The Perils of Pauline Part 37

We have broken down--you understand--and you will keep us broken down and keep on mending the machine until I return."

Owen, who was not averse to physical effort when his dearest object was at stake, walked the half mile to Windywild rapidly. Unlike Harry's, Owen's plans were definite and fixed.

He strode through the front gate but took his way immediately to the stable in front of which two grooms were currying a restless horse.

"h.e.l.lo, Simon," said Owen. "My car has broken down up the road here. I wonder if you can help me out."

"I guess so," said the groom, not very cheerfully.

"We got plenty to do today as it is, Mr. Owen, with the weddin' party on an' them gol blamed lions to look after."

"Who talka da lions?" cried a grim voice, and, turning, Owen pretended to see for the first time a short, heavy set man of the gypsy type, seated on a box at the stable door smoking a cigarette and evidently regarding all the world as the object of his personal hate.

"Why, who is that man?" asked Owen of the groom in a tone of condescending interest. "Where have I seen him before?"

"If ye ever saw him before, ye wouldn't want to see him again,"

declared the groom. "He's Garcia, Miss Sophie's new lion tamer, but we ain't had time to tame him yet. He's wild."

The answer to this taunt was a rush from Garcia, who, uttering an unintelligible roar that might have done credit to one of his lions, sprang towards the groom. The latter took quick refuge behind the horse.

The man's fury made Owen step aside, too, but he looked on with an appreciative smile. As Garcia came back, growling, to his seat on the box, the secretary stepped up to him and held out his hand.

"Is it really you?" he said, the patronage in his voice offsetting the familiarity of his manner.

"If it looks like me, it is me," snarled the Gypsy. "Him--over there," he cried, pointing to the groom, "he donta looka like his own face if I get him."

"Come, old friend," said Owen in a low voice. "Don't you remember me?

Don't you remember the Zoological Garden in Brussels and the lion that bent a cage so easily one day that it killed Herr Bruner, of Berlin."

The last words spoken almost in a whisper, had an electrical effect upon the lion tamer. He fairly writhed in his seat and cowered away from Owen as from one who held a knife over his head.

It was at this moment that Harry, looking from the hill, put away his binoculars and turned his car around.

"Come, let's see the lions, may I?" asked Owen, cheerily ignoring the man's terror, secretly enjoying it.

Without a word Garcia led the way into the stables.

The lions, six in number, were quartered in box stalls rebuilt with heavy steel bars. They had been quiet, but the sight of a stranger set them wild and their roaring thundered through the building.

Garcia led Owen to farthest cage and stopped abruptly.

"You after me?" he inquired, his nerve partially recovered.

"Yes, but to help you, not to harm you, old friend."

"You lie, I theenk. You tella the police of the leetle accident in Bresseli--no?"

"No, indeed; you are too useful a man to lose, Garcia. Besides, I need you again."

The gypsy held up his hands in refusal. "No," he whispered. "I hava one dead man's face here always." He pointed to his eyes. "I cry it away; I go all over da world. I not forget. He not forget. He folla me."

Owen laughed. "Come, come," he said, "you are foolish. You had nothing to do with that affair, except to loosen one little bar ever so little. (Garcia groaned.) And it would be just as easy to leave say a cage door open tonight while they're having the wedding."

"You mean--?"

"I mean only a little joke. n.o.body will be hurt, I feel sure. Of course, if any one should be, you could not be blamed. Come, I want a quick answer. If you won't do it, of course--you don't want anything said about Brussels, do you, old friend?"

The man uttered another cry.

Owen drew money from his pocket. The man seized it greedily. If he was to do the blackest of deeds, there was nothing in his conscience to prevent him from profiting.

"Tonight--during the wedding, remember," said Owen. "I will give you the signal. And, mind, you brute, if you don't do it, you know what I'll do to you."

A few moments later he was out chatting cheerily with the grooms. "I'm not going to ask you to help me with the car, Simon," he said. "You're too crowded today, I see. I'll send Farrell up to the Hodgins House and wait for him. Good-day."

He swung off down the road, greatly at peace with all the world. He did not even rebuke his chauffeur when he caught him loafing on the gra.s.s.

Harry and the household chauffeur, Farrell, were talking together outside the garage and Harry was handing a $10 bill to Farrell, who grinned broadly as he pocketed it. Owen saw nothing in this to cause him apprehension. Harry was always generous with the employees. It was well for Owen's plan that he should go to the wedding in so pleasant a mood.

Pauline looked up from her book as Harry entered the library.

"I'm so happy," she cried. "You are a darling boy to come home so soon."

He accepted her rewarding kiss gratefully.

"Yes, I think it's all right," he said, "though there are some serious matters in hand at the office."

The butler appeared at the door. "Farrell asks if he may have a word with you, Sir."

"Farrell? Why, yes; let him come here."

The chauffeur, cap in hand, stepped into the room.

"Guess I got to take the big car to New York, Sir. I haven't got the parts to fix it, and I can't get them nowhere but in New York."

"Very well; that's all right, Farrell."

"But be back surely by four o'clock, Farrell," warned Pauline. "You are the only driver I have."

"Oh, I'll get back all right, Miss."

But immediately after uttering these words in a tone of perfect respect, Farrell committed an astonis.h.i.+ng offense against the laws that separate servitor and employer. He caught the s.h.i.+mmer of a wink upon Harry's eye, and he had the audacity to return it.

Three minutes afterwards Farrell did a stranger thing. Going direct from the house to the telephone in the garage, he took up the receiver and called up the house. Owen, pa.s.sing by, stopped spellbound, at the door, to hear these mandatory words spoken by the chauffeur to Harry Marvin, whose answering voice could actually be heard by Owen through the open window of the library.

"Mr. Marvin, you are needed at your office. Come at once," phoned Farrell.

He was grinning again as he came out of the garage, got into a machine and drove away. Owen gazed after him with puzzled, lowering brows.