Travers Gladwin had stepped out of the folds of the curtain.

"Hey, there!" he blurted. "What are youse up to?"

"Howly Saint Pathrick! I'm gone now, sure!" groaned Phelan, and trembled where he stood.

"Come, come, Officer 666," laughed Gladwin, "I'm only your ghost."

Phelan exhaled a tremendous sigh of relief.

"The Lord be praised if it ain't yez!" he exclaimed, delightedly. "But where did ye get that disguise?"

"At a hair store—Madam Flynn's on Avenue A—do you like it?" laughed the young man. "I didn't want any of my friends or neighbors to recognize me, you know."

"But fer the love o' heaven where have yez been all the time?" asked Phelan, sinking into a chair and breathing hard.

"Patrolling my beat—I mean your beat," returned the young man, "and keeping my eye out for my friend the burglar. Oh, I've had quite a party. When I got hungry I sent to the Plaza for lunch and sat on the park wall and ate it. And, by the way, I saw a friend of mine coming along in an automobile and I arrested him for speeding."

"What!" Phelan exploded, jumping to his feet and turning white as his boiled shirt.

"Yes, nabbed him for breaking the speed limit," Gladwin nodded, leaning back against a table and lighting a cigarette.

"Fer, fer, fer breakin' the speed limit; fer, fer—yez made an arrest?"

"Exactly! He was going so slow he deserved to be arrested, and what's more, he was making love to a pretty girl without shame. I got in and told him to drive me to the station."

Phelan threw up his hands with a groan.

"An' did yez take him to the station?"

"How could I?" chuckled Gladwin. "I didn't know where it was—that is, your station—so I told him most any would do. We rode about a bit and as he didn't seem anxious to be locked up, I compromised for fifty dollars. It was really quite simple, Phelan, and if I'd only had more time I might have got back that five hundred."



"You've lost me me job—that's what you've done!" moaned Phelan, while his brain reeled with pictures of police headquarters, trial rooms and ruthless commissioners. "Come, give me me uniform," he cried, with a sudden accession of passion.

"What's that?" asked the young man, quickly, his grin vanishing.

"Me uniform!" rasped Phelan, with a rush toward the young man. "Give me me uniform an' let me git out of here."

Gladwin dodged around the table, protesting:

"No, no—not yet. The burglar—that is, my friend—will be here any moment."

"Your friend?" Phelan stopped, again a prey to bewilderment.

"Yes, yes—I explained all that before. The one I'm playing the joke on. You don't suppose I'm going to take it off now, do you?"

"Yez can bet your life, yez are," roared Phelan, with another savage rush round the table. "I've had enough of this, an' too much!"

"Now, just a minute," pleaded Gladwin. "I assure you everything is all right, and I'm not going to leave the house again. If anything happens so you need your uniform I'll be right here where you can get it. I'm not going to leave the house. Tell me, where's Barnes?"

"Who?" said Phelan, more calmly, and pausing in his pursuit.

"My friend—the one I left here."

"I dunno—there was a ring at the bell here a while ago and in come a wild woman and"——

"Great Scott! I hope my friend wasn't scared off! If that fellow was to meet her here at 10.30—why, it's after that now!"

"Here! Phelan, quick—help me put these covers on the chairs and things. Over there in the corner, back of the chest. He mustn't know that anybody's been here. Hurry, man; hurry! we haven't a second to spare."

Phelan submitted to the breathless commands as if he were hypnotized, puffing and blowing like a porpoise as he struggled to slip the linen covers over the chairs. Gladwin worked at top speed, too; and just as he was covering the great chest he gave a start and held up his hand.

"Sh!" he whispered. "There's a motor stopping outside. You go down into the kitchen and be ready to come up if you hear me whistle."

"But ye'll promise yez won't leave the house with them clothes," gasped Phelan.

"No, no—certainly not. Be quick now—I'll switch off this light and step out on the balcony. Close that door tight after you and be sure you switch out the lights in the back hall."

Gladwin only waited for the disappearance of Phelan and the soft closing of the door when he plunged the room into darkness. He could hear the click of a key in the front door lock as he groped his way to the window curtains and pressed back into the semi-circular recess that led out onto a window balcony. As he did so he unlatched the heavily grilled balcony window, drew out his penknife and slit a peephole in the curtain.



CHAPTER XXVI.

GLADWIN MEETS HIMSELF.

Standing as stiff and immovable as if he had been turned to stone, Travers Gladwin peered with one eye through the narrow aperture he had slashed in the heavy brocade portiere. Still gazing into inky darkness he could hear the cautious tread of two persons. His senses told him that one of the visitors was a heavy, sure-footed man and that the other was of lighter build and nervously wary. His deductions ceased instantly as a flash of light crossed his vision.

For a moment the concealed watcher saw nothing save the incisive ray of light that cut like a knife thrust through the darkness; then as he followed the shaft of light to its source he made out the silhouette of a man in evening dress—a white shirt front, square shoulders that branched off into the nothingness of the cloaking shadows and a handsome, sharp profile that lost itself in the gloom of a silk hat.

He also made out a cane from which the flashlight beamed. It was a new device to the experience of Travers Gladwin, and he watched it with the same fascination that a man is wont to manifest in the gleam of a revolver muzzle that suddenly protrudes itself from the mysterious depths of night.

The wielder of this smart burglar's implement did not move as he gashed the darkness with the ray of light, and to Gladwin he seemed inordinately calm. His companion was somewhere behind him, groping, and did not come into the picture until suddenly he found the push button in the wall and switched on the full glare of the electroliers suspended from the ceiling.

Gladwin saw and recognized. He drew in a deep breath of surprise.

It was Watkins, the thieving butler he had discharged in London. His attention did not linger on this familiar soft-shuffling tool of the master thief, however, but snapped back to the big, good looking young man with the branching shoulders and erect, confident carriage.

Used as he was to immaculate exteriors, Travers Gladwin had never seen a better groomed man. He had never seen a man with a quicker eye and more unconscious grace of movement.

It was no wonder that bitter envy gnawed his heart for a little while as there rose again before him the picture of that bewilderingly pretty girl and her passionate insistence that she would elope with "Travers Gladwin" in spite of any and all obstacles.

That underneath all these splendid sheathings the man had the mean spirit of a deceiver and a robber never entered the young man's head.

But presently things began to happen with such avalanching rapidity of action that there was not even a second to spare for speculation upon the vast gap between their social positions.

The lights had hardly been switched on before the big fellow put the sharp query to his companion:

"Watkins, is this room just as you left it when you went away with Mr. Gladwin?"

"I don't know, sir," replied Watkins, with characteristic deference of tone. "Bateato, the Jap, closed the house."

"H'm," said the other, laying his cane and hat on a table and drawing from the pocket of his light overcoat a blue print diagram of the house. Casting his eyes about the room, he unfolded the diagram and pointed to it, nodding his head behind him for Watkins to come and look.

"We're in this room now," he said, easily.

"Yes, sir."

"Out that way is the corridor to the kitchen."

He pointed to the panel-like door which a few minutes before had swallowed the very much undressed Officer 666.

"Yes, sir."

"And there's no other way out save through the front door or by way of this balcony behind those curtains?"

"No, sir."

"And," still running his finger over the diagram, "on the floor above are Gladwin's apartments."

"Yes, sir, at the head of the stairs—first door to the left."

"H'm, very good," slipping the diagram back into his pocket and lifting his eyes to the great portrait of the ancestral Gladwin.

"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly and with palpable relish, "that's a Stuart! Is that the great-grandfather, Watkins?"

"Yes, sir," responded Watkins, without any of his companion's enthusiasm.

"H'm," with the same grim emphasis, and off came the overcoat to be carelessly tossed across his hat and stick. His eye fell upon the great antique chest by the wall.

He lifted the lid to inspect its void interior. Glancing up above it, he motioned to Watkins and said:

"Here, help me get this out of the way."

Watkins glided to one end of the chest and together they hauled it clear of the wall. This done, he addressed Watkins as if he were but a creature to command:

"I can manage alone in here, but I want to be ready to leave by the time Miss Burton arrives. You go outside and wait in the car—and keep a sharp lookout."

Watkins bowed himself out with his stereotyped, "Yes, sir," and the door clicked gently after him.

The now lone invader returned to his interested survey of the paintings that covered the walls, turning easily on his heel until his line of vision embraced "The Blue Boy."

From his difficult peephole Travers Gladwin could see the sharp, stern features wrinkle with smiles before the intruder laughed lightly and breathed with seeming great enjoyment:

"Ha! The Blue Boy."

The smile went out as swiftly as it had come and was replaced by an utterly different expression as he swung about and visualized the Rembrandt on the wall above where the great empty chest had stood.

There was reverence and quick admiration in every feature as he bowed and exclaimed with a long sigh:

"Rembrandt! Rembrandt! God!—to paint like that!"

The emotions of this remarkable young man came and went with the quickness of his eye.

While still in the act of outpouring his admiration he whipped from the tail of his dress coat a flat fold of a dozen or more sheets of wrapping paper, shook them out and laid them on the lid of the chest.

With another swift gesture he produced a knife, sprang the thin gleaming blade and walked up to the Rembrandt.

He raised the knife to the canvas with the ease of a practiced hand, when he heard a movement behind him, and turned his head.

Travers Gladwin had stepped from the sheltering screen of portieres and stopped abruptly.

Whatever shock this sudden apparition of a uniformed policeman was to the man caught in the act of cutting a priceless canvas from its frame he managed to conceal by taking tight grip of every muscle in his body.

His eyes revealed nothing. There was no rush of color to or from his face. His first change of expression was to smile.

Dropping the arm that poised the knife, he let himself down easily from tiptoe and turned squarely to Gladwin.

"Good evening, Officer," he said without a tremor, showing his teeth in as engaging a smile as Travers Gladwin had ever looked upon.

"Evenin'!" said Gladwin, shortly, with an admirable affectation of Phelan's brogue.

"Do you find something on the balcony that interests you?" said the other slowly, still holding his smile and his amazingly confident bearing.

"You climbed up there to enjoy the moonlight, perhaps?" he added, even more softly, gaining reassurance from the wooden expression that Gladwin had forced upon his features.

"No, not the moonlight," responded the uniformed similitude of Officer 666, "the other light. I seen 'em go on. This house has been closed for months."

"Oh, yes, to be sure," the other shrugged. "You're most alert, Officer—right on the job, as they say. I congratulate you."

"I've been watching this house ever since Mr. Gladwin went away," said Gladwin slowly, unable to make up his mind whether to call Phelan or to continue the intensely interesting dialogue.

His visitor decided the situation for him by coolly lighting a cigar, taking a few deliberate puffs and turning it over in his fingers to inspect it as if it were the only object worth attention in the room.

Gladwin read this elaborate by-play for what it was worth—an effort to decide just how best to play his part—and was pleasantly thrilled with the realization that he himself was so well disguised in the uniform of Officer 666.

So he clung to his own role and forgot Michael Phelan.

"H'm," said the invader, reflectively. "That's very good of you, Officer. Let me offer you this as a slight token of my appreciation."

His left hand slid into his trousers pocket and brought up a roll of bills. His nonchalance was a perfect mask as he stripped off one of the bills and held it out carelessly to Gladwin.

On his part, Gladwin's expression was superbly blank as he reached for the bill, pocketed it and said with his purring brogue:

"Thank ye, sorr! And might I ask who ye are?"

"H'm, that's good," chuckled the other, now thoroughly master of himself and utterly confident.

"Now, who do you suppose, Officer, would come to the front door—unlock it—walk in and turn up the lights?—a thief?"

"They do sometimes," said Gladwin, cocking his head to one side with an air of owlish wisdom.

The other raised his eyebrows to express surprise.

"Do they really?" he drawled. "You amaze me, Officer. I've always supposed they broke in somehow and used dark lanterns."

"Not always," said Gladwin, obstinately.

The big man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, puffed his cigar for a moment and said indulgently:

"Well, I'm sorry, Officer, to deprive you of the pleasure you would evidently derive in catching a thief and making an arrest. Now," with a light laugh, "who might you imagine I was?"

"Well, if I wasn't sure Mr. Gladwin was across the Atlantic I'd imagine that yez were Mr. Gladwin himself."

This was said with such laborious canniness that the thief made haste to discover just how the land lay.

"Oh, so you're sure Mr. Gladwin is abroad, eh?"

"Well, I see be the papers."

A real hearty laugh escaped this time, and he added brightly:

"Well, Mr. Policeman, I'll tell you something to help you make a good shrewd guess—Mr. Gladwin is not abroad!"

"Then yez are Mr. Gladwin, sorr!" cried the young man eagerly, as if delighted at the discovery.

The other leaned back against the table, crossed one foot over the other and said musingly:

"You found me out, Officer—I must admit it. Permit me to thank you again for looking out for my house, and if you don't mind I'll double this little reward."

Again the roll of bills came out and another $20 gold certificate was gathered in by Officer 666, who grinned as he took it.

"Thank ye, sorr!"

The gesture with which this second benefaction was bestowed was a gesture of dismissal and the bestower set off on an easy saunter about the room, humming a tune.

Officer 666 did not move, and after a moment the other casually remarked:

"You don't seem to be in any hurry to get back to your post, officer."

"No, sorr—I ain't in no hurry."

"Have a cigar, then," and one was offered with the same assumption of good-natured indifference that had accompanied the tender of the bribes. Gladwin accepted the cigar, took off his cap, dropped it in and returned the cap to his head.

The thief was puzzled for a moment, until it occurred to him that it would suit his purpose best to have this thick-skulled copper in his company rather than have him go outside and discuss the matter with a more shrewd superior. Therefore he said quickly:

"Oh, officer, could you be spared off your rounds for, say, an hour?"

"Why, yes, sorr; I think so."

"Well, I want you to do me a favor. I'll pay you well for it."

"What is it?"

"You look to me like a chap who could keep a secret?"

"That's part o' me trade."

"Good! Well, then, I'm expecting a call from a lady."

"Oh, I see, sorr," and Gladwin forced another fatuous grin.

"No, you don't see," said the other, impressively. "This lady is my fiancee."

"Well, that's your business, sorr."

Gladwin was beginning to enjoy the battle hugely.

"You don't understand," explained the thief. "I'm about to be married."

"Oh, yez are about to be married!" with a slight wince.

"Yes, I'm going to be married to-night—secretly."

"Is that so? Well, I can't help yez about that, can I?"

"Oh, yes, you can, because I want it kept quiet on the lady's account."

"Well, I'll help you keep it quiet on the lady's account!" with an emphasis that got away from him, but was misinterpreted.

"Good!" and out came the roll of bills again and another yellow boy was slipped into the greedy palm of Officer 666.

"Thank you, sorr. But what can I do, sorr?"

"I'll show you later on. In the mean time help me take the covers off this furniture and make the place look habitable. Hurry now, for I haven't much time. That's the idea—brisk. Switch on the hall lights—you can find the button. Then go upstairs and straighten my room."

Gladwin stopped in his activities as if he had run against a wall.

"Your room, sorr?"

"Yes, at the head of the stairs, first door to the left. Then come back here and help me pack."



CHAPTER XXVII.

MISADVENTURES OF WHITNEY BARNES.

Just as it had not occurred to Travers Gladwin to ask Michael Phelan to define the limits of his beat along Fifth avenue so it happened that Whitney Barnes went forth in search of his friend without even the vaguest notion of where he might be found.

It is doubtful if young Mr. Barnes knew what a policeman's beat was. Certainly he did not conceive of it as a restricted territory.

He had gone about six blocks at his best stride, eagerly scanning both sides of the avenue before the thought came into his mind that he might be going in the wrong direction and that he might keep on indefinitely to the Staten Island ferry and obtain never a glimpse of the borrowed uniform of Officer 666.

"But I must warn the chap," he thought fiercely, "or there will be the very deuce and all to pay."

Whitney slowed down, came to a full stop and was meditatively chewing the head of his cane when an automobile halted at the curb. A head thrust itself out of a window of the limousine and a musical voice asked:

"Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?"

Whitney Barnes guiltily jumped and barely missed swallowing his cane.

Volplaning to earth, he looked for the source of this dismaying interruption. He recognized with a start one of the past season's debutantes whose mamma had spread a maze of traps and labyrinths for him—Miss Sybil Hawker-Sponge of New York, Newport, Tuxedo and Lenox.

Before he could even stutter a reply a motor footman had leaped down from the box and opened the door of the limousine. Miss Hawker-Sponge fluttered out, contrived her most winning smile and repeated:

"Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?"

Her big doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most aristocratically mortgaged dwellings in America.

"It is rather late for a call," she gushed suddenly, "but I know mamma"——

"Impossible!" cried Barnes. "That is—I beg your pardon—I should be charmed, but the fact is I was looking for a friend—I mean a policeman. Er—you haven't seen a good looking policeman going by, have you, Miss Sybil?"

All the coquetry in Miss Hawker-Sponge's eyes went into stony eclipse.

"You are looking for a policeman friend, Mr. Barnes?" she said icily, gathering up her skirts and beginning to back away. "I hope you find him."

She gave him her back with the abruptness of a slap in the face.

In another moment he was again a lone wayfarer in the bleak night wilderness of out-of-doors Fifth avenue.

Indubitably he had committed a hideous breach of good manners and could never expect forgiveness from Miss Hawker-Sponge. She had really invited him into her home and he had preferred to hunt for a "policeman friend." Yet the tragedy of it was so grotesquely funny that Whitney Barnes laughed, and in laughing dismissed Miss Hawker-Sponge from his mind.

He must find Travers Gladwin, and off he went at another burst of speed.

He covered about three blocks without pause.

A second and far more sensational interruption came from a side street, and again of the feminine gender.

It was a tall, weird looking figure wound in a black shawl and it bumped squarely into Whitney Barnes and brought him up sharply, spinning on one foot.

Before he stopped spinning he felt himself seized by the arm.

Without warning a bundle was thrust into his arms and he had to clutch it. In another instant the weird figure had fled up the avenue, turned a corner and vanished.

Instantly the bundle that Whitney Barnes held awkwardly and painfully, as if it were a firebrand, emitted an anguished wail.

If that wasn't a pretty pickle for Whitney Barnes! His cane had clattered to the pavement and he did not dare stoop to pick it up. The anguish from the bundle he held increased terrifically in volume. He could feel beads of perspiration running down his face.

What in desperation was he going to do with that awful bundle? He knew intuitively that the tall, shawled figure would never return.

"My God!" he cried, "I'll be arrested as the father of it, and what will Sadie say to that?"

It was no wonder that the son and heir of Old Grim Barnes sweated. It wasn't perspiration. One doesn't perspire in such awful straits—one sweats, like a navvy.

It seemed ages before he could form the impulse to move in any direction for any definite purpose. He was on the point of making up his mind to lay the bundle on the doorstep when he sensed a heavy step from behind and was paralyzed by the gruff ejaculation:

"Well, I'll be damned!"

Barnes twisted his head and beheld a big, deep-chested policeman—a haughty domineering policeman—who showed in every inch of him that the gods had anointed him above the mere ranks of mortal patrolmen.

"Take it! take it!" cried Barnes, extending the bundle toward the uniformed presence. "It's not mine," he almost shrieked. "A woman gave it to me—and I have a very important engagement and must hurry."

Sergeant McGinnis—for 'twas none other—drew back and waved the bundle from him.

"Just a minute, my young friend," he spoke through one side of his large mouth. "You'll hold that infant till its mother comes or you'll go with me to the police station and tell your story to the captain."

"But I can't wait," wailed Barnes. "I've got to find a policeman."

"A policeman, eh? Well, here's one for you, and a sergeant at that."

"I mean a friend. It's horribly important. I'll give you anything you ask if you'll only take this howling bundle."

"None o' that, young feller," McGinnis snapped him up. "You'll give me nothing and you'll come sharp and straight to the station. Now I know there's something back o' this."

"But I haven't time," Barnes objected. "It's most horribly important that I should find"——

"Chop it! Chop it! You'll come with me, and you'll lug that infant. If you won't come quiet I'll slip the nippers on you."

Barnes realized the hopelessness of the situation and looked about him wildly.

"Stop that taxicab, officer," he urged, as he saw one of the vehicles approaching. "I can't walk like this. I'll pay the fare—I'll pay everything."

McGinnis consented to this arrangement. The taxicab stopped. A few minutes later it bore the sergeant, his prisoner and the still howling infant to the threshold of the East Eighty-eighth street police station.

McGinnis consented to carry the infant as they got out and once inside the station lost no time in turning it over to the matron.

"Hello, McGinnis," said Lieut. Einstein from the desk; "what's all this?"

McGinnis explained in a few crisp sentences.

"Is the captain in, Lieutenant?" he asked. "This young fellow is after trying to bribe me."

Barnes protested that such a thought had never entered his head.

"I simply told him," he declared hotly, "that I had an important engagement"——

"Looking for a policeman, he says."

"For a friend. I may have said policeman—I may have said anything in such a beastly situation. I am sure that when the captain hears me he will understand immediately."

"That may be true, sir," said the lieutenant politely, "but the captain is out at present and won't be back till after midnight. If you want to, you can sit in the back room and wait for him."

Further protestations were unavailing. With a sigh of despair Barnes permitted himself to be led to the back room, where he dropped down on a chair and looked savagely about him.

The room was empty and there was nothing to gaze at save four blank walls and a black cat sitting in a corner idly washing its paws. Now and then a door opened, a face peered in and the door shut again. Somewhere a clock ticked dolefully.

An hour passed while the young man sought in vain to enchain his incoherent thoughts. He could think of nothing vividly. He could recall nothing at all.

Whenever the wail of that infant the matron was caring for reached him he writhed and ground his teeth.

In this sad plight he remained until a door near him opened and a man in plain clothes came stealthily in. He walked straight to Barnes, bent down and whispered:

"If you've got a hundred-dollar bill about you drop it onto the floor and walk out. The lieutenant won't see you."

The individual turned on his heel and went out the way he had come. He did not shut the door tightly behind him. Barnes felt that an eye was watching through the slit, so he lost no time in jumping to his feet, getting his money out of his wallet and dropping two one-hundred-dollar bills on the floor.

This done, he jammed the wallet back in his pocket, picked up his cane and gloves and opened the door through which he had entered the room. He started warily forward with his eyes straight ahead. He could feel that the lieutenant who sat behind the high-railed-off desk was the only person in the room and he could hear the scratch of his busy pen.

Gaining the street entrance, he drew an immense sigh of relief, opened it eagerly and fairly leaped outside to the steps. As the door shut behind him he thought he heard a sudden explosive laugh, but it meant nothing to him as he hurried along blindly, increasing his pace at every stride.

At the corner of Third avenue he stopped and consulted his watch. It was midnight!



CHAPTER XXVIII.

AN INSTANCE OF EPIC NERVE.

Travers Gladwin scaled the great staircase three steps at a time. Stumbling against a divan he threw himself across it and lay for a few moments stretched on his back with every muscle relaxed. He felt as if he had been buffeted by mighty tempests and overwhelmed by cataclysms. His head throbbed with fever and he felt a sickening emptiness inside.

How was he going to avert the catastrophe of an elopement and at the same time save himself and that charming young girl from a shrieking scandal? There didn't seem any coherent solution. If Whitney Barnes had only remained with him—at least to lend him moral courage!

Where had the confounded ass gone? Why didn't he return? A fine friend in need was he!

There was no time to unravel his perplexities and lay any definite plan. He must act, taking his cue as it was presented to him by the racing events of the moment.

He got up from the divan and rushed downstairs. He cleared the last landing, with a momentum that slid him across the polished floor of the hallway after the manner of small boys who slide on ice. He fairly coasted into the room, but his precipitate intrusion did not in the least disturb his visitor.

During Gladwin's brief absence that supernaturally composed individual had cut the Rembrandt from the frame and laid it on one of the sheets of wrapping paper he had spread out on the chest. He had also cut out a Manet, a Corot and a Vegas—all small canvases—and hung them over the back of a chair.

As the owner of these masterpieces skidded into the room the thief was taking down a Meissonier, frame and all, fondling it tenderly and feasting his eyes on the superb wealth of detail and the rich crimson and scarlet pigments in the tiny oblong within the heavy gilt mounting.

"Ah, Officer, you are back," he said easily, as Gladwin staggered against a table and gripped it for support. The methodical despoiler did not so much as turn his head as he placed the Meissonier on the chest and deftly cut out the canvas. His back was still squared to the flabbergasted young man as he continued:

"Come, get busy, Officer, if you are going to help me. Take down that picture over there on the right."

He pointed, and went on wrapping up the immensely valuable plunder.

Gladwin got up on a chair and reached for one of the least noteworthy of his collection.

"No, no—not that one," said the thief, sharply,—"the one above," an old Dutch painting that had cost a round $10,000.

The young man took it down gingerly, biting his lips and cursing inwardly.

"That's it," he was rewarded, "bring it here."

Gladwin managed to cross the room with an appearance of stolid indifference and as he handed the picture to the "collector" he said haltingly:

"I take it these pictures is worth a lot of money, sorr."

"You're right, I take it," said the other with a laugh, beginning at once to slash out the canvas.

"Yes, sorr, I mean, you take it!" said Gladwin viciously. The wrathful emphasis missed its mark. The "collector" was humming to himself and working with masterful deftness.

"Now that woman's head to the left," he commanded as soon as he had disposed of the Dutch masterpiece. "And be quick about it. You move as if you were in a trance."

Gladwin saw that he was to take down his only Rubens, wherefore he deliberately reached for another painting, "The Blue Boy."

"No, not that thing!" exclaimed the "collector."

"Why, what's the matter with this one, sorr," snapped back Gladwin.

"It's a fake," said the other, contemptuously. "I paid two old frauds five hundred pounds for that thing in London a couple of years ago—it's absolutely worthless from the standpoint of art."

Gladwin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement and slid from the chair to the floor.

How had this astounding person come by the secret of "The Blue Boy?"

There was a positive awe in Gladwin's gaze as he sized up the big man—again from his shining patent leather shoes to his piercing eyes and broad, intellectual forehead. He fairly jumped when the command was repeated to take down the Rubens and hand it to him. As he handed it over he stammered:

"I don't think much of this one, sorr."

"You don't?" said the other, in pitying disgust. "Well, it's a Rubens—worth $40,000 if it's worth a cent."

"Yez don't tell me," Gladwin managed to articulate.

Indicating the full length portrait of the ancestral Gladwin, he added, "Who is that old fellow over there, sorr?"

"Kindly don't refer to the subject of that portrait as fellow," the other caught him up. "That is my great-grandfather, painted by Gilbert Charles Stuart more than a century ago."

"You monumental liar," was on Gladwin's lips. He managed to stifle the outburst and ask:

"Are yez goin' to take all these pictures away with yez to-night?"

"Oh, no, not all of them," was the careless reply. "Only the best ones."

"How unspeakably kind of him!" thought the unregarded victim.

"If yez wanted the others," he said with fine sarcasm, "I could pack 'em up afther ye're gone an' sind thim to yez."

"That might be a good idea, Officer—I'll think it over," the pilferer thanked him.

Then he went on with his task of taking the back out of the mounting of the Rubens, showing that he did not trust his knife with such an ancient and priceless canvas.

Gladwin was thinking up another ironic opening when the door bell rang. He jumped and cried:

"If that's the lady, sorr, I'll go and let her in."

"No, you wait here," the other objected. "She might be frightened at the sight of a policeman—you stay here. I'll let her in myself," and he strode swiftly out into the hallway.



CHAPTER XXIX.

IN WHICH THE HERO IS KEPT ON THE HOP.

Travers Gladwin watched the big handsome mis-presentiment of himself disappear into the hallway with every nerve at full strain.

As he heard the door open, then a delighted feminine cry and the unmistakable subtle sound of an embrace, he ground his finger nails into his palms and bit his lips. Every fibre of him burned with jealous hatred of this impostor.

If there had been only more of the brute left in the Gladwin strain undoubtedly there would have been a sensational clash between the two men for the benefit of the beautiful young girl who, Gladwin strove to acknowledge, was the helpless pawn of circumstances. But the refinements of blood rob the physical man of his savage resources and impose a serious hamper upon his primordial impulses.

Helen came into the room with the thief's arm about her waist while Gladwin stood dumbly at attention, his features hardened and inscrutable.

At sight of his uniform and failing to recognize him in his disguise the girl turned pale and uttered a frightened exclamation.

"Don't be alarmed, dear," the man at her side reassured her, smiling down upon her, "this is only officer—" He looked up with a laughing expression of inquiry.

"Murphy, sorr," responded Gladwin, through tightly compressed lips.

"Yes," the pretender nodded quickly. "Murphy, Officer Murphy, my dear—looks after my house when I'm away. He is one of the city's best little watchmen and he is going to see that everything is made safe and secure after we have gone."

Helen breathed an exclamation of relief, but the fright in her eyes lingered as the unconscious feeling struck in that the attitude of the policeman seemed more than a trifle strained.

She carried a little grip in one hand, which the bogus Gladwin took from her and handed to the real Gladwin, nodding significantly for him to leave the room. Turning to Helen, he said:

"But why did you bring the bag, dear? My man told me he found your trunk at the Grand Central Station."

"Yes," Helen answered, "but auntie insisted that I go to the opera, so I had to pack my travelling dress. I slipped out of the opera during the entre act, and went home to change my gown. I was so frightened and in such a dreadful state of nerves that I couldn't."

A shudder ran through her and she seemed on the point of breaking down when the man with whom she had chosen to elope drew her to him and said with what had every expression of genuine tenderness:

"There, there, dear! Calm yourself. Why, you're trembling like a leaf. There is nothing to be frightened about now."

She yielded to his embrace and he bent down his head to kiss her on the lips.

Whatever he projected in the nature of an enduring osculation was spoiled as Gladwin dropped the bag to the floor with a crash.

The man looked up angrily and the girl gave a frightened cry.

"What's the matter with you, officer?" the thief shot at him.

"Excuse me, sorr," said Gladwin, with mock humility, turning away his head to hide his emotions.

As the girl shrank from his arms the thief switched his attention from Officer 666 and led her to a chair, resuming his gentle tones. He pressed her to sit down, saying:

"I am just packing up some pictures. I shan't keep you waiting long. Now, that's good; you're getting calmer. You're all right now, aren't you?"

"Ye-es, Travers dear," she responded with an effort, looking into his face. "I shan't break down," she went on, with a nervous laugh. "I'm stronger than I look. I've made my mind up to it. The trouble is that my heart won't behave. It's beating terribly—just feel it."

He was about to place his hand on her heart when Gladwin was seized with a paroxysm of coughing. The thief straightened up and turned scowlingly upon the young man.

"Say, what's the matter with you, McCarthy?"

"Murphy, sorr," Gladwin retorted. "Me throat tickled me."

"Well," returned the other sharply, "if you would move around as I told you, your throat wouldn't tickle you. Get something to pack these paintings in. There isn't anything in this room—go upstairs and get a trunk."

"I don't know where there is none, sorr," Gladwin objected.

"Well, look around for one—a small empty trunk, and be quick about it." He spoke with crackling emphasis.

Stung to the quick by the overbearing insolence of this command, it required a prodigious effort for the young man to control his voice. He said with difficulty:

"I was thinking, sorr—suppose—the—trunk—is—full?"

The thief squared his broad shoulders and walked threateningly toward Gladwin. He stopped directly in front of the young man and said through his teeth, slowly and deliberately and without raising his voice:

"If the trunks are full—now listen carefully, because I want you to understand this—if the trunks are full, then empty one. Do you get my meaning? Take the fullness out of it, and after you have done that and there is nothing more left in it, then bring it down here. Now do you think you get my idea clearly?"

"Yes, sorr," said Gladwin, dully, feeling that there was no way out of the situation for the moment save to obey. Strive as he might he could not wholly shake off the influence of this splendid big animal's dominating will power.

And if it affected him that way he didn't wonder at the spell the man had cast upon the impressionable and sentimental Helen.

He left the room with a sudden spurt and swiftly mounted the stairs, the chief object of his haste being to prevent an extended interview in his absence and a resumption of tender dialogue.

He had scarcely gone when the spurious Gladwin turned again to the girl with his most engaging smile and softest tones:

"You see, dear," with a sweeping gesture that included his work of spoilation, "I am taking your advice—packing only the most valuable ones."

"I am afraid, Travers," said Helen, rising from her chair and coming toward him with all her impulsive love and confidence restored, "that I am giving you a lot of trouble."

"Trouble!" he cried, with the gushing effusiveness of a matinee idol. "You're bringing a great joy into my life."

He took her hand and caressed it, adding with the true lover's frown of perplexity, "But are you going to be happy, dear? That's what you must think of now—before it is too late."

It was a magnificent bluff and carried with deadly aim. The girl stopped him passionately:

"We must not stop to talk about that now—there isn't time. We must hurry, dear, and get away before auntie finds out and comes after me."

"Do you think she'll come here?" he asked slowly, while his forehead wrinkled.

"I am afraid Sadie will tell her!"

"Sadie—your cousin? H'm."

He made no effort to conceal that he was thinking rapidly.

"Perhaps you'd rather postpone it after all, Travers?" she said quickly, while the color rushed to her cheeks and her lips trembled. "If you only thought it best I'd like to tell auntie what I'm going to do."

"No"; he retorted. "We can't do that—we've gone over all this before. It must be this way, or not at all. Which is it to be?"

"I've given you my word, you know," she said under her breath.

"That's my brave little girl!" he cried with a burst of feeling, reaching out his arm to embrace her.

Crash! Bang! Biff! Slam! Bam!

There burst into the room Officer 666, entangled in the lid and straps of an empty trunk. It was a steamer trunk and not very heavy, but Travers Gladwin was far from adept in baggage smashing.

He had wasted so much time in hunting for the trunk that he had sought to make up for the delay by executing what resembled an aeroplane descent.

At the final twist of the staircase the trunk had mastered him and charged with him into the room. As he lay sprawled on the floor with a foolish grin on his face, the discomfited lover turned on him with a voice of fury.

"Officer, what the deuce is the matter with you?"

The intense savagery of his tone made the girl shrink away from him and turn pale. He managed to cover his break so quickly with a forced laugh and an effort to assist Gladwin to his feet that her fear was only momentary.

In the last stage of his downward flight Gladwin glimpsed that he had dropped in barely in time to spoil another touching scene. With a grin of sheer delight, he asked:

"Where'll I put the trunk, sorr?"

"Put it there."

The self-styled Gladwin pointed to the right of the chest and set to work to gather up his few hundred thousand dollars' worth of pelf. He was about to place the flat packages in the trunk when he turned to Helen and asked:

"Do you see any others that you'd like me to take, dear?"

"Oh, you know best," she replied. "Only I should think that you would take some of the miniatures."

"The miniatures?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes," said the girl. "They are the loveliest I've ever seen and they'll hardly take up any room at all. If we are going to be away such a long time I think it would be safer to take them."

It was palpable to Travers Gladwin that the big chap had received a psychic jolt, for his hand trembled a little as he laid down the canvases on the top of the chest and addressed the girl:

"I didn't know you'd seen the miniatures."

"Oh, yes, when I was here this afternoon."

He took this between the eyes without flinching. His voice was marvellously steady as he said:

"I didn't know you were here this afternoon."

"You didn't?" she asked in a puzzled tone. "How funny! You'd just gone out when I called, but two of your friends were here and one of them showed me the miniatures, and china, and plate and lots of things. Why, I left a message for you about the opera—didn't they tell you?"

The girl stood with her back to Gladwin and the man she addressed slowly turned his head and glanced over her head with a keen, flashing look of inquiry. Gladwin lifted his chin a little and met the look without change of expression.

"Didn't they tell you, Travers?" the girl repeated.

"Yes, yes; they told me," he said hastily, still maintaining his fixed gaze upon Gladwin. There was barely an instant's pause before he spoke:

"Officer, kindly go up to my room and see if you can find a bag and pack enough things to last a week or two."

"Yes, sorr." Gladwin flung out of the room.

He started noisily up the stairs until he saw that the thief had turned his back to him, whereat he vaulted the banister and dropped lightly upon a divan in a recessed niche that could not be seen from the room he left.

The moment Gladwin vanished the thief turned to Helen and asked sharply:

"What time did you see my friends here?"

"A little after five," replied the girl, recoiling slightly with a look of dismay, for there was a new raw edge to the sharpness of his tone.

"Did you tell them about the elopement?" he said less harshly, but with a scarcely veiled eagerness.

"Why, they knew all about it," Helen hastened to reply, searching his face apprehensively.

"Knew about it?" he mused, fairly grinding his brows together under the pressure of his agitated thoughts.

"What did you tell them?" he queried steadily, measuring her fresh, young beauty and vowing to himself that whatever struggle impended he was going through with it to the limit of his resources.

"That we were to meet here," she answered with increasing fear.

"That we were to meet here?" he repeated.

"Yes, at half-past ten—oh, was it something I shouldn't have told them?" she cried, coming toward him.

Once more Officer 666 snapped the tension. He had wriggled around the staircase and found the suitcase Bateato had packed and left for him. Hating to play the role of an eavesdropper any longer than necessary he made a flying start and burst into the room.



CHAPTER XXX.

GLADWIN COMES OUT OF HIS SHELL.

"What the"——

The spurious aristocrat and art collector suppressed his torrid exclamation. The impulse moved him to seize the uniformed butter-in and pitch him through the nearest window. He was big and powerful enough to do it, too.

In the furious glance he got, Travers Gladwin read a warning that in an earlier stage of his career would have made him feel mighty uncomfortable. Now he liked the smell of danger and met the message of wrath without a flicker.

"What's that you've got there?" the thief, having mastered himself, asked, pointing to the grip.

"'Tis the bag you asked for, sorr," drawled Gladwin.

"I told you to pack it," said the other, sharply.

"All packed, sorr. Hunting clothes, shirts, ties, socks"——

He looked up with a boyish grin and the big chap was stumped for a moment. The thief said slowly:

"Now take it up to my room and unpack it." It was his turn to grin.

"What, sorr?" asked the dismayed Gladwin.

"I shan't want these things after all," came the velvety rejoinder. "Unpack it carefully and bring it back here. And kindly be more careful of the stairs when you come down—one step at a time, please! Now, what are you waiting for?"

Gladwin withdrew reluctantly, stealing a glance at Helen as he sidled through the curtained doorway. Her eyes never left the face of the man she thought she loved, but whose character was being swiftly revealed to her in a new light.

That resourceful individual waited only for the blue uniform to pass through the portieres, when he sprang forward and reached out on both sides for the heavy mahogany folding doors. He brought them together swiftly and softly, then ripped down the portieres from the pole, flinging one to the left of the door and the other across the chest.

"Now listen, Helen," he cried, seizing her roughly by the shoulder. "It may be that we will have to get out of here in a hurry."

"W-w-w-hy, what's the matter?" she stammered, wincing at the crushing grip of his hand.

He replied with a swift rush of words that fairly stunned her:

"Your aunt may find it out and try to stop us. Now I shall be on the lookout, but I want you to do everything I tell you—I'll see if the coast is clear in case we have to go out the back way. In the meantime I want you to wrap these pictures for me. I wouldn't ask you, dear, only we haven't a minute to wait."

He darted across the room and opened the narrow door that led into the backstairs corridor. Helen stared stupidly after him until he disappeared and then turned toward the chest and went to work wrapping up the precious canvases like one in a trance. She had scarcely started when the folding doors opened noiselessly and Bateato stuck in his head.

Fearing that some harm had come to his master the little Jap had left the Ritz and sprinted all the way to the Gladwin mansion. He was breathless and wild-eyed, yet he had entered the house as silently as a breath of air.

Peeking into the room Bateato noted the ripped-down portieres and devastated picture frames. His Oriental mind told him but one thing—robbery. Seized with a violent spasm of loyalty to his master he brushed into the room and exclaimed:

"Whatz thees? Oh, hell—damn!"

Helen was in too good training by this time to swoon, though she wanted to. She started back in alarm and exclaimed:

"Oh, how you startled me!"

Bateato circled round her like an enraged rat.

"You no fool me—I know you tief—you steal picture—I get pleece—much pleece—whole big lot pleece, quick."

He headed for the door.

Helen pursued him, crying: "See here! Wait a minute! You don't understand! Mr. Gladwin!"

The Jap was gone and the hall door slammed after him before she had reached the folding doors. In another instant Travers Gladwin, who had been making a vain hunt for a revolver in the upper part of the house came flying down the stairs and assailed the frightened girl with another overwhelming shock.

Seeing she was alone he threw himself into the breach headlong:

"Miss Helen, just a moment. I've been waiting for a chance to speak to you. You must get away from here at once. Do you understand—at once! Don't waste time talking—go quick while you have a chance. You mustn't be mixed up in what's coming."

The girl felt that her heart would burst with its palpitations of fear, but she was incapable of flight. Her limbs seemed like leaden weights. Some force working without the zone of her mental control made her stammer:

"W-w-ho are you?"

"Listen," the young man raced on, "and you must believe what I say—this man you came here to meet and elope with is not Travers Gladwin at all."

She expressed her horrified disbelief in a frozen stare.

"It's true," he pursued passionately. "He's an imposter! The real Travers Gladwin you met here this afternoon. He was I; that is, I was he. I mean I am Travers Gladwin—only I've got this uniform on now. It is only on your account that I have not caused his arrest and a sensation. I can't have you mixed up in a nasty scandal. I want to save you—don't you see I do?—but I can't wait much longer."

"I don't believe what you are saying! I can't believe it! Oh, it's too horrible!" sobbed Helen, clinging to a fragment of her shattered idol as a drowning man clings to a straw.

Gladwin was on the point of resuming his appeal when he sensed a heavy tread. He had divined that the picture thief had left the room to reconnoitre emergency exits or to learn whether or not the house was surrounded. He had hoped that he might run into Michael Phelan, but did not stop to puzzle out why this had not happened. Backing to the door, he whispered:

"He's coming—question him. That's all I ask. I'll be waiting to see that you get out in safety—trust me!"

He wriggled backward and disappeared through the folding doors.



CHAPTER XXXI.

A VISIT TO THE EXILED PHELAN.

But where, oh, where was the exiled Phelan when the bogus Gladwin went on his backstairs investigation? Puzzled as he was by the fast moving events of the night, stripped of the uniform of his authority, still his police instincts should have warned him of this new character in his dream.

Michael Phelan, however, was busy—busy in a way one little would suppose.

As the gentlemanly outlaw entered the kitchen, Phelan was standing on the tubs of the adjoining laundry, his face almost glued to the window-pane and his eyes uplifted to the fourth story rear window of a house diagonally opposite, through which he could observe a pantomime that thrilled him.

It was late, well past bedtime even for the aristocratic precincts of New York. Yet there was going on behind that brilliantly lighted window a one-man drama strangely and grotesquely wide-awake.

A first casual glance had conveyed the impression to Phelan that a tragedy was being enacted before his eyes—that murder was being done with fiendish brutality, and he—Phelan—powerless to intervene.

The seeming murderer was a man of amazing obesity, a red-faced man with a bull neck and enormous shoulders, clad in pink striped pajamas and a tasselled nightcap of flaming red.

Back and forth the rotund giant swayed with something in his arms, something which he crushed in his fists and brutally shook, something which he held off at arm's length and hammered with ruthless blows.

"The murtherin' baste!" ejaculated Phelan as he switched off the one light he had been reading by and darted into the next room to get a better view from the summit of the kitchen tubs.

Suddenly the mountain of flesh and the debile victim that he was ruthlessly manhandling disappeared from view. For several long thundering seconds the petrified Phelan could see nothing save a dancing crimson tassel, the tassel attached to the nightcap. Surely a mighty struggle was going on on the floor!

Phelan did not hear the light step upon the kitchen stair or the stealthy tread of the big man in evening dress as he pussy-footed his way to the kitchen door leading out into the back yard and found that it was easily opened.

Every sentient nerve in Michael Phelan's being was concentrated in his eyes at that moment and it is highly doubtful if he would have heard a fife and drum corps in full blare enter the kitchen. He heard nothing and saw nothing below that upward focal angle.

The man Phelan should have heard flashed the light in his cane only at infrequent intervals. He did not aim its bright revealing beam into the half open door of the adjoining laundry and he was as unconscious of the proximity of Phelan as that unfrocked or de-uniformed officer was of the invader. He returned to Miss Helen Burton in complete ignorance of the fact that the lower regions of the dwelling were otherwise than empty.

But the second he re-entered the room he saw the girl was strangely agitated and that she feared to look at him. Laying down his cane he crossed the room to her side and said in his softest tones:

"Well, you haven't got on very fast in your packing, have you, dear?"

Helen was leaning against the back of a chair, feeling she was surely going to topple over in a swoon. Summoning all her reserve of nerve power, she strove to reply naturally:

"No. I—I didn't quite understand how to pack."

He was at her side now and seized both her hands.

"Why, Helen, what's the matter? Your hands are cold as ice."

He spoke warmly and tenderly, while at the same time his eyes were everywhere about the room and he was listening with the wary alertness of a rodent.

There was more than a little of the rat in the soul inclosed in this splendid envelope.

"It's nothing—only I'm faint," she said tremulously.

"That policeman has been talking to you—hasn't he?" he said quietly.

"Yes, he has," she blurted, with a catch in her throat.

"Did he tell you who he was?"

He measured out each word and conveyed the sense. "Did he tell you who he pretended to be?"

"Yes," the girl responded, scarcely above a whisper.

He took her by the shoulders and turned her squarely toward him, looking down into her face with frowning eyes.

"Now, Helen, I want you to tell me the truth—the truth, you understand? I shall know it even if you don't. Who did he say he was?"

A feeling of repugnance took possession of the girl and she shook herself free and stood back. Her body had warmed into life again and she looked steadily into his eyes as she answered:

"Travers Gladwin!"

He needed all his great bulk of flesh and steel-fibred nerve to fend off this shock. Not the remotest fancy had crossed his mind that Travers Gladwin might be in New York. It was with a palpably forced laugh that he ejaculated:

"Travers Gladwin! Oh, he did, eh?"

The girl had read more than he imagined the sudden contraction of his features and dilation of his eyes had revealed.

"I want you to tell me the truth—you must!" she said passionately. "Who are you?"

"A man who loves you," he let go impulsively. The desire to possess her had sprung uppermost in his mind again.

"But are you the man you pretended to be—are you Travers Gladwin?" she insisted, compelled against her convictions to grope for a forlorn hope.

"And if I were not?" he cried, with all the dramatic intensity he could bring to voice. "If instead of being the son of a millionaire, a pampered molly-coddle who never earned a dollar in his life—suppose I were a man who had to fight every inch of the way"——

He stopped. His alert ear had caught a sound in the hallway. He sped noiselessly to the folding door and forced one back, revealing Officer Murphy.

"Come in," he said threateningly, and Gladwin came in a little way.

"Where's that bag?" said the thief, with a glare and a suggestive movement with his hands.

"What bag, sorr?" said Gladwin, feeling that for the moment discretion was the better part of valor.

"The one you brought in here."

"You told me to unpack it, sorr. It's upstairs, sorr."

"Go and get it. Go now—and don't waste time."

Gladwin went, determined this time that he must arm himself with some weapon, even if it were one of the rusted old bowie knives of his grandfather that ornamented the wall of his den. He estimated accurately that he would prove a poor weak reed in the hands of that Hercules in evening dress, and while the thought of a knife sickened him, he was impelled to seek one.

As he mounted the stairs the thief strode to the table near the window and gathered up Helen's opera cloak and handed it to her.

"Now, go quickly," he urged; "my car is just across the street. There is no time to argue your absurd suspicions."

"No, I shan't go," retorted Helen, accepting the cloak and backing away.

"So you believe that man?" he asked reproachfully.

"I am afraid I do," she said firmly.

"Then I'll show you mighty quick you're wrong," he cried, as a crowning bluff. "He's probably some spy sent by your aunt. I'll get my man in here and will have him arrested after you and I have gone. Wait here—I shan't be a moment."

As the door slammed after him Helen ran to the window and then back to the door. She was now terribly alarmed on another score. She feared to go out and she feared to remain in the house. She feared physically—feared violence.

Travers Gladwin had found the bowie knife and slipped it into his trousers pocket. Then he had gone down the stairs on the run. As he entered the room and saw that the man had gone he said:

"Is he running away—and without his pictures or his hat and coat. What's his game, I wonder."

"He's coming back—he says my aunt sent you here," said Helen, but less afraid at his return to the room.

"Never mind what he says," Gladwin returned, gesturing excitedly. "You must go home—now. To-morrow you can learn the truth."

"But if I go out he'll be sure to see me," she protested.

Gladwin looked about him and thought a moment.

"Do you see that little alcove back of the stairs," he said quickly, pointing. Helen crossed the room and nodded.

"Well, hide in there," he commanded. "The curtains will conceal you. If he and his man come back I'll get them in this room—then I'll press this button, see?"

He indicated a button and added: "That rings a buzzer; you can hear it from the alcove, and then slip out the front door."

The girl paused but an instant, then fled to the place of shelter.



CHAPTER XXXII.

IN WHICH BLUFF IS TRUMPS.

Having disposed of the girl for the moment, Travers Gladwin decided it was time to call Michael Phelan to his assistance. There was no telling what this amazing crook might do now. He was too much for him. That a thief and impostor could possess such superhuman nerve had never occurred to his untutored mind. He was a perfect dub to have let the situation reach such a stage of complexity, though the one thought uppermost in his mind was to save Helen from public ridicule and contempt.

He had reasoned it out that just the uniform of Officer 666 would serve him almost as a magician's wand. He had almost counted on the thief taking one craven look at his constabulary disguise and then leaping through the window—fleeing like a wolf in the night—he, Travers Gladwin, remaining a veritable hero of romance to sooth and console Helen and gently break the news to her that she had been the dupe of an unscrupulous criminal. Instead of which—he ground his teeth, went to the little panel door and shouted Phelan's name.

Mrs. Phelan's son came a-running.

He had been on his way. The vast girthed individual in the pink striped pajamas and tasselled nightcap had accomplished his awful purpose, but the climax had been anti-climax and Phelan had ground his teeth in rage.

He had been on the point of bursting through the window and somehow scrambling aloft to the rescue of that helpless being who was being ground and wrenched and pounded by that porcine monster, when the monster suddenly rose to view again with a dumb-bell in each hand.

The jaw of Officer 666 slowly dropped as he watched the manipulation of the dumb-bells. There was no passion in the stodgy movements of the great paddy arms. Even so far away as he was Phelan could see that the man puffed and blew and that his vigor was slowly waning. Then suddenly the huge man stooped and held up in plain view a dangling wrestling dummy.

The lone watcher swallowed a savage oath.

"Sure 'twas exercisin' an' not murther he was doin'," Phelan hissed through his teeth.

His anger was white hot. Again he had been the victim of delusion and had wasted heroic emotions on a stuffed dummy that served merely as an inanimate instrument in a course of anti-fat calisthenics.

Every nerve in Phelan's body was fairly a-bristle as he made his way upstairs and burst into the great drawing-room and picture gallery.

"Fer the love o' hivin," he cried, "give me me uniform and let me out o' here."

"Here's your uniform; I've had enough of it," replied Gladwin, throwing him the coat and cap, "and get into it quick. There's work for you right in this house."

"There is not, nor play neither," snapped Phelan. "I've got to go out and chase up a drunk or throw a faint or git run over or somethin' desperate to square mesilf with the captain. I'm an hour overdue at the station."

"You'll square yourself with the captain all right if you just do what I tell you," said Gladwin eagerly, helping him on with his coat and pushing him toward the window recess. "You go right in there behind those curtains and wait till I call you."

Phelan took one look at the young man's face and muttered as he obeyed. "This must be a hell of a joke."

And just then the thief breezed in again, jerking back on his heels as he caught sight of Gladwin sans uniform, sans moustache and sans eyebrows. But a glance at that young man meant volumes and there was no limit to his spontaneous resources. He summoned a laugh and jerked out:

"Oh, so you've resigned from the force?"

"Yes," retorted Gladwin, "and let me tell you that this little excursion of yours has gone far enough. I'll give you one chance—get away from here as quickly as you can."

The big fellow curled one corner of his lip in a contemptuous smile, then glanced about him quickly and asked:

"Where's the young lady?"

"Never mind the young lady," Gladwin flung back at him. "It was only on her account that I let you go as far as this. Now get out and keep away from that young lady—and drop my name."

The sneering smile returned and balancing himself easily as he looked down on Gladwin, he said:

"Easy, son—easy. I don't like to have little boys talk to me like that," and turning to the doorway behind him he beckoned. The obedient Watkins sidled in and stopped with head averted from Gladwin, who started with surprise at seeing him.

Stepping forward and making sure there could be no mistake, Gladwin turned to the thief and exclaimed:

"Oh, now I understand how you knew all about my house. This is what I get for not sending this man to jail where he belonged."

"Don't bother with him, Watkins," snarled the big fellow, as he noted his companion's complexion run through three shades of yellow.

"There's no time to bother with him," he went on, and reaching out he caught Travers Gladwin by the shoulder and whirled him half way across the room.

The young man spun half a dozen times as he reeled across the carpet and he had to use both hands to stop himself against a big onyx table. As he pulled himself up standing he saw that Watkins had lifted the trunk on his shoulders and was headed for the hallway.

"Phelan!" he gasped out. "Here, quick!"

Officer 666 came out with the snort and rush of a bull.

"Stop that man," cried the thief, pointing to Watkins, "he's trying to get out of here with a trunkful of pictures."

The man's hair-trigger mind had thought this out before Phelan was half way round the table. One lightning glance at the thickness of the patrolman's neck and the general contour of his rubicund countenance had translated to him the sort of man he had to deal with.

"Here—here—put down that trunk," spluttered Phelan, brandishing his club at Watkins. Watkins dropped the trunk and at a signal from his companion was gone. Swiftly and silently as he vanished, he could not have been half way to the door before the thief urged Phelan:

"Quick—go after that man—he's a thief!"

"Stop Phelan!" cried Gladwin, who had begun to see through the pantomime. "They're both thieves!"

Phelan tried to run four ways at once.

"W-w-what?" he gurgled.

"It's a trick to get you out of the house," said Gladwin with his eyes on the big man, who was calmly smiling and who had fully made up his mind on a magnificent game of bluff.

"What the blazes kind of a joke is this?" blurted Phelan, looking from one to the other in utter bewilderment.

"You'll find it's no joke, officer," said the bogus Gladwin sharply—"not if he gets away."

"You'll find it's not so funny yourself," cut in the real Gladwin. Then to Phelan, "Arrest this man, Phelan."

"Do you mean it?" asked the astonished Phelan, sizing up the thief as the highest example of aristocratic elegance he had ever seen in the flesh.

"Of course I mean it," Gladwin shot back. "Look out for him—there he goes for the window."

The thief had started in that direction, but his purpose was not escape. The idea had flashed upon him that Helen might be concealed there. Phelan headed him off, whereupon the thief said severely, in a tone that was far more convincing that Gladwin's most passionate sincerity:

"Now be careful, officer, or you'll get yourself into a lot of trouble."

"Don't let him bluff you, Phelan," cautioned Gladwin.

"You bet your life I won't," Phelan answered, though he was already bluffed. "I'll stick close to yez," he faltered, inching uncertainly toward the thief.

He had come close enough for that astute individual to make out that he wore the same uniform young Gladwin had been masquerading in and he made capital of this on the instant.

"How do you think it is going to look," he said, impressively, "if I prove that you've tried to help a band of thieves rob this house?"

"A band of thieves?" Phelan's jaw dropped wide open.

"He's lying to you," cried Gladwin.

"I said a band of thieves," insisted the thief. "Why he's got his pals hidden all over the house."

"I tell you he's lying to you," Gladwin cut in frantically, seeing that Phelan was falling under the spell of the big man's superb bluff, and at the same time remembering Helen and pressing the button in the wall to warn her that the time had come for her to flee.

"We're the only ones in this house," Gladwin pursued, as Phelan gave him the benefit of his pop-eyes before he yielded them again to the stronger will.

"Then they've all escaped," said the thief, easily, thrusting his hands in his pockets to help out his appearance of imperturbability.

"You let one go out, Phelan, and there were two others beside this one."

The buttons on Phelan's coat were fairly undulating with the emotions that stirred within him. In his seething gray matter there stirred the remembrance that Bateato had told him that women were robbing the house.

"You mean the women," he said, ignoring Gladwin and addressing the thief. "I remember—when the little Japanaze called me oft me beat, he said there was women crooks here, too."

"He's lying to you, Phelan," persisted Gladwin, though with less vehemence, a great feeling of relief having visited him in the belief that Helen had made her escape. "You can have the whole place searched just as soon as you've got this man where he can't get away. There are no women here."

This last declaration had scarcely passed his lips when a woman's voice raised in hysterical protest was audible in the hallway.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

BATEATO SUMMONS BIG MUCH POLICE.

A vitagraph film of Bateato's journey to and from the police station would consist of a series of dark brown blurs. If you have ever noticed a mouse in full flight you will have some idea of how that Jap ran. He knew where the police station was, too, for he had been there once when his brother, Itchi Comia, was arrested for assaulting a Russian peddler.

If the little Jap had only coursed through another street things might have gone somewhat differently in the Gladwin household, for he would have encountered Whitney Barnes hurrying in the opposite direction, and that young man would very likely have prevented him from going to the station.

But there was absolutely no obstacle in Bateato's way until he reached the station house, and the only obstacle he encountered there was a serious impediment in his speech.

Police Captain Stone had returned to barracks a few minutes after the departure of Barnes and a few minutes before the arrival of Bateato. He was standing beside the lieutenant's chair when the Jap sped in, and he seemed almost interested (for a police captain) at the extraordinary manifestations of emotion in Bateato's countenance.

"All pleece—quick—robbers—thieves—ladies!" began Bateato, then paused and made wild jabs above his head with his hands.

"Crazy as a nut," said the lieutenant in an undertone to the captain, and the captain nodded.

"All pictures—thieves—steal ladies!" was Bateato's second instalment, and the captain and lieutenant looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Big much pleece!" shrieked Bateato, made some more motions with his hands and rushed out into the street.

"It's Jap whiskey," said the captain, musingly, utterly unimpressed. "He isn't crazy. That Jap whiskey's awful stuff. They licked the Russian army on it. He'll run it off. If you ever see a Jap runnin' you'll know what's the matter."

Bateato ran a block and then stopped.

"Hell damn!" he exploded. "I no tell where house."

He ran back to the station and burst in again with even more precipitation.

"I no tell house," he rattled off. "Mr. Gladwin—Travers Gladwin. Big lot white house—Fifth avenue—eighty, eighty, eighty. Quick—thieves—ladies!" and he was gone again before Captain Stone could remove his cigar from his face.

The captain looked at the lieutenant and the lieutenant looked at the captain.

"Maybe he ain't drunk, Captain," ventured the lieutenant. "There's that Gladwin house on the books. It's marked closed and there's a note about a million-dollar collection of paintings."

The captain thought a moment and then burst into action:

"Call the reserves and get the patrol wagon," he shouted. "I remember that Jap. I guess there's something doing. I'll go myself."

As the reserves were all asleep and the horses had to be hitched to the patrol wagon Bateato had a big start of his big much pleece.

Notwithstanding the breathless condition in which he had arrived at the station house, his return journey was accomplished at his dizziest speed. Also he arrived back at the house way in advance of Whitney Barnes. There was a reason.

Wearing a frock coat and a silk hat and carrying a cane (of course he called it stick) one is hardly equipped for marathoning. And if you must know more, Whitney's small clothes were too fashionably tight to permit of more than a swift heel and toe action. At this he was doing admirably in his passionate haste to return and warn his friend Gladwin when another woman came into his life and appealed for succor.

Three in one evening, when he was perfectly satisfied to stop at one—the bewitching Sadie.

No. 3 was of an entirely different type from No. 1 and No. 2, and, happily for Whitney, there was no yowling bundle this time—merely a cat, and a silent cat at that.

She was a plump little woman and rather comely and she was intensely excited, for the cat in the case was hers and the cat was up the only tree on that street east of Central Park. At the foot of the tree sat a large bulldog gazing fixedly up at the cat.

Whitney Barnes was so occupied with his heel and toe pace that he did not descry the woman or the dog or the tree or the cat until the woman seized him by the arm and cried:

"You must save my darling Zaza from that dog."

Then she tailed off into hysterical sobs, but did not release her grip.

"Madam, I'm in great haste," retorted Barnes, striving to wriggle free from her grip. "I would advise you to call a policeman."

"There is no policeman," sobbed the distressed mistress of Zaza. "Oh, you m-m-m-must s-s-s-save my Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-aza. Oo-oo!"

Then Barnes glimpsed the dog and its fang-filled grin as it stared up at the cat.

"You don't expect me to tackle that dog?" he asked, backing away and making another effort to free himself.

"Shoot him! do anything to him!" insisted the distressed female. "Oo-oo-oo! he kills cats. Do something quick or I must scream."

Whitney Barnes would have welcomed an open manhole to vanish into. If that woman screamed and held fast to him till the police came it would be just as bad as the baby case. But if he tackled the dog he would probably go to the hospital and be afflicted with hydrophobia and all sorts of things.

"Calm yourself my dear woman," he said frantically. "The dog cannot climb the tree and your cat is perfectly safe."

"Are y-y-y-you s-s-s-sure?" she moaned. Then grabbing him tighter. "But you must not leave me. In case the dog should go up that tree you must attack it with your cane."

"I promise," panted Barnes, "if you will only release your grip on my arm. Your finger nails are tearing the flesh."

"I w-w-w-will not hold you so tight," she consented, "but I must hold on to you till somebody comes. Oh, look at that brute. He is biting the tree. He——"

But the sudden clangor of a patrol wagon and the hammering of steel-shod hoofs on the cobbles caused the owner of Zaza both to cease her shrill lamentations and let go of Whitney Barnes's arm.

The patrol wagon was rolling down behind them at a furious pace while its gong rent the stillness of the night as a warning to all crooks and criminals to beware and to scurry to shelter. It is the New York brass band method of thief hunting and if that patrol wagon gong hadn't broken before the vehicle had crossed Madison avenue the destinies of several prominent personages might have been seriously hampered in their headlong fling.

That gong kept blaring its clang of warning long enough to frighten off the dog and restore Whitney Barnes to freedom, and once released from the bruising grip of that distraught little woman he turned his back upon Zaza's fate and ran—he ran so long as he considered it feasible to maintain the integrity of his trousers. That is, he ran not quite a block, then dropped back to his heel and toe exercise and swiftly ate up the distance that separated him from Travers Gladwin's home.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

PHELAN LOSES HIS BRIBE.

It was merely a coincidence that Bateato should drag Helen back into the room just as Gladwin had gone on record with the declaration, "There are no women here," but it was a sufficiently dramatic coincidence to jar from Officer No. 666 the exclamation:

"Where the divil are they all springin' from?"

Bateato had come up with Helen as she was descending the stoop, had seized her by the wrist and almost swung her off her feet as he swept her back into the house and rounded her up before the three men, dumb with fright and barely able to stand. Still gripping her wrist, Bateato let go the Maxim volley:

"You tief! She try get away, but Bateato catch fast—she tief—I see steal all pictures—she"——

"Bateato, you idiot!" his master hurled at him with a menacing gesture that caused the little Jap to drop the girl's hand and jump back.

"Didn't I tell you to stay at the hotel?" continued Gladwin, fiercely, for the moment ignoring both Phelan and the thief.

"Yes, but I 'fraid—much late you no come. Bateato come back see girl steal all pictures!"

The little Jap had fallen into Phelan's state of blind bewilderment.

"Shut up!" his master snapped him up, walking up to him with an eat-'em-alive expression. "And now listen—I don't want you to say anything more, understand? Not a word to anybody about anything. Not a syllable!"

"I no spick," bleated the Jap.

"See that you don't—not a single word—if you do I'll skin you!"

Never in the three years he had served the young man had Bateato seen him in anything like this savage state of mind.

"I spick no more for noting not nobody quick!" he promised, and his hand clasped over his mouth like a vise.

Having corked Bateato in this wise, Gladwin turned to Helen, who stood as if rooted to the floor, staring straight ahead of her.

"Don't be frightened," he said gently. "Everything is all right." He took her arm to reassure her and then spoke to Phelan, who had been making a vain effort to solve the mix-up and didn't feel quite sure that he wasn't bewitched.

"Now, Phelan," said Gladwin, "I'll explain the thing."

"I wish to God ye would!" said Phelan from the bottom of his heart.

"This lady's being here is all right—and she isn't connected with this affair in any way. I'll prove that to you readily enough."

"Well, go ahead." And Phelan crossed his eyes in an effort to include in the focus both Gladwin and the thief de luxe, whose splendidly groomed appearance impressed him the more.

On his part the thief was leaning carelessly against a cabinet looking on with the expression of one both amused and bored. What he had noticed most was that Helen kept her eyes averted from him as if she feared to look at him and that she had palpably transferred her allegiance to Gladwin. When she had recovered some of her self-control she followed that young man's words eagerly and obeyed his slightest signal.

"I will explain to you, Phelan, as soon as I see this young lady started for home," Gladwin ran on, and proceeded with Helen toward the entrance to the hallway.

"Hold on! Yez'll not leave this room," Phelan stopped them, his suspicions again in a state of conflagration.

"But I only want——"

"I don't care what yez want," Phelan snorted, blocking the way. "Yez'll stay here."

"Oh, well—just as you say," returned the young man desperately, "but I will have to ask my man to escort this lady out and put her in a taxicab. Bateato"——

"Bad Pertaters 'll stay where he is."

Phelan was visibly swelling with the majesty of the law.

"You're very disagreeable," Gladwin charged him; then to Helen, "I'm awfully sorry I cannot go with you, but I think you can find the way yourself. Just go out through the hall, and"——

"She'll stay right here with the rest o' yez," was Phelan's ultimatum, as he squared himself in the doorway with the heroic bearing of a bridge-defending Horatius.

The only member of that tense little tableau who really had anything to fear from the spectre of the law embodied in the person of Officer 666 had waited for Gladwin to play his poor hand and, conceiving that this was the psychological moment, sauntered across the room and said with easy assurance:

"Officer, if there's anything further you want of me, you'll have to be quick."

"Yez'll wait here, too, till I can communicate with headquarters," Phelan gave him back, not liking the tone of command.

"Then hurry up, because it won't go well with you if I am detained."

"Now, don't yez threaten me!" exploded Phelan. "I'm doin' me duty by the book."

"Threaten you! Why, I can show you that you have been helping to rob my house."

This was a new current of thought—a sudden inspiration—but this peer of bluffers managed to crowd a volume of accusation in the slow emphasis with which he said it.

"Your house!" gasped Phelan, rocked clear off the firm base he had scarcely planted himself on. "What do ye mean—who are yez?"

"Who do you suppose I am? Travers Gladwin, of course."

Even the fear-numbed Helen Burton was startled into animation by this amazingly nervy declaration and half rose from the chair she had been guided to and forced into by Gladwin when she seemed on the verge of swooning at Phelan's refusal to permit her to depart.

Phelan expressed wonder and alarm in every feature and his arms flopped limply at his side as he muttered:

"Travers Gladwin—youse!"

"Don't listen to him, Phelan," cried Gladwin.

"Shut up!" Phelan turned on him.

"When I came home to-night," the thief pressed his advantage, "this man was here—robbing my house, dressed in your uniform—yes, and you yourself were helping him."

"But I didn't know," whined the distressed Phelan, yielding himself utterly to the toils of the master prevaricator.

"I don't think you did it intentionally—but why did you do it?" the thief let him down with a little less severity of emphasis.

"He said he wanted to play a joke. He—he——"

"Oh, don't be an idiot, Phelan," interposed Gladwin, putting his foot in it at the wrong time and receiving as his reward from the policeman a savage, "Close your face!"

"Oh, playing a joke, was he?" said the thief, smiling. "And did he offer you money. Now, no evasion—you had better tell me."

"Yes, sir," gulped Phelan, with murder in one eye for the real Gladwin and craven apology in the other for the impostor.

"And you took it?" sharply.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, officer! Shame! Shame!" in tones of shocked reproach. "Let me see what he gave you—come now, it's your only chance."

Phelan hesitated, gulped some more, and at last produced the bill.

The thief took it from his trembling but unresisting hand, unfurled it, turned it over, held it up close to his eyes and suddenly laughed:

"Well, you certainly are easy—counterfeit!"

"What!" roared Phelan, and Travers Gladwin joined him in the exclamation.

"Will you swear that man gave you this bill?" cut in the thief, sharply, snatching out a pencil and marking the gold certificate across the corner.

"I will, sorr!" shouted Phelan. "I will, an'——"

"Very well! Now you see this mark in the corner—will you be able to identify it?"

"Yes, sorr." Phelan was fairly grovelling.

"Good," said the thief, and nonchalantly shoved the bill into his waistcoat pocket.

"See here, Phelan," protested Gladwin.

"Kape your mouth shut—I'd just like to take wan punch at yez."

Phelan meant it and took a step toward Gladwin when the thief stopped him and asked:

"Now, officer, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Thank you, Mr. Gladwin—I got to get the patrol wagon here some way."

If Bateato had entered into an inflexible contract with himself not to utter another syllable before the break of day at least he might have eased Phelan's mind on that score and informed him that something ominously like a patrol wagon was rounding the corner at that moment. And if the art collector had not been so keenly amused at his facile conquest of the gullible bluecoat his alert ears might have warned him to say something entirely different from this: