Perhaps never had Peter Pape felt in more of a rush to reach any given
spot. Yet, once there, he seemed in a greater rush to get away. Scarcely
did he pause in his brisk walk along the pavement outside the park wall
to study the details of the scene beneath the poplars which so had
interested him--three laborers dressed in jeans, each equipped with pick
or shovel, digging in the shade under direction of a dapper-dressed,
slight-built stranger. But in the sprinkling of curious bystanders, men
and women who decorated the wall like rail-birds, there was no sight of
her whom he rather had expected to find among those present.
The total absence of Jane Lauderdale, either in the bonnet and black of
East Sixty-third Street or in the modish morning frock which might have
attired her dual self, decided his next move. By passage of several
minutes, a picked-up taxi and a dollar bill, he was mounting the front
steps of the old, scaly far-East mansion. The front door standing open,
he seemed tacitly invited to enter without formality of a ring. Upon
undertaking the flight of stairs within he congratulated himself that he
was not superstitious. Every step of the weathered wood squeaked,
scrooped or screeched as if in ill-omen. Never had he climbed so
foreboding a stair-case, albeit never so determinedly.
Just why he had come did not matter. There was plenty of time, as he
told himself, to argue that out afterward. Impulse had mastered him, the
same sort of impulse that would have started him burning the trail back
home to warn a pal whose mining claim had been jumped or whose cattle
were being rustled toward the Canadian line. Actionful resentment had
moved him, as during the previous winter when he had discovered poachers
attacking the Yellowstone buffalo herd and had skied forty miles in
blizzard weather to warn the Spread-Eagle Rangers. So far as he cared to
figure in the emergency, a bent-back, ill-clad old lady--no matter who
else or what else or whyfore else she might be--had preempted that
poplar patch and owned therefore the exclusive digging rights thereto.
In the event that she herself had not instigated the present activity,
he was here to warn her.
Whom he should meet at the top of his climb was problematic. If it was
the blond-mopped man--Well, they both might be taking chances.
A moment did he pause before the door of the fourth floor front. Suppose
a maid attended his knock, for whom should he ask? "Miss Lauderdale"
might not be known in the house--mention of the name might betray an
incognito. Reminding himself, however, that a servant was the difficulty
least likely to be encountered in that tenement, he knuckled up his hand
and knocked.
His first rap did not bring response; had to be repeated more
peremptorily. He could hear low voices within. Then there was silence.
Perhaps the occupants of flats did not answer unexpected knocks. His
hand was fisted for a third when the knob turned and the door opened a
crack.
No face appeared; nothing but a voice--a woman's, hard and impatient.
"Yes. What is it? Who do you want?"
Pape was returned to the quandary of the maid possibility. Before he
could decide what to answer the suction of wind from the hall drew
around the edge of the door a fluttery bit of black skirt.
"I want you, Jane," he hazarded.
Curiosity, surprise or exasperation ruled her--perhaps a combination of
the three. Her young-white face in its old-black bonnet followed the
skirt around the door edge, high as his own and so close that her
breath, warm and sweet as a summer zephyr off a clover field, blew upon
his cheek.
"_You_?" she gasped, as before, out under the trees.
"Again," he finished for her with the briefest of bows.
She narrowed the crack and moved across it, evidently to protect the
room from his inspection. Not exactly a "welcome to our happy home" was
her next offering, although in her natural tones.
"So you followed me home last night, after all! How dared you? What is
the meaning of your espionage?"
His courage was lit by the blaze of her look.
"There's a particular meaning to it that I hope you won't find so
unwelcome. I've whizzed hereward to inform you that a gang of
grave-diggers are exercising their muscles 'neath the shade of the
sheltering poplars where you and Kicko were planting bones last
evening."
He felt gratified at the importance of his news, as shown by its effect
on her. Her lips paled as they parted. The pansy-black irises widened
within the blue of her eyes in her concentrated stare. Lines lengthened
her face more suitably to the poke of the bonnet that framed it.
"Who--_who_?" she demanded, her voice scarcely more than a rasp.
"That I didn't linger to learn. I saw them as I was polkaing past upon
my trusty steed just now. Thought you mightn't know."
She turned her head and spoke as if to some one within the room.
"Oh, what shall we do? If they've solved the cryptogram--if they
find----"
She checked other disclosures; again faced the volunteer messenger, now
frowning.
When no suggestion as to what they could do came from the person who
would seem to be the other half of her "we," Pape made cheerful
offering: "The taxi-hack that conveyed me cross-town is ticking time
down in the street. It is at your service, miss or madam, with or
without yours truly."
She gave him a startled glance, whether for his mode of address or his
offer, he could not be sure; then spent a moment in urgent thought.
"_Would_ you wait for me a few minutes?" She all at once announced her
decision.
Without need of his answer, without a verbal thank-you or suggestion of
apology, she closed the door in his face and, by way of insult to
injury, turned the key inside.
Seeing nothing better to do, Pape leisurely descended the stairs. The
steps protested stridently as before, but more intelligibly now.
"She doesn't look it," shrieked the top one. And: "She
doesn't--doesn't--_doesn't_!" repeated the several next. "But she
wouldn't let you in--in--in," the hard-tried middle ones. "There's
something queer about it all--something queer--something queer," creaked
the ground-floor last.
Within the stipulated "few" minutes Jane joined him out on the Colonial
portico of long-ago grandeur. Her complete change of costume--the dingy
black doffed for a small, smart sailor hat and a gray tweed that did
credit to her tailor as well as herself--proclaimed her something of an
artist at the alias act. Also did it quash any hope which may have been
left in him that the East Side flat-house was a place of temporary
sojourn. Evidently she kept a wardrobe there. The man who had greeted
her so tenderly last night called the shack "home." Jane was always
going off on these visits to her many woman friends--so Irene had said.
Such deductions halved his attention during the reflexes of handing her
into the taxi and instructing the driver regarding the return trip.
There pended a somewhat important question. Of this he reminded her by a
level glance, his foot ready to leave the running-board and his hand
ready to shut the door from the outside.
"I am not such an ingrate as to make you walk," she answered.
During the cross-town ride there was but one exchange between them.
"Jane"--Pape turned to her daringly, the humor twitches about his mouth
defying any serious attempt which she might make to put him in his
place--"I have to call you Jane, you see, because it is the only part of
your name of which I feel sure."
As before, at a similar suggestion, she gave him a look of startled
resentment. Then, with a faint but very sweet smile----
"Peter," she bade him, "pray proceed."
He did. "Should you mind telling me, Jane, whether what you are digging
for in the park has any connection with the theft of that something you
valued the other night?"
"I guess--I don't mind," said she, thoughtfully. "It has connection."
"Is it---- Of course refuse to answer if you wish, with the assurance
that there can be no hard feelings between us. Is it, just possibly,
buried treasure?"
"Just possibly it is."
"Central Park, if piled up with hay, would be a right sizeable stack. By
comparison, any treasure which might have been contained within that
snuff-box would be needle-sized."
The girl looked intolerant, as if at stupidity on his part.
"The treasure which I hope to unbury before those grave-diggers you saw
can unearth it for some one not entitled to it is larger than all the
park."
Even at this, Pape didn't doubt her entire sanity. She had mentioned a
cryptogram; merely was being a bit cryptic herself.
"I see," he assured her.
"I hope you don't," she assured him.
"That," he finished, "you don't trust me."
"Trust you? Why should I trust you?"
A moment her blue eyes blazed into his. He was feeling quite scorched by
her scorn. Probably he looked wilted. At any rate, her next move amazed
as much as it refreshed him.
One of her ungloved, ringless hands slipped into his that lay idle on
the leather of the seat; the fingers curled around it.
"I'd like to trust you. I don't mind admitting that." She turned so
directly toward him that again he felt her clover-field breath across
his cheek. "But you'll have to excuse me for the present. I just don't
dare."
He held her hand hard, pulsant palm to pulsant palm. But he took his
eyes off the temptation of her face; a second or so stared straight
ahead, trying to resist--trying to answer for himself the question of
her.
Who and what was she--this woman of his first, deliberate
self-selection?
"Trust--is a thing--some people have to--be taught," he said, steadily
as he could. "You will trust me--in time. There is only one--quick
way--to learn."
Having gone that far, he gave up; realized that he couldn't resist. His
eyes swept back to the temptation of her face. His two arms swept around
the temptation of her form. His face swept down until he yielded, in a
serious kiss, to the temptation of her lips.
"Learn, Jane. Learn," he insisted into the panic of emotion he felt her
to be in. "Your distrust has made it hard for me to trust you. But I
find I do. I trust you with my soul. Don't say the angry things you
might. Wait. Learn."
At her first effort to be free, he released her; leaned to his window;
knew without turning that she was leaning to hers. After they had swung
into the wide avenue that bounds the park on the west, he spoke quietly.
"I'd suggest that we land here. By looking over the wall you can see
without being seen."
Without turning, she nodded. Pape dismissed the cab and guided his
silent companion north a block. He pointed out the group of poplars to
her by their tops, claiming what he called "the wild, or wilderness eye
for location." When they reached what he considered a vantage point,
however, she drew back, reluctant to look.
"If they've solved it--if they've found it, I'm lost--lost," she said.
"Another hour last night and I'd have known. If you hadn't come
along----"
"Ain't I trying to make up for that?" he asked her.
Without meeting his demanding eyes, she set her lips; stepped close to
the V-topped wall; peered over. For a space both studied the scene of
activity.
"Won't take them long," she commented. "They're just common
laborers--Polakers, no doubt. The short, dressed-up man must be the
boss. Wonder whether I've seen him before. Wait, he's turning! His face
is strange to me. One of their hirelings, of course."
The silencer which Pape put upon certain questions exploding in his
mind--pertinent questions such as what was the nature of "it," who were
"they," why should another hour last night have made all "known"?--was
the result of a new-made decision on his own account. He would teach
this determinedly untrusting young person by demonstration; would aspire
only to such confidence as she saw fit to volunteer. The hope that
telepathy already was at work strengthened him to meet manfully her
calm, cold gaze when at last she faced him.
"You say you want to make up for----" She caught her breath and started
afresh. "I am willing to--to learn--if I can. But some women might
consider that you owed quite a bit."
"I am--" and he bent his head, the better to see her lips--"very deeply
in your debt."
In spite of her flush, she continued crisply. "Very well, I am going to
ask you for part payment."
"And I am only too willing, Jane, to pay in full."
She studied his serio-flippancy; evidently decided to value his
statement above his smile.
"I need about one hour of dusk to finish in there. I could finish
to-night if that gang could be driven off now, before they find--what I
hope to find first. Can't you--won't you try to frighten them off?"
"I? What right have I----"
One of two things was certain. Either she thought very little of the
courage of the four or very much of his frightsomeness. He did feel
indebted to her, though; appreciated the born-and-bred conventionality
which she had overcome at his request. When he compared the scathing,
stereotyped things she might have said with the fact that she had said
nothing at all--well, despite the confusions since that Zaza night,
including the man over on East Sixty-third Street, she was--she must be
the sort she at first had seemed. He shrugged off his own dubiousness
and looked as hopeful as he could.
"Once you pretended to be a detective," she encouraged him.
"Got a supper out of that."
"Last night you were again taken for one."
"And had a scrap that was lively while it lasted."
"This much you may assume. Something important--something more valuable,
really, than any treasure that could be buried in the whole length of
Manhattan Isle--something more than you possibly could imagine is at
stake. It doesn't matter what or why or how, but try to do what I ask.
Get those hired looters out!"
"Get them out?" he objected, "Girl-alive, they have a right to be
digging in there or they wouldn't dare to come in force and in daylight.
I'd need some authority to object before I could-- Will you stay right
here?"
Instead of vaulting the park wall, which at first had, seemed to be the
one possible response to her demand, Pape lifted his hat and sauntered
down the avenue as though bound nowhere in particular.