UNMASKED!
At this moment another man stepped into the parlor. He wore a long
overcoat and his features were hidden by a full beard.
“Ha!” shouted the husband, triumphantly, rushing at this man and
catching him by the arm, while he pointed toward Merry and the woman.
“Look there! See! I want you for a witness in this matter, Mr. Davis!
There is my wife with this wretch of an actor who has enticed her here!
Do you see—do you see?”
The other nodded.
“Yes, I see,” he said in a muffled voice.
“Don’t forget it, Davis! I shall want your testimony in court.”
“I’ll not forget it.”
By this time Merry had succeeded in putting the woman aside again, and
now he was thoroughly exasperated.
“It is plain you are determined to get me into a fine mess!” he
exclaimed.
“Take me away with you! He will kill me if you don’t!”
“Madam, you have passed the limit! I think you should be in an insane
asylum.”
“Oh, you are cruel!”
“Well, I feel a trifle that way!” confessed Merry.
Then he started toward the two men, but they turned toward the door, the
husband crying:
“I’ll have him arrested!”
“Wait!” cried Frank.
“No! I am going for an officer!”
But Bart Hodge appeared in the door, saying, grimly:
“Don’t be in a rush, gentlemen. Mr. Merriwell wishes to talk with you a
little.”
“Stand aside!” snarled the husband, with a threatening gesture.
“I wish you would try that little trick!” flared Hodge, his face
flushing suddenly. “I believe I’d enjoy a good scrap. I haven’t taken a
hand in one for so long that it would be a satisfaction.”
“Let us pass!” growled the man with the full beard and the muffled
voice.
“That’s what they say in melodrama,” observed Hodge, with grim humor.
“‘Unhand me, villain!’ and ‘Let me pass!’ are stock phrases. There is no
copyright on them, so you may use them whenever you like.”
Merry was somewhat surprised by Bart’s cool manner, but he knew there
was a slumbering volcano beneath all that coolness.
“Rush on him!” came hoarsely from the bearded man.
“Yes, do!” urged Hodge, putting up his hands. “I’ll manage to get a pop
at you both, I fancy.”
They hesitated.
“Hold them, Hodge,” directed Frank. “I have something to say to them.”
“What’s up, Frank?”
“I believe there is a game on,” answered Merry.
“A game?”
“Yes.”
“What sort?”
“Blackmail!”
The woman uttered a scream, and something like an oath came from the man
who had professed to be her husband.
“This is interesting!” exclaimed Hodge. “Then it appears that I happened
on the scene just in time.”
“You did.”
“They’ll not get out.”
“We will!” growled the man called Davis. “Come on, Seely!”
“I’m ready!”
“Waal, Bart, if yeou can’t hold the ’darn critters alone, I ruther guess
we kin both do it,” drawled a voice, and Ephraim Gallup appeared to
reënforce Hodge.
The men uttered exclamations of disappointment, alarm and disgust.
Frank Merriwell laughed shortly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I wouldn’t hurry away. Just wait a while, and we
will settle this little matter.”
He advanced on them, scanning Davis closely.
“I believe I have seen you before,” he said.
“Never,” answered the bewhiskered man, seeming anxious to get out of the
room. “I do not know you.”
“Why don’t you speak in your natural tone?” asked Merry, sweetly. “You
will injure your voice trying to disguise it by growling like that.”
“You go to blazes!”
“Thank you for the invitation, but I have found things quite hot enough
right here to suit me. Now, if the tables should be turned, and you were
to find it rather warm, it would be no more than fair.”
Both men seemed anxious, but the professed husband attempted to bluster
again. His anger seemed artificial, however, and he did not impress
anyone.
“Acts like a rooster with his tail feathers yanked out,” grinned Gallup.
“He’s mighty mad over it, but the feathers are gone jest the same.”
Hodge had his lips pressed together, and he looked ready for anything
that might happen.
A few words passed between the two men. It was plain they contemplated
rushing on Bart and Ephraim in order to break from the room.
Frank strode forward quickly and grasped the bewhiskered man by the
shoulder, saying:
“Let me have a fair look at you, sir.”
The fellow turned with a snarl, striking hard at Merriwell’s face.
Frank ducked, thus avoiding the blow. A second later, he caught hold of
the fellow’s whiskers, gave a yank, and off they came in his hand.
They were false!
The man’s face was revealed.
“Lester Vance!” cried Frank, triumphantly.
It was a complete unmasking. The face of the rascally actor who had been
“released,” on account of his crooked work in Atchison, was exposed by
the sudden tearing away of the false beard.
“Great gosh!” gurgled Ephraim.
Hodge said nothing, but he glared at Vance with a look of deepest
hatred.
Vance himself seemed stricken dumb.
The woman dropped down on a chair, and her “husband” stood and uttered
some words which would not look well in print.
Frank Merriwell laughed chillingly.
“A very pretty little game!” he commented, sarcastically; “but it is all
up now. It didn’t work.”
“It was no game!” snarled the man called Reginald by the woman. “You
can’t get out of it so easy!”
“You will be lucky if you get out of it short of six years,” said Hodge.
“The law is rather severe on blackmailers.”
“And on thieves,” put in Ephraim, who had learned of Lester Vance’s
crooked work. “They make a purty good pair, by gum!”
“Vance,” said Merriwell, “you were foolish not to take my advice and get
as far away from us as possible.”
Vance muttered something.
“But you were doubly foolish,” Merry went on, “to come here in such a
slim disguise to aid in this miserable attempt to blackmail me. I have
been an actor too long not to tumble to false whiskers when I see them.”
“Take my advice, Merriwell,” cried Hodge, “land that snake in prison!
You can afford the time to get such a rascal out of the way.”
Vance was very pale, and showed agitation and fear.
“That’s right, by gum!” nodded Ephraim. “He is a snake, an’ I’d shove
him naow.”
Vance exchanged looks with the other rascal. It was plain both men were
confounded by the turn affairs had taken. But the one who claimed to be
the woman’s husband had obtained another revolver, and, of a sudden, he
pointed it at Frank Merriwell, crying:
“At least, I’ll shoot the villain who has trifled with my wife!”
Not one of the young actors was near enough to prevent him from shooting
if he wished, but Merry instantly faced him, looking straight into his
eyes over the top of the revolver, and calmly saying:
“You are a good bluffer, sir, but you haven’t the least idea of shooting
anybody.”
And then he walked straight up to the man, took hold of his hand and
pushed the revolver aside.
“Give it to him!” exclaimed Gallup. “I don’t want no darn fool p’intin’
pistols at me, by thutteration!”
The fellow made a sudden attempt to spring backward with the revolver.
He had been dazed by Merriwell’s calmness and audacity, but now he
resorted to action. He realized that the young actor fully fathomed him,
and it stung him to madness to think that his bluff had been “called” in
such a prompt manner.
Frank, however, had taken hold of the weapon, and, with a sudden twist,
he jerked it from the hand of the man, disarming the fellow in a
twinkling.
The eyes of Hodge glittered with satisfaction. This was Merriwell in his
old form. Not a whit of his nerve had Frank lost since the more exciting
days at Yale, on the diamond, the gridiron, in the cane rushes and
college bouts.
Having the revolver in his hand, Frank snapped it open, and then he
burst out laughing.
“Empty!”
With that word, he flung it at the man’s feet.
“Waal, I be darned!” gasped Gallup, and then he roared with laughter.
This laughing seemed to infuriate the one who claimed to be the husband.
“Curse you!” he snarled, catching up the revolver. “It won’t take long
to load it!”
He plunged a hand into his pocket, as if reaching for cartridges.
“I wouldn’t advise you to load it, sir,” said Merry, placidly. “It will
go harder with you if you are found with a loaded weapon when the
officer comes.”
“The officer?”
“Yes. Hodge, call a boy and send out for a policeman.”
“Then you mean——”
“Business!” finished Frank, grimly. “I don’t like blackmailers, and I
think they are dangerous, so I fancy I’ll have you put away for
safe-keeping.”
“That’s right!” cried Hodge, with intense satisfaction.
The woman began to weep.
Lester Vance looked around, as if in search of some avenue of escape. At
last he realized that he was in a very bad scrape, and he longed to be
well out of it.
All at once, with a wild cry, the woman sprang up, rushed at Frank,
clasped him about the neck and began to scream. Shriek after shriek came
from her lips.
Merry attempted to put her away, but she clung to him in a frantic
manner, continuing to scream.
Her wild cries brought bell boys, porter, clerk, guests and others
rushing onto the scene, and crowding into the parlor. There were some
moments of general confusion, a struggle near the door, and then the
woman seemed to swoon and slip to the floor.
Of course Merry was questioned, of course he was regarded with
suspicion. A pompous man demanded to know the meaning of it, looking
accusingly and scornfully at Merry.
In a very few words, Frank explained that an attempt at blackmail had
been made, but when he looked round to point out the two men concerned
in the crooked work, he found they had slipped away in the general
confusion.
“Gol-darned if I noticed when they got aout!” exclaimed Gallup, in
chagrin. “I was so upset by the howlin’ of that air woman that I never
saw nothin’ else.”
“Where’s Hodge?” demanded Frank.
“Here,” said Bart, coming forward, and Merriwell saw that he also looked
crestfallen.
“Where are those men?”
“I tried to hold Vance,” answered Hodge, “but some men seemed to think I
was trying to murder him, and they parted us, giving him a chance to get
away.”
“Gentlemen,” said Merriwell, speaking to the assembled crowd, “I
think you see how it is. The scoundrels have taken to their heels,
leaving this unfortunate woman here to get out of it as best she
can. The way they ran must convince you that they are just what I
claimed—blackmailers.”
The woman showed signs of reviving. A gallant man assisted her to rise,
and she quickly dropped down on the sofa, seeming weak and faint. As she
was rather handsome, the man, like men, began to say there must be some
mistake, as it was not possible she had been concerned in an attempt at
blackmail.
Frank listened to them with a faint smile on his face.
“They make me sick!” growled Hodge. “If she were old and plain, they
wouldn’t take so much interest in her.”
Of a sudden, the woman sprang up, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed.
“Let me pass!” she exclaimed, dramatically.
“The same old melodrama line!” murmured Merry, seeming indifferent in
regard to the woman.
“Are you going to let her go?” hissed Hodge.
“Yes.”
“Don’t do it, Frank!”
“Yes.”
“You are foolish! You——”
“Wait, Bart; we’ll talk of this later.”
“And she will get away.”
Hodge seemed inclined to make an attempt to stop the woman, but
Merriwell restrained him, to his deep disgust.
Out of the room walked the woman, and she hurried straight from the
hotel.
“The show is over, gentlemen,” laughed Frank. “I trust you have received
your money’s worth.”
Then he bade Hodge and Gallup follow, and left the parlor.