Chapter VII: Part 7

"That was what they were after!" she cried. "I had to write it, of course, because she held a pistol to my head. But I was sure you would understand. If I had thought for a moment that you would let it interfere with the case I would have let her shoot."

I shuddered. One did not know whether to praise or blame such game folly. However, I registered a little vow privately not to let Sadie's enthusiasm lead her into danger again. Meanwhile I hugged her right there with sister looking on. She promptly slapped my face--but not so hard as usual.

I took the sisters to that same little sanatorium at Amityville, Long Island, where Sadie had been before with Miss Hamerton. The doctor-proprietor was an old friend of mine. A single warning word to him, and I knew they would be as safe as I could guard them myself.

Notwithstanding Sadie's violent objections (she said she had been lured to Amityville under false pretenses), I motored right back to town. I did intend to lay off for a day or two but I had to put my office in order first. It was about eight o'clock when I got back to Manhattan. I put up my car and had an excellent breakfast. I thought if I was going to be plugged it might as well be on a full stomach. I did not deceive myself as to the risk I ran in visiting my office, but it was absolutely necessary for me to secure certain papers and destroy others.

I took a taxi down and ordered the man to wait. I cleaned everything up in case the place should be entered during my absence. What papers I meant to take with me I deposited in a satchel, and took the precaution of strapping it to my wrist. Then I locked up and returned down stairs. I found that my chauffeur had moved away from the doorway a little, consequently I was exposed for a moment or two on the sidewalk.

It was sufficient. I heard that deadly little "ping" and simultaneously a sound like a slap on bare flesh. I did not know I was hit, but I fell down. Then a pain like the searing of a hot iron passed through my shoulder.

"I'm shot!" I cried involuntarily.

I realised that I was not seriously hurt. However, I had no mind to get up and make myself a target for more. I made believe to close my eyes, and lay still. My mind worked with a strange clearness. I saw the woman across the street. She was poorly dressed with a shawl over her head, but I recognised the stature and the curves of my antagonist of the night before.

The usual gaping crowd gathered. Nobody had heard the shot but me. While all eyes were directed on me the woman coolly walked away across the park, tossing the gun into the middle of a bush as she went. I said nothing. It was no part of my game to have her arrested.

I suspected that the openmouthed crowd surrounding me was full of spies, so I made out to be worse hurt than I was, groaning and writhing a little. The wound helped me out by bleeding profusely. One youth with an evil face made to take my satchel as if to relieve me. The strap frustrated his humane purpose. He was afraid to proceed further under that circle of eyes.

Somebody had telephoned for an ambulance, and presently it came clanging up with a fresh crowd in its train. The white clad surgeon bent over me.

"I am not badly hurt," I whispered to him, "but please take me away quickly out of this mob."

I was carried to Bellevue Hospital where I engaged a private room. My wound, a slight affair, was cauterised--I had in mind the possibility of poison, and dressed. Afterwards I enjoyed my first sleep in twenty-four hours. I had left instructions that no one was to be admitted to see me, and that no information regarding my condition was to be given out.

By the next day I was quite myself again. I had already seen the reporters, and by the exercise of persuasion and diplomacy had managed to keep the affair from being unduly exploited in the papers. The police, good fellows, were hard at work on the case, but they could hardly be expected to accomplish anything without the evidence which I did not intend to let them have. The doctors who hate to see any one escape out of their hands so easily did their best to persuade me to stop a while in the hospital and "rest" but how could I rest with so much to do outside?

Having decided that I must leave the hospital, it was a matter of considerable concern to me how this was to be effected without exposing myself to a fresh danger. I had received a disguised telephone message from English to the effect that they were waiting for me. I decided to confide in the visiting surgeon, an understanding man.

"Sir," I said, "I am a private detective. I have a gang of crooks almost ready to be rounded up. Knowing it, they are desperate. That is the explanation of the attack on me. Now the chances are that the instant I step outside the hospital I'll stop another bullet. What would you do if you were me?"

"Call on the police," he said, of course.

"I can't do that without exploding my charges prematurely."

As I said, he was an understanding man. He didn't bother me with a lot of questions, but took the case as he found it. After thinking a while, he said:

"How would it do if I had you transferred in an ambulance to my private clinic on ---- Street. You see you'll be loaded on out of sight in the hospital yard here, and you will be driven right inside my place to be unloaded. You lie flat in the ambulance and no one can see inside without climbing on the step, and a surgeon sits there."

"Fine!" I said. "You're a man of resource."

He gave the order, and it was so done. Arrived at his private hospital I dressed myself in street clothes, borrowing a coat to replace my bloody one, and calling a taxi had myself carried to Oscar Nilson's shop.

23

I have mentioned, I believe, that Oscar Nilson was a wig-maker, the best in New York. His little shop on a quiet side street North of Madison Square is quaint enough to be the setting of an old-fashioned play. The walls are lined with old cuts of historical personages and famous Thespians as historical personages, all with particular attention to their hirsute features. On the counter stands a row of forms, each bearing some extraordinary kind of scalp. Oscar deals in make-up as a side line and the air bears the intoxicating odour of grease paint and cold cream.

Oscar's business is chiefly with the theatrical profession, but many an old beau and fading belle have found out that he knows more about restoring youth than the more fashionable beautifiers. Oscar loves his business. His knowledge, historical, artistic, scientific, is immense--but all in terms of human hair. He can tell you offhand how Napoleon wore his in 1803 or any other year of his career, and will make you an exact sketch of the toupee ordered by the Duke of Wellington when his fell out.

Oscar himself, strangely enough, or perhaps naturally, has next to no hair of his own, merely a little mousy fringe above the ears. He has a jolly rubicund face and is held in high affection and esteem by his customers. He flatters me by taking a particular interest in my custom. I am the only one of his clients in the criminal line.

He led me into one of the little cubicles where the trying-on takes place, and stood off to observe me from between narrowed lids.

"What will it be now?" he said. "I was sorry to read of your accident."

"A mere trifle. What would you suggest? It must stand sunlight and shadow, and be something I can keep up for a while if necessary."

"Let me think! Your head and face offer a good starting-point for so many creations!"

"In other words the Lord left me unfinished," I said, teasingly.

"Not at all! I meant that in your case there were no awkward malformations to be overcome."

From which it will be seen that Oscar is a diplomat.

"What would you say to a South American gentleman?" he asked. "New York is full of them in the summer."

I shook my head. "No time to bone up a Spanish accent."

"An officer of a liner on shore leave."

"On shore they look like anybody else."

"Well then, how about an Armenian fruit peddler?"

"That would restrict my activities too much. I must be able to go anywhere."

"I see you have an idea of your own," he said. "What is it?"

"We've used several rough-neck disguises," I said. "Suppose you fix me up as a swell this time. I have a mind to stop at a fashionable hotel."

"The very thing!" cried Oscar. "A curled toupee, slightly silvered; a wash for the skin to give an interesting pallour; a little touching up about the eyes for an expression of world weariness; waxed moustache, monocle----"

"Easy! The burning-glass would give me dead away. You have to be born to that."

"Well you don't have to have the monocle," said Oscar regretfully. "But it's very aristocratic. The costume must be exquisitely appointed--it will be expensive----"

"Expense is no object in this case," I said.

He set to work and an hour later I left his shop a changed man. In the event of such a contingency I had already secured from Mr. Dunsany the name of his tailor, and I now left him a rush order for several suits. Meanwhile I bought the best I could ready made. I went to the most fashionable outfitters and invested heavily. Until they displayed their stock here, I had no idea that men might indulge such extravagant tastes. All this was to be sent to the Hotel Rotterdam where I engaged an expensive suite. I believed that it would be the last place in town where the gang would think of looking for me.

I wished to persuade them that I had been scared off. After having the cryptogram receipt photographed, I returned it in a plain envelope to Jumbo's flat. By telephone I instructed Keenan to discharge all the operatives, close the Forty-second street office and advertise it for rent. This place had outlived its usefulness. Jumbo, Foxy, _et al._, had proved themselves more than a match for such operatives as could be hired.

This done, I went out to Amityville to spend a day with Sadie. I had promised to lay off for a little, and anyway I had to wait until my new clothes were done before being seen around town. After the mad excitement of the past few days, we spent a heavenly peaceful interlude under the oaks of my friend's big place.

While I was out there an interesting report from my sole remaining operative arrived.

REPORT OF J. M. #10

_June 27th._

As soon as I heard that you and S. F. were all right I went to bed as you instructed. It seemed to me that I had scarcely fallen asleep when I was awakened by my landlady at my door to say that a man wanted to see me. It was no more than daybreak then. Hard upon her knock Jumbo entered the room. I had barely time to pull on my false hair and fix it. Hereafter I shall have to sleep in it.

Jumbo was in a state of no little excitement. He gave me his version of what had happened. Lorina, having apparently just escaped from her room, had called him up about half an hour before. I am not sure but what Jumbo came to me because she had suggested a suspicion of me. However, I think it more likely that he just wanted moral support. He was badly frightened. Jumbo for all his bluff, is not a strong character. He is dependent both on Foxy and on the woman, and now seems disposed to lean on me. If he was suspicious my sleepiness and bad-temper upon being awakened must have reassured him.

I dressed and we went right up to the Lexington avenue house. Being Sunday, I had the day to myself. Mrs. Mansfield had gone out leaving word that we were to wait until she came in or telephoned. The maids believed that she had gone to consult the police. These two were full of highly-coloured accounts of the supposed robbery of the night before. The hulking black man, however, was silent and sullen. He knew. I wonder what you did to him. I don't think I ever saw a more repulsive human creature--or one more powerful.

Foxy arrived shortly after we did. I am now admitted to terms of the closest equality by these two. The understanding is that each knows enough to the discredit of the others to ensure faithfulness all around. We all chafed at the enforced inaction, but dared not go against Lorina's instructions. She is the boss. The other two half expected the police to descend on the house momentarily.

About ten o'clock Mrs. Mansfield returned in a taxi-cab. This taxi, by the way, is her property and the driver is one of the gang. The woman was handsomely dressed without disguise of any kind.

We had a conference in the sitting-room up-stairs. Mrs. Mansfield gave us some further details of the previous night. As soon as she succeeded in breaking out of her room after telephoning to Jumbo and Foxy she hastened up to S. F.'s house, also to your place, both of which addresses she knew. She said that she was disguised, so she must have some place outside where she changes her clothes. She found she was too late at both places. You had carried off S. F. in your automobile.

Mrs. Mansfield then went down to Fortieth street. From the park opposite, she watched your office for four hours. You got inside too quick for her, she said, but when you came out she spotted you. Her eyes gleamed like a devil's as she said it. Fancy how my heart went down.

She had then changed her clothes and come straight home. She couldn't tell how seriously she had wounded you. A general prayer went around the table that it would be your finish. She said we should hear presently.

She seems to have an unlimited number of men subject to her orders. While she waited for you at your office she had sent for several, and posted them near. They mixed in the crowd that surrounded you when you fell. One of them had been instructed to make away with your satchel. Another was to follow the ambulance to the hospital. A third was to recover her gun after the excitement was over and return it to her.

The first of these, an evil-looking young blackguard, came in while we talked. He reported no success. The satchel was strapped to your wrist, he said, and when he started to unfasten it the crowd began to murmur. He said that you had been shot in the shoulder, and had been carried to Bellevue. He gave it as his opinion that you were not as badly hurt as you made out. This cheered me greatly. Bitter disappointment was expressed around the table.

Later another of Lorina's men reported by telephone that he had learned through an orderly in the hospital that you had suffered only a slight flesh wound, and would be able to leave the hospital next day. On hearing this she gave her orders to have every exit from the hospital watched. Instructions were to shoot to kill. If it can be found out in advance what time you are going to leave, she means to be on hand herself.

As soon as I could get out without exciting suspicion, I sent you a warning by telephone.

J. M.

#11

_June 28th._

To-day I had to go to my work as usual, so I didn't see any of the gang until night. In our present state of excitement and uncertainty we have abandoned the Turtle Bay as a meeting place. I found my partners in anything but a good humour.

In the first place they had learned through the friendly orderly that in spite of all their measures, you had been safely spirited out of the hospital in an ambulance. It was learned by way of the ambulance driver that you had been carried to Dr. ----'s private hospital. It was then too late to do anything. By the time they got there, you had left, and the town had swallowed you up.

The entire strength of the gang, excepting me, has been devoted all day to picking up your trail, so far without any success. They have watched all your usual haunts, your flat, your restaurant, S. F.'s home and your office on Fortieth street. Foxy brought in word that the International Bureau on Forty-Second street had been closed, and all the operatives discharged. He trailed Keenan, the supposed manager to the office of the ---- Railway, where he was re-engaged for his old position.

Jumbo came in with the information that the piece of evidence which they regarded as of such importance had been returned to him. I don't know what this was. Lorina, examining it, said that it appeared to have the remains of paste on the corners, and that you had probably had it photographed.

Foxy gave it as his opinion that you had been scared off. "We know there is no one backing him," said he. "He has no financial resources. He can't keep it up."

Lorina would have none of it. Her eyes become incandescent with hatred when your name is mentioned now. "Don't you believe it," she snarled. "That man will never give up. I have seen his face and I know! He's a bull-dog. He will never rest until he has pulled us down, unless we stop him with a bullet."

Jumbo became panicky. His suggestion was for the gang to scatter and lie low for the time-being.

Lorina scorned him. She proceeded to point out to us all just where you stood. She appeared to know as well as you do. Her insight is uncanny. You have no case, she said, except possibly against Foxy. You are too conceited to be satisfied with one. You will not strike until you have a chance of landing the whole gang.

"But how about the kidnapping?" asked Jumbo.

"The police would have been here before this if Enderby wanted to proceed on that," she said. "Why, he watched me walk away after I shot him; and never said a word. No, I tell you he hasn't got the evidence yet, and we're safe until he gets it. He's aiming to make a grand haul of the whole gang together, and get his name in the headlines."

The others were considerably impressed. They asked for instructions.

"We've got to go on just as we are," said Lorina. "Foxy must keep the room on Forty-Ninth street, Jumbo the flat on One Hundredth street, and I stay here. Let everybody go about freely, and meet here as usual, that is, all except English. English mustn't come here again. Enderby isn't on to him yet. Enderby, if I have the right dope, will lie low for a few days and then thinking that we are lulled to security, will quietly start to work again. That's why we must keep our present hang-outs. He's got to come to one of them to pick us up, and then we'll have _him_."

This woman is a wonder in her way. Fortunately, there is one fact that spoils all her reasoning--your humble servant.

As we broke up she said a significant thing. "Lord! the conceit of the man, thinking he can break up the gang! Why if he did land all of us it wouldn't make any difference. He hasn't got within a mile of the real boss!"

Being excited she spoke more recklessly than usual. So it appears that our work perhaps is just beginning!

J. M.

24

On Wednesday morning I motored to town and took up my residence in the Hotel Rotterdam. I hardly knew myself amidst such grandeur. For several days the situation remained in _status quo_. I learned from English's daily reports that Lorina and her gang were still waiting for my first move. I, for my part, was determined to make them move first.

Only one of his reports gave me anything to do. I quote from it:

"Among all the men who come and go in this den of crooks there is one that has particularly excited my interest and compassion. It is an extremely good-looking boy of eighteen or thereabouts whom I know simply as Blondy. He seems so like a normal boy, jolly, frank and mischievous, that I keep wondering how he fell into Lorina's clutches. He reminds me of my boy Eddie at his age. Lorina has him thoroughly intimidated. She is more overbearing with him than the others. He seems not to be trusted very far, but is used as errand boy and spy. His extreme good looks and ingenuous air, make him valuable to them I fancy.

"Blondy's instinct seems to have led him to make friends with me, though as far as he knows I am no better than the rest. At any rate we have had a few talks together and feel quite intimate. Without any suggestion from me, he has kept this from the others. It is quite touching.

"I would like very much to get the boy out of this before the grand catastrophe. I'm sure he's worth saving. Naturally in my position I can't undertake any missionary work. Could you with safety arrange for some one to get hold of the boy? He tells me that he lives at the Adelphi Association House, No. ---- West 125th street. Apparently it is a semi-philanthropic club or boarding-house for young men. He passes there by the name of Ralph Manly."

I was in almost as unfavorable a position for undertaking "missionary work" as Mr. Dunsany. After thinking the matter over I decided to again ask the help of the famous surgeon who had befriended me in the hospital. I called at his office for the ostensible purpose of consulting him as to my health. When I was alone with him in his consulting room I made myself known. Being a human kind of man, notwithstanding his eminence, he was interested in the dramatic and mysterious elements of my story. Far from abusing me for taking up his valuable time, he expressed himself as very willing to help save the boy.

We consulted a directory of charities in his office, and he found that he was acquainted with several men on the board of managers of the Adelphi Association. This offered an opening. He promised to proceed with the greatest caution, and promised to write to me at my hotel if he had any luck.

Three days later I heard from him as follows:

"I took my friend on the Adelphi board partly into my confidence, and between him and the doctor employed by the association to safeguard the health of the boys, the matter was easily arranged. The doctor's regular weekly visit to the institution fell yesterday. He saw the boy, and making believe to be struck by something in his appearance, put him through an examination. He hinted to the boy that he was in rather a bad way, and instructed him to report to my office for advice this morning.

"The young fellow showed up in a very sober state of mind. He is really as sound as a dollar, but for the present I am keeping him anxious without being too explicit. He appears to be quite as attractive a youth as your friend said. I am very much interested, but am not yet prepared to make up my mind about him. He is coming to-morrow at two-thirty. If it is convenient for you to be here, I will arrange a meeting as if by accident."

Needless to say, I was at the doctor's office at the time specified. I found the blonde boy already waiting among other patients in the outer office. It was easy to recognise him from Mr. Dunsany's description. He was better than merely good-looking; he had nice eyes. He was dressed a little too showily as is natural to a boy of that age when he is allowed to consult his own taste exclusively.

There happened to be a vacant chair beside him and I took it. Presently I addressed some friendly commonplace to him. He responded naturally. Evidently he was accustomed to having people like him. Soon we were talking away like old friends. I was more and more taken with him. Primarily, it was his good looks, of course, the universal safe-conduct, but in addition to that I was strongly affected by a quality of wistfulness in the boy's glance, of which he himself was quite unconscious. Surely, I said to myself, a boy of his age had no business to be carrying around a secret sorrow. The doctor, issuing from his consulting room, saw us hobnobbing together, and allowed us to wait until everybody else had been attended to.

He had me into the consulting room first. "Well, what do you think of him?" he asked.

"I am charmed," I said. "There are no two words about it."

"So was I," he said, "but I didn't want to raise your hopes too high in my letter."

After discussing a little what we would do with him, we had the boy in.

"Ralph, my friend, Mr. Boardman, wished to be regularly introduced," said the doctor.

Boardman was the name I had taken in my present disguise.

The boy shook hands nicely, he was neither too bashful, nor too brash, and some facetious remarks were made all around.

"I tell Boardman," said the doctor, "that if he had done his duty by his country and had had half a dozen sons like you he would have no time to be worrying about his appendix now."

"Has your father got half a dozen like you?" I asked.

An expression of pain ran across the boy's face. "I have no brothers," he said. "My father is dead."

"Well, since you're a fatherless son, and I'm a sonless father--with an appendix, perhaps we can cheer each other up a little," I said. "Will you have dinner with me at my hotel to-night?"

Boys never see anything suspicious in sudden overtures of friendship. Ralph accepted, blushing with pleasure.

The dinner was a great success. I don't know which of us was the better entertained. My young friend's prattle, ingenuous, boastful, lightheaded, renewed my own boyhood. It was rather painful though to see one naturally so frank, obliged to pull up when he found himself approaching dangerous ground. Then he would glance at me to see if I had noticed anything.

I had him several times after that. It was a risk, of course, but one must take risks. At the same time I was pretty sure from Mr. Dunsany's reports that Ralph never talked of his outside affairs to any of the gang. At least he never told Mr. Dunsany anything about his dinners with Mr. Boardman at the Rotterdam, and he was friendly with him.

The dénouement of this incident really belongs a little later in my story, but for the sake of continuity I will give it here.

I soon saw that I would have no difficulty in winning Ralph's full confidence. His gratitude for friendliness was very affecting. I could see that he often wished to bare his painful secret. I let him take his own time about it.

It was the doctor's offering him a position in a friend's office that brought matters to a head. Ralph refused it with a painful air. He could give no reason for it to the doctor. Afterwards when I had him alone with me I saw that it was coming.

"That certainly was decent of Dr. ----," he said diffidently. "I don't know why he's so good to me."

"Oh, you're not a bad sort of boy," I said lightly.

"You, too," he said shyly. "Especially you. I--I never had a man friend before."

I smiled encouragingly.

"I suppose you wonder why I couldn't take the position?" he went on.

"That's your affair."

"But I want to tell you. I--I wouldn't be allowed to take it. I am not a free agent."

"Perhaps we could help you to be one," I suggested.

"I don't know. Maybe you wouldn't want to have anything more to do with me. Oh, there's a lot I want to tell you!" he cried imploringly. "But I don't know how you'll take it."

"Try me."

"Would you--would you kick me out," he said, agitated and breathless, "if you knew that my dad had committed a forgery, if you knew that he had died in prison?"

"Why, no," I said calmly, "I suspect you were not responsible for that."

A sigh of relief escaped him. "You are kind!--But that's only the beginning," he went on. "But I feel I can tell you now. I'm in an awful hole. I suppose you will think I'm a weak character for not trying to get out of it more, and I am weak, but I didn't know what to do!"

"Tell me all about it," I said.

And he did; all about Lorina and Foxy and Jumbo as he knew them. They didn't trust him far. He knew nothing of their actual operations, but his honest young heart told him they were crooks. Lorina held him under a spell of terror. He had not up to this time been able to conceive of the idea of escaping her. There are those who would blame the boy, I have no doubt, but I am not one of them. I have seen too often that a mind which may afterwards become strong and self-reliant is at Ralph's age fatally subservient to older minds. Those who would blame him should remember that until he met the doctor and me he had not a disinterested friend in the world. They must grant that he instantly reacted to kindness and decent feelings.

"How did you first get into this mess?" I asked, strongly curious.

"I'd have to tell you my whole life to explain that."

"Fire away."

I will give you Ralph's story somewhat abridged.

"My mother died when I was a baby," he said. "I do not remember her. My father and I lived alone with servants who were always changing. We did not seem to catch on with people. I mean, we didn't seem to have friends like everybody had. I thought this was strange when I was little. My father was quite an old man, but we got along pretty well. He was what they called a handwriting expert. He wrote books about handwriting. Lawyers consulted him, and he gave evidence at trials."

"What was his name?" I asked.

"David Andrus."

Now I remembered the trial of David Andrus, so I was in a position to check up that part of Ralph's story.

"I was twelve years old," he went on, "when Mrs. Mansfield first began coming to our apartment. I don't know where or how my father met her, of course. He knew her pretty well already when I first saw her. At first she was kind to me, and brought me things, and I was fond of her. I told myself we had a friend like anybody else now. I used to brag about her in school.

"Bye and bye I found out, I don't know how, that she was a sham, that her kindness meant nothing. Little by little I began to hate her, though I was careful not to let her see it, for I was afraid of her cold blue eye. Besides my father became more and more crazy about her. He seemed to lose his good sense as far as she was concerned. She could make him do anything she wanted. Children see more than they are supposed to.

"It is three years now since the crash came. I was fourteen then. One day my father was arrested and taken to the Tombs. Mrs. Mansfield took me to her house, not the same one she has now. She treated me all right, but I hated her. Young as I was I held her responsible. I didn't see much of her. I don't know if you remember the trial----?"

"Something of it," said I.

"The papers were full of it. I was not allowed to attend, but, of course, I got hold of all the papers. They said that my father had got hold of blank stock certificates by corrupting young clerks, and had then forged signatures to them and sold them on the stock market. He was sentenced to Sing Sing for seven years. They took me to see him before he was sent away. He had aged twenty years. He wasn't able to say much to me."

"Mrs. Mansfield told me I must change my name, and sent me to a good school in Connecticut. She paid the bills. I was pretty happy there, though this thing was always hanging over my head. In the summers I was sent away to a boy's camp in the mountains. Mrs. Mansfield told me nobody was allowed to see my father or to write to him and I believed her. So it was the same to me as if he had died.

"One day last winter in school I received a letter signed "Well-Wisher," asking me to meet the writer at a certain spot in the school woods that afternoon. Naturally I was excited by the mystery and all that. I was scared, too. But I went. I didn't tell anybody."

"I found a queer customer waiting for me. A man about fifty with close-cropped hair. He told me right off that he was just out of Sing Sing. Why hadn't I ever come to see my dad, he asked. He said it was pitiful the way he pined for me."

"I stammered out that I didn't know anybody could see him. He told me about the visiting days. 'Anyhow you could have written,' he said."

"'He never wrote to me,' I said.

"'Sure, doesn't he write to you every writing day! He has read me the letters. Elegant letters."

"'I never got them!' I said."

"'That's why I came,' he said. 'Dave said he thought that woman had come between you.'"

"The old fellow told me how to address a letter to my father, and he gave me money to go to Sing Sing when I could. I had an allowance from Mrs. Mansfield, but not enough for that. I wrote to my father that night."

"It was Easter before I had the chance to see my father. I made out to Mrs. Mansfield that the school closed a day later than it did, and I used that day to go to Sing Sing. My father was in the infirmary. I scarcely recognised him. They let me stay all day. Even I could see that he was dying."

"For the first time I heard the truth of the case. It was Mrs. Mansfield who had got the certificates out of the young clerks, and had brought them to my father to be filled in. When they were found out she carried on so, that he took the whole thing on himself. He thought he might as well, since he had to go to jail anyway, and he knew he would die there. Besides she promised him to have me educated and looked after. He had no one else to leave me with. At that time he still believed in her.

"But in the prison he met men who knew about her of old. My father was not the first she had been the means of landing in jail. It was then my father began to be afraid for me, and managed to send me word.

"He died in April. Mrs. Mansfield immediately took me out of school. She told me my father was dead, and that it was time I went to work. I think she must have learned by her spies that I had been to see my father, for she no longer took the trouble to put on a good face. Now it was, do this or that or it will be the worse for you. When I saw how all the other men gave in to her, I was afraid to resist. I hated her, but what could I do? I had no one to go to. I had no experience. I wasn't sure of myself. The understanding up there is that Lorina could reach you wherever you went. And if you did anything to cross her, look out! She has spies everywhere!"

"I wonder why she didn't turn you adrift altogether?" I said.

"I think I am useful to them because I look honest," the boy said wretchedly. "I run errands for them, but I never know what it's all about."

"Have you ever heard talk up there of a boss greater than Mrs. Mansfield?" I asked.

He nodded. "But only vague talk. I've never seen him."

"Does she have you watched?" I asked.

"No. She thinks she has me where she wants me. But if she suspected anything----"

"You mustn't come here again," I said.

His face fell absurdly.

"Oh, I'm not kicking you out," I said smiling. "I shall keep in touch with you. Would you like to see this woman go to jail?"

"Would I?" he cried, jumping up. Words failed him. "Oh--! Oh, just try me, that's all!"

"Well, I'm going to put her there," I said. "And you shall help me. But we must be careful."

25

In the meantime Lorina Mansfield, weary of the inaction I had forced on her, or persuaded perhaps that I had dropped the pursuit, boldly resumed her designs on Mrs. ----'s diamond necklace. For convenience' sake I shall call this lady Mrs. Levering. Her real name is one to conjure with in America.

Mr. Dunsany or "English" reported that he had been detailed to go to Newport on Saturday to spy on the lady, and what should he do about it? The plucky gentleman who never hesitated to put himself in danger, became uneasy when it was a question of actually committing a crime.

We arranged a chat over the telephone, and I gave him the best reasons for going ahead with the scheme. We had so much to talk over that I told him I would go up to New England by a different route, and if he was not spied upon he could come to me at Providence early on Sunday and we could go over everything. All the time we had been working together we had never exchanged a word face to face in our natural characters.

We succeeded in pulling off the meeting. Mr. Dunsany assured me he had not been followed. We laid out our plan of campaign. I convinced him that the quickest and surest way to land the whole gang would be to allow them, even to assist them, to carry out a robbery from start to finish. Let them steal Mrs. Levering's jewels, I said, let them get clean away with them. We'll return them later."

"Suppose some one gets hurt," he said nervously.

"Not likely," I said. "They play too safe a game. We will be on our guard."

He agreed with me, but said if we fell down on the case he would feel obliged to give her another necklace of equal value. This was a matter of $90,000.

"We are not going to fall down on it," I said.

What followed can best be told by Mr. Dunsany's reports.

REPORT OF J. M. #15

_Newport, Sunday, July 4th._

My patience was rewarded shortly before noon to-day by the sight of Mrs. Levering walking to the Casino accompanied by a gallant gentleman unknown to me. She did not notice me, of course. If I had been in my own person I warrant she would not have passed me so indifferently. What marvellous faculty is it that enables a lady to know without looking at a man whether he is worth looking at?

I soon satisfied myself that she was wearing her veritable diamonds. Foolish woman! When I sold them to her I warned her not to exhibit them in public. At the time there was a lot of gossip about what Levering paid me for the necklace, and I suppose every thief in the country has it on his list. But Cora Levering was always feather-headed.

I telegraphed to Lorina in the code we had agreed on, and had my dinner while I waited for her answer. It came presently, instructing me to meet her in a certain hotel in Providence to-morrow, two-thirty. To-morrow being a holiday, I am not expected at Dunsany's. This means that I have to put in a long, empty twenty-four hours here. The place is full of my friends eating and drinking themselves black in the face, while I have to stay at a fourth-rate hotel.

To-morrow night there is going to be a great entertainment at Fernhurst, one of the palaces on the cliffs.

J.M.

#16

_Newport, July 5th, 9 P.M._

All is set for the drama to-night, and I am nervously awaiting my cue. Heaven knows what the next few hours may bring forth! When you read this it may be up to you to get me out of jail. If we pull it off all right I have no doubt the newspapers will say, as they always do, that the robbery gave evidence of long and careful planning, whereas it was all fixed up in a few minutes.

I went over to Providence to-day shortly before the hour set by Lorina, and found Foxy waiting at the hotel she named. Lorina herself, he said, was in Newport looking over the ground, and would be back directly. It seems that hearing of the affair at Fernhurst they had determined to turn the trick the same night.

Lorina came bringing a good-looking, well-dressed young fellow whom she introduced to the crowd as Frank. He was evidently a youngster of the fashionable world, one cannot mistake the little earmarks. He has a look of the ---- family; one of the younger sons, maybe, whom drink and the devil have done for. At any rate, he is completely under Lorina's thumb like the rest.

Lorina was playing the part of a traveller in books--religious books if you please! She dressed the business woman plain and handsome, and had engaged a private sitting-room for the day to show her samples. There was actually a whole trunk full of sample books. I suppose she passed us off as her agents or customers.

She had us all in the sitting-room together. Besides Frank, Foxy and myself, there was a fourth man whom I recognised as her chauffeur. His name is Jim. She proceeded to lay out her campaign in the most matter-of-fact way without wasting a word. It might have been the sales-manager instructing the drummers in the Fall line. Nobody seemed nervous except Frank, who was apparently new at the game.

The entertainment at Fernhurst provided our opportunity. It appeared that Frank was well acquainted with Mrs. Levering, and that by Lorina's instructions he had been particularly cultivating her society of late. He was to be the decoy. Furthermore, he drew for us with rather a shaky hand, a plan of the house and grounds at Fernhurst, showing the location of roads, paths, benches, shrubbery, etc. Lorina used this plan in issuing her instructions.

"Dancing is to begin at nine-thirty," she said, "but all the guests will not have arrived until nearly midnight. So we will fix on midnight to turn the trick, or as soon after as possible. We have decided on this bench that I have marked with a cross for the spot. Get its position well fixed in your mind, all of you. It is quite a way from the house you see, few, if any, of the dancers will go so far. It is off the main paths. It is near the street fence, but is hidden from the street by this dense shrubbery behind it.

"Mrs. Levering has promised Frank the first dance after she arrives. He will then make an engagement with her for another dance to fall just before midnight as near as he can figure it, and after dancing with her the second time will take her out to this bench.

Foxy and English will already be in hiding in the shrubbery behind the bench. Foxy has an invitation to the affair, and he will go in evening dress and mix with the guests until he sees Frank dancing with Mrs. Levering the second time. He will then go out of the house and conceal himself in the shrubbery.

English will already be waiting there. English must be there by eleven to make sure. English wears his ordinary clothes, and slips in by the service entrance to the grounds, marked on the plan here. Once inside the gates he must make his way under cover to the shrubbery behind the bench. English will carry an old overcoat for Foxy which will be provided. There will be a mask in one side pocket, a cap in the other. As soon as you two meet, Foxy will put on the things.

"Now as to the actual trick. It is perfectly simple. Frank is keeping Mrs. Levering in conversation on the bench. Foxy sneaks up behind with the nippers, cuts the necklace, and tosses it back to English, who remains in the bushes.

"The woman will scream, of course. Foxy will stand up and show himself, and run in this direction, that is, towards the house. Frank will take after him for a way, and then go back to the woman. Foxy will double around this shrubbery that conceals the stable entrance. As soon as he is out of sight of the woman he will throw off the cap, mask and coat, and go back to Mrs. Levering as one of the first attracted by her cries. If she does not cry out, he can mix with the crowd in the house until he has a chance to make a getaway.

Meanwhile, English lies quiet in the shrubbery until the excitement has passed out of the vicinity. Then he slips out by the service gate, the same way he went in. Jim will be waiting with the car about five hundred feet beyond the service entrance, towards town. We have been over this ground. There is a big clump of rhododendrons inside the sidewalk at this point.

English, without stopping, will toss the necklace inside the car. But if he is pursued he had better drop it among the rhododendrons. Mind you, English, if there's anybody after you, don't make any throwing motion with your arm. If there is a chase Jim can join in it, and help English make his getaway. Later he can return and get the diamonds.

English takes the trolley to Providence, and the owl train back to New York. Jim secretes the diamonds in the secret pocket in the car, and waits for Foxy. If Foxy is pursued, however, he must not lead them to the car. Jim waits until one-thirty. If Foxy has not arrived, he takes the car to the Atlantic garage. You, Jim, ask them to let you sleep in it, see? as you're expecting a call from your master. Foxy can get the car from the garage any time after that."

Lorina went over all this twice. At the end she consulted her watch. "If any of you want to have anything explained, speak up. I've got to catch the four o'clock back to town."

Frank was the only one who had any objection to raise to the arrangements. "Look here," said he, "this will queer me for good with that lot, even if they can't fasten anything on me."

Lorina fixed him with her hard blue eye. "How?" she demanded.

"I used to be known as a runner. They'll think it funny I wasn't able to catch Foxy."

"Catch him then," said Lorina coolly. "Struggle with him. He will throw you off. That will let you out, won't it? Rehearse it now."

It was a grim kind of play. Everybody took it quite seriously. A sofa was placed to represent the fateful bench. Lorina and Frank took seats on it. Lorina tied a piece of string around her neck to represent the necklace. Foxy and I crouched in the rear. Foxy crept forward, snipped the string and tossed it back to me. His implement was a pair of heavy nail clippers such as manicures use. Then as Foxy made off, Frank flung himself upon him, they struggled and Frank was thrown to the ground.

All this was gone over again and again. Some buttons were tied on the piece of string, so that it would carry when it was thrown back to me. Foxy's stage experience proved serviceable. He acted as director, showing Frank how to tackle him, and how to fall without hurting himself. Lorina's depiction of the startled woman was admirable. The whole scene would have been funny if it hadn't been so grim. None of them seemed to be aware of any humour in the proceedings but me. Jim, who did not take part in the scene, acted as critic. He stood off making suggestions.

Finally, Lorina announced that it was only ten minutes to train time, and hustled us out. She said Frank and Foxy might go off by themselves and practice if they felt it necessary. We scattered. I returned to the little hotel in Newport where I had taken a room. I have not seen any of them since.

It is now nine-thirty and I am waiting in my hotel until it is time for me to go out to Fernhurst. I will post this to you on the way, so that in case anything happens you will at least be in full possession of our plans. I believe I was not cut out for a life of crime. It is too madly exciting. As the hour draws close my knees show an inclination to knock together, and my teeth to chatter.

J. M.

26

REPORT OF J. M. No. 17

_Providence, 1:30 A.M._

When I got to the service gate of Fernhurst I found it guarded by two men, detectives unmistakably. This was disconcerting. I passed on. They bored me through with their gimlet eyes and I broke out in a gentle sweat all over. Presently, however, I realised it was but their professional manner of looking at anybody who was not well dressed, and I calmed down.

It filled me with a kind of terror to think that I might be prevented from carrying out my part of the evening's entertainment, so you will see I was well worked up to it by this time. I went around the block and prepared to try again. On my way towards the service gate I had the luck to fall in with a crowd of waiters clearly bound for the show and it was no trouble at all to mix in with them. My make-up was of the same general style as theirs. We passed through the gate without question.

Once inside I began to lag behind the bunch, and presently slipped away in the darkness. I reached my specified hiding-place in the shrubbery behind the bench without further adventure. The place had been so carefully mapped, there was no possibility of mistaking it.

I had to wait over an hour for Foxy. It was not a pleasant time. Lorina's plan seemed perfect, but you never can tell. And my inexperience in this line was such that I didn't feel overmuch confidence in myself should an emergency arise. Not far behind me I could hear the steady procession of motors bringing guests to the party. In the distance I could hear the music. They had picked their spot well. In all that time no one passed that way.