holding up the letter. "Said it was most important he should have it at
once. He isn't at his hotel, and they don't know where he's gone."
"Humph!" grunted the big chap. "Who's your chief?"
"Mr. Marvin, of Kane & Marvin," was the swift response.
Hamersley knew the Wall Street firm very well, and, having no notion of
Barry's affairs, it seemed quite possible that the latter might be doing
business in that quarter. Nevertheless, a vague, intangible suspicion
made him hesitate, and in that fortunate pause a conviction suddenly
flashed into his mind which almost took his breath away.
The fellow beside him was none other than the detective who had
inveigled Lawrence into the empty house on Twenty-fourth Street the very
night before.
Jock remembered his friend's description perfectly, and, moreover,
recalled Barry's having said that he was the identical man who had sat
next to them at the Belmont cafe. There could be no mistake. This was,
indeed, the man, and Hamersley's first feeling was one of infinite
regret that the chance they had been seeking should come when Lawrence
was not on hand to take advantage of it.
On the heels of that, however, came a swift determination to work the
trick alone. He could do it if only he kept his head and handled the
situation cleverly. He would do it, and give Barry the surprise of his
life. With a tremendous effort to keep his voice casual and careless,
he plunged into the game.
"I see," he said. "But what gave you the idea that I could tell you
anything about him?"
"Mr. Marvin said he belonged to a college club on Forty-fourth Street,"
the unknown returned glibly. "When I asked for him back there, they
said he wasn't a member, but that he sometimes came in with you. That's
what made me hustle out after you. I want to get rid of the thing and
beat it home to supper."
His easy tone was most convincing, and, had he not been perfectly sure
of his identification, Jock would never have dreamed that anything was
out of the way. For a second he hesitated, digging into his brain for
some plausible means of finding out more. Unfortunately Jock's brain
was of the slow-moving variety which so often accompanies big, brawny
bodies, and nothing occurred to him.
"Sorry I can't help you," he said at last; "but I haven't an idea where
he is now. He's going to meet me at the Yale Club at half past eight or
so. Why don't you come around then and see him?"
"Half past eight! I can't hang around till then. Still, I suppose I'll
have time to get supper and come down afterward, won't I?"
"I should think so," Hamersley returned, with an affectation of
indifference he was far from feeling.
"I'll do it," the stranger said decidedly, thrusting the letter into his
pocket. "Half past eight, you say? Much obliged for the information."
With a quick nod, which Jock returned, he started briskly up the avenue,
leaving the Yale man staring, helplessly after him in a perfect agony of
indecision. He wanted to follow the fellow, and yet he realized how
utterly futile such a thing would be. The man would be wise to the game
before he had gone a block, and that would probably spoil everything.
What should he do? What could he do? The man was rapidly getting away
from him, and Hamersley fairly danced on the pavement as he tried
frantically to think.
It was at this moment that he caught sight of "Shrimp" Bradley briskly
crossing the avenue.
*CHAPTER XL.*
*THE OPEN DOOR.*
As his cognomen indicated, Bradley was short and slim and
boyish-looking. He had fresh, rosy cheeks and innocent, bland blue
eyes, which reminded one vaguely of cherubs and better worlds than this.
In reality he was as sophisticated a little chap as had ever made the
lives of New Haven professors miserable; and he had a command of
language which, during his two years of "coxing" on the varsity shell,
had caused the hair of even those hardened athletes to stand on end. To
the harassed Hamersley his appearance at that particular moment seemed
like a direct dispensation of Providence.
"Shrimp!" he spluttered, clutching the diminutive chap by the shoulders,
"there's a fellow going up the avenue there--short, slim, dark clothes
and brown felt hat. He's a detective, after Barry Lawrence. I've got
to know where he goes. For the love of Mike, follow him and tell me
where he lands! I'll be at the club. Be quick, now, or you'll miss
him!"
The single, searching glance Bradley cast at his friend's face convinced
him that this was no joke, and without a question he snapped back:
"Right. I'm on." And he hustled off up the street.
Jock watched him anxiously as he scurried away, and presently, when
pursuer and pursued were lost to sight, the big chap sighed and turned
back in the direction from which he had come.
"He'll catch the dope if it's a possible thing," he muttered. "Hang it
all! I wish Barry were here."
He was puzzled to learn, on reaching the club, that Lawrence had phoned
during his absence and left an urgent message that he was not to leave
the building until he heard again from the Harvard man. Of what it
could mean Hamersley had no idea, unless Barry had become wise to the
situation in some way and was also following up a clew.
At all events, there seemed nothing else for him to do but wait; and for
nearly an hour he performed that difficult and trying duty in a manner
which nearly drove the other club members to murder.
Apparently unable to keep still, he tramped back and forth through the
rooms on the lower floor with a frowning countenance. He was deaf to
the gibes and jokes hurled after him, oblivious to remarks and questions
from his friends, heedless to everything save the matter which filled
his mind so exclusively. Had he not been so universally known and liked
by almost all the members, there is no telling what might have happened.
As it was, when Shrimp Bradley appeared about a quarter past eight, and
Jock made a rush for him which compared favorably with some of his best
efforts on the gridiron, there was a general sigh of thankfulness that
something had at length arisen to break the spell.
"Let me get my breath!" panted Shrimp. "I never hustled so before.
Yes, I got him! Did you take me for a piker? Sure, I want a drink.
I've got a thirst a mile long. I want something to eat, too, and tell
him to hustle. You and I have got our night's work cut out for us, old
socks!"
While he was talking Jock had pushed him into the small room to the left
of the door, which happened at the moment to be unoccupied. Placing one
big thumb against the bell, he kept it there until the attendant
appeared on the run and took their order.
"Now," exclaimed Hamersley, sinking into a chair, "where'd he go?
Harlem?"
"Harlem? No. He went up three blocks and then hopped onto a stage
going downtown. Luckily I was just about a block behind, so I sprinted
and grabbed it. We rode down to Fourteenth, and then he got off. I
stayed on half a block longer, then beat it. I was hustling back,
keeping well in near the buildings, when I saw him coming down with
another guy, and I slipped into a doorway. As luck would have it, they
stopped a couple of feet past me for the stranger to light a cigarette,
and I heard about all they said. They talked in riddles, of course, but
I made out pretty clearly that they've got a girl locked up somewhere,
and that they caught her by telling her some fellow was in trouble. I
made out, too, that the girl put up something of a fight, but they told
her if she didn't keep quiet 'twould be worse for the fellow, and she
behaved after that. They said they'd have him by nine o'clock. Do you
suppose they meant Barry Lawrence?"
"Sure!" said Hamersley hoarsely. "But how did you make out all of that,
Shrimp? They must have been boobs to talk so much in the open street."
"Oh, they weren't so slow," protested Bradley; "but neither am I, Jock.
I kept my ears open and read between the lines. What they said couldn't
have meant much of anything else."
"Well, go on!" cried Jock impatiently.
"That's all I heard," said Bradley. "They were moving off by that time
and the wind was blowing the other way. I let 'em get 'most to the next
corner before I slipped out after them. They went down the avenue as far
as Eleventh, and then turned west, with me following as close as I
dared. I reckon they weren't thinking about any one being after 'em,
though, because they never once looked back. They went down the street
almost to the next corner, then walked up the steps of a brownstone
front, opened the door with a latchkey, and stepped in. In a couple of
minutes I pranced past to get the number, noticed the sign, 'Rooms to
Let,' boarded a Sixth Avenue car, grabbed a taxi at Twenty-third Street,
and hustled back."
Hamersley nodded, but remained silent.
"What's biting you, Jock?" inquired Bradley sharply. "Aren't you wise
to what I'm telling you? Don't you catch on that there's a girl in
trouble?"
"Sure!" gasped Hamersley. "But what girl?"
"What girl!" snapped Shrimp. "How do I know, when you didn't tell me
anything? Don't you know?"
Jock shook his head dazedly. "First I've heard of any girl," he
returned weakly. "I thought it was----"
"What girl are you talking about?" demanded a voice from the doorway, in
a tone which made both men jump.
"Barry!" roared Hamersley, leaping at him. "For Pete's sake, come and
put us wise! I put Shrimp on the trail of a man who was asking me all
about you, and he comes back with a weird tale of a girl kidnaped by a
bunch and kept a prisoner in a boarding house down on West Eleventh
Street, near Sixth----"
"West Eleventh!" exclaimed Lawrence triumphantly. "By Jove! You've hit
it right. Come on--both of you. There isn't a minute to lose. I'll
tell you the rest in the taxi."
He turned and hurried out of the room, followed by Hamersley, and, more
slowly, by Shrimp Bradley, who had paused to secure the remaining
sandwiches. Issuing hastily from the club, Barry told the driver to
take them to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eleventh Street, and they
all piled in and slammed the door behind them.
During the hurried ride downtown they exchanged stories briefly, so that
when they reached their destination they were ready to act. In half a
minute Bradley had led the way to the house, and Lawrence swiftly took
in its salient features. It was an ordinary-looking, four-storied
brownstone dwelling, a little gone to seed, perhaps, which accounted for
the sign displayed in a lower window. The room on the second floor
front was brightly lighted, but the shades were pulled down. All the
other windows were dark. In that instant Barry had made up his mind.
"I'm going in if I can get in, fellows," he said abruptly.
"Hadn't you better wait----" began Bradley.
But Lawrence cut him short. "Not if I know it!" he exclaimed. "I've
waited too long already. I'm going in! See if you can find a cop,
Shrimp. Jock, will you watch the house?"
Before the others could realize what was happening, he had raced up the
steps and grasped the doorknob firmly. To the intense surprise of his
two companions, the door yielded to his touch, and a second later he had
disappeared, leaving them staring dazedly at each other.
"There's something queer about this!" Hamersley burst out the next
instant. "I don't like the looks of it a little bit."
Bounding up the steps, he seized the knob and twisted it, flinging his
whole weight against the door. It held fast. He tried again with the
same result, then turned a serious face toward Bradley.
"Beat it, Shrimp!" he said hurriedly. "Get a cop, quick! It's a trap,
that's what it is!"
*CHAPTER XLI.*
*AT CROSS-PURPOSES.*
As the door swung into place behind him, with the unmistakable click of
a spring lock, Lawrence stood there, every nerve tense, glancing swiftly
around into the shadows, half expecting an attack of some sort.
The hall was lighted by a single gas jet turned down to the tiniest
spark, and for a moment he thought himself alone. Then, with a
suppressed start, he realized that a tall, slim, smooth-shaven man stood
silently by the portieres of a double door, watching him with cool,
level, dark eyes.
"Well?" snapped Barry, recovering his composure. "Where is she? Quick!
What have you done with her?"
The stranger smiled. "One flight up, on your right," he drawled
nonchalantly. "You can't miss it. The door's unlocked."
For a second Lawrence stared at him dazedly. With every nerve keyed to
its highest tension, expecting, and ready to use force, and with visions
of having to break down doors and overcome all sorts of obstacles to
reach the girl he was seeking, the utter indifference and casual
politeness were staggering. He scowled fiercely at the urbane stranger
for an instant, the color rising to his face; then, whirling about,
raced up the stairs without a word.
The upper hall was almost pitch dark, but he thrust out both hands and
felt the panels of a door on his right. A second later his fingers
closed over a knob, he pushed forward, then stopped still on the
threshold, blinking in the bright light, with the echoes of a faint,
suppressed cry of a woman ringing in his ears.
The room was long and spacious, that effect being heightened by several
full-length mirrors, with massive, old-fashioned frames of black walnut,
set into the walls at different points. The furniture was mostly of
that same mid-Victorian period, ponderous, ugly, and uncomfortable, with
a good deal of fringe and furbelows and gimcrack ornament. It was only
in contrast to the hall that the place seemed brightly lighted. In
reality, the only source of illumination was a nickel lamp with a
dark-green china shade, which stood on a marble table at the farther
end.
Most of this Barry perceived in that curious, instinctive, intuitive
manner with which one observes a thing without really looking at it.
His whole mind was taken up with the girl who had started from her chair
and was staring at him, a half-frightened, half-puzzled, wholly
incomprehensible expression on her lovely face.
"Shirley!" he cried, springing forward impulsively. "You're all right?
They haven't--hurt you in any way?"
To his amazement, she did not show the slightest sign of being glad to
see him. On the contrary, she seemed almost frightened; and the quick
backward step she took to place the table between them, no less than the
look in her dark eyes, halted Lawrence in his tracks as effectually as a
bullet might have done.
For a second he stood there staring at her, the color swiftly ebbing
from his face.
"I don't--understand," he said at length, in a low, bewildered tone.
"What is the matter? It isn't possible that you're--afraid of me?"
She moistened her lips and, putting out one hand, let the tips of her
gloved fingers rest lightly on the table top. From the moment of his
entrance her eyes had never left Barry's face, and now, as he saw them
clearly in the lamplight, the look there was like the stab of a knife.
"I don't know," she said quietly; and Lawrence saw that it was the
calmness of deliberate effort. "I don't think it's quite--that."
"But what is the matter? What has happened?" He flung out both hands
in an eloquent gesture. "Why are you acting so strangely?" After all
he had been through, after the strain and stress and mental suffering he
had been laboring under, this frigid reception, so different from the
one he had imagined when he dared to picture their meeting at all, was
almost unnerving. "You must tell me what it means!" he cried.
Her lips quivered, but she caught them between her teeth and tilted her
chin a little more. She still wore her hat--a wide one of black velvet,
with curving brim and soft black plumes. Her sable coat was flung over
the back of a nearby chair; and as she faced him--slim, erect,
palpitating with life and charm and fascination, Lawrence realized that
she had never seemed so beautiful--or so utterly beyond his reach.
"I think," she returned steadily, "that you are the one to tell me
that."
The man turned suddenly white and drew his breath sharply. In a second
every feature seemed to have become tense and hard and clean-cut as if
fashioned from marble. When he spoke his voice was low and clear, but
there was a faint, throbbing undercurrent which showed plainly how
difficult it was for him to keep it so.
"It isn't possible that you believe me responsible for this?" he said.
For an instant the girl did not answer. Her lips were quivering
unmistakably now; her self-control was plainly strained almost to the
breaking point.
"How do I know what to believe?" she cried suddenly. "How do I know
whom to trust?" A sob arose in her throat, and she fumbled in her
sleeve for a tiny handkerchief. "Oh, why did you try to keep it from
me?" she went on despairingly. "Why didn't you tell me at first, and
then we should never have----"
She could not finish, and the swift glimpse Barry had of those dark
eyes, swimming with tears, before she hid them with her handkerchief,
almost drove him mad.
"Tell you what?" he demanded dazedly. "For Heaven's sake what is it you
think I've kept from you? Surely you don't mean that trouble at the
bank? You must have known that I never----"
She silenced him with a gesture and dropped both hands straight by her
sides. There was a glint of tears still in her dark eyes, but she had
recovered her composure with remarkable rapidity.
"It isn't that," she said wearily. "It's far more important than any
bank. I know--everything. You understand? And it--hurts desperately to
think that I had to hear from---a stranger--that you----"
She stopped abruptly as a brisk knock sounded at the door. Before
either of them could speak it swung open, and two men entered quietly,
closing it behind them.
*CHAPTER XLII.*
*THE MAN IN THE MIRROR.*
The foremost of the intruders was the dapper detective, Brennen, and, as
he recognized him, Barry scowled.
"So it's you, is it?" he said shortly.
The fellow grinned. "It sure is!" he chuckled. "Mighty nice of you to
trot down here and save me the trouble of hunting you up."
Lawrence stared at him blankly. "What the mischief do you mean?" he
demanded. "You don't mean to say you wanted me here?"
Brennen nodded blithely. "Of course. Aren't you on yet? That's what
we've been after right along. That's why we had to put the lady here to
a little inconvenience. Hated to do it, of course, but were afraid
you----"
His companion, the tall, dark, urbane person Barry had passed in the
hall below, plucked Brennen by the arm and whispered a few words in his
ear.
"What's the odds?" the detective returned briskly. "The big fellow's
due any minute, and then it'll all come out. You see," he went on,
turning again to Lawrence, "it looked to us like you'd get wise and
might make a sneak any minute. We couldn't allow that, of course, so we
took the only way which was left us, and, by a polite little fiction,
induced your wife----"
"That'll do!" cried Barry, his eyes flashing. "I don't understand a word
you're saying; but I know this much: if you can't keep this lady out of
the conversation, I'll take great pleasure in silencing you. She is not
my wife, and your behavior in dragging her into this affair has been
simply despicable."
The detective shrugged his shoulders incredulously. "Suit yourself," he
returned blandly. He hesitated a moment, and then went on, with
twinkling eyes: "Hope your friend don't get tired hunting a cop."
Barry gasped, but recovered himself swiftly. "What do you know about my
friends?" he demanded.
"Know!" Brennen repeated amusedly. "Say, that's good! Do I look like a
boob? You don't suppose for a minute, do you, that I wasn't wise to
that little pewee who trailed me down here from Forty-fourth Street?
Ha, ha! Why, I wanted him to follow me, and made things so easy that he
couldn't fall down. What's more, I turned about and went after him the
minute he started back. Followed him to the club, and got after the
three of you when you came this way again. I couldn't take any chances,
you see, with his nibs due to-night and expecting to see you here."
If Lawrence had never felt chagrin before, he felt it now. The
realization that they all simply had been playing into this fellow's
hands was maddening, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he
refrained from showing his feelings. To gain time, he slipped out of
his overcoat, which had been decidedly too warm, and flung it over a
chair. Then he turned back to the irritating detective.
"Since you're so clever," he remarked sarcastically, "I suppose you
haven't lost sight of the fact that there's a station house within five
minutes' walk, and that when I came in here my friend was headed
straight in that direction."
Brennen laughed. "Bless you, no!" he exclaimed jovially. "That was one
of the first things I took care of, and, short as the distance is, I
shouldn't be at all surprised if he got sidetracked, somehow, on the
way."
He paused a moment, his keen eyes fixed intently on Barry's face. "I
s'pose you've sized me up from the muss I made of things the other
night," he went on; "and I can't say I blame you much. That was one of
the worst fall-downs I ever had; and the trouble was my hands were tied.
Instead of putting the matter up to me and letting me work it my own
way, they had to go and plan it all out, and then tell me to do thus and
so, as if I was one of these cheap guys with solid-ivory domes. Why,
hang it all! I didn't even know what you were then. I took you for
some cheap sport who'd got into trouble on the other side and slipped
over here to get away from it. If I'd had the least idea what was what,
you can bet your last cent you wouldn't have made that get-away as easy
as you did."
As he listened to the fellow's incomprehensible words, Lawrence felt as
if his brain were whirling round and round. And then, like a flash, his
self-control snapped.
"Who the mischief do you take me for?" he burst out frantically. "Tell
me that! Tell me his name! Tell me what I'm supposed to have done.
Out with it now, unless you're afraid."
An expression of admiration came into Brennen's face. "Clever!" he
murmured to himself. "Mighty clever! I never saw anything better done
on the stage. What a pity----"
He broke off abruptly as the purring of a motor car became audible in
the room, and turned swiftly to his companion.
"That must be him, Jack," he said tersely. "He's overdue now. Listen!"
An instant later, as the car stopped outside, with a grinding of brakes,
he went on swiftly: "Better slip down and make sure about it. Hager's
there, but we don't want anything to go wrong. I'll take a peep out of
the window."
The tall fellow hastily left the room, while Brennen stepped quickly to
one of the windows and drew up a corner of the shade. Lawrence, his
brain whirling and every nerve tense, stood dazedly for a second, then
began to walk nervously up and down the floor. In a few moments he
would know. Unless he was very much mistaken, the whole baffling
mystery would swiftly be revealed to him, and he could scarcely restrain
his impatience.
The closing of a door downstairs made him turn hastily in that
direction; then his glance trailed back to the long mirror placed in the
middle of the wall opposite the windows. Even in his perturbed state of
mind, he noticed how like the black walnut frame was, in shape and size,
to a doorway, and wondered why, with all the other looking-glasses about
the room, another had been inserted here.
Of course it was a mirror, for, dim as the light was at this distance
from the shaded lamp, he could see his own figure outlined in the glass,
and even make out every detail of his face and clothes.
Then suddenly a puzzled wrinkle came into his forehead. There was
something odd about the reflection. The background was dark, and showed
no sign of the lamp on the marble-topped table. Curious, Barry took a
single step forward to discover what was the matter, then stopped still
as if turned to stone.
The reflection in the glass had smiled.
For the fraction of a second Lawrence felt that he was going mad. Then,
in a flash, he realized the truth. It was not a mirror at all, but a
doorway, in which stood a man who looked at him out of his own eyes,
smiled at him with his own smile; whose face and figure, down to the
smallest detail, could not have been more like Barry's if the two had
been bronze statues cast from the same mold. Even their clothes were of
strikingly similar style.
*CHAPTER XLIII.*
*HIS SECOND HALF.*