"Well, I don't see what Mr. Hogg has to do with it," he spoke up.

"Why, Auntie insists upon my marrying him."

Helen blurted this out involuntarily

"That's dreadful!" exclaimed Whitney Barnes, and Helen rewarded him with a smile of gratitude.



CHAPTER XV.

HEROISM, LOVE AND SOMETHING ELSE.

The embarrassment of both the girls had begun to wear off. The two strange young men, notwithstanding the unaccounted-for absence of the object of Helen's quest, began to appear less strange. Both possessed potent attractions and undeniable magnetism.

The shy and shrinking Sadie was sure she liked that tall and slender young man with the easy drawl and bright, humorous eyes immensely. The boldness of his glances made her heart beat pleasantly. To her he seemed to possess the master will and wit of the pair, and she felt she could repose perfect confidence in him.

For her part Helen was uncertain just how to sense the situation. One side of her will urged her to leave a message for her betrothed and hurry away. Another strain of consciousness held her fast.

Travers Gladwin's psychic waves that had so utterly failed in the grill room of the Ritz may or may not have had something to do with this. He felt inspired with a desire to prolong the interview indefinitely. He could not recall ever having been so attracted by the charming personality of any girl as he was by this distressed maiden who was so eager to see her Travers Gladwin.

He was flattered, even by the compliment of having the same name as the unknown. As a further expression of sympathy with Helen in the matter of Mr. Hogg he said earnestly:

"Do you mean to tell me that your aunt insists upon you marrying this—hog?"

"Yes," replied Helen, passionately. "And he's awful, and I hate him, and I won't—I just won't."

"I think you're absolutely right," Gladwin agreed with her.

"Oh, you do?" cried the delighted Helen. Then, turning triumphantly upon her cousin she exclaimed:

"There!"

But Sadie's one idea did not include Mr. Hogg. She considered the elopement as a separate matter in which Mr. Hogg was in no way involved, wherefore she said:

"But you've only known Mr. Gladwin two weeks."

"I know," retorted Helen, "but I've loved him for four years."

"You've loved Travers Gladwin four years," said that young man in a voice hollow with wonder.

"And only known him two weeks," cut in Whitney Barnes. "By Jove, he must be one of those retroactive soul-mates."

"I've loved him four years," said Helen stiffly.

"You've loved him four years in two weeks," said Barnes in the tone of one trying to do a sum. "I give up. I can't do it."

Helen faced the heretic Barnes and announced impressively:

"Ever since the time he so bravely risked his own life to save that girl. It was splendid, noble!"

Travers Gladwin decided it was time to call a halt on the borrowing proclivities of the unknown double. It was bad enough for some one to appropriate his name, but also to take unto his bogus self the glory of the real one's heroism was too much.

"You mean that time at Narragansett?" he opened.

"Yes," said Helen. "Four years ago when he dashed into the roaring surf"——

"Yes, and fished out a cross-eyed colored lady," said Gladwin hotly.

"That's just it," returned Helen with flashing eyes and heaving bosom. "If she had been beautiful or some one dear to him, it wouldn't have been half so noble. Oh, it was fine of him!"

"And he told you about that?" asked Gladwin, numbed for the moment.

"No, he didn't. He's much too modest. I knew of it the day it happened, and he has been my ideal ever since. But would you believe it, when I first spoke to him about it he could hardly remember it. Imagine doing such a brave thing, and then forgetting all about it."

"Oh, I've forgotten lots of such things," said the unrecognized hero.

Helen's lips curled with scorn.

"Yes," the young man was stung to go on, "and what Travers Gladwin did wasn't brave at all."

"What!" Helen gasped.

"She was so fat she couldn't sink," derided Gladwin, "so I swam out to her."

"Yes," bubbled over the young man, overjoyed at the opportunity of discounting his own heroism, "I swam out to her. I told her to lie on her back and float. Well, she did, and I"——

"You!"

"Why, yes—er—you see, I was with him. He pushed her to shore. Simplest thing in the world."

Helen rose angrily. There was both indignation and reproach in her voice.

"It's shameful to try and belittle his courage, and you say you're his dearest friend." She paused for a moment, then went closer to the young man and said in a different tone:

"Oh, I understand you now—you're saying that to try and make me change my mind. But I shan't—not for anybody."

Helen crossed the room to her cousin and gave Sadie the benefit of the look of defiance with which she had confronted Travers Gladwin.

"Oh, please, please don't say that, Helen," cried Sadie, all a-flutter. "I know he will agree to a postponement."

"But I don't want any postponement," protested Helen. "I told you what I intended doing and I'm going to do it."

"Go on, tell her again—we'd all like to hear it," broke in Gladwin.

Helen swung around and said dramatically:

"I'm going to marry Travers Gladwin to-night."

Travers Gladwin reeled a little where he stood, met and turned from the beaming stare of Whitney Barnes. As he did so Helen came very close to him, laid her hand on his arm and said tremulously:

"You are his best friend. Tell me honestly, don't you think I'm right in wanting to marry him?"

This was a poser, but when he did summon an answer it came right out from the heart, his eyes devouring the beautiful girl before him as he spoke.

"Nothing on earth would please me so much as to have you marry Travers Gladwin, and I promise you now that I am going to do everything in my power to persuade you to do it."

"Oh, I am so glad!" Helen thanked him. A moment later she added with a perplexed smile: "But why did you talk about his bravery as you did?"

"Well, you see"—the young man stopped.

"I suppose," Helen suggested brightly, "being so very fond of him, you hated the idea of his marrying. Was that it?"

"Yes, but that was before I saw you. I hope you are going to like his best friend just a little."

There was no mistaking the ardent emphasis on the last sentence and Helen studied the young man's face curiously. She turned away with a blush and walked across the room.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE TORMENT OF OFFICER 666.

Meantime Officer 666, on his aristocratic beat, four blocks up and four blocks down the Fifth avenue pave, was sticking to the east side of the street and vainly trying to keep his eyes to the front.

It was excruciating duty, with the raven-haired Rose wheeling her perambulator along the opposite way and keeping, by way of feminine perversity, on a latitudinal line with the patrolling of Michael Phelan.

There she was just opposite, always, never twisting her head an inch to give him so much as a glance or a smile. It made him wild that she should discipline her eyes in that fashion, while his would wander hither and yon, especially yon when Rose was in that direction.

The daintiness of Rose in cap and apron with a big white fichu at her throat, with one red cheek and the corner of the most kissable mouth on the avenue maddeningly visible, soon drove all memory of the Gladwin mansion and the suspicious antics of the "rat-faced little heathen" out of his mind. His one thought was that Rose would have to cross over the way at the fall of dusk and trundle her millionaire infant charge home for its prophylactic pap. There would be a bare chance for about seven or ten words with Rose. But what was he going to say?

For one hundred and nine days' running, his days off inclusive, Michael Phelan had intercepted Rose at that particular corner and begged her to name the day. The best he ever got was a smile and a flash of two laughing eyes, followed by the sally:

"Show me $500 in the bank, Michael Phelan, and I'll talk business."

And why didn't Michael Phelan save up $500 out of the more than $100 a month the city paid him for his services? Rose didn't get a quarter of that, and she had already saved $300, besides which she sent a one-pound note home to Ireland every month.

The reason was this—Michael Phelan turned in his wages each month to his mother, and out of what she allowed him to spend he couldn't have saved $500 in five hundred years, at least not to his way of thinking. The trouble was that Rose had more than an inkling of this, and it galled her to think that her gallant brass-buttoned cop should permit himself to be still harnessed to his mother's apron strings.

Yes, down in the invisible depths of Rose's heart she was very fond of the faithful and long-suffering Michael, but even so she couldn't bring herself to marry a milksop who was likely to make her play second fiddle to his mother. And when Rose once made up her mind, she was as grimly determined as she was pretty.

The sun had swung down behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the trees that bordered the Park wall had begun to trace their shadows on the marble fronts of the mansions across the way when Rose suddenly wheeled the gig containing Master Croesus and walked demurely toward Officer 666.

Michael Phelan blushed till he could feel his back hair singeing, but he stopped stock still and waited. Rose gave no sign until she was within half a dozen feet of him. Then she looked up pertly and exclaimed:

"Why, if it ain't Michael Phelan!"

"It is, Rose, an' with the same question pantin' on his lips," broke out the young man, his bosom surging and his heart rapping under his shield.

"And what is that same question, Mr. Phelan?" asked the tantalizing Rose.

Officer 666 choked with emotion.

"Will ye name the day, d-d-d-ar"——

He stopped and looked round about him fearfully, for Sergeant McGinnis was due on his rounds and Sergeant McGinnis, though married, had an eye like a hawk for a pretty girl and a tongue like an adder for a patrolman caught sparking.

Rose's eyes flashed and her lips drew taut. She started forward, but turned her head to face Phelan as she walked away.

"I'll give you an answer, Michael," she said in parting, "when ye may set up your own home for your own"——

That was all Phelan heard and possibly all that the young woman uttered, for just then Master Croesus set up a bawl that was most common and vulgar in its utter lack of restraint. There could be no more to the interview that day with young Master Croesus in such vociferous mood, so Officer 666 turned away with a heaving sigh and plodded dolefully along on his beat.



CHAPTER XVII.

TRAVERS GLADWIN IS CONSIDERABLY JARRED.

Taking time out to sense the bruised condition of your heart isn't a whole lot different from taking time out to recover from a jolt received in the prize ring. Having released that impassioned sentence, "I hope you are going to like his best friend just a little!" young Mr. Gladwin felt a trifle groggy.

Until he had spoken he hadn't realized just how badly his cardiac equipment was being shot to pieces by the naked god's ruthless archery.

The fact that the case should have appeared hopeless only fanned the flame of his ardor. He had looked into the depths of two vividly blue eyes and there read his destiny. So he told himself fiercely; whereupon, in the Rooseveltian phrase, he cast his hat into the ring.

He cared no more for obstacles than a runaway horse. His very boredom of the past few years had stored up vast reserves of energy within him, waiting only for that psychological thrill to light the fuse.

As Helen Burton turned from him with the uncomfortable feeling of one who has received a vague danger signal he paused only a moment before he again strode to her side. He was about to speak when she took the lead from him and, looking up at one of the masterpieces on the wall, said:

"Oh, this is his wonderful collection of paintings! He told me all about them."

It was what the gentlemen pugilists would call a cross-counter impinging upon the supersensitive maxillary muscles. It certainly jarred the owner of that wonderful collection and caused him to turn with an expression of astonishment to Whitney Barnes.

But that young man was intensely occupied in a vain endeavor to draw more than a monosyllable from the shrinking Sadie Burton. He missed the look and went doggedly ahead with his own task. Helen Burton repeated her remark that he had told her all about his paintings.

"Oh, has he?" responded Gladwin, dully.

"Yes, and they are worth a fortune!" cried the girl. "He simply adores pictures."

"Yes, doesn't he, though?" assented the young man in the same vacuous tones.

"And we are going to take the most valuable away with us to-night!"

Here was information to jar Jove on high Olympus. Travers Gladwin came stark awake with a new and vital interest. There was glowing life in his voice as he said:

"So you are going to take the pictures with you on your honeymoon?"

"Yes, indeed, we are."

"Won't that be nice?" was the best Gladwin could do, for he was trying to think along a dozen different lines at the same time.

"We will be gone for ever so long, you know," volunteered Helen.

"Are you going to take his collection of miniatures?" the young man asked in unconscious admiration of the colossal nerve of the gentleman who had so nonchalantly appropriated his name.

"Miniatures?" asked Helen, wonderingly.

"Yes, of course," ran on Gladwin; "and the china and the family plate—nearly two hundred years old."

"Why, I don't think he ever mentioned the miniatures, or, or"——

"That is singular," broke in Gladwin, striving to conceal the sarcasm that crept into his voice. "Strange he overlooked the china, plate and miniatures. I don't understand it, do you?" and he turned to Barnes, who had caught the last of the dialogue and shifted his immediate mental interest from the shy Sadie.

"No, I really don't, old man," said Barnes.

"Do let me show you the miniatures," Gladwin addressed Helen upon a sudden inspiration.

"That will be splendid," cried Helen. "I adore miniatures."

"They are just in the next room," said Gladwin, leading the way to a door to the left of the great onyx fireplace.

As she followed, Helen called to her cousin:

"Come along, Sadie, this will be a treat!"

But the next moment she was alone with Travers Gladwin in the long, narrow room, two windows of which, protected by steel lattice work on the inside, looked out on a side street.

The girl did not notice that as the young man preceded her he reached his hand under the screening portiere and touched a spring that noiselessly swung open the heavy mahogany door and switched on half a dozen clusters of lights. Neither did she notice that Sadie had failed to follow her as her eyes fairly popped with wonder at the treasures presented to her gaze.

On one side of the room there was a long row of tables and cabinets, and almost at every step there was an antique chest. On the tables there were huddled in artistic disorder scores upon scores of gold and silver vessels and utensils of every conceivable design and workmanship. Each cabinet contained a collection of exquisite china or rare ceramics. On the walls above was the most notable collection of miniatures in America.

Travers Gladwin waited for the young girl to have finished her first outburst of admiration. Then he said softly:

"I suppose you know that five generations of Gladwins have been collecting these few trinkets?"

"He never even mentioned them!" gasped the girl. "Why the paintings are nothing to these!"

"I wouldn't say that," chuckled Gladwin. "It would take a deal of this gold and silver junk to buy a Rembrandt or a Corot. There are a couple of Cellini medallions, though, just below that miniature of Madame de Pompadour that a good many collectors would sell their souls to possess."

"Perhaps he was preserving all this as a surprise for me," whispered the awed Miss Burton. "It is just like him. I am afraid he will be awfully disappointed now that you have shown them to me."

"Or mayhap he has forgotten all about them," said Gladwin, in a tone that caused his companion to start and color with quick anger.

"You know that is not true," she said warmly. "You know that Travers Gladwin is just mad about art. How can you say such a thing, and in such a sarcastic tone of voice?"

"Well," the young man defended himself, inwardly chuckling, "you know how his memory lapsed in regard to that heroic affair at Narragansett."

Helen Burton turned and faced him with flashing eyes.

"That was entirely different. It simply showed that he was not a braggart; that he was different from other men!"

The words were meant to lash and sting, but the passion with which they were said served so to vivify the loveliness of the young girl that Travers Gladwin could only gaze at her in speechless admiration.

When her glance fell before the homage of his regard he took hold of himself and apologized on the ground that he had been joking.

Then he made the rounds of the treasure room, pointing out and giving the history of each precious family heirloom or art object with an encyclopedic knowledge that should have caused his companion to wonder how he knew so much. Several times he slipped in the pronoun I, hoping that this might have some effect in waking Helen from the obsession that any other than he could be the real Travers Gladwin.

But alas! for his subtle efforts, the hints and innuendoes fell on deaf ears. She accepted his fund of information as a second-hand version, exclaiming once:

"What a splendid memory you have!"

Then he gave it up as a hopeless case and led the way back into the other room.



CHAPTER XVIII.

SADIE BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR.

"Ah! Be careful! Don't go out there!" was the warning that had stopped Sadie Burton in full flight for the treasure room into which her cousin and Travers Gladwin had vanished.

She was more than half way to the door in obedience to Helen's command when Whitney Barnes spoke. He was sitting on the arm of one of the great upholstered chairs in a gracefully negligent attitude twirling his gold key chain about his finger. He spoke softly but with a mysterious emphasis that took hold and held the retreating miss fast in her tracks. She turned with a frightened:

"Why?"

"Because I would be all alone," he said solemnly. Then as Sadie took another hurried step forward: "Oh, no, you wouldn't desert me—you wouldn't be so cruel! How would you like to have some one desert you?"

This mystic remark caused Sadie to turn around and take a step toward him. She said timidly:

"I don't understand."

"Then I'll tell you," he said, getting on his feet and going toward her.

"No, no!" objected Sadie, and began to back away.

The young man stopped and said in his most reassuring tones:

"Fear not—I am quite harmless, I assure you. Now, I can see that you are in trouble—is that not so?"

"Oh, yes!" Sadie admitted, delighted at this new turn in his attitude. Her first disturbing suspicion had been that he wanted to flirt.

"You see, I'm right," he pursued. "I would like to help you."

"Would you?" she breathed, with increasing confidence.

"Of course I would," he said, earnestly, whereat Sadie lost all fear.

"Then we must hurry if we are to stop it," she said in a dramatic whisper.

"Stop it—stop what?" The heir of Old Grim Barnes had launched the belief that he was about to start something. There wasn't any stop in the vocabulary of his thoughts at that minute.

"Why, the elopement!" ejaculated Sadie, exploding a little bomb that brought Whitney Barnes down out of the clouds.

"Yes, of course—to be sure—the elopement—I'd forgotten," he raced on. "Let me look at you. No, you must not turn away. I must look at you—that's the only way I can help you."

If he had to take a hand in the business of preventing an elopement he was going to combine that business with pleasure.

"You are sure you want me to help you?" he asked.

"Yes, so awfully much!" she cried.

"Then I must look at you—look at you very closely," he said, with the utmost seriousness.

"I don't understand," murmured Sadie, both pleased and frightened by his intense scrutiny.

"I'll show you," said Barnes. "Stand very still, with your arms at your side—there! (my, but she's a picture!) I've found out the first thing—I read it in your eyes."

"What!" in a stifled whisper.

"You don't approve of this elopement."

"Oh, no!" Sadie had yielded her eyes as if hypnotized.

"There, I told you so!" exulted Barnes. "You want to stop the elopement, but you don't know how to do it."

"Yes, that's perfectly true," confessed the spellbound Sadie.

"Shall I tell you how to stop it?"

"Yes, please do."

"Then sit down."

He motioned to a chair three feet from where he stood. The victim of this, his first excursion into the fields of mesmerism, tripped with bird-like steps to the chair and sat down. Barnes went easily toward her and sat down on the arm. He was as solemn about it as if his every move were part of a ritual.

"Now, please take off your glove—the left one," he commanded softly. Sadie obeyed mechanically. Barnes went on:

"Before deciding upon what you should do, I'd like to know definitely about you—if you don't mind."

"What do you want me to tell you?" asked Sadie, with a brave effort to keep her voice from running off into little tremors.

"Nothing!" replied the seer-faced Barnes. "What I want to discover you may not even know yourself. Allow me to look at your hand, please."

Sadie yielded her hand with shy reluctance, allowing the young man to hold only the tips of her fingers. Whitney Barnes bent his frowning eyes over the fluttering little hand, studied the palm for a long second, then exclaimed suddenly:

"By Jove! This is extraordinary!"

Sadie started, but her curiosity was greater than her fear.

"What?" she asked, excitedly.

"Really wonderful!" Barnes kept it up.

"What?" Sadie repeated, in the same little gasp.

"See that line?"

He had taken possession of the whole hand now and pointed with a long, ominous forefinger to the centre of the palm.

"Which line?" inquired Sadie, eagerly, getting her head very close to his as she pried into the plump, practically lineless palm.

"That one," said Barnes, impressively.

"No."

"Don't you see that it starts almost at your wrist?"

"Now I see. Yes. What of it?"

"Why it runs 'way round the bump, or, that is—the bump of Venus."

"What does that mean?" asked Sadie innocently.

"Oh, a lot. You are very affectionate—and extremely shy."

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Sadie, amazed at the young man's stupendous skill.

"Now here's a cunning little line," he pursued. "That shows something too."

"Does it show how to stop the elopement?" asked Sadie, ingenuously, but making no effort to withdraw her hand.

"Yes, and it shows that you and your friend are"—— He paused to allow Sadie to fill the gap, and she did.

"Cousins—and we live with Auntie—and we've been in New York a month."

"And your cousin hasn't known Gladwin long?"

"Only two weeks." Sadie was really awed.

"That's right—two weeks; and she met him at the"——

He said to himself that here was a little game that beat any other known sport to flinders.



"At a sale of old pictures and art objects," said Sadie, supremely confident that he was reading her mind.

"A sale of pictures, of course," Barnes led her on.

"Yes, she was bidding on a picture and he whispered to her that it was a copy—a fraud, and not to buy it. That was the way they got acquainted. But he wouldn't let her tell auntie anything about him."

"Just a moment," cried Barnes. "Here's a bit of good luck. I'd almost overlooked that line."

Sadie was on fire with curiosity and looked eagerly into his eyes.

"You meet a dark man—and he prevents the elopement."

"Perhaps that's you!" exclaimed the delighted girl, withdrawing her hand and jumping to her feet.

"I'm sure it is," said Barnes, nodding his head.

"Oh, I'm so glad."

"But wait," said Barnes, going very close to her. "Please pay attention to every word I say. Do all you can to get your cousin to change her mind; then, if she won't, tell your aunt. But don't tell her until the last minute, and—but here's your cousin."



CHAPTER XIX.

HELEN LEAVES AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE.

Helen Burton and Travers Gladwin were almost at the door leading from the treasure room when the young man stopped and confronted the girl, whose eyes were still bright with the anger he had kindled in them. He smiled rather sheepishly as he said:

"Suppose I were to tell you that I am Travers Gladwin and that the other Travers Gladwin with whom you think you are in love is not Travers Gladwin at all?"

Her lip curled and she regarded him scornfully. But she said nothing.

He went on into the other room, holding back the portiere for her to follow.

"Why don't you answer my question?" he insisted as she passed him.

"It is much too silly," she said sharply. Then in a different tone to her cousin, who still stood by Whitney Barnes, with her color coming and going by turns:

"Oh, Sadie, why didn't you come with us? Travers has the most wonderful things."

"Then you are not going to answer my question?" Travers Gladwin asked again.

"I said it was much too silly," the girl returned with increasing vehemence. Gladwin came forward and explained to Barnes and Sadie:

"I have been asking Miss—er—I've been asking how she'd take to the idea of my being Travers Gladwin."

Helen was now thoroughly aroused as she turned:

"Why do you persist in asking such a question?"

"I was wondering," he said quickly, "whether you were in love with the man or the name."

"Have I given you the impression"——she began, haughtily, scarcely able to control her anger.

"Yes, you have," he said warmly, and with all the dramatic emphasis he could command. "I am afraid you were thinking more of that rescue at Narragansett and your desire to be free of poor Mr. Hogg than you were of—of my poor friend."

This insult was more than she could endure. She turned her back to address Whitney Barnes.

"Shall you be here when Travers returns?" she said imperiously.

"I am sure to see him before I leave," responded the young man.

"And would you be kind enough to give him a message for me?"

She had gathered up her fur piece and muff and was moving toward the door.

"Delighted," said Barnes, with a deferential bow.

"Thank you so much. I want you to tell him that I cannot avoid the opera to-night—that I have simply got to go, but that I'll get away as soon as I can and come to him directly from there."

"But you can't do that," interposed Sadie in a voice that thrilled with alarm.

"But I am going to do that," cried Helen, her face aflame and her head held high. "And now we must go—I'd no idea we'd stayed so long. Good-by and thank you."

She had taken a step toward the entrance to the hallway when Gladwin strode forward.

"You didn't say good-by to me," he said in an injured tone. Then with a sudden vehemence: "But I am glad you didn't, for we are going to meet again."

"I suppose we shall if you are here when I return," she said coldly and without looking at him.

"When you return?" he said, in quick surprise.

"Yes, when I come back here to-night," in the same disdainful, snubbing tones.

"You're going to meet Travers here to-night?" he queried, in palpable unbelief.

"Yes, I am. He wanted me to meet him at the station, but I insisted on coming here."

"And what time was it Travers wanted you to meet him here? I'd almost forgotten."

"At half-past ten," answered Helen, taken off her guard and submitting unconsciously to his cross-examination.

"Oh, yes, at half-past ten," he repeated. "That's right."

"But you," pointedly addressing Barnes, "must tell him I may be late."

"I will," acquiesced Barnes, a trifle bewildered.

"I hope you will be very late," cut in Gladwin.

"What do you mean?" she caught him up.

"I mean you have no idea what a mad thing you are going to do."

"Please"——she began icily.

"Don't be angry," he pleaded. "I'm saying this for your good."

"I don't care to hear it."

"But you've got to hear it," he cried. "To leave your aunt and run off with a man you hardly know—why you must be mad even to think of it."

"How dare you speak to me in this way?"

If ever a young lady's fur was up, as the saying is, such was the case with the enraged Helen Burton. If her eyes had been weapons to slay, Travers Gladwin would have been annihilated at a glance. But he stuck doggedly to his guns.

"Well, somebody ought to speak to you," he ran on. "Can't you understand that this man is no good—that he must be a scoundrel to ask you to do such a thing, that"——

"Stop! I forbid you to say any more—to say such horrible, cowardly things about him behind his back. You, who claimed to be his dearest friend."

Her anger was suddenly checked by a thought that flashed in her mind.

"Only a few minutes ago you said you were glad I was going to marry Mr. Gladwin, and that you would do everything in your power to help."

"And I jolly well meant it," he acquiesced, with a low bow.

"You meant it! Then how could you—oh," and she started suddenly from him, "why didn't I see it before? You've been drinking. Come, Sadie."

Barnes turned away with an uncontrollable snicker. Gladwin was stunned. As he saw her leaving him he made a last desperate effort:

"But just a moment. Please allow me to explain. I said I wanted you to marry Travers Gladwin, because I am"——

"I don't care why you said it," she flung at him, "because I don't think you know what you are saying."

She fairly sailed through the portieres, leaving the young man staring after her in a state of utter mental collapse.

The little cousin had listened to this impassioned dialogue in the attitude of a frightened bird, standing first on one foot and then on the other, struggling with all her small nervous force to hold back the tears. As Helen disappeared, a sob escaped her and she ran forward. Barnes started after her.

"Oh, Miss Sadie—just one word!"

"Oh, don't—please don't!" she wailed over her shoulder.

"But won't you let me call on you—just once?" he pleaded, in real distress.

Sadie stopped, gave him one frightened glance, smiled through her tears and burst out:

"I shall be delighted."

Then she was gone and a moment later the door slammed.



CHAPTER XX.

MICHAEL PHELAN TO THE RESCUE.

The slamming of the front door of the Gladwin mansion struck upon the two young men as a numbing shock. They stood looking at each other with eyes that saw not and with expressions of idiotic vacancy.

Within the span of a brief half hour they had been swept along on a rushing tide of emotions. They had been thrilled and mystified, mystified and thrilled. Nor was there any relief in the reaction. There was more mystery and more thrill ahead that demanded immediate action.

Naturally the bulk of the thrill was heaped upon Travers Gladwin. He was not only fiercely convinced that he had fallen desperately in love, but the unknown beauty who had kindled this passion had revealed that she was coming that night to his home to meet and elope with a villain and an impostor.

Here was a situation to scatter the wits of a Napoleon! It was no wonder that for a few moments his thoughts flattened themselves against an impassable barrier. Whitney Barnes was the first to revive and speak.

"Now what do you think of that?" he drew out with a long breath.

"I haven't begun to think yet," Gladwin managed to stammer. "I'm in no condition to think. I'm stunned."

"And you've travelled all over the universe in search of a thrill, eh? Now you've got one you don't know what to do with it."

While Gladwin was groping for a reply to this thrust Bateato breezed in with a swift sidelong rush, carrying a bulging portmanteau.

"Bag all packed, sair," announced the little Jap, standing at attention.

"Take it back. I'm not going now," said Gladwin, gruffly. Bateato's entrance had nipped another idea in the bud.

"You no go?" said the Jap, in surprise.

"No go—take back—unpack."

"Ees, sair; 'scuse me," and Bateato started off with his usual noiseless rush.

"Hold on," Gladwin checked him. "Wait a minute. Don't unpack it. Leave it in the hall. I may want it at a minute's notice."

"Ees, sair," and the wondering valet steamed out into the hallway and vanished.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Barnes, lighting a cigarette and offering one to his friend.

Gladwin took a turn about the room, puffing nervously at the cigarette. Coming to a sudden stop he faced Barnes and reeled off in a quick volley:

"I'm going to marry that girl! I've been all over the world, seen all kinds of 'em, and right here in my own house I find the one—the only one, on the verge of eloping with a bogus me. But I'm going to expose that man whoever he is—I'm going to rescue her from him."

"For yourself?"

"Yes, for myself, and I'm going to put him where he can never annoy her any more."

"How the deuce are you going to do all this?" asked Barnes, planking himself down into a chair.

"I don't know," said the other, "but I'm going to move the whole Western Hemisphere to do it, if necessary."

"Rather a large contract," drawled Barnes. "But I say, Travers, if that fellow is going to steal your pictures it sort of sizes up as a case for the police."

"Of course," agreed Gladwin. "I was just thinking of that. Where's that man of mine? Bateato! Bateato!"

Bateato responded with the swift obedience of a jinn rising from a miraculous bottle.

"Ees, sair," and the little son of Nippon stood stiffly at attention. "Ladies run off in autbile," he volunteered as his master hesitated.

"Never mind that—I want you to find a policeman," commanded Gladwin.

"Pleesman—where I find him?" asked Bateato in alarm, recalling his uncomfortable experience with Officer 666.

"Try a saloon," said Gladwin. "And when you've found him, bring him here quick!"

"Ladies steal something?" ventured the Jap, starting for the door. "Autbile go fast like winds."

"Some one is going to try and steal something," replied the young man. "We must see that they don't. Hurry, now!"

"Ees, sair. 'Scuse me," and Bateato vanished.

"That's the way to do it," Barnes enthused, rubbing his hands. "Get a policeman in here, and when the other Mr. Gladwin shows up nab him. Then this marriage can't come off without the aid of a prison chaplain."

The excitement that for an instant had transfigured Travers Gladwin suddenly left him. A look of dismay spread over his features.

"By Jove, Barnes!" he cried. "We can't do this!"

"Why not?" asked Barnes.

"Why? Because it would make a tremendous scandal. I'm not going to have my future wife mixed up in any public hoorah for the newspapers. Think of it—her name in the papers coupled with the name of a crook! Her picture on one side and a Rogues' Gallery photograph on the other. Impossible! The police must know nothing about it."

"I don't follow you," said Barnes. "What are you going to do—kill him and stuff him in that chest? He probably deserves it, but it would he an awfully unpleasant thing to have around the house."

"Shut up! Let me think," cut in Gladwin.

Then he added with swift inspiration: "Now I've got it. I'll wait outside for her to come and warn her of her danger. You stay in here and be on the lookout for the man."

Whitney Barnes threw up his hands and ejaculated:

"Good night!" He made as if to start for the door.

"No, no, Whitney," cried Gladwin, "we must see this thing through together. You wouldn't want this sweet, young, innocent girl connected with a sensational robbery, would you?"

"No," Barnes agreed soberly; "neither would I want any robber's bullets connected with me."

"You're a coward!" blurted Gladwin, hotly.

"You bet I am," acquiesced Barnes, "and I'm alive to tell it. Likewise I may have some marriage plans of my own. But keep your hair on, Travers. Let us do some real thinking, unaccustomed as we are to it, and see if we cannot devise some safer plan."

"What plan is there?" groaned Gladwin.

"Let us think—concentrate," suggested Barnes, posing himself with his elbow on one hand and his forehead supported on the fingers of the other. Gladwin unconsciously fell into the same pose, and so they stood, side by side, with their backs to the hallway.

"Thought of anything?" Barnes broke the silence.

"Not a —— thing," retorted Gladwin, peevishly. A broken-legged minute had crawled by when Barnes spoke again:

"I've got it."

"What?" Gladwin asked, uninspired.

"Simplest thing in the world. Why didn't I think of it before?"

"Somehow I don't think it's going to be any good," muttered Gladwin, without relinquishing his thoughtful pose.

"Listen," said Barnes, impressively. "Go straight to the aunt and tell her the whole thing."

Gladwin whirled around and gripped his friend's hand.

"By Jove, you're right, Whitney! We can make a lot of excuses for her, youth and innocence, and all that. I didn't think you had it in you. Come on, we'll go together!"

Barnes's face fell and he stammered:

"But where does she live?"

"Where does she live? Don't you know?"

"No."

It was Gladwin's turn to throw up his hands.

"And don't you even know her name?"

"No."

"Then how in blazes were you going to call on that girl?"

"By thunder! I forgot all about getting her address," admitted the crestfallen Barnes.

Gladwin uttered a mirthless laugh and said with sarcastic scorn:

"Oh, yes, you had a fine plan! I might have suspected as much."

"Pile it on; pile it on," growled Barnes. "I guess the pater has me sized up about right."

"But we must do something the police will know nothing about," urged Gladwin. "Let's concentrate again. Maybe a real idea will break out."

Again the two young men wrinkled their brows in profound absorption.

They succeeded so well in their effort at concentration that neither was aware of the precipitate entry of Bateato and Michael Phelan, both of whom had sprinted a distance of two blocks. Phelan was puffing like a tugboat and stopped at the threshold of the room to catch his breath. He had prepared his mind for all manner of excitement and had burst in upon a tomb-like silence to be greeted by two inscrutable backs.

"What's this," he panted. "Eden Musee or a prayer-meetin'?"

Barnes glanced over his shoulder and frowned.

"Keep quiet," he said. "We're thinking."

Gladwin strove to invent an excuse for getting rid of the policeman.

"What do you want?" he bluffed, as if amazed at the sudden invasion.

"What do I want?" shrilled Officer 666. "I come to find out what youse want."

"I don't want anything," said the young man with exaggerated politeness. "Thank you very much, but I don't want anything. Good evening!"

"Good evening!" echoed Barnes, with another glance over his shoulder.

Michael Phelan turned purple. He hadn't indulged in the most exhausting sprint in six months to be made sport of.

"Which one of youse sent for me?" he rasped out.

The two young men pointed to each other, which only served to fan the flame of Phelan's wrath.

"Is one of youse Mr. Gladwin?" he gurgled.

They repeated the pantomime until Gladwin caught the fire in Phelan's eye and decided that it would be better to temporize.

"I am Mr. Gladwin," he bowed.

Phelan measured him from the ground up as he filled his lungs for another outburst.

"Why did yez send for me?" he demanded savagely. "This here little Japanaze come runnin' wild-eyed down me beat an' says there's two women been robbin' the house. What's all this monkey business?"

"Bateato is mistaken," said Gladwin, forcing a laugh.

"No, sir!" cried the Jap excitedly. "Ladies run off quick in big autbile"——

"Now wait—that's enough," Gladwin stopped him.

"You tell me find plece," persisted the Jap, who saw the terrible wrath of Michael Phelan about to flash upon him.

"That's enough," Gladwin sought to shut him up.

"You say they steal—I go saloon"——

"Don't talk any more! Don't speak again! Go back to the hotel and wait for me. I'll send for you when I want you. Stop! Not another word."

Bateato gripped his mouth with his fingers and stumbled out of the room.

Avoiding the still glowering eye of Officer 666, Travers Gladwin turned to Barnes and attempted to say casually:

"When Bateato gets an idea into his head there is no use arguing with him. There is only one thing to do—don't let him speak."

The young man started to hum a tune and strolled toward the heavily curtained window that looked out on Fifth avenue.



CHAPTER XXI.

TRAVERS GLADWIN GOES IN SEARCH OF HIMSELF.

Policeman Michael Phelan was at first undecided whether to pursue the departing Bateato and arrest him as a suspicious person or to remain on the scene of mystery and get to the bottom of what was going forward.

He chose the latter plan upon the inspiration that if he arrested a millionaire he would get his name in the paper and Rose might read of it and come to some realization of the immensity of his official dignity.

He was further urged to this course by the insolent nonchalance of the two young men. They weren't paying any more attention to him than they were to the inanimate sticks of furniture in the room.

"Well, what did yez send fer me fer?" he broke out again, hurling the words at Travers Gladwin's back.

"I thought you might like a drink," replied that young man, turning slowly and smiling upon the enraged bluecoat.

"I never touch it," shot back Phelan, "an' that's no answer to me question."

Gladwin stared at Phelan steadily a moment, his smile vanishing. As he measured the officer's height and build an idea came to him. His face lighted as he exclaimed:

"I've got a great idea! Officer, I want you to do me a little favor. How would you like to make five hundred dollars?"

If he had said four hundred dollars, or even four hundred and fifty, the effect would not have been half so great upon Michael Phelan. The mention of an even five hundred dollars, though, was the open sesame to the very depths of his emotions. Five hundred dollars represented the talisman that would lead him safe through Purgatory into the land of sweet enchantments. The fires of his wrath were instantly cooled and he said feebly:

"Are yez tryin' to bribe me?"

"Not at all, sergeant," said the young man gravely.

"I ain't no sergeant," Phelan retorted.

"All right, lieutenant," laughed Gladwin, his good humor increasing as his sudden idea took shape in his mind.

"Don't call me lieutenant," said Phelan, with a return of temper.

"Well, it's this way, captain."

"Nix on the promotion stuff," shot back Phelan, the consciousness returning that he was being kidded. "I'm patrolman and me name is Michael Phelan, and I'm onto me job—mind that!"

"No offense, officer," Gladwin hurried on. "I'm sure you're onto your job. No one could look at you and doubt that—but I'll give you five hundred dollars if you'll lend me your uniform for awhile."

"Fi—fi—uni—say, what kind of a game are youse up to?"

Two big events in Phelan's life had blazed their films upon his memory in a blinding flash. First there was Rose, and then there was that nightmare of a Coroner's case, when he had fled hatless and coatless down the stairs of a reeking east side tenement, pursued by the yells of a shrieking "corpse."

"It's no game—it's a joke," replied Gladwin.

Whitney Barnes, who had been listening eagerly and had sensed Gladwin's inspiration, chimed in:

"Yes, officer; it's a joke."

"Yez are offering me five hundred dollars for a joke?" said the flabbergasted Phelan.

"That's it," returned Gladwin. "I want to take your place; I want to become"—stepping forward to read the number on Phelan's shield—"Officer 666 for a little while."

Phelan couldn't believe his ears. Stepping to one side he said behind his hand to Barnes:

"This feller's off his dip. Don't he know that if I lent him me uniform it'd be me finish."

"That's all right," spoke up Gladwin. "I'll guarantee to protect you. No one will ever know about it. You'll never make five hundred so easy again."

"S-s-say," stammered Phelan, "what's this all about?"

"Well, I've found out that a thief is going to break in here to-night."

"A thief!" gasped the policeman.

"Yes, just for a joke, you know."

"A thief going to break in here for a joke!" yelled Phelan. "Now I know you're batty."

"Not a regular thief," the young man corrected hastily. "He's a friend of mine—and I want to be waiting in your uniform when he comes. I want to nab him. The joke will be on him, then, you know."

"All very simple, you see," added Barnes.

"Simple as—no, I don't see," snarled Phelan. "The two of yez is bugs."

"But you will see," went on Gladwin, "if you'll let me explain. In order to be a policeman I've got to have a uniform, haven't I?"

"Of course he has," urged Barnes.

"And yez are offering me five hundred dollars for a joke?"

Phelan dropped his arms limply at his side and permitted his eyes to bulge ad lib.

"That's it," cried Gladwin. "I assure you it is nothing serious or criminal. I just want your uniform long enough to catch my friend and I'll give you five hundred dollars for lending it to me."

"It's too big a risk," panted Phelan, producing an elaborate bandana and mopping his brow. "I won't do it."

It was manifest that Officer 666 was sorely tempted. To goad him further Travers Gladwin produced a little roll of yellow-backed bills from his pocket. Fluttering the bills deftly he stripped off one engraved with an "M" in one corner and "500" in the other. He turned it about several ways so that Phelan could study it from all angles. Then he fluttered it before Whitney Barnes and said:

"Say, Barnes, there's something really handsome about these yellow-backs, isn't there? Notice how that five and those two naughts are engraved? And it's amazing how much a slip of paper like this will buy."

This was too much for Phelan. He reached for the bill and grabbed it, stuffed it into his trousers pocket and began unbuttoning his coat. Suddenly he stopped.

"Say," he sputtered. "S'pose there should be a robbery on my beat?"

"That would be fine," said Gladwin. "I'd be a credit to you."

"Or a murder?"

"Better still."

"Oh, the risk is awful," groaned Phelan. He started to button up his coat again when Rose's taunt came back to him. This time the tempter delivered a vital blow and he tore off his uniform coat and passed it to the young man. Gladwin slipped it on over his other clothes. It fitted snugly. It just happened that the suit he wore was dark blue and his trousers matched accurately.

"Now the bonnet," he said, reaching for the uniform cap and removing it from Phelan's head.

"And now officer, your sword." He grasped the proffered belt and buckled it on with a flourish, making as natty a figure of a cub policeman as one would want to meet.

Phelan stood looking on dumbly, his face a study in conflicting emotions. Barnes's admiration of his friend's nerve was beyond power of words. When Gladwin started for the doorway, however, he called after him:

"Hey there, Travers, where are you going?"

"On duty," he responded cheerily. "And by the way, Whitney, give Mr. Phelan that tray and decanter and see that he goes down into the kitchen and stays there until my return. You remain on guard up here. I'll look after the outside. So long, mates."

"Hold on," Phelan called out feebly. "I'd like to know what the divvil it all means. I'm fair hypnotized."

"It means," said Gladwin, pausing and turning his head, "that I'm going outside to wait for myself—and if I find myself, I'll arrest myself—if both myself and I have to go to jail for it. Now, do you get me?"

"No, I'll be damned if I do!" gurgled Phelan, but the words had scarcely passed his lips when the departmental guise of Officer 666 vanished from sight and the front door slammed with a bang.



CHAPTER XXII.

A MILLIONAIRE POLICEMAN ON PATROL.

Travers Gladwin went bounding down the steps of his own pretentious marble dwelling with an airy buoyancy that would have caused Sergt. McGinnis to turn mental back handsprings had he happened to be going by on his rounds. But, fortunately, McGinnis had passed on his inspection tour shortly before Michael Phelan had been summoned by Bateato. For three hours at least Officer 666 would be supreme on his beat.

While the McGinnis contingency had never entered young Gladwin's mind it did suddenly occur to him as he strolled jauntily along that he had neglected to ask Phelan to define the circumscribed limits of his post. What if he should happen to butt into another patrolman? Certain exposure and all his plans would go flui! Then there was the danger of being recognized by some of his neighbors and friends. Ah! it came to him in a twinkling. A disguise!

"Here goes," he said aloud. "I'll jump a taxi and see if I can hunt up a hair store!"

The time was 7 P. M., with the inky darkness of night blanketing the city so far as inky darkness can blanket a metropolis.

The thoroughfare on which the young man stood was a long lane of dazzle, wherefore the nocturnal shadows offered no concealment. He cast his eyes up and down the avenue in search of a tramp motor-hack cruising in search of a fare. He had only a moment or two to wait before one of the bright yellow variety came racketing along. He stuck up his hand and waved his baton at the driver. There was a crunching of brakes and the taxi hove to and warped into the curb. The chauffeur had the countenance of a pirate, but his grin was rather reassuring.

"Say, me friend," began the young man, in an effort to assume Michael Phelan's brogue, "do you know the way to a hair store?"

"A what?" the chauffeur shot back, while his grin went inside.

"A hair store—I want a bit of a disguise fer my features—whiskers, false hair or the like."

"Did ye stop me to kid me?" snarled the chauffeur. "Ye don't need to think 'cause you got on a bull's uniform ye can hurl the harpoon into me. Or if it's a drink ye're wantin' reach in under the seat an' there's a flask. If ye meant hair oil why didn't ye say it?"

"Thanks, but 'tis no drink I'm afther," said the young man. "'Tis a ride to a hair store, an' here's a tin-spot fer yer trouble."

It was the way Travers Gladwin handled the skirts of his coat in getting at his money that convinced the wise chauffeur that he had no real policeman to deal with. His grin came back and looped up behind at either ear.

"I getcher, Steve," he broke out, reaching for the bill. "If it's disguises ye're after hop inside an' I'll tool youse over to Mme. Flynn's on Avenue A."

To demonstrate to his uniformed fare that speed laws in the greater city of New York fail to impose any manner of hamper upon the charioteering of the motor-driven hack, the chauffeur of this canary-colored taxi scampered across town at a forty-mile-an-hour clip, during which Patrolman Gladwin failed to familiarize himself with the quality of the cab's cushions. But it was not a long ride and there was some breath left in him when the cab came to a crashing stop.

The young man was on the point of opening the door when a voice stopped him.

"Kape inside, ye boob, an' pull the blinds down. There's coppers on every corner. Now, what is it ye want in the way o' whiskers or hair? Ye can slip me the change through the crack."

"What's the prevailin' style?" asked Gladwin, with a laugh. "Are they wearin' brown beards?"

"They are not," mumbled the chauffeur. "I guess a wee bit mustache an' a black wig will do ye, an' if ye want I'll get ye a pair of furry eyebrows."

"Fine," cried the young man, poking a $20 bill out through the crack in the door, "and don't be long." The door slammed and a great stillness clapped down, broken only by the running of the taximeter, which seemed to be equipped with a motor of its own.

The millionaire cop sat back luxuriously and inhaled a deep breath.

"Gad!" he exclaimed to himself, "I'm really beginning to live. Nothing but thrills for four hours and more and larger ones coming."

Presently the chauffeur returned, opened the door a few inches and shoved in a small package.

"Ye'll have to paste 'em on in the dark," he said. "Or ye can light a match. Ye'll find a wee mirror in the bundle. Now where'll I drive yez?"

"Back to me fixed post," said Gladwin, "only take it easy while I put me face on straight."

"If ye don't git it on straighter nor your brogue," chuckled the chauffeur, "it'll not decave a blind man."

In another instant the return journey was under way at reduced speed.

Travers Gladwin first tried on the wig. It was three sizes too large and he had to discard it. Next he had some trouble in deciding which was the mustache and which the eyebrows. He had burned his fingers pretty badly before he made the selection and likewise he had singed one of the eyebrows.

But he managed to plaster them all on before the cab stopped and after one glance in the little mirror he was confident the disguise would answer.

When he stepped out of the taxi, at almost the very spot where he had boarded it, he felt that a big weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"How do you like me?" he asked the chauffeur, gayly. "Is it an improvement?"

"I wouldn't say yis nor no to that," said the chauffeur, "but 'tiz a disguise, an' that's what ye were wantin'. Thim eyebrows is grand."

"Thanks," laughed Officer 666, "an' here's a wan hundred dollar bill which asks ye to forget me uniform, me number an' me face."

"'Tiz done," agreed the chauffeur, tucking away the bill, "on'y take a tip from a wise gink an' keep deep in the shadders. An' whin ye pinch your frind don't let him holler too loud."

The yellow taxi was gone with a rush, leaving Gladwin to wonder at the amazingly shrewd guess of its pilot.

"When I pinch me frind," he murmured. "'Twas just what I said to Phelan. Why"——

He was gazing after the taxicab when from the opposite direction there suddenly rolled into view a vast touring car with a familiar figure at the wheel, and alongside the familiar figure a very pretty girl.

The car was barely rolling along, while its two occupants were talking earnestly, their heads as close together as was possible under the circumstances.

"Johnny Parkinson, as I'm alive!" uttered Travers Gladwin. "Me old college chum, and as per usual—making love. Yis, me grinning chauffeur frind, here's where we make a pinch an' test Mme. Flynn's eyebrows. Officer, do your duty!"

Out he stepped into the roadway and raised his nightstick.

The big car came to a sudden stop and the two occupants stared angrily at the cause of the interruption.

"I arrest yez in the name o' the law," cried Patrolman Gladwin, scowling so fiercely that one of the eyebrows was in danger.

"What's that?" snorted the young aristocrat.

"You're me pris'ner," said Gladwin, easily. "I arrest ye fer breaking the speed laws—racin' on the aven-oo."

"It's an outrage!" cried the pretty passenger. "We were scarcely crawling, Johnny."

"You must be joking, officer," said Johnny Parkinson, not very belligerently, for he had a bad record for speeding and wasn't sure that some earlier offense was not involved.

"I'm not jokin'," replied Gladwin, walking to the door of the tonneau and opening it, "and ye'll oblige me by drivin' to the police station." He got in and lolled back cozily in the cushions.

Johnny Parkinson let in the clutch and rolled northward. This was the strangest "pinch" of his experience and he didn't know just what to make of it. After he had gone a few blocks he turned on his captor-passenger and said:

"Which station shall I drive to?—I'm sure there must be some mistake."

"There's no mistake," responded Gladwin, fairly screaming with joy inside at the bewildered and frightened look of his friend. "As for police stations, take your pick. I ain't particular. Drive round the block a couple o' times an' make up your mind."

Johnny Parkinson turned the first corner and then turned again into Madison avenue. Gladwin could hear the couple on the front seat whispering excitedly, the girl almost in hysterics.

"You've simply got to do something, Johnny," she was saying. "You know if we get our names in the paper father will be furious. Remember what he said about the last time you were arrested for speeding."

Running along Madison avenue, Johnny Parkinson slowed down, turned again to the uniform in the back seat and said tremulously:

"Can't we compromise this, Officer? I"——

"Not on the aven-oo, Mr. Parkinson. You've got too bad a record. But if ye'll run the machine over into Central Park where there ain't so many sergeants roamin' round we might effict a sittlemint."

A smile of great gladness illuminated the features of Johnny Parkinson. He let in the clutch with a bang and it was only a matter of seconds before the ninety horsepower car glided in through the Seventy-second street entrance to Central Park and swung into the dark reaches of the East Drive. Slowing down again the young man at the wheel turned and said anxiously:

"The smallest I've got is a century and I really need some of that."

"That's aisy," rejoined Gladwin. "Sure'n I change hundred dollar bills ivry day. Slip me the paper an' here's a fifty, which is lettin' ye off aisy, seein' ye're an ould offinder."

The transfer of bills was made swiftly, whereupon Gladwin commanded:

"Now run me back to me peg post an' drop me off, on'y take it slow an' gradual or I might have to pinch yez again."

A few minutes later Gladwin heard the young girl say passionately:

"Oh, Johnny, how could you give him the money? He's no better than a thief. I hope you've taken his number."

"It wouldn't do any good, dearest," said Johnny, sadly. "They're all in together and I'd only get the worst of it. But did you notice, Phyllis, that he looks a lot like Travers Gladwin?"

"Impossible!" retorted the girl. "Travers Gladwin is good looking, and this man's nothing but an Irish monster."

The girl was about to speak again when she was sure she heard muffled laughter behind her. Then the car sped on into the avenue and just missed colliding with a Fifth avenue motor 'bus. Officer 666 was put down a block from his own home and resumed the patrolling of the immediate precincts of the Gladwin mansion. His only parting salute from Johnny Parkinson's car was a flashing glance of contempt from the girl, whose identity he strove in vain to place.



CHAPTER XXIII.

OLD GRIM BARNES GETS A THRILL.

The precipitate departure of Travers Gladwin left Whitney Barnes and the shirt-sleeved Michael Phelan staring blankly at each other. The unfrocked policeman was anything but an imposing figure and the contortions of distress in his rubicund countenance were grotesque enough to kindle the sense of humor in a far less volatile mind than that of Whitney Barnes. His smile came to the surface and spread out in full blossom. But it failed to find reflection in the features of Mrs. Phelan's son.

"What the divvil are ye grinnin' at?" snarled Phelan. "Ye wouldn't see no fun in it if it mint your job an' your pension an' your silf-respect. Now, what is it all about?"

"There you have me, officer," responded the young man, lightly. "The riddle is dark on all four sides. You and I are in the same boat—guardians of the castle against the mysterious foe. While you guard the moat from the kitchen I will operate the portcullis."

"Talk sinse, will yez?" hissed Phelan. "What in blazes has moats an' portcollars to do with it?"

"Only in a way of speaking," laughed Barnes. "But calm yourself, Mr. Phelan, my friend is both wise and discreet. He will do no dishonor to your cloth, and together we will see that you suffer no material damage in this life. I am unable to explain further without uttering more confusion, so kindly take yonder tray down into the kitchen. That little door on the extreme right I believe opens the way to the lower regions. I am sure Bateato left the lights on."

"May the blessed saints presairve ye if it's a trap ye're riggin' fer Michael Phelan," breathed that gentleman, shaking his head dubiously. "'Tis not a step I'll go down into that kitchen till yez lead me the way, and if there's any more ravin' maniacs down in them quarters I warn ye it's shootin' I'll be after doin'."

And Phelan patted the bulge in his hip pocket as he swung around.

Barnes led the way through the long, narrow corridor to the rear of the house, while Phelan followed, muttering and grumbling every inch of the way. There was no further conversation between them while they investigated the elaborate quarters below stairs, and at last Phelan ceased his mutterings and accepted from Barnes an armful of cook books with which to regale himself until he was summoned to resume his uniform.

Returning to the big silent rooms above, Whitney Barnes was utterly at a loss how to occupy himself. The thundering stillness got on his nerves and he found himself thinking of a dozen different things at once. But as idea pursued idea the image of the shy and winsome Sadie persisted in intervening.

So he dropped Travers Gladwin, or rather the two Travers Gladwins, Helen, Phelan and all the others from his mind and gave himself up to the beatific contemplation of the picture that was most soothing to his spirits.

For a while he lolled back in one of the great chairs, shut his eyes and revolved pleasant visions. Suddenly he thought of his father and sprang to his feet.

"By Jove! I'll break the news to the pater," he cried. "There's a telephone somewhere in this house, and I'll call him up at his club."

He fairly danced out into the hallway, switching on lights wherever he could find a button to press. Presently he located the phone in a secluded alcove and slumped down on a divan with the instrument in his lap.

As a matter of fixed routine, it happened that this particular hour found Joshua Barnes, mustard magnate, settled down to his cigar and coffee, in which he found immense comfort after a hearty meal. To be disturbed at this most luxurious moment of the day was, to a man of his temperament, about as pleasant a sensation as being stung by a rattlesnake.

He sent the club attendant back to the phone with a savage growl and the message to his son to call him up in an hour or to come to the club in person. The attendant crept back with the report that Barnes junior insisted that there could be no delay—that he had a vastly important matter to report on.

Old Grim Barnes flung down his cigar, gulped his coffee till he choked and stamped off to the telephone booth.

"Well?" he bellowed.

—That you, pater—sorry to disturb you, but—

—Of course it's important and no damn nonsense about it, I——

—No, I haven't been arrested and am not in a police station.

—Then what the devil——

—No devil, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, quite the opposite! I've called you up to report progress——

—You know better than that, dad. I've only had two drinks.

—I'd better take four more and sober up? Now, Father Barnes, will you oblige me by cooling off for an instant? You recall that this afternoon you gave me a year within which to find a wife. Well, I've found one already.

—Now you know I'm intoxicated? Was my voice ever soberer—now listen.

—You won't listen? But you must. This is all up to you. You commanded. I obeyed. Say, dad, she's an angel. I'm madly in love with her.

—Who is she? Well, er, I really don't know—that is, her first name is Sadie. I——

—Sadie what? Sadie Omaha—I mean she lives in Omaha.

—What is her last name and who are her people? To tell you the truth I haven't found that out yet. I——

—I'm an ass?—a blankety, blank ass? Just wait till you see her! I met her up at Travers Gladwin's, and——

—Travers is in Egypt! No, yes, of course he is, but——

The final outburst of paternal expletive fairly hurled Whitney Barnes from the phone.

"There, by thunder! He's rung off in a rage."

"There's the ungrateful parent for you!" he muttered as he made his way back to Gladwin's drawing room. "Here I've gone and broken my neck to fall in love for him and that's all the thanks I get for it. Well, I'll marry her in spite of him, if he doesn't leave me a dollar. I could starve in a garret with her, and if I got too dreadfully hungry I could eat her. Hi, ho! but, say, Mr. Whitney Barnes, you had better switch off some of these lights. This house isn't supposed to be occupied."

He left just one heavily shaded bronze lamp abeam. Then he carefully drew all the curtains across the windows and tiptoed about the room with the air of a sinister conspirator. He stopped in front of the great, mysterious-looking chest to one side of the entrance to the hallway, lifted the heavy lid and looked in.

"Here's where we will put our dead," he said, with a lugubrious grin, let down the lid softly and crossed abruptly to the roomiest and coziest chair beside the curtained window. After another sweeping glance about the room he stretched his arms and yawned.

"Reckon I better sleep off that jag the pater presented me over the wire," he chuckled, and down he slid into the soft upholstery, raising his long legs upon another chair and sighing with deep contentment. His eyes roved about the room for a moment, when he smiled suddenly and quoted:

Why, let the stricken deer go weep; The hart ungalled play, For some must watch, while some must sleep: So runs the world away.

And upon the suggestion of the immortal bard he chose the sleeper's end of it and passed away.



CHAPTER XXIV.

AUNTIE TAKES THE TRAIL.

"Mix a tablespoonful of corn starch with a quarter of a cupful of water. Stir this into a cupful of boiling water, and boil for two minutes; then add the juice and rind of a lemon and a cupful of sugar, and cook three minutes longer. Beat an egg very light, and pour the boiling mixture over it. Return to the fire and cook a minute longer, stirring all the while—a most tasty lemon sauce"——

"T' 'ell wit' these limon sauces!" exploded Michael Phelan, hurling the book across the room and bounding from his chair. "Sure 'n I'll niver be able to look a limon in the face agin. Limon, limon, limon—these blame books are filled wit' 'em. 'Tis a limon I am mesilf an' all fer a limon colored bill. But I'll not stand it a minute longer, shut down into this tomb wit' nothin' but mice fer comp'ny. Wurra! Wurra! Rose O'Neil, but your blue eyes an' your black hair an' your divilish smiles have spelled me finish."

Phelan wrung his hands and took a turn around the room. Now and again he stopped and shook his fist at the ceiling, and at last, beside himself, he made a rush for the door that led to the stairway. Opening a crack, he listened. Nothing but heavy silence beat down on him from above and he shivered. He looked back into the kitchen and his eye fell on the pile of cookbooks. With a muttered oath he flung himself through the doorway and crept upstairs.

He had to feel his way through the narrow slit of a corridor above, and it was with an immense sigh of relief that he opened the door and stepped into the great drawing room he had left. In the dim light of the one glowing lamp he made out Whitney Barnes deep in the embrace of a great chair and sonorously asleep.

"So that's the way he's kapin' watch!" hissed Phelan through his teeth, as he fairly pounced across the room. First he seized the young man's feet and threw them from their resting place to the floor, exclaiming as he did so:

"Here you—wake up!"

"Yes, dear," mumbled the young man in his sleep, "I could abide with you always."

"Don't yez be afther dearin' me," snarled Phelan. "Wake up!"

Barnes opened his eyes and asked thickly:

"Wassa masser."

"What are yez doin' there?" cried Phelan.

"What am I doing here," rejoined Barnes, now wide-awake and getting on his feet. "Why, I'm keeping watch at the window—on guard as it were."

"On guard, is it?" snorted Phelan. "On guard an' snorin' like a bazoo. 'Tis a fine night watchman ye'd make. But, say, hain't ye seen nothin' o' Mr. Gladwin since?"

"Now, I told you, Officer," returned Barnes severely, "that I would let you know just as soon as he returned. I have been keeping guard here, and no one could enter the house without my knowing it. You will kindly return to the kitchen and wait."

"An' you got no word from him?" asked Phelan, in manifest distress.

"No," with emphasis.

"Oh, my! oh, my!" complained Phelan bitterly. "Sure this is the worst muddle I ever got mesilf into! The sergeant will find him in that uniform, sure. It'll cost me me job, that's what it will! How late is it now?"

Barnes consulted his watch.

"Five minutes past ten."

"Howly Moses! If I ever get out of this scrape I pity the mon that offers me money fer the lind o' me uniform agin. I'll grab him by the"——

A sharp ring at the doorbell cut him short and wrote another chapter of tragedy in his countenance.

"Hello! there's some one at the door," spoke up Barnes. "You'd better go and see who it is, Officer."

"Me!" gurgled Phelan. "Me! an' walk into the arms o' Sergeant McGinnis. Let 'em stay out, whoever it is, or yez go yersilf."

"All right," said Barnes, "and in case it should be your friend McGinnis you better go and hide in the kitchen, like a brave officer. I'll let you know when it's time to come out."

Phelan did not budge as Barnes left the room, but stood muttering to himself: "How the divvil did I iver let mesilf in fer this thing—I dunno! That's what love does to yez—a plague on all women! If"——

"Helen, Helen, where are you?" cried a shrill feminine voice that seemed to clutch the very heart of Michael Phelan with a grip of ice.

"Howly murther! What's that?" he breathed, backing away from the door.

"Help! Murder! Police!" was borne in on him in even more agonized tones, and before he could move another step Mrs. Elvira Burton burst into the room—flushed and wild-eyed—in the throes of one of her famous fits of hysterics.

Phelan took a backward leap as she came toward him, and she yelled:

"Stop! stop! Where's my niece?"

With his eyes almost out on his cheeks Phelan managed to articulate:

"What, ma'am?"

"You know what I mean—don't deny it!" Mrs. Burton shrilled.

"I don't know what yez're talkin' about," protested Phelan, backing toward the doorway that led to the kitchen.

The hysterical woman stopped, struggling for breath. When she could speak again she said fiercely:

"Who are you?"

"I—I"—— Phelan began.

"Tell me who you are or I'll have you arrested—I'll call the police."

"Oh, for the love of hiven, don't call the police!" begged Phelan, still backing toward the door.

"Then tell me what you are doing here."

"I'll answer no questions," cried Phelan. With a desperate backward leap he gained the narrow doorway behind and vanished. He pulled the door shut and clung to the knob, hearing the muffled demand hurled at him:

"Here! Come back here! Helen! Helen! I want my niece! Oh, Helen, come to auntie!"

Then Barnes and the other pretty ward of the distraught Mrs. Burton entered the room. The young man had stopped Sadie in the hallway to ask a few questions and endeavored to soothe the frightened girl. He had taken possession of her hand again and still held it as he led her to the door of the drawing room.

They did not attempt to enter until after the precipitate disappearance of Michael Phelan. As Mrs. Burton stood looking helplessly at the closed door, her ample bosom heaving and her breath coming in short hysterical gasps, Barnes was whispering to Sadie:

"Ah, Miss Sadie, I can't tell you how overjoyed I am at seeing you again. And so that's your auntie—fancy that chap refusing to meet her! Why"——

That was as far as he got. Auntie suddenly wheeled round and caught sight of him.

"Ah! Gladwin!" she screamed and made a rush for him.

With all his characteristic aplomb and insouciance Whitney Barnes was unable to face such a rush with any degree of calmness.

"No! no! a mistake!" he retorted and sought to sidestep.

Mrs. Burton was too quick for him and seized his arm in an iron grip.

"Where is Helen? What have you done with her?" she demanded in the same wild tones.

"I-I-I d-d-don't know," stammered Barnes.

"You have hidden her somewhere and you must give her up," stormed the woman. "You're a scoundrel—you're a kidnapper—you're a wretch."

She flung Barnes from her with all her strength and he slammed against the wall. She was about to charge upon him again when Sadie rushed between them.

"Oh, auntie," she cried. "This is not Mr. Gladwin."

"Of course he isn't," chimed in Barnes, trying to shake himself together again. "He isn't Mr. Gladwin at all."

"Then who are you?" cried Mrs. Burton.

"Oh, he's some one else," Sadie assured her.

"Yes, you bet I am," continued Barnes, striving his best to appear his usual jaunty self. "I'm some one else entirely different—I-I'm not Gladwin in the least."

"What are you doing here?" shot out Mrs. Burton.

"Ah, that's it," he responded. "I'm on guard—keeping watch!"

"I knew it! I knew it!" and the shrill voice rose to a plangent pitch again. "You have hidden her away. Helen! Helen!"

"Now, now, now—my dear lady," broke in Barnes, soothingly.

"I'm not your dear lady," she flashed on him.

"My dear auntie"—Mrs. Burton's hysteria was becoming contagious—"I beg your pardon," he added hastily, "your niece, Miss Helen, is not here. I've been watching for hours, and she's not here—no one is here."

"That shirt-sleeved man is here—and you're here!"

"But, auntie, he's a friend of Mr. Gladwin's," interposed Sadie.

"Ah, ha! I knew it!" screamed Mrs. Burton. "He's in the plot." And again she plunged for him, crying, "You're his friend—you're helping him to steal my niece. But you shan't—I'll prevent it—I'll search the house. Come, Sadie!"

Barnes dodged skilfully and permitted Mrs. Burton to pass out into the hallway. Sadie was about to follow when the young man stopped her.

"But I must go with auntie," Sadie objected.

"Never mind auntie now. I want to tell you about your cousin."

"Then you've seen her?"

"No."

"But you know where she is?"

"No."

"Then what can you tell me about her?"

"Everything! Sit down, please. Remember you asked me to help you and I promised to do so."

Mrs. Burton had managed to switch on the lights in the big reception room back of the hallway and was searching behind curtains, under books, behind pictures and in innumerable other places, after the manner of hysterical women.

"I said I would help you, you know," ran on Barnes.

"Yes," and Sadie looked up into his eyes confidently.

"Do you know why I promised?"

"No. Why did you?"

Barnes bent down toward her and said with all the ardor he could command:

"Because from the moment I saw you I became your slave. When I saw how distressed you were about your cousin this evening my heart went out to you—the instant you left I decided to act and I've been acting ever since."

"Oh, how kind—what have you done?"

"I've watched."

"Watched?"

"Yes, watched. You don't understand that, but it's a very serious matter. If you only knew how serious this whole thing is you'd realize how I am trying to help you, and the risk I am taking."

"Oh, how noble of you! How brave you are!" and if Mrs. Burton had waited another moment before returning to the room she would have had another case for hysterics on her hands entirely separate and independent of Helen's elopement.

"I can't find her—I don't believe she's in the house," wailed Mrs. Burton.

Barnes regarded her dumbly for a moment and then said slowly and ponderously:

"My dear lady, I assure you that she is not in the house. If you'll only listen a moment"——

"I won't listen," Mrs. Burton snapped him up.

Sadie jumped to her feet and rallied to Barnes's defense:

"But, auntie, this gentleman has been doing everything he can to help us—everything. He's been watching."

"Watching? Watching what?" demanded auntie, suspiciously.

"Ah, that's it! What? What haven't I been watching—for hours?" cried Barnes.

"But what have you been watching for?" Mrs. Burton shrilled.

"For hours"——

"What?"

"I mean for yours—and Miss Sadie's sake, and now if you'll wait here and watch with me"——

"Now I see it all," stormed Mrs. Burton, shaking her hand at Barnes wrathfully. "You want to keep us here. Helen and that scoundrel have gone and you want to prevent our following them."

"No, auntie, he's trying to help us," sobbed Sadie.

"He's lying to you, child," said Mrs. Burton, shooting vindictive glances at Barnes. "Don't you know he's a friend of that wretch Gladwin? But they can't hoodwink me. I know what to do now! Helen is not of age—I'll swear out a warrant—I'll have him arrested for abduction, a State prison offense."

"No, no, no," implored Barnes, in real alarm, "you must not do that. That will make the whole thing public, and that is just what Gladwin is trying to avoid."

"Don't you suppose I know that," sneered Mrs. Burton. "He's probably a bigamist. He may have a dozen wives living—the beast!"

"But won't you understand," insisted Barnes. "He's trying to save her, privately."

"Now, what are you talking about?"

Mrs. Burton regarded him as if she had suddenly realized he was a raving maniac. And by way of justifying her inspiration he stumbled on blindly:

"I don't know—you see, it's this way. Gladwin and I only found it out this afternoon—quite by accident. And we decided to save her."

"That's enough—stop!" cried Mrs. Burton. "You're talking all this nonsense to detain us. But I won't stay a minute longer. Come, Sadie, we will go to the police station. I'll never rest until I have that monster in jail."

And with another dagger glance at Barnes she swept her niece and herself out of the room and out of the house to the waiting automobile.

Barnes gripped his forehead in both hands to steady his reeling brain.

"Isn't that just like a woman," he complained. "After explaining explicitly she's going to have him arrested. But, by Jove! I must find Travers and warn him that the police are on his track."

Seizing his hat and stick he rushed out into the night, just in time to see Mrs. Burton's—or rather Jabez Hogg's—big car glide away from the curb and shoot down the avenue like a vast projectile.

CHAPTER XXV.

PHELAN MEETS HIS UNIFORM AGAIN.

About the time the Gladwin mansion was ringing with the shrill staccato outbursts of Mrs. Elvira Burton, the owner of that luxurious dwelling was leaning against the Central Park wall a few blocks away engaged in earnest conversation with a small boy.

"You ought to be in bed," the young man was saying, severely, looking down at the lad and noting how thinly he was clad and yet how little he appeared to suffer from the sting of the chill night air.

"Bed nuttin'," responded the boy, curtly. "I'm lookin' fer me dog. Did yez seen him go by—he's a t'oroughbred an' lost one ear battlin' with a bull."

"Oh, so you're her brother, then," laughed Gladwin.

"Who's brudder?" asked the boy, suspiciously.

"May's," said Gladwin, "or I should say the brother of Miss May Henny."

"Hully gee!" ejaculated the boy. "Did dat kid skin out too after me an' the old man tellin' her to stay in bed an' shut up her bellerin?"

"Yes," said Gladwin, "and the young lady, with my aid, found the valuable animal you are searching for—a black dog with a white spot over the right eye and no tail."

"Hully gee!" cried the boy, ecstatically. "She found him, eh? Well, who'd a-t'ought it, an' me lookin' fer him tree hours. Where did she find him, officer? His name's Mike—named after me old man's boss what bites nails."

"We found him in the park in company with a disreputable friend," said Gladwin.

"A yaller mut?" asked the boy, with a contemptuous emphasis on the mut. "Dat's the janitor's dog an' he's nottin' but a tramp. I wisht he'd fall in de river an' get et by a catfish."

"I wouldn't wish him all that hard luck," laughed Gladwin, "for he had a large bone he was sharing with Mike. I was watching them over the park wall when May came along. I sent them all, and the bone, home in a taxicab."

"In a which?" ejaculated the boy, while his eyes popped.

"In a taxi," said Gladwin, lightly.

"Aw, say," and the little chap's jaw fell, "now I know you're kiddin'. Where'd May git the price of a taxi, an'"——

"Oh, I arranged all that," the uniformed mystery explained reassuringly, "and if you'd like I'll call one for you. You look pretty tired. I guess you've walked a good many miles on the trail of Mike."

The youngster tried to speak, but could not. The very thought of a ride in a taxicab froze his brain. Gladwin took him by the hand and led him to the curb.

"Now, would you prefer a yellow or a red one?" he asked. "There's all kinds going by."

"Yaller," cried the boy. "I likes them best."

They had only a moment to wait, when one of the mystic yellow hue cruised round a corner and came toward them. Gladwin hailed it and the chauffeur stopped with a wondering look at the pair.

Gladwin had a bill ready in his hand and passed it up to the chauffeur.

"Take this boy over to No. 287 East Eightieth street," commanded Gladwin, "and whatever you've got left out of the tenspot above what the meter registers, split the change with the boy. And as for you son, patting the urchin on the head, you keep your eye peeled on the meter."

"Gee! Will I?" responded the boy, and as Gladwin opened the door he hopped in and took up a perch where he could best observe the fascinating operations of the register.

The chauffeur, a bullet-headed, cross-eyed individual, squinted at the bill half a dozen times before he stowed it away in his pocket and set the meter. Then he made a swift, fierce scrutiny of Travers Gladwin's face, shook his head, swallowed a mouthful of oaths, threw in the clutch and spurted diagonally for the cross street.

As he vanished, the uniformed similitude of Officer 666 consulted his watch, made out that it was almost 10.30 and strode rapidly in the direction of his home. He wore a smile that was fairly refulgent.

"Wouldn't have missed this night patrol for a hundred thousand," he said inwardly—"and they say that the life of a patrolman is a monotonous drudgery."

Arriving at the stoop of his home he reconnoitered the avenue in both directions and then looked up at the black windows of the house. A sudden lull had come upon the neighborhood and there seemed not a soul stirring. He sped lightly up the stoop and let himself in. He was surprised to find the lights burning brilliantly in the drawing-room and no sign of Barnes. The heavy curtains, he saw, were carefully arranged to prevent the merest ray of light from showing outside. He took the further precaution, however, of turning off all but the single globe in one lamp.

He speculated on the disappearance of Barnes until he heard a stealthy step approaching through the corridor that led to the kitchen. Without noise he glided to the window and concealed himself behind the curtains.

He had scarcely hidden himself when the hinged panel that answered for a door opened slowly and the countenance of Michael Phelan protruded itself into the room. The Phelan shoulders and embonpoint, still in negligee, followed. Taking a cautious step forward he uttered behind his hand:

"Pst! Pst! Hey, youse there!"

There was no answer, and Phelan worked his head round like a wary weazel, muttering:

"Who was that woman, I wonder? She must have took that Slim Jim away with her. Musha! Musha! If they should call the police. Bad cess to that feller an' his five hundred dollar bill. Murther! Murther! I'm done fer!"