AN INSTANCE OF EPIC NERVE.
Travers Gladwin scaled the great staircase three steps at a time.
Stumbling against a divan he threw himself across it and lay for a few
moments stretched on his back with every muscle relaxed. He felt as if
he had been buffeted by mighty tempests and overwhelmed by cataclysms.
His head throbbed with fever and he felt a sickening emptiness
inside.
How was he going to avert the catastrophe of an elopement and at the
same time save himself and that charming young girl from a shrieking
scandal? There didn't seem any coherent solution. If Whitney Barnes
had only remained with him--at least to lend him moral courage!
Where had the confounded ass gone? Why didn't he return? A fine friend
in need was he!
There was no time to unravel his perplexities and lay any definite
plan. He must act, taking his cue as it was presented to him by the
racing events of the moment.
He got up from the divan and rushed downstairs. He cleared the last
landing, with a momentum that slid him across the polished floor of
the hallway after the manner of small boys who slide on ice. He fairly
coasted into the room, but his precipitate intrusion did not in the
least disturb his visitor.
During Gladwin's brief absence that supernaturally composed individual
had cut the Rembrandt from the frame and laid it on one of the sheets
of wrapping paper he had spread out on the chest. He had also cut out
a Manet, a Corot and a Vegas--all small canvases--and hung them over
the back of a chair.
As the owner of these masterpieces skidded into the room the thief was
taking down a Meissonier, frame and all, fondling it tenderly and
feasting his eyes on the superb wealth of detail and the rich crimson
and scarlet pigments in the tiny oblong within the heavy gilt
mounting.
"Ah, Officer, you are back," he said easily, as Gladwin staggered
against a table and gripped it for support. The methodical despoiler
did not so much as turn his head as he placed the Meissonier on the
chest and deftly cut out the canvas. His back was still squared to the
flabbergasted young man as he continued:
"Come, get busy, Officer, if you are going to help me. Take down that
picture over there on the right."
He pointed, and went on wrapping up the immensely valuable plunder.
Gladwin got up on a chair and reached for one of the least noteworthy
of his collection.
"No, no--not that one," said the thief, sharply,--"the one above," an
old Dutch painting that had cost a round $10,000.
The young man took it down gingerly, biting his lips and cursing
inwardly.
"That's it," he was rewarded, "bring it here."
Gladwin managed to cross the room with an appearance of stolid
indifference and as he handed the picture to the "collector" he said
haltingly:
"I take it these pictures is worth a lot of money, sorr."
"You're right, I take it," said the other with a laugh, beginning at
once to slash out the canvas.
"Yes, sorr, I mean, _you take it_!" said Gladwin viciously. The
wrathful emphasis missed its mark. The "collector" was humming to
himself and working with masterful deftness.
"Now that woman's head to the left," he commanded as soon as he had
disposed of the Dutch masterpiece. "And be quick about it. You move as
if you were in a trance."
Gladwin saw that he was to take down his only Rubens, wherefore he
deliberately reached for another painting, "The Blue Boy."
"No, not that thing!" exclaimed the "collector."
"Why, what's the matter with this one, sorr," snapped back Gladwin.
"It's a fake," said the other, contemptuously. "I paid two old frauds
five hundred pounds for that thing in London a couple of years
ago--it's absolutely worthless from the standpoint of art."
Gladwin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement and slid from the
chair to the floor.
How had this astounding person come by the secret of "The Blue Boy?"
There was a positive awe in Gladwin's gaze as he sized up the big
man--again from his shining patent leather shoes to his piercing eyes
and broad, intellectual forehead. He fairly jumped when the command
was repeated to take down the Rubens and hand it to him. As he handed
it over he stammered:
"I don't think much of this one, sorr."
"You don't?" said the other, in pitying disgust. "Well, it's a
Rubens--worth $40,000 if it's worth a cent."
"Yez don't tell me," Gladwin managed to articulate.
Indicating the full length portrait of the ancestral Gladwin, he
added, "Who is that old fellow over there, sorr?"
"Kindly don't refer to the subject of that portrait as fellow," the
other caught him up. "That is my great-grandfather, painted by Gilbert
Charles Stuart more than a century ago."
"You monumental liar," was on Gladwin's lips. He managed to stifle the
outburst and ask:
"Are yez goin' to take all these pictures away with yez to-night?"
"Oh, no, not all of them," was the careless reply. "Only the best
ones."
"How unspeakably kind of him!" thought the unregarded victim.
"If yez wanted the others," he said with fine sarcasm, "I could pack
'em up afther ye're gone an' sind thim to yez."
"That might be a good idea, Officer--I'll think it over," the pilferer
thanked him.
Then he went on with his task of taking the back out of the mounting
of the Rubens, showing that he did not trust his knife with such an
ancient and priceless canvas.
Gladwin was thinking up another ironic opening when the door bell
rang. He jumped and cried:
"If that's the lady, sorr, I'll go and let her in."
"No, you wait here," the other objected. "She might be frightened at
the sight of a policeman--you stay here. I'll let her in myself," and
he strode swiftly out into the hallway.