Chapter III: Part 3

I had brought a bunch of skeleton keys and a set of miniature housebreaking tools. I didn't require them, for I found that the little safe had one of the earliest and simplest forms of a lock. Part of my apprenticeship had been spent in learning how to open such locks merely by listening to the fall of the tumblers as one turned the knob. All that was required was patience. It was a little after ten. Supposing that Roland waited for me at the Thespis club only half an hour, I had two hours in which to work. It was painfully exciting. I had my first glimpse of the point of view of a housebreaker.

The safe door swung open at last. I looked inside with a beating heart. It contained but little; a diary, which I left for the moment; a wallet containing a sum of money, a bundle of papers enclosed by an elastic band. I went over the papers hastily; they consisted of insurance policies, theatrical contracts and business letters of old dates which had nothing whatever to do with my case.

However, there was still a little locked drawer to investigate. After a number of tries I fixed a key that would open it. The first thing I saw was a number of pieces of men's jewelry that Roland doubtless used for stage properties. The second thing I saw was a beautiful little antique box made of some sweet-smelling wood which contained several notes in Irma's handwriting and some withered flowers. The third and last thing was a seal leather case such as jewellers display. Upon pressing the spring the cover flew back and I saw lying on a bed of white velvet a string of wonderful dusky pearls.

For many moments I gazed at them in stupid astonishment. God knows what I expected to find. Certainly not that. What did it mean? It looked just the same as the string Miss Hamerton had showed me. I counted them. There were sixty-seven pearls. Was it another of Roberts' replicas? Perhaps Roland had bought it and stowed it away for sentimental reasons. That seemed pretty far-fetched.

I carried it to the electric light. There I could see the blue cast like the last gleam of light in the twilight sky. The bits of stone had a wonderful fire, life. An instinct told me they were genuine pearls. But if they were it must be _the_ string, for Mount had said there were no others. I remembered that Miss Hamerton had told me she had made a little scratch on the clasp and I eagerly looked for it. There was a kind of mark there. At this point I shook my head and gave up speculating.

I slipped the case in my pocket, locked the drawer and locked the safe again. I switched off the lights and let myself quietly out of the flat.

I decided to go to the Thespis club as if nothing had happened. I was not at all anxious to meet Roland until I knew where I stood, but I reflected that if I failed him it might rouse his suspicions and precipitate a catastrophe before I was ready for it. There was not much danger that he would look in his safe that night if I kept him late. His housekeeper would tell him I had been there, but I could explain that. In the morning I would have him watched.

Roland was at the club when I arrived. "I've been at your rooms," I said instantly. "I had an idea I was to wait for you there. But I got thinking it over and decided I had made a mistake."

"You've got a memory like a colander," he said good-naturedly. "Better do something about it."

We sat down to our supper. Roland was in for him, extraordinary spirits. All the while we ate, drank and joked I was wondering in the back of my head what kind of a change would come over his grim, dark, laughing face if he knew what I had in my pocket.

9

Few would envy me my task next morning. I called up Miss Hamerton merely saying that I would come to the hotel half an hour later. Sadie came in, but having kept from her what had already happened, I could not tell her this. I was not obliged to tell her all the developments of the case, of course, but she had a moral right to my confidence, and so I felt guilty and wretched every way. Sadie I knew would be terribly cut up by the way things were tending, and I had not the heart to face it, with what I had to go through later.

Miss Hamerton received me with great bright eyes that looked out of her white face like stars at dawn. The instant she caught sight of my face she said: "You have news?"

I nodded.

"Good or bad?" she whispered breathlessly.

There was no use beating around the bush. "Bad," I said bluntly.

A hand went to her breast. "Tell me--quickly."

I drew out the case. She gave no sign of recognising it. I snapped it open. "Is this the lost necklace?" I asked.

With a little cry, she seized upon it, examined the pearls, breathed upon them, looked at the clasp. "Yes! Yes!" she exclaimed, joy struggling in her face with an underlying terror. "Where did you get it?"

"Out of a safe in Mr. Quarles' flat."

She looked at me stricken stupid.

I had to repeat the words.

"Oh!--you would not deceive me?" she whispered.

"I wish to God it were not true!" I cried.

"In his room--his room!" she muttered. Suddenly she sank down in a crumpled white heap on the floor.

I gathered her up in my arms and laid her on the sofa. I called Mrs. Bleecker, who came running, accompanied by Irma's maid. A senseless scene of confusion followed. The foolish women roused half the hotel with their outcries. I myself, carried the beautiful, inanimate girl into her bedroom. For me it was holy ground. It was almost as bare as a convent cell. It pleased me to find that she instinctively rejected luxury on retiring to her last stronghold. I laid her on her bed--the pillow was no whiter than the cheek it bore, and returned to the outer room to await the issue. All this time, I must tell you, Mrs. Bleecker was relieving her feelings by abusing me. From the first I had apprehended hatred in that lady.

I waited a few minutes, feeling very unnecessary, and wondering if I would not do better to return to my office, when Mrs. Bleecker came back, and with a very ill grace said that Miss Hamerton wanted to know if it was convenient for me to wait a little while until she was able to see me, and would I please say whatever was necessary to people who called. I almost wept upon receiving this message. I sent back word that I would stay all day if she wanted me. Mrs. Bleecker glared at me, almost beside herself with defeated curiosity. I had the necklace safe in my pocket and she was without a clue to what had happened.

So there I was established as Miss Hamerton's representative. Everybody took orders from me, and wondered who I was. The word had spread like wildfire that the famous star had been taken ill, and the telephone rang continuously. I finally told the hotel people what to say, and ordered it disconnected. I had a couple of boys stationed in the corridor to keep people from the door. I sent for two doctors, not that Irma was in any need of medical attention, but I wished to have the support of a professional bulletin. I told them what I thought necessary. They were discreet men.

Miss Hamerton had no close relatives, and I could not see the sense of sending for any others. I forbade Mrs. Bleecker to telegraph them. In a case of this kind solitude is the best, the most merciful treatment for the sufferer. As it was I pitied the poor girl having to endure the officious ministrations of her inquisitive servants, but I did not feel justified in interfering there.

Only two men were allowed past the guard in the corridor, Mr. Maurice Metz, the famous theatrical manager, and Mr. Alfred Mount. The former stormed about the room like a wilful child. His pocketbook was hard hit. I was firm. He could not see Miss Hamerton, he must be satisfied with my report. Miss Hamerton had suffered a nervous breakdown--with that phrase we guarded her piteous secret, and it would be out of the question for her to act for weeks to come. It was her wish that the company be paid off and disbanded.

"Who the devil are you?" he demanded.

"I speak for Miss Hamerton," I said with a shrug. I remembered how humbly I had besieged this man's door with my play a few weeks since, and now I was turning _him_ down.

To satisfy him I had Mrs. Bleecker in. He demanded of her who I was.

"I don't know," she snapped.

Nevertheless she had to bear me out. Miss Hamerton had sent word that the company was to be paid off with two weeks' salary, and the amount charged to her. I referred Mr. Metz to the doctors. They impressed him with medical phrases he didn't understand. He finally departed talking to himself and waving his hands.

Mr. Mount, of course, was very different. He came in all suave sympathy, anxious to uphold me in every way. I had wished to see him for a special purpose. I couldn't allow the possibility of a ghastly mistake being made.

I produced the fateful little seal leather box, and snapped it open again. "Are these the lost pearls?" I asked.

The man had wonderful self-control. No muscle of his face changed. Only his black eyes flamed up. He took the case quietly, but those eyes pounced on the pearls like their prey, and wolfed them one by one. He returned the case to me. A curious smile wreathed the corners of his voluptuous mouth.

"Those are the pearls," he said quietly.

"You are _sure_?"

"Sure?" He spread out his hands. "There are no other such pearls in the world."

I returned the case to my pocket.

"Where did you find them?" he asked.

"At present I am not free to say how they were recovered," I replied. "No doubt Miss Hamerton will give it out later."

"I think I understand," he said with a compassionate air. "I suppose there will be no prosecution."

"I do not know," I said blandly.

"Maybe it would be better never to speak of the matter to her?" he said softly.

I shrugged. I wasn't going to let him get any change out of me.

"Anyhow it's a triumph for you," he said graciously. "Allow me to congratulate you."

Was there a faint ring of irony in his words? In either case I never felt less triumphant. What booted it to return her jewels if I had broken her heart? I bowed my acknowledgment.

As he left he said: "Come and see me sometimes, though the case is closed. You are too valuable a man for me to lose sight of."

I bowed again, mutely registering a resolve to ask him a thumping figure if he ever did require my services.

Meanwhile I had the reporters to deal with. I have a strong fellow-feeling for the boys. As a class they are the most human lot of fellows I know. They do not make the rotten conditions of their business. But they certainly are the devil to deal with when they get you on the defensive. They seemed to spread through that hotel like quicksilver, bribing the bell-boys, the maids, even the waiter who brought up my dinner. If we had not been on the eleventh story I should have expected to find them peeping in the windows.

I did not dare see them myself. In my anomalous position they would have made a monkey of me. In my mind's eye I could see the story of the mysterious stranger who claimed to represent Miss Hamerton, etc., etc. I had to take every precaution, too, to keep them from that fool of a Mrs. Bleecker. I carefully drilled the doctors in what they should say, and then sent them down to their fate. They came off better than I expected. Of course the lurid tales did appear next day, but they were away beside the mark. Nothing approaching the truth was ever published.

A little before five everybody had gone, and I was alone in the sitting-room gazing out of the window and indulging in gloomy enough thoughts, when I heard the door behind me open. I turned with a sigh, expecting fresh complaints and demands from the old harridan. But there was Irma trying to smile at me. She was wearing a white negligée affair that made her look like a fragile lily. She walked with a firm step, but her face shocked me. It looked dead. The eyes open, were infinitely more ghastly than when I had laid her down with them closed. Mrs. Bleecker and the maid followed, buzzing around her. She seemed to have reached the limits of her patience with them.

"Let me be!" she said as sharply as I ever heard her speak. "I am perfectly well able to walk and to speak. Please go back to the bedroom. I have business to discuss with Mr. Enderby."

They retired, bearing me no love in their hearts.

"I must go away, quite by myself," she said, speaking at random. "Can you help me find a place, some place where nobody knows me? If I do not get away from these people they will drive me mad!"

"I will find you a place," I said.

"Perhaps I'd better not go alone," she said. "If I could only find the right kind of person. I'm so terribly alone. That nice girl you brought into the company, Miss Farrell, do you think she would go with me?"

There was something in this more painful than I can convey. "She'd jump at the chance," I said brusquely.

"You have been so good to me," she said.

"You can say that!" I said, astonished.

"Oh, I've not quite taken leave of my senses," she said bitterly. "If I had not known the truth, it would have been much worse."

This struck me as extraordinary generosity in a woman who loved.

"I--I have something else to ask of you," she said in the piteous beseeching way that made me want to cast myself at her feet.

"Anything," I murmured.

"Mr. Quarles is coming here at five. Please see him and tell him--Oh! tell him anything you like, anything that will keep him from ever trying to see me again."

I nodded. "You had better lose no time in getting out of this," I suggested. "Can you be ready by to-morrow morning?"

"I will start packing now," she said. "It will give me something to do."

How well I understood the hideous blankness that faced her.

"Don't let those women bother you," I said. "Refer them to me."

"They mean well," she said.

"I will answer for Miss Farrell," I said. "She'll be here at nine to-morrow."

She started to thank me again, but I would not let her go on. I really could not stand it.

"Very well, you will see," she said with a smile, and left me.

Shortly afterwards Roland Quarles came striding down the hall. I opened the door to him. He was astonished to find a strange man in the room. He did not recognise me without my Faxon makeup.

"Enderby," I said in response to his enquiring glance. "You met me here once before."

"What's this I hear downstairs about Miss Hamerton being sick?" he demanded anxiously.

"She has had a nervous breakdown," I said.

He was not deceived. "What does that mean?" he demanded. "She was quite well yesterday."

I shrugged.

"Can I see her?"

I shook my head.

"I will speak to Mrs. Bleecker, then."

"You can't see her, either."

"Who are you?" he demanded, as so many others had done.

I gave him my card, hoping that he would take the hint, and save me further explanations.

Not a bit of it. "Investigator? What does that mean? Detective?"

"Precisely."

"What's it all about?" he cried irritably. "Why are you looking at me like a policeman?"

"Look at me close," I said.

He stared at me angry and puzzled. "I have seen you before--more than once----" Then his face changed. "Faxon!" he cried. "Is it Faxon?"

"The same," I said.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

This parade of innocence began to exasperate me. "Do you need to ask?" I said.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake don't play with words," he burst out. "Tell me what's the matter and be done with it."

"Miss Hamerton's pearl necklace was stolen from the theatre two months ago. She engaged me to recover it."

"Her pearls! Stolen!" he ejaculated, amazed. I could not have asked to see it better done.

"Do you still want me to go on?" I asked.

"Oh, drop the mystery!" he cried. "You fellows fatten on mystery!"

"As Faxon in the theatre I was perfectly sincere in my friendship for you," I went on. "I liked you. But little by little against my will I was forced to believe that you were the thief."

This touched him, but not quite in the way I expected. "Me? The _thief_?" he gasped--and suddenly burst into harsh laughter. "How did you arrive at that?"

I was no longer inclined to spare him. "In the first place you provoked a bet with Miss Hamerton which induced her to wear the real pearls on the night they were stolen."

His face turned grave. "True," he said. "I forgot that. What else?"

"On April sixth you deposited forty thousand dollars in cash in the Second National Bank."

He paled. "Anything more?"

"Do you care to explain where you got it?" I asked.

"Not to you," he said proudly. "Go on with your story."

"My first clue was in the cryptic letter found on the stage."

"I remember. You couldn't translate it."

"But I did."

"What's it got to do with me?"

"Nothing. But I found a second letter written in the same cryptogram and about the same matters in your pocket."

"That's a lie!" he said.

"If you want to see it it's at my office."

"If you did find such a paper in my pocket it was planted there."

"I should be glad to believe you were not the man," I said mildly.

"Spare me your assurances," he said scornfully.

He was silent for a while, thinking over what I had told him. Slowly horror grew in his face. "But--but this is only a devilish combination of circumstances," he stammered. "You haven't proved anything."

"The pearls have been recovered," I said.

"Where?" he shot at me.

"In your safe."

His legs failed him suddenly. He half fell in a chair, staring at me witlessly. "Oh, my God!" he muttered huskily. "Those, _hers_!"

I believe I smiled.

"And you--you have told her this story?" he faltered.

"That's what I was engaged for."

"Oh, my God!" he reiterated blankly. "What shall I do!"

His agony was genuine enough. In spite of myself I was moved by it. "Better go," I said. "The matter will be hushed up, of course."

"Hushed up!" he cried. "Never!"

This theatrical pretence of innocence provoked me afresh. "Oh, get out!" I said. "And be thankful you're getting off so easily!"

He paid no attention to me. "I must see her," he muttered.

"What do you expect to gain by bluffing now?" I said impatiently. "You must see that the game is up."

"I will not leave here without seeing her," he said with a kind of dull obstinacy.

"You have me at a disadvantage," I said bitterly. "You know I can't have you thrown out without causing a scandal."

He scarcely seemed to hear me. "I will go when she sends me," he muttered.

"All right, my patience is equal to yours," I said.

So there we sat, he with his ghastly white face turned towards the door into the inner rooms, moistening his lips from time to time, I looking out of the window.

To make matters worse, Mrs. Bleecker came clucking in. She, knowing nothing, fell on Quarles' neck, so to speak, and told him all her troubles with sidelong shots at me.

He paid little attention to her vapouring, only repeating in his ghastly, blank way: "I must see Irma."

"Of course!" said Mrs. Bleecker. "I'll tell her you're here."

"Mrs. Bleecker, as a friend, I advise you not to interfere," I said sternly.

She went out, flouncing her skirts at me.

To my surprise, Miss Hamerton presently came in. I cannot say what led her to do it, perhaps she was hoping against hope that he could defend himself. There was no sign of weakness in her now. Her face was as composed as marble. Mrs. Bleecker did not return.

"Irma," he cried, "send this fellow away."

I made haste to go, but she kept me. "Mr. Enderby must stay," she said. "He is your friend," she added.

He made a gesture of despair. A hideous silence descended on the three of us.

"You asked to see me," she said at last.

"Irma, do you believe this of me?" he cried like a soul out of Hell.

"I am willing to hear anything you have to say," she murmured.

"What does evidence matter?" he cried. "Do you believe me capable of such a thing?"

"Am I not forced to?" she said very low.

His head dropped. I never saw such hopeless wretchedness in a man's face. I felt like an executioner.

"Speak up!" I said sharply. "We are anxious to believe in you."

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said in a stifled voice. "I doubt if I could clear myself. Anyway I shan't try. It--it is killed!"

He bent a look of fathomless reproach on her. "Good-bye, Irma," he said quietly. "I'm glad I was the means of your getting your jewels back. I never knew they had been stolen."

This to me was the purest exhibition of cheek I had ever met with. I was hard put to it to keep my hands off the man. If she had not been there! He went. And when I turned around Irma had gone back into the next room. I was angry through and through, and yet--and yet----! A nagging little doubt teased me.

So ended, as I thought, the case of the blue pearls. Little did I suspect what was on the way.

10

The following day was a blue one for me. Deprived of all the exciting activities of the past few weeks I was at a loss what to do with myself. Moreover, I was dissatisfied with the result of those activities. I had won out, so to speak, but my client had not. For her only tragic unhappiness had come of it. Meanwhile that little inner voice continued to whisper that I had _not_ got to the bottom of the case. I could not put that young fellow's amazed and despairing face out of my mind. It did not fit into the theory of his guilt. On top of it all I had had a quarrel with Sadie the night before.

About noon my uncomfortable thoughts were broken into by the entrance of Sadie herself with storm signals flying, to wit: a pair of flashing blue eyes and a red flag hoisted in either cheek. I had supposed that she was already on the way to Amityville with Miss Hamerton, where they were to stay at a sanatorium conducted by a doctor friend of mine.

Before I could speak she exploded like a bomb in my office. "Ben, you've been a fool!"

"Eh?" I said, blinking and looking precious like one, I expect.

She repeated it with amplifications.

"So you said last night," I remarked.

"But I hadn't seen her then."

"Aren't you going to the country?" I asked, hoping to create a diversion.

"Yes, at two o'clock. But I had to see you first."

"To tell me what you thought of me?"

"To beg you to do something."

"What is there to do?"

"You have made a hideous mistake! Ruined both their lives!"

I may have had my own doubts, but it wouldn't have been human to confess them in the face of an attack like this. "Easy, there!" I said sulkily. "Have you discovered any new evidence?"

"Oh, evidence!" she cried scornfully. "I know he _couldn't_ have stolen her pearls, and in your heart you know it, too."

"Sorry," I said sarcastically, "but in conducting my business I have to consult my head before my heart."

"I know it!" she said bitterly. "That's why you've been a fool!"

"Well, next time I'll consult a clairvoyant."

"Oh, don't try to be clever! It's too dreadful! If you had seen her! She will never act again. And he!--he will likely kill himself, if he has not already done it."

This struck a chill to my breast. Sadie had an intuitive sense that I could not afford to despise. At the same time having been called a fool, I couldn't back down.

"I don't see what better he can do," I said hardily.

"You can say that!" she said aghast. "You don't mean it!"

A very real jealousy made me hot. That handsome young blackguard had all the women with him. "Are you in love with him, too?" I asked sarcastically.

It was a mistake. She had me there. "You're doing your best to make me," she retorted.

"What are you abusing _me_ for?" I complained. "I did no more than what I was engaged to do."

"She was distracted!" said Sadie. "She couldn't think for herself. She depended on you."

"Well, I did the best I could for her," I said doggedly. "You seem to think that I enjoyed doing it. There is a perfect case against him."

"There is not!" she said quickly. "Your own evidence that you set such a store by is full of holes!"

I invited her to point them out.

"One of your points against him is that he lately came into possession of a lot of money, presumably the proceeds of the theft. Yet you found the pearls on him, too. One fact contradicts the other."

"How do I know what other activities he's been engaged in?"

"You do not believe that."

"I beg your pardon," I said stiffly. "Permit me to know my own beliefs."

"If it wasn't true it wouldn't anger you."

"I am not angry." I smiled to prove it.

"How can I talk to you if you act like such a child!" cried Sadie.

"Never mind my actions. Stick to his."

"You know very well that he could not have carried out several successful robberies without a lot of experience. His whole open life gives the lie to that. Have we not gone into every part of it?"

"I know I found the pearls on him," I said doggedly. "They could not very well have been planted in a locked drawer in his own safe. He did not even claim that they were."

She ignored this. "And that cryptogram," she went on, "I mean the first one. It didn't say so in so many words, but the inference was unmistakable that Miss Hamerton's pearls had been disposed of, and that part of the proceeds was waiting for the thief. How do you account for that?"

I did not try to account for it. I pooh-poohed it. "He convicted himself," I insisted. "We invited him, we begged him to explain. He could not."

"Would not, you mean."

"What's the difference?"

She favoured me with an extraordinary glance of scorn. "And you set up to understand human nature!"

"Well, let me have your understanding of it," I said sarcastically.

"He was in love with her," said Sadie. "I suppose you don't question that."

"No, strange as it seems, I believe he was in love with her."

"That makes goose eggs of all your fine reasoning! Reason all night and it wouldn't make sense. He might have stolen anybody else's pearls but never hers. It was she who wronged love in believing that he could. To find out that she suspected him killed his love dead. Losing that, what did he care about his reputation? If he does away with himself it will be not because he was accused of a theft, but because she killed his trust in her, and he doesn't care to live without it."

I listened to all this with an affected smile of superiority, but it reached me. Every word that the unhappy Quarles had uttered fitted in with Sadie's theory.

"Suppose some one accused you of stealing Miss Hamerton's purse to buy me a present," she went on, artfully changing her tone. "I would make a tremendous virtuous fuss, of course, but in my heart I couldn't love you any less, though you might not have the sense to know it. But if they said you had stolen my purse to buy me something, how I would laugh! It's too silly for words."

I was rapidly weakening, but it was damnably hard to own up.

"The same with this case. You think I'm in love with Quarles because I defend him. That's just like a man! The truth is, what hurts me is to see you deceive yourself, and then look fatuous about it."

She was now wielding a double-edged sword. "But if the woman who loves him was deceived, surely I have some excuse," I said meekly.

"That's the weakness of her character--or the penalty of her position, whichever you like. She is so surrounded by flattery and meanness, it has taught her to suspect even her lover."

"But how did the pearls get in his safe?" I cried, begging for mercy.

"I don't know. It's a mystery. I'm only trying to show you that you haven't solved the mystery yet." Once more she changed her tone, the witch! "I'm so keen to have you make a great success of the case, Ben. And to help a little."

That completed the rout of my forces. "Sadie, darling," I cried. "In my heart I feel the same as you. I would have given in at once if you hadn't begun by slapping my face!"

There was a little private interlude here. Boss and operative were lost sight of.

"Now let's get to work!" I said.

"I hope it's not too late!" she said sadly.

11

I hastened down to Quarles' rooms near Gramercy Square. I found his old housekeeper in tears. My glimpse beyond her showed me that the place was partly dismantled. I found that she was half-heartedly packing. She did not know me without my Faxon makeup, and refused any information. I suspected that she had been forbidden to speak. However, by adroit and sympathetic questioning, and because the poor old soul was bursting with her troubles, it finally came out with a rush. She thought her master had lost his mind, he had acted so strangely, but such was her awe of him, she had not dared question his commands.

All night long he had paced his bedroom and sitting-room, pausing only to burn papers and cherished mementos in the grate. When she had risen from her bed and timidly enquired if he were ill, he had harshly ordered her back to her room. There she had lain trembling until morning, grieving because she thought she had offended him.

He had left his breakfast untasted. Afterwards he had called her to him, and in a voice and manner totally unlike his own, had announced that he was going away, and had given her instructions that terrified her. His furniture was to be sent to an auctioneer's under an assumed name, and was to be put up on the first sale day. She was to keep what it brought in lieu of wages. His clothes were to be sent to the Salvation Army. His jewelry and knick-knacks she might sell or keep as she chose. On second thoughts he had written out his instructions in the form of a letter to her in case any of her acts should be questioned. He had then called a taxi from the stable he usually patronised, and had departed without any baggage. This last fact alarmed her more than all the rest.

All this read fatally clear. I was careful, however, to make light of it to the grief-stricken old woman. I assumed an authority which she willingly deferred to. I ordered her to put the rooms in order, and not to make any other move until she heard from me again. She was vastly cheered. What she dwelt on most tragically was the necessity of sending all his beautiful suits to the ragged crew who profited by the Salvation Army's benefactions.

I found out from the taxi stable that Quarles had been driven to the Pennsylvania station. I got hold of his driver, a man frequently employed by him. He had remarked his strange appearance this morning. On reaching the station Quarles had asked the porter who opened the cab door what time the next train left for Baltimore. On learning that he had but three minutes to catch it, he had thrust a bill in the chauffeur's hand, and rushed away. This had been at ten o'clock; it was now nearly one. I had the same driver carry me to the station, where I telephoned Sadie, snatched a bite to eat, and caught the next express South.

It was not the most cheerful journey I have taken. I had four hours to think over the tragic possibilities of my mistake, and it was small comfort to reflect that it was a natural mistake. Quarles, with his three hours' start had only too much time to put his purpose into effect. My only hope was that he might instinctively be led to wait until night. Darkness has an invincible attraction for desperate souls.

Arriving in Baltimore I had the whole wide city to choose from, and not a clue. No chance of anybody's having marked him in the crowd that left the train there. However, I happened to know of a certain select hotel invariably patronised by the elite of the profession, and I went there on a chance. The clerk I saw did not know Mr. Quarles, but upon my describing him he said that such a young man had been in the hotel during the afternoon. He was not registered there. He recollected him because he had stopped at the desk to ask an unusual question. Did the clerk know where there was a taxidermist in town? Together they had looked up an address in the business directory, and the young man had departed. He had not returned.

I hastened to the taxidermist's wondering greatly what could have been Quarles' errand in such a place. Casting back in my mind, I remembered having seen several little cases of mounted butterflies among his treasures. There was something pathetically innocent in the wide open trail the young fellow was leaving behind him. This surely was no experienced criminal.

The store was kept by a benignant old man who somehow seemed to belong with the stuffed birds and pet dogs that lined the walls of his little place. I also saw many little frames of impaled beetles and butterflies such as I had seen in Quarles' rooms. The entire place had an old world look.

The old fellow was a kindly, garrulous soul who required not the slightest pressure to set him talking. Quarles, it appeared, had made quite an impression on him. "A handsome young fellow!" he said, "and such a gentleman." Quarles, he said, had been attracted into his shop by the butterflies, and they had fallen into talk about butterfly hunting, of which sport both were devotees. Quarles had finally purchased three beautiful specimens of something with a terrible Latin name.

As he was about to leave, Quarles had remarked that he was on his way out of town for a jaunt, and he had neglected to provide himself with any cyanide. It seems that cyanide is what they use to kill the insects. In all innocence the old man had furnished it, and his customer with one more question had departed. Where was there a second hand clothes dealer?

Cyanide of potassium, deadliest of poisons! I hastened to the second hand store with a sickness at the heart.

They remembered Quarles here, too. The story he had told here was that he wanted some worn old clothes to wear to a masquerade. He had been furnished with a complete outfit, hat, suit, shirt, socks and shoes. While things were being wrapped up, he had mentioned idly that he was a stranger in town, and he had a couple of hours to kill. He wanted to know of a trolley line that would take him out in the country. The storekeeper had recommended the Annapolis short line as the pleasantest ride on a mild evening.

This had been about four, and it was now a little after six. I had caught up on him a little, I found that the cars left for Annapolis every half hour. By good luck the car which had left at four returned while I was waiting in the station. I interviewed the conductor. He remembered Quarles. His attention had been attracted to him because, although he held a ticket to Annapolis, he had suddenly risen and left the car at the Severn river bridge station. I took the six-thirty car for Annapolis. The conductor told me that the station at the bridge was used principally by summer residents who had their motor boats meet them here. At this season, early in May, there was but little business there. It was almost dark when I got off, a balmy, Spring evening. It was a lonely-looking spot. There was a little settlement up a hill, with a path from the station, but I guessed that if my man had been attracted by the loneliness of the situation, he would not go that way. I looked about. Crossing the track and climbing down to a deserted strip of beach beside the wide river, I found with my flashlight that a solitary person had gone that way before me. He was wearing a shapely shoe. This would surely be he. The tracks drew me along beside the river towards its mouth, which was in view. On the other side, farther down, sparkled the lights of the Naval Academy.

Rounding a point, in a little cove hidden from the world, I found the remains of a fire on the sand. The embers were still glowing. Poking among them I found scraps of scorched felt and woollen cloth and bits of broken glass. Here obviously, Quarles had changed his clothes, and had destroyed the expensive garments he wore to the scene. Evidently he was counting on the fact that there is little trouble taken to establish the identity of a poorly dressed suicide. The glass was no doubt what remained of the case of butterflies he had bought. Some coins in the ashes added their mute testimony of his desperate intention.

I hurried on. The footprints recommenced beyond the fire, their shape somewhat altered, for he had changed his shoes with the rest. His fine shoes he must have filled with stones and thrown in the river for I found no remains of leather in the fire. I hoped that with the time he had spent doing all this he would now be but a short distance ahead of me. Unfortunately half a minute--half of that, would be enough for him to accomplish his purpose.

I came to the main road from Baltimore to Annapolis which crosses the Severn by another long bridge. Automobiles crossed it at intervals. Since the footprints were not resumed in the sand across the road it was clear he had turned into it one way or the other. The river seemed likeliest. I started out on the bridge, dreading most of all to hear a splash just out of my reach. It was now quite dark.

Out in the middle of the bridge close to the draw I came upon a motionless, slouching figure with battered hat pulled down over the face. Notwithstanding the shapeless clothes the tall slenderness was unmistakable. He was leaning with his elbows on the guard rail regarding something that he held in one hand. The object caught a spark from the red light of the draw overhead. It was the vial of cyanide. My heart bounded with relief. I was in time--but barely.

"Quarles," I said softly.

He straightened up with a terrified hissing intake of the breath. I turned the flashlight on myself to save lengthy explanations.

"_You!_" he said after a moment, in a low bitter tone. "God! must you dog me here!"

"I am your friend," I said.

He laughed. "Friend!" he said. "That's good!" Then his tone changed. "You'd better be on your way," he said threateningly. "I'm in no mood for fooling."

"I've been trying to overtake you since noon," I said, merely to be saying something. An instinct told me there was nothing like a little conversation to let down a desperate man.

"Why, in God's name?" he demanded. "What good am I to you now?"

"I no longer believe you guilty."

"I don't give a damn what you believe."

"I want you to help me find the thief."

"It's nothing to me who took the pearls. She's got 'em back again. You'd better go on. I won't stand for any interference."

"You won't do it now," I said confidently.

"Won't I!"

He made a move to uncork the little vial. I struck his wrist and it fell to the ground. We searched for it frantically in the dark. I had the light, and I saw it first. I put my heel on it, and ground the fragile, deadly thing into the planks of the bridge floor. He cursed me.

"There is still the water," I said.

"I'm a swimmer," he said sullenly. "I couldn't go down. I meant to climb on the rail and take the stuff, so it would look like drowning. But there are plenty of ways."

"Be a man and _live_!" I said.

He laughed again. "There's nothing in that cant for a man who's sick of the game."

"Live for her sake," I hazarded. "She loves you."

"You've mistaken your job, old man," he said with grim amusement. "You ought to be a playwright. Write her a play. She's a great actress. Yah! I'm sick of it! Love! There's no such thing. Not in women! This is real, anyhow."

I had got him talking. Something told me the crisis was past. I took a new tack.

"She certainly has treated you badly," I said. "I don't wonder you're sore. I know just how you feel."

He turned on me with clenched fist and a furious command to be silent. "It's no damned policeman's business what I feel!"

"Revenge is sweet," I murmured.

It brought him up all standing. In the dark I heard him breathing quickly.

"Do you want to crawl away like a cur and die in a hole?" I asked.

"Why in Hell can't you let me alone?" he said fretfully. "What do you want to drag me back for?"

I saw I had him going now. "Make her suffer," I urged. "The most perfect revenge in the world is yours if you want it, because she loves you."

"What are you getting at?"

"Prove your innocence to her."

"I doubt if I could," he said weakly. "I shouldn't know how to begin. I seem to be caught in a net."

"I am offering to help you."

"What's your game?" he demanded suspiciously.

"I've made a serious mistake," I said. "I've got my professional reputation to think of. Besides, I'm only human. I don't want to have your untimely end on my conscience."

"It needn't be. I'm my own master."

I decided to risk all on one throw. I laid a hand on his shoulder. "Look here," I said frankly. "You and I are not strangers. We took to each other from the first, though I happened to be wearing a disguise. I have suffered like the devil all day. Forgive me my part in yesterday's affair, and be my friend. Friendship isn't such a common thing in spite of all the talk about it. I should think you'd recognise the real thing when it's offered to you."

"Rubbish!" he grumbled. "I don't believe in friendship. I never had a real friend." But he didn't shake my hand off.

"Try me."

"Oh well, you've spoiled it for to-night, anyway. I'll listen to what you've got to say. Where can we go? I haven't a cent. And nothing but these filthy rags."

"That's a trifle," I said joyfully. "I'll find a place."

12

We proceeded on across the bridge into the town of Annapolis. First I took Roland to a lunch room and commanded him to eat. I had a time getting him to swallow the first mouthful, but that once down, he developed a ravenous appetite. I suppose he had not eaten in thirty hours. It was comical to see how, with a stomachful of hot food inside him, a zest in living renewed itself. The more his resolution weakened, the louder he inveighed against life. But he had a sense of humour. He suddenly became conscious of the absurdity of his attitude, and we laughed together. From that moment he was safe, and he was mine. There is nothing to cement a friendship like laughter.

Afterwards I got a room in an obscure hotel. Roland sat down on the edge of the bed, and proceeded to give me his version of the matters that perplexed me so. In the middle of a sentence he fell over and slept like a dead man. I stole out and telegraphed Sadie at Amityville that I had him safe and sound. Returning, I sat by the hour watching him. My heart was soft for the human creature I had snatched from the brink. He looked very boyish and appealing as he lay sleeping. He seemed years younger than I. I cannot tell you how glad I was to think that there was warmth in the young body, and sentience under the shut lids.

Shortly after midnight he awoke as suddenly and thoroughly as he had fallen asleep. Then he wanted to talk. He was bursting with talk. I swallowed my yawns and set myself to listen. I let him talk in his own way, no questions. For a long time I listened to what I already knew, the tale of his jealous, hopeless passion for Irma. Sometimes he had suspected that she inclined towards him, but it seemed preposterous to ask her to give up her profession for him. On the other hand he knew he could not endure sharing his wife with the public. He had decided to go away without speaking--and then the miraculous legacy had dropped from the skies.

"Tell me all about that," I commanded.

"I promised not to tell," he said reluctantly.

"This is a matter of life and death. Why was a promise exacted?"

"To avoid publicity."

"There will be none," I said. "I pledge myself to guard the secret as well as you could."

"I destroyed the letter I got, with the others," he said. "But I read it so often I can give it to you almost word for word."

"Too bad it was destroyed!" I said.

"Oh, you can verify the contents by the Amsterdam Trust Company who paid me the money."

"But if you have a clear case what did you run for?" I asked amazed.

"You will never understand," he said with a wry smile. "I seemed to die at that moment when I saw that Irma believed I was capable of robbing her. What did I care about my case?"

Hearing that, my opinion of Sadie's perspicacity went up marvellously. "Go on," I said.

I took down the letter from his dictation. It was written, he said, on expensive note-paper, without address, crest or seal, in a large and somewhat old-fashioned feminine hand.

"DEAR MR. QUARLES:

Although you have never heard of me I think of you as my dearest friend. I have followed your career from the time of your first appearance on the stage. I am one of those unfortunates who, condemned to live, are cut off from life. I watch life pass from behind my iron screen. It is you who, all unconscious, have supplied me with a dream to cheat my emptiness. I have warmed my cold hands at your fire.

"Now they tell me my release is at hand. I wish to show my gratitude to you in the only way that is possible to me. An artist's career is difficult and uncertain. I want to remove a little of the uncertainty from yours.

"I must avoid giving rise to silly gossip which would grieve my relatives. To avoid the publicity of probate I am making secret arrangements beforehand. An old friend will carry out my wishes for me when I am gone.

"The doctors give me a week longer. Upon my death this letter will be mailed to you. You will then hear from the Amsterdam Trust Company that a sum of money awaits your order. You will never know my name. But if you should let even the bare facts become known, some busybody would eventually connect them with my name, and unhappy gossip result. Therefore I ask you as a man of honour to keep the whole transaction locked in your breast."

"That is all," said Roland. "It was signed: 'Your grateful friend.'"

"Did you look in the recent obituaries for a clue?" I asked.

"Yes," he confessed. "There was none."

"Go ahead with your story. We'll return to the letter later."

"At first I thought it was a hoax," he resumed, "but sure enough, in two or three days I received a letter from the Trust Company asking me to call. I saw the President. He said that the sum of forty thousand dollars had been deposited with them to be turned over to me in cash. He said it had been bequeathed to me by one who desired to remain unknown. He said he did not know himself who my benefactor was. He had dealt with a lawyer. He said that there was but one condition attached to the legacy, namely that I give my word never to speak of the matter. I had met this Mr. Ambler the president, and he had seen me act, so there was no difficulty about identifying me. I left his office carrying the money, and carried it to my own bank to deposit. That is all there is to that."

"Good!" I said. "The Amsterdam Trust Company is a solid institution, and the president a well-known man. They will still be there if we need them."

"It mustn't get in the newspapers," he said nervously.

"Trust me for that. I'm not going to make you break your word. Now about the bet you made with Miss Hamerton."

He winced at the sound of her name. "There's no more in that than appears on the surface," he said irritably. "I couldn't have told the paste from the genuine. I wanted to give her a box of gloves. But she never claimed them, and I forgot about it."

"The cryptogram you have already explained," said I.

"I did not know there was such a paper in my pocket."

"Hold on," he cried suddenly, "about that bet. I have just remembered that I once had a talk about precious stones, pearls, with a man in the company."

"Milbourne?"

"Sure! How did you know?"

"I believe he took them. But it's going to be a job to prove it."

"It was just a trifling conversation," Roland resumed, thinking hard. "I can't remember exactly. He marked the beauty and oddity of Ir--of Miss Hamerton's necklace. I think he said he hoped that she did not risk wearing real pearls on the stage. That may have been to find out if I knew they were artificial. I told him she did not wear the real ones. There was more talk. He seemed to know about pearls, and I believe I asked him how to tell the real from the artificial. I never thought of it then, but looking back I see that it may have been that talk which gave me the idea of making a bet with Ir--with her. Oh, I have been a fool!"

"This is all interesting," I said, "but it doesn't give us anything solid to go on. Now for the main thing. How did the real pearls get in your safe?"

Roland struck his forehead. "I have been everybody's dupe!" he groaned.

"It's a part we all have to play occasionally," I said soothingly. "Go ahead."