thought of her, he became ashamed. A flood
of crimson surged into his pleasant face at the realization of what a
cad he had been. No one had known, to be sure. Happily he had voiced
his feelings to no single soul, but he was a cad, nevertheless, unworthy
of her friendship. From this moment things would be very different. He
would have faith in her, no matter what happened, or how much
appearances were against her. When he saw her again----
His heart suddenly sank within him. That was the question. Was he ever
going to see her again? Would he ever be given a chance to show what he
felt for her? Perhaps his new-found faith had come too late.
In this unenviable state of mind he finished his dinner, and left the
table.
It was barely half past seven when he reached the corridor, and he
realized, with some slight impatience that he had a wait of nearly
fifteen minutes before the limousine he had ordered from the garage
would put in an appearance.
Taking out his case, he extracted a thick Egyptian cigarette, and
lighted it. As he tossed the match aside, and took a first deep whiff
of smoke, he had the curious, instinctive feeling that some one was
looking at him.
Slowly, leisurely, without any appearance of premeditation, he turned,
as if to stroll down the corridor, and found that his intuition had not
been at fault.
Standing perhaps twenty feet away, in an attitude which indicated he had
been merely passing toward the elevator when something arrested his
attention, was a tall, rather elderly man in faultless evening dress.
He wore a top hat, and carried a heavy, fur-lined coat over one arm.
But Barry barely noticed those details. He was occupied with the
handsome, distinguished face, smooth shaven, and with a subtle touch of
intellectual power in the brilliant dark eyes. Those eyes were fixed
upon the Harvard man with an expression at once so surprised and puzzled
that, in a flash, Lawrence was reminded of the look on Mrs. Winslow
Courtney's high-bred face the day before.
And then--the parallel was amazingly like--a quick, genial smile flashed
into the stranger's face; he bowed pleasantly, hesitated a second, as if
tempted to cross the intervening space to Barry's side, then resumed his
progress across the corridor and disappeared.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" Lawrence muttered, in a tone of whimsical
annoyance. Though taken by surprise, he had returned the older man's
salutation promptly. "Reckon I must have a double floating around town,
or else people like my looks a lot more than they used to."
After a moment's hesitation, he crossed to the desk, and, giving a brief
description of the elderly gentleman, asked one of the clerks who he
was.
"I think you must mean Mr. Grafton Fahnstock," the latter returned
promptly. "He passed through the lobby a moment ago."
Barry thanked him, and walked away, puffing meditatively on his
cigarette. Presently he smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. Grafton
Fahnstock was the famous cabinet minister, who had just returned from a
diplomatic conference at the Hague.
"Coming up in the world, my boy," he chuckled, as he strolled toward the
door. "First Mrs. Winslow Courtney, now Fahnstock. Next thing you know
you'll be chumming with his excellency at Wash----"
"Your car is here, Mr. Lawrence."
It was the carriage man who spoke, and with a start Barry realized that
he must have spent more time than he supposed dawdling about the lobby.
Hurriedly slipping into his coat, which he had been carrying on his arm,
he walked rapidly out across the sidewalk to where a handsome limousine
stood by the curb.
"Mr. Jacob Hamersley's house on Fifth Avenue," he told the chauffeur.
"Yes, sir." The man saluted, without turning his head.
Lawrence leaped in, the porter slammed the door, and the car started off
with a jerk.
The next instant Barry realized that he was not alone. A shadow in the
farther corner of the wide seat had suddenly come to life.
But before the surprised Harvard man could so much as lift a finger, the
cold barrel of an automatic revolver was pressed firmly against his
temple, and a cool, steely voice said in his ear:
"Just sit tight, and don't let a yip out of you, my friend, if you want
to keep your brains where they belong!"
*CHAPTER XXIII.*
*BY FORCE OF ARMS.*
For a moment Lawrence sat rigid, stunned with surprise at the unexpected
audacity of the thing. Then, as the car swung around the corner of
Fifth Avenue, a bright glare of light streamed in through the front
window, full upon the face of the individual beside him. To Barry's
intense astonishment, and not a little to his chagrin, he recognized the
supposed broker who had occupied the next compartment that afternoon in
the Belmont cafe.
"So it's you!" he exclaimed aloud.
The man reached forward with his left hand, and jerked down the front
curtain, plunging the interior of the limousine into almost utter
darkness.
"It sure is," he returned coolly, but with an undercurrent of
satisfaction in his voice.
The hand which held the automatic against Barry's head did not relax.
Lawrence had an odd impression that, even through the length of
immovable steel, he could feel the fellow's muscles tensed, and his
whole being alert for the slightest stirring on the part of his
prisoner. He did not really believe that the man would actually pull
the trigger, no matter what happened, but under such circumstances one
does not feel anxious to put beliefs like that to a test.
As the car whirled southward without a single pause or even slowing
down--at that hour traffic regulations were very much relaxed--Lawrence
strove desperately to bring some order to the chaos of his mind.
Who was the audacious unknown, and what could possibly be his purpose in
acting in this high-handed manner? He recalled vividly the strange
attack which had been made on him several nights before. Was this a
natural sequence of that assault, and of the persistent shadowing which
had been going on ever since? Was this fellow hand in glove with the
bearded man and his gawky, foreign-looking confederate? Or was he
acting in behalf of Tappin and the bank officials? Where was he himself
being taken, and for what object?
The car jolted over cross tracks twice, with a very brief interval
between, and Barry knew it was the Twenty-ninth and Twenty-eighth Street
surface lines. In a few seconds they would reach Twenty-third, where a
slowing down at least would be imperative. There were always policemen
about that corner. Should he plunge forward at the right moment, smash
the glass of the door near him, and risk a shot from the revolver, or
should he quietly let things take their course, in the hope of finding
out something which would help to clear the mystery?
He finally decided on the latter course, at least until he could have
time to sound his captor, and, relaxing in his corner, he promptly
proceeded to that end.
"I suppose you know what you're doing?" he remarked suddenly.
"I generally do," the unknown drawled.
"Really?" murmured Lawrence. "Then you must realize that you're running
a considerable risk, taking the law into your own hands this way."
The other chuckled. "Law!" he exclaimed. "You're a great one to talk
about the law, when you're----"
He broke off abruptly, much to Barry's disappointment, and the latter
retorted swiftly:
"Nabbed, am I? Will you be good enough to tell me what crime I am
charged with?"
"Ha! ha! That's good. As if you didn't know without any telling!
You'll find out soon enough, my friend."
"You think so?" Barry retorted sharply. "I hope you're taking me to a
station house or before a magistrate, where this matter can be
straightened out at once."
"You want----" the man began incredulously, then paused.
"Of course that's what I want," Lawrence put in swiftly. "What's more,
I demand it. I've done nothing to be ashamed of--nothing I'm afraid of
having the whole world know. Just take me before a magistrate, and see
how long your flimsy charges, whatever they may be, will hold me."
There was an instant's pause, then the man laughed. "Ha! ha! Sounds
good, but you can't fool me that way. I've heard that line of talk
before, many a time."
Superficially his tone was confidence itself, but Barry's alert senses
caught a faint note of hesitancy in his voice which was at once puzzling
and encouraging.
"Very likely," the Harvard chap retorted. "Perhaps you've also observed
the consequences of holding up an innocent man at the point of a gun,
and carrying him off against his will. I recall one instance where the
judge was hard-hearted enough to define it as kidnaping. The
perpetrator was sent up for six years, as I remember."
This time the stranger's laugh was decidedly forced.
"You're wasting your breath," he said, with some curtness. "You may be
slick enough to put it over that foreign bunch across the pond, but, we
ain't so easy over here."
Lawrence started ever so slightly, and drew a quick, noiseless breath.
He had not the most remote idea what the man was talking about, but the
fact was instantly apparent that it had nothing whatever to do with
Tappin and the Beekman Trust Company.
In spite of his bewilderment at this discovery, Barry was decidedly
relieved. He was not at all anxious for a revival of the old affair
before he had taken the steps he planned in regard to Julian Farr's
exposure. He was absolutely innocent, of course, and felt that it would
be impossible for them to prove anything against him. Still, the bank
people might make things annoying, and perhaps ruin the plans he had
made about the cashier.
The car bumped over the Twenty-third Street tracks, and went speeding on
down Fifth Avenue. After a time another slight jolt told Lawrence that
Fourteenth Street had been reached and put behind, but still the course
was held straight southward.
Barry tried to sound his captor a little more, but the latter had grown
taciturn, and shut him up without revealing another scrap of
information.
Eighth Street was crossed, and, a moment or two later, the car swerved
sharply to the right.
"Washington Square," Barry thought, with every sense alert. "Now, where
the mischief are they taking me?"
The twists and turns which followed were so bewildering that Barry soon
ceased trying to keep track of his whereabouts. The car sped on,
whirling around corners, taking long, straight stretches with a rush,
and darting back and forth, up and down, in such a manner that Lawrence
finally lost even his sense of direction.
Evidently the detective--Barry was sure by this time of his captor's
occupation--was headed for some rendezvous where possibly he would meet
the persons who had employed him in this lawless undertaking. Between
leaving the car and entering the building, wherever that might be, there
would surely be some slight chance of breaking away, and Lawrence
determined to be ready to take advantage of it the instant the car
stopped.
Thus it was that, when the automobile began to slow down and swerve in
toward the curb, Barry held himself tense, with feet braced in such a
manner that he was ready to launch himself straight at his companion in
the twinkling of an eye, snatch the automatic, and fling himself from
the car to freedom.
"No monkeyshines, now!" admonished the unknown suddenly, as if reading
Lawrence's very thoughts. "You try to make a get-away, and you'll wish
you hadn't."
"Why should I?" Barry returned, with light indifference. "I'm too
anxious to see you get yours, to leave just now."
The only answer was an inarticulate grunt. The car skidded a little,
then stopped with a jerk. Lawrence was waiting breathlessly for the
pressure of the revolver to be removed, when suddenly his heart sank
into his boots.
From the sidewalk came the low murmur of voices, followed almost
instantly by the jerking open of the door. In a single swift glance he
took in the shadowy forms of three men grouped around the car--four, if
he counted the chauffeur, who was slipping out of his seat to join them.
It would be folly to try to break away against such odds as this. He
would do better to submit without resistance and bide his time.
*CHAPTER XXIV.*
*THE EMPTY HOUSE.*
The instant Lawrence stepped out of the car he was surrounded by the
four men, and hurried across the icy sidewalk. There was a brief
glimpse of a row of squalid-looking buildings, unfamiliar in their
monotonous regularity, then he was pushed into the shadowy doorway,
through the door, which yielded to a touch, and thence to the pitchy
blackness of a hall where the echo of their footsteps sounded hollow and
ringing, as in an empty house.
A brief pause followed, broken only by low whispering. Then the door
closed, and, as the purring of the motor car died away in the distance,
a round, brilliant spot of light suddenly flashed out of the darkness,
showing Barry the uncarpeted stairs near which he stood, the dingy
railing, and, more dimly, the figures of the men grouped about him.
"Ed, you and Jim stay down here," the detective ordered tersely. "Beat
it upstairs, Billy, and light the lamp. Now, Mr. Lawrence," he went on,
with a sort of mocking politeness, after his man had disappeared into
the darkness above, "I'll have to ask you to follow. Your room is all
ready for you."
With a slight shrug of indifference, Barry obeyed. From his manner one
would have supposed him quite resigned to the unpleasantness of the
situation. He seemed to look neither to the right nor left, but, as he
reached the second floor, with the detective close behind, he shot a
swift, comprehensive glance around, without turning his head.
In that brief instant, aided by the feeble yellow light streaming out of
the back room, he saw that there were but three doors opening on the
narrow hall. One led into the lighted room; another, close beside it,
and also standing partly open, seemed to give access to a small back
bedroom or bathroom, while the third was at the other end of the hall,
close to the shadowy outlines of the stairs leading up to the third
floor.
Having taken in this, much without apparently noticing anything,
Lawrence walked directly into the lighted room, and stood in the middle
of it, staring around with a disgusted expression.
The place was absolutely bare, and filthy to a degree. Opposite the
door was a rough wooden mantel above a boarded-up fireplace, on which
stood a common glass lamp. Not another stick of furniture was visible.
The paper hung in strips from the dingy walls, and the floor seemed
covered with the dust of ages. There was a door which led apparently
into the front room, and a single, uncurtained window, the panes of
which were so incrusted with dirt as to make a shade unnecessary.
Barry's lips curled scornfully as he met the keen, dark eyes of the
detective.
"A nice hole!" he commented disgustedly. "And how long do you propose
keeping me here?"
The man whom he addressed shrugged his shoulders slightly, and glanced
at his subordinate.
"That'll do, Billy," he said. "Just wait in the hall outside."
When the fellow had departed, he closed the door, and turned again to
the Harvard man. He still held the automatic in his hand, but Barry
observed that it was no longer covering him.
"Now, don't get in a stew," the detective said. "An hour or so of this
ain't going to hurt you any."
"It's outrageous!" Lawrence exclaimed angrily. "Here I'm giving a
theater party to-night, and have the tickets in my pocket. What do you
suppose my friends will think when I don't show up? If you don't smart
for this, it won't be my fault, I can tell you!"
"Keep your shirt on," drawled the detective. "Losing your temper won't
help you."
He strolled over to the wooden mantelshelf, and leaned one elbow
negligently on it, idly snapping the switch of the pocket flash light on
and off.
"So you really don't know what you're wanted for?" he went on, in a
semijocose tone.
"I haven't the faintest idea," Barry answered.
"That's rich," chuckled the other, laying the pocket battery on the
mantel. "Not a thing lying heavy on your conscience, I s'pose?"
"There is not!" Lawrence retorted sharply. "And I'll tell you this:
You've made one big mistake, and I should hate awfully to be in your
shoes when I tell my story in a station house or courtroom. If you're
on the regular force--which I doubt very much--you'll be broken into
little bits. If you're just a private citizen from one of these
bureaus, you'd better make plans for skipping the country, for I give
you my word I mean to push this to the limit."
The flash of worried doubt which swept across the detective's face, and
was gone in an instant, was all Barry needed to confirm the suspicion
which had been growing in his mind for the past few minutes. The fellow
did not know what his prisoner was wanted for. That was one of the
reasons why he had remained in the room. What was the motive of these
apparently casual hints and questions. He did not know, and he was
beginning to be very anxious to find out.
Probably he had been hired to kidnap Lawrence, and bring him to this
house without being told anything definite as to Barry's supposed
misdoings, beyond a vague tale of some lawlessness said to have been
committed abroad.
It would be simply a waste of valuable time to linger longer here trying
to learn the impossible, and Lawrence had no wish to stay until the
arrival of his real enemies. He was intensely curious to meet them face
to face, and find out something of the cause of the extraordinary
persecution, but he much preferred choosing his own time and place.
"I think before this time to-morrow," Barry went on swiftly, "that
you'll be mighty sorry you ever undertook the case."
The detective shrugged his shoulders in an affectation of bravado, which
did not deceive the captive for a second. The latter had not stirred
from the middle of the room, but now his muscles were tense and ready
for action, and every nerve quivered as he awaited the slightest
opening.
"I ain't worrying a whole lot," the dark-haired man returned. "I reckon
you're the one who'll be sorry you ever bumped up against me. There
ain't a doubt in----"
In his attempt to show how little he was disturbed by his prisoner's
threats, he had been swinging the automatic negligently back and forth
on one crooked finger. Either his suppressed nervousness got the better
of him, or his mind was so busy with other things that he did not
realize how careless he had become. At all events, the weapon slipped
off his finger and struck the floor with a thud.
Like a flash he stooped to snatch it up. But Barry was even quicker.
With a single lithe spring he had leaped across the intervening space.
One hand, the muscular fingers tightly clenched, caught the detective on
the chin, and sent him backward with a crash which made the floor shake.
The other arm, outstretched, swept the glass lamp from the mantel, and
caught up the pocket flash light in one and the same motion.
There was a yell of fury from the man on the floor, a splintering of
glass, then darkness--inky, pitchy, smothering darkness--dropped like a
heavy pall over the room, and blotted everything.
*CHAPTER XXV.*
*THE FACE IN THE CANDLELIGHT.*
A second later the hall door was burst open, and a voice sounded from
the opening: "What's up, Joyce? Has he got away?"
A flood of imprecations answered him as the detective scrambled
painfully from his feet.
"You fool!" he roared. "Strike a light, quick! Don't stand there like a
dummy. Strike a light! He's in this room--he can't get away! Where in
blazes is that gun of mine? A-h!"
The tiny, wavering flame from a match clove the inky blackness, and
showed Joyce crouching near the mantel, the recovered automatic ready in
one hand, and his keen, dark eyes roving swiftly about the barren place.
For a moment he did not move a muscle; then, with an oath, he sprang to
his feet. The flickering flame made odd, grotesquely dancing shadows in
the corners of the room, but aside from the detective and his assistant
by the door, there was no one else there. Lawrence had disappeared.
"He's slipped into the front room!" snapped Joyce. "He can't get out of
the house--that's impossible! Where's my flash light? Yell down to the
boys to be on the lookout. They mustn't stir from the foot of the
stairs. You go down and get that lantern out of the kitchen. We've got
to have light, and my blooming battery's gone."
He had scarcely spoken when the match burned out, and darkness infolded
them again.
It was during this second period of eclipse that Barry softly pushed
open the door of the front room, and emerged into the hall. He heard
the detective's angry voice roaring out orders from the back room, and
was conscious, also, of excited talking in the hall below. Escape that
way was quite impossible, and, since there was no time to hunt up a
convenient fire escape, the only thing left was the roof.