"Here, sir, is a little note which may amuse you."

She handed him a piece of paper. It read:

"Chief: The Monk has turned up at the Blue Goose on Water Street. He is drunk and telling all he knows. Come down at once to help us quiet him. Hurry or every thing will be known. You know who."

Shirley looked at the message, and then with tilted eyebrows at his fair companion.

"What do you know about the Blue Goose?" he asked. "And the Monk? For I presume that you wrote this out?"

"Your presumption is correct. I remembered hearing Warren ask Taylor this afternoon after that telephone call from you, where the Blue Goose saloon could be. Taylor told him it was a sailor's dive on Water Street. The night they thought me dreaming on his library couch, I heard Taylor ask Warren if they had heard from the Monk. So, it seemed to me that the two questions might interest Mr. Reginald Warren if presented in a language that he understood."

"And what was that language?"

"It was a code message, which I typed out on this Remwood machine here, by the system you told me. It was slow work, but I finished it and sent it over to the club, knowing Warren would be with you. I really don't know what good the message would do. But being an illogical woman, and a descendant of Pandora, I thought it would be amusing to open the Pandora's box and let all the little devils loose, just to see the glitter of their wings!"

Shirley caught her hands delightedly.

"You bully girl! Nothing could have happened better. I'll improve my time now, by visiting Mr. Warren's apartment, impolite as it is without an invitation. And then I think I will go calling in that little cave of the winds in the rear of his art collection, on the other street."

"But, Monty—I Mean, Mr. Shirley," and a rosy embarrassment overcame her, "you will put your head into the lion's mouth once too often. Why not wait until you get him under lock and key?"

"My dear girl, we will telephone my club and talk to the door man. I think that he may be under lock and key by this time, in a manner you little suspect. Let me have the number."

He went to the instrument on her dressing-table. The club was soon reached, and Dan the door man was answering his eager question.

"Yes, sir, the taxi has come back, sir."

"Send the chauffeur to the wire. I want to talk to him," said Shirley. The man was soon speaking. "What address did you take that gentleman to, my man?"

"Why, sir, I started out for the Battery, but sir, a terrible thing happened."

"What was it?"

"The gentleman was overcome with an ep'leptic stroke or somethin' like that. He pounded on the winder behind me, and when I stopped me car, and looked in he was down an' out. I was on Thirty-third Street and Fift' Avenue at the time, so I calls a cop, and he orders me to run 'im over to Bellevue. He's there now, sir. He ain't hardly breathin', sir. It's terrible!"

"Too bad, I must go and call, to see if I can help him!" was Shirley's remark as he hung up the receiver. He repeated the news to Helene. Her eyes sparkled, as she said: "Ah, those symptoms resemble the ones you told me which came from that amo-amas-amat-citron, or whatever it was."

"Not quite such a loving lemon, Miss Marigold," he chuckled. "Amyl nitrite. The same soothing syrup which quieted our would-be robbers on Sixth Avenue, that night when we left his apartment. It will wear off in about three hours. I had a little glass container folded in my own handkerchief, which I put in his overcoat pocket as a parting souvenir, crushing it as I did so. I reasoned that undue anxiety which he displayed might cause him to mop his brow, close to that student-duel scar. One smell of the chemical on that handkerchief, in the quantity which I gave, was enough to quiet his worries. Now for the Somerset Apartment."

He looked at his watch.

"It is eight fifteen. I want you to telephone up to Warren's apartment exactly at ten o'clock. Tell them—there should be a them, that I have been overcome in your apartment, and that they are the only people who can help you, or who know you. I believe that the idea of finding me unconscious, and getting me away will bring any and all of his friends who may be there. If Taylor is there with others, he will hardly leave them in the place when he goes. What I want is to be sure that the coast is cleared of people at that hour. Then I will make an investigation into his papers and other matters of interest. Can I count on you?"

A reproachful pouting of the scarlet lips was the only answer. Shirley left, this time hurrying uptown to a certain engine-house, whose fire captain he had known quite well in the old reportorial days.

It was beginning to snow once more. And as Shirley slipped out of the engine-house, carrying a scaling ladder which he had borrowed after much persuasion from his good-natured friend, he thanked his luck for this natural veiling of the night, to baffle eyes too curious about the campaign he had planned. He knew the posts of the policemen on this street, and sedulously avoided them.

The Warren apartment faced the Eastern side of the structure, and when he reached the front of the Somerset, he sought for a way in which to use his implement. A scaling ladder, it may be explained to the uninitiated, is about eight feet long—a single fire-proof bar, on which are short cross-pieces. At one end is a curiously curving serrated hook, which is used for grappling on the sills of windows or ledges above. It is the most useful weapon for the city fire-fighter, enabling him to climb diagonally across the face of a threatened structure, or even to swing horizontally from one window to a far one, where ladders and hose-streams might not reach.

A hundred feet to the West of the Somerset he found the excavations for a new apartment house. No watchman was in sight, in the mist of falling flakes, so the criminologist disappeared over the fence which separated the plot of ground from the sidewalk. Advancing with many a stumble through the blasted rock and shale, he obtained ingress to an alleyway in the rear. Following this brought him to the back of the Somerset. Shirley had an obstinate grandfather, and heredity was strong upon him. It seemed a foolhardy attempt to scale the big structure, but he raised the ladder to the window-sill of the second story, climbing cautiously up to that ledge.

On the second sill he rested, then stretched his scaler diagonally forward to the left. As he put his feet upon this, he swung like a pendulum across the space. It was a severe grueling of nerves, but his judgment of placement was good. When the ladder stopped swinging he clambered up another story, as he had learned to do on truant afternoons wasted at the firemen's training school, during the privileged days of journalistic work.

Floor after floor he ascended, until he reached the eighth, on which was Shirley's great goal. Here he exerted the utmost prudence, refraining from the natural impulse to look down at the great crevasse beneath him. His footing was slippery, but the thickening snowfall was a boon in white disguise, for it protected him from almost certain observation from the street below. Slowly he raised his eyes to a level with the illuminated window, and peered in.

A strange sight greeted him.

Shine Taylor was busily engaged in the 'twisting of coils of wire, about shiny brass cylinders, with an array of small and large clocks, electric batteries and mysterious bottles on the carved library table. He was intent upon the manufacture of another of his diabolical engines of death!

Even as he watched, the door opened and who should stagger into the room but Reginald Warren!

"Great Scott, Reg! What hit you?" was Taylor's ejaculation, as the other stumbled forward, with a hand to his purple face, to sink into an easy-chair, groaning. The man outside the window could not distinguish the words, but the current of thought was well expressed in pantomime.

"I've been drugged!" moaned Warren. "That devil put something on my handkerchief which knocked me out. I came to in Bellevue and I had a time getting away to come back here. What about the Monk? Did you see him?"

Taylor had run to his side. It seemed as though Warren's eyes would pop from his head. The veins were swollen on his pallid brow, and he gasped for air.

"Open the window!" he murmured, and his confederate rushed to the very portal through which the criminologist was watching this unusual scene, with bated breath. His heart sank, as he lowered himself with a suddenness which vibrated the loosely-attached scaler. For the first time his eyes turned toward the terrifying distance from which he had ascended.

There was a squeak and he heard the window slide in its frame. He felt that all was over. It would be impossible for Shine Taylor not to observe the hooked prong of the ladder, with its curving metal a few inches from his hands. In this ghastly minute of suspense, Shiley's thoughts, strangely enough turned back to one thing. He did not dash through the gamut of his life experiences nor regret all past peccadilloes, as novelists inform us is generally the ultimate thought in the supreme moment before a dash into eternity! He felt only a maddening, itchingly bewitching desire to reach up to his coat pocket and draw out that scent-laden page of typed note-paper which had been glorified by its caress of the warm, bare bosom of the wonderful woman who had so mysteriously drifted into the current of his life.

Then he heard a voice through the open window so close to his ears: it was Shine Taylor's nasal whine.

"It's snowing, Reg. The air will do you good. What a gorgeous night for a murder. Tell me now, what was the trouble?"

And Shirley swung, and swung and swung!



CHAPTER XXII. IN THE DOUBLE TRAP

Eternity had passed, the Judgment Day had been overlooked and new aeons had gone their way, it seemed to the criminologist, when the voice was audible again.

"Oh, all right. I just drew it down from the top. Tell me about your doping. Who was the devil?"

He had been unobserved. By the grace of the fates, Warren's sudden appearance had given him a better chance to hear their secrets, and Taylor's own abstraction had dissipated any interest in the world beyond the window. Again he lifted himself to the level of the sill, sure that the creamy curtains upon which the light from the big electrolier was beaming, would shield him from their view. Warren called for some brandy. Taylor served him, but it was three minutes or more before the other could collect himself. Then he began furiously, as the pain in his forehead diminished.

"This Shirley: he's a clever dog. He put something on my handkerchief, and when I got that message of yours it got me, right in the taxicab, as I was on my way to the Blue Goose to meet you."

"To meet me?" and Taylor's turn came to be startled. "I don't know why you should meet me at the Blue Goose!"

"Say, didn't you send me this note in code?" demanded Warren, drawing out the typewritten sheet. Taylor shook his head, with a blanched face.

The other looked at him with the first evidence of fear which Shirley had ever seen on the confident face. Warren caught his assistant's hand, and drew his face down toward the note.

"Look, it is in our code. Phil can read it but he is the only one beside you. He is locked up in jail, and couldn't reach a typewriter. I got a message from him this afternoon that he wouldn't squeal. You know how he smuggled it out to me. Tell me how could any one know about the Monk and write this so?"

Taylor shook his head, speechless. As he turned his face toward the window Shirley observed the great drawn shadows under his squinting eyes. The sudden shock was telling on that weasel face. Taylor walked unsteadily toward the infernal machine, and he looked blankly toward Warren again. The other's blazing orbs were full upon him now. There was a frightful menace in their glittering depths as he spoke.

"Taylor, if I thought you had sold out I'd skin you alive right now!"

"Reg—Reg—you are my best friend. Don't say a thing like that."

"Are you selling me for some purpose. Are you soft on that chicken? Has she blarneyed you into this?" demanded his chief, rising, unsteadily, but fierce in his suspicious tensity.

Taylor cowered, with imploring hands stretched out.

"Why, Reg, no one ever did for me what you've done. I'd die rather than sell you out, and there ain't a dame in the world that could make me soft on a real game like this."

As Warren studied his white face there came a tinkle on the telephone.

"What's that? Who's that?" Warren turned and ran toward the instrument, still studying the face of his companion. It was evident that a seed of distrust was planted in his bosom. He answered nervously.

"Yes, yes! What do you want? Who's speaking?"

Then he listened, and a wise expression came over his face. It broke into a smile for the first time since he entered the room. He winked at Taylor who drew near him. Shirley strained his ears to catch the words.

"Yes, yes, why, my dear Miss Bonbon. Surely, I'll be glad to come down—To help take care of Mr. Shirley—Of course, I will come in my machine and bring him uptown to a hospital—That's what you want?—Yes, indeed, nothing would give me greater pleasure."

He rang off, and turned toward Taylor.

"That smooth devil has sniffed some of his own dope as sure as you live, Shine. We'll get him. Call up and have the machine sent around. You and I will be a committee of two, and we'll end this tonight. Bring what you need."

Warren drank another full glass of brandy, while Taylor gave a quick order over the telephone. Then the latter snatched up a small black satchel which was standing on a side table. The assistant came to the window, and Shirley dropped down out of sight, for another moment of suspense. But the sash was quickly closed and bolted.

The light was turned out, and he waited another five minutes, stiffening in the cold wind which had sprung up to send the big flakes in eddies against his numbed fingers. With difficulty he fished out a long, thin wire from his pocket, with which he had frequently turned the safety catch of windows on other such occasions. Again it served its purpose, and he drew himself up to the sash of the opened window. He brushed off the snow, so as to leave no telltale puddles of drippings. He went to the door of the library, and then to that of the vestibule.

It was locked from the outside, even as they had done when Helene was the drowsy prisoner.

He had little time, he knew, for his search, but he first thought of the girl's predicament. He must cover the tracks there. He took up the receiver, and in a minute was talking to her.

"I'm in. Leave word downstairs (and pay the clerk and bell-boy a good bribe) that you have gone to a hospital with a sick friend. Tell them to swear to that, and better still leave the hotel at once, hunt up Dick Holloway—you'll find him at the Thespis Club to-night. Send in the chauffeur to ask for him and have him stay with you in the machine. I am going to visit the other place when I finish here. I'll be down there, at the Thespis Club, by eleven again. Good-bye—use your wits."

Then he began a hurried ransacking of the apartment. He picked up a note-book here, sheets of memoranda there, letters and documents which he thought would be convenient. Warren's bedrooms were locked, but a small "jimmie" sufficed to force them open. He found in one drawer a dozen or more bank books, with as many different financial houses, and under many names. This he shoved into his pockets. At last, satisfied that he could gain no more, he retreated to the window. He shut this and was once more on the windowsill. Here he looked down, and a new inspiration came to him. He would have difficulty in getting admission to the apartment entrance, at this time of night. The attendant would remember him and warn Warren upon the latter's return. It was but one more climb, a single story, to the roof. So, up he went, deserting the faithful scaling ladder on the roof, for the time being.

He sought around for several minutes on the snowy, slippery surface before he found the entrance to the iron stairway close by the elevator shaft. Then he went softly down.

Past Warren's apartment, on his way without a noise, his boots off, he continued until he reached the second floor. Here he was baffled again. Why had he not taken some impression of the pass-key of the negro attendant when let in before? Yet now he remembered that the man had never relinquished his hold upon that open sesame. He remembered the "jimmy"—yet this would betray him, by the broken lock!

There was the servant's entrance, however, in the rear of the hallway. To this he slipped, even as the elevator passed up bearing Warren and Shine Taylor, muttering angrily. Shirley found the rear door to the rooms, and there he worked quickly, forcing the lock. He was soon inside, and hid himself in the pantry of the darkened apartment. He had not long to wait.

There was a clicking noise which reverberated through the empty room, as the other two entered by the front portal. He heard them talking in whispers, then the creaking of a window, and all was silent again.

Shirley went to the same small window through which he had descended before. With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly. He found the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor. A block of wood held it back from the jamb.

"He is prepared for a quick retreat. So shall I be," thought Shirley, as he noiselessly crept into the chamber, after having drawn away the wooden block. He let the door come gently to its frame, stopping it within an inch of its lock. As he turned slightly forward he caught two curious silhouettes: Warren at his table, with Shine at his side, their outlines clear and black against the brightness of the headlights. On, the other side of the transparent screen stood a man, with one eye blackened, his face badly bruised and wicked in its battered condensation of evil determination with rage and fright, so oddly mixed.

"It ain't my fault, Chief! There are only six of the boys left. I tried me best but this little Chinyman he soaks me one on the lamp, with a gun butt. Me pal was nabbed in the room when I sneaks out on the rope. I finds out afterward that Jimmie's watch must-a been about twenty minutes slow. That's how we misses."

"But you didn't get him, and I'm going to break you for this!"

"But gov'nor, listen—we leaves the machine all right. That'll git 'im anyway. What'll I do?"

"I have the addresses of the other men here in my pocket. You tell them to stick right in their rooms for the next twenty-four hours. If they don't hear anything from me, tell them to go to Frisco by roundabout ways and I'll forward their money, care of Kelso. Now get out."

The man disappeared and there was a double click as the door to the front compartment closed. Warren turned toward Taylor, While Shirley flattened himself against the rear wall, and crouched down slowly, without a betraying sound.

"I don't understand that girl not being there. Some one's closing in on us. I'm going to break that girl's spirit before I'm through. She'll be on the yacht tonight, for everything's ready now. What sort of a machine did you arrange for his room?"

"The old telephone one we worked in Oakland. It is under his bed. I told the men to do that first before they went through his things. Then it would look like plain robbery, and when he goes to take the receiver off the hook it's 'good-night, nursey!' That little popper will blow the roof off that club house!"

Shirley's blood might have run cold at the calm pride of this degenerate fiend, had it not been boiling at the reference to Helene. He crept nearer to them, along the wall. He lay down on the floor, below the level of the first bullet paths. Then he drew his automatic and the bulb light, ready for his surprise.

"I'll call up Kick Brown at the telephone company. He's on duty until twelve. That's an hour yet."

He placed the plug in position but there came no answer over his private wire. Warren cursed: this time in a dialect unknown to Shirley. The man was asserting his most primitive nature now.

"What does that mean? He knows that it's important to-night. I wonder if some one has squealed. You know what I said upstairs, Shine?" Warren's voice was ominous. "I don't like the looks of things. And you're the only one who has ever known the inside working of my system. I've even told you the key to my code—Phil knows it in part, but there is nothing I've kept from you."

Here Shirley's dramatic instinct asserted itself. In a sepulchral voice, he spoke: "One key to the right, in writing. One to the left to read. Hands up, Warren, you're wanted in Paris, and we have the goods on you!"

Placing the bulb light far to his left, he twisted the little catch which kept it glowing permanently. The light fell full on the face of Warren and Taylor as they sprang up back to back!

"Drop that revolver. It's all up now. You go to the chair for these murders."

Warren shot for the body he supposed to be above the little light. As he did so Shirley sent a bullet into the arch criminal's right wrist. The weapon dropped from his hand to the table. Shine Taylor, terror-stricken, staggered against his companion, groping for support. Warren misunderstood it: he thought his assistant was trying to hold him. The swift interpretation gave new fuel to the flame of mistrust which had sprung up in his heart. He knew not how many men were about him—he merely realized that his crafty plans had been set at naught,—there could be only this one explanation. He struck at Taylor, who moaned in pain.

"You cur, you've squealed on me!" With his uninjured left hand he caught the other in his Oriental death grip, with all his consummate skill. Astonished at the sudden move, Shirley rose to his feet. But he hesitated too long.

With a faint gurgle, Shine Taylor, pickpocket, mechanical artist and criminal genius sank to the mouldy ground of the cellar—lifeless!

Shirley snatched up the light, instinctively throwing its rays upon the face of the dead man. It was horrible to see this ghastly ending of the miserable life, so suddenly conceived and grewsomely executed! Here was Warren's opportunity. He caught up his weapon from the table with the left hand, and sent a shot at the intruder, leaping at the same time toward the rear entrance. Monty swung the light about, but the other threw on an electric switch. He stood by the iron portal a fiendish smirk on his distorted features.

"So, my luck is good after all: I've got you where I most want you!" His weapon covered Shirley's. "I shoot as well with my left hand as with my right. But, no, I won't shoot you. I'll put you away without a trace left. That is always the clever way. I told you that the average criminal was too careless about little things. Good-bye, Mr. Montague Shirley, I wish you a pleasant journey!"

His hand, bleeding from the bullet wound, was pushing the iron door, behind him as he faced Shirley. Suddenly a frightful sound broke the stillness: it was the final exhalation of air from the dead man's lungs. It sent a creeping chill through Shirley's blood. Warren's right hand dropped, nervously for an instant, despite his resolution. In that second Shirley had brought his own weapon up to a level with the other's eyes.

The door closed with a clang!

Warren's face lost its sneering smile. He was locked in from the rear!

"Now, let's see you get out the front way," retorted the criminologist. He had one hand behind him. He felt a metal contrivance, With three buttons on it. He thought perhaps it were the controlling switch for the lights. He would take his chances in the dark. He pressed all three quickly.

There was a clang from the front, as some mechanism whirred for an instant. A gong sounded above, and scurrying feet could be heard—then were audible no more. It was the warning alarm for the gangsters: they had fled.

Suddenly to Shirley's straining ears came the tick-ticking of an alarm clock, from the corner of the room to his right. He dare not look at it. Warren's eyes grew black with the Great Fear!

"You fool, you've locked all the entrances, and sent the men away. That clock will ring in exactly five minutes. When it does, this place will go up from a load of lyddite. You've dug your own grave!"

Warren's voice was hoarse, and his bright eyes radiated venomously, as he kept his weapon pointed, like Shirley's, at the face opposite. They were both prisoners in the death cellar, with the advantage in favor of neither!

And the ticking clock, with its maddening, mechanical death chant seemed to Shirley to cry, with each beat, like the reminiscence of some nightmare barbershop: "Next! Next! Next!"



CHAPTER XXIII. CAPTURED AND THEN

Warren's white lips were moving in perfect synchronism, as he counted the seconds and ticks of the clock. Shirley, never so acute, cudgeled his mind for some devise by which he might overcame the other. It was hopeless. At last, just as he knew the inevitable second was almost completed, a faint rustling came from the other side of the iron door. Warren's face brightened with hope. With a nerve-racking rasp, the iron bar on the other side was raised: it was a torturing delay as the two waited!

The door slowly opened. After a harrowing pause a revolver muzzle slid gently through the crack, and a woman's voice murmured softly: "Drop the gun!"

It was Helene Marigold!

Warren's ashen face changed to purple hue, his hand trembled just enough to incite Shirley to a desperate chance. As the criminal drew the trigger with a spasmodic jerk, Shirley was dropping to the floor, whence he pushed himself forward with a froglike leap, as he straightened out the great muscles.

Together they rolled in a frenzied struggle.

"Run back, Helene. The clock will explode!" cried Shirley, desperately. Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had she torn the wire, as a man would have done, the dreaded explosion would have ended it all.

"We're coming!"

It was the voice of Pat Cleary from the passageway. He rushed through the subterranean passage, followed by several men, with Dick Holloway excitedly in their train. After a titanic struggle, with the man baffled in this maddening moment of ruined triumph, they handcuffed him.

Shirley led Helene into the front compartment before she could observe the horror stamped upon the face of the murdered rogue.

The girl turned her glorious eyes to his, reached forth her hands, and then the eternal feminine conquered as she trembled unsteadily and sank into his arms.

"Break down the doors, Cleary. Out here, to the street. Pull off the hands of that clock—it's a lyddite bomb!" cried Shirley, excitedly.

One of the men used the table with clattering effect. The iron door of the front room gave way, and Shirley carried Helene up the ladder, to the main floor of the old garage. She seemed a sleeping lily—so pale, so fragile, so fragrant in her colorless beauty. He had never seen her so before! For an instant a great terror pierced him: she seemed not to breathe. But as he placed his face close to her mouth, her eyes opened for one divine look, then drooped again. A white hand and arm curled, with childish confidence, about his shoulder. He bore her thus to the big car from the Agency, which stood outside.

"Quick, down to the Hotel California," he called to the chauffeur, "Pat Cleary can handle matters there."

As they sped toward her apartment the roses took their wonted place in her cheeks. She sat up to smile in his face. Then she lowered her glance, with carmine mounting hotly to her brow. Helene said no word—nor did Shirley. She simply leaned toward him, to bury her face upon the broad shoulder, as neither heeded the possible curiosity of the driver on the seat in front.

At least, they understood completely. There was nothing else to say!

* * *

As Shirley left her at the door of the apartment, he turned into the elevator, his mind whirling with the strange imprisonment into which he had let his unwilling heart drift. The clerk stopped him at the lower floor.

"There's a call for you, sir. It's rush, the gentleman said!"

"Great Scott! What now?" he ran to the instrument, and he heard Captain Cronin's excited voice.

"Shirley. The man's escaped again! They just came into the place. He threw some sort of bottle at the front of the patrol wagon which blew it all to pieces. He got away in the mix-up—three policemen were injured!"

"I'll get him, Captain, if it's the last act of my life."

To the surprise of the blase clerk, the well-known club man ran out of the hotel, dropping his hat in his excitement. He shouted to the driver who still waited in the agency machine.

"The sky's the limit, now, son. Race for Twenty-first Street and the East River. Let me off at the end of the dock. Then go back to get some men from the agency, as I'll have a prisoner, then, or they'll get my body!"

The machine raced down the street, regardless of the warnings of policemen. Shirley was confident that his was not the only car on such a mission. He reached the dock of Manby, where was waiting the expert engineer of the hydroplane. He had not planned in vain.

"Have you seen an auto go past here before mine?"

"Yes, sir, I was smoking me pipe, and settin' on the rail of the dock, when one shoots up toward the Twenty-third Street Ferry, with a cop on a motor-cycle chasin' it behind."

"Then, quick, into the boat."

They clambered down the wet ladder, and after an aggravating delay, the whirring engines of the racing craft were started. Shirley took off his coat, and lashed a long rope about his waist. He tied the other end of it securely to a thwart in the boat.

"What's your idee, Cap?" asked the engineer, as he waited the signal.

"There's a man trying to catch that white yacht out in the river. I want to get him, that's all. If I fall out of this boat, keep right on going, for I'm tied up now. Where's the boat hook?"

"Here, sir. Are you ready? Just give me your directions. All right, sir, we're off."

Shirley grunted and the hydroplane sped out onto the river, in a big curve, as he directed. Like a white ghost on the river was the trim yacht, which even now could be seen speeding down the stream, all steam up. There were two toots on the whistle and Shirley feared that his man had boarded her. But the hydroplane, ploughing through the cold waves, whizzed toward the yacht, as he climbed out to the small flat stern. A small boat had swung close to the yacht now. A ladder had been lowered from a spar, while a man standing in the little craft missed it. The yacht was gliding past the boat, when another rope ladder was deftly swung over the stern.

The hydroplane was close up now, and Shirley saw his prey dangling at the end of the ladder, now in the water, struggling with the rungs of the ladder, and now being drawn up.

His engineer, with a skilful hand on the helm, swung in close to the yacht, as keen for the capture as his patron. They whizzed past at almost railroad speed, and Shirley, sprang toward the ladder. His arms closed about the body of Reginald Warren in a grip which he braced by a curious finger-lock he had learned in wrestling practice.

Two revolvers barked over the taffrail of the yacht, as the hydroplane raced onward, dragging Shirley and his prisoner at the end of the rope, through the water. Again the shots rang out, but they were out of range, on the dark waters so quickly, that before the police boat had set out from shore to investigate the firing from the pleasure vessel, the criminologist's struggle with his wounded antagonist was over.

Half drowned, himself, with Warren completely past consciousness, Shirley was pulled into his own boat as the engines were slowed down. They returned rapidly to the dock.

"Help me work him—that was a pretty rough yank. He's been shot in the hand already."

They rolled Warren on a barrel, "pumped" his arms, and by the time the Cronin automobile had returned with the other detectives, Warren was restored to understanding again. Shirley forced some liquor between his teeth, to be greeted with a torrent of strange oaths.

"The jig is up, Warren," said the criminologist. "As a chess-player in the little game, you are a wonder. But, I think I may at last call 'Checkmate.'"

"I'm not dead yet, Shirley," hissed Warren. "I gave you your chance to keep out of this. But you wouldn't take it. I'll settle the score with you before I'm finished. There's one man in the world who knows how to get away from bars. I'm that man."

Then his teeth snapped together with a click. He said nothing more that night, even during the operation for probing Shirley's bullet, and the painful dressing. At the station-house, and his arraignment before the magistrate at Night Court, where he saw some other familiar faces of his fellow gangsters—now rounded up on the same charges—he still maintained that feline silence.

And his eyes never left the face of Montague Shirley, as long as that calm young man was in sight!

Shirley merely presented his charge of murder—for the strangling of Shine Taylor. The names of the aged millionaires were not brought into the matter—there was no need. He had done his work well.

At Cronin's agency, late that night, there came a cablegram from the greatest detective bureau of France.

"The Montfleury case" was the most daring robbery and sale of state war secrets ever perpetrated in Paris. It had been successful, despite the capture, and conviction of the criminal, Laschlas Rozi, a Hungarian adventurer who had killed three men to carry his point. The scoundrel had escaped after murdering his prison guard, and wearing his clothes out of the gaol. A reward of 100,000 francs had been offered for his capture, by the Department of Justice.

"Monty, who gets all the credit for this little deal—that's what's bothering me?" asked Captain Cronin, as they sipped a toast of rare old port, in his rear office.

Shirley lit the ubiquitous cigarette, and tilted back in his chair.

"Captain: why ask foolish questions? This case ought to buy you five or six of those big farms you've been planning about—and leave you fifty thousand dollars with which to pay the damages for being a gentleman farmer."

"And you, Monty? You know you never have to present a bill with me. What will you do with your pin money?"

"I'm going down on Fifth Avenue tomorrow and invest it in a solitaire ring, for a very small finger."



CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION

Shirley made some investigations in a private reading room of the Public Library: there was much good treasure there, not salable over the counter of a grocery store, mayhap, but unusually valuable in the high grade work which was his specialty. In an old volume enumerating the noble families of Austro-Hungary he found two distinguished lines, "Laschlas" and "Rozi."

From the library he went to a cable office where he sent a message to the chief of police of Budapesth inquiring about the remaining members of the families. The old volume in the library was thirty-four years behind the times: it was the only record obtainable in America.

After a couple of hours, which he devote to some personal matters, he received a response to his inquiry. When translated from the Hungarian it read thus:

"Professor Montague Shirley, College Club, N.Y., U.S.A.

Families extinct except Countess Laschlas, and son Count Rozi Laschlas, reported killed in Albanian revolution.

Csherkini, Minister of Justice."

The criminologist was happy. Here was a weapon which he had not yet used. Now he turned his steps towards the Tombs, for an interview with the prisoner.

After some parley with the warden, he was admitted for a visit to Reginald Warren. That gentleman's fury was rekindled at the sight of the club man who had been so instrumental in his downfall. But a cunning smile played over the features of the criminal.

"So, you have come to gloat over your work, Shirley? Well, it is a game two can play."

"Yes? I am always interested in sport. I came to see if there was anything I could do for you in your confinement," was the unruffled reply.

"You will be busy with your own affairs," retorted Warren. "I have been busy writing my confession. Here is the manuscript. I will baffle all your efforts to hush up the affairs of the 'Lobster Club.' Furthermore, my confession," (and he exultantly waved a mass of manuscript at his visitor,) "will send young Van Cleft to prison for perjury on the certificate of his father's death. Captain Cronin, that prince of blockheads, will share the same fate. Professor MacDonald, who I know very well signed the death certificates, will be disgraced and driven from professional standing. You will be implicated in this plot to thwart justice. With the German university thoroughness to which you so sarcastically referred, I have written down the facts as carefully as though I were preparing a thesis for a doctor's degree!"

He laughed maliciously, studying the effect of his words. He was disappointed. Shirley's bland manner changed not a whit. Instead the criminologist offered him a cigarette.

"You might as well smoke now—as later!" and there was a wealth of innuendo in the emphasis. "Is that all you are going to do, to square your accounts?"

"By no means! As my trump card, I have implicated Miss Helene Marigold in the various exploits which have been so successful now. She is unknown in New York—I investigated that matter. She will have a fine task in proving an alibi, after the careful preparation I have made. In fact, I accuse her of being the mistress of my dead con'federate—"

Shirley sprang to his feet, and the rage which was shown in his strong features brought a leer to the face of the other.

"Strike me," continued the tormentor. "All I have to do is to call the guard. I have been busy thinking since they locked me up here. There is nothing more to do to me than the electric chair—but, I am not finished yet."

The criminologist controlled himself with difficulty. He realized that an altercation with the prisoner would shatter his whole case, like a house of cards blown down by a vagrant breeze. He sat down again, the mask of calm indifference playing over his features.

"And what then?"

"Is not that sufficient to interest you? It will be another month before my trial, and my literary work has just begun. The newspapers are filled with war news, which have ceased to be a nine days' wonder. I shall provide them with material which will be the story of the age! Another month, and then?"

The prisoner lit the cigarette which he had accepted, and stretched back in the plain wooden chair to enjoy the misery of his victim.

"But, a month—let me see? That would enable me to do some corresponding myself, wouldn't it?" and Shirley took out a memorandum book. "You have degraded a splendid intellect, a gallant spirit and brought disgrace upon yourself, for this miserable ending. You have ruthlessly murdered others, caring naught for the misery and wretchedness of those left behind. Has it been worth it all, Warren?"

The other's eyes twinkled, as he nodded.

"A wonderful game. And I haven't completed the score, even now."

"You are right, Warren. There is one soul more whom you have not affected. It is too bad that you were not killed in the Albanian revolution,—then you would have been on record as a hero instead of the vilest scoundrel in Christendom."

Had the death-dealing current of the electric chair been turned upon Warren he could not have been more startled, as he sprang up. His pallid face seemed to turn a sickly green, as his dark eyes opened in galvanized amazement.

"Albanian—what do you mean? I never saw Albania!"

"You will never see it again. You will never see Budapesth again, either," was the menacing continuation of the criminologist's methodical speech. "But a very old lady, the Countess Laschlas, will see the accounts of her son's wretched death, in the New York papers which will be sent to her, in care of the American consul!"

It was merely a deductive guess: but the shot struck the center of the bull's-eye. Warren, alias Count Laschlas, staggered back, and his nervous fingers touched the chilling surface of the stone wall. He dropped his eyes, and then strove to regain his nonchalance. It was a pitiable failure.

"Just as you have dealt to the children of others, so will you deal with your own mother, the last of a distinguished line of aristocrats. I swear, by the memory of my own dead parents, that I will avenge the misery you have given to the innocent. The good Book says, the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and the fourth generation. But life to-day has taught me that the sins of the children are visited upon the fathers and the mothers—especially, the sweet, loving, trusting mothers! As I value my honor, Reginald Warren, or Count Rozi, I will see to it that your mother shall know every detail of the whole miserable career of her son. That is my answer to your alleged confession. If there is a hereafter, from which you may observe that which follows your death, you will be able to see through eternity the earthly punishment which has been visited upon the one person whom you love and respect."

The criminal's ashen face was buried in his hands.

Great sobs emanated from his white lips, as his shoulders heaved in a paroxysm.

Shirley had struck the Achilles tendon—the hardest wretch in the world had one, as he knew!

"Oh—oh—" he moaned, "the poor little mutter. She has forgiven so much, suffered so much. You can't do it. You won't do it!" He fell to his knees, clawing at the criminologist's garments with his trembling hands, the tears streaming down his face.

"What about those who have seen no compassion from you?" cried Shirley in a terrible voice. "Your vanity, your self-worship! Do they not comfort you now? This is only the suffering of another which you contemplate! Why all these hysterics?"

Warren, groveling on the floor of the reception-room, was a picture of abject, horrid soul-torture. At last, through the subtlety of this unconventional sleuth, along methods which were never dreamed of in the ordinary police category, he had been broken on the wheel which he had himself so cunningly constructed!

"And if that mother dies, cursing your memory with her last breath, cursing the love of the father, of her husband, of the ancestors, all responsible for your being in the world today, what will you think, when you watch from the other side of that great unseen wall?"

"Oh, Shirley! I can't. See—I'll destroy this stuff. I'll keep silent about the others. I mean it. Here: I tear it up now and give you the pieces to burn!"

Warren, maddened by his fears, nervously tore the sheets into bits and pressed the remnants into the criminologist's hands.

"Will you promise to keep my identity a secret?"

"I will not send word to Budapesth. You have a bad record in Paris, and other parts of the world. But, if you play fair on the confidential nature of this case, saving the innocent from disgrace and shame, I will see that the story never reaches your mother. There is no need to ask this on your honor—that does not count."

Warren winced at this final thrust. He turned toward Shirley, eagerly.

"You don't understand me at that, Shirley. I have had a curious career. Somewhere I inherited a strain of criminality—you know how many ancestors a man has in ten generations. I was a member of a poor but prominent family. The government paid for my education in the best universities of Europe, for I was to hold a position under the Emperor, which had been held in my family for generations. But I was ruined by the extravagances and the excesses which I learned from the rich young men whom I met. I studied feverishly, yet was able to waste much time with the gilded fools, by my ability to learn more quickly. The result was that I could not be contented with the small salary of my government office. I had to keep up appearances with my companions. So, I drifted into gambling, into sharp tricks—then became a mercenary soldier, an officer, in the continuous revolutions of the southeastern part of Europe. I sank deeper and at last, in one serious escapade, I managed to have myself reported dead, so as to quiet the heartaches of my mother, who believed I was killed on the battlefield. There is the miserable story—or all I will tell. They caught me in Paris and a girl betrayed part of my name—fortunately they did not hunt me up, so my mother was saved that disgrace. Will you keep the secret now, on our understanding?"

"I give you my word for that, Warren." Shirley rose, putting the torn-up papers into his pockets. "I am sorry for the past—but you have made the present for yourself. Good-bye."

Warren returned to his cell and the detective to the club house.

There he found an additional cable message. It said: "Countess Laschlas has been dead ten months." It was signed like the other.

Shirley tore up the message, and blinked more than seemed necessary.

"Poor little old lady, she knows it all now. I will not have to tell her."

* * *

That afternoon Shirley called again at the Hotel California for Helene.

"I want you to go to a sweet, old-fashioned English tea-room, where I may tell you the rest of the story. There will be no tango music, no cymbals, no tinkling cocktails, nor, champagne. Can you pour real tea?"

"I am an English girl. I have been five days without it."

As they were ensconced at the quaint little table, he realized how wondrously blended in her was that triad of feminine essential spirits: the eternal mother instinct, the sensuous strength of the wife-love and the wistful allurement of maiden tenderness.

"Does my great big boy wish three lumps of sugar, after his hard tasks?"

"He'll die in the flower of immaturity if he has too many sweets in one day."

He drew out his memorandum book, opening it to a closely-written page.

"Before the confections, I must hand in my report to the commanding officer."

"Advance three paces to the front, and hand over the details," and she added another lump of sugar, with a mischievous twinkle in the blue eyes.

"Very well, excellency. We transcribed the addresses of Warren's gangsters from his note-book, and they have all been arrested. The men we captured in the earlier skirmishes are all languishing in the tombs, as accomplices in his crime, as well as for their attempts against my own life. You will be astonished, Helene, at the revelations of his operations as shown by his bank-books, a translation of that diary and some of the letters which I took when I burglarized his rooms. I have sent a code letter to Phil, advising him to confess all, and that man's testimony adds to the corroboration. I went down to the District Attorney with a full statement of the facts, leaving nothing unbared. Like me, he agreed that it were best to let the law take its course, demanding the full penalty, and saving the honor of a dozen families who would have been dragged into the case, had not Warren laid himself liable by the murder of his confederate, Taylor. That young man was an electrical genius—with his brains misguided by his equally misdirected employer. There is no chance of a miscarriage of justice, and Warren had accumulated so much money that many of the victims of his organization can be reimbursed in full."

"You have handled all this with a suspicious skill for a lazy society man, with no experience in such matters."

Shirley understood the subtle sarcasm of the remark, but he proceeded unruffled, to lull her suspicious.

"I only tried to cover the points which meant happiness and peace of mind to others. It was merely a matter of common or garden horse sense, as we call it in America. Warren has been systematically robbing the rich men of New York for three years, under various subterfuges. No wonder he could afford such gorgeous collections of art, keeping aloof from his associates in crime. His treasures, like those in many European museums were bought with blood. It is curious how a complex case like this smooths itself out so simply when the key is obtained. And you, Helene, have been the genius to supply that key: my own work has been merely corroborative!"

He looked at the delicate features of the girl, remembering with a recurring thrill the margin by which they had escaped death in the cellar den of the conspirators.

"Cleary and Dick Holloway told me how cleverly you led the men to the Somerset where you followed my trail through the mole's passage. It was a frightful risk for you to take: Cleary should have had more sense and led the way himself."

Helene's lips pursed themselves into a tempting pout.

"Are you not happier that it was I, at that supreme moment?"

"Indeed I am: success was all the sweeter. There is remaining only one mystery which I must admit is still unsolved in this curious affair. And that is you. Who are you?"

She parried with the same question.

"I know your name, sir, but you profess to be a society butterfly, flitting from pleasure to dissipation, and back again. Tell me the truth, now, if ever."

"Why—gracious, Helene—of all the foolish questions!" He was adorably boyish in his confusion. She laughed gleefully, like a happy schoolgirl.

"Then, Monty Shirley, my score is better than yours, for I have every mystery cleared. But while I know all about you, what frightful chances you are taking with me!"

Shirley reddened, as he burned his finger with the match which had been raised to the end of his cigarette. He accused her of teasing, and she glanced happily at the iridiscent solitaire upon the third finger of her left hand.

"Dear boy, I realize that I understand about you what you cannot fathom with me. You are not a moth, but your self-sacrifice, and bravery in this case are professional: you worked on this case as you have on a hundred others: you are a very original and successful expert in criminology. And I am not more than half bad at observation and deduction, myself; now, am I, dear?"

Shirley gracefully admitted defeat, with a question: "Who are you, Helene? And who is dear old Jack?"

The roses blossomed in her cheeks as she answered: "Jack is a very sweet boy, ten years older than you in gray hair and the calendar, and infinitely younger in worldly wisdom and intellect. He is an English army officer, who was foolish enough to imagine he loved me, foolish enough to propose every three days for the last three years and foolish enough to bore me until in self-defense I escaped from his clutches. As for myself, at least I am not the young woman who can stand staying in that gaudy theatrical hotel for another day longer. I have done so many bold, unmaidenly things that you may believe it easy for me. It is not.

"I am truly a horrid, old-time, hoopskirt-minded prude. My first act of domestic tyranny is to make you find a sedate, prim place for my work and play, where I may know my own blushes when I see them in the mirror, and will have less occasion to deserve them!"

"Your work? What is that?"

"It is very hard work—with a typewriter, but not in code. I will not divulge my name until we tell it to the marriage license clerk. But Dick Holloway knows me, and I came to this country, partly to see him. I have written a few plays, which simple as they were, seemed to interest European audiences and critics. Some of my novels have strangely enough brought in royalties, despite the publishers! But, I became satiated with life in England and on the Continent. I came here because I felt that I needed life in a younger and newer country. I needed an emotional and physical awakening."

"You have not wasted any time in drowsiness since you reached America."

"No—and all because I went to Holloway's office that fateful morning, before I saw any one else in New York, to ask about a play which he is to produce this spring. I confess that it was my first experience as an actress. Will you forgive my deception?"

Shirley nodded, as he studied the animated face with a new interest. He admitted to himself that Holloway's prediction had come true—he had met his match.

"And so, my dear Helene (for such I shall always call you, whether your really, truly name be Mehitabel, Samantha or Sophronisa) you came here, went through all these horrors without a complaint, crushing the independence of my confirmed bachelorhood for the sake of what we newspaper men call copy?"

Helene nodded demurely.

"Yes, but it was such wonderful 'copy,' Monty boy."

The criminologist scowled over his cigarette, yet he could not feel as unhappy as he felt this defeat should make him.

"When will the 'copy' be ready for publication, my dear girl. It would be most interesting, I fancy."

Helene caught his hand, drawing it toward her throbbing heart. Her wet lips were almost touching his ear, as she confided, whisperingly, with the blue eyes averted: "Only published in editions de luxe: some bindings will be with blue ribbons, some with pink. All of them with flexible backs and gloriously illumined by the Master's brush. The authors' autographs will be on every copy to prove the collaboration, and every volume will be a poem in itself.... But there, Montague dear, I am a novelist—not a fortune-teller!"

"How can I forecast the exact dates of publication?"

THE END