Officer 666 Part 44

"I don't know--it's the one you gave me while I was Officer 666."

Gladwin tossed the cigar to the thief, who caught it deftly and inserted it between his lips. "And here's some more of your possessions," added the young man, drawing out the bribe money he had accepted while he masqueraded in the officer's uniform.

"Thanks," said Wilson, as he caught the money, "and here's your little yellow boy, though I wish that intellectual giant of a cop were here so I could hire his uniform for a bit."

"You amaze me by your generosity," murmured Gladwin as he pocketed the $500 bill.

"Oh," said the other easily, while he again listened at the door. "I'm not a regular crook--I'm in the picture business."

"Still, if you kept that bill it might help you get better accommodations when you reach Sing Sing."

"If I don't need it till then I won't need it for a long, long time."

"You mean you think you're going to escape?"

Gladwin slid down from the table and leaned against it, making no effort to conceal the admiration he experienced for this man's superhuman aplomb.

"And with guards all around the house and policemen tearing thirty rooms apart upstairs and camping on the roof scuttle--yes, and more coming, maybe."

"I venture to hope so," chuckled the other. "I admit it's close enough to be interesting."

"Well, I'll say one thing for you," the young millionaire said earnestly, "you're the coolest chap I ever hope to meet. You're a marvel."

"Built to order to work in story books, eh? Well, to be candid with you, McGinty, there are times when I'm not so cool as I look. I'm almost human."

"Those cops will finish their work soon--then they'll come in here,"

Gladwin warned him.

"I'm listening for them," said Wilson softly, putting his ear to the door again.

"Just because your pistol prevents me from calling them now, don't think"----

"This gun isn't stopping you," came the short reply. "If you wanted to call them you'd take a chance--I've found that out in the last hundred seconds or so."

"Thank you for the compliment, but I"----

"Well, I'll prove it," the thief intervened, and tossed the gun to Gladwin, who caught it as if it were something hot. "Go ahead and call them."

"How do you know I wouldn't call them?" the young man asked, examining the automatic and finding it empty.

"Don't be a child," shrugged the other. "You closed these doors, and you b.u.t.ted in about the 'Blue Boy' just as that Central Office owl produced his jewelry. Yes, and you stumbled against the chest and knew that I was in it."

"But I say," asked Gladwin, abruptly. "How did you come to use my name?"

"It wasn't safe to use mine, and when I met Miss----that girl--your name was in my mind--I borrowed it."

"That's the thing I can't forgive you for," said Gladwin, regretfully--"to deceive her as you did. That was rotten."

"I don't care for your opinion on that," said the picture expert, warmly. "How can a man like you understand a man like me? It can't be done. We're further apart than the poles."

"But you must see, Wilson--that's the name, isn't it?"

"It will do for the nonce, kind sir."

"But you must see that the game is up. If you take my advice you won't even try to escape."

"Then I won't take your advice," said Wilson, softly.

"But all these policemen know you're a big prize. If they find you and you break for it, they'll shoot--and shoot to kill if necessary."

The thief flung round on him and his face was suddenly drawn and serious.

"Death, my dear Gladwin, is the very least of my troubles, if it will only come like that."

"By Jove! I like you--and I hope you escape!"

"I know you do," said Wilson, shaking his head, "but not altogether on my account. You're thinking of her--the girl. You don't want it to be known that she was going to marry me."

"To be frank, yes. They're coming now. Quick! Do something!"

The thief seized from the floor one of the portieres he had torn down to wrap the canvases in, wound it about him and darted behind the curtains that screened the window. As he vanished Gladwin went to the door and heard the voice of his friend, Whitney Barnes, demanding admission.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

HANDCUFFS AND LOVE.

Helen Burton could not have found a cozier place to faint in than that ultra-luxurious den of Travers Gladwin. Every chair and divan in the place invited one to swoon within its folds.

The young man had ordered his decorator to provide him with a chamber wherein stiffness and formality would be impossible unless one stood erect. The decorator had spent money with a lavish hand upon Spanish leathers and silken stuffs from the near East and the Orient and he had laid these trappings over the softest of swan's down. Once you sank upon them you could not help a sensation of utter peace and relaxation.

That final and irrevocable blasting of her ideal was a shock upon many shocks that the young girl had experienced within the course of a few hours and that she reached the den on her feet was due more to Bateato's strength and agility than to any nervous or physical force within her slender body.

The little j.a.p had fairly flown up the stairs with her in such fas.h.i.+on that she had no distinct recollection of her feet touching any stable surface. Then he had turned a sharp corner while she seemed to stream behind him like a fluttering pennant, and next she had felt herself sink into a soft, delicious embrace, when her senses left her and she seemed to drop pleasantly through fathomless s.p.a.ce.

It was a great crimson chair embroidered with yellow poppies into which Bateato had dropped his burden, then switched on a myriad of tiny lamps suspended from the ceiling by slim chains of different lengths or gleaming from dark niches and embrasures in the tapestry-hung walls.

All these subdued and colored lights mingled to produce a wonderfully soft and reposeful effect, and when at last Helen opened her eyes--and her swoon had been of only a few minutes' duration--she was sure that the setting was a dream and half expected some impossible creature of phantasmagoria to rise from the floor and address her.

Then she felt an intermittent draught upon her cheek and looked up to see Whitney Barnes fanning her with an elaborate contrivance of peac.o.c.k feathers that was alleged to have once done duty in the harem of Abdul Hamid, one-time Sultan of Turkey.

She was not sure at first that this strange looking being who fanned her in such an amazing fas.h.i.+on was the young friend of the real Travers Gladwin who had appeared on the scene from time to time during that fateful afternoon, for his features were far from being in repose. Positive torture was written on his clean-cut boyish face as he wielded that fast fan in his handcuffed hands as if it were a task imposed upon him by some evil spirit.

Certainly there was no grace in the savage gestures of his arms as his wrists twisted and writhed in their shackles, but he stuck to his task desperately, now and then hissing over his shoulder at Bateato to learn why in thunder he didn't find smelling salts or whiskey or brandy or something with which to restore the young lady to consciousness.