The Ghost Breaker Part 3

Friend JIM MARc.u.m."

The Kentuckian crumpled the note in his hand, and then walked toward the fireplace of the grill. It had been weeks since any logs had been burned there, but the flakes of soot still clung to the stone cas.e.m.e.nt.

Warren struck a match, and a curious smile illumined his face as he ignited the paper, holding its flaming fabric between his fingers until the last half-inch had burned. He dropped the tiny fragment after lighting his cigar with its flame.

One of his friends, a Brazilian coffee merchant, addressed him in the native tongue, which Warren spoke as fluently as English.

"Ah, _senor_, you care not for your letter?"

"Oh, it's just a little invitation to a party to-night," laughed Jarvis of Kentucky. "If anyone found it on my person, he might think I kept late hours and a.s.sociated with bad company. Let us have a drink to our friends.h.i.+p in the club, for I may take a long journey to-night, and never see you again!"

III

IN THE ROYAL SUITE

A beautiful young woman stirred uneasily in the early slumber of the evening. Eleven floors below her, in the foyer of the Hotel Manhattan, the after-theater crowd of visitors thronged and buzzed happily. But the girl, after an unusual day of anxiety in a strange land, was ill at ease, with fitful dreams.

The Paris clock of her Highness delicately struck two musical notes upon the chimes, to indicate the half-hour; at the same instant, as though by echo and vehement confirmation, two revolver shots resounded in the corridor.

The girl shuddered as she opened her large dark eyes, sitting bolt upright in bed. She heard a slamming of doors, a growing hubbub in the usually decorous hallway outside, and her feminine curiosity almost conquered the aristocratic reserve, to impel her to rise and discover the origin of the hubbub.

She was spared the trouble, for suddenly the door of her boudoir received a vigorous thump. The lock crashed and it swung open, admitting the rays of a red electric lamp in the corridor outside. The portal swung shut with even greater prompt.i.tude, as a dark body leaped over the threshold.

"_Madre de Dios!_" she screamed. Then, after a gasp, "Who's there!"

The intruder backed against the door, working with the top bolt, which was still intact. She could see the vague outline by the dim glow of the moonlight which streamed into her room.

Then, as she seemed preparing for another cry, he turned toward her.

"Ssss.h.!.+ Don't make any noise," he whispered vibrantly, audaciously.

The girl slipped from her bed and drew a flimsy dressing-gown about her.

"What do you want?"

"Silence!"

She had reached the lamp on the small boudoir table near the bed. She switched on the electric light. They stared at each other wide-eyed--but stirred by different feelings. Hers was the fright of a woman finding herself in the power of a strange and desperate man; his the battling alertness of a man fighting for his own life against odds.

It was Jarvis of Kentucky!

[Ill.u.s.tration: It was Jarvis of Kentucky]

Despite his immaculate evening clothes, the blanched face, drawn mouth, and the revolver in his hand made him appear to her as the personification of that vague terror of the unfamiliar dark which all women and children know so well. He crouched there, reading the character in her haughtily tossed head and imperious eyes. The details of her beauty he ignored, remembering only three important facts: "She is young, she is frightened but has not lost control of herself." He reached forward and touched the switch of the lamp. Again the moon was the sole illumination of the room!

A voice outside in the corridor came to them.

"What's the row?"

"Somebody's shooting up the hotel!" was the reply, from another throat.

"Not a sound ... do you understand?" whispered Jarvis, as he backed toward the door again.

"What right...?" she began.

"Quiet!"

The voices in the corridor were closer now.

"Where'd he go? Look on the fire-escape."

"No use--he's on this floor, I tell you."

The girl advanced toward him, her own spirit a.s.serting itself, as she realized that help was within calling distance. Yet she did not call!

"What is it? What do you want? What have you done?"

Warren slipped the revolver into his pocket to rea.s.sure her.

"It's all right now. I'm not going to harm you, if you will just keep quiet. Is that clear to you?"

"Is it money you want? All the money I have is on that dressing-table.

Take it and go."

He shook his head, now observing the wealth of hair, the healthy, aristocratic poise of shoulders and arms, and the depths of her eyes.

"I'm not a burglar. I don't want your money."

"Well, then, what do you want?" She was beginning to be impatient.

There was a sound of rapid steps down the corridor. Jarvis sprang toward the door, his eyes still intent on hers.

"Listen ... they're coming!... They mustn't search this room--do you understand--you must put them off." He a.s.sured himself that the upper bolt was intact and shot tightly. "I'm not what you think I am.... Is there no way out that way, through the door over there behind you?"

She shook her head.

"No, that is my maid's room."

"The fire-escape--where is that?"

"In the hall opposite."

Jarvis snapped a finger, angry at his own mistake.

"I thought that red meant it was in this room. Oh, h.e.l.l!... I beg your pardon!"