IV

Upstairs in the fur department Oskar Hedin paused in the act of

returning some fox pieces to their place, and greeted the girl who had

halted before the tall pier glass to readjust her hat and push a

refractory strand of hair into place. "Back again?" he smiled. "And

now for the coat!"

"Now for the coat," she repeated. "What kind of a coat do I want,

Oskar? I want to try on lots of them. I don't know a thing in the

world about furs. All I know is that I've seen some I liked, and some

that I didn't care much for."

For half an hour Jean tried on coats, until her choice had narrowed

down to a handsome dark baum marten, and a shimmery gray squirrel.

"I think they're both lovely, and I can't quite make up my mind," she

said at last, in a tone of mock despair. "It's worse than picking out

toboggan caps. I just helped Mr. Wentworth select one--and, oh, by the

way, I believe dad is going to find a place for him."

"For who?" asked Hedin, and Jean noticed tiny wrinkles gather between

his eyes.

"Why, for Mr. Wentworth, of course. You see, I told dad that he'd just

lost his position with that old Nettle River thing they were trying to

put through, and Dad said if he was a civil engineer, and out of a job,

to tell him to drop in and see him, so I took him in and introduced him

and I guess they're still talking."

"Humph," grunted Hedin.

"You don't need to be so grumpy about it. Mr. Wentworth is awfully

nice, and all the girls are crazy about him."

"I don't think that gives you any call to rave much over him when it

was Fred Orcutt that brought him here, and he brought him for no other

purpose than to knife your father," replied Hedin dryly.

Jean laughed. "You take Dad too seriously. He really believes Mr.

Orcutt has it in for him, and he sees an ulterior motive in everything

he does in a business way. But, really, the Orcutts are all right.

There was some business deal, years and years ago, in which Dad fancied

Mr. Orcutt tried to get the best of him, and he has never forgotten it.

You see, Dad is the dearest thing that ever lived, but he is sort of

crusty, and it isn't everybody that knows how to take him. Why, Mr.

and Mrs. Orcutt are going to be at dinner this evening, and are going

to the theatre, too. They know it is my birthday party, so that

doesn't look as though they were such fierce enemies of the McNabbs,

does it?

"Let's get back to the subject of coats. This squirrel is beautiful,

but I believe I like the dark fur the better. I think I'll try that

marten again."

Hedin was thinking rapidly. He had known from the first that the

darker fur was the fur for her, yet he had refrained from making any

direct suggestion.

"Just a moment, please," he said. "Won't you button that coat once

more, I want to get an artificial light effect." As he spoke, he moved

toward the windows and drew the shades. Returning in the gloom, he

reached swiftly into the fur safe and withdrew the Russian sable coat

which he deftly deposited on top of the marten coat that lay with

several others upon a nearby table. As the girl turned from the glass,

he switched on the light.

"All right," he said, a moment later. "If you care to try on the

marten again, we'll see how that shows up under the artificial."

Deftly he lifted the squirrel from her shoulders, and, picking up the

Russian sable, held it while she slipped her arms into the sleeves. As

she buttoned it, he stepped back, and viewed the result through

critically puckered eyes. With an effort he refrained from voicing his

enchantment with the living picture before him. Old John was right--it

was a coat fit for a queen!

"I like this one best. I'll take it."

Hedin agreed. "I think you have chosen wisely," he answered, adding,

as she started to loosen the garment at the throat, "Just a minute--the

set of the collar in the back----" He stepped behind her, raised the

collar a trifle with his fingers, smoothed it into place, and stepped

aside to note the effect. "Just a trifle low," he said, "but it's too

late to have it altered to-day."

"Oh, bother! I think the set is all right. Who would ever notice it?

Let it go."

Hedin smiled. "You can wear it to-night, all right, but you must

promise me to send it down the first thing Monday morning for the

alteration.

"I will bring it to the house this afternoon."

A sudden caprice seized her. "Why, I think I'll wear it!" she

answered. "Just help me on with it, Oskar. And thank you so much for

helping me select it. Here comes Mr. Wentworth, now. I wonder whether

he will like it. I'm crazy about it. What kind of a marten did you

say it is? Everybody will be asking me, and I want to be able to tell

them what my own coat is."

"Baum marten," answered Hedin stiffly, heartily wishing the coat safe

in its accustomed place. In vain he regretted the wild impulse that

had led him to substitute the sable coat for the marten. The impulse

had come when the girl told him that Mrs. Orcutt was to be one of the

theatre party. The plan had flashed upon him with overwhelming

brilliance. He knew that Jean would in all probability never notice

that the coat was not a marten. And he knew that Mrs. Orcutt most

certainly would, for McNabb had once publicly compared it with her

coat, much to the New York coat's detriment and Mrs. Orcutt's

humiliation. It was not altogether loyalty for his employer that led

him to plot the woman an uncomfortable evening, for he owed her a

grudge on his own account. Ever since the coming of Wentworth, whom

she had taken under her special patronage, Hedin had been studiously

omitted from her scheme of social activities--and Jean McNabb had been

as studiously included. He knew that McNabb was leaving town to be

gone until the following evening, and that the chance of his seeing the

garment was exceedingly small, and he had invented the fiction of the

low collar in order to get the coat back on Monday morning when he

would, of course, substitute the baum marten and return the sable to

its safe. But now he felt vaguely uneasy.

Hedin saw that Wentworth was staring at the coat with a swiftly

appraising eye. "It's a baum marten," Jean went on. "It took me a

long time to choose between this and a squirrel. There was one that

was a luscious gray, but I like this better--don't you?"

Wentworth nodded. "I certainly do," he agreed. "And I do not believe

it would have taken me long to decide between that and a squirrel." He

turned to Hedin. "What do you think, Mr.--ah--Haywood? That the

choice was a wise one? This is certainly a handsome--er--what did you

say it is?"

"Baum marten," snapped Hedin, with scarcely a glance at the questioner,

as he turned and began to replace the coats that lay upon the table.

Wentworth watched Hedin return the baum marten to its place, and Jean

stepped swiftly to Hedin's side.

As she spoke, he saw that her eyes were flashing angrily.

"If your surly mood doesn't change," she whispered, "you will not add

much to the enjoyment of our coasting party."

"I shall neither add to, nor detract from it," answered Hedin, meeting

her gaze squarely. "Please don't wait for me. I find that I shall not

be able to attend."

V

The United States Government formally entered the world war in April,

and the following month Ross Wentworth had been graduated from a

technical college, and through the auspices of an influential relative

was commissioned a captain of engineers, and assigned to duty in one of

the larger cantonments. In due course of events he was sent overseas,

and was attached to the forces operating in northern Russia. During

the sixteen months of his service in the land of the erstwhile Czar, he

acquired a fund of military terms, both official and slang. Also he

built and maintained in a state of inutility, nine and one-half miles

of military swamp road, over which no gun nor detachment of troops ever

passed. The abrupt termination of hostilities caught him with a

formidable and inexplicable discrepancy of company funds--which

discrepancy was promptly and liberally met by the aforementioned

relative. Whereupon, Captain Wentworth was honorably discharged from

the service of his country.

For many months after his discharge he lived by his wits and looks, but

when this grew unproductive of ready cash, he decided to seek

employment in his accredited vocation.

This decision he arrived at while sojourning in the home of a wealthy

fruit-grower who was interested in the Nettle River project, and who

furnished him a letter of recommendation to Orcutt, who promptly

employed him. Thereafter all went well until McNabb's ultimatum

brought the Nettle River project to as sudden a termination as the

armistice had brought the war. Whereupon Wentworth found himself in

the uncomfortable predicament of having no available assets and many

pressing liabilities, incurred in the course of his endeavor to win the

good graces of the wealthy Jean McNabb.

While scarcely knowing Hedin, Wentworth recognized him as a possible

rival. He, himself, was no connoisseur of fur, but at least he knew a

Russian sable when he saw one, and as he preceded Jean down the aisle,

his brain worked rapidly.

By the time he reached the street, a daring scheme was half-formed in

his brain--a scheme which, if successful, would work the utter ruin of

Hedin, and leave him a clear field with the girl. At the first corner

he excused himself.

Hardly was the girl's back turned when Wentworth dodged around the

corner and entered McNabb's store by another door just in time to see

old John rush from the building, bag in hand, and hurry down the street

in the direction of the station.

McNabb's was the only big store in Terrace City, and being a department

store, it kept city hours, so while on Saturday evenings all the other

stores remained open for business until a late hour, McNabb's closed at

noon. Passing unnoticed down the aisle, Wentworth's eyes darted here

and there in search of a place of concealment, until at length he took

up a position close beside McNabb's private office, the door of which,

he noted with satisfaction, stood slightly ajar.

Watching his opportunity, Wentworth slipped unnoticed into the private

office, closed the door softly behind him, and sank comfortably into

McNabb's desk chair.

A gong sounded, and was repeated, dimly, upon the floors above.

Wentworth could hear the tramp of feet in the aisles as the clerks

poured from the building through a door that gave on to a side street.

In a few minutes the rush was over, and then they came scatteringly,

singly, and by twos and threes. He could hear the opening of the door,

and the click of the lock as it closed behind them. The footsteps

ceased. He drew his watch and waited. Noises from the street reached

him, sounding far off and muffled, but the store was silent as a tomb.

Twelve minutes ticked away. A footstep sounded. Wentworth could trace

it descending the stairs, and walking the length of an aisle. Followed

the sound of the opening door, and the click of the latch. Some

belated department head, he thought. Possibly Hedin, himself--and he

grinned at the thought.

In the silence of the great building Wentworth suddenly realized that

he was nervous. It was all well enough to plan a thing, but the

carrying out of the plan was quite another matter. He took a silent

turn or two the length of the office, his footsteps making no sound

upon the soft carpet. He waited twenty minutes and, hearing no sound,

closed his watch and dabbed at his forehead with the handkerchief which

he drew from his sleeve. Turning the knob, he stepped out upon the

uncarpeted floor. The sound of his footsteps upon the hardwood seemed

to reverberate through the whole building. He walked a few steps on

tiptoe, and then decided that in case anyone should see him, the

tiptoeing would look furtive. So he walked to the foot of the

stairway, his footsteps sounding in his ears like the ring of a hammer

on an anvil. As he ascended the stairs he called out, "Hey, isn't

there any one here? I am locked in, and can't get out! Hello!

Someone show me the way out!"

Swiftly he ascended to the third floor and crossed to the fur case.

Silently he slid back the door and lifted the baum marten coat from its

place, and stepping to a counter upon which was fixed a huge roll of

wrapping paper, he proceeded to make the coat into a package. This

done, he hastened toward the stairway with the package under his arm.

Down the stairs he flew, taking them two and three at a time, down the

next flight, and across the floor, until he brought up panting at the

door with the spring lock by which the employees had left the building.

Thought of material gain had not until this point entered into the

scheme. He had merely plotted the undoing of a rival, but at the

sudden realization of his status in the eyes of the world, a new

thought struck him. "If I can get away with it--why not? A Russian

sable! Why, it's worth _thousands_!"

It took a concentrated effort to open the door a tiny crack and peer

through. Swiftly opening the door, Wentworth stepped onto the

sidewalk, closed the door behind him, and clutching his package

tightly, hurried down the street. He had entirely gained his composure

by the time he reached his hotel, and hastening to his room, placed the

package in his trunk and turned the key. He glanced at his watch. It

lacked three minutes of one, and remembering his appointment with

Orcutt, he hastened to the Wolverine Bank.