been right in saying that he had lost his mind. He was so astonished that
his arms wavered, but she was instantly on her feet and the little
automatic was again on a level with his eyes.
"Excuse me, miss, I didn't mean to drop 'em. I weren't goin' to do
nothin'. Hones' I wuzn't!" he pleaded with real contrition. "It jes'
seemed kind o' funny what ye said."
He grinned sheepishly. If she knew that her Billie, _alias_ Shaver, was
not with her husband at his father's house, she would not be dallying in
this fashion. And if the young father, who painted pictures, and left
notes in his studio in a blind faith that his wife would find them,--if
that trusting soul knew that Billie was asleep in a house all of whose
inmates had done penance behind prison bars, he would very quickly become
a man of action. The Hopper had never heard of such careless parenthood!
These people were children! His heart warmed to them in pity and
admiration, as it had to little Billie.
"I forgot to ask you whether you are armed," she remarked, with just as
much composure as though she were asking him whether he took two lumps of
sugar in his tea; and then she added, "I suppose I ought to have asked you
that in the first place."
"I gotta gun in my coat--right side," he confessed. "An' that's all I
got," he added, batting his eyes under the spell of her bewildering smile.
With her left hand she cautiously extracted his revolver and backed away
with it to the table.
"If you'd lied to me I should have killed you; do you understand?"
"Yes'm," murmured The Hopper meekly.
She had spoken as though homicide were a common incident of her life, but
a gleam of humor in the eyes she was watching vigilantly abated her
severity.
"You may sit down--there, please!"
She pointed to a much bepillowed davenport and The Hopper sank down on it,
still with his hands up. To his deepening mystification she backed to the
windows and lowered the shades, and this done she sat down with the table
between them, remarking,--
"You may put your hands down now, Mr. ----?"
He hesitated, decided that it was unwise to give any of his names; and
respecting his scruples she said with great magnanimity:--
"Of course you wouldn't want to tell me your name, so don't trouble about
that."
She sat, wholly tranquil, her arms upon the table, both hands caressing
the small automatic, while his own revolver, of different pattern and
larger caliber, lay close by. His status was now established as that of a
gentleman making a social call upon a lady who, in the pleasantest manner
imaginable and yet with undeniable resoluteness, kept a deadly weapon
pointed in the general direction of his person.
A clock on the mantel struck eleven with a low, silvery note. Muriel
waited for the last stroke and then spoke crisply and directly.
"We were speaking of that letter I left lying here on the table. You
didn't understand it, of course; you couldn't--not really. So I will
explain it to you. My husband and I married against our fathers' wishes;
both of them were opposed to it."
She waited for this to sink into his perturbed consciousness. The Hopper
frowned and leaned forward to express his sympathetic interest in this
confidential disclosure.
"My father," she resumed, "is just as stupid as my father-in-law and they
have both continued to make us just as uncomfortable as possible. The
cause of the trouble is ridiculous. There's nothing against my husband or
me, you understand; it's simply a bitter jealousy between the two men due
to the fact that they are rival collectors."
The Hopper stared blankly. The only collectors with whom he had enjoyed
any acquaintance were persons who presented bills for payment.
"They are collectors," Muriel hastened to explain, "of ceramics--precious
porcelains and that sort of thing."
"Yes'm," assented The Hopper, who hadn't the faintest notion of what she
meant.
"For years, whenever there have been important sales of these things,
which men fight for and are willing to die for--whenever there has been
something specially fine in the market, my father-in-law--he's Mr.
Talbot--and Mr. Wilton--he's my father--have bid for them. There are
auctions, you know, and people come from all over the world looking for a
chance to buy the rarest pieces. They've explored China and Japan hunting
for prizes and they are experts--men of rare taste and judgment--what you
call connoisseurs."
The Hopper nodded gravely at the unfamiliar word, convinced that not only
were Muriel and her husband quite insane, but that they had inherited the
infirmity.
"The trouble has been," Muriel continued, "that Mr. Talbot and my father
both like the same kind of thing; and when one has got something the other
wanted, of course it has added to the ill-feeling. This has been going on
for years and recently they have grown more bitter. When Roger and I ran
off and got married, that didn't help matters any; but just within a few
days something has happened to make things much worse than ever."
The Hopper's complete absorption in this novel recital was so manifest
that she put down the revolver with which she had been idling and folded
her hands.
"Thank ye, miss," mumbled The Hopper.
"Only last week," Muriel continued, "my father-in-law bought one of those
pottery treasures--a plum-blossom vase made in China hundreds of years ago
and very, very valuable. It belonged to a Philadelphia collector who died
not long ago and Mr. Talbot bought it from the executor of the estate, who
happened to be an old friend of his. Father was very angry, for he had
been led to believe that this vase was going to be offered at auction and
he'd have a chance to bid on it. And just before that father had got hold
of a jar--a perfectly wonderful piece of red Lang-Yao--that collectors
everywhere have coveted for years. This made Mr. Talbot furious at father.
My husband is at his father's now trying to make him see the folly of all
this, and I visited _my_ father to-day to try to persuade him to stop
being so foolish. You see I wanted us all to be happy for Christmas! Of
course, Christmas ought to be a time of gladness for everybody. Even
people in your--er--profession must feel that Christmas is one day in the
year when all hard feelings should be forgotten and everybody should try
to make others happy."
"I guess yer right, miss. Ut sure seems foolish fer folks t' git mad about
jugs like you says. Wuz they empty, miss?"
"Empty!" repeated Muriel wonderingly, not understanding at once that her
visitor was unaware that the "jugs" men fought over were valued as art
treasures and not for their possible contents. Then she laughed merrily,
as only the mother of Shaver could laugh.
"Oh! Of course they're _empty!_ That does seem to make it sillier,
doesn't it? But they're like famous pictures, you know, or any beautiful
work of art that only happens occasionally. Perhaps it seems odd to you
that men can be so crazy about such things, but I suppose sometimes you
have wanted things very, very much, and--oh!"
She paused, plainly confused by her tactlessness in suggesting to a member
of his profession the extremities to which one may be led by covetousness.
"Yes, miss," he remarked hastily; and he rubbed his nose with the back of
his hand, and grinned indulgently as he realized the cause of her
embarrassment. It crossed his mind that she might be playing a trick of
some kind; that her story, which seemed to him wholly fantastic and not at
all like a chronicle of the acts of veritable human beings, was merely a
device for detaining him until help arrived. But he dismissed this
immediately as unworthy of one so pleasing, so beautiful, so perfectly
qualified to be the mother of Shaver!
"Well, just before luncheon, without telling my husband where I was going,
I ran away to papa's, hoping to persuade him to end this silly feud. I
spent the afternoon there and he was very unreasonable. He feels that Mr.
Talbot wasn't fair about that Philadelphia purchase, and I gave it up and
came home. I got here a little after dark and found my husband had taken
Billie--that's our little boy--and gone. I knew, of course, that he had
gone to _his_ father's hoping to bring him round, for both our fathers are
simply crazy about Billie. But you see I never go to Mr. Talbot's and my
husband never goes--Dear me!" she broke off suddenly. "I suppose I ought
to telephone and see if Billie is all right."
The Hopper, greatly alarmed, thrust his head forward as she pondered this.
If she telephoned to her father-in-law's to ask about Billie, the jig
would be up! He drew his hand across his face and fell back with relief as
she went on, a little absently:--
"Mr. Talbot hates telephoning, and it might be that my husband is just
getting him to the point of making concessions, and I shouldn't want to
interrupt. It's so late now that of course Roger and Billie will spend the
night there. And Billie and Christmas ought to be a combination that would
soften the hardest heart! You ought to see--you just ought to see Billie!
He's the cunningest, dearest baby in the world!"
The Hopper sat pigeon-toed, beset by countless conflicting emotions. His
ingenuity was taxed to its utmost by the demands of this complex
situation. But for his returning suspicion that Muriel was leading up to
something; that she was detaining him for some purpose not yet apparent,
he would have told her of her husband's note and confessed that the adored
Billie was at that moment enjoying the reluctant hospitality of Happy Hill
Farm. He resolved to continue his policy of silence as to the young heir's
whereabouts until Muriel had shown her hand. She had not wholly abandoned
the thought of telephoning to her father-in-law's, he found, from her next
remark.
"You think it's all right, don't you? It's strange Roger didn't leave me
a note of some kind. Our cook left a week ago and there was no one here
when he left."
"I reckon as how yer kid's all right, miss," he answered consolingly.
Her voluble confidences had enthralled him, and her reference of this
matter to his judgment was enormously flattering. On the rough edges of
society where he had spent most of his life, fellow craftsmen had
frequently solicited his advice, chiefly as to the disposition of their
ill-gotten gains or regarding safe harbors of refuge, but to be taken into
counsel by the only gentlewoman he had ever met roused his self-respect,
touched a chivalry that never before had been wakened in The Hopper's
soul. She was so like a child in her guilelessness, and so brave amid her
perplexities!
"Oh, I know Roger will take beautiful care of Billie. And now," she smiled
radiantly, "you're probably wondering what I've been driving at all this
time. Maybe"--she added softly--"maybe it's providential, your turning up
here in this way!"
She uttered this happily, with a little note of triumph and another of her
smiles that seemed to illuminate the universe. The Hopper had been called
many names in his varied career, but never before had he been invested
with the attributes of an agent of Providence.
"They's things wot is an' they's things wot ain't, miss; I reckon I ain't
as bad as some. I mean to be on the square, miss."
"I believe that," she said. "I've always heard there's honor among
thieves, and"--she lowered her voice to a whisper--"it's possible I might
become one myself!"
The Hopper's eyes opened wide and he crossed and uncrossed his legs
nervously in his agitation.
"If--if"--she began slowly, bending forward with a grave, earnest look in
her eyes and clasping her fingers tightly--"if we could only get hold of
father's Lang-Yao jar and that plum-blossom vase Mr. Talbot has--if we
could only do that!"
The Hopper swallowed hard. This fearless, pretty young woman was calmly
suggesting that he commit two felonies, little knowing that his score for
the day already aggregated three--purse-snatching, the theft of an
automobile from her own door, and what might very readily be construed as
the kidnaping of her own child!
"I don't know, miss," he said feebly, calculating that the sum total of
even minimum penalties for the five crimes would outrun his natural life
and consume an eternity of reincarnations.
"Of course it wouldn't be stealing in the ordinary sense," she explained.
"What I want you to do is to play the part of what we will call a
reversible Santa Claus, who takes things away from stupid people who don't
enjoy them anyhow. And maybe if they lost these things they'd behave
themselves. I could explain afterward that it was all my fault, and of
course I wouldn't let any harm come to _you_. I'd be responsible, and of
course I'd see you safely out of it; you would have to rely on me for
that. I'm trusting _you_ and you'd have to trust _me!_"
"Oh, I'd trust ye, miss! An' ef I was to get pinched I wouldn't never
squeal on ye. We don't never blab on a pal, miss!"
He was afraid she might resent being called a "pal," but his use of the
term apparently pleased her.
"We understand each other, then. It really won't be very difficult, for
papa's place is over on the Sound and Mr. Talbot's is right next to it, so
you wouldn't have far to go."
Her utter failure to comprehend the enormity of the thing she was
proposing affected him queerly. Even among hardened criminals in the
underworld such undertakings are suggested cautiously; but Muriel was
ordering a burglary as though it were a pound of butter or a dozen eggs!
"Father keeps his most valuable glazes in a safe in the pantry," she
resumed after a moment's reflection, "but I can give you the combination.
That will make it a lot easier."
The Hopper assented, with a pontifical nod, to this sanguine view of the
matter.
"Mr. Talbot keeps his finest pieces in a cabinet built into the
bookshelves in his library. It's on the left side as you stand in the
drawing-room door, and you look for the works of Thomas Carlyle. There's a
dozen or so volumes of Carlyle, only they're not books,--not really,--but
just the backs of books painted on the steel of a safe. And if you press a
spring in the upper right-hand corner of the shelf just over these books
the whole section swings out. I suppose you've seen that sort of
hiding-place for valuables?"
"Well, not exactly, miss. But havin' a tip helps, an' ef there ain't no
soup to pour--"
"Soup?" inquired Muriel, wrinkling her pretty brows.
"That's the juice we pour into the cracks of a safe to blow out the lid
with," The Hopper elucidated. "Ut's a lot handier ef you've got the
combination. Ut usually ain't jes' layin' around."
"I should hope not!" exclaimed Muriel.
She took a sheet of paper from the leathern stationery rack and fell to
scribbling, while he furtively eyed the window and again put from him the
thought of flight.
"There! That's the combination of papa's safe." She turned her wrist and
glanced at her watch. "It's half-past eleven and you can catch a trolley
in ten minutes that will take you right past papa's house. The butler's an
old man who forgets to lock the windows half the time, and there's one in
the conservatory with a broken catch. I noticed it to-day when I was
thinking about stealing the jar myself!"
They were established on so firm a basis of mutual confidence that when he
rose and walked to the table she didn't lift her eyes from the paper on
which she was drawing a diagram of her father's house. He stood watching
her nimble fingers, fascinated by the boldness of her plan for restoring
amity between Shaver's grandfathers, and filled with admiration for her
resourcefulness.
He asked a few questions as to exits and entrances and fixed in his mind a
very accurate picture of the home of her father. She then proceeded to
enlighten him as to the ways and means of entering the home of her
father-in-law, which she sketched with equal facility.
"There's a French window--a narrow glass door--on the veranda. I think you
might get in _there!_" She made a jab with the pencil. "Of course I should
hate awfully to have you get caught! But you must have had a lot of
experience, and with all the help I'm giving you--!"
A sudden lifting of her head gave him the full benefit of her eyes and he
averted his gaze reverently.
"There's always a chance o' bein' nabbed, miss," he suggested with
feeling.
Shaver's mother wielded the same hypnotic power, highly intensified, that
he had felt in Shaver. He knew that he was going to attempt what she
asked; that he was committed to the project of robbing two houses merely
to please a pretty young woman who invited his coöperation at the point of
a revolver!
"Papa's always a sound sleeper," she was saying. "When I was a little girl
a burglar went all through our house and carried off his clothes and he
never knew it until the next morning. But you'll have to be careful at Mr.
Talbot's, for he suffers horribly from insomnia."
"They got any o' them fancy burglar alarms?" asked The Hopper as he
concluded his examination of her sketches.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you about that!" she cried contritely. "There's
nothing of the kind at Mr. Talbot's, but at papa's there's a switch in
the living-room, right back of a bust--a white marble thing on a pedestal.
You turn it off _there_. Half the time papa forgets to switch it on before
he goes to bed. And another thing--be careful about stumbling over that
bearskin rug in the hall. People are always sticking their feet into its
jaws."
"I'll look out for ut, miss."
Burglar alarms and the jaws of wild beasts were not inviting hazards. The
programme she outlined so light-heartedly was full of complexities. It was
almost pathetic that any one could so cheerfully and irresponsibly suggest
the perpetration of a crime. The terms she used in describing the loot he
was to filch were much stranger to him than Chinese, but it was fairly
clear that at the Talbot house he was to steal a blue-and-white thing and
at the Wilton's a red one. The form and size of these articles she
illustrated with graceful gestures.
"If I thought you were likely to make a mistake I'd--I'd go with you!" she
declared.
"Oh, no, miss; ye couldn't do that! I guess I can do ut fer ye. Ut's jes'
a _leetle_ ticklish. I reckon ef yer pa wuz to nab me ut'd go hard with
me."
"I wouldn't let him be hard on you," she replied earnestly. "And now I
haven't said anything about a--a--about what we will call a _reward_ for
bringing me these porcelains. I shall expect to pay you; I couldn't think
of taking up your time, you know, for nothing!"
"Lor', miss, I couldn't take nothin' at all fer doin' ut! Ye see ut wuz
sort of accidental our meetin', and besides, I ain't no
housebreaker--not, as ye may say, reg'ler. I'll be glad to do ut fer ye,
miss, an' ye can rely on me doin' my best fer ye. Ye've treated me right,
miss, an' I ain't a-goin' t' fergit ut!"
The Hopper spoke with feeling. Shaver's mother had, albeit at the pistol
point, confided her most intimate domestic affairs to him. He realized,
without finding just these words for it, that she had in effect decorated
him with the symbol of her order of knighthood and he had every
honorable--or dishonorable!--intention of proving himself worthy of her
confidence.
"If ye please, miss," he said, pointing toward his confiscated revolver.
"Certainly; you may take it. But of course you won't kill anybody?"
"No, miss; only I'm sort o' lonesome without ut when I'm on a job."
"And you do understand," she said, following him to the door and noting in
the distance the headlight of an approaching trolley, "that I'm only doing
this in the hope that good may come of it. It isn't really criminal, you
know; if you succeed, it may mean the happiest Christmas of my life!"
"Yes, miss. I won't come back till mornin', but don't you worry none. We
gotta play safe, miss, an' ef I land th' jugs I'll find cover till I kin
deliver 'em safe."
"Thank you; oh, thank you ever so much! And good luck!"
She put out her hand; he held it gingerly for a moment in his rough
fingers and ran for the car.
VII
The Hopper, in his rôle of the Reversible Santa Claus, dropped off the car
at the crossing Muriel had carefully described, waited for the car to
vanish, and warily entered the Wilton estate through a gate set in the
stone wall. The clouds of the early evening had passed and the stars
marched through the heavens resplendently, proclaiming peace on earth and
good-will toward men. They were almost oppressively brilliant, seen
through the clear, cold atmosphere, and as The Hopper slipped from one big
tree to another on his tangential course to the house, he fortified his
courage by muttering, "They's things wot is an' things wot
ain't!"--finding much comfort and stimulus in the phrase.
Arriving at the conservatory in due course, he found that Muriel's
averments as to the vulnerability of that corner of her father's house
were correct in every particular. He entered with ease, sniffed the warm,
moist air, and, leaving the door slightly ajar, sought the pantry, lowered
the shades, and, helping himself to a candle from a silver candelabrum,
readily found the safe hidden away in one of the cupboards. He was
surprised to find himself more nervous with the combination in his hand
than on memorable occasions in the old days when he had broken into
country postoffices and assaulted safes by force. In his haste he twice
failed to give the proper turns, but the third time the knob caught, and
in a moment the door swung open disclosing shelves filled with vases,
bottles, bowls, and plates in bewildering variety. A chest of silver
appealed to him distractingly as a much more tangible asset than the
pottery, and he dizzily contemplated a jewel-case containing a diamond
necklace with a pearl pendant. The moment was a critical one in The
Hopper's eventful career. This dazzling prize was his for the taking, and
he knew the operator of a fence in Chicago who would dispose of the
necklace and make him a fair return. But visions of Muriel, the beautiful,
the confiding, and of her little Shaver asleep on Humpy's bed, rose before
him. He steeled his heart against temptation, drew his candle along the
shelf and scrutinized the glazes. There could be no mistaking the red
Lang-Yao whose brilliant tints kindled in the candle-glow. He lifted it
tenderly, verifying the various points of Muriel's description, set it
down on the floor and locked the safe.
He was retracing his steps toward the conservatory and had reached the
main hall when the creaking of the stairsteps brought him up with a start.
Some one was descending, slowly and cautiously. For a second time and with
grateful appreciation of Muriel's forethought, he carefully avoided the
ferocious jaws of the bear, noiselessly continued on to the conservatory,
crept through the door, closed it, and then, crouching on the steps,
awaited developments. The caution exercised by the person descending the
stairway was not that of a householder who has been roused from slumber
by a disquieting noise. The Hopper was keenly interested in this fact.
With his face against the glass he watched the actions of a tall, elderly
man with a short, grayish beard, who wore a golf-cap pulled low on his
head--points noted by The Hopper in the flashes of an electric lamp with
which the gentleman was guiding himself. His face was clearly the original
of a photograph The Hopper had seen on the table at Muriel's cottage--Mr.
Wilton, Muriel's father, The Hopper surmised; but just why the owner of
the establishment should be prowling about in this fashion taxed his
speculative powers to the utmost. Warned by steps on the cement floor of
the conservatory, he left the door in haste and flattened himself against
the wall of the house some distance away and again awaited developments.