WHEN Dick proceeded to follow Pierre Luzon he found that the ponies had
already trotted away through the semidarkness, evidently quite capable
on their own account of finding their accustomed stable. Leading the
way across the cavern, Pierre entered a corridor at the far end of which
bright lights were burning. Soon, Dick, to his great wonderment, found
himself in a comfortably, almost luxuriously furnished apartment.
There were big thick rugs on the floor, and the rock walls were
completely hidden by tapestries. The dining table in the centre was set
with napery, china, glass, cutlery and silverware that would have done
credit to a first-class hotel. Above swung a bronze lamp of antique
pattern. Another table was laden with books, newspapers and magazines.
In one corner gleamed the snow-white counterpane of a massive bedstead
built of oak in Old Mission style. Here and there portable oil stoves
were burning, diffusing a genial warmth throughout the grotto.
Pierre watched the guest’s look of bewilderment as he gazed around him.
“You will be very comfortable here,” said the Frenchman. “I have orders
to attend to all your wants.”
“Orders, from whom?” asked Dick abruptly. “After breakfast you will
know. I have one letter for you in my pocket.”
With characteristic philosophy Dick accepted the situation. The very
mention of breakfast gave a keener edge to an already sharply whetted
appetite. Pierre departed and presently returned with a superb sirloin
steak sizzling on a hot platter. Under his arm was tucked a bottle
of wine. As he set down the latter, Dick noted that it was dusty and
cobwebby, as if it had emerged from some ancient cellar.
“Zis is not ze vintage of California,” remarked Pierre, as he drew the
cork. “It is rare old Burgundy—all ze way from my beloved France.”
“La belle France,” murmured Dick. “I spent a year there, Pierre, most of
the time in Paris.”
“Ah, monsieur knows France and Paris,” exclaimed the old man in great
delight. “Zen you speak French, too?”
“Un peu,” laughed Dick. “Mais je fais beaucoup de fautes, mon ami.”
“Non, non, monsieur,” cried Pierre, breaking into voluble French. “Your
accent is perfect—it is delightful to hear my native language again.
We shall be great friends, Mr. Willoughby. Already I am your devoted
servant.” He bowed deferentially, as he held Dick’s chair ready for him
to be seated.
“You will breakfast with me, Pierre?” asked Dick, still in his best
French.
“No, no. I wait on monsieur. I shall breakfast in good time.”
Pierre was not to be persuaded to take a place at the table, so Dick sat
down in solitary state and was served in lordly fashion.
With the demi-tasse of black coffee at the close of the meal came a box
of cigars—cigars fit for a prince, as Dick knew from the first fragrant
whiff.
The table was now cleared and Pierre ready to withdraw. He had taken a
letter from his pocket and was holding it in his hand. But Dick, warmed
and fed and supremely contented, was watching the ascending rings of
tobacco smoke.
“Do you know, Pierre,” he said between complacent puffs, “that I was one
of the bunch that helped to get you out of San Quentin?” He had lapsed
into English.
“Oh, yes, I know,” replied Pierre, also dropping his French. “Ze five
men who made up ze purse—I am very grateful to you all.”
“Then what about the hidden treasure?”
“Ah, I was to show ze hidden treasure. But one great change come about.
I made one big mistake.”
“Then the story of all this gold was a frame-up, was it?” laughed
Willoughby.
“No, no,” protested Pierre earnestly. “Ze cave—you are here in ze cave,
although you do not know ze secret hiding place. Ze treasure, it is
here, too. But I can no longer show ze gold, for ze man to whom it all
belong he is not dead—he is alive.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Don Manuel de Valencia—him you call ze White Wolf.”
“Great guns! So he has appeared again. The newspaper stories were all
wrong?”
“Zat is how I made my mistake. But I did not know until I came back to
Tehachapi. Ze White Wolf is alive. It is he who has brought you here
as his guest. Now you will read zis letter, and zen all things you will
comprehend.”
Pierre laid the missive on the damask table cloth in front of Dick.
The latter fastened his eyes on it in speechless surprise. Before
he recovered himself Pierre, lifting the tray of empty dishes, had
noiselessly disappeared.
“Mystery upon mystery,” murmured Dick as he broke the seal. The letter
was a brief one, and began without any of the usual forms of personal
address:
“You are in safe and honorable keeping. Have no care. Nor need you worry
about your friends—they will be informed of your safety.
“Just as soon as possible the real slayer of Marshall Thurston will be
revealed. You will be completely exonerated and can then return to the
world, a free man. By this means a certain young lady will be spared
from the gossip and the publicity which, although she has been brave
enough to say it does not matter, would bring for her annoyance and
pain.
“If she is dear to you, as the writer of this letter believes, you will
help to shield her from vulgar curiosity by remaining quietly where
you are until the proper hour for your deliverance comes. It is only
necessary for you to give your word of honor to Pierre Luzon that
you will make no attempt to escape or reveal your whereabouts. Your
trustfulness will be rewarded—this is the solemn promise of
“Don Manuel de Valencia,
“Your friend.”
Dick read and re-read the strange message. All at once he became
conscious that Pierre Luzon was again standing by his chair. Their eyes
met.
“Does Mr. Willoughby give ze promise required?” asked Pierre.
Dick rose to his feet and extended his hand.
“I promise, Pierre. You have my word of honor. The letter says that is
enough.”
“I have read ze letter before it was sealed. We all know Mr.
Willoughby’s word is enough—it is as good as one gold bond.”
“I’d do anything for Merle Farnsworth,” continued Dick, carried away by
his fervid emotion. “I would die for her, if need be, to save her from
one moment’s pain.”
“Don Manuel he know that,” replied Pierre. Dick paused and his look
changed.
“How the devil does he know I love the girl?”
“Ah!” The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Ah! Don Manuel
he know everything. But now, I am under orders not to speak. Over there
you will find ze latest newspapers, sir,” he went on, pointing to the
table laden with literature, “and every few days more will be brought
for you—not only ze newspapers of Los Angeles and San Francisco, but
also, ze newspapers of New York and London and Paris, all of which
monsieur is accustomed to read.”
“Great Scott, you seem to know,” exclaimed Dick in a low voice.
Pierre continued placidly:
“And you play chess. There is a box of chess—échecs we call it in
France, you will remember. I too play ze game. Don Manuel and I used to
spend many hours over ze board. After I have had my breakfast, I, Pierre
Luzon, challenge you to one game of chess.”
“Be it so,” laughed Dick. “But you must be hungry, man. For heaven’s
sake go and eat. We’ll yarn later on. Meanwhile, I’ll have a glance
through the newspapers.”
Dick handled the newspapers with renewed surprise—the very New York
papers he was accustomed to receive regularly, also the old familiar.
Times Weekly from London and the Paris Figaro to which he had subscribed
ever since the old Quartier Latin days! The same with the magazines—all
his favorites were on the table.
“Well, I’ll be blowed! Is it the guileless Sing Ling whom Don Manuel has
been tapping for information? This certainly looks like home,” and again
he glanced over the table. He looked at the titles of the books—several
of the latest novels, a volume on socialism, another on the history of
architecture.
“Seems to know my book tastes, too. I won’t be lonesome, that’s certain.
Well, I can’t do better than make a start with the newspapers. I’ve
fallen quite behind the times.”
He stretched himself out on a long rattan chair, and started with a Los
Angeles daily. He had read lazily on for nearly an hour, when there came
from his lips a little cry of surprise.
Starting up into a sitting posture, Dick again perused the paragraph
that had excited his special interest.
It was an announcement stating that an ideal city was about to be built
in the Tehachapi valley, and that a prize of ten thousand dollars was to
be awarded to the designer of the best plans for laying out such a
town. Reference was made to an advertisement on another page giving the
details and the rules of the competition. To this Dick eagerly turned.
The advertisement set forth that the model city was to be located
somewhere near the centre of San Antonio Rancho, that the land was
traversed by the state highway, by two railroads, by two electric power
lines and two oil-carrying pipe lines, also the great Owen’s River
aqueduct that supplied Los Angeles, some two hundred miles away, with
water from the high Sierras. It was further stated that the entire ranch
was to be subdivided into small tracts, and that already hundreds of
applicants were waiting to make choice of home sites just so soon as the
survey work was completed and the land thrown open to selection.
The plans required, and for which the prize of ten thousand dollars was
offered, were to show the finest landscape effects, the most impressive
and convenient location of public buildings, the most attractive ideas
for bringing into being a veritable ideal city provided with all the
most modern conveniences and sanitary equipment.
“By gad, I’d like to have a shot at that,” murmured Willoughby as he lay
back in his chair and meditated.
After a time he picked up the London journal, and the very first thing
that met his eye was the identical advertisement on the back of the
cover. He rose and began to search through the week’s file of the
Figaro, and there again he found the announcement of the contest. He was
too keenly excited now for more reading. He began to pace the chamber.
What a clever head had planned all this world-wide publicity!
“That Los Angeles bunch of fellows are certainly great. They are
evidently going into this thing right. Doubtless they are determined to
build the ideal—the model—city of California. They want the best brains
of all lands to help beautify the place. Gee! but I’d like to be in this
contest game. But perhaps it would be presumption on my part. Yet, who
knows the country better than I do? When it comes to landscape effects,
I’m Johnny-on-the-spot all right. And they’re in a hurry—only sixty days
for the drawings. Unusual, such a short time. But I guess they’re
going to make the dust fly without a week’s unnecessary delay. They are
certainly live wires—they began by getting old Ben Thurston on the run.”
He was chuckling to himself at the thought when Pierre reappeared.
“Pierre, old fellow,” cried Dick, “would you be able to get me a drawing
board, a box of instruments, india ink, water-colors, drawing paper, and
so on?”
“What are you going to do?” asked the old man with a smile. “Do you
think you are again in ze Quartier Latin, Mr. Willoughby?”
“No. But while I’m here I’m going back to the old Quartier Latin life,
that’s a cinch. Can you buy me that stuff?” he added, diving into his
hip pocket.
But he had forgotten—he had come out of jail, and his personal
possessions had been left behind.
Pierre Luzon, however, had interpreted both the gesture and the thought
that had prompted it.
“You need no money here, Mr. Willoughby,” he said. “My orders are to get
you everything you call for. Write all you need on a piece of paper. I
send a trusty messenger, and we have ze drawing paper, ze instruments,
ze ink and ze paints here very soon—yes, very soon.”
“Then, by thunder, I’m going to win that ten-thousand-dollar prize.”
“But she is worth millions of dollars.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ze young lady—she very rich young lady, Miss Merle.”
Dick laughed.
“Oh, that’s quite another prize, Pierre,” he replied. “And if she is so
very rich, as you say, why that puts her further out of my reach than
ever.”
Pierre nodded his head determinedly.
“If I was you, Mr. Willoughby, ze prize I would try to win is ze
beautiful young lady.”
When Pierre had gone, Dick again lay back in the long chair. But he was
day-dreaming and love-dreaming now, wondering whether Merle Farnsworth
really cared for him, whether he might dare whisper to her the story of
his passionate love.