Under Cover Part 42

"What is it?" she called, frightened. It was not the low whistle that Monty had used, but a menacing, thrilling sound.

"Your friends of the secret service have come back," he answered, "but they mustn't see us together." Quickly he lowered the window-shade, and stepped back to the centre of the room, coming to a sudden pause as he saw the terror on the girl's face.

"Oh, my G.o.d," she screamed, "what have you done? That was the signal to bring Taylor here."

"Ah, then, it's Taylor," he cried triumphantly. "It's Taylor!"

"Oh, I didn't mean to tell," she said, startled at the admission. "I didn't mean to let anyone know."

"I wish you had told me before," he said with regret, "we could both have been spared some unhappy moments. I know Taylor and his way of fighting, and this thing is going to a finish."

"Go, before he comes," she entreated.

"And leave you alone to face him?" he said more tenderly. "Leave you to a man who fights as he does?" He looked at her for a moment in silence and then bowed his head over her white hand and kissed it. "I can't do that. I love you."

"Oh, please go while there's time," she pleaded; "he mustn't take you."

She looked up at him and without shame, revealed the love that she now knew she must ever have for him. "Oh, I couldn't bear that," she said tremulously, "I couldn't."

He gazed down at her, not yet daring to believe that out of this black moment the greatest happiness of his life had come. "Ethel!" he said, amazed.

"I love you," she whispered; "oh, my dear, I love you."

He gathered her in his strong arms. "Then I can fight the whole world,"

he cried, "and win!"

"For my sake, go," she begged. "Let me see him first; let me try to get you out of it."

"I stay here, dearest," he said firmly. "When he comes, say that you've caught me."

"No, no," she implored; "I can't send you to prison either."

"I'm not going to prison," he rea.s.sured her. "I'm not done for yet, but we must save your sister and get that warrant. He must not think you've failed him. Do you understand?"

"But he'll take you away," she cried, and clung to him.

"Do as I say," he besought her; "tell him the necklace is here somewhere. Be brave, my dear, we're working to save your sister. He's coming."

"Hands up, Denby," Taylor shouted, clambering from the balcony to the room and levelling a revolver at the smuggler. Without a word Denby's hands went up as he was bid, and the deputy-surveyor smiled the victor's smile.

"Well, congratulations, Miss Cartwright," he cried; "you landed him as I knew you could if you tried."

"What's the meaning of this?" Denby cried indignantly. "Who are you?"

"Oh, can that bunk!" Taylor said in disgust.

"Where's the necklace, Miss Cartwright?"

"I don't know," she answered nervously.

"You don't know?" he returned incredulously.

"I haven't been able to find it, but it's here somewhere."

"He's probably got it on him," Taylor said.

"All this is preposterous," Denby exclaimed angrily.

"Hand it over," Taylor snapped.

"I have no necklace," Denby told him.

"Then I'll have to search you," he cried, coming to him and going through his pockets with the practised hand of one who knows where to look, covering him the while with the revolver.

"I'll make you pay for this," Denby cried savagely, as Taylor unceremoniously spun him around.

"Will you give it to me," Taylor demanded when he had drawn blank, "or shall I have to upset the place by searching for it?"

"How can I get it for you with my hands up in the air?" Denby asked after a pause. "Let me put my hands down and I'll help you."

Taylor considered for a moment. Few men were better in a rough-and-tumble fight than he, and he had little fear of this beaten man before him. "You haven't got a gun," he said, "so take 'em down, but don't you fool with me."

Denby moved over to the writing-desk and picked up a heavy beaten copper ash-tray with match-box attached. He balanced it in his hand for a moment. "Not a bad idea is it?" he demanded smiling; and then, before Taylor could reach for it had hurled it with the strong arm and practised eye of an athlete straight at the patent burglar alarm a few feet distant.

There was a smas.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s and then, an instant later, the turning off of light and a plunge into blackness. And in the gloom, during which Taylor thrashed about him wildly, there came from all parts of the house the steady peal of the electrical alarms newly set in motion.

And last of all there was the report of the revolver and a woman's shriek and the falling of a heavy body on the floor, and then a silence.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

No sooner had Michael Harrington seated himself at the card-table with his wife and Nora than he picked up a magazine and, as he always said, "kept the light from his eyes." Some men--few there be--who boldly state they desire to sleep, but Michael was of the tactful majority and merely kept the light from his eyes and, incidentally, prevented any observers from noting that his eyes were closed.

He considered this a better way of waiting for Monty than to chatter as the women were doing of the events of the night.

"I wonder what's become of Monty?" Alice asked presently.

"He's kept us twenty minutes," Nora returned crossly. "I saw him go out in the garden. He said it was to relieve his headache, but I really believe he wanted to capture the gang single-handed. Wouldn't it be thrilling if he did?"

"A little improbable," Alice laughed; "but still men do the oddest things sometimes. I never thought Michael the fighting kind till he knocked a man down once for kissing his hand to me."

"It was fine of Michael," Nora said. "The man deserved it."

"I know, dear," her hostess said, "but, as it happens, the man was kissing his hand to his infant son six months old in an upper window. It cost Michael fifty dollars, but I loved him all the more for it. Look at the dear old thing slumbering peacefully and imagining I think he's keeping this very gentle light from his eyes."

"It's the two highb.a.l.l.s he had in Mr. Denby's room," the sapient ingenue explained. She harked back to Monty. "I wish he were as brave about proposing. I've tried my grandmother's recipes for shy men, and all my mother ever knew, I know. And yet he does get so fl.u.s.tered when he tries, that he scares himself away."