Against Odds Part 33

The matter of the diamond robbery, after considerable discussion and some reluctance, had been turned over to a clever Chicago expert, and to help him on, and at the same time free our hands for other matters, we gave him all the information in our possession; told him our theories and suspicions, and gave him a description of the brunette, together, of course, with an account of her transactions with the emerald, which, by the way, had been restored to Monsieur Lausch, not freely and not willingly, but because the dealer in precious stones was not daring enough to risk a threatened exposure in the newspapers.

To make the expert's way quite clear with reference to the brunette, we told him also of her pursuit of Miss Jenrys and her connection with the attack upon our guard, adding that we were fully convinced she was one of a clique, working always, whether together or separately, in unison. But we entered into no details where Delbras and his other confederates were concerned. In fact, we did not name them.

'We cannot let the Lausch business go out of our hands without letting the other party into the matter as deep as we ourselves have gone,'

said Dave, 'and the brunette has put her finger into the pie. But there's no proof of any sort pointing toward the rest of the gang; and so, old man, before we put another fellow on the track of Delbras, Bob, Smug and Company, we will satisfy ourselves that we are not smart enough to run them down alone.'

These sentiments I echoed in full; and although they were proving themselves adepts in the art of vanis.h.i.+ng and leaving no trace behind, I felt--for reasons which I had not as yet confided even to Brainerd--more and more certain every day that we should sooner or later entrap Delbras, and through him the others.

But while we could describe the brunette to the satisfaction of the keen young fellow in whom we felt a brotherly interest and any amount of faith, we could do little more. I sent him my 'shadow,' Billy, and the boy went with him to the cafe where she had been seen to come and go, and to the places in the Plaisance where she had more than once disappeared; and having done this we could do no more, save to wish him success and to wash our hands, for a time, of the Lausch diamond robbery and the little brunette--or so we thought.

But now I had upon my mind a new case. Our guard, or Lossing, as, in imitation of Miss Jenrys and her aunt, I was learning to call him, was now becoming convalescent, and while he had not yet returned to his duties as Columbian Guard, which he had a.s.sured me he meant soon to do, he was beginning to go about by night and by day, as his strength increased, quite regardless, seemingly, of the fact that he had been attacked once, and had every reason to think the act might be repeated in some new fas.h.i.+on.

I had warned him of the risk he might run by going about alone at night, for I saw that when he was not in the presence of June Jenrys--as he was now sure to be, for a little time at least, every day--he was unnaturally restless.

I had learned to know him too well to suggest a companion for his evening strolls, but I kept an eye upon him, and, so long as he did not venture from the grounds, felt tolerably secure of his safety.

Much of the great inclosure was as light and as safe by night as by day, but Lossing, while recovering in the hospital, had fallen in love with the lake, so near at hand, and his first stroll by day was in this direction, as well as his first evening venture.

Out across the Government Plaza, along the sh.o.r.e to the brick gunboat, and on northward where the lights were faint and the risk greatest, or so it seemed to me, he went that night, and the next, and the next.

But not alone, when he took his second promenade lake-ward. The boy Billy was at his heels unseen but watchful, and well knowing how to act should danger threaten.

In the meantime, since the night of the attack upon Lossing, the brunette, Bob, Delbras, Smug--all had vanished utterly. Neither in Midway nor elsewhere, as Turks or gentlemen of leisure, were they seen by Dave, myself, or the boy Billy.

'But they're here all right!' Dave declared, 'and if we don't find a new gap in the fence somewhere soon, I don't know the gentry!'

During Lossing's confinement in the hospital, after he had begun to mend, I had brought Dave to see him, and after that he had several times looked in upon the invalid; sometimes at my request, and later for his own pleasure as well.

Dave's bluff ways had made for him a friend in our guard, and so one day, the day following that of Lossing's third lakeside promenade, I asked Dave, who had declared himself off duty for the night, to go and see him.

I had just received a letter from Boston which made me anxious to see Miss Jenrys; and as I had not called upon nor met her during the day, I decided to go to Was.h.i.+ngton Avenue that evening.

'Go early, Dave,' I said, when he had a.s.sured me of his readiness to go, 'and ask him to put in the evening with you. I don't like these lakesh.o.r.e prowls. The fellow's a good one with his fists, but he don't seem to realize that it's treachery, a blow in the back, that he must guard against.'

Dave went his way, and it being rather early for my call, I sat down to re-read Mr. Trent's letter.

It was brief and evidently penned under excitement. He had received an anonymous letter from Chicago, proposing to open negotiations for the ransom of his son, who, it declared, was at that moment a prisoner in the hands of desperate men.

'In short,' Trent's letter ended, 'it's an alarming letter.

I write this in haste that it may reach you at once, and can only say that my daughter and Miss O'Neil, in my absence, opened and read the letter, and have written to Miss Jenrys in full. I am very anxious to know what they have written.

See Miss J---- at once; it is important. I have no time for more.

'Yours hastily,

'TRENT.'

As I was turning the key in the lock and about to set out at once for Was.h.i.+ngton Avenue, Brainerd came puffing up the stairs.

'He's gone!' he panted, 'and I was afraid you'd be!'

'Do you mean Lossing?'

'Of course! He laid off his regimentals, one of the guards told me, and put on a swell evening suit, and away he went. Want me to follow him?'

'Yes,' I answered promptly. 'I can't come home with him, I fear; I must somehow see the ladies alone. You know the place, Dave, do you not? He won't stay late, you know.'

I was not greatly surprised to hear of Lossing in Was.h.i.+ngton Avenue, for we knew well enough that his first evening's visit would be to Miss Jenrys. He had been three or four times taken to the gate in a rolling chair, and had walked from there to the house for a morning call; but this was his first evening outside the grounds since his recovery.

As I approached the house I saw that someone was before me, already at the threshold, and ringing the bell. I could not identify the figure, because of the two trees which stood one on each side of the stone steps before the door, the one half concealing his figure, the other the light at the corner below.

The door opened so promptly that he was admitted before I had left the pavement, and the visitor, Lossing as I supposed, pa.s.sed in.

'Poor fellow,' I said to myself, 'I won't come upon his very heels.

I'll give him a few moments, at least, alone with the lady of his choice,' and I turned away and walked at a moderate pace around the block. But I could spare him no further grace, and so upon again reaching the house I ran up the steps and rang hastily.

The rooms occupied by the ladies as parlour and reception rooms were small and cosy, and thrown together by an arch, beneath which a _portiere_ was draped, and Miss Ross came forward to greet me at the doorway of the first of these.

I could hear a murmur of conversation from the farther room, but it was not until I was standing beneath the curtained archway that I saw, to my amazement, Lossing and Monsieur Voisin at the farther side of the room, talking amiable nothings, as men of the world will when they meet. Both were in evening dress, and the Frenchman held in his hand a splendid bunch of American Beauty roses.

Voisin greeted me with _empress.e.m.e.nt_, and Lossing carelessly acknowledged 'having met me before.'

Miss Jenrys, her aunt informed me, as she had before informed the others, was engaged upon a letter of some importance, which must be sent in the early mail. She would join us soon; and then I learned from our desultory talk that it was Voisin for whose accommodation I had been pacing the block, and that Lossing had been the first arrival.

These two were still seated at the rear of the inner room, with Miss Ross at a little table near its centre and myself opposite her, and with my back to the archway, when there came a sudden sound at the outer door. It opened and closed quickly, and Miss Jenrys' voice exclaimed:

'Oh, Mr. Masters! I have had such a letter! One of those wretches has written that he will ransom poor lost Gerald Trent for----'

'June, my dear, come and receive thy visitors before thee tells thy news.'

There was just a second of embarra.s.sed silence, and then Miss Jenrys came forward and greeted her guests, with precisely the same courteous welcome extended to us each and all.

But she only referred to her exclamatory first words in reply to Monsieur Voisin's question:

'You greeted us with some rather startling words, Miss Jenrys. Pardon me, but is it true that you have a friend lost in this wonderful city?'

But Miss Jenrys was not to be made to commit herself a second time.

'Not at all; it is simply some news just given me by a correspondent, who has told me in a former letter about the disappearance of a young man whom I do not know.'

'A disappearance! Is it possible? I am interested.' He turned quickly toward me. 'May I ask from you the details?'

'You can learn from the daily papers as much as I can tell you,' I replied, with my most candid smile. 'I read some time since of such a disappearance, and speaking of it casually to Miss Jenrys, learned from her that she had the news direct from a young lady correspondent who chanced to know the young man and his family. Is that reported correctly, Miss Jenrys?'

She nodded.

'And he has been ransomed, you say? That is well indeed,' persisted Voisin.