If not, why was Red November neglecting all other affairs to press drink upon a man who knew when he had enough?

If so, what might be the nature of the link connecting the boy with the "job," to be on which at half-past two November had just now covenanted with Brian Shaynon?

What incriminating knowledge could this boy possess, to render old Shaynon, willing that his memory should be expurgated by such a mind- and nerve-shattering agent as the knock-out drop of White Light commerce?

Now Shaynon was capable of almost any degree of infamy, if not, perhaps, the absolute peer of Red November.

This strange development of that night of Destiny began to assume in P. Sybarite's esteem a complexion of baleful promise.

But the more keenly interested he grew, the more indifferent he made himself appear, slouching low and lower in his chair, his eyes listless and half closed—his look one of the most pronounced apathy: the while he conned the circumstances, physical as well as psychical, with the narrowest attention. Certainly, it would seem, a man who had enough instinctive decency to wish to escape the degradation of deeper drunkenness, should be humoured rather than opposed....

The table on which his attention was focussed stood against the wall, the young man sitting in the corner between November and the woman. Of two tables between it and P. Sybarite's, one was vacant, the other occupied by a brace of hatchet-faced male intimates of the dive and creatures of November's—or their looks libelled them shamefully.

It seemed unlikely that the boy could get away against the wishes of the gang leader, however steadfastly he might stand upon his determination to drink no more. For nothing was to be hoped for from the sots, prostitutes, and parasites who made up the balance of that company: one and all, either too indifferent or too sophisticated, if not in active sympathy with the practices of the establishment, to lift a hand to interfere....

Testimony in support of this inference P. Sybarite received within the next few minutes, when the boy's temper abruptly veered from good-natured obduracy to open irritation.

"Damn it, no!" he cried in a high voice and with an impatient movement struck the glass from November's hand.

Though it went to the floor with a splintering crash, the incident attracted little more than casual glances from those at neighbouring tables....

November's countenance, however, turned grey with anger beneath its olive shade.

Momentarily his glance clashed with the woman's; and of a sudden the paint upon her cheeks and lips stood out as starkly artificial as carmine splashed upon a whitewashed wall. At the same time he flashed a like warning to his two followers at the next table; and the legs of their chairs grated on the tiled flooring as they shifted position, making ready for the signal to "mix in."

At this, P. Sybarite rose and nonchalantly moved over to November; his approach remarked by the latter with an evil leer; by the woman with a start of consternation; by the boy with sudden suspicion. Indubitably this last was beginning to question a hospitality that would not permit him to do as to him seemed best. With relief P. Sybarite noted symptoms of this dawning distrust. It made the problem simpler, to have the boy alive to his peril.

Pausing, P. Sybarite met November's glare with eyes informed with an expression amazingly remote and dispassionate, and in a level and toneless voice addressed him.

"I've a message for you—a hurry call—won't keep—"

"Well?" snapped the gangster. "What's it about? Spit it out!"

"Why, Nella says—" P. Sybarite began deliberately; and paused to cough politely behind his hand; and leaned confidentially over the table.

At this juncture the boy pushed back his chair and rose.

"Pardon me, m' dear," he said thickly to the woman; "'m goin' home."

"Ah, sit down," November interrupted quickly, pitching his protean accents to a key of cajolery—"sit down and have another. What's your hurry?"

His eyes caught the woman's.

"That's right, dearie," she chimed in hurriedly, laying a soft detaining hand on the boy's forearm. "Be a good fellow. Stake me to just one more pint—"

"No," the boy insisted, shaking free—"I'm going home. Le' me alone."

"Nella," P. Sybarite interpolated in an imperative tone, momentarily distracting November's attention—"Nella says to tell you she wants you—now—immediately. Do you get that?"

"Damn Nella!" snapped the gang leader. "Tell her to go to the devil. And you"—he menaced P. Sybarite with a formidable look—"you slide outa here—in a hurry! See?"

With this, rising in his place, he put forth a hand to detain the boy, who was sullenly pushing past the woman.

"Wait!" he insisted. "You can't go before you pay up—"

Whipping from his pocket a note (of what denomination he never knew—but it was large) P. Sybarite slapped it down upon the table.

"That'll pay whatever he owes," he announced, and to the boy: "Clear out—quick—do you hear!—while you've got a chance—"

"What t'ell business is it of yours?" November demanded, turning upon him furiously.

With an enigmatic smile, P. Sybarite dexterously tipped up his side of the table and, overturning it, caught the gangster unprepared for any such manoeuvre and pinned him squirming in the angle of wall and floor.

Immediately the woman came to her feet shrieking; while the little man seized the befuddled boy and swung him toward the door actually before he realised what was happening.

Simultaneously, November's henchmen at the adjoining table leapt into the brawl with an alacrity that sent their chairs clattering back upon the floor.

But in his magnificent assurance P. Sybarite had foreseen and planned cunningly against precisely that same contingency. No sooner had he sent the boy staggering on his way than he whirled completely round with a ready guard—and in no more than the very wink of exigence.

Already one of the creatures was almost on his back—the other hanging off and singularly employed (it seemed, considering) with his hands; just what he was up to P. Sybarite had time neither to see nor to surmise.

Sidestepping a wild swing, he planted a left full on the nose of the nearer assailant and knocked him backwards over a sprawling chair. Then turning attention to the other, he was barely in time to duck an uppercut—and out of the corners of his eyes caught the glint of brass-knuckles on the fist that failed to land.

Infuriated, he closed in, sent a staggering left to the thug's heart and a murderous right to his chin, so that he reeled and fell as if shot—while P. Sybarite with a bound again caught the boy by the arm and whirled him out through the doorway into the hall.

"Hurry!" he panted. "We've one chance in ten thousand—"

Beyond doubt they had barely that.

Hardened though they were to scenes of violence, the clients of the dive had stilled in apprehension the moment November lifted his voice in anger; while P. Sybarite's first overtly offensive move had struck them all dumb in terror.

Red November was one who had shot down his man in cold blood on the steps of the Criminal Courts Building and, through the favour of The Organisation that breeds such pests, escaped scot-free under the convenient fiction of "suspended sentence"; and knowing well the nature and the power of the man, the primal concerted thought had been to flee the place before bullets began to fly. In blind panic like that of sheep, they rose as one in uproar and surged toward the outer doors. November himself, struggling up from beneath the table, was caught and swept on willy-nilly in the front rank of the stampede. In a thought he found himself wedged tight in a press clogging the door. Before his enraged vision P. Sybarite was winning away with the boy.

Maddened, the gang leader managed to free his right arm and send a haphazard shot after them.

Only the instinctive recoil of those about him deflected his aim.

The report was one with a shock of shattered plate-glass: the soft-nosed bullet, splashing upon the glazed upper half of the door, caused the entire pane to collapse and disappear with the quickness of magic.

Halting, P. Sybarite wheeled and dropped a hand to the pocket wherein rested Mrs. Inche's automatic.

"Get that door open!" he cried to the boy. "I've got a taxi waiting—"

His words were drowned out by the thunderous detonations set up by a second shot in that constricted space.

With a thick sob, the boy reeled and swung against the wall as sharply as though he had been struck with a sledge-hammer.

Whimpering with rage, P. Sybarite tugged at the weapon; but it stuck fast, caught the lining of his coat-pocket.

Most happily before he could get it in evidence, the door was thrust sharply in, and through it with a rush materialised that most rare of metropolitan phenomena—the policeman on the spot.

Young and ardent, with courage as unique as his ubiquity, he blustered in like a whirlwind, brushing P. Sybarite to one side, the wounded boy to the other, and pausing only a single instant to throw back the skirts of his tunic and grasp the butt of the revolver in his hip-pocket, demanded in the voice of an Irish stentor:

"What's-all-this? What's-all-this-now?"

"Robbery!" P. Sybarite replied, mastering with difficulty a giggle of hysterical relief. "Robbery and attempted murder! Arrest that man—Red November—with the gun in his hand."

With an inarticulate roar, the patrolman swung on toward the gangster—and P. Sybarite plucked the boy by the sleeve and drew him quickly to the sidewalk.

By the never-to-be-forgotten grace of Kismet his taxicab was precisely where he had left it, the chauffeur on the seat.

"Quick!" he ordered the reeling boy—"into that cab unless you want to be treated by a Bellevue sawbones—held as a witness besides. Are you badly hurt?"

"Not badly," gasped the boy—"shot through the shoulder—can wait for treatment—must keep out of the papers—"

"Right!" P. Sybarite jerked open the door, and his charge stumbled into the cab. "Drive anywhere—like sin," he told the chauffeur—"tell you where to stop when we get clear of this mess—"

Privately he blessed that man; for the cab was in motion almost before he could swing clear of the sidewalk. He tumbled in upon the floor, and picked himself up in time to close the door only when they were swinging on two wheels round the corner of Seventh Avenue.



XV

SUCH STUFF AS PLOTS ARE MADE OF

"How is it?" P. Sybarite asked solicitously.

"Aches," replied the boy huddled in his corner of the cab.

Then he found spirit enough for a pale, thin smile, faintly visible in a milky splash from an electric arc rocking by the vehicle in its flight.

"Aches like hell," he added. "Makes one feel a bit sickish."

"Anything I can do?"

"No—thanks. I'll be all right—as soon as I find a surgeon to draw that slug and plaster me up."

"That's the point: where am I to take you?"

"Home—the Monastery—Forty-third Street."

"Bachelor apartments?"

"Yes; I herd by my lonesome."

"Praises be!" muttered P. Sybarite, relieved.

For several minutes he had been entertaining a vision of himself escorting this battered and bloody young person to a home of shrieking feminine relations, and poignantly surmising the sort of welcome apt to be accorded the good Samaritan in such instances.

And while he was about it, he took time briefly to offer up thanks that the shock of his wound seemed to have sobered the boy completely.

Opening the door, he craned his neck out to establish communication with the ear of the chauffeur; to whom he repeated the address, adding an admonition to avoid the Monastery until certain he had shaken off pursuit, if any; and dodged back.

At this juncture the taxicab was slipping busily up Eighth Avenue, having gained that thoroughfare via Forty-first Street. A little later it turned eastwards....

"No better, I presume?" P. Sybarite enquired.

"Not so's you'd notice it," the boy returned bravely.... "First time anything like this ever happened to me," he went on. "Funny sensation—precisely as if somebody had lammed me for a home run—with a steel girder for a bat ..."

"Must be tough!" said P. Sybarite blankly, experiencing a qualm at the thought of a soft-nosed bullet mushrooming through living flesh.

"Guess I can stand it.... Where are we?"

P. Sybarite took observations."

"Forty-seventh, near Sixth Avenue," he reported finally.

"Good: we'll be home in five minutes."

"Think you can hold out that long?"

"Sure—got to; if I keel over before we reach my digs ... chances are it'll get you into trouble ... besides, I want to fight shy of the papers ... no good airing this scandal ..."

"None whatever," affirmed P. Sybarite heartily. "But—how did you get into it?"

"Just by way of being a natural-born ass."

"Oh, well! If it comes to that, I admit it's none of my business—"

"The deuce it isn't! After all you've done for me! Good Lord, man, where would I be...!"

"Sleeping the sleep of the doped in some filthy corner of Dutch House, most likely."

"And you saved me from that!"

"And got this hole drilled through you instead."

"Got me away; I'd've collected the lead anyhow—wasn't meaning to stay without a fight."

"Then you weren't as drunk as you seemed?"

"Didn't you catch me making a move the minute you created a diversion? Of course, I'd no idea you were friendly—"

"Look here," P. Sybarite interrupted sharply: "doesn't it hurt you to talk?"

"No—helps me forget this ache."

"All right, then—tell me how this came about. What has Red November got on you, to make him so anxious—?"

"Nothing, as far as I know; unless it was Brian Shaynon's doing—"

"A-ah!"

"You know that old blighter?"

"Slightly—very slightly."

"Friend of yours?"

"Not exactly."

The accent of P. Sybarite's laugh rendered the disclaimer conclusive.

"Glad to hear that," said the boy gravely: "I'd despise to be beholden to any friend of his ..."

"Well.... But what's the trouble between you and old man Shaynon?"

"Search me—unless he thought I was spying on him. I say!" the boy exclaimed excitedly—"what business could he have had with Red November there, to-night?"

"That is a question," P. Sybarite allowed.

"Something urgent, I'll be bound!—else he wouldn't ever have dared show his bare map in that dump."

"One would think so...."

"I'd like to figure this thing out. Perhaps you can help. To begin with—I went to a party to-night."

"I know," said P. Sybarite, with a quiet chuckle: "the Hadley-Owen masquerade."

"How did you know?"

"Kismet! It had to be."

"Are you by any chance—mad?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. Anyhow, I'm a bit mad I wasn't invited. Everybody I know or meet—almost—is either bidden to that party or knows somebody who is. Forgive the interruption.... Anyway," he added, "we're here."

The taxicab was drawing up before an apartment house entrance.

Hastily recovering his hoard of gold-pieces, P. Sybarite jumped out and presented one to the driver.

"Can't change that," said the latter, staring. "Besides, this was a charge call."

"I know," said P. Sybarite apologetically; "but this is for you."

"Good God!" cried the chauffeur.

"And yet," mused P. Sybarite, "they'd have you believe all taxicab chauffeurs mercenary!"

Recklessly he forced the money into the man's not altogether inhospitable palm.

"For being a good little tight-mouth," he explained gravely.

"Forever and ever, amen!" protested the latter fervently. "And thank you!"

"If you're satisfied, we're quits," returned P. Sybarite, offering a hand to the boy.

"I can manage," protested this last, descending without assistance. "And it's better so," he explained as they crossed to the door; "I don't want the hallboys here to suspect—and I can hold up a few minutes longer, never fear."

"Business of taking off my hat to you," said P. Sybarite in unfeigned admiration; "for pure grit, you're a young wonder."

A liveried hallboy opened the door. A second waited in the elevator. Promptly ascending, they were set down at one of the upper floors.

Throughout the boy carried himself with never a quiver, his countenance composed and betraying what pain he suffered only to eyes keen to discern its trace of pallor. Now as he left the elevator and fitted a key to the lock of his private front door, he addressed the attendant, over his shoulder, in a manner admirably casual:

"By the way, Jimmy—"

"Sir?"

"Call up Dr. Higgins for me."

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him I've an attack of indigestion and will be glad if he'll turn out and see if he can't fix me up for the night."

"Very good, Mr. Kenny."

The gate clanged and the cage dropped from sight as Mr. Kenny opened the door and stood aside to let P. Sybarite precede him.

"Rot!" objected the little man forcibly. "Go in and turn up the lights. Punctilio from a man in your condition—!"

The boy nodded wearily, passed in, and switched up the lights in a comfortably furnished sitting-room.

"As a matter of fact," he said thoughtfully, when P. Sybarite had followed him in and shut the door—"I'm wondering how much of a bluff I may be, after all."

"Meaning—?"

"By all literary precedent I ought to faint now, after my magnificent exhibition of superhuman endurance. But I'm not going to."

"That's rather sporting of you," P. Sybarite grinned.

"Not at all; I just don't want to—don't feel like it. That sick feeling is gone—nothing but a steady agony like a hot iron through my shoulder—something any man with teeth to grit could stand."

"We'll find out soon enough. I don't pretend to be any sort of a dab at repairs on punctured humanity, but I read enough popular fiction myself to know that the only proper thing to do is to ruin that handsome coat of yours by cutting it off your back. We can anticipate the doctor to that extent, at least."

"That's one thing, at least, that the popular novelist knows right," asserted Mr. Kenny with conviction. "Sorry for the coat—but you'll find scissors yonder, on my desk."

And when P. Sybarite fetched them, he sat himself sideways in a straight-backed chair and cheerfully endured the little man's impromptu essays in first-aid measures.

A very little snipping and slashing sufficed to do away with the shoulder and sleeve of the boy's coat and to lay open his waistcoat as well, exposing a bloodstained shirt. And then, at the instant when P. Sybarite was noting with relief that the stain showed both in back and in front, the telephone shrilled.

"If you don't mind answering that—" grunted Mr. Kenny.

P. Sybarite was already at the instrument.

"Yes?" he answered. "Dr. Higgins?"

"Sorry, sir," replied a strange voice: "Dr. Higgins isn't in yet. Any message?"

"Tell him Mr. Kenny needs him at the Monastery, and the matter's urgent.... Doctor not in," he reported superfluously, returning to cut away collar, tie, shirt, and undershirt. "Never mind, I shouldn't be surprised if we could manage to do without him, after all."

"Meaning it's not so bad—?"

"Meaning," said the other, exposing the naked shoulder, "I'm beginning to hope you've had a marvellously narrow escape."

"Feels like it," said Kenny, ironic.

P. Sybarite withheld response while he made close examination. At the base of Mr. Kenny's neck, well above the shoulder-blade, dark blood was welling slowly from an ugly puncture. And in front there was a corresponding puncture, but smaller. And presently his deft and gentle fingers, exploring the folds of the boy's undershirt, closed upon the bullet itself.

"I don't believe," he announced, displaying his find, "you deserve such luck. Somehow you managed to catch this just right for it to slip through without either breaking bone or severing artery. And by a special dispensation of an all-wise Providence, Red November must have been preoccupied when he loaded that gun, for somehow a steel-jacketed instead of a soft-nosed bullet got into the chamber he wasted on you. Otherwise you'd have been pretty badly smashed. As it is, you'll probably be laid up only a few days."

"I told you I wasn't so badly hurt—"

"God's good to the Irish. Where's your bathroom?"

With a gesture Kenny indicated its location.

"And handkerchiefs—?"

"Upper bureau drawer in the bedroom."

In a twinkling P. Sybarite was off and back again with materials for an antiseptic wash and a rude bandage.

"How'd you know I was Irish?" demanded the patient.

"By yoursilf's name," quoth P. Sybarite in a thick brogue as natural as grass, while he worked away busily. "'Tis black Irish, and well I know it. 'Twas me mither's maiden name—Kenny. She had a brother, Michael he was and be way av bein' a rich conthractor in this very town as ever was, befure he died—God rist his sowl! He left two children—a young leddy who mis-spells her name M-a-e A-l-y-s—keep still!—and Peter, yersilf, me cousin, if it's not mistaken I am."

"The Lord save us!" said the boy. "You're never Percy Sybarite!"

P. Sybarite winced. "Not so loud!" he pleaded in a stage whisper. "Some one might hear you."

"What the devil's the matter with you?"

"I am that man you named—but, prithee, Percy me no Percevals, an' you'd be my friend. For fifteen years I've kept my hideous secret well. If it becomes public now ..."

Peter Kenny laughed in spite of his pain.

"I'll keep your secret, too," he volunteered, "since you feel that way about it.... But, I say: what have you been doing with yourself since—since—" He stammered.

"Since the fall of the House of Sybarite?"

"Yes. I didn't know you were in New York, even."

"Your mother and Mae Alys knew it—but kept it quiet, the same as me," said the little man.

"But—well—what have you been doing, then?"

"Going to and fro like a raging lion—more or less—seeking what I might devour."

"And the devourings have been good, eh? You're high-spirited enough."

"I think," said P. Sybarite quietly—"I may say—though you can't see it—that my present smile would, to a shrewd observer, seem to indicate I'd swallowed a canary-bird ... a nice, fat, golden canary-bird!" he repeated, smacking his lips with unction.

"You talk as if you'd swallowed a dictagraph," said Peter Kenny.

"It's my feeling," sighed P. Sybarite. "But yourself? Let's see; when I saw you last you were the only authentic child pest of your day and generation—six or seven at most. How long have you been out of college?"

"A year—not quite."

"And sporting bachelor rooms of your own!"

"I'm of age. Besides, if you must know, mother and Mae Alys are both dotty on the society game, and I'm not. I won't be rushed round to pink teas and—and all that sort of thing."

"Far more wholesome than pink whiskeys at Dutch House."

"You don't understand—"

"No; but I mean to. There!" announced P. Sybarite, finishing the bandage with a tidy flat knot—make yourself comfortable on that couch, tell me where you keep your whiskey, and I'll mix myself a drink and listen to your degrading confession....

"Now," he added, when Peter Kenny, stretched out on the couch, had suffered himself to be covered up—"not being an M.D., I've no conscience at all about letting you talk yourself to death; eaten alive as I am with curiosity; and knowing besides that you can't kill a Kenny but with kindness."

"You'll find the whiskey on the buffet," said the boy.

"Obliged to you," P. Sybarite replied, finding it.

"And I suppose I—"

"You're quite right; you've had enough. Alcohol is nothing to help mend a wound. If your friend Higgins permits it, when he comes—well and good.... Meanwhile," he added, taking a seat near the head of the couch, and fixing his youthful relation with a stern enquiring eye—"what were you doing in Dutch House the night?"

"I've been trying to tell you—"

"And now you must.... Is there a cigar handy?... Thanks.... This whiskey is prime stuff.... Go on. I'm waiting."

"Well," Peter Kenny confessed sheepishly. "I'm in love—"

"And you proposed to her to-night at the ball?"

"Yes, and—"

"She refused you."

"Yes, but—"

"So you decided to do the manly thing—go out and pollute yourself with drink?"

"That's about the size of it," Peter admitted, shamefaced.

"It's no good reason," announced P. Sybarite. "Now, if you'd been celebrating your happy escape, I'd be the last to blame you."

"You don't understand, and you won't give me a chance—"

"I'm waiting—all ears—but not the way you mean."

"It wasn't as if she'd left me any excuse to hope ... but she told me flat she didn't care for me."

"That's bad, Peter. Forgive my ill-timed levity: I didn't mean it meanly, boy," P. Sybarite protested.

"It's worse than you think," Peter complained. "I can stand her not caring for me. Why should she?"

"Why, indeed?"

"It's because she's gone and promised to marry Bayard Shaynon."

P. Sybarite looked dazed.

"She? Bayard Shaynon? Who's the girl?"

"Marian Blessington. Why do you ask? Do you know her?"

There was a pause. P. Sybarite blinked furiously.

"I've heard that name," he said quietly, at length. "Isn't she old Brian's ward—the girl who disappeared recently?"

"She didn't disappear, really. She's been staying with friends—told me so herself. That's all the foundation the Journal had for its story."

"Friends?"

"So she said."

"Did she name them?"

"No—"

"Or say where?"

"No; but some place out of town, of course."

"Of course," P. Sybarite repeated mechanically. He eyed fixedly the ash on the end of his cigar. "And she told you she meant to marry Bayard Shaynon, did she!"

"She said she'd promised.... And that," the boy broke out, "was what drove me crazy. He's—he's—well, you know what he is."

"His father's son," said P. Sybarite gloomily.

"He was there to-night—the old man, too; and after what Marian had told me, I just couldn't trust myself to meet or speak to either of them. So I bolted back here, took a stiff drink, changed from costume to these clothes, and went out to make a besotted ass of myself. Naturally I landed in Dutch House. And there—the first thing I noticed when I went in was old Shaynon, sitting at the same table you took, later—waiting. Imagine my surprise—I'd left him at the Bizarre not thirty minutes before!"

"I'm imagining it, Peter. Get ahead."

"I hailed him, but he wouldn't recognise me—simply glared. Presently Red November came in and they went upstairs together. So I stuck around, hoping to get hold of Red and make him drunk enough to talk. Curiously enough when Shaynon left, Red came directly to my table and sat down. But by that time I'd had some champagne on top of whiskey and was beginning to know that if I pumped in anything more, it'd be November's party instead of mine. And when he tried to insist on my drinking more, I got scared—feeling what I'd had as much as I did."

"You're not the fool you try to seem," P. Sybarite conceded. "I heard November promise Shaynon, at the door, that you wouldn't remember much when you came to. The old scoundrel didn't want to be seen—hadn't expected to be recognised and, when he found you'd followed, planned to fix things so that you'd never tell on him."

"But why?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. There's some sort of shenanigan brewing, or my first name's Peter, the same as yours—which I wish it was so.... Be quiet a bit and let me think."

For a little while P. Sybarite sat pondering with vacant eyes; and the wounded boy stared upward with a frown, as though endeavouring to puzzle the answer to this riddle out of the blankness of the ceiling.

"What time does this Hadley-Owen party break up?"

"Not till daylight. It's the last big fixture of the social season, and ordinarily they keep it up till sunrise."

"It'll be still going, then?"

"Strong. They'll be in full swing, now, of after-supper dancing."

"That settles it: I'm going."

The boy lifted on his elbow in amaze, then subsided with a grunt of pain.

"You're going?"

"You say you've got a costume of some sort here? I'll borrow it. We're much of a size."

"Heaven knows you're welcome, but—"

"But what?"

"You have no invitation."

Rising, P. Sybarite smiled loftily. "Don't worry about that. If I can't bribe my way past a cordon of mercenary foreign waiters—and talk down any other opposition—I'm neither as flush as I think nor as Irish."

"But what under the sun do you want there?"

"To see what's doing—find out for myself what devilment Brian Shaynon's hatching. Maybe I'll do no good—and maybe I'll be able to put a spoke in his wheel. To do that—once—right—I'd be willing to die as poor as I've lived till this blessed night!"

He paused an instant on the threshold of his cousin's bedroom; turned back a sombre visage.

"I've little love for Brian Shaynon, myself, or none. You know what he did to me—and mine."



XVI

BEELZEBUB

Late enough in all conscience was the last guest to arrive for the Hadley-Owen masquerade.

Already town-cars, carriages, and private 'busses were being called for and departing with their share of the more seasoned and sober-sided revellers, to whom bed and appetite for breakfast had come to mean more than a chance to romp through a cotillion by the light of the rising sun—to say discreetly little or nothing of those other conveyances which had borne away their due proportion of far less sage and by no means sober-sided ones, who yet retained sufficient sense of the fitness of things to realise that bed followed by matutinal bromides would be better for them than further dalliance with the effervescent and evanescent spirits of festivity.

More and more frequently the elevators, empty but for their attendants, were flying up to the famous ball-room floor of the Bizarre, to descend heavy-laden with languid laughing parties of gaily-costumed ladies and gentlemen no less brilliantly attired—prince and pauper, empress and shepherdess, monk, milkmaid, and mountebank: all weary yet reluctant in their going.

And at this hour a smallish gentleman, in an old-style Inverness opera-coat that cloaked him to his ankles, with an opera hat set jauntily a wee bit askew on his head, a mask of crimson silk covering his face from brows to lips, slipped silently like some sly, sinister shadow through the Fifth Avenue portals of the Bizarre, and shaped a course by his wits across the lobby to the elevators, so discreetly and unobtrusively that none of the flunkeys in attendance noticed his arrival.

In effect, he didn't arrive at all, but suddenly was there.

A car, discharging its passengers before the smallish gentleman could catch the eye of its operator, flew suddenly upward in the echo of a gate slammed shut in his face; and all the other cars were still at the top, according to the bronze arrows of their tell-tale dials. The late arrival held up patiently; but after an instant's deliberation, doffed his hat, crushed it flat, slipped out of his voluminous cloak, and beckoned a liveried attendant.

In the costume thus disclosed, he cut an impish figure: "Satan on the half-shell," Peter Kenny had christened him.

A dress coat of black satin fitted P. Sybarite more neatly than him for whom it had been made. The frilled bosom of his shirt was set with winking rubies, and the lace cuffs at his wrists were caught together with rubies—whether real or false, like coals of fire: and ruby was the hue both of his satin mask and his satin small-clothes. Buckles of red paste brilliants burned on the insteps of his slender polished shoes with scarlet heels; and his snug black silk stockings set off ankles and calves so well-turned that the Prince of Sin himself might have taken pride in them. For boutonniere he wore a smouldering ember—so true an imitation that at first he himself had hesitated to touch it. Literally to crown all, his ruddy hair was twisted upward from each temple in a cornuted fashion that was most vividly picturesque.

"Here," he said, surrendering hat and coat to the servitor before the latter could remonstrate—"take and check these for me, please. I shan't be going for some time yet."

"Sorry, sir, but the cloak-room down 'ere 's closed, sir. You'll have to check them on the ball-room floor above."

"No matter," said the little man: and groping in a pocket, he produced a dollar bill and tendered it to ready fingers; "you keep 'em for me, down here. It'll save time when I'm ready to go."

"Very good, sir. Thank you."

"You won't forget me?"

The flunkey grinned. "You're the only gentleman I've seen to-night, sir, in a costume anything like your own."

"There's but one of me in the Union," said the gentleman, sententious: "my spear knows no brother."

"Thank you, sir," said the servant civilly, making off.

With an air of some dubiety, the little man watched him go.

"I say!" he cried suddenly—"come back!"

He was obeyed.

A second dollar bill appeared as it were by magic between his fingers. The flunkey stared.

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Take it"—impatiently.

"Thank you." The well-trained fingers executed their most familiar manoeuvre. "But—m'y I ask, sir—wot's it for?"

"You called me a gentleman just now."

"Yes, sir."

"You were right."

"Quite so, sir."

"The devil is a gentleman," the masquerader insisted firmly.

"So I've always 'eard, sir."

"Then you may go; you've earned the other dollar."

Obsequiousness stared: "M'y I ask, 'ow so?"

"By standing for that antediluvian bromidiom. I had to get it off my chest to somebody, or else blow up. Far better to hire an audience when you can't be original. Remember that; you've been paid: you daren't object."

"Thankyousir," said the lackey blankly.

"And now—avaunt—before I brand thee for mine own!"

The little gentleman flung out an imperative, melodramatic arm; and veritable sparks sprayed from his crackling finger-tips. The servant retired in haste and dismay.

"'E's balmy—or screwed—or the Devil 'imself!" he muttered....

Beneath his mask the little man grinned privately at the man's retreat.

"Piker!" said he severely—"sharpening your wits on helpless servants. A waiter has no friends, anyway!"

An elevator, descending, discharged into the lobby half a dozen mirthful maskers. Of these, a Scheherazade of bewitching prettiness (in a cloak of ermine!) singled out the silent, cynical little gentleman in scarlet mask and smalls, and menaced him merrily with a jewelled forefinger.

"What—you, Lucifer! Traitor! Where have you been all evening?"

"Madame!"—he bowed mockingly—"in spirit, always at your ear."

She flushed and bit her lip in charming confusion; while an abbess, with face serene in the frame of her snowy coif, caught up the ball of badinage:

"Ah, in spirit! But in the flesh?"

"Why, poppet!" he retorted in suave surprise—"it isn't possible that you missed me?"

And she, too, coloured; while a third, a girl dressed all in buckskin from beaded hunting-shirt to fringed leggings and dainty moccasins, bent to peer into his face.

"Who are you?" she demanded curiously. "I don't seem to know you—"

"That, child, you have already proved."

"I?... Proved?... How do you mean?"

"You alone have not yet blushed."

And wheeling mischievously to the others, he covered them with widespread hands in burlesque benediction.

"The unction of my deep damnation abide with ye, my children, now and forevermore!" he chanted, showering sparks from crepitant finger-tips; and bounded lightly into the elevator.

"But your mask!" protested Scheherazade in a pet. "You've no right—when we all unmasked at supper."

Through the iron fretwork of the gate, the little gentleman shot a Parthian spark or two.

"I wear no mask!" he informed them solemnly as the car shot from sight.

The conceit tickled him; he had it still in mind when he alighted at the ball-room floor.

Pausing in the anteroom, he struck an artificial pose on his high red heels and stroked thin, satiric lips with slender fingers, reviewing the crush with eyes that glinted light-hearted malice through the scarlet visor; seeking a certain one and finding her not among those many about him—their gay exotic trappings half hidden beneath wraps of modern convention assumed against impending departure.

A hedge of backs hid from him the ball-room, choking the wide, high arch of its entrance.

Turning to one side, he began to pick a slow way through the press, and so presently found himself shoulder to shoulder with elderly and pompous Respectability in a furred great-coat; who, all ready for the street, with shining topper poised at breast-level, had delayed his going for an instant's guarded confabulation with a youngish man conspicuous in this, that he, alone of all that company, was in simple evening dress.

Their backs were toward P. Sybarite, but by the fat pink folds above the back of Respectability's collar and the fat white side-whiskers adorning his plump pink chops, Beelzebub knew that he encountered for the second time that evening Respectability of the gold-capped cane.

Without the least shame, he paused and cocked sharp ears to catch what he could of the conversation between these two.

Little enough he profited by his open eavesdropping; what he heard was scarcely illuminating when applied to the puzzle that haunted him.

"She won't—that's flat," Respectability's companion announced in a sullen voice.

By the tone of this last Beelzebub knew that it issued from an ugly twisted mouth.

"But," Respectability insisted heavily—"You're sure you've done your best to persuade her?"

"She won't listen to reason."

"Well ... everything's arranged. You have me to thank for that."

"Oh," sneered the younger man, "you've done a lot, you have!"

And then, moving to give way to another making toward the elevators, Brian Shaynon discovered at his elbow that small attentive body in sinister scarlet and black.

For a breath, utterance failed the old man. He glared pop-eyed indignation from a congested countenance, his fat lips quivering and his jowls as well; and then as Beelzebub tapped him familiarly if lightly upon the chest, his face turned wholly purple, from swollen temples to pendulous chin.

"Well met, ame damnee!" P. Sybarite saluted him gaily. "Are you indeed off so early upon my business?"

"Damnation!" exclaimed Brian Shaynon, all but choking.

"It shall surely be your portion," gravely assented the little man. "To all who in my service prosper in a worldly way—damnation, upon my honourable Satanic word!"

"Who the devil—?"

"Whisht!" P. Sybarite reproved. "A trifle more respect, if you please—lest you wake in the morning to find all my benefactions turned to ashes in your strong-boxes!"

But here Respectability found his full voice.

"Who are you?" he demanded so stormily that heads turned curiously his way. "I demand to know! Remove that mask! Impertinent—!"

"Mask?" purred Beelzebub in a tone of wonder. "I wear no mask!"

"No mask!" stammered the older man, in confusion.

"Nay, I am frankly what I am—old Evil's self," P. Sybarite explained blandly; "but you, Brian Shaynon—now you go always masked: waking or sleeping, hypocrisy's your lifelong mask. You see the distinction, old servant?"

In another moment he might have suffered a sound drubbing with the ebony cane but for Peter Kenny's parlour-magic trick. For as Brian Shaynon started forward to seize Beelzebub by the collar, a stream of incandescent sparks shot point-blank into his face; and when he fell back in puffing dismay, Beelzebub laughed provokingly, ducked behind the backs of a brace of highly diverted bystanders, and quickly and deftly wormed his way through the press to the dancing-floor itself.

As for the younger man—he of the unhandsome mouth—P. Sybarite was content to hold him in reserve, to be dealt with later, at his leisure. For the present, his business pressed with the waning night.

In high feather, bubbling with mischief, he sidled along the wall a little way, then halted to familiarise himself with scene and atmosphere against his next move.

But after the first minute or two, spent in silent review of the brilliant scene, his thin lips lost something of their cynic modelling, the eyes behind the scarlet visor something of their mischievous twinkle—softening with shadows envious and regretful.

The room was as one vast pool of limpid golden light, walls and ceilings so luminous with the refulgence of a thousand electric bulbs that they seemed translucent, glowing with a radiance from beyond.

On the famous floor, twelve-score couples swung and swayed to the intoxicating rhythms of an unseen orchestra; kaleidoscopic in their amazingly variegated costuming of colour, drifting past the lonely, diabolical little figure, an endless chain of paired anachronisms.

Searching narrowly each fair face that flashed past in another's arms, he waited with seeming patience. But the music buzzed in his brain and his toes tingled for it; breathing the warm, voluptuous air, he inhaled hints of a thousand agreeable and exciting scenes; watching, he perceived in perturbation the witchery of a hundred exquisite women. And a rancorous discontent gnawed at his famished heart.

This was all his by right of birth—should be his now, but for the blind malice of his sorry destiny. Kismet had favoured him greatly, but too late....

But of a sudden he forgot self-pity and vain repining, in the discovery of the one particular woman swinging dizzily past in the arms of an Incroyable, whose giddy plumage served only to render the more striking her exquisite fairness and the fine simplicity of her costume.

For she was all in the black-and-white uniform of a Blessington shopgirl; black skirt and blouse, stockings and pumps, relieved by showy linen at throat and wrists, with at waist the white patch of a tiny lace-and-linen apron.

Perhaps it was his start of recognition; it may have been the very fixed intensity of his regard; whatever drew it, her gaze veered to his silent and aloof figure, and for an instant his eyes held hers. At once, to his consternation, the hot blood stained her lovely face from throat to brow; her glance wavered, fell in confusion, then as though by a strong effort of will alone, steadied once more to his. Nodding with an air of friendly diffidence, she flashed him a strange, perplexing smile; and was swept on and away.

For a thought he checked his breath in stupefaction. Had she, then, recognised him? Was it possible that her intuition had been keen enough to pierce his disguise, vizard and all?

But the next moment he could have sworn in chagrined appreciation of his colossal stupidity. Of course!—his costume was that worn by Peter Kenny earlier in the evening; and as between Peter and himself, of the same stock, the two were much of a muchness in physique; both, moreover, were red-headed; their points of unlikeness were negligible, given a mask.

So after all, her emotion had been due solely to embarrassment and regret for the pain she had caused poor Peter by refusing his offer of marriage!

Well!... P. Sybarite drew a long, sane breath, laughed wholesomely at himself, and thereafter had eyes only to keep the girl in sight, however far and involved her wanderings through the labyrinth of the dance.

In good time the music ended; the fluent movement of the dancers subsided with a curious effect of eddying—like confetti settling to rest; and P. Sybarite left his station by the wall, slipping like quicksilver through the heart of the throng to the far side of the room, where, near a great high window wide to the night, the breathless shopgirl had dropped into a chair.

At Beelzebub's approach the Incroyable, perhaps mindful of obligations in another quarter, bowed and moved off, leaving the field temporarily quite clear.

She greeted him with a faint recurrence of her former blush.

"Why, Peter!" she cried—and so sealed with confirmation his surmise as to her mistake—"I was wondering what had become of you. I thought you must have gone home."

"Peter did go home," P. Sybarite affirmed gravely, bending over her hand.

His voice perplexed her tremendously. She opened eyes wide.

"Peter!" she exclaimed reproachfully—"you promised it wouldn't make any difference. We were to go on just as always—good friends. And now ..."

"Yes?" P. Sybarite prompted as she faltered.

"I don't like to say it, Peter, but—your voice is so different. You've not been—doing anything foolish, have you?"

"Peter hasn't," the little man lied cheerfully; "Peter went home to sulk like the unwhipped cub he is; and sulking, was yet decent enough to lend me these rags."

"You—you're not Peter Kenny?"

"No more than you are Molly Lessing."

"Molly Lessing! What do you know—? Who can you be? Why are you masked?"

"Simply," he explained pleasantly, "that my incognito may remain such to all save you."

"But—but who are you?"

"It is permitted?" he asked, with a gesture offering to take the tiny printed card of dance engagements that dangled from her fingers by its silken thong.

In dumb mystification the girl surrendered it.

Seating himself beside her, P. Sybarite ran his eye down the list.

"The last was number—which?" he enquired with unruffled impudence.

Half angry, half amused, wholly confused, she told him: "Fifteen."

"Then one number only remains."

His lips hardened as he read the initials pencilled opposite that numeral; they were "B.S."

"Bayard Shaynon?" he queried.

She assented with a nod, her brows gathering.

Coolly, with the miniature pencil attached to the card, he changed the small, faint B to a large black P, strengthened the S to correspond, and added to that ybarite; then with a bow returned the card.

The girl received the evidence of her senses with a silent gasp.

He bowed again: "Yours to command."

"You—Mr. Sybarite!"

"I, Miss Blessington."

"But—incredible!" she cried. "I can't believe you ..."

Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor, meeting her stare with his wistful and diffident smile.



"You see," he said, readjusting the mask.

"But—what does this mean?"

"Do you remember our talk on the way home after Kismet—four hours or several years ago: which is it?"

"I remember we talked ..."

"And I—clumsily enough, Heaven knows!—told you that I'd go far for one who'd been kind and tolerant to me, if she were in trouble and could use my poor services?"

"I remember—yes."

"You suspected—surely—it was yourself I had in mind?"

"Why, yes; but—"

"And you'll certainly allow that what happened later, at the door, when I stood in the way of the importunate Mr. 'B.S.'—if I'm not sadly in error—was enough to convince any one that you needed a friend's good offices?"

"So," she said softly, with glimmering eyes—"so for that you followed me here, Mr. Sybarite!"

"I wish I might claim it. But it wouldn't be true. No—I didn't follow you."

"Please," she begged, "don't mystify me—"

"I don't mean to. But to tell the truth, my own head is still awhirl with all the chapter of accidents that brought me here. Since you flew off with B.S., following afoot, I've traversed a vast deal of adventure—to wind up here. If," he added, grinning, "this is the wind-up. I've a creepy, crawly feeling that it isn't...."

"Miss Blessington," he pursued seriously, "if you have patience to listen to what I've been through since we parted in Thirty-eighth Street—?" Encouraged by her silence he went on: "I've broken the bank at a gambling house; been held up for my winnings at the pistol's point—but managed to keep them. I've been in a raid and escaped only after committing felonious assault on two detectives. I then burglarised a private residence, and saved the mistress of the house from being murdered by her rascally husband—blundered thence to the deadliest dive in New York—met and slanged mine ancient enemy, the despoiler of my house—took part in a drunken brawl—saved my infatuated young idiot of a cousin, Peter Kenny, from assassination—took him home, borrowed his clothing, and impudently invited myself to this party on the mere suspicion that 'Molly Lessing' and Marian Blessington might be one and the same, after all!... And all, it appears, that I might come at last to beg a favour of you."

"I can't think what it can be," breathed the girl, dumfounded.

"To forgive my unpardonable impertinence—"

"I've not been conscious of it."

"You'll recognise it immediately. I am about to transgress your privacy with a question—two, in fact. Will you tell me, please, in confidence, why you refused my cousin, Peter Kenny, when he asked you to marry him?"

Colouring, she met his eyes honestly.

"Because—why, it was so utterly absurd! He's only a boy. Besides, I don't care for him—that way."

"You care for some one else—'that way'?"

"Yes," said the girl softly, averting her face.

"Is it—Mr. Bayard Shaynon?"

"No," she replied after a perceptible pause.

"But you have promised to marry him?"

"I once made him that promise—yes."

"You mean to keep it?"

"I must."

"Why?"

"It was my father's wish."

"And yet—you don't like him!"

Looking steadily before her, the girl said tensely: "I loathe him."

"Then," cried P. Sybarite in a joyful voice, "I may tell you something: you needn't marry him."

She turned startled eyes to his, incredulous.

"Need not?"

"I should have said can not—"

Through the loud hum of voices that, filling the room, had furnished a cover for their conversation, sounded the opening bars of music for the final dance.

The girl rose suddenly, eyes like stars aflame in a face of snow.

"He will be coming for me now," she said hurriedly. "But—if you mean what you say—I must know—instantly—why you say it. How can we manage to avoid him?"

"This way," said P. Sybarite, indicating the wide window nearby.

Through its draped opening a shallow balcony showed, half-screened by palms whose softly stirring fronds, touched with artificial light, shone a garish green against the sombre sky of night.

Immediately Marian Blessington slipped through the hangings and, turning, beckoned P. Sybarite to follow.

"There's no one here," she announced in accents tremulous with excitement, when he joined her. "Now—now tell me what you mean!"

"One moment," he warned her gently, turning back to the window just as it was darkened by another figure.

The man with the twisted mouth stood there, peering blindly into the semi-obscurity.

"Marian...?" he called in a voice meant to be ingratiating.

"Well?" the girl demanded harshly.

"I thought I saw you," he commented blandly, advancing a pace and so coming face to face with the bristling little Mephistophelean figure, which he had endeavoured to ignore.

"My dance, I believe," he added a trace more brusquely, over the little man's head.

"I must ask you to excuse me," said the girl coldly.

"You don't care to dance again to-night?"

"Thank you—no."

"Then I will give myself the pleasure of sitting it out with you."

"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Bayard," she returned, consistently inflexible.

He hesitated. "Do I understand you're ready for me to take you home?"

"You're to understand that I will neither dance nor sit out the dance with you—and that I don't wish to be disturbed."

"Bless your heart!" P. Sybarite interjected privately.

The voice of the younger Shaynon broke with passion.

"This is—the limit!" he cried violently. "I've reached the end of my endurance. Who's this creature you're with?"

"Is your memory so short?" P. Sybarite asked quietly. "Have you forgotten the microbe?—the little guy who puts the point in disappointment?"

"I've forgotten nothing, you—animal! Nor that you insulted my father publicly only a few minutes ago, you—"

"That is something that takes a bit of doing, too!" affirmed P. Sybarite with a nod.

"And I want to inform you, sir," Shaynon raged, "that you've gone too far by much. I insist that you remove your mask and tell me your name."

"And if I refuse?" said the little man coolly.

"If you refuse—or if you persist in this insolent attitude, sir!—I—I'll—"

"What? In the name of brevity, make up your mind and give it a name, man!"

"I'll thrash you within an inch of your life—here and now!" Shaynon blustered.

"One moment," P. Sybarite pleaded with a graceful gesture. "Before committing yourself to this mad enterprise, would you mind telling me exactly how you spell that word inch? With a capital I and a final e—by any chance?"



XVII

IN A BALCONY

Bewilderment and consternation, working in the man, first struck him dumb, aghast, and witless, then found expression in an involuntary gasp that was more than half of wondering fear, the remainder rage slipping its leash entirely:

"What?"

He advanced a pace with threatening mien.

Overshadowed though he was, P. Sybarite stood his ground with no least hint of dismay. To the contrary, he was seen to stroke his lips discreetly as if to erase a smile.

"The word in question," he said with exasperating suavity, "is the common one of four letters, to-wit, inch; as ordinarily spelled denoting the unit of lineal measurement—the twelfth part of a foot; but lend it a capital I and an ultimate e—my good fellow!—and it stands, I fear too patiently, for the standard of your blackguardism."

Speechless, the younger Shaynon hesitated, lifting an uncertain hand to his throat, as if to relieve a sense of strangulation.

"Or what if I were to suggest—delicately—that you're within an Inche of the end of your rope?" the little man pursued, grimly playful. "Give you an Inche and—what will you take, eh?"

With an inarticulate cry, Shaynon's fist shot out as if to strike his persecutor down; but in mid-air P. Sybarite's slim, strong fingers closed round and inflexibly stayed his enemy's wrist, with barely perceptible effort swinging it down and slewing the man off poise, so that perforce he staggered back against the stone of the window's deep embrasure.

"Behave!" P. Sybarite counselled evenly. "Remember where you are—in a lady's presence. Do you want to go sprawling from the sole of my foot into the presence of more than one—or over this railing, to the sidewalk, and become food for inch-worms?"

Releasing Shaynon, he stepped back warily, anticipating nothing less than an instant and disgraceful brawl.

"As for my mask," he said—"if it still annoys you—"

He jerked it off and away.

Escaping the balustrade, it caught a wandering air and drifted indolently down through the darkness of the street, like an errant petal plucked from some strange and sinister bloom of scarlet violence.

"And if my face tells you nothing," he added hotly, "perhaps my name will help. It's Sybarite. You may have heard it!"

As if from a blow, Shaynon's eyes winced. Breathing heavily, he averted a face that took on the hue of parchment in the cold light striking up from the electric globes that march Fifth Avenue. Then quietly adjusting his crumpled cuff, he drew himself up.

"Marian," he said as soon as he had his voice under control, "since you wish it, I'll wait for you in the lobby, downstairs. As—as for you, sir—"

"Yes, I know," the little man interrupted wearily: "you'll 'deal with' me later, 'at a time and a place more fitting.'...Well, I won't mind the delay if you'll just trot along now, like a good dog—"

Unable longer to endure the lash of his mordacious wit, Shaynon turned and left them alone on the balcony.

"I'm sorry," P. Sybarite told the girl in unfeigned contrition. "Please forgive me. I've a vicious temper—the colour of my hair—and I couldn't resist the temptation to make him squirm."

"If you only knew how I despised him," she said, "you wouldn't think it necessary to excuse yourself—though I don't know yet what it's all about."

"Simply, I happen to have the whip-hand of the Shaynon conscience," returned P. Sybarite; "I happened to know that Bayard is secretly the husband of a woman notorious in New York under the name of Mrs. Jefferson Inche."

"Is that true? Dare I believe—?"

Intimations of fears inexpressibly alleviated breathed in her cry.

"I believe it."

"On what grounds? Tell me!"

"The word of the lady herself, together with the evidence of his confusion just now. What more do you need?"

Turning aside, the girl rested a hand upon the balustrade and gazed blankly off through the night.

"But—I can't help thinking there must be some mistake—some terrible mistake."

"If so, it is theirs—the Shaynons', father and son."

"But they've been bringing such pressure to bear to make me agree to an earlier wedding day—!"

"Not even that shakes my belief in Mrs. Inche's story. As a matter of fact, Bayard offered her half a million if she'd divorce him quietly, without any publicity, in the West."

"And she accepted—?"

"She has refused, believing she stands to gain more by holding on."

"If that is true, how can it be that he has been begging me this very night to marry him within a month?"

"He may have entertained hopes of gaining his end—his freedom—in another way."

"It's—it's inexpressibly horrible!" the girl cried, twisting her hands together.

"Furthermore," argued the little man, purposefully unresponsive, "he probably thinks himself forced to seem insistent by the part he's playing. His father doesn't know of this entanglement; he'd disinherit Bayard if he did; naturally, Bayard wouldn't dare to seem reluctant to hasten matters, for fear of rousing the old man's suspicions."

"It may be so," she responded vacantly, in the confusion of adjusting her vision of life to this new and blinding light....

"Tell me," he suggested presently, stammering—"if you don't mind giving me more of your confidence—to which I don't pretend to have any right—only my interest in—in you—the mystery with which you surround yourself—living alone there in that wretched boarding-house—"

He broke off with a brief uneasy laugh: "I don't seem to get anywhere.... My fear lest you think me presumptuous—"

"Don't fear that for another instant—please!" she begged earnestly; and swinging to face him again, gave him an impulsive hand. "I'm so grateful to you for—for what you've saved me from—"

"Then..." Self-distrustful, he retained her fingers only transiently. "Then why not tell me—everything. If I understood, I might be able to offer some suggestions—to save you further distress—"

"Oh, no; you can't do that," she interrupted. "If what you've said is true, I—I shall simply continue to live by myself."

"You don't mean you would go back to Thirty-eighth Street?"

"No," she said thoughtfully, "I'm—I don't mean that."

"You're right," he assured her. "It's no place for you."

"That wasn't meant to be permanent," she explained—"merely an experiment. I went there for two reasons: to be rid for a while of their incessant attempts to hasten my marriage with Bayard; and because I suddenly realised I knew nothing about my father's estate, and found I was to know nothing for another year—that is, until, under his will, I come into my fortune. Old Mr. Shaynon would tell me nothing—treated me as though I were still a child. Moreover I had grown deeply interested in the way our girls were treated; I wanted to know about them—to be sure they were given a fair chance—earned enough to live decently—and other things about their lives—you can imagine...."

"I think I understand," said P. Sybarite gravely.

"I had warned them more than once I'd run away if they didn't let me alone.... You see, Mr. Shaynon insisted it was my father's wish that I should marry Bayard, and on that understanding I promised to marry him when I came into possession of the estate. But that didn't suit—or rather, it seemed to satisfy them only for a little time. Very soon they were pestering me again to marry at once. I couldn't see the need—and finally I kept my word and ran away—took my room in Thirty-eighth Street, and before long secured work in my own store. At first I was sure they'd identify me immediately; but somehow no one seemed to suspect me, and I stayed on, keeping my eyes open and collecting evidence of a system of mismanagement and oppression—but I can't talk about that calmly—"

"Please don't if it distresses you," P. Sybarite begged gently.

"At all events," she resumed, "it wasn't until to-night that Bayard found out where I was living—as you saw. At first I refused to return home, but he declared my disappearance was creating a scandal; that one newspaper threatened to print a story about my elopement with a chauffeur, and that there was other unpleasant talk about Mr. Shaynon's having caused me to be spirited away so that he might gain control of my estate—"

"Wonder what put that into his head!" P. Sybarite broke in with quickening curiosity.

"He insisted that these stories could only be refuted if I'd come home for a few days and show myself at this dance to-night. And when I still hesitated, he threatened—"

"What?" growled the little man.

"That, if I didn't consent, he'd telephone the paper to go ahead and publish that awful story about the chauffeur."

P. Sybarite caught himself barely in time to shut his teeth upon an expletive.

"There!" said the girl. "Don't let's talk about it any longer. After what you've told me.... Well, it's all over now!"

P. Sybarite pondered this in manifest doubt.

"Are you sure?" he queried with his head thoughtfully to one side.

"Am I sure?" she repeated, puzzled. "Rather! I tell you, I've finished with the Shaynons for good and all. I never liked either of them—never understood what father saw in old Mr. Shaynon to make him trust him the way he did. And now, after what has happened ... I shall stop at the Plaza to-night—they know me there—and telephone for my things. If Mr. Shaynon objects, I'll see if the law won't relieve me of his guardianship."

"If you'll take a fool's advice, you'll do that, whether or no. An uneasy conscience is a fine young traitor to its possessor, as a rule."

"Now, what can you mean by that?"

"I don't believe there's been any whisper of suspicion that the Shaynons had caused you to be spirited away."

"Then why did Bayard say—"

"Because he was thinking about it! The unconscious self-betrayal of the unskilled but potential criminal."

"Oh!" cried the girl in horror. "I don't think that—"

"Well, I do," said P. Sybarite gloomily. "I know they're capable of it. It wouldn't be the first time Brian Shaynon ruined a friend. There was once a family in this town by the name of Sybarite—the family of a rich and successful man, associated with Brian Shaynon in a business way. I'm what's left of it, thanks to my father's faith in old Brian's integrity. It's too long a story to detail; but the old fox managed to keep within the letter of the law when he robbed me of my inheritance, and there's no legal way to get back at him. I'm telling you all this only to show you how far the man's to be trusted."

"Oh, I'm sorry—!"

"Don't be, please. What I've endured has done me no harm—and to-night has seen the turn of my fortunes—or else I'm hopelessly deluded. Furthermore, some day I mean to square my account with Brian Shaynon to the fraction of a penny—and within the law."

"Oh, I do hope you may!"

P. Sybarite smiled serenely. "I shall; and you can help me, if you will."

"How?"

"Stick to your resolution to have no more to do with the family; retain a good lawyer to watch your interests under old Brian's charge; and look out for yourself."

"I'll surely do all that, Mr. Sybarite; but I don't understand—"

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, it'll help a lot. Public disavowal of your engagement to Bayard will be likely to bring Shaynon's affairs to a crisis. I firmly believe they're hard pressed for money—that it wasn't consolidation of two going-concerns for mutual advantage, but the finding of new capital for a moribund and insolvent house that they've been seeking through this marriage. That's why they were in such a hurry. Even if Bayard were free—as his father believes him to be—why need the old man have been so unreasonable when all the delay you ask is another twelvemonth? Believe me, he had some excellent reason for his anxiety. Finally, if the old villain isn't fomenting some especially foul villainy, why need he sneak from here to-night to the lowest dive in town to meet and confer with a gang leader and murderer like Red November?"

"What are you talking about now?" demanded the bewildered girl.

"An hour or so ago I met old Brian coming out of a dive known as Dutch House, the worst in this old Town. What business had he there, if he's an honest man? I can't tell you because I don't know. But it was foul—that's certain. Else why need he have incited Red and his followers to drug Peter Kenny into forgetfulness? Peter found him there before I did. It was only after the deuce of a row that I got the boy away alive."

Temporarily he suppressed mention of Peter's hurt. The girl had enough to occupy her without being subjected to further drain upon her sympathies.

"I'd like to know!" he wound up gloomily.... "That old scoundrel never visited Dutch House out of simple curiosity; and whatever his purpose, one thing's sure—it wasn't one to stand daylight. It's been puzzling me ever since—an appointment of some sort he made with November just as I hove within earshot. 'Two-thirty,' he said; and November repeated the hour and promised to be on the job. 'Two-thirty!'—what can it mean? It's later than that now but—mark my words!—something's going to happen this afternoon, or to-morrow, or some time soon, at half-past two o'clock!"

"Perhaps you're right," said the girl doubtfully. "And yet you may be wrong in thinking me involved in any way. Indeed, I'm sure you must be wrong. I can't believe that he could wish me actual harm."

"Miss Blessington," said P. Sybarite solemnly, "when you ran off in that taxi at midnight, I had five dollars in all the world. This minute, as I stand, I'm worth twenty-five thousand—more money than I ever hoped to see in this life. It means a lot to me—a start toward independence—but I'd give every cent of it for some reliable assurance that Brian Shaynon and his son mean you no harm."

Surprised and impressed by his unwonted seriousness, the girl instinctively shrank back against the balustrade.

"Mr. Sybarite—!" she murmured, wide-eyed.

He remarked her action with a gesture almost of supplication.

"Don't be alarmed," he begged; and there was in his voice the least flavour of bitterness. "I'm not going to say anything I shouldn't—anything you wouldn't care to hear. I'm not altogether mad, Miss Blessington; only...

"Well!" he laughed quietly—"when my run of luck set in to-night back there at the gambling house, I told myself it was Kismet's doing—that this was my Day of Days. If I had thought, I should instead have called it my Night of Nights—knowing it must wear out with the dawn."

His gesture drew her heed to the east; where, down the darkling, lamp-studded canyon of a cross-town street, stark against a sky pulsing with the faintest foreboding of daybreak, the gaunt, steel-girdered framework of the new Grand Central Station stood—in its harshly angular immensity as majestic as the blackened skeleton of a burnt-out world glimpsed against the phosphorescent pallor of the last chill dawn....

In the great ball-room behind them, the last strains of dance music were dying out.

"Now," said the little man with a brisker accent, "by your leave, we get back to what we were discussing; your welfare—"

"Mr. Sybarite," the girl interrupted impetuously—"whatever happens, I want you to know that I at least understand you; and that to me you'll always be my standard of a gentleman brave and true—and kind."

As impulsively as she had spoken, she gave him her hands.

Holding them fugitively in both his own, he gazed intently into the shadowed loveliness of her face.

Then with a slight shake of his head—whether of renunciation or of disappointment, she couldn't tell—he bent so low that for a thought she fancied he meant to touch his lips to her fingers.

But he gave them back to her as they had come to him.

"It is you who are kind, Miss Blessington," he said steadily—"very kind indeed to me. I presume, and you permit; I violate your privacy, and you are not angry; I am what I am—and you are kind. That is going to be my most gracious memory....

"And now," he broke off sharply, "all the pretty people are going home, and you must, too. May I venture one step farther? Don't permit Bayard Shaynon—"

"I don't mean to," she told him. "Knowing what I know—it's impossible."

"You will go to the Plaza?"

"Yes," she replied: "I've made up my mind to that."

"You have a cab waiting, of course. May I call it for you?"

"My own car," she said; "the call check is with my wraps. But," she smiled, "I shall be glad to give it to you, to hand to the porter, if you'll be so good."

He had longed to be asked to accompany her; and at the same time prayed to be spared that trial. Already he had ventured too perilously close to the brink of open avowal of his heart's desire. And that way—well he knew it!—humiliation lay, and opaque despair. Better to live on in the melancholy company of a hopeless heart than in the wretchedness of one rejected and despised. And who—and what—was he, that she should look upon him with more than the transient favour of pity or of gratitude for a service rendered?

But, since she, wise in her day and generation, did not ask him, suddenly he was glad. The tension of his emotion eased. He even found grace to grin amiably.

"To do Bayard out of that honour!" he said cheerfully. "You couldn't invent a service to gratify me more hugely."

She smiled in sympathy.

"But he will be expecting to see you home?"

"No matter if he does, he shan't. Besides, he lives in bachelor rooms—within walking distance, I believe."

Holding aside the window draperies, he followed her through to the ball-room.

Already the vast and shining hall was almost empty; only at the farther wall a handful of guests clustered round the doorway, waiting to take their turn in the crowded cloakrooms. Off to one side, in a deep apsidal recess, the members of the orchestra were busily packing up their instruments. And as the last of the guests—save Marian Blessington and P. Sybarite—edged out into the ante-rooms, a detachment of servants invaded the dancing-floor and bustled about setting the room to rights.

A moment more, and the two were close upon the vanguard of departing guests.

"You'll have a time finding your hat and coat," smiled the girl.

"I? Not I. With marvellous sagacity, I left 'em with a waiter downstairs. But you?"

"I'm afraid I must keep you waiting. No matter if it is four in the morning—and later—women do take a time to wrap up. You won't mind?"

"Not in the least—it prolongs my Day of Days!" he laughed.

"I shall look for you in the lobby," she replied, smiling; and slipped away through the throng.

Picking his way to the elevators, constantly squirming more inextricably into the heart of the press, elbowed and shouldered and politely walked upon, not only fore and aft, but to port and starboard as well, by dame, dowager, and debutante, husband, lover, and esquire, patricians, celebrities and the commonalty (a trace, as the chemists say), P. Sybarite at length found himself only a layer or two removed from the elevator gates.

And one of these presently opening, he stumbled in with the crush, to hold his breath in vain effort to make himself smaller, gaze in cross-eyed embarrassment at the abundant and nobly undisguised back of the lady of distinction in front of him, and stand on tiptoes to spare those of the man behind him; while the cage descended with maddening deliberation.

If he had but guessed the identity of the man in the rear, the chances are he would have (thoughtlessly of course) brought down his heels upon the other's toes with all his weight on top of them. But in his ignorance P. Sybarite was diligent to keep the peace.

Liberated on the lower floor, he found his lackey, resumed hat and coat, and mounted guard in the lobby opposite the elevators.

Miss Blessington procrastinating consistently with her warning, he schooled himself to patience, mildly diverted by inspection of those who passed him, going out.

At the side-street entrance, the crush of ante-room and elevators was duplicated, people jamming the doorway and overflowing to the sidewalk while awaiting their motor-cars and carriages.

But through the Fifth Avenue entrance only the thin stream of those intending to walk was trickling away.

After a time P. Sybarite discovered Mr. Bayard Shaynon not far off, like himself waiting and with a vigilant eye reviewing the departing, the while he talked in close confidence with one who, a stranger to P. Sybarite, was briefly catalogued in his gallery of impressions as "hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained but awkward—very likely, nouveau riche;" and with this summary, dismissed from the little man's thoughts.

When idly he glanced that way a second time, the younger Shaynon was alone, and had moved nearer; his countenance impassive, he looked through and beyond P. Sybarite a thought too ostentatiously. But when eventually Marian appeared, he was instant to her side, forestalling even the alert flanking movement of P. Sybarite.

"You're quite ready, Marian?" Shaynon asked; and familiarly slipped a guiding hand beneath the arm of the girl—with admirable effrontery ignoring his earlier dismissal.

On the instant, halting, the girl turned to him a full, cold stare.

"I prefer you do not touch me," she said clearly, yet in low tones.

"Oh, come!" he laughed uneasily. "Don't be foolish—"

"Did you hear me, Bayard?"

"You're making a scene—" the man flashed, colouring darkly.

"And," P. Sybarite interjected quietly, "I'll make it worse if you don't do as Miss Blessington bids you."

With a shrug, Shaynon removed his hand; but with no other acknowledgment of the little man's existence, pursued indulgently: "You have your carriage-call check ready, Marian? If you'll let me have it—"

"Let's understand one another, once and for all time, Bayard," the girl interrupted. "I don't wish you to take me home. I prefer to go alone. Is that clear? I don't wish to feel indebted to you for even so slight a service as this," she added, indicating the slip of pasteboard in her fingers. "But if Mr. Sybarite will be so kind—"

The little man accepted the card with no discernible sign of jubilation over Shaynon's discomfiture.

"Thank you," he said mildly; but waited close by her side.

For a moment Shaynon's face reminded him of one of the masks of crimson lacquer and black that grinned from the walls of Mrs. Inche's "den." But his accents, when he spoke, were even, if menacing in their tonelessness.

"Then, Marian, I'm to understand it's—goodnight?"

"I think," said the girl with a level look of disdain, "it might be far better if you were to understand that it's good-bye."

"You," he said with slight difficulty—"you mean that, Marian?"

"Finally!" she asseverated.

He shrugged again; and his eyes, wavering, of a sudden met P. Sybarite's and stabbed them with a glance of ruthless and unbridled hatred, so envenomed that the little man was transiently conscious of a misgiving.

"Here," he told himself in doubt, "is one who, given his way, would have me murdered within twenty-four hours!"

And he thought of Red November, and wondered what had been the fate of that personage at the hands of the valiant young patrolman. Almost undoubtedly the gunman had escaped arrest....

Shaynon had turned and was striding away toward the Fifth Avenue entrance, when Marian roused P. Sybarite with a word.

"Finis," she said, enchanting him with the frank intimacy of her smile.

He made, with a serious visage, the gesture of crossed fingers that exorcises an evil spirit.

"Absit omen!" he muttered, with a dour glance over shoulder at the retreating figure of his mortal enemy.

"Why," she laughed incredulously, "you're not afraid?"

Forcing a wry grin, he mocked a shudder.

"Some irreverent body walked over the grave of me."

"You're superstitious!"

"I'm Irish," P. Sybarite explained sufficiently.



XVIII

THE BROOCH

They came to the carriage entrance, where the crush of waiting people had somewhat thinned—not greatly.

Leaving Marian in the angle of the doorway, P. Sybarite pressed out to the booth of the carriage-call apparatus, gave the operator the numbered and perforated cardboard together with a coin, saw the man place it on the machine and shoot home a lever that hissed and spat blue fire; then turned back.

"What was the number?" she asked as he approached. "Did you notice? I did—but then thought of something else; and now I've forgotten."

"Two hundred and thirty," replied P. Sybarite absently.

Between the two there fell a little pause of constrained silence ended by Marian.

"I want to see you again, very soon, Mr. Sybarite."

The eyes of the little man were as grateful as a dog's.

"If I may call—?" he ventured diffidently.

"Could you come to-morrow to tea?"

"At the Plaza?"

"At the Plaza!" she affirmed with a bright nod.

"Thank you."

Above the hum of chattering voices rose the bellow of the carriage porter:

"Two hundred and thirty! Two hundred and thirty!"

"My car!" said the girl with a start.

P. Sybarite moved in front of her, signalling with a lifted hand.

"Two hundred and thirty," he repeated.

A handsome town-car stood at the curb beneath the permanent awning of iron and glass. Behind it a long rank waited with impatient, stuttering motors and dull-burning lamps that somehow forced home drowsy thoughts of bed.

Hurrying across the sidewalk, Marian permitted P. Sybarite to help her into the vehicle.

Transported by this proof of her graciousness, he gave the chauffeur the address:

"Hotel Plaza."

With the impudent imperturbability of his breed, the man nodded and grunted without looking round.

From the body of the vehicle Marian extended a white-gloved hand.

"Good-night, Mr. Sybarite. To-morrow—at five."

Touching her fingers, P. Sybarite raised his hat; but before he could utter the response ready upon his tongue, he was seized by the arm and swung rudely away from the door. At the same time a voice (the property of the owner of that unceremonious hand) addressed the porter roughly:

"Shut that door and send the car along! I'll take charge of this gentleman!"

In this speech an accent of irony inhered to exasperate P. Sybarite. Half a hundred people were looking on—listening! Angrily he wrenched his arm free.

"What the devil—!" he cried into the face of the aggressor; and in the act of speaking, recognised the man as him with whom Bayard Shaynon had been conversing in the lobby: that putative parvenu—hard-faced, cold-eyed, middle-aged, fine-trained, awkward in evening dress....

The hand whose grasp he had broken shifted to his shoulder, closing fingers like steel hooks upon it.

"If you need a row," the man advised him quietly, "try that again. If you've got good sense—come along quiet'."

"Where? What for? What right have you—?" P. Sybarite demanded in one raging breath.

"I'm the house detective here," the other answered, holding his eyes with an inexorable glare. And the muscles of his heavy jaw tightened even as he tightened his grasp upon the little man's shoulder. "And if it's all the same to you, we're going to have a quiet little talk in the office," he added with a jerk of his head.

A sidelong glance discovered the fact that Marian's car had disappeared. Doubtless she had gone in ignorance of this outrage, perhaps thinking him accosted by a chance acquaintance. At all events, she was gone, and there was now nothing to be gained from an attempt to bluster the detective down, but deeper shame and the scorn of all beholders.

"What do you want?" the little man asked in a more pacific tone.

"We can talk better inside, unless"—the detective grinned sardonically—"you want to get out hand-bills about this matter."

"Let me go, then," said P. Sybarite. "I'll follow you."

"You've got a better guess than that: you'll go ahead of me," retorted the other. "And while you're doing it, remember that there's a cop at the Fifth Avenue door, and I've got a handy little emergency ration in my pocket—with my hand on the butt of it."

"Very well," said P. Sybarite, boiling with rage beneath thin ice of submission.

His shoulder free, he moved forward with a high chin and a challenge in his eye for any that dared question his burning face—marched up the steps through ranks that receded as if to escape pollution, and so re-entered the lobby.

"Straight ahead," admonished his captor, falling in at his side. "First door to the right of the elevators."

Shoulder to shoulder, the target for two-score grinning or surprised stares, they strode across the lobby and through the designated door.

It was immediately closed; and the key, turned in the lock, was removed and pocketed by the detective.

In this room—a small interior apartment, plainly furnished as a private office—two people were waiting: a stout, smooth little man with a moustache of foreign extraction, who on better acquaintance proved to be the manager of the establishment; the other Bayard Shaynon, stationed with commendable caution on the far side of the room, the bulk of a broad, flat-topped mahogany desk fencing him off from the wrathful little captive.

"Well?" this last demanded of the detective the moment they were private.

"Take it calm', son, take it calm'," counselled the man, his tone not altogether lacking in good-nature. "There seems to be some question as to your right to attend that party upstairs; we got to investigate you, for the sake of the rep. of the house. Get me?"

P. Sybarite drew a long breath. If this were all that Shaynon could have trumped up to discomfit him—! He looked that one over with the curling lip of contempt.

"I believe it's no crime to enter where you've not been invited, provided you don't force door or window to do it," he observed.

"You admit—eh?" the manager broke in excitedly—"you have no card of invitation, what?"

"I freely admit I have no card of invitation what or whatever."

"Then perhaps you'll explain whatcha doing here," suggested the detective, not without affability.

"Willingly: I came to find a friend—a lady whose name I don't care to bring into this discussion—unless Mr. Shaynon has forestalled me."

"Mr. Shaynon has mentioned a lady's name," said the manager with a significance lost upon P. Sybarite.

"That," he commented acidly, "is much what might have been expected of"—here he lifted his shoulders with admirable insolence—"Mr. Shaynon."

"You saw this lady, then?" the detective put in sharply.

"Why—yes," P. Sybarite admitted.

"He not only saw her," Shaynon interpolated with a malicious sneer, "but I saw him see her—and saw him get away with it."

"Get away with—what?" P. Sybarite asked blankly.

"Mr. Shaynon," drawled the detective, "says he saw you lift a di'mond brooch off'n Mrs. Addison Strone, while you was in the elevator."

And while P. Sybarite gaped, thunderstruck and breathless with the rage excited by this groundless accusation, the detective looked to Shaynon for confirmation.

"I stood behind him in the elevator, coming down, ten minutes or so ago," the latter stated heavily. "Mrs. Addison Strone was immediately in front of him. The cage was badly crowded—no one could move. But practically every one else was with friends, you understand—laughing, talking, paying no attention to this—ah—creature. As I got in, I noticed that Mrs. Strone's brooch, a gold bar set with several large diamonds, was apparently loose—pin had parted from the catch, you know—and meant to warn her she was in danger of losing it; but I couldn't, without shouting over this fellow's head, so waited until we got out; and then, when I managed to get to her, the brooch was gone. Later, I remembered this—fellow—and looking round the lobby, saw him in a corner, apparently concealing something about his person. So I spoke to you about it."

P. Sybarite's face settled into grim lines. "Shaynon," he said slowly, without visible temper, "this won't get you anything but trouble. Remember that, when I come to pay you out—unless you'll have the grace to retract here and now."

As if he had not heard, Shaynon deliberately produced a gold case, supplied himself with a cigarette, and lighted it.

"Meanin', I take it," the detective interpolated, "you plead not guilty?"

P. Sybarite nodded curtly. "It's a lie, out of whole cloth," he declared. "You've only to search me. I'm not strong for that—mind—and I'm going to make the lot of you smart for this indignity; but I'm perfectly willing to prove my innocence now, by letting you search me, so long as it affords me an earlier opportunity to catch Mister Shaynon when he hasn't got you to protect him."

"That's big talk," commended the detective, apparently a little prepossessed; "and it's all to the good if you can back it up." He rose. "You don't mind my going through your pockets—sure?"

"Go ahead," P. Sybarite told him shortly.

"To save time," Shaynon suggested dispassionately, "you might explore his coat-tail pockets first. It was there that I saw him put away the brooch."

Nervously in his indignation, P. Sybarite caught his coat-tails from beneath his Inverness, dragged them round in front of him, and fumbling, found a pocket.

Groping therein, his fingers brushed something strange to him—a small, hard, and irregular body which, escaping his clutches, fell with a soft thud to the carpet at his feet.

Transfixed, he stared down, and gulped with horror, shaken by a sensation little short of nausea, as he recognised in the object—a bar of yellow metal studded with winking brilliants of considerable size—the brooch described by Shaynon.

With a noncommittal grunt, the detective stooped and retrieved this damning bit of evidence, while the manager moved quickly to his side, to inspect the find. And P. Sybarite looked up with blank eyes in a pallid, wizened face in time to see Shaynon bare his teeth—his lips curling back in a manner peculiarly wolfish and irritating—and snarl a mirthless laugh.

It was something inopportune; the man could have done no better than keep his peace; left to himself P. Sybarite would in all probability have floundered and blustered and committed himself inextricably in a multitude of hasty and ill-considered protestations.

But that laugh was as good as a douche of cold water in his face. He came abruptly to his senses; saw clearly how this thing had come to pass: the temptation of the loose brooch to Shaynon's fingers itching for revenge, while they stood so near together in the elevator, the opportunity grasped with the avidity of low cunning, the brooch transferred, under cover of the crush, to the coat-tail pocket.

Mute in this limpid comprehension of the circumstances, he sobered thoroughly from sickening consternation; remained in his heart a foul sediment of deadly hatred for Shaynon; to whom he nodded with a significance that wiped the grimace from the man's face as with a sponge. Something clearly akin to fear informed Shaynon's eyes. He sat forward with an uneasy glance at the door.

And then P. Sybarite smiled sunnily in the face of the detective.

"Caught with the goods on, eh?" he chirped.

"Well," growled the man, dashed. "Now, what do you think?"

"I'm every bit as much surprised as you are," P. Sybarite confessed. "Come now—be fair to me—own up: you didn't expect to see that—did you?"

The detective hesitated. "Well," he grudged, "you did have me goin' for a minute—you were so damn' cock-sure—and it certainly is pretty slick work for an amateur."

"You think I'm an amateur—eh?"

"I guess I know every map in the Rogues' Gallery as well's the palm of my hand!"

"And mine is not among them?" P. Sybarite insisted triumphantly.

The detective grunted disdain of this inconclusive argument: "You all've got to begin. It'll be there to-morrow, all right."

"It looks bad, eh—not?" the manager questioned, his predacious eyes fixed greedily upon the trinket.

"You think so?" P. Sybarite purposefully misinterpreted. "Let me see."

Before the detective could withdraw, P. Sybarite caught the brooch from his fingers.

"Bad?" he mused aloud, examining it closely. "Phony? Perhaps it is. Looks like Article de Paris to me. See what you think."

He returned the trinket indifferently.

"Nonsense!" Shaynon interposed incisively. "Mrs. Strone's not that kind."

"Shut up!" snapped P. Sybarite. "What do you know about it? You've lied yourself out of court already."

A transitory expression of bewilderment clouded Shaynon's eyes.

"I'm no judge," the detective announced doubtfully.

"It makes no difference," Shaynon insisted. "Theft's theft!"

"It makes a deal of difference whether it's grand or petit larceny," P. Sybarite flashed—"a difference almost as wide and deep as that which yawns between attempted and successful wife-murder, Mr. Shaynon!"

His jaw dropped and a look of stupefying terror stamped itself upon Shaynon's face.

It was the turn of P. Sybarite to laugh.

"Well?" he demanded cuttingly. "Are you ready to come to the station-house and make a charge against me? I'll go peaceful as a lamb with the kind cop, if by so doing I can take you with me. But if I do, believe me, you'll never get out without a bondsman."

Shaynon recollected himself with visible effort.

"The man 's crazy," he muttered sickishly, rising. "I don't know what he 's talking about. Arrest him—take him to the station-house—why don't you?"

"Who'll make the charge?" asked the detective, eyeing Shaynon without favour.

"Not Bayard Shaynon!" P. Sybarite asseverated.

"It's not my brooch," Shaynon asserted defensively.

"You saw him take it," the detective persisted.

"No—I didn't; I suspected him. It's you who found the brooch on him, and it's your duty to make the charge."

"You're one grand little lightning-change-of-heart-artist—gotta slip it to you for that," the detective observed truculently. "Now, lis'n: I don't make no charge—"

"Any employee of the establishment will do as well, for my purpose," P. Sybarite cut in. "Come, Mr. Manager! How about you? Mr. Shaynon declines; your detective has no stomach for the job. Suppose you take on the dirty work—kind permission of Bayard Shaynon, Esquire. I don't care, so long as I get my grounds for suit against the Bizarre."

The manager spread out expostulatory palms. "Me, I have nossing whatever to do with the matter," he protested. "To me it would seem Mrs. Strone should make the charge."

"Well?" mumbled the detective of Shaynon. "How aboutcha?"

"Wait," mumbled Shaynon, moving toward the door. "I'll fetch Mrs. Strone."

"Don't go without saying good-bye," P. Sybarite admonished him severely. "It isn't pretty manners."

The door slammed tempestuously, and the little man chuckled with an affectation of ease to which he was entirely a stranger: ceaselessly his mind was engaged with the problem of this trumped-up charge of Shaynon's.

Was simple jealousy and resentment, a desire to "get even," the whole explanation?

Or was there something of an uglier complexion at the bottom of the affair?

His head buzzed with doubts and suspicions, and with misgivings on Marian's behalf but indifferently mitigated by the reflection that, at worst, the girl had escaped unhindered and alone in her private car. By now she ought to be safe at the Plaza....

"He won't be back," P. Sybarite observed generally to detective and manager; and sat him down serenely.

"You feel pretty sure about that?" the detective asked.

"Wait and see."

Bending forward, the little man examined the gilt clock on the manager's desk. "Twenty minutes past four," he announced: "I give you ten minutes to find some one to make a charge against me—Shaynon, Mrs. What's-her-name, or either of yourselves, if you like the job. If you fail to produce a complainant by half-past four precisely, out of here I go—and I'm sorry for the man who tries to stop me."

The detective took a chair, crossed his legs, and produced a cigar which he began to trim with tender care. The manager, anxiously pacing the floor, after another moment or so paused at the door, fidgeted, jerked it open, and with a muffled "Pardon!" disappeared—presumably in search of Shaynon.

Striking a match, the detective puffed his cigar aglow. Over its tip his small eyes twinkled at P. Sybarite.

"Maybe you're a gentleman crook, and maybe not," he returned with fine impartiality. "But you're all there, son, with the tongue action. You got me still goin' round in circles. Damn 'f I know yet what to think."

"Well, if that's your trouble," P. Sybarite told him coolly, "this is your cue to squat on your haunches, scratch your left ear with your hind leg, and gaze up into my face with an intelligent expression in your great brown eyes."

"I'll do better 'n that," chuckled the man. "Have a cigar."

"Thank you," said P. Sybarite politely, accepting the peace offering. "All I need now is a match: I acknowledge the habit."

The match supplied, he smoked in silence.

Four minutes passed, by the clock: no sign of the manager, Shaynon, or Mrs. Strone.

"Story?" the detective suggested at length.

"Plant," retorted P. Sybarite as tersely.

"You mean he salted you?"

"In the elevator, of course."

"It come to me, that was the way of it when he sprung that bunk stuff about you coarsely loading said loot into your coat-tail," admitted the detective. "That didn't sound sensible, even if you did have a skirt to fuss into a cab. The ordinary vest-pocket of commerce would've kept it just as close, besides being more natural—easy to get at. Then the guy was too careful to tip me off not to pinch you until the lady had went—didn't want her name dragged into it.... A fellow in my job's gotta have a lot of imagination," he concluded complacently. "That's why I'm letting you get away with it in this unprofessional manner."

"More human than in line with the best literary precedent, eh?"

"That's me. I seen he was sore when the dame turned him down, too, and started right off wondering if maybe it wasn't a jealousy plant. I seen this sorta thing happen before. Not that I blame him for feeling cut up: that was one swell piece of goods you bundled into numba two-thirty."

P. Sybarite's cigar dropped unheeded from his lips.

"What!" he cried.

The detective started.

"Wasn't that the numba of the lady's cab—two-thirty?"

"Good God!" ejaculated P. Sybarite, jumping up.

"What's hit you?"

"I'm going!" the little man announced fiercely.

"Your time allowance ain't expired by several minutes—"

"To hell with my time allowance! Try to keep me, if you like!"

P. Sybarite strode excitedly to the door and jerked it open. The detective followed him, puffing philosophically.

There was no one in sight in the hall.

"Looks like you got a fine show for a clean getaway," he observed cheerfully between his teeth. "Your friend's beaten it, the boss has ducked the responsibility, and you got me scared to death. Besides—damn 'f I'm going to be the goat that saddles this hash-hut with a suit for damages."

His concluding words were addressed to the horizontal folds of the inverness that streamed from the shoulders of P. Sybarite as he bolted unhindered through the Fifth Avenue doorway.



XIX

NEMESIS

"Dolt!... Blockhead!... Imbecile!... Idiot!... Numskull!... Ass!... Simpleton!... Loon!..."

The chill air of early morning wiped the blistering epithets from his lips as he fled like a madman down Fifth Avenue, at every stride wringing from the depths of an embittered bosom new and more virulent terms of vituperation with which to characterize his infatuated stupidity—and finding one and all far too mild. In simple truth, the King's English lacked invective poisonous enough to do justice to his self-contempt.