She continued to stare for some moments, while he stood frozen to the
spot. Then the young lady’s face changed. Fear, startled wonder, gave
way to an expression of growing comprehension and into her eyes came
such an excited look.
“You!” said Miss Dolly in a thrilling whisper. And then—“Pick it up,
please.”
Instead of picking anything up—he didn’t know what—Bob was about to
rush for the door, when— “Stop! Or I’ll scream,” exclaimed Miss Dolly.
“I’ll scream so loud I’ll wake every one in the house.”
Bob stopped. In his eyes was an agony of contrition and shame. Miss
Dolly, however, seemed quite self-possessed. She might have been
frightened at first, but she was no longer that. Her temperamental,
somewhat childish face wore a thrill of pleasurable anticipation. “Now
pick it up,” she repeated.
“What?” stammered Bob in a shrinking voice.
“The brooch, to be sure. Didn’t you drop it?”
“I?” said Bob, drawing his dressing-gown closer about him. They were
speaking in stage whispers.
“Of course. Wasn’t it what you came for?”
“Came for? Great heavens!—Do you think?—”
“Think?” said Miss Dolly. “I know.”
Bob looked at her. Her face appeared elf-like, uncannily wise. But for
all her outward calm, her eyes were great big, excited eyes. His
horrified glance turned quickly from them to regard a gleaming diamond
and pearl brooch on the rug. “Jumping Je-hoshaphat! You don’t think
I’m—”
“One of those thrilling society-highwaymen, or social buccaneers?” said
Miss Dolly. “Of course, and I’m so glad it happened like this. I
wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Really, I’ve always wanted to
meet one of those popular heroes. And now to think my dream has come
true! It’s just like a play, isn’t it?”
“It is not,” replied Bob savagely. This was too much. It was just about
the last straw. “I—” Then he stopped. Suppose any one should hear him?
Miss Dolly’s temperamental and comprehensive eyes read his thought.
“I don’t think there’s any danger,” she purred soothingly. “You see
there’s a bathroom on one side of the room and a brick wall on the
other. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the rooms are separated by brick
partitions,” she confided to him. “Mrs. Ralston likes everything
perfect—sound-proof, fire-proof, and all that.”
“See here,” said Bob. “I was just wandering around—couldn’t
sleep—and—and I came in here, quite by mistake. Thought it was my own
room!” With some vehemence.
Miss Dolly shook her head reprovingly, and her temperamental hair flowed
all about her over the white counterpane. She knew it must look very
becoming, it was such wonderful hair—that is, for dark hair. Bob
preferred light. Not that he was thinking of hair, now! “Can’t you do
better than that?” asked the temperamental young thing.
“Better than what?” queried Bob ill-naturedly. He was beginning to feel
real snappy.
“Invent a better whopper, I mean?”
“It isn’t a whopper, and—and I positively refuse to stay here any
longer. Positively!”
“Oh, no; not positively,” said Miss Dolly, nodding a wise young head.
“You’re going to stay, unless—you know the alternative. Since I’m
destined to be a heroine, I want a regular play-scene. I don’t want my
part cut down to nothing. Don’t you love thief-plays, Mr. Bennett? It’s
such fun to see people running around, not knowing who _is_ the thief.
I’m sure I feel quite privileged, in this instance.”
Bob growled beneath his breath. He was handsome enough certainly for a
matinee hero. He was tall and lithe and had such clean-cut features. The
temperamental young thing regarded him with thrilling approval. He
entirely realized her ideal of a social burglar. It seemed almost too
good to be true.
“I knew you were different from other men,” she said. “Something told me
from the very first; perhaps it was the way you tangoed. I expected you
would ask me to trot, but you didn’t.” Reprovingly. “Suppose you were
otherwise engaged?” Glancing toward the brooch.
“Not the way you think!” said Bob gloomily, looking more striking than
ever in that melancholy pose. It seemed to harmonize with a
crime-stained career.
“Of course,” murmured Dolly, “it was you who got Mrs. Templeton
Blenfield’s wonderful emeralds?”
“It was not,” answered Bob curtly.
“You were at that costume ball where she lost them?”
“Suppose I was?” he snapped. Yes, snapped! There is a limit to human
endurance.
“And you were at Mrs. Benton Briscoe’s when a tiara mysteriously
disappeared?”
“Well, I’m hanged!” said Bob, staring at her.
“Oh, I hope not—that is, I hope you won’t be, some day,” answered
Dolly. “Are you going to ‘fess up?’ You’d better. Maybe I won’t betray
you—yet. Maybe I won’t at all, if you’re real nice.”
“Oh!” said Bob. Whereupon she smiled at him sweetly, just as if to say
it was nice and exciting to have a great, big, bold (and wildly
handsome) society-highwayman in her power. Why, she could send him to
jail, if she wanted to. She had but to lift a little finger and he would
have to jump. The consciousness of guilty knowledge and power she
possessed made her glow all over. She didn’t really know though, yet,
whether she would be kind or severe.
“Do you operate alone, or with accomplices?” she asked, after a few
moments’ pleasurable anticipations.
“I beg pardon?” Bob was again gazing uneasily toward the door.
“Got any pals?” She tried to talk the way they do in the thief-books.
“No, I haven’t,” snapped Bob. That truth pact made it necessary to
answer the most silly questions.
“Well, I didn’t know but you had,” murmured the temperamental young
thing. “I heard a dog barking and that made me think you might have
them. You’re sure you didn’t let anybody into the house?”
“I didn’t.”
Miss Dolly snuggled herself together more cozily. She seemed about to
ask some more questions. Perhaps she would want to know if he had let
anybody out, and then he would have to tell her—
“Look here,” said Bob desperately. “Maybe it hasn’t occurred to you,
but—this—this isn’t exactly proper. Me here, like this, and you—”
“Oh, I’m not afraid,” answered Miss Dolly with wonderful assurance. “I
can quite take care of myself.”
“But—but—” more desperately—“if I should be discovered?—Can’t you
see, for your own sake—?”
“My own sake?” The big innocent eyes opened wider. “In that case, of
course, I’d tell them the truth.”
“The truth!” How he hated the word! “You mean that I—?” Glancing toward
the brooch.
“Of course!” Tranquilly.
Bob tried to consider. He could see what would happen to him, if they
were interrupted. It certainly was a most preposterous conversation,
anyhow. Besides, it wasn’t the place or the time for a conversation of
any kind. He had just about made up his mind that he would go, whether
she screamed or not, and take the consequences, however disagreeable
they might be, when—
“Well, trot along,” said Miss Dolly graciously. “I suppose you’ve got a
lot of work to do to-night and it’s rather unkind to detain you. Only
pick up the brooch before you go.” He obeyed. “Now put it on the dresser
and leave it there. Hard to do that, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t.” Savagely.
“Well, you can go now. By the way, Mrs. Vanderpool has a big
bronze-colored diamond surrounded by wonderful pink pearls. It’s an
antique and—would adorn a connoisseur’s collection.”
“But I tell you I am not—”
“My! How stupid, to keep on saying that! But, of course, you must really
be very clever. Society-highwaymen always are. Good night. So glad I was
thinking of something else and forgot to lock the door!”
Bob went to the door and she considerately waited until he had reached
it; then she put out a hand and pushed a convenient button which shut
off the light. Bob opened the door but closed it quickly again. He
fancied he saw some one out there in the hall, a shadowy form in the
distance, but was not absolutely sure.
“Aren’t you gone?” said the temperamental young thing.
“S-sh!” said Bob.
For some moments there was silence, thrilling enough, even for her. Then
Bob gently opened the door once more, though very slightly, and peered
out of the tiniest crack, but he failed to see any one now, so concluded
he must have been mistaken. The shadows were most deceptive. Anyhow,
there was more danger in staying than in going, so he slid out and
closed the door. At the same moment he heard a very faint click. It
seemed to come from the other side of the hall. He didn’t like that, he
told himself, and waited to make sure no one was about. The ensuing
silence reassured him somewhat; and the “click,” he argued, might have
come from the door he himself had closed.
The temperamental young thing, holding her breath, heard him now move
softly but swiftly away. She listened, nothing happened. Then she
stretched her young form luxuriously and pondered on the delirious
secret that was all hers. A secret that made Bob her slave! Abjectly her
slave! Like the servant of the lamp! She could compel him to turn
somersaults if she wanted to.
Bob awoke with a slight headache, which, however, didn’t surprise him
any. He only wondered his head didn’t ache more. People came down to
breakfast almost any time, and sometimes they didn’t come down at all
but sipped coffee in their rooms, continental-fashion. It was late when
Bob got up, so a goodly number of the guests—the exceptions including
Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence—were down by the time he sauntered into the
big sun-room, where breakfast was served to all with American appetites.
The temperamental little thing managed accidentally (?) to encounter him
at the doorway before he got into the room with the others. He shivered
slightly when he saw her, though she looked most attractive in her
rather bizarre way. Bob gazed beyond her, however, to a vision in the
window. “Vision!” That just described what Miss Gwendoline looked like,
with the sunlight on her and making an aureole of her glorious fair
hair. Of course one could put an adjective or two, before the
“vision”—such as “beautiful,” or something even stronger—without being
accused of extravagance.
The little dark thing, uttering some platitude, followed Bob’s look, but
she didn’t appear jealous. She hadn’t quite decided how much latitude to
give Bob. That young gentleman noticed that the hammer-thrower, looking
like one of those stalwart, masculine tea-passers in an English novel,
was not far from Miss Gwendoline. His big fingers could apparently
handle delicate china as well as mighty iron balls or sledges. He
comported himself as if his college education had included a course at
Tuller’s in Oxford Street, in London, where six-foot guardsmen are
taught to maneuver among spindle-legged tables and to perform almost
impossible feats without damage to crockery.
Miss Dolly now maneuvered so as to draw Bob aside in the hall to have a
word or two before he got to bacon and eggs. What she said didn’t
improve his appetite.
“I’m so disappointed in you,” she began in a low voice.
He asked why, though not because he really cared to know.
“After that hint of mine!” she explained reproachfully. “About Mrs.
Vanderpool’s bronze diamond, I mean!”
“I fear I do not understand you,” said Bob coldly.
She bent nearer. “Of course I thought it would disappear,” she murmured.
“I expected you to execute one of those clever coups, and so I went
purposely to Mrs. Vanderpool’s room on some pretext this morning to
learn if it was gone. But it wasn’t. I cleverly led the conversation up
to it and she showed it to me.”
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Did you think she wouldn’t have it to show
you? That it had found its way to my pockets?”
“Of course,” she answered. “And you _are_ quite sure you haven’t it,
after all?” she asked suspiciously.
“How could I, when you saw—”
“Oh, you might have substituted a counterfeit brooch just like it for—”
Bob groaned. “You certainly have absorbed those plays,” he remarked.
“I expected a whole lot of things would be gone,” she went on, “and,
apparently,” with disappointment, “no one has missed anything. It’s
quite tame. Did you get discouraged because you failed to land the
‘loot’—is that the word?—in my case? And did you then just go
prosaically to bed?”
“I certainly went to bed, though there was nothing prosaic about the
procedure.”
“And yet what a dull night it must have been for you!”
“I shouldn’t call it that.”
“No?” She shifted the conversation. “Who do you suppose has come? Dickie
Donnelly. Said he had arrived in town on some business and took
advantage of the opportunity to make a little call on me. Incidentally,
he seems interested in you. Said he would make it a point to see you
after you got down. He’s out on the veranda smoking now, I guess. He
wanted to talk to me but I made an excuse to shoo him away. He isn’t
half so exciting as you are, you know. I’m quite positive now I couldn’t
marry him and annex his old chimneys to ours, for all the world.
Chimneys are such commonplace means to a livelihood, Mr. Bennett, don’t
you think? They are so ugly and dependable. Not at all romantic and
precarious! They just smoke and you get richer. There isn’t a single
thrill in a whole forest of chimneys. But I mustn’t really keep you from
your breakfast any longer,” she added with sudden sedulousness. “I’ve
quite planned what we’re going to do to-day.”
“You have?” With a slight accent on the first word.
“Yes,” she assured him quietly. “So run along now.”
The slave, glad to get away, started to obey, when—“One moment!” said
Miss Dolly as if seized with an afterthought. “Dickie asked about you so
particularly that it occurred to me that— Well, do you think he harbors
any suspicions?”
“Suspicions?”
“Yes; do you imagine he, too, by any chance, may have guessed—you
know?” And Dolly again drew closer, her eyes beaming with new
excitement.
Bob looked disagreeable, but he had to reply. “I’m sure he doesn’t think
what you do,” he answered ill-humoredly.
Dolly looked relieved, but still slightly dubious. She didn’t appear to
notice that lack of appreciation in Bob’s manner for her interest in his
welfare. “Well, you’d better see him,” she said in the tone of one who
had already established herself to the post of secret adviser. “He’s
bent on an interview with you. Says it’s business. And speaking about
business, what business could he possibly have in that dinky little
town? Unless he wanted to buy the whole village! His conduct is, to say
the least, slightly mysterious. Dickie may prove a factor to be reckoned
with.”
“That’s true enough,” assented Bob, and went in to breakfast.
The temperamental little thing gazed after him approvingly; she quite
gloried in her big burglar. It was so nice to know something no one else
knew, to be a little wiser than all the rest of the world, including the
police and the detective force! Bob must be terribly resourceful and
subtle, to have deceived them all so thoroughly. He only seemed a little
dense at times, just to keep up the deception. It was a part of the
role. He wouldn’t even let her, who knew his secret, see under the
surface and she liked him all the better for his reticence. It lent
piquancy to the situation and added zest to the game. Dickie’s manner
had certainly seemed to her unduly sober. He appeared to have something
on his mind, though of course he was awfully eager and joyous about
seeing her.
At the breakfast-table Bob only dallied with his hot rolls and took but
a few gulps of coffee. The monocle-man who sat near by noticed that want
of appetite.
“Don’t seem very keen for your feed this morning,” he observed
jocularly.
“No, not over-peckish,” answered Bob.
“Why not? You look—aw—fit enough!” Reaching for one of those racks for
unbuttered toast which Mrs. Ralston had brought home with her from
London.
“Headache, for one thing,” returned Bob. It was the truth, or part of
the truth. No one looked sympathetic, however. In fact, with the
exception of the monocle-man (Mrs. Ralston hadn’t yet come down), every
one in there made it apparent he or she desired as little as possible of
Mr. Bennett’s society. Bob soon got up, casting a last bitter glance at
Miss Gerald who seemed quite contented with her stalwart, honest-looking
hammer-thrower. And why not? His character, Bob reflected, was
unimpeachable. He looked so good and honest and so utterly wholesome
that Bob, who himself was tainted with suspicion, wanted to get out of
his presence. So Bob went out to the porch, to hunt up Dickie and
ascertain what was the matter with him?
It didn’t take Bob long to learn what was worrying Dickie. He was
carrying the weight of a new and tremendous responsibility. He had now
become an emissary, a friend in need, to Clarence and the commodore, who
certainly needed one at this moment. It seemed that Mrs. Clarence and
Mrs. Dan had set detectives searching for Gee-gee and Gid-up and they
had succeeded in locating one of the pair, partly by a freckle and a
turned-up nose. The detectives must have worked fast. They were assisted
by the fact that foolish Clarence had kept up an innocent and Platonic
friendship with “Gee-gee’s” chum, after that momentous evening when Bob
had been along. Now when a young man begins to hang around the vicinity
of a stage door in a big car, he is apt to make himself a subject for
remark and to become known, especially to the door-keeper who takes a
fatherly interest in his Shetland herd. As Gid-up and Gee-gee were
inseparable, it was but a step to place one by the other.
Detectives, Dickie informed Bob, had already interviewed the ladies.
They may have offered them money in exchange for information. Mrs. Dan
was very rich in her own name. She could outbid the commodore. Gid-up
might hesitate or refuse to supply or manufacture information for filthy
lucre, but Gee-gee was known to be ambitious. She longed to soar. And
here was a means to that end. Quite a legitimate and customary one!
“Why, that girl would do anything to get herself talked about,” said
Dickie sadly, thinking of Dan, and incidentally, too, of Clarence.
“She’d manufacture information by the car-load. Out of a little,
teeny-weeny remnant of truth, she’d build a magnificent divorce case.
Think of the glorious publicity! Why, Gee-gee and one of the
manager-chaps would sit up nights to see how many columns they could
fill each day in the press. They’d make poor old Dan out worse than
Nero. They’d picture him as a monster. They’d give him claws. And
Clarence would come crawling after him like a slimy snake. Incidentally,
they’d throw in a few weeps for Gee-gee. And then some more for Gid-up!
Why, man, when I think of the mischief you’ve done—”
“Me?” said Bob miserably, almost overwhelmed by this pathetic picture
Dickie had drawn. “But it wasn’t! It was Truth.” Dickie snorted. “What
do you want me to do? Commit suicide? Annihilate truth? That would be
one way of doing it. I’m sure I shouldn’t much mind. Shall I poison
Truth or blow its brains out? Or shall I take it down to the lake and
jump in with it? Do you think it has made _me_ very happy? What am I?
What have I become? Where is my good name?” He was thinking of what the
temperamental little thing considered him. “Say, do I look like a
criminal?” he demanded, confronting Dickie. The latter stared, then
shrugged. Of course, if Bob wanted to rave—? “Or a crazy man? Do I look
crazy?” he continued almost fiercely. “Well, there are people in there,”
indicating the house, “who think I am.” Dickie started slightly and
looked thoughtful. “You ask the judge, or the doctor, or—a lot of
others. Ask Miss Gwendoline Gerald,” he concluded bitterly.
Dickie shifted a leg. “It might not be a bad idea,” he said in a
peculiar tone, whose accent Bob didn’t notice, however. For some moments
the two young men sat moodily and silently side by side.
“Where are Dan and Clarence now?” asked Bob in a dull tone, after a
while.
“Gone to New York. Hustled there early this morning after some hurry-up
messages gave an inkling of what was going on. I’m to do my best at this
end. Keep my eyes on Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence, and incidentally, learn
and do what I can.”
As he spoke Dickie tapped his leg with his cane; at the same time he
bestowed another of those peculiar looks on Bob. Just then a young lady
stepped from the house and came toward them. She was in the trimmest
attire—for shooting or fishing—and looked extraordinarily trim,
herself. A footman followed with two light rods and a basket.
“Come on,” she said lightly to Bob. “Might as well get started. It’s
almost noon.”
“Started?” he stammered, staring at her.
“Yes, on that fishing excursion we planned.”
“We?” he repeated in the same tone. And then— “All right!” he said. It
occurred to him, if he went off somewhere alone, with the temperamental
young thing, he wouldn’t, at any rate, have to bob against a score or so
of other people throughout the day. Better one than a crowd! “I’m
ready,” he added, taking the rods and small basket.
“But, I say—” Dickie had arisen. There was a new look in his eyes—of
disappointment, surprise—perhaps apprehension, too! “I say—” he
repeated, looking darkly toward Bob.
The temperamental young thing threw him a smile. “Sorry, Dickie, but a
previous engagement.—You know how it is!”
“I can imagine,” thought Dickie ominously, watching them disappear. Then
his glance shifted viciously toward the house, and there was a look of
stern determination in his eyes. As he mingled with others of the guests
a few moments later, however, his expression had become one of studied
amiability. Dickie was deep. His grievance now was as great as Dan’s or
Clarence’s.