not going to risk a mix-up with the Harringtons or tip my hand till I’m
absolutely sure. It don’t pay me to make big mistakes. You say Denby’s
your friend, well, then, it’ll be easy to find out. If you discover that
the necklace is in the tobacco-pouch, get him to go for a walk in the
garden; say you want to look at the moon, say anything, so long as you
get him into the garden where we’ll be on the lookout and grab him.”
“But he might go out there alone,” she suggested.
“If he does,” Taylor assured her, “we won’t touch him, but if he comes
out there with you, we’ll _know_.”
“But if I can’t get him into the garden?” she urged. “Something may
happen to prevent me!”
“If you’re sure he has it on him,” Taylor instructed her, “or if you
make out where it is concealed, pull down one of these window-shades. My
men and I can see these from the garden. When we get your signal we’ll
come in and arrest him. Sure you understand?”
“I’m to pull down the window-shade,” she repeated.
“That’s it, but be careful, mind. Don’t bring him out in the garden,
and don’t signal unless you are absolutely certain.”
“Yes, yes,” she said.
“And under no circumstances,” he commanded, “must you mention my name.”
“But,” she argued, “suppose--”
“There’s no ‘buts’ and no ‘supposes’ in it,” he said sharply. “It’s most
important to the United States Government and to me, that my identity is
in no way disclosed.”
“It may be necessary,” she persisted.
“It _cannot_ be necessary,” he said with an air of finality. “If it
comes to a show-down and you tell Denby I’m after him, I’ll not only
swear I never saw you, but I’ll put your sister in prison. Now, good
night, Miss Cartwright, and remember you’ve got something at stake, too,
so don’t forget--Denby to-night.”
He went silently through the French windows and disappeared, leaving her
to face for the second time in a day an outlook that seemed hopeless.
But she was not the only one in the great Harrington mansion to feel
that little zest was left in life. Monty was obsessed with the idea that
his friend’s long delay was due to his having been held up. The
automobile lends itself admirably to highway robbery, and it would be
easy enough for armed robbers to overpower Denby and the chauffeur.
Directly he heard Denby’s voice talking to Lambart as he was shown into
his room, Monty burst in and wrung his hands again and again.
“Why, Monty,” his friend said, “you overpower me.”
“I thought you’d been held up and robbed,” the younger man cried.
“Neither one nor the other,” Denby said cheerfully, “I was merely the
victim of two blow-outs. But,” he added, looking keenly at his
confederate, “if I had been held up the pearls wouldn’t have been taken.
I didn’t happen to have them with me.”
“Thank God!” Monty cried fervently. “I wondered if that telegraphing to
people was just a ruse or not. Hooray, I feel I can eat and drink and be
merrier than I’ve been for a month. I never want to hear about them
again.”
“I’m sorry, old man,” Denby said smiling, “but I shall have to ask you
for them.”
“Me?” Monty stammered. “Don’t joke, Steve.”
“But you very kindly brought them over for me,” Denby returned mildly.
“They’re in the right-hand shoe of a pair of buckskin tennis shoes. I
put them there when I helped you to repack your trunk. Do you mind
bringing them before I’ve finished dressing?”
Monty looked at him reproachfully. “Sometimes I think I ought to have
gone into the ministry. I’m getting a perfect horror of crime.”
“You’re not a criminal,” Denby said. “You helped me out on the voyage,
but here you are free to do as you like.”
Monty set his jaw firmly. “I’m in it with you, Steve, till you’ve got
the damned things where you want ’em, and you can’t prevent me, either.”
When he brought the precious necklace back Denby calmly placed the pouch
in his pocket. “Thanks, old man,” he said casually. “Now the fun
begins.”
“Fun!” Monty snorted. “Do you remember the classic remark of the frog
who was pelted by small mischievous boys? ‘This may be the hell of a
joke to you,’ said the frog, ‘but it’s death to me.’”
“I’ve always been sorry for that frog,” Denby commented.
“But, man alive, you are the frog,” Monty cried.
“Oh, no,” Denby returned, making a tie that had no likeness to a vast
butterfly.
“Your frog hadn’t a ghost of a chance, and he knew it, while with me
it’s an even chance. One oughtn’t to ask any more than that in these
hard times.”
He sauntered down the stairs cool and debonair to find Ethel Cartwright
still looking listlessly across the green lawns.
“Those gentle chimes,” he said, as the dinner-gong pealed out, “call the
faithful to dinner. I wish it were in Paris, don’t you?”
She pulled herself together and tried to smile as she had done before
Taylor had dashed all her joy to the ground.
“Aren’t you hungering for string-beans?” he asked, “and the hole in the
table-cloth, and the gay old moon? But after all, what do they matter
now? You’re here, and I’m hungry.” He offered her his arm. “Aren’t you
hungry, too?”
CHAPTER NINE
Very much to Denby’s disappointment he found that he was not to take
Ethel Cartwright in to dinner. Nora Rutledge fell to his lot, and
although she was witty and sparkling, she shared none of those happy
Parisian memories as did the girl his host had taken in.
Plainly Nora was piqued. “I thought from what Monty told me you were
really interesting,” she said.
“One must never believe anything Monty says,” he observed. “It’s only
his air of innocence that makes people think him honest. His flirtations
on board ship were nothing short of scandalous and yet look at him now.”
And poor Monty, although to him had fallen the honor of taking in his
hostess, was paying no sort of attention to her sallies.
Nora glanced at him and then looked up at Denby. “I’m really awfully
fond of Monty, and I’m worried--if you’ll believe it--because he seems
upset. Monty,” she called, “what’s the matter with you, and what are you
thinking about?”
“Frogs,” he said promptly.
“We’ll have some to-morrow,” Michael observed amiably. “They induce in
me a most remarkable thirst, so I keep off them on that account.”
“He’s thinking,” Denby reminded her, “of the old song, ‘A frog he would
a-wooing go!’ I’ve heard of you often enough, Miss Rutledge, from
Monty.”
“Well, I wish you’d started being confidential with the _hors
d’œuvres_,” she said, “instead of waiting until dessert. If you had,
by this time you’d probably have been really amusing.”
She rose at Mrs. Harrington’s signal and followed her from the room.
“What I can’t see,” observed she, “is why we didn’t stay and have our
cigarettes with the men.”
“I always leave them together,” Alice Harrington said with a laugh,
“because that’s the way to get the newest naughty stories. Michael
always tells ’em to me later.”
“Alice!” cried Nora with mock reproof.
“Oh, I like ’em,” Alice declared, “when they’re really funny, and so
does everybody else. Besides, nowadays it’s improper to be proper.
Cigarette, Ethel?”
Miss Cartwright shook her head. “You know I don’t smoke,” she returned.
Nora lighted a cigarette unskilfully. “That’s so old-fashioned,” she
said, in her most sophisticated manner, “and I’d rather die than be
that.” She coughed as she drew in a fragrant breath of Egyptian tobacco.
“I do wish, though, that I really enjoyed smoking.”
“What do you think of our new friend, Mr. Denby?” Alice asked of her.
“I like him in spite of the fact that he hardly noticed me. He couldn’t
take his eyes off Ethel.”
“I saw that myself,” Mrs. Harrington returned. “You know, Ethel, I meant
him to take you in to dinner, but Nora insisted that she sit next to
him. She’s such a man-hunter!”
“You bet I am,” the wise Nora admitted--“that’s the only way you can get
’em.”
Mrs. Harrington turned to Ethel Cartwright. “Didn’t you and Mr. Denby
have a tiny row? You hardly spoke to him through dinner.”
“Didn’t I?” the girl answered. “I’ve a bit of a headache.”
“I’ll bet they had a lovers’ quarrel before dinner,” Nora hazarded.
Alice Harrington arched her eyebrows in surprise. “A lovers’ quarrel!”
“Certainly,” Nora insisted. “I’m sure Ethel is in love with him.”
“How perfectly ridiculous,” Ethel said, with a trace of embarrassment in
her manner. “Don’t be so silly, Nora. I met him for a week in Paris,
that’s all, and I found him interesting. He had big talk as well as
small, but as for love--please don’t be idiotic!”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” laughed her hostess.
“I don’t blame you, Ethel,” Nora admitted frankly. “If he’d give me a
chance I’d fall for him in a minute, but attractive young men never
bother about me. The best I can draw is--Monty! I’m beginning to dislike
the whole sex.”
“Theoretically you are quite right, my dear,” said the maturer Alice;
“men are awful things--God bless ’em--but practically, well, some day
you’ll explode like a bottle of champagne and bubble all over some man.”
“Speaking of champagne,” Nora said after a disbelieving gesture at the
prophecy, “I wish I had another of Michael’s purple drinks. He’s a
genius.”
“Do tell him that,” the fond wife urged. “The very surest way to
Michael’s heart is through his buffet. I knew he’d taken to mixing
cocktails in a graduated chemist’s glass, but this excursion into the
chemistry of drinks is rather alarming. He would have been a most
conscientious bartender.”
“Does he really drink much?” Nora demanded.
“Not when I’m at home,” Alice declared. “Nothing after one. If he goes
to bed then he’s all right; if he doesn’t, he sits up till five going
the pace that fills. I wouldn’t mind if it made him amusing, but it
makes him merely sleepy. But he doesn’t drink nearly as much as most of
the men he knows. What makes you think he does, is that he makes such a
ceremony out of drinking. I don’t think he enjoys drinking alone. Nora,”
she added, “do sit down; you make me dizzy.”
“I can’t,” Nora told her. “I always stand up for twenty minutes after
each meal. It keeps you thin.”
“Does it?” Mrs. Harrington asked eagerly, rising from her comfortable
chair. “Does it really? Still, I lost nine pounds abroad!”
“Goodness!” Nora cried enviously. “How?”
“Buttermilk!” Alice cried triumphantly.
“And I walked four miles this morning in a rubber suit and three
sweaters, _and_ gained half a pound,” Nora declared disconsolately.
“I do wish hips would come in again,” Alice Harrington sighed. “Ah, here
come the men,” she said more brightly, as the three entered.
Michael was still bearing, with what modesty he could, the encomiums on
a purple punch he had brewed after exhaustive laboratory experiments.
“It’s delicious,” Denby declared.
Michael sighed. “I used to think so until my wife stopped my drinking.”
Even Monty seemed cheered by it. “Fine stuff,” he asserted. “I can feel
it warming up all the little nooks and crannies.”
“Purple but pleasing,” Denby said, with the air of an epigrammatist.
“Did they tell you any purple stories?” Michael’s wife demanded.
“We don’t know any new stories,” Denby told her; “we’ve been in
England.”
“Do sit down, all of you,” Alice commanded. “We’ve all been standing up
to get thin.”
“If they’re going to discuss getting thin and dietetics,” Michael said,
“let’s get out.”
“Woman’s favorite topic,” Monty remarked profoundly.
“But you mustn’t sit down, Alice,” Nora warned, as her hostess seemed
about to sink into her chair. “It isn’t twenty minutes!”
“Well, I think it is twenty minutes,” she returned smiling, “and if it
isn’t I don’t care a continental.”
“Women are so self-denying,” Michael Harrington observed with gentle
satire.
“And sometimes it pays,” his wife said. “Do you know, Nora, there was a
girl on the boat who lost twelve pounds.”
“Twelve pounds,” Michael exclaimed, and then by a rapid-fire bit of
mental arithmetic added: “Why, that’s sixty dollars. How women do gamble
nowadays!”
“Pounds of flesh, Michael, pounds of flesh. She was on a diet. She
didn’t eat for three days.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Nora said approvingly. “Sometime when I’m not
hungry I’ll try it.”
Ethel Cartwright had refrained from joining in the conversation for the
reason she had no part just now in their lighter moods. Their talk of
weight losing had been well enough, but Michael’s misinterpretation of
the twelve pounds brought back to her the cause of Amy’s misfortune and
plunged her deeper into misery.
She walked toward the window and looked over the grass to the deep gloom
of the cedar trees opposite. And it seemed to her that there were moving
shadows that might be Taylor and his men ready to pounce upon a man to
whom a year ago she had been deeply drawn. There was a charm about Denby
when he set himself to please a woman to which she, although no blushing
ingénue, was keenly sensible.
“Seeing ghosts?” said a voice at her elbow, and she turned, startled,
to see his smiling face looking down at her.
She assumed a lighter air. “No,” she told him brightly. “Ghosts belong
to the past. I was seeing spirits of the future.”
“Can’t we see them together?” he suggested. “I shall never tire of
Parisian ghosts if you are there to keep me from being too scared. Let’s
go out and see if the moon looks good-tempered. The others are talking
about smuggling and light and airy nothings like that. Shall we?”
“No, no!” she said, with a tremor in her voice that did not escape him.
“Not yet; later, perhaps.”
She could, in fact, hardly compose her face. Here he was suggesting that
she take him into a trap to be prepared later by her treachery. But she
had what seemed to her a duty to perform, and no sentiment must stand in
the way of her sister’s salvation. And there was always the hope that he
was innocent. At any other time than this she would have wagered he was
without blame; but this was a day on which misfortunes were visiting
her, and she was filled with dread as to its outcome.
She moved over to Mrs. Harrington’s side, gracefully and slowly, free so
far as the ordinary observer could see from any care.
“So you are talking of smuggling,” she said. “Alice, did you really
bring in anything without paying duty on it?”
“Not a thing,” Alice returned promptly. “I declared every solitary
stitch.”
“I’d like to believe you,” her husband remarked, “but knowing you as I
do--”
“I paid seven hundred dollars’ duty,” his spouse declared.
“Disgusting!” Nora exclaimed. “Think of what you could have bought for
that!”
“Please tell me,” Michael inquired anxiously, “what mental revolution
converted you from the idea that smuggling was a legitimate and noble
sport?”
“I still don’t think it’s wrong,” Alice declared honestly. “Some of you
men seem to, but I’d swindle the government any day.”
“Then, for Heaven’s sake,” Nora wanted to know, “why waste all that good
money?”
Alice waved a jewelled white hand toward Steven Denby.
“Behold my reformer!”
Ethel Cartwright looked at him quickly. Her distrust of motives was the
result of her conversation with Daniel Taylor, who believed in no man’s
good faith.
“Mr. Denby?” she asked, almost suspiciously.
“What has Mr. Denby to do with it?” Nora cried, equally surprised that
it was his influence which had stayed the wilful Alice.
“He frightened me,” Alice averred.
“I want to have a good look at the man who can do that,” Michael cried.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Harrington is exaggerating,” Denby explained patiently;
“I merely pointed out that things had come to a pass when it might be
very awkward to fool with the Customs.”
“They didn’t give us the least bit of trouble at the dock,” she
answered. “I wish I’d brought in a trunk full of dutiable things. They
hardly looked at my belongings.”
“That sometimes means,” Denby explained, “that there will be the
greatest possible trouble afterwards.”
“I don’t see that,” Nora asserted. “How can it be?”
“Well,” he returned, “according to some articles in McClure’s a few
months ago by Burns, very often a dishonest official will let a
prominent woman like Mrs. Harrington slip through the lines without the
least difficulty--even if she is smuggling--so that afterwards he can
come to her home and threaten exposure and a heavy fine. Usually the
woman or her husband will pay any amount to hush things up. I was
thinking of that when I advised Mrs. Harrington to declare everything
she had.”
“But you said a whole lot more than that,” Mrs. Harrington reminded him.
“When our baggage was being examined at Dover, you spoke about that man
of mystery who is known as R. J. It was cumulative, Mr. Denby, and on
the whole you did it rather well. My bank-book is a living witness to
your eloquence.”
Ethel asked rather eagerly, “But this R. J., Mr. Denby, what is he?”
“I’ve heard of him,” Michael answered. “Some man at the club told me
about him, but I very soon sized that matter up. If you want to know my
opinion, Ethel, R. J. is the bogey man of the Customs. If they suspect
an inspector he receives a postal signed R. J., and telling him to watch
out. It’s a great scheme, which I recommend to the heads of big business
corporations. I don’t believe in R. J.”
Ethel looked up at Denby brightly. “But you really believe in him, don’t
you?”
“I only know,” he told her, “that R. J. has many enemies because he has
made many discoveries. Unquestionably he does exist for all Mr.
Harrington’s unbelief. He’s supposed to be one of these impossible
secret service agents, travelling incognito all over the globe. He is
known only by his initials. Some people call him the storm-petrol,
always in the wake of trouble. Where there is intrigue among nations,
diplomatic tangles, if the Japs steal a fortification plan, or a German
cross-country aeroplane is sent to drop a bomb on the Singer Building,
R.J. is supposed to be there to catch it.”
“What an awfully unpleasant position,” Nora shuddered.
“Think of a man deliberately choosing a job like that!” Monty commented.
“So,” Denby continued, “when a friend of mine in Paris told me that R.J.
had been requested by the government to investigate Customs frauds, I
knew there would be more danger in the smuggling game than ever. I
warned Mrs. Harrington because I did not want to see her humiliated by
exposure.”
“That’s mighty good of you, Denby,” Michael said appreciatively; “but
all the same I don’t see how--supposing she had slipped in without any
fuss some stuff she had bought in Paris or London and ought to have
declared--I don’t see how if they didn’t know it, they could blackmail
her.”
“That’s the simplest part of it,” Denby assured him. “The clerk in the
kind of store your wife would patronize is most often a government spy,
unofficially, and directly after he has assured the purchaser that it
is so simple to smuggle, and one can hide things so easily, he has
cabled the United States Customs what you bought and how much it cost.”
“They do that?” said Michael indignantly. “I never did trust Frenchmen,
the sneaks. I’ve no doubt that the _heure de l’aperitif_ was introduced
by an American.”
Miss Cartwright had been watching Denby closely. There was forced upon
her the unhappy conviction that this explanation of the difficulties of
smuggling was in a sense his way of boasting of a difficulty he had
overcome. And she alone of all who were listening had the key to this.
It was imperative--for the dread of Taylor and his threats had eaten
into her soul--to gain more explicit information. Her manner was almost
coquettish as she asked him:
“Tell me truly, Mr. Denby, didn’t you smuggle something, just one tiny
little scarf-pin, for example?”
“Nothing,” he returned. “What makes you think I did?”
“It seemed to me,” she said boldly, “that your fear that Mrs. Harrington
might be caught was due to the fear suspicion might fall on you.”
Denby looked at her curiously. He had never seen Ethel Cartwright in
this mood. He wondered at what she was driving.
“It does sound plausible,” he admitted.
“Then ’fess up,” Michael urged. “Come on, Denby, what did you bring in?”
“Myself and Monty,” Denby returned, “and he isn’t dutiable. All the
smuggling that our party did was performed by Monty out of regard for
you.”
“I still remain unconvinced,” Ethel Cartwright declared obstinately. “I
think it was two thoughts for yourself and one for Alice.”
“Now, Denby,” Michael cried jocularly, “you’re among friends. Where have
you hidden the swag?”
“Do tell us,” Nora entreated. “It’d be so nice if you were a criminal
and had your picture in the rogues’ gallery. The only criminals I know
are those who just run over people in their motors, and that gets so
commonplace. Do tell us how you started on a life of crime.”
“Nora!” Monty cried reprovingly. Things were increasing his nervousness
to a horrible extent. Why wouldn’t they leave smuggling alone?
“I’m not interested in your endeavors,” Nora said superciliously.
“You’re only a sort of petty larceny smuggler with your silver
hair-brushes. Mr. Denby does things on a bigger scale. You’re safe with
us, Mr. Denby,” she reminded him.
“I know,” he answered, “so safe that if I had any dark secrets to reveal
I’d proclaim them with a loud voice.”
“That’s always the way,” Nora complained. “Every time I meet a man who
seems exciting he turns out to be just a nice man--I hate nice men.” She
crossed over to the agitated Monty.
“Mr. Denby is a great disappointment to me, too,” Ethel Cartwright
confessed. “Couldn’t you invent a new way to smuggle?”
“It wasn’t for lack of inventive powers,” he assured her, “it was just
respect for the law.”
“I didn’t know we had any left in America,” Michael observed, and then
added, “but then you’ve lived a lot abroad, Denby.”
“Mr. Denby must be rewarded with a cigarette,” Ethel declared, bringing
the silver box from the mantel and offering him one. “A cigarette, Mr.
Denby?”
“Thanks, no,” he answered, “I prefer to roll my own if you don’t mind.”
It seemed that the operation of rolling a cigarette was amazingly
interesting to the girl. Her eager eyes fastened themselves intently on
a worn pigskin pouch he carried.
“Can’t you do it with one hand?” she asked disappointedly; “just like
cowboys do in plays?”
“It seems I’m doomed to disappoint you,” he smiled. “I find two hands
barely sufficient.”
“Sometime you must roll me one,” she said. “Will you?”
“With pleasure,” he returned, lighting his own.
“But you don’t smoke,” Alice objected.
“Ah, but I’ve been tempted,” she confessed archly.
“The only thing that makes my life worth living is yielding to
temptation,” Nora observed.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Michael said rising. “I’m tempted to take a
small drink. Who’ll yield with me and split a pint of Brut Imperial?”
“That’s your last drink to-night,” his wife warned him.
“I’m not likely to forget it,” he said ruefully. “My wife,” he told the
company, “thinks I’m a restaurant, and closes me up at one sharp.”
“Let’s have some bridge,” Mrs. Harrington suggested. “Ethel, what do you
say?”
“I’ve given it up,” she answered.
“Why, you used to love it,” Nora asserted, surprised.
“I’ve come to think all playing for money is horrible,” Ethel returned,
thinking to what trouble Amy’s gambling had brought her.
“Me too,” Michael chimed in. “Unless stocks go up, or the Democratic
party goes down, I’ll be broke soon. How about a game of pool?”
“I’d love to,” Nora said. “I’ve been dying to learn.”
“That’ll make it a nice interesting game,” Monty commented. He knew he
could never make a decent shot until the confounded necklace was miles
away.
“Then there’s nothing else to do but dance,” Alice decreed. “Come,
Nora.”
“No,” Michael cried, “I’ll play pool or auction or poker, I’ll sit or
talk or sing, but I’m hanged if I hesitate and get lost, or maxixe!”
Alice shook her head mournfully. “Ah, Michael,” she said, “if you were
only as light-footed as you are light-headed, what a partner you’d make.
We are going to dance anyway.”
Ethel hesitated at the doorway. “Aren’t you dancing or playing pool, Mr.
Denby?”
“In just a moment,” he said. “First I have a word to say to Monty.”
“I understand,” she returned. “Man’s god--business! Men use that excuse
over the very littlest things sometimes.”
“But this is a big thing,” he asserted; “a two hundred thousand dollar
proposition, so we’re naturally a bit anxious.”
Monty shook his head gravely. “Mighty anxious, believe me.”