"If you can pay, you can come to my school. It's fifteen dollars
payable in advance. Afternoon or evening classes. You can come as
often as you want."
"I'll come," said Jack. "I'll bring the money to-morrow. Is there
some work I could do, too? For the Cause. Can I belong to a circle?"
"Circle?" said Barbarossa with a sharp glance of his little blue
eyes--they were at once irascible and short-sighted, eyes of a fanatic.
"What kind of a circle?"
"Liberators."
"I don't know what you're talking about. If there is any such thing, I
suppose you'll be invited to belong when you've proved yourself worthy.
Come to my school and I'll put some ideas into your head if it's not
too English."
"Thank you, sir," said Jack rising. This was as far as he supposed he
could get on the first meeting.
"By the way, who told you about me?" demanded Barbarossa.
"I read your articles in the _Future Age_."
"Well, then, who told you about the _Future Age_?"
Jack was tempted to try an experiment. "Fellow I used to room with.
The hero who croaked old Silas Gyde. Emil Jansen."
It had an electrical effect. Barbarossa was out of his chair with a
bound. His ruddy cheeks turned a gray color, on which the network of
little dark veins stood out startlingly.
"Silence! Don't speak that name here! Hero nothing! Madman! Fool!
What have you got to do with _him_?"
"Why, nothing!" stammered Jack, affecting a great confusion. "Isn't he
one of you? Isn't he working for the Cause?"
"I don't know him!" cried Barbarossa. "If he claims to be my friend I
repudiate him! Such madmen are like to ruin us all!"
"But--you said in your article that I read, that the capitalistic order
must be overthrown at any cost. That he was a hero who gave up his
life to accomplish it."
"That's all right in a periodical," said Barbarossa. "They don't care
what you write. But murder----!" The fat man shuddered. "I'm a
responsible citizen. I've got a wife and four children to think of."
Jack thought: "In anarchy, like other religions, there seems to be a
considerable gap between preaching and practising."
"What did Jansen tell you about me?" demanded Barbarossa.
"Nothing particular," said Jack. "He just let on that he admired you,
and was trying to live according to your teachings. He read me some
out of a book he was writing. He dedicated it to you."
"What!" cried Barbarossa. "In writing?"
"Yes, it was written down."
"And the police searched his room! Oh, my God! I'm done!" He
collapsed in his chair.
Jack looked at the collapsed mountain of flesh, and suppressed a smile.
Not a very formidable object this.
"Was it my right name, Sturani?" Barbarossa asked anxiously.
"No. He had written: 'To Barbarossa.'"
A little color returned to the big man's face. "Oh, well, the police
are stupid. Maybe they won't establish the connection. I expect I
would have heard from them before this if they had. That's all,
Cassels; you can go."
"And may I come to the school to-morrow?"
"Sure, if you bring the money."
From a public booth, Jack telephoned Harmon Evers that he would be
right up to change back to his proper person.
On the way uptown he sought to digest what he had learned.
"Barbarossa is certainly not the man I'm looking for. Just the same,
his fright makes it clear that he is at the head of some group that
Emil Jansen belonged to. I must join that group. It's hardly possible
that Barbarossa himself instigated the attack on Silas Gyde. He's only
a paper anarchist. Somewhere back of him I'll find the cagy little
'Mr. B.' again. Lordy! This case lengthens out like a telescope!"
"Well!" said Mr. Evers, "you're back early. Did you see any
anarchists? How about their hair?"
"The main guy of all had a bald spot as big as a saucer. Just a hedge
of hair all around like the burning bush in bloom."
"Well, I'm relieved to hear that."
18
Jack had not yet succeeded in establishing just where Miriam and Mrs.
Cleaver fitted into the jig-saw puzzle he had to solve. Miriam, from
the foreknowledge he had gained from Silas Gyde's letter, he had no
hesitating in dubbing an out-and-out bad one, but he was less sure
about Clara. He set himself to discover more about her.
There was nothing mysterious about her origin, and he had no difficulty
in learning the main facts about her from outside sources. She was a
poor girl, the daughter of a great physician who had lived beyond his
means. She had married before her father's death, the son of a wealthy
and prominent family, but he, having run through his fortune, shot
himself. She had, therefore, been left penniless, nor had she, so far
as was known, received any legacy since his death.
To Jack, therefore, the grand question was, where did she get the money
that provided the Park Avenue house, the bands of servants, the
magnificent entertainments; the dresses, jewels, furs and automobiles.
It was charitably said that she had made it in lucky speculations, but
Jack was not satisfied with that. One must have something to speculate
with. There had never been any scandal in connection with her name.
These parties of Mrs. Cleaver's offered no lack of food for
speculation. In her way Clara was quite the rage, and every element of
smart New York society was represented among the guests--except perhaps
the most hide-bound exclusives. She always took care to provide, too,
a leaven of clever artistic people, "to amuse the rich," she said.
So far everything was usual and explainable, but there was always
another element present that mystified Jack. This consisted of various
young people of both sexes, always good-looking, perfectly dressed and
at least superficially well-bred; often vivacious and charming--but
invariably with hard, wary eyes.
These self-possessed youngsters turned up mysteriously, and were as
mysteriously lost sight of again. They made a convenience of Mrs.
Cleaver's house almost as if it had been a hotel. Mrs. Cleaver
introduced them effusively at her parties like dear friends, but at
other times she ignored them--and they as frankly returned the
compliment. Sometimes they made good independently of her and enjoyed
a more or less brief career in society. Sometimes they disappeared and
were seen no more.
Mrs. Cleaver was not by any means a prudent, wary woman, and it was not
difficult for Jack to learn where she banked. She often took him about
with her. She had four bank accounts. Through the good offices of Mr.
Delamare Jack next learned from the books of the banks concerned, that
she had been in the habit of depositing a thousand dollars weekly. In
other words, every Friday afternoon she took a thousand dollars
downtown and added it to one of her four accounts.
Having learned so much, the next time Friday came around Jack took care
to be on hand early at the Cleaver house. He kept his eyes open for
all that took place that morning. Just before lunch a messenger boy
delivered a small packet for Mrs. Cleaver. Jack by a casual question
or two of a servant, learned that this was a regular happening on
Friday mornings, and that the packet was always carried direct to Mrs.
Cleaver by her orders.
Jack, who had already learned from Anderson of the large part played by
the messenger service in Mr. B.'s operations, guessed that this packet
came direct from him. It was a good enough working theory anyway.
Fifty thousand a year was no mean price! For that, Jack figured, Mrs.
Cleaver lent her name and social position to the blackmailers, and
allowed them to use her house as a base of operations. It was likely
he thought that she did not know what their game was, and with that
handsome sum coming in so regularly, did not care to inquire.
Jack conceived the bold idea of enlightening Mrs. Cleaver, trusting to
her better qualities to turn her against her present employer, and ally
her with himself.
His opportunity to talk to her alone came that night, when Miriam and
Bobo failed to return for dinner. Jack and Clara dined alone.
At the end of the meal she said listlessly: "Where shall we go
to-night?"
"Let's not go anywhere for a change," said Jack. "Let's have a fire in
the library, and sit and talk."
That struck her as a pleasantly novel idea. "All right. I'm sick of
the game to-night. And you're a restful person."
Jack smiled a little grimly, thinking that what he had to say to the
lady would not exactly be restful.
When they were comfortably established before the fire, he began to
lead up to it gradually.
"This society game is a funny one, isn't it?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, here you are spending your life rushing around like a mad woman
to teas and dinners and dances, theaters, operas, fashionable shows of
every kind. What do you get out of it, really?"
"God knows!" she said wearily.
"When you're not tearing around to other peoples' shows you're having
one of your own. Lord! what a gabbling mob! To hear them, you'd think
they loved each other to death, and positively worshiped you. And as a
matter of fact nobody gives a single damn!"
"That's true."
"Then why do you do it? It must cost a heap of money."
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Habit, I suppose. In the beginning
it seemed like the only thing open to a woman like me, the only way to
get on; to build up a social position I mean, and so be powerful. Now
I have it, I find there's nothing in it."
"Then why don't you give it up."
She looked at him in a scared way. "How could I? I'm in the thick of
the game. I've got to play it out. What else could I do? Where could
I go?"
"You have real friends, I suppose."
"I had once. But after the scramble of the last three years--I don't
know----!"
The words "three years" struck Jack with meaning. That corresponded
exactly with the period of "Mr. B.'s" activities.
"Any one could begin a new life if they really wished," he said.
She looked at him queerly. "You're not leading up to a proposal of
marriage, are you?"
"No," said Jack, smiling.
"It sounded like it," she said, settling back. "I like you ever so
much, but of course it wouldn't do."
"I have wondered why you never married again," he said. "So many
men----!"
"Oh, they don't mean anything. It's just the fashion to pay me
attention. They look on me more as an institution than a woman. The
ones who do come to the point of asking me are always horrid--or poor."
"But you have plenty."
"The appearances of wealth are illusory."
"I should think fifty thousand a year----"
She laughed lightly. "Where did you get that idea? I haven't the half
of it."
There was a silence while Jack debated how to go on.
"Clara, I would really like to be your friend," he said at last.
"That's nice of you."
"If you only felt disposed to tell me frankly of your situation and
your difficulties, perhaps I could help you."
Something in this alarmed her; she favored him with a sharp little
glance. "Mercy!" she said, turning it off with a laugh. "I haven't
any special difficulties that I know of."
"Who are these mysterious hard-eyed young people that come and go in
this house as if they owned it? I mean George Thatcher, Emily Coster,
Grace Marsden, and the others. Miriam herself; who is she, and where
did she come from? She's no cousin of yours."
Frank terror leaped out of Mrs. Cleaver's eyes. She attempted to mask
it with a semblance of anger. "They are my friends! Am I obliged to
give you an account of them!"
"Queer friends!" murmured Jack. "You scarcely speak to them unless
there are outsiders here."
"What do you mean by taking this tone towards me!"
"I wish to be your friend. Don't force me to believe the worst of you.
If your conscience is clear, why should you fear a few plain questions?"
"I'll hear what they are first. I don't like your tone."
"You receive a thousand dollars every week. Where does it come from?"
A fresh terror shot out of her eyes, and again she sought to hide it
under a towering anger. "What impudent nonsense is this?"
Jack went on imperturbably: "It is brought to you by a messenger in
cash every Friday morning, and every Friday afternoon you carry it to
the bank."
"You have been spying on me! And you talk about being my friend?"
"I do wish to be your friend. It is true I have been spying on you, as
you call it. I was forced to it by my duty to an older friend. Are
you going to answer my question?"
"Certainly not! What right have you to question me about my private
affairs! A paid secretary! This is what I get for admitting you to my
friendship!"
"To lose your temper and to insult me puts you in the worst possible
light, you know. That is how a guilty conscience always acts."
"It's nothing to me what you think of me. You can go."
"I am not going," Jack said quietly. "You and I have got to have this
out."
She had now worked herself up to a fine pitch of anger. She laughed,
but there was little amusement in the sound. "I've got to have it out
with you, have I? With _you_! Oh, this is rich! This is the
perfection of impudence! Will you go, or must I call a servant to show
you the door?"
She sprang up as she spoke, and her hand approached the bell button.
Gone was her listlessness now.
"You will not do that," said Jack quietly.
Her thumb rested on the button. "Why won't I?" she demanded.
"Because you don't know yet how much I know."
Her hand dropped irresolutely. "What is it to me what you think you
know. Are you trying to blackmail me?"
"I am not."
"What's your game then?"
"I'll tell you if you don't have me put out," said Jack, smiling dryly.
She agitatedly paced the room.
Jack went on: "I am doing you the credit of supposing that you do not
know the true source of the money you spend."
"You are accusing me of dishonesty perhaps," she said haughtily.
"I don't know how honest you are," said Jack simply. "I am not
acquainted with the terms of your agreement with Mr. B."
She stopped as if she had been transfixed. She went white to the lips.
"Mr. B.!" she whispered. "You know him!"
"I know this much," said Jack slowly. "The thousand dollars a week
which he sends you is the proceeds of blackmail--and murder!"
She staggered. He thought she was swooning, and sprang to catch her.
But she fended him off, and sank in a chair unaided. It was a full
minute before she could speak.
"You are just trying--to frighten me," she murmured huskily.
"I shall prove it before I go."
"What--what do you want of me?"
"I expect when I prove to you the truth of what I say, that you will
repudiate Mr. B. and his generous allowance, and help me to hang him."
She did not answer at once, but only stared at him with big eyes.
"You will not accept anything further from him, of course."
Still she did not answer.
"Will you knowingly help to levy blackmail, and to bring about
additional murders?"
She burst into tears. "How do I know what to do?" she wailed. "You
haven't proved what you say! How do I know what your game is? I have
nothing--not a sou! Where am I to go! How could I live?"
Notwithstanding her pretended astonishment, indignation, dismay, Jack
saw that she had always been secretly conscious of living over a
volcano. She had no doubt resolutely averted her face from it, but had
dwelt in daily expectation of this dreadful scene.
"As to the means of existence, you need not worry," said Jack. "I
shall take care of that."
"You?"
He saw that he had gone too far. "I mean Bobo of course. It is his
game I am playing."
"Who was murdered?" she asked abruptly.
"Silas Gyde for one; Ames Benton for another."
"Anarchists committed those crimes."
"Two poor mad youths were used to carry out the purpose of a devilishly
sane brain--our friend Mr. B. in fact."
For the last time she attempted to bluff it out. She yawned
elaborately, though the hand with which she covered her pretty mouth
still trembled. "Mercy! It sounds like a melodrama! You must excuse
me if I cannot swallow it entire. I'm afraid you've been too faithful
a student of the movies."
"Shall I describe Mr. B. to you?" said Jack. "His favorite disguise I
mean: he probably has many disguises. He is a smallish man but rather
heavy; not corpulent, but thick-set. He is always well dressed in a
decent, sober style. He has piercing blue eyes, and wears a heavy gray
mustache, and a little goatee or imperial. He has an old-fashioned
look, due principally to the way he wears his hair; that is brushed
forward of his ears in the manner popular fifty years ago. He has very
courteous manners and is given to rather bookish, literary turns of
speech."
The remnants of Clara Cleaver's courage oozed away. She sagged down in
her chair white and shaken. "That is the man," she whispered. "What
are you going to do with me?"
"Why does he send you all this money?" asked Jack.
"I don't know," she meekly replied.
"Well, I'll give you my guess. It is to secure your house as a base
for the young birds of prey that hunt in society. These are the spies
that furnish him with the information about rich people necessary to
his blackmailing business."
"It can't be as bad as all that!" she murmured with weak horror.
"How else do you explain George Thatcher and Grace Marsden--and Miriam."
"You are not sure of what you say."
"You know in your heart it is true. As to Miriam, I am sure. Mr. Gyde
left us a detailed account of how she tried to spy on him, and a
faithful description of her. Ever notice the mole on her right
forefinger?"
She shook her head. "Oh, there'll be a horrible public scandal!" she
wailed fretfully. "I'll be disgraced forever--though I have done
nothing!"
"Except take his money," Jack put in dryly.
"How did I know? Where am I to hide my head now! Oh, I wish I'd never
laid eyes on you!"
Jack took a new tack. "Well, I see I can expect no help from you," he
said, making as if to go.
"Wait!" she said quickly. "Don't leave me! I shall go out of my mind
if I'm left alone! If I tell you everything I know, will you promise
to save me from public disgrace?"
"I'll do my best."
"Sit down. I'll have to go back to the beginning. It's a long story."
19
"My father was a famous doctor here in New York," Mrs. Cleaver began.
"He was what you call a self-made man; he had risen from obscurity and
pulled my mother up with him. I was their only child. When I was
growing up my father was making a princely income, and we lived like
millionaires. The best people in New York were among his patients, and
we went everywhere.
"I married at twenty--the usual fashionable marriage. Mr. Cleaver was
the last of a fine old family of wealth and position, and I was
considered to have done well for myself. But I loved him in a
heedless, unthinking sort of way. He was young like myself, and
extremely good-looking.
"My first real experience of life came with the death of my father,
four years after my marriage. It was discovered that he had lived up
to every cent of his great income. He left nothing but debts and an
art collection. The proceeds of that went to purchase my mother a
modest annuity. Even that was wasted, for she lived less than a year
after my father.
"That left me with no one in the world to turn to but my husband. The
tragedy of self-made people is that they have no lifelong friends. My
husband was good to me in his way; we got along together well enough,
but in his disappointment and chagrin at the disclosure of my father's
affairs, I received my first suspicion that all was not well with our
own.
"But I closed my eyes to it, and we continued to live as before,
denying ourselves nothing. It was the only way I knew how to live. We
had our big houses in town and in the country, a mob of servants,
automobiles, horses. I knew nothing about business and my husband
never spoke of it. One thing that helped to ease my mind was the fact
that we were never bothered by creditors as I knew some of my friends
were. My husband paid up everything on the nail. It was a point of
pride with him.
"When he had spent his last dollar, literally his last, he shot himself.
"Well, there I was. Mr. Cleaver had no near relatives. His cousins
had always frowned on our extravagance, and I could expect no aid from
them. As for my so-called friends, at the first hint of disaster they
began to melt away. I was so helpless I didn't even know how to close
up my great house. I couldn't summon resolution enough to discharge
the servants. I lived for a while on the proceeds of my dresses and
jewels. It is tragic how much such things cost, and how little they
bring!
"I was at the end of my rope, driven nearly frantic by worry. The
unpaid servants were becoming impudent, and that seemed like the last
straw. I have always been so dependent on servants! I was actually
considering taking my husband's way out--when this man came to see me.
"He sent up no name. But in the frightful state I was in, one jumps at
anything for a moment's distraction. I had him brought up. You have
already described him; his silvery hair, brushed in an odd way, his
sober, well-made clothes of no particular style. His old-fashioned
manner prevented me from placing him socially; he might have been
almost anybody. The piercing blue eyes were remarkable. His was most
kind and courteous, fatherly one might say.
"Though it is three years ago, every detail of that interview is still
fresh in my mind. He thanked me first for my indulgence in consenting
to receive him incognito. I would agree, he said, when I had learned
the object of his visit, that it were better he should remain unknown.
He asked me to think of him simply as 'Mr. B.'
"He went on to say that through mutual friends he had learned of my
difficult situation, and had been much moved thereby. It was the
hardest case he had ever heard of, he said, and I had his sincerest
sympathy. I was too desperate in my mind to even pretend to be
indignant at the intrusion of a stranger into my affairs. Indeed I
found his sympathy comforting. I hadn't received much. Most people
had acted as if my misfortunes were due to my own fault. He soothed me
like a nice old uncle.
"He said he was a very rich man, so rich in fact, that his money made
him uneasy. He didn't want to die with it, he said, and he was looking
around for some honorable way of getting rid of it. He used that very
word, 'honorable'; it made me smile. He said it was easier to make a
fortune than to get rid of it.
"Fancy how my heart began to beat at this. When one is desperate one
cannot be particular. I could scarcely believe my ears. It seemed
like the miracle I had been hoping for--like an answer to my prayer.
He said that the more popular forms of philanthropy, such as colleges,
hospitals, libraries, etc., were distasteful to him, as smacking too
much of ostentation and publicity. He wanted to make his distribution
in secret.
"'Everybody looks after the poor,' he said, 'and nobody thinks of the
rich when they are overtaken by misfortune. They are the worthiest
objects of help, and I intend to devote myself to the relief of the
impoverished rich. You are my first case. Will a thousand dollars a
week be sufficient?'
"I thought I was dreaming. I managed to stammer out a question about
what conditions were attached to the loan or gift.
"'No conditions! No conditions!' he said,--'that is only one
condition; that you will preserve absolute secrecy concerning it.'
"I promised of course. I scarcely knew what I was saying. I thought
perhaps he was harmlessly insane. I certainly never expected anything
to come of it. But when he had gone I found on the table a little
packet containing a thousand dollars in bills.
"I still thought I had been visited by an amiable lunatic. I used the
money to pay some of my most pressing obligations. I discharged the
insolent servants, and got others. I didn't expect to hear from him
again.
"But one week from that day a messenger boy brought me a packet
containing a similar sum, and it has been coming ever since with
absolute regularity.
"I can see that you are incredulous about there having been no
conditions attached to the gift, but I have stated just what happened.
I can see now that I was a fool, but then it was easy for me to believe
that I had been relieved out of pure philanthropy. As if there was any
such thing!
"At first the money came unaccompanied by any communication, but later,
when he knew, I suppose, that I had become absolutely dependent on it,
I began to receive instructions. In the beginning he still used the
language of philanthropy--he wanted to help this young man or that
young woman to gain a footing in good society--but latterly, feeling
more sure of me, I suppose, he has become frankly peremptory. Oh! if I
had only sent the money back in the first place!"
"What sort of instructions?" asked Jack.
"Principally for me to receive certain young people that he would send
me, and introduce them to society; sometimes to introduce them to
particular persons. This seemed harmless enough. People will do
anything to get into society, you know."
"But when you saw these young people didn't you begin to be suspicious?"
"Oh, I didn't want to be suspicious! Their manners were good enough.
They didn't shame me. And nowadays society is such a go-as-you-please
affair, nobody held me responsible."
"What other kind of instructions did you get?"
"To ask certain people, generally some well-known rich man, to my
house. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to go to the Madagascar
and scrape acquaintance with Bobo in the corridor. I nearly died at
that, but it was too late to turn back. I was terrified by the way the
man always knew instantly when I had not obeyed him."
"The spies he had in your house would keep him informed," said Jack.
"How did you know that day which of the two of us was Bobo?"
"He had described him to me."
"Does 'Mr. B.' still come here?"
"No, I have never seen him but the once. He writes to me, and very
often he calls me up to learn if I have anything to report. I have no
way of communicating with him unless he calls up."
"Now about Miriam?" said Jack.
Mrs. Cleaver sat up, and her tired eyes sparkled with hatred. "That
woman!" she cried. "If you knew what I have had to put up with from
her! I loathe her! Oh, I would like to see her brought low. What
have you got against her? Tell me!"
Jack shook his head, smiling grimly. "All in good time," he said.
"You're telling me your story now."
"Oh, Miriam's just another of them. She came the day before I received
my instructions to get hold of Bobo. I was ordered to take her into my
house, and give it out that she was a cousin. That was the final
humiliation!"
"Is that all you can tell me about Miriam?"
She nodded. "We don't confide in each other," she said with tight lips.
There was a considerable silence between the two before the fire.
"What are you thinking about?" asked Mrs. Cleaver nervously at last.
"Just trying to dope out a plan to get him--with your help."
"Oh, I'm afraid!" she wailed. "When my income is cut off what shall I
do?"
"I promised you--in Bobo's name--to take care of that."
"To the same amount?" she asked sharply.
Jack smiled dryly. "I'm afraid I'd hardly feel justified in
recommending that Bobo keep up all this--but, say, ten thousand a year."
"Ten thousand!" she cried, aghast. "That's nothing!"
A grimmer tone crept into Jack's voice. "Sorry, but we don't owe you
anything, you know. If you refuse to help me, I should have to have
you arrested."
If she had defied him Jack's position would have been a little awkward,
for he was not prepared to go as far as he had said. But Mrs.
Cleaver's spirit was broken now. She only shuddered and wept the
louder.
"Ten thousand!" she wailed. "I'll have to give up everything that
makes life worth living!"
"You told me you were sick of all this."
"I'll have to move into a miserable apartment!"
"Come now, plenty of people have a whale of a time on ten thousand--or
even the half of that."
"Suburbanites!" she said with the utmost scorn.
"Has 'Mr. B.' any regular time for calling up?" asked Jack.
"No. Every few days. I haven't heard in nearly a week. I shall
probably hear to-morrow."
"Very good. Now listen. When he calls up, make out you're in great
anxiety. But don't give him too many details over the 'phone. Suggest
that it's not safe to do so. You can let him understand though that it
has something to do with Bobo or me. Tell him that you think I am
having you watched. Tell him that you must see him in order to find
out how to act. Don't ask him to come here; that would surely excite
his suspicions. Name some public place; a hotel would be the best."
"Will I have to face him?" she faltered. "I'm afraid."
"I'll be there," said Jack. "You may leave him to me."
20
Jack had no great confidence that Mrs. Cleaver would stand by him
unless he were right there to assert his supremacy; she meant well, but
she was as weak as water. Therefore he took care to be on hand early
at her house next morning, and was prepared to hang around all day if
necessary listening for the telephone.
By great good luck the call came while he was in the room with her, so
that she had no opportunity to betray him, even if she were disposed to
do so. By the instant change in her when she heard the voice over the
wire, Jack knew that it was he whom they were expecting.
In dumb play Jack ordered her to hold the receiver an inch from her
ear. Then by bringing his head close to hers he was able to hear
practically all the man said.
"Good morning. Is there anything you want to tell me?"
Jack thrilled a little hearing the veritable voice of his adversary.
It was the nearest he had yet come to him. A familiar quality in the
sound tantalized him. But he could not place it.
"Yes," said Mrs. Cleaver. Her breathlessness seemed quite natural.
"I'm so glad you called up. I can't explain very well. There's
something queer. I'm afraid they may be listening at the switch
down-stairs."
"Something in connection with our two young gentlemen?" asked the voice.
"Yes, one of them is acting so strangely."
"The principal one?"
"No, the other. He seems well--suspicious. I could explain better if
I saw you. Can I see you?"
"Yes, if you wish," came the calm reply.
"Where?"
"Let me see--you'll have to come at once, because I am leaving town
this afternoon. Suppose you come to the Hotel Bienvenu, and meet me in
the main lobby."
"Half an hour," Jack whispered to Mrs. Cleaver.
"I'll come just as soon as I can dress," she said over the 'phone.
"Can you give me half an hour?"
"Very well. I shall expect you in half an hour."
Jack's heart beat high with hope. He immediately called up police
headquarters and got the Third Deputy Commissioner on the wire. After
identifying himself to that individual, he asked to have a plainclothes
man meet him in the bar of the Hotel Bienvenu in twenty minutes time,
to make an arrest. The Deputy Commissioner said he would bring the man
up himself, so there could be no possibility of missing Jack.
To Mrs. Cleaver Jack said: "I will go to the Bienvenu now and wait for
my men. You leave here in precisely twenty-five minutes. Have your
chauffeur let you out at the side door of the Bienvenu, and then walk
around by the street to the front door. This will bring you past the
windows of the bar, and will give me a chance to point you out to my
policeman. Then I'll send him up into the lobby, and I can remain in
the background. He will arrive in the lobby at the same moment with
you."
All the preliminaries passed off as Jack had planned. The Deputy
Commissioner and the plainclothes man turned up in the bar of the
Bienvenu at the very moment of the time appointed. They took up their
post at a window, and sure enough in five minutes Mrs. Cleaver swam
past their ken, regal and languid in her silver fox furs.
"That's the woman," Jack said to the policeman. "Mark her well. Now
go up into the lobby. As you get there she will just be coming in the
front door. Watch who approaches her. Arrest the man with whom she
gets in conversation. He's supposed to be an elderly man, short,
stocky, with gray hair brushed forward of his ears, gray mustache and
Imperial. But he may be disguised. Arrest any man that goes up to her
and engages her in conversation. Watch yourself well, for he's a
desperate character."
"We'll wait down here," added the Deputy Commissioner. "If you need
help blow your whistle."
The policeman departed upstairs, and Jack ordered the Deputy
Commissioner a drink. Jack thought he was perfectly cool, until he
became aware of a curious little fluttering in his veins. It became
increasingly difficult to sit still. When the drink was brought he
forgot all about it. He could not keep his imagination within bounds.
He tasted the great glory that would be his when it became known that
he, single-handed, had broken up the amazing traffic in blackmail. He
saw himself taking his rightful place as John Farrow Norman, and
enjoying his riches with an easy mind. He saw Kate relenting at last.
Meanwhile his eyes were glued to the dragging minute hand of the clock.
"Something must be the matter with that clock!" he cried. "Oh, this is
fierce! If I could only go up there and see what is going on!"
"Give him time," said the Deputy Commissioner soothingly. "He hasn't
been gone three minutes yet. Your man may be late."
In five minutes the plainclothes man was back in the bar. One look in
his perplexed face told Jack that things had not gone off as he had
planned. The bright bubble of his dreams burst.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
The man shrugged. "She wants you, the lady. Told me to bring you
quick."
"But the man?" asked Jack as he followed him back.
"Never came. She hadn't any more than sat down when a bell-hop begun
paging her. Mrs. Cleaver, he was calling. He had a letter for her.
She begun to read it, and jumped up and sat down again quick. I
thought she was going to faint, and hung around like. She sees me
looking at her and says: 'Are you the policeman?' I nods, and she
says: 'Bring Mr. Robinson quick.' That's all."
They entered the lobby, and Jack saw Mrs. Cleaver sitting in one of the
big chairs. The brave air with which she had sailed past the window
was in eclipse. She looked limp and white. As he came to her she held
out an open letter without speaking. He read:
"_Dear Mrs. Cleaver:_
"_So you have decided to turn against me--after spending a hundred and
fifty thousand of my money. Well, that's your affair of course. I
hope you know where you're going to get more. This was a clumsy trap
to expect to take the old fox in. Tell the young secretary he will
have to do better than this if he expects to make that great reputation
he is dreaming of. Like most young men he is prone to go of at half
cock. Tell him that he had better be sure that he has anything against
me before he calls in the police. But give him and the Third Deputy
Commissioner my regards. They are waiting in the bar._
"_Cordially yours,_
"_Mr. B._"
21
Mr. B's taunting letter was a bitter dose for Jack's pride to swallow.
Jack was young and very human, and it was only natural he should have
been a little puffed up by his preliminary successes in a task that
might well have daunted an experienced detective. And then to discover
after all that his crafty adversary had only been playing with him,
that he was aware of all his movements--well, Jack ground his teeth a
bit. But the effect on the whole was salutary. The letter rebuked
Jack's vanity, and steeled his resolution.
"I was a fool!" he told himself. "I didn't give the old boy credit for
ordinary horse sense. Well, I won't make the same mistake again. I
can't do anything more in my own character, that's certain. He has a
perfect line on me as Bobo's secretary. But he doesn't know anything
about Pitman yet--or young Henry Cassels, the student at Barbarossa's
school. I'll get him yet."
The affair of the letter resulted in the swift break-up of Mrs.
Cleaver's establishment. Jack did not see her again. He instructed
the bank to pay her two hundred dollars weekly. She rented her house
and departed--for an extensive trip through the South, it was given out.
Miriam disappeared too. Jack hoped that his mind would now be relieved
of any further anxiety concerning her designs on Bobo. She would
naturally suppose Jack thought, that in the general expose her
connection with Mr. B. would be made known to Bobo, and she would
scarcely have the effrontery to pursue him further. But Jack
underrated that young lady's hardihood, as will be seen.
As a matter of fact Jack did not feel that it was necessary to explain
to Bobo the whys and wherefors of what had happened. He had no
confidence in Bobo's discretion. He ascribed Mrs. Cleaver's sudden
departure to her well-known capriciousness. Bobo was a bit dazed by
the change in the situation, and broken-hearted at the seeming loss of
Miriam.
"Why don't I hear from her!" he cried a hundred times a day. "There
wasn't any trouble the last time I saw her. You know, we went to the
theater together, and you and Clara had dinner at home. When we got
home Clara had gone to bed with a headache, but you were there waiting
for us, and the three of us had a rabbit together, all as jolly as
possible."
"The next day when I went back to lunch the whole house was upset.
Miriam had gone out they said, and Clara wouldn't see me. The butler
said she was packing. I hung around a couple of hours, and nobody so
much as offered me a bite. At last I had to go away to get something
to eat. When I got back Miriam had come in and gone again, gone for
good the man said. He had had his wages, and was openly impudent. And
she hadn't left me a line! The next day the whole house was closed up.
I can't understand it! Did Clara write to you?"
"Just a line to say that she couldn't face the fag of a New York
season, and was going South for a rest."
"Let me see the letter, will you?"
"Oh, I didn't keep it."
"What do you suppose has become of Miriam?"
"You can search me."
In his mind's eye Jack had a vivid picture of that final scene between
Miriam and Clara. Figuratively the fur must have flown!
"I can't understand it!" said poor Bobo. "I didn't do anything to her.
She has my address."
"Forget her!" said Jack.
"Oh, you never liked her!" said poor Bobo.
Bobo instituted a sort of footless search for her, which consisted
mainly in mooning around the different places they had visited
together. Jack let him alone. It could do no harm he thought, and it
kept Bobo occupied.
Meanwhile the poor fellow's appetite suffered. He lost weight and no
longer found any zest in spending money. He moaned in his sleep, and
cried out Miriam's name. Jack somehow had not suspected that a fat man
might be so subjected to love's torments.
And then one night when Jack returned to dinner, after having spent the
afternoon with Anderson, he found a change. He first noticed it in the
eagerness with which Bobo picked up the menu card. Finding Jack's
sharp eyes on him, he dropped it again, and said with a sigh that he
couldn't eat a thing. But he did--several things. Bobo had but an
imperfect command over his facial muscles. The corners of his mouth
would turn up.
"He has seen her," thought Jack. "I'll have to tell him the truth now."
"What'll we do to-night?" said Bobo casually.
"Stay home," suggested Jack.
"If you're tired you'd better turn in early," said Bobo with deceitful
solicitude. "I'll go out for a little while. I want to look around
one or two places."
"All right. I want to have a little talk with you first."
Bobo's face fell absurdly. "Oh, all right," he muttered.
When they were back in their own rooms Jack said without preamble: "So
you saw her to-day."
"Saw who?" said Bobo with innocent wide open eyes.
"Come off! Who is it that makes your eyes shine, and your mouth purse
up in a whistle?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"We're wasting time."
"If you are referring to Miss Culbreth," said Bobo on his dignity, "I
have not seen her."
"What's the use of lying to me? You're as transparent as window glass!"
"Oh, if you've made up your mind that I'm a liar, what's the use of my
saying anything?"
"Look here. Miriam is either what I think she is, or what you think
she is. If she's all that's good and pure as you think----"
"As I _know_!" corrected Bobo.
Jack dryly accepted the correction. "As you know. It can't do her any
harm to tell me the truth about what happened to-day."
"I can't!" said Bobo obstinately.
"I suppose she made you promise not to tell me."
Bobo was silent.
"Very well. Now listen. When you came with me the first condition of
our agreement was that you should obey orders. Isn't that so?"
Bobo nodded sullenly.
"Well, I order you to tell me what happened to-day. That lets you out
of any promise you may have made."
Poor Bobo was quite unable to stand out against a stronger nature.
"Oh, since you put it that way, I have seen her."
"Where?"
"In the Park. On a bench near that fountain down the steps at the end
of the Mall. We used to sit there sometimes in the sun. And I just
went back on a chance--well you know!"
"Sure, I know how you feel," said Jack more sympathetically. "I'm
sorry to see so much good feeling wasted."
"It's not wasted. While I was sitting there a woman came by heavily
veiled. I didn't know her at first, but when she saw me she gave a
little cry. It was forced from her. She didn't mean to let me
recognize her. She tried to get away, but I stopped her."
Jack concealed his smile.
"It was Miriam," Bobo went on. "And what do you think! Just like me
she had been attracted to the spot where we had been happy! Wasn't
that wonderful!"
"Very wonderful!" said Jack drily.
"She was so overcome she had to sit down for a moment," Bobo continued.
"When I reproached her for not sending me word, she said she had been
so shocked at the discovery of Mrs. Cleaver's wickedness, she hadn't
known what she was doing. Her one idea was to escape from that woman's
house. Why didn't you tell me what she had been up to?"
"Never mind that now. Go on with your story."
"When she collected her wits, she said she didn't think it was any use
her writing to me, because she was sure I would think she was mixed up
in it too."
"Well that was pretty near the truth," Jack put in.
"She said she was sure you would never let such a chance go by of
turning me against her."
"But I didn't use it against her, did I?"
"Oh, I expect you had your own reasons. I didn't know what Miriam was
talking about. I begged her to tell me what Mrs. Cleaver had been up
to, but she refused to believe that I had not been told. Even when I
had convinced her I knew nothing she wouldn't tell me because she
didn't want to betray her cousin. Bad as she was, she was still her
cousin, Miriam said."
"Bosh!" said Jack scornfully. "No more her cousin than you are!"
"Oh, you never believe anything Miriam says," complained Bobo.
"Let that go for the present. What else happened?"
"Nothing much. She was relieved to find out that I didn't think wrong
of her. We talked--but we didn't say much." Bobo got red. "Hang it
all, I don't have to tell you everything I say to a girl, do I?"
"No," said Jack grinning.
"In the end I promised her I wouldn't tell you I'd seen her. That's
all."
"And you're going to see her again, to-night?"
"Y-yes."
"Where?"
"She's stopping temporarily at the Bienvenu."
"Now let's try and let a little light on this subject," said Jack.
"She's always saying that I'm trying to turn you against her, isn't
she?"
"Yes, and it's true."
"What reason does she give for my actions?"
"Why--I don't know."
"Think a little. Her idea is that I am afraid of her influence over
you, because it may threaten mine, isn't it?"
"Well--yes."
"And that's ridiculous, isn't it?"
But Bobo was obstinately silent.
"Good God!" cried Jack. "Are you my boss or aren't you?"
"No," muttered Bobo.
"Then what possible motive could I have for wishing to turn you against
her?"
"I don't know," said Bobo sullenly. "I can't read your mind."
Jack threw up his hands. "You're so stuck on your role of
multi-millionaire, that you're always forgetting it's only a role
you're playing. Now listen. I'm going to tell you the whole truth
about Mrs. Cleaver and Miriam. It's all I can do for you. In the
first place Mrs. Cleaver has been in the pay of the old man for three
years. It was he who supplied the coin to keep up that house. I
caught her with the goods."
"Impossible!" gasped Bobo. "A society woman like that! You're sure
you are not mistaken?"
"Read that," said Jack, handing him Mr. B.'s letter to Mrs. Cleaver.
Bobo's hair almost stood on end as he recognized the handwriting, and
appreciated the significance of what he read.
"But--but Miriam didn't know anything about this. She said she was
stunned when she learned of what her cousin----"
"Please don't give me any more of that stuff. Mrs. Cleaver was only
the old man's catspaw, but Miriam is a confidential insider."
"How do you know that?"
"Well, for one thing Mrs. Cleaver told me the old man had sent Miriam
to her."
"But you've just said the woman was a crook. That's no proof."
"Oh, that's not all I have against Miriam. It appears that she was
practicing her wiles on Silas Gyde before he was killed."
From his desk Jack got the unfinished letter that the dead millionaire
had left behind him. To Bobo he read that part of it which referred to
Miriam.
Bobo was shaken but unconvinced. "That description might fit dozens of
girls," he said.
"Sure," said Jack, "all except the peculiar mole on the inside of her
right forefinger. Ever noticed that?"
"N-no."
"Well, I have. If you're going to see her again, I recommend that you
look for it."