slowly for the door again.

It was bad! Oh, it was very bad, with Mary in there and very likely
stifling to death, but Wilkins shuffled slowly back to the taxicab with
his burden, slowly and carefully put it aboard once more.

"What's wrong?" asked the driver.

"The party it was for had left!" said Wilkins.

"Where to?"

Wilkins pondered heavily.

"Back again where we came from," he sighed. "But you might go rather
slow, I think. Like enough I'll change my mind and decide to take it
somewhere else. I can't say at the moment."

Clambering after himself, he looked about while the man hopped out and
cranked his motor. Failure had leaped out and blasted the flower of
success, just as every petal had opened wide! Utter failure was the
portion of Wilkins--and the policeman on the far corner was watching him
in the most disconcerting way.

Squinting over there in the sunshine, the blue-coat's instinct was
telling him that there was something wrong about the trunk. He moved to
the other side of the lamp-post and stared on; and Just here his
sergeant appeared from the side street and the officer addressed him,
even pointing with his club at the taxi!

Faithful Wilkins's heart stopped! When an officer approaches and asks
one to open a trunk or bag, one opens it or goes up. Having opened this
one, it was almost a certainty that one would go up also--and with that
one would go Mary Dalton, and in the evening papers one of the most
startling stories of the year would be featured.

We all of us have a peculiar way of seeing our own side of any given
case before examining the others; so it was with Wilkins. Wilkins saw
himself dismissed from what was really a very excellent, very well-paid,
very easy job; he saw Anthony cursing himself and his stupidity and
ordering him out of his sight forever!

"Can't you start?" he shot at his driver.

"Well, I'm just sitting down," that person stated acidly.

"Well, get her a-going and then turn around; don't go over there, but go
back up this block! And start!" said Wilkins.

The cab started and turned, and he did not look behind. He had not need
for that; he could feel the official eyes boring through the back of the
cab and into himself; he could hear running feet; once he was quite sure
he heard the pounding of a club on the curb, which meant that every
officer in hearing would flock into sight. Wilkins, becoming stony of
countenance after a struggle, shut his teeth and sat back, quite
forgetting that Mary might welcome a breath or two of the outer air.

It was possible, after a little, if the police did not appear and stop
the machine, that he would order the cab into the country and there
release Mary, hat or no hat--but somehow Wilkins doubted whether he
would make that decision.

What he craved more than anything else just now was security behind
brick and stone walls--like the Lasande's.

Be it said that Hobart Hitchin had regained enough of his normal senses
to feel distinctly startled. His vision cleared considerably as he
looked at Theodore Dalton, crouching behind his table. He felt, in spite
of himself, that Dalton's grief was perfectly genuine, but the utter
mystery of the thing swept over him, too, and he leaned forward and
asked:

"What did you say, sir? Your son?"

"These--these!" Dalton said, clutching the trousers. "My son Dick's--his
fishing suit."

"And your son, where is he supposed to be?"

"In the north woods, somewhere, although I haven't heard from him for a
week," Dalton choked; and then, being a powerful character, he threw off
the hideous numbness and straightened up. "What did you say? What were
you trying to tell me? Where did you get--these?"

"From the dumbwaiter where----"

"What dumbwaiter?"

"In the Hotel Lasande."

"When?"

"Very early this morning."

"How did you come to----"

"I saw a young man when he went into the house last night; I live there,
you know. I had reason to think that something happened to him
overnight, and this morning I managed to snatch this suit from the
dumbwaiter as it passed my door. Further----"

"What was he doing there?"

"He came home last night with a gentleman you know," said Hobart
Hitchin. "One Anthony Fry!"

"The liniment Fry?" cried Theodore Dalton.

His gray face turned white and then purple. He rose and ran one hand
through his shaggy gray mop.

"The liniment Fry," Hitchin said.

"My boy--my Dicky went home with that man?"

"A boy was introduced to me as David Prentiss."

Dalton's hands clutched his forehead for a moment and the grinding of
his teeth was audible.

"You were saying--what were you saying about a trunk?"

"I said that the remains of the boy had been brought here by Fry's
personal servant, sir. I saw them taken into the side gate not ten
minutes ago and----"

"Come!" said Theodore Dalton.

He reached out and, gripping Hitchin's arm, decided that gentleman's
course for him. As Theodore Dalton strode to the back of the house and
to the back stairs, as he went straight down and into and through the
kitchen, Hobart Hitchin merely went along, partly in stumbles, partly in
little jumps; and so they came to the laundry and, nerving himself until
the veins stood out on his temples, Dalton faced his butler and spoke
thickly:

"The--the trunk!"

"Beg pardon, sir?" said Bates humbly.

"The trunk which was brought here! Where is it?"

"Oh, that trunk, sir. It was took away again, Mr. Dalton. The person
that brought it said it was for Felice, the maid we dismissed this
morning, sir."

"_For Felice?_" Dalton echoed.

"Quite so, sir."

"Why was it sent to Felice?"

"I couldn't say, sir," said Bates, stepping to the gate and opening it.
"There it goes, sir, on the cab. Shall I send after it?"

Dalton leaned heavily against Hobart Hitchin.

"Goes--where?"

"Well, I'm not sure as it was his voice, sir, but I think, standing out
here, I heard him tell the man to go back where they came from."

Followed quite a tableau.

Bates stared respectfully at his master. Hobart Hitchin, who had not as
yet had time to form a complete new set of theories, merely stood and
frowned. But although Theodore Dalton did not move, he did not seem
still.

His face, in fact, mirrored the whole gamut of human emotions of the
darker sort; overwhelming sorrow was there at first, and then,
succeeding slowly, amazement and unbelief, and after them trembling
anger. Black fire shot from his deepset eyes, as they switched to
Hitchin; his lips became a ghastly white line; his mighty chest rose and
fell; and now he had taken Hobart Hitchin's arm again and led him back
to a dusky corridor.

"You!" said Dalton. "I don't know who you are and why you came here; but
this I ask you, and if you don't answer truthfully, God help you! Does
that trunk, to your belief, contain the body of the boy you call
Prentiss?"

"To my almost certain knowledge!"

"And he was murdered in the apartment of _Anthony Fry_?"

"He was, sir, and----"

"Come!" said Theodore Dalton, once more, and they returned to the study
in a series of stumbles and little jumps.

Once in the dark, handsome room Theodore Dalton walked straight to the
cabinet in the corner and, with a key, opened the topmost drawer. He
extracted therefrom a heavy automatic pistol and slipped out its
magazine. He opened a box of cartridges and filled the little box; and
when it had clicked into the handle of the automatic, and the pistol
itself was in his pocket.

"There was a cab leaving the door when you came," he said quietly. "Did
you dismiss it?"

"I--I believe so," said Hobart Hitchin, who as an actual fact liked
neither the sight of the weapon nor the sight of Dalton just now.

"Bates!" Dalton spoke into the little interior telephone. "My car!"

"If you're going somewhere----" escaped Hobart Hitchin.

"I am going to see Anthony Fry. You are going with me. You are going to
accuse him, in my presence, of the crime," said Theodore Dalton, with
the same ominous calm. "And when you have accused him, I shall do the
rest! Sit down!"

Anthony Fry, because there was more relief in him than flesh and blood,
leaned back in his pet chair and gazed at the ceiling, long, steadily,
happily. He would have liked to smoke, yet he declined to make the
effort which would break the delicious lassitude that possessed him. He
would have liked to sing, too, and clap Johnson Boller on the back and
assure him that all was well in the best possible world--but for a
little it was enough to sneer smilingly at Boller's bent head.

He, poor fool, fancied that all was over because his infernal wife had
threshed around a bit and gone off clutching poor little Mary's hat--a
funny thing in itself. Instead of getting up and cheering at his
prospective freedom from the matrimonial yoke, Johnson was groaning
there and clawing into his hair; and now, by the way, he was raising his
head and turning toward his old friend.

"Anthony!" Johnson Boller said faintly.

"What is it?"

"You wouldn't pull a thing like that on me?"

"I certainly shall, if you ever try to tell the truth about Miss
Dalton."

"But what did she ever do for me, to let her confounded reputation wreck
my life? All she ever did was to make a female ass of herself by wearing
pants and going to a prize fight and then listening to you. Why should a
thing like that bust up my home?"

Anthony shrugged his shoulders.

"It may not," said he.

"It has!" Johnson Boller said feverishly. "And listen, Anthony! You and
I have to stand together, old man. The girl's out of the way, so that
clears your skirts for a while, but what about Hitchin? What if he calls
in the police this afternoon?"

Anthony laughed; with Mary out of the way he was another man.

"We'll let that take care of itself. For that matter, why not go down
and tell Hitchin the truth and show him what a fool he's making of
himself? He's a gentleman, I suppose; if we swear him to secrecy he's
not likely to talk."

"And if we call him off, then we'll find Bee and tell her the truth,
too?" Johnson Boller asked eagerly. "She's a lady, Anthony. If we swear
her to secrecy, she'll never talk--and maybe we could explain it to the
girl and have her verify what we say, hey?"

Anthony actually yawned and stretched as he arose.

"We'll settle Hitchin first," he smiled. "Come along!"

He lounged out of the flat and to the stairs, Boller hugging close to
his side. He yawned again as he pressed the buzzer of the Hitchin
apartment, and he even smiled condescendingly at the inscrutable
Japanese who answered.

"Mr. Hitchin," said Anthony. "Say that Mr. Fry and Mr. Boller wish to
see him, if you please."

The Japanese shook his head.

"He no home!"

"Out?" said Anthony in some astonishment.

"Yes, sir, li'l while ago," the Oriental said. "He go very quick."

"And he will be back--when?"

"Mr. Hitchin no say, sir!" the Japanese sighed.

Therefore they turned back to the stairs; and as they came to the foot
of the flight Johnson Boller gripped his friend's arm suddenly and
looked whitely at him.

"It's all over!" he said.

"What?"

"The trunk! The trunk she went out in! Didn't he say something about not
sending out anything?"

"That has no connection with his going out!" Anthony snapped, although
some of his insouciance fled.

"Hasn't it, though? Well, it has every connection! He's chased Wilkins
and, long before this, he's called a cop and had him taken in! The whole
thing's over, Anthony. That trunk's in a police station now and they've
opened it--and your Dalton man's daughter is behind the bars as a
suspicious character before this."

Anthony Fry's scowl turned black.

"Can't you see me peaceful, without trying to smash it by babbling a lot
of rot like that?" he demanded angrily. "Wilkins must have the girl
inside her home by this time and----"

"Why should you be peaceful and happy when my home's wrecked?" Johnson
Boller asked hotly.

"We will not discuss it out here," said his host, leading the way
upstairs again.

Dismally he trailed through the door he had left so cheerfully a moment
ago. Johnson Boller trailed after him even more dismally, albeit with
some grim satisfaction at his altered mien.

"We can sit down here and wait now," he stated. "We don't have to do
anything more than that, Anthony. We can figure it all out. Either he
has had the trunk and Wilkins taken in, or he's just determined that our
guilt is cinched. If the former, all creation knows by this time that
Dalton's daughter was up to something--queer. If there's a general alarm
out for her, they'll recognize her when she comes out of that trunk. On
the other hand, if Hitchin has let the trunk go, he's having warrants
sworn out by this time and they're dusting off the seats in the nearest
patrol-wagon. Either Dalton gets you and probably me, too, or the police
get us. That's all that can happen and----"

"Stop!" Anthony barked. "I don't care a rap what happens, so long as the
girl is not laid open to suspicion, and I don't believe Hitchin or
anybody else is going to contrive that, once Wilkins started to deliver
the trunk. That is my sole concern now--to shield her!"

Having delivered with commendable sentiment, Anthony demonstrated his
entire calm by rising with a nervous jerk, by listening, and finally by
striding to the door of his apartment, which he opened.

Thereafter he stepped back suddenly, for with one searing glance at him
a woman had passed.

She was in the living-room even now, and smiling horribly at Johnson
Boller. She was, in a word, Johnson Boller's wife, and her black eyes
snapped more ominously than before.

"Don't touch me!" she was saying, as Johnson Boller approached with
hands outstretched. "I've come back, but only to tell you!"

"To tell me that you've changed your mind, little pigeon?" Johnson
Boller cried brokenly. "You're going to let Pudgy-wudgy----"

"Faugh!" said the lady, and from her radiated the Spanish grandmother
and all the strain implied--blood lust, vengeance! "No, I've come to
tell you that I mean to make that woman's name a scandal and a byword
from end of town to the other. Not _some_ woman's name, but _the_
woman's name!"

"But----"

"How can I do it?" laughed the different Mrs. Boller. "I've found out
who she is!"

CHAPTER XV

Thick and Fast

However faint the appeal it made to Johnson Boller, Anthony's statement
had been the literal truth--his sole concern just now was the shielding
of Mary Dalton.

More and more, these last calmer minutes, the ghastly aspect of the case
as viewed from the woman's side had appealed to him. It is entirely
possible that a little real mental suffering had rendered Anthony Fry
less selfish and more considerate of the rest of the human race--Johnson
Boller always excepted--than he had been for many years.

Whatever the cause, the weight of his own guilt was bearing down harder
and harder, and he was prepared to go to extreme lengths if necessary in
the way of keeping Mary's adventure an eternal secret.

But like many another plan and resolve of this bedeviled night and
morning, the latest had been blasted to flinders!

Beatrice Boller, standing there with Mary's hat still clutched tight and
partly broken, was not smiling the smile of a woman who fancied herself
on the right track. She smiled the smile of one who knew exactly where
she stood. Her lips curled now as she examined the worm that had been
her husband, and she perched on the edge of the center-table.

"Unfortunate, isn't it, that you didn't pick some poor drab from the
streets?" she asked, significantly and triumphantly. "Unfortunate for
you and unfortunate for her!"

"Well, this--well, this----" Johnson Boller tried.

"Don't talk to me, please. I want to talk to you--oh, not for my sake or
for your sake, to be sure. I don't know how much real man may be left in
either of you; not very much, I imagine. But if you do want to save two
innocent women from a good deal of embarrassment, you shall have the
chance."

She laughed again as she watched the effect of the cryptic statement.
She sat down, then, and having opened her hand-bag and drawn therefrom a
little slip of paper, she resumed her inspection of the silent pair.

"You don't understand at all, do you? Well, you shall! Your lady friend
made one mistake, gentlemen. Any young woman off on that sort of
adventure should be cautious enough to destroy marks of identification.
This hat, as it happens, came from Mme. Altier, just uptown."

"The little blonde?" escaped from Johnson Boller.

"The little blonde," sneered his wife. "The little blonde is quite a
friend of mine; I lent her the money that started her in business up
this way, in fact, and I've been buying hats there for five years.
Therefore, I went and interviewed the little blonde, and her memory and
her methods of bookkeeping are alike commendable. She might not have
told another woman, but she was very glad to tell me."

Beatrice gazed at the slip briefly.

"Mrs. Henry Wales!" she said very suddenly indeed, and sent her eyes
straight through both of them at once.

Innocent for once, Anthony and Johnson Boller merely frowned at
Beatrice, and after a little she shrugged her shoulders.

"Not Mrs. Henry Wales, evidently," she mused. "Very well; I was right
about her. I've met her, I think, and she seemed a little bit too nice
for that sort of thing. Er--Laura Cathcart!"

Once more the word was hurled straight into them. Once more Anthony and
his old friend stared innocently--but they did a little more this time.
They turned and stared at one another, and all the air between them
vibrated with a wordless message!

Beatrice had made one grave tactical error in not reading the right name
first; Anthony and his friend understood now and were quite prepared for
anything--and it seemed almost as if Beatrice sensed the message, for
she frowned a little as she said:

"Mary Dalton!"

Blankly, innocently as babes unborn, and still not too innocently
withal, Anthony and Johnson Boller stared back, and the latter even had
assurance enough to say:

"What's the idea, Bee? Is it a roll-call?"

"It is the names of the three women in New York who have bought that
particular style of hat from Sarah," said Mrs. Boller. "She made up just
three, as is her custom, and when they were sold she made no more. So
that in spite of your extreme wonder at hearing the names, and although
I had rather hoped to guess which one it might be, one of that trio was
in this flat last night. Which one?"

Johnson Boller shook his head vigorously.

"None of 'em!" he said flatly.

"What do _you_ say?" Beatrice asked Anthony.

"Madam, I decline to say anything whatever!" Anthony said stiffly.

"Really?" smiled Beatrice, and gazed at them pensively for a little
while. "I do not know intimately any of these ladies. They have,
doubtless, a husband and fathers and, I hope, a few big brothers, too,
to take care of them properly. And since they have, I may as well tell
you just what I mean to do. I'm going to Mrs. Wales first."

It produced no visible shock.

"I'm going to accuse her, in so many words, of passing last night in
this apartment, and I'll say you confessed!" pursued Beatrice. "Perhaps
she can clear herself by showing me the duplicate of this hat; perhaps
she cannot. In any event, it seems probable that her husband and the
rest of her male relatives will make a point of coming here and beating
you two to a jelly."

It did seem rather likely, and Johnson Boller glanced at his old friend
and received no aid at all.

"Unless she confesses, Miss Cathcart receives the next call," said
Johnson's wife. "The procedure will be the same; the results to you, I
sincerely hope, will be the same. After that, if necessary, I shall go
to the Dalton woman's home and repeat the performance, and doubtless
_her_ father and _her_ brothers will----"

"Say! Do you want to have us killed?" Johnson Boller gasped.

"Yes!" hissed the Spanish strain in Beatrice. "Well?"

Anthony shook his head quietly.

"None of the ladies you have mentioned----" he began.

"One of them was here, and I'll soon know which one!" Beatrice corrected
quickly. "Do you wish to save the other two?"

Anthony said nothing.

"Nope!" Johnson Boller said doggedly.

Beatrice rose slowly and looked them over.

"Do you know," said she, all withering contempt, "I had been fool enough
to fancy that there was man enough in one or the other of you to spare
the innocent women a very distressing quarter of an hour. Even if that
failed, I had fancied that one or the other would have sufficient
intelligence to avoid a thrashing if possible. I was wrong! There isn't
a spark of manhood or an ounce of brain matter in either of you--and to
think that I married _you_!"

She had risen. She was getting ready to go upon her fell mission; and
the calm contempt slid away from Anthony and cold terror crawled up his
spinal column. Just when he had fondly imagined that all was well,
Beatrice had come and proved that all was anything else in the world!

Just when he had fancied that Mary was safe at home and, with her
doubtless capable maid, was devising a convincing tale to account for
her absence, Beatrice must needs appear and show that, tale or no tale,
Mary was to be accused.

And there wasn't a flaw in her program, by the way. She held the hat as
a man might cling to a straw in mid-ocean; and the lady who could show a
similar hat would clear herself and then start her male relatives after
Anthony; and the lady who could not show a similar hat--was Mary!

Obviously the fine resolve he had made was to avail little enough, but
Anthony could think of no way of staying the lady. Physical force leaped
up as a possibility in his tortured mind and leaped out again as
quickly.

One suggestion of that sort of thing and instinct told him that
Beatrice, in her present unlovely mood, would scream until the rafters
echoed, if they happened to have rafters in the Hotel Lasande. Moral
suasion, honeyed talk were still farther from the possibilities. No,
Beatrice would have to go!

She was ready now. Habit superseding circumstances, Beatrice had stepped
to the mirror and tucked up a few stray locks of hair. The little hat
was under her arm, and the arm had shut down tight on it.

"You two _curs_!" Beatrice said, by way of farewell, and turned away
from them with a sweep.

It was no apartment in which to do what one expected to do. Beatrice,
one step taken, stopped short. Out at the door some one was hammering in
a way oddly familiar. Anthony, rising again, hurried to answer the
summons--and the door was hardly open when young Robert Vining hurtled
in and gripped him by both arms.

"It's no use, Anthony!" he gasped. "There's not a trace of her yet!"

"No?"

"She's gone! She's _gone_!" cried Robert, breaking into his familiar
refrain. "I've just had the house on the wire, and there's no news of
her at all as yet. I've had police headquarters on the wire, and they
haven't heard or seen a thing. Miriam--that's one of her chums--has just
finished going over Bellevue, and there's no sign of Mary down there!"

By now they were in the living-room, and Beatrice, somewhat startled at
the sign of a being in agony equal to her own stood aside.

"She's gone!" said Robert Vining. "And I've been around to
Helène's--that's another of her chums, Anthony--and she's going to
telephone all the girls. That takes that off my hands and leaves me free
to go over all the hospitals that haven't been covered yet. That's what
brings me here, old man. You'll have to come with me."

"Very well!" Anthony said swiftly. "We'll start now."

"Because I haven't got the nerve to do it alone!" Robert cried.
"I--somebody has to go to the Morgue, too! And suppose we should go down
there--I was there just once and I had the horrors for a month--suppose
we should go down there and find her, Anthony, all----"

"Hush!" said Anthony. "Don't go into the possibilities; there's a lady
present, Bob."

Vining almost came to earth for a moment.

"What?"

"To be sure. Mrs. Boller--Mr. Robert Vining."

He spoke directly at her, so that Robert, out of his emotional fog,
gained an idea of her location, and turned dizzily toward her. There was
upon his countenance a strained, heart-broken, half-apologetic smile as
he faced Beatrice Boller. He bowed, too, perfunctorily.

Then Robert raised his stricken eyes.

And as he raised them, a great shock ran through Robert, and after it he
stiffened. His eyes popped, as if he could not quite believe what he
saw, and his body swayed forward. Robert, with a hoarse, incoherent
scream, ran straight at Beatrice Boller and snatched away the hat from
under her arm.

"That's Mary's! That's Mary's!" he cried hysterically. "That's Mary's
hat, because I was with her the day she bought it, and I'd know it among
ten thousand hats! Yes, and it's torn and broken--it's all smashed on
this side!"

Greenish white, jaw sagging, Robert looked from one to the other of
them.

"You--you're afraid to tell me!" said he. "She--there was an accident! I
can see that by the hat. There was an accident and she was hurt
and--where is she now? Where is she now? Good God! Is she--dead?"

"She isn't dead," Anthony said queerly, because he had been looking at
Beatrice and feeling his flesh crawl as he looked.

"Then where is Mary? Why don't you tell me about it?" Robert stormed on.
"What's the matter? Is she badly hurt? Doesn't she want me? Hasn't she
tried to send for me?" And whirling upon Beatrice, the unfortunate young
man threw out his hands and cried: "You tell me, if they will not! What
has happened to her? Where did you get the hat?"

Normally, Beatrice Boller was the very last mortal in the world to
inflict pain upon a fellow-being; but the normal Beatrice was far away
just now.

As Anthony noted with failing heart, it was a big moment for the
outraged creature before Robert Vining, for she was about to make
another of the accursed sex to suffer. It did not seem humanly possible
that she could communicate her personal view of Mary to Robert; but
certainly Beatrice was accomplishing a very dramatic pause, and in it
her lips drew back and showed her beautiful teeth.

"The young lady is a friend of yours, too?" she asked very sweetly.

"Friend!" cried Robert cried. "She's the girl I'm going to marry! Where
is she, madam? Can't you tell me what has happened?"

Beatrice's laugh was blood-curdling.

"Mrs. Boller!" Anthony cried. "I protest----"

"Do you really?" Beatrice smiled and turned directly to Robert. "So
you're going to marry her?"

"What? Yes."

"Or perhaps you're not!" Mrs. Boller mused, "You think her a very worthy
young woman?"

Robert looked blankly at her.

"But she is not," Beatrice said softly. "And you look like a decent
sort, and however much it may hurt for a little, you shall have the
truth. You asked me where I found this hat. Well, it was in the bedroom
at the end of that corridor--Mr. Boller's room!"

She waited vainly for a little, because Robert simply did not
comprehend. He frowned at Beatrice and then shook his head.

"What--what do you say?"

"It had been there all night, Mr. Vining," Beatrice purred on. "So had
she!"

"Mary--_my Mary_? Mary Dalton?" Robert gasped.

"Mary Dalton!"

"But that--that's all damned--pardon me!--nonsense! That----"

He turned on Anthony; and then, quickly as he had turned, he gasped and
stared with burning eyes.

View him as one chose, there was nothing about Anthony to indicate that
it was nonsense. He was biting his lips; his eyes were upon the floor;
had he rehearsed the thing for months he could not possibly have looked
more guilty.

"Why--why----" choked Robert Vining.

Beatrice laid a slender hand on his arm.

"Come with me," she said quickly. "Come and see her bag and her little
toilet case and several other of her things. Perhaps you'll recognize
them, too, and they'll convince you that she really settled down here
for a visit. Come!"

As a man in a dreadful dream, Robert Vining followed her blindly into
the corridor and out of sight. Johnson Boller smiled a demon smile and
thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets.

"Here's where _he_ gets _his_!" he stated. Anthony could no more than
speak.

"That--that woman!" he contrived. "What an absolutely merciless
thing----"

"Huh? Bee?" the remarkable Boller said sharply. "She's all right; she's
acting according to her own lights, isn't she? Why the devil shouldn't
Vining suffer, too? D'ye think I'm the only man in the world that has to
suffer?"

"I think you're in luck if she divorces you!" Anthony stated feelingly.
"A woman capable of that is capable of anything!"

Johnson Boller stayed the angry words upon his lips and smiled grimly.
More, after a moment he thrust out his hand.

"I guess it doesn't matter much what you think now, Anthony," said he.
"Good-by!"

"What?"

"Good-by, old man! You're going to leave this world in about three
minutes, you know--just as soon as he's convinced and able to act again,
Anthony. So long I'll be sorry to think of you as missing--sometimes, I
suppose, but not when I think what you've put over on me."

Anthony laughed viciously.

"Don't use up all your sympathy," he said. "You may need a little for
yourself, Johnson. The things are in what's supposed to be _your_ room,
you know."

"What?" gasped Johnson Boller. "That's true! That----"

Out at the entrance, a key was scraping in the latch; and when it had
scraped for the second time Anthony smiled forlornly.

"Wilkins," he said. "Back to report that the girl's safe at
home--whatever good that may do now. Is that you, Wilkins?"

"That's--that's me, sir!" Wilkins puffed.

And the door closed and in the foyer bump--bump--bump indicated that
Wilkins was carrying something, a trunk one might almost have thought
from the sound. Rather red, gleaming perspiration that had not all come
from exertion, Wilkins appeared, moved into the room, gazed feelingly at
his master, was about to speak and then caught the sound of voices from
David's room.

"The--the parties couldn't attend to the trunk to-day!" said Wilkins.

"_She_--isn't in there?" Anthony whispered.

"I have no reason to think otherwise, sir," said the faithful one.

"You didn't leave her?"

"There was no one to leave her with, sir, and I was ordered out with the
trunk," Wilkins said, smiling wanly. "There wasn't nowhere to come but
here, sir, with the police after me."

From down the corridor issued--

"Yes! I'm--Heaven help me--I'm convinced!"

"I'll be taking her into your room, sir," Wilkins said hastily. "She
must be needing a breath of air by this time, poor young lady!"

Another nightmare figure, he lumbered across the living-room and into
Anthony's chamber; and regardless of possible consequences Anthony
followed and snatched open the trunk.

Mary had not expired. Her face was decidedly red and her eyes rather
bewildered, but she struggled out with Anthony's assistance, breathed
deeply several times, glanced at her hair in the mirror and then, being
a thoroughly good sport, Mary even managed a small, wretched laugh.

"Back again!" she said simply. "They'd discharged Felice."

"Was there--nobody else?" Anthony asked.

"Dorothy, our little parlor maid, would have done, I suppose, but
Wilkins didn't know about her," said the girl, facing him. "It's pretty
awful, isn't it?"

Even now she had not lost her nerve! The chivalrous something in Anthony
welled up more strongly than ever; the precise, rather old-maidish
quality of his expression vanished altogether--and for the very first
time Mary almost liked him.

"It's very awful, indeed," he said quickly. "More awful than you
imagine, but--we'll try to believe that all is not lost even now. One
way or another, I'll get you out of it, Miss Mary, if I have to lie my
soul into perdition. I don't know how at the moment, but the way will
indicate itself; I decline to believe anything else! You'll have to stay
here and keep your ears wide open and take your cue from whatever I'm
saying. I hope----"

"Psst!" said Johnson Boller.

Anthony left the room with a motion that was more twitch than anything
else, and he left it none too soon. The shock, or the first of it, was
over; Robert Vining was coming back to them, not like a nice young man,
but rather like a Kansas cyclone! Three thuds in the corridor, and he
appeared before them.

Robert's countenance was gray-white; his white lips, parted a little,
seemed to be stretched over his teeth; his eyes blazed blue fire! And
behind Robert--and be it confessed that there was a certain indefinite
atmosphere of fright about her--Beatrice smiled.

"So you--_you_--you beastly scoundrel!" Robert began, his hands working
as he looked straight at Johnson Boller and ignored the very existence
of Anthony Fry. "I don't know whether a thing like you can pray, but if
you can, pray quick!"

"_Me?_" Johnson Boller gulped.

Robert laughed dreadfully.

"Don't waste your time gaping!" he said, thickly. "Pray if you want to,
because you're going to die! D'ye hear? I'm going to choke out your
nasty life as I'd choke the life out of a mad dog."

"Not my life!" Johnson Boller protested, with pale lips, as he pointed
at Anthony. "He----"

"Whatever he may have had to do with luring her here I can settle with
him afterward!" Robert cried. "My concern is with _you_; and if you want
to say anything, hurry about it. I can't hold myself more than another
second or two!"

By way of proving it, he stalked down upon Johnson Boller--not rapidly,
but with a deadly slowness and deliberation which suggested the tiger
coming down upon its prey. His flaring eyes had fascinated the victim,
too, for Johnson Boller could not move a muscle. Once he tried to smile
a farewell at Beatrice; his eyes would not remain away from Robert even
long enough for that. Once he tried to look at Anthony, but it was quite
useless.

And from that ominous region of the doorway came Wilkins's warm tones:

"Well, that's all right, gentlemen, but he's busy now."

"He's not too busy to see me," said an entirely strange voice, and heavy
steps passed by Wilkins.

Into the large room which had already seen so much suffering, the
distinctly scared person of Hobart Hitchin was propelled by a large,
hairy hand. The owner of the hand glanced at him for an instant; and
then for five terrific seconds stared at Anthony Fry, who after the
first violent start had turned immobile as Johnson Boller himself.

"Mr.--what's your name?--Hitchin!" Dalton barked.

Hobart Hitchin straightened up with an effort.

"Fry," said he, "we--er--that is, I accuse you of the--ah--murder of
Theodore Dalton's only son, Richard, alias David Prentiss!"

CHAPTER XVI

The Lie

Even Robert Vining halted his death march. A man of but one idea in the
world just a second ago, he jerked about suddenly and cried:

"_Dick?_"

Dalton a strong man half-benumbed by mental agony, turned slowly upon
him.

"Are you--here, too, Robert?" he muttered. "Yes, Dicky!"

And slowly he turned back to Anthony and, slowly also, he drew forth the
automatic in all its steely-blue nastiness.

"Well, Fry?"

Anthony Fry merely shook his head. The mood that was come upon him now
passed any explanation; he was neither frightened nor excited. He heard
the latest absurd accusation without even forming an opinion on it.
Either he had passed the point where one may feel the sensation of
astonishment or infinite desperation had blessed him with a calm past
any understanding. He did not know which and he did not care; it was
enough that he could look straight at Dalton and not even change color!

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Dalton," he said quietly.

Beatrice leaped into action.

"Dalton!" she cried. "Mary Dalton's father?"

"What?" Dalton, momentarily sidetracked, whirled upon her. "You've heard
something from Mary, madam? You know----"

"I know all about Mary!" said Beatrice Boller.

"Madam!" Anthony broke in. "I forbid you to say one word of your
ridiculous and unjustified----"

Beatrice simply ignored his presence and favored Theodore Dalton with
her unspeakable smile.

"Mary Dalton passed the night in this apartment," she said quickly.

"Mary----" Dalton cried, just as Robert hurried to his side and clutched
his arm.

"They say she was here!" he panted. "The woman says so, and Mary's
hat--see! She's holding it even now! And Mary's bag is in a room there,
and her comb and brush and two of her handkerchiefs and----"

"But it wasn't a woman, whatever she's left!" Hobart Hitchin
contributed. "It was a boy, about twenty or twenty-two--a boy Fry
introduced to me as David Prentiss, and who was Dalton's son. Look! We
have his trousers, and Dalton has identified them as his son's!"

Dalton's attention was still upon Beatrice.

"You say that--that my daughter----"

"I say that she was here and that she left suddenly when I came, so
suddenly that she hadn't even time to take her hat!" said Boller's
charming wife. "Where she is now I don't know; not in this apartment
because I've searched it; probably somewhere else in the house, because
she would be unlikely to leave without a hat. But she was here, and if
you doubt it, _ask those men_!"

Slowly, Dalton turned back to Anthony Fry. One glance he sent down at
the automatic and his finger settled over the trigger.

And still the calm held Anthony.

It was one of the most curious things he had ever experienced, that
calm, and more curious than the calm itself was the astounding capacity
for thought that had come to his tired brain. Except for this last
inexplicable accusation, which he discarded, he was thinking lucidly,
and swiftly and, by the way, along a single line. Mary was all that
mattered just now.

And to some extent, if Fate remained kind, he saw his way to saving
Mary, should the girl have sense enough to remain quiet in his room. He
smiled, did Anthony, and looked so confidently, so directly at Dalton
that the latter scowled in bewilderment.

"I know nothing whatever about your son, Dalton," said he. "I did not
even know that you had a son. Are you sure he is not at home?"

"He has not been at home for weeks," Hitchin put in. "That's what
puzzles us; how did you get him to the city?"

"From what point?"

"Hillcombe, in the Adirondacks," Dalton said. "He----"

"Is it possible to get Hillcombe on the long distance?"

The unfathomable self-possession made its own impression on Dalton.

"Very likely," he muttered.

"Then if you will give my man the number or the name of the hotel, or
whatever it may be, he will put in the call," said Anthony Fry. "Let us
hope that you'll be able to talk to your son shortly. If he doesn't
answer, wire him," Anthony pursued, impatiently. "That is the very best
I can suggest."

Theodore Dalton's hand passed through his hair, pausing to clutch it for
a moment; Wilkins, waiting attentively, met his eye and Dalton, having
cleared his dry throat, mumbled the name of a camp and turned back to
Anthony.

That remarkable figure was quite erect and merely waiting for a chance
to speak again. So far as the general theme was concerned, his mind was
fairly well settled; it meant certain ruin for him, if Dalton was kind
enough to believe; it was likely enough to mean even criminal
prosecution, but it bade fair to save Mary. Anthony even smiled
composedly as he tacked on new details; thus does suffering refine us!

Apparently, several of them were about to speak at once. Anthony held up
his lean, commanding hand for silence.

"One moment, please!" said the amazing Anthony. "There is no cause for
any further excitement, any further speculation. The thing has gone too
far now; it has passed beyond me and--I have failed."

"What?" Robert rasped.

Anthony drew a deep breath.

"Will you all be seated?" he asked. "I--I wish to confess the truth!"

"You mean that you----" Dalton exploded.

"I mean that nobody has been injured, to the best of my knowledge, and
that your daughter Mary is perfectly safe," Anthony smiled sadly. "Put
the gun away, Dalton, and hear me through at least. Later on, if you
feel inclined to use it, I don't know that I shall object greatly. I
quite understand what is likely to happen to me when you have heard what
I have to tell and--in spite of that the whole affair seems to have
tangled itself so terribly that there is nothing to do but tell it!"

He himself was sitting behind the table now, and he certainly claimed
their attention. Dalton perched on the edge of a chair; Robert took one
of its arms. Beatrice seemed at first unwilling to leave the center of
the stage, but presently she, too, was seated--and Johnson Boller
shuffled to a chair and went into it quite limply, gazing at Anthony and
breathing hard.

Unless Anthony was lying, he meant to tell the truth; and while some of
those present might believe the truth, Beatrice Boller was not among the
number.

"I don't know, Dalton," Anthony began evenly, "that I have anything to
say in extenuation of what I have done. Evidently I lost my head, even
to the point of downright insanity; some of us do that occasionally, you
know. Brooding over the business was responsible, I suppose. Your
Celestial Oil has been cutting pretty heavily into Imperial Liniment
this last year."

"Humph!" said Dalton.

"Cutting in so heavily that whatever efforts I have been able to put
forth have been of no avail whatever," Anthony pursued. "Last week--all
day last Saturday, in fact--I went over the year's business and it
fairly maddened me to see the falling off. I spent Sunday thinking and I
am frank to say, Dalton, that by Sunday night I was all but ready to
murder you. Toward midnight I conceived what seemed to be a means of
forcing you into some sort of mutual contract, by which each of us could
do business with the assurance that the other wasn't coming over to take
away what didn't belong to him."

"_You_ get away with a thing like that?" Dalton demanded.

"It was a wild notion," Anthony sighed. "I knew that talking was
useless, I knew that fighting you openly was equally useless, because
once I became too conspicuous I knew that you'd sail in and wreck me. At
the same time something had to be done and that in mighty short order,
or Fry's Imperial was likely to die a natural death. Therefore, Dalton,
I perfected the scheme of kidnaping your daughter and holding her until
you'd come to terms."

"Great----"

"Rest easy!" Mr. Fry smiled. "Part of it succeeded, but she hasn't been
injured and I ask you to believe, at least, that I never had any idea of
injuring her. What I did mean to do was to threaten you, through a third
person I met most unfortunately and who is, not to put too fine a point
upon it, one of the slimiest crooked lawyers in the world--what I meant
to do was to make you understand that, unless you came to terms, the
girl would be killed!

"If the details interest you I'll confess that I had a note sent to the
girl last evening, by a messenger who succeeded in telephoning her and
having her meet him just outside your home. The note informed Miss
Dalton that Vining here--oh, sit still, Vining, you may settle with me
when I've finished--that Vining here was engaged, if not actually
married, to another girl. It was a very convincing note indeed, and the
messenger was instructed to tell Miss Dalton, should the note make its
impression, that he would take her to a place where she would be able to
observe with her own eyes the faithlessness of one she was on the point
of trusting with her whole life!"

"Well, by the holy----" Robert began.

"Every little twist and turn of this story I had perfected beforehand; I
could not see the possibility of a slip and there was no slip. It was
made plain to Miss Dalton that, if she wished to see Robert under the
unpleasant conditions, she would have to attire herself as a man, for
she was likely to spend some time at least in the back room of a saloon.
My messenger even took her a wig I had provided for the purpose, and she
was informed that, if she wished to take along her own proper clothing,
it would be quite possible to return in that."

Utter admiration possessed Johnson Boller; yet Beatrice, as he knew, was
watching him narrowly.

"You--you contemptible scoundrel!" Johnson Boller said pleasantly.

Him, too, Anthony ignored.

"She took the bait, Dalton, just as I had planned. The man brought her
to me at a point--er--outside this hotel, and she was dressed in her
brother's clothing, as it appears now. It was agreed between us that she
should take the name of David Prentiss for the evening, and under that
name she was introduced to Hitchin here. After that she was brought to
this apartment."

Anthony paused and sighed heavily and impressively, an erring man borne
down by his guilt.

"Miss Dalton, even as a boy, did not look very much like a boy," he
pursued. "It seemed better to me that she change to her own clothes, and
I requested her to do so, on some pretext which, I am frank to say,
slips my mind at the moment. She came into this room afterward and, as I
had planned, a little luncheon was waiting for us. She drank a cup of
coffee and--it had been drugged."

"Where was Johnson Boller all this time?" Beatrice asked.

Although Johnson Boller held his breath, Anthony Fry batted never an
eyelash. Dignified, austere exponent of the rock-ribbed truth that he
had once been, all his sails were set now and the rudder lashed in place
for the sinful course. It would have been a downright effort just then
for Anthony to have told the truth about anything whatever.

"Johnson never came until an hour after it was over," he said. "He went
to a prize fight, Mrs. Boller, and after that met some out-of-town
people in the woolen trade and worked until nearly two this morning
winding up a contract."

"D'ye see?" said Johnson Boller, when his breath came back. "D'ye see?
You had me down for everything that was worst in the world, kid, and now
you hear the truth."

All unaware was Anthony Fry of the sharp start of Hobart Hitchin. All
unaware was he that the crime-student, rousing from his partially scared
state, had smiled suddenly. All unaware, in fact, was Anthony, of the
terrible slip he had just made.

"That is almost all of the story," he said, with a miserable little
smile at Dalton. "The young lady was taken, in an automobile,
half-stupefied, to--a certain town in New Jersey, Dalton. She is
unharmed and has been unharmed; that at least I am able to guarantee
you."

"And she's there now?" Dalton cried.

"She is there now and----"

"What town?"

"That I will not tell you, because it will involve several poor devils
I've hired in connection with this mad affair," said Anthony. "But if
you will permit me, I will go for the young lady myself--stipulating
only that I shall not be followed--and I will return her to your house
before three o'clock this afternoon. After that, Dalton," said Anthony,
drawing himself up, "I'm willing to take my medicine. I know that it's
coming and I'm willing----"

"You'll get it, never fear," snarled Mary's father. "But about Mary!
Tell me the name of this town or----"

"I shall tell you nothing whatever!" Anthony said firmly. "I shall tell
you only that, under the conditions I have named, I will very gladly go
to Jersey and get her."

"You're sure she's there now?" Robert said hoarsely.

"I am absolutely sure," said Anthony, "that she is now in New Jersey
under guard."

And now, with Dalton's murderous impulses stilled at least, with many
things fairly well explained and new minutiæ coming into his head every
second should this, that or the other question be asked, just as Anthony
leaned back, two new quantities must needs enter. The first was Hobart
Hitchin. The second was a strong breeze, which always came through the
living-room when Wilkins left open the door and the window of his
pantry.

"Fry," said the crime-student, and if a snake owned a voice it would be
as slithery and oily as the voice of Hobart Hitchin just then, "Fry, you
say that Boller came in several hours after you came in last night?
Didn't I see you both downstairs?"

"Eh?" Anthony said.

"And Fry," the reptilian voice added, "you haven't told us what was in
the trunk you sent to Dalton's house, you know."

Anthony straightened up again. Two seconds were passed, and still he had
not the answer; three, and he was still silent; four, and he had not yet
spoken. And the playful breeze saved him all the trouble of speaking.
The latch of Anthony's bedroom door was not caught, and the breeze,
striking it squarely, sent it open suddenly and cleanly as if jerked
back by a wire!

And leaning forward in her chair, even now listening intently, Mary
Dalton was revealed!

Anthony Fry did not move; this was because he could not. But with a
single motion Theodore Dalton and Robert Vining, Johnson Boller and
Johnson Boller's wife, were on their feet and staring at her. With a
single plunge, Dalton and Vining went forward, and the former winning,
he snatched Mary to him and wrapped the great arms around her, mouthing
and mumbling and shouting all at once!

Still Anthony did not move. He had not moved when, through the swirl
that was before his eyes, Mary and her father came into the room. The
girl had disengaged herself and she was rather pale--ah, and she was
speaking to her father.

"Dad," she said very quietly, "have I ever told you a lie?"

"You'd be no daughter of mine if you had," Dalton said simply.

"Then what happened is just this: I wanted to go to that fight last
night and Bob wouldn't take me. He was so awfully uppish about it that I
decided to go myself; I like a good fight, you know. I didn't dare go as
a girl, so I put on Dicky's fishing suit--the old one--and sneaked out
the back door, after you thought I was in bed. Then I got a messenger
boy and managed to find a ticket for the fight. And I went," said Mary,
"and I happened to sit next to Mr. Fry."

"You went alone to a prize fight?" her father gasped.

"It was horribly tame," said Mary, "but some men started a fight behind
us, because Mr. Fry spoke to me, I think, and that wasn't tame at all.
For a minute it scared my wits out, because I thought we were all going
to be arrested. So when Mr. Fry and Mr. Boller decided to escape in a
taxicab, I was mighty glad to go with them. After that Mr. Fry--turned
queer," Mary dimpled. "He thought I was a boy and he wanted to offer me
the opportunity of a lifetime.

"I don't know just what it meant, but I was curious enough to come up
here and listen; and when I didn't appreciate what he was offering, Mr.
Fry got mad. He told me he'd keep me here until I did, so I--I just went
to bed and counted on getting out overnight, somehow. I tried it and I
missed fire, and this morning he discovered that I was a girl. That's
the whole story; we've all been trying to get me out of here ever
since--and I'm still here!"

"But the trunk----" Hobart Hitchin put in doggedly.

"I was in the trunk," said Mary. "We thought I could get to Felice's
room that way, but Felice was gone, so Wilkins brought me back." She
looked at her father steadily and almost confidently. "That weird tale
about having me drugged was just to save me, dad, and maybe if the door
hadn't blown open I'd have been home about three and swearing to it.
That's all. Mr. Fry--Mr. Boller, too--have been too nice for words,"
concluded Mary, stretching a point. "There isn't a thing to blame them
for--and I never could have believed that Mr. Fry was capable of a
lovely lie like that."

Since seven that morning, at which time Mary's absence had been
discovered, Theodore Dalton had been breathing in terrible, spasmodic
gasps. Now, as he faced Anthony, he breathed deeply--breathed deeply
again--and turned Anthony's tottering world quite upside down by
suddenly thrusting out his hand.

"Well, by gad, Fry!" he bellowed. "I knew you were crazy, but I never
suspected you were man enough for that! I'd swallowed that tale almost
whole and I'd made up my mind to wipe you and your bottled mess off the
map together."

"I know," said Anthony.

"But if there's one thing that hits me right where I live," vociferated
Dalton, "it's a man who will chuck his own every earthly interest aside
to save a woman's name and--put it there, Fry! You're a man!"

A little uncertainly, because he was dazed and dizzy, Anthony grasped
the hairy hand. It was not so, because it was impossible, but--he and
Dalton were friends!

Beatrice was within a yard of her husband.

"Then there was--was nothing----" she faltered.

"There was nothing to get excited about--no," Johnson Boller said
stiffly. "Not at any time."

"Pudgy!" Beatrice said chokily, because her volatile nature was whizzing
breathlessly down from the exalted murder-state to the depths of
contrition.

"Well? What?" Johnson Boller said coldly.

"Pudgy-wudgy, can you ever forgive me?" Beatrice cried, burying her head
on his shoulder.

"I don't know," Johnson Boller said frigidly, and did not even put an
arm around her. "I don't know, Beatrice. You have wounded me more deeply
this day than I have ever been wounded in all my life before. I shall
try in time to forgive you, but--I do not know."

They were all gone now, all but Anthony and his old friend, Johnson
Boller.

It was in fact nearly noon, for with the tension removed Mary had gone
into the details of last night; and after a little even Robert Vining
had laughed. He at least knew Anthony Fry and he believed Johnson Boller
to be one of the most harmless fat men in existence, so that when he had
heard it all even Robert fell to chuckling.

And now they were gone with Mary, leaving behind a conviction in
Anthony's bosom that Mary was really a very charming young girl; leaving
an impression, too, that, could twenty years have been swept from his
forty-five, he might even have undertaken to win her away from Robert!
This last impression was transitory in the extreme, however; it endured
for perhaps forty-five seconds.

Hobart Hitchin was gone; he had vanished somewhere about the middle of
the session, leaving Richard's trousers, and for a long time nobody even
noticed that he was among the missing. To the best of Johnson Boller's
memory, he left just after Richard answered the long distance call and
assured his father that all was well.

Beatrice was gone, too. She had left all wreathed in smiles, since the
idiot that was her husband could not maintain his chilliness for more
than five minutes. In a dusky corner, Johnson and his cyclonic lady had
kissed eighteen times, lingeringly, and then she had left him to pack up
and follow, while she went personally to the five-thousand-dollar
apartment to prepare the things he most liked for luncheon.

And now Johnson Boller had packed the grip, while Anthony lounged, tired
out, weak in knees and hands, trembling every now and then and gazing
into the blue cigar smoke above him.

"The next time I come to stay with you I'm going to bring a chaperon,"
Boller mused.

"Do."

"You came pretty near wrecking my home that time, Anthony."

"Pah!" snarled Anthony.

Johnson Boller pursued the strain no further. Instead, with a shrug of
the shoulders, he picked up a book from the top of the case and turned
its pages idly. After which he smiled suddenly and said, with the utmost
alertness.

"You have a lot of poetry, haven't you?"

"I'm fond of it," said Anthony, absently.

"Here's a pretty little thing," Johnson Boller pursued in his very
gentlest voice. "This is awful pretty. Listen:

    "Master of human destinies am I;
    Fame, love and fortune on----"

Here he ceased abruptly. He shrieked gleefully, did Johnson Boller, and
ducked almost down to the floor.

This was as well, because Anthony's little blue vase, for which he had
paid sixty dollars in Canton, had splintered on the wall, just where
Johnson Boller's head had been!

THE END.