Under Cover Part 29

"That'll make it a nice interesting game," Monty commented. He knew he could never make a decent shot until the confounded necklace was miles away.

"Then there's nothing else to do but dance," Alice decreed. "Come, Nora."

"No," Michael cried, "I'll play pool or auction or poker, I'll sit or talk or sing, but I'm hanged if I hesitate and get lost, or maxixe!"

Alice shook her head mournfully. "Ah, Michael," she said, "if you were only as light-footed as you are light-headed, what a partner you'd make.

We are going to dance anyway."

Ethel hesitated at the doorway. "Aren't you dancing or playing pool, Mr.

Denby?"

"In just a moment," he said. "First I have a word to say to Monty."

"I understand," she returned. "Man's G.o.d--business! Men use that excuse over the very littlest things sometimes."

"But this is a big thing," he a.s.serted; "a two hundred thousand dollar proposition, so we're naturally a bit anxious."

Monty shook his head gravely. "Mighty anxious, believe me."

Whatever hope she might have cherished that Taylor was wrong, and this man she liked so much was innocent, faded when she heard the figure two hundred thousand dollars. That was the amount of the necklace's value, exactly. And she had wondered at Monty's strained, nervous manner. Now it became very clear that he was Denby's accomplice, dreading, and perhaps knowing as well as she, that the house was surrounded.

She told herself that the law was just, and those who disobeyed were guilty and should be punished; and that she was an instrument, impersonal, and as such, without blame. But uppermost in her mind was the thought of black treachery, of mean intriguing ways, and the certainty that this night would see the end of her friends.h.i.+p with the man she had sworn to deliver to the ruthless, cruel, insatiable Taylor.

It was, as Taylor told her, a question of deciding between two people.

She could help, indirectly, to convict a clever smuggler, or she could send her weak, dependent, innocent eighteen-year-old sister to jail. And she had said to Taylor: "I have no choice."

Denby looked at her a little puzzled. In Paris, a year ago, she had seemed a sweet, natural girl, armed with a certain dignity that would not permit men to become too friendly on short acquaintance. And here it seemed that she was almost trying to flirt with him in a wholly different way. He was not sure that her other manner was not more in keeping with the ideal he had held of her since that first meeting.

"I should be anxious, too," she said, "if I had all that money at stake.

But all the same, don't be too long. I think I may ask you for that cigarette presently."

CHAPTER TEN

Denby stood looking after her. "Bully, bully girl," he muttered.

"Anything wrong, Steve?" Monty inquired, not catching what he said.

Denby turned to the speaker slowly; his thoughts had been more pleasantly engaged.

"I don't understand why they haven't done anything," he answered. "I'm certain we were followed at the dock. When I went to send those telegrams I saw a man who seemed very much disinterested, but kept near me. I saw him again when we had our second blow-out near Jamaica. It might have been a coincidence, but I'm inclined to think they've marked us down."

"I don't believe it," Monty cried. "If they had the least idea about the necklace, they'd have pinched you at the pier, or got you on the road when it was only you and the chauffeur against their men."

Still Denby seemed dubious. "They let me in too dashed easily," he complained, "and I can't help being suspicious."

"They seemed to suspect me," Monty reminded him.

"The fellow thought you were laughing at him, that's all. They've no sense of humor," Denby returned. "What I said to-night was no fiction, Monty. Cartier's may have tipped the Customs after all."

"But you paid Harlow a thousand dollars," Monty declared.

"He wasn't the only one to know I had bought the pearls, though," Denby observed thoughtfully. "It looks fishy to me. They may have some new wrinkles in the Customs."

"That d.a.m.ned R. J.," Monty said viciously, "I'd like to strangle him."

"It would make things easier," Denby allowed.

"All the same," Monty remarked, "I think we've both been too fidgety."

"Dear old Monty," his friend said, smiling, "if you knew the game as I do, and had hunted men and been hunted by them as I have, you'd not blame me for being a little uneasy now."

With apprehension Monty watched him advance swiftly toward the switch on the centre wall by the window. "Get over by that window," he commanded, and Monty hurriedly obeyed him. Then he turned off the lights, leaving the room only faintly illuminated by the moonlight coming through the French windows.

"What the devil's up?" Monty asked excitedly.

"Is there anyone there on the lawn?"

Monty peered anxiously through the gla.s.s. "No," he whispered, and then added: "Yes, there's a man over there by the big oak. By Jove, there is!"

"What's he doing?" the other demanded.

"Just standing and looking over this way."

"He's detailed to watch the house. Anybody else with him?"

"Not that I can see."

"Come away, Monty," Denby called softly, and when his friend was away from observation, he switched on the light again. "Now," he asked, "do you believe that we were followed?"

"The chills are running down my spine," Monty confessed. "Gee, Steve, I hope it won't come to a gun fight."

"They won't touch you," Denby said comfortingly; "they want me."

"I don't know," Monty said doubtfully. "They'll shoot first, and then ask which is you."

Denby was unperturbed. "I think we've both been too fidgety," he quoted.

"But why don't they come in?" Monty asked apprehensively.

"They're staying out there to keep us prisoners," he was told.

"Then I hope they'll stop there," Monty exclaimed fervently.

"I can't help thinking," Denby said, knitting his brows, "that they've got someone in here on the inside, working under cover to try to get the necklace. What do you know about the butler, Lambart? Is he a new man?"

"Lord, no," Monty a.s.sured him. "He has been with Michael five years, and wors.h.i.+ps him. You'd distress Lambart immeasurably if you even hinted he'd ever handed a plate to a smuggler."