Of a sudden, the face of the young man took on a totally different expression. Where before had been anger, now was a vivid eagerness. He went close to the Inspector, and spoke with intense seriousness.

"Burke," he said, pleadingly, "give me a chance. I'll leave for Chicago in the morning. Give me twenty-four hours start before you begin hounding her."

The Inspector regarded the speaker searchingly. His heavy face was drawn in an expression of apparent doubt. Abruptly, then, he smiled acquiescence.

"Seems reasonable," he admitted.

But the father strode to his son.

"No, no, Dick," he cried. "You shall not go! You shall not go!"

Burke, however, shook his head in remonstrance against Gilder's plea. His huge voice came booming, weightily impressive.

"Why not?" he questioned. "It's a fair gamble. And, besides, I like the boy's nerve."

Dick seized on the admission eagerly.

"And you'll agree?" he cried.

"Yes, I'll agree," the Inspector answered.

"Thank you," Dick said quietly.

But the father was not content. On the contrary, he went toward the two hurriedly, with a gesture of reproval.

"You shall not go, Dick," he declared, imperiously.

The Inspector shot a word of warning to Gilder in an aside that Dick could not hear.

"Keep still," he replied. "It's all right."

Dick went on speaking with a seriousness suited to the magnitude of his interests.

"You give me your word, Inspector," he said, "that you won't notify the police in Chicago until I've been there twenty-four hours?"

"You're on," Burke replied genially. "They won't get a whisper out of me until the time is up." He swung about to face the father, and there was a complete change in his manner. "Now, then, Mr. Gilder," he said briskly, "I want to talk to you about another little matter——"

Dick caught the suggestion, and interrupted quickly.

"Then I'll go." He smiled rather wanly at his father. "You know, Dad, I'm sorry, but I've got to do what I think is the right thing."

Burke helped to save the situation from the growing tenseness.

"Sure," he cried heartily; "sure you have. That's the best any of us can do." He watched keenly as the young man went out of the room. It was not until the door was closed after Dick that he spoke. Then he dropped to a seat on the couch, and proceeded to make his confidences to the magnate.

"He'll go to Chicago in the morning, you think, don't you?"

"Certainly," Gilder answered. "But I don't like it."

Burke slapped his leg with an enthusiasm that might have broken a weaker member.

"Best thing that could have happened!" he vociferated. And then, as Gilder regarded him in astonishment, he added, chuckling: "You see, he won't find her there."

"Why do you think that?" Gilder demanded, greatly puzzled.

Burke permitted himself the luxury of laughing appreciatively a moment more before making his exclamation. Then he said quietly:

"Because she didn't go there."

"Where did she go, then?" Gilder queried wholly at a loss.

Once again the officer chuckled. It was evident that he was well pleased with his own ingenuity.

"Nowhere yet," he said at last. "But, just about the time he's starting for the West I'll have her down at Headquarters. Demarest will have her indicted before noon. She'll go for trial in the afternoon. And to-morrow night she'll be sleeping up the river.... That's where she is going."

Gilder stood motionless for a moment. After all, he was an ordinary citizen, quite unfamiliar with the recondite methods familiar to the police.

"But," he said, wonderingly, "you can't do that."

The Inspector laughed, a laugh of disingenuous amusement, for he understood perfectly the lack of comprehension on the part of his hearer.

"Well," he said, and his voice sank into a modest rumble that was none the less still thunderous. "Perhaps I can't!" And then he beamed broadly, his whole face smiling blandly on the man who doubted his power. "Perhaps I can't," he repeated. Then the chuckle came again, and he added emphatically: "But I will!" Suddenly, his heavy face grew hard. His alert eyes shone fiercely, with a flash of fire that was known to every patrolman who had ever reported to the desk when he was lieutenant. His heavy jaw shot forward aggressively as he spoke.

"Think I'm going to let that girl make a joke of the Police Department? Why, I'm here to get her—to stop her anyhow. Her gang is going to break into your house to-night."

"What?" Gilder demanded. "You mean, she's coming here as a thief?"

"Not exactly," Inspector Burke confessed, "but her pals are coming to try to pull off something right here. She wouldn't come, not if I know her. She's too clever for that. Why, if she knew what Garson was planning to do, she'd stop him."

The Inspector paused suddenly. For a long minute his face was seamed with thought. Then, he smote his thigh with a blow strong enough to kill an ox. His face was radiant.

"By God! I've got her!" he cried. The inspiration for which he had longed was his at last. He went to the desk where the telephone was, and took up the receiver.

"Give me 3100 Spring," he said. As he waited for the connection he smiled widely on the astonished Gilder. "'Tain't too late," he said joyously. "I must have been losing my mind not to have thought of it before." The impact of sounds on his ear from the receiver set him to attention.

"Headquarters?" he called. "Inspector Burke speaking. Who's in my office? I want him quick." He smiled as he listened, and he spoke again to Gilder. "It's Smith, the best man I have. That's luck, if you ask me." Then again he spoke into the mouthpiece of the telephone.

"Oh, Ed, send some one up to that Turner woman. You have the address. Just see that she is tipped off, that Joe Garson and some pals are going to break into Edward Gilder's house to-night. Get some stool-pigeon to hand her the information. You'd better get to work damned quick. Understand?"

The Inspector pulled out that watch of which Aggie Lynch had spoken so avariciously, and glanced at it, then went on speaking:

"It's ten-thirty now. She went to the Lyric Theater with some woman. Get her as she leaves, or find her back at her own place later. You'll have to hustle, anyhow. That's all!"

The Inspector hung up the receiver and faced his host with a contented smile.

"What good will all that do?" Gilder demanded, impatiently.

Burke explained with a satisfaction natural to one who had devised something ingenious and adequate. This inspiration filled him with delight. At last he was sure of catching Mary Turner herself in his toils.

"She'll come to stop 'em," he said. "When we get the rest of the gang, we'll grab her, too. Why, I almost forgot her, thinking about Garson. Mr. Gilder, you would hardly believe it, but there's scarcely been a real bit of forgery worth while done in this country for the last twenty years, that Garson hasn't been mixed up in. We've never once got him right in all that time." The Inspector paused to chuckle. "Crooks are funny," he explained with obvious contentment. "Clever as he is, Garson let Griggs talk him into a second-story job, and now we'll get him with the goods.... Just call your man for a minute, will you, Mr. Gilder?"

Gilder pressed the electric button on his desk. At the same moment, through the octagonal window came a blinding flash of light that rested for seconds, then vanished. Burke, by no means a nervous man, nevertheless was startled by the mysterious radiance.

"What's that?" he demanded, sharply.

"It's the flashlight from the Metropolitan Tower," Gilder explained with a smile over the policeman's perturbation. "It swings around this way about every fifteen minutes. The servant forgot to draw the curtains." As he spoke, he went to the window, and pulled the heavy draperies close. "It won't bother us again."

The entrance of the butler brought the Inspector's thoughts back to the matter in hand.

"My man," he said, authoritatively, "I want you to go up to the roof and open the scuttle. You'll find some men waiting up there. Bring 'em down here."

The servant's usually impassive face showed astonishment, not unmixed with dismay, and he looked doubtfully toward his master, who nodded reassuringly.

"Oh, they won't hurt you," the Inspector declared, as he noticed the man's hesitation. "They're police officers. You get 'em down here, and then you go to bed and stay there till morning. Understand?"

Again, the butler looked at his master for guidance in this very peculiar affair, as he deemed it. Receiving another nod, he said:

"Very well, sir." He regarded the Inspector with a certain helpless indignation over this disturbance of the natural order, and left the room.

Gilder himself was puzzled over the situation, which was by no means clear to him.

"How do you know they're going to break into the house to-night?" he demanded of Burke; "or do you only think they're going to break into the house?"

"I know they are." The Inspector's harsh voice brought out the words boastfully. "I fixed it."

"You did!" There was wonder in the magnate's exclamation.

"Sure," Burke declared complacently, "did it through a stool-pigeon."

"Oh, an informer," Gilder interrupted, a little doubtfully.

"Yes," Burke agreed. "Stool-pigeon is the police name for him. Really, he's the vilest thing that crawls."

"But, if you think that," Gilder expostulated, "why do you have anything to do with that sort of person?"

"Because it's good business," the Inspector replied. "We know he's a spy and a traitor, and that every time he comes near us we ought to use a disinfectant. But we deal with him just the same—because we have to. Now, the stool-pigeon in this trick is a swell English crook. He went to Garson yesterday with a scheme to rob your house. He tried out Mary Turner, too, but she wouldn't stand for it—said it would break the law, which is contrary to her principles. She told Garson to leave it alone. But he met Griggs afterward without her knowing anything about it, and then he agreed to pull it off. Griggs got word to me that it's coming off to-night. And so, you see, Mr. Gilder, that's how I know. Do you get me?"

"I see," Gilder admitted without any enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, he felt somewhat offended that his house should be thus summarily seized as a trap for criminals.

"But why do you have your men come down over the roof?" he inquired curiously.

"It wasn't safe to bring them in the front way," was the Inspector's prompt reply. "It's a cinch the house is being watched. I wish you would let me have your latch-key. I want to come back, and make this collar myself."

The owner of the house obediently took the desired key from his ring and gave it to the Inspector with a shrug of resignation.

"But, why not stay, now that you are here?" he asked.

"Huh!" Burke retorted. "Suppose some of them saw me come in? There wouldn't be anything doing until after they see me go out again."

The hall door opened and the butler reentered the room. Behind him came Cassidy and two other detectives in plain clothes. At a word from his master, the disturbed Thomas withdrew with the intention of obeying the Inspector's directions that he should retire to bed and stay there, carefully avoiding whatever possibilities of peril there might be in the situation so foreign to his ideals of propriety.

"Now," Burke went on briskly, as the door closed behind the servant, "where could these men stay out of sight until they're needed?"

There followed a little discussion which ended in the selection of a store-room at the end of the passage on the ground floor, on which one of the library doors opened.

"You see," Burke explained to Gilder, when this matter had been settled to his satisfaction, and while Cassidy and the other detectives were out of the library on a tour of inspection, "you must have things right, when it comes to catching crooks on a frame-up like this. I had these men come to Number Twenty-six on the other street, then round the block on the roofs."

Gilder nodded appreciation which was not actually sincere. It seemed to him that such elaborate manoeuvering was, in truth, rather absurd.

"And now, Mr. Gilder," the Inspector said energetically, "I'm going to give you the same tip I gave your man. Go to bed, and stay there."

"But the boy," Gilder protested. "What about him? He's the one thing of importance to me."

"If he says anything more about going to Chicago—just you let him go, that's all! It's the best place for him for the next few days. I'll get in touch with you in the morning and let you know then how things are coming out."

Gilder sighed resignedly. His heavy face was lined with anxiety. There was a hesitation in his manner of speech that was wholly unlike its usual quick decisiveness.

"I don't like this sort of thing," he said, doubtfully. "I let you go ahead because I can't suggest any alternative, but I don't like it, not at all. It seems to me that other methods might be employed with excellent results without the element of treachery which seems to involve me as well as you in our efforts to overcome this woman."

Burke, however, had no qualms as to such plotting.

"You must have crooked ways to catch crooks, believe me," he said cheerfully. "It's the easiest and quickest way out of the trouble for us, and the easiest and quickest way into trouble for them."

The return of the detectives caused him to break off, and he gave his attention to the final arrangements of his men.

"You're in charge here," he said to Cassidy, "and I hold you responsible. Now, listen to this, and get it." His coarse voice came with a grating note of command. "I'm coming back to get this bunch myself, and I'll call you when you're wanted. You'll wait in the store-room out there and don't make a move till you hear from me, unless by any chance things go wrong and you get a call from Griggs. You know who he is. He's got a whistle, and he'll use it if necessary.... Got that straight?" And, when Cassidy had declared an entire understanding of the directions given, he concluded concisely. "On your way, then!"

As the men left the room, he turned again to Gilder.

"Just one thing more," he said. "I'll have to have your help a little longer. After I've gone, I want you to stay up for a half-hour anyhow, with the lights burning. Do you see? I want to be sure to give the Turner woman time to get here while that gang is at work. Your keeping on the lights will hold them back, for they won't come in till the house is dark, so, in half an hour you can get off the job, switch off the lights and go to bed and stay there—just as I told you before." Then Inspector Burke, having in mind the great distress of the man over the unfortunate entanglement of his son, was at pains to offer a reassuring word.

"Don't worry about the boy," he said, with grave kindliness. "We'll get him out of this scrape all right." And with the assertion he bustled out, leaving the unhappy father to miserable forebodings.



CHAPTER XVII. OUTSIDE THE LAW.

Gilder scrupulously followed the directions of the Police Inspector. Uneasily, he had remained in the library until the allotted time was elapsed. He fidgeted from place to place, his mind heavy with distress under the shadow that threatened to blight the life of his cherished son. Finally, with a sense of relief he put out the lights and went to his chamber. But he did not follow the further directions given him, for he was not minded to go to bed. Instead, he drew the curtains closely to make sure that no gleam of light could pass them, and then sat with a cigar between his lips, which he did not smoke, though from time to time he was at pains to light it. His thoughts were most with his son, and ever as he thought of Dick, his fury waxed against the woman who had enmeshed the boy in her plotting for vengeance on himself. And into his thoughts now crept a doubt, one that alarmed his sense of justice. It occurred to him that this woman could not have thus nourished a plan for retribution through the years unless, indeed, she had been insane, even as he had claimed—or innocent! The idea was appalling. He could not bear to admit the possibility of having been the involuntary inflicter of such wrong as to send the girl to prison for an offense she had not committed. He rejected the suggestion, but it persisted. He knew the clean, wholesome nature of his son. It seemed to him incredible that the boy could have thus given his heart to one altogether undeserving. A horrible suspicion that he had misjudged Mary Turner crept into his brain, and would not out. He fought it with all the strength of him, and that was much, but ever it abode there. He turned for comfort to the things Burke had said. The woman was a crook, and there was an end of it. Her ruse of spoliation within the law was evidence of her shrewdness, nothing more.

Mary Turner herself, too, was in a condition utterly wretched, and for the same cause—Dick Gilder. That source of the father's suffering was hers as well. She had won her ambition of years, revenge on the man who had sent her to prison. And now the joy of it was a torture, for the puppet of her plans, the son, had suddenly become the chief thing in her life. She had taken it for granted that he would leave her after he came to know that her marriage to him was only a device to bring shame on his father. Instead, he loved her. That fact seemed the secret of her distress. He loved her. More, he dared believe, and to assert boldly, that she loved him. Had he acted otherwise, the matter would have been simple enough.... But he loved her, loved her still, though he knew the shame that had clouded her life, knew the motive that had led her to accept him as a husband. More—by a sublime audacity, he declared that she loved him.

There came a thrill in her heart each time she thought of that—that she loved him. The idea was monstrous, of course, and yet—— Here, as always, she broke off, a hot flush blazing in her cheeks.... Nevertheless, such curious fancies pursued her through the hours. She strove her mightiest to rid herself of them, but in vain. Ever they persisted. She sought to oust them by thinking of any one else, of Aggie, of Joe. There at last was satisfaction. Her interference between the man who had saved her life and the temptation of the English crook had prevented a dangerous venture, which might have meant ruin to the one whom she esteemed for his devotion to her, if for no other reason. At least, she had kept him from the outrageous folly of an ordinary burglary.

Mary Turner was just ready for bed after her evening at the theater, when she was rudely startled out of this belief. A note came by a messenger who waited for no answer, as he told the yawning maid. As Mary read the roughly scrawled message, she was caught in the grip of terror. Some instinct warned her that this danger was even worse than it seemed. The man who had saved her from death had yielded to temptation. Even now, he was engaged in committing that crime which she had forbidden him. As he had saved her, so she must save him. She hurried into the gown she had just put off. Then she went to the telephone-book and searched for the number of Gilder's house.

* * * * *

It was just a few moments before Mary Turner received the note from the hands of the sleepy maid that one of the leaves of the octagonal window in the library of Richard Gilder's town house swung open, under the persuasive influence of a thin rod of steel, cunningly used, and Joe Garson stepped confidently into the dark room.

A faint radiance of moonlight from without showed him for a second as he passed between the heavy draperies. Then these fell into place, and he was invisible, and soundless as well. For a space, he rested motionless, listening intently. Reassured, he drew out an electric torch and set it glowing. A little disc of light touched here and there about the room, traveling very swiftly, and in methodical circles. Satisfied by the survey, Garson crossed to the hall door. He moved with alert assurance, lithely balanced on the balls of his feet, noiselessly. At the hall door he listened for any sound of life without, and found none. The door into the passage that led to the store-room where the detectives waited next engaged his business-like attention. And here, again, there was naught to provoke his suspicion.

These preliminaries taken as measures of precaution, Garson went boldly to the small table that stood behind the couch, turned the button, and the soft glow of an electric lamp illumined the apartment. The extinguished torch was thrust back into his pocket. Afterward he carried one of the heavy chairs to the door of the passage and propped it against the panel in such wise that its fall must give warning as to the opening of the door. His every action was performed with the maximum of speed, with no least trace of flurry or of nervous haste. It was evident that he followed a definite program, the fruit of precise thought guided by experience.

It seemed to him that now everything was in readiness for the coming of his associates in the commission of the crime. There remained only to give them the signal in the room around the corner where they waited at a telephone. He seated himself in Gilder's chair at the desk, and drew the telephone to him.

"Give me 999 Bryant," he said. His tone was hardly louder than a whisper, but spoken with great distinctness.

There was a little wait. Then an answer in a voice he knew came over the wire.

But Garson said nothing more. Instead, he picked up a penholder from the tray on the desk, and began tapping lightly on the rim of the transmitter. It was a code message in Morse. In the room around the corner, the tapping sounded clearly, ticking out the message that the way was free for the thieves' coming.

When Garson had made an end of the telegraphing, there came a brief answer in like Morse, to which he returned a short direction.

For a final safeguard, Garson searched for and found the telephone bell-box on the surbase below the octagonal window. It was the work of only a few seconds to unscrew the bells, which he placed on the desk. So simply he made provision against any alarm from this source. He then took his pistol from his hip-pocket, examined it to make sure that the silencer was properly adjusted, and then thrust it into the right side-pocket of his coat, ready for instant use in desperate emergency. Once again, now, he produced the electric torch, and lighted it as he extinguished the lamp on the table.

Forthwith, Garson went to the door into the hall, opened it, and, leaving it ajar, made his way in silence to the outer doorway. Presently, the doors there were freed of their bolts under his skilled fingers, and one of them swung wide. He had put out the torch now, lest its gleam might catch the gaze of some casual passer-by. So nicely had the affair been timed that hardly was the door open before the three men slipped in, and stood mute and motionless in the hall, while Garson refastened the doors. Then, a pencil of light traced the length of the hallway and Garson walked quickly back to the library. Behind him with steps as noiseless as his own came the three men to whom he had just given the message.

When all were gathered in the library, Garson shut the hall door, touched the button in the wall beside it, and the chandelier threw its radiant light on the group.

Griggs was in evening clothes, seeming a very elegant young gentleman indeed, but his two companions were of grosser type, as far as appearances went: one, Dacey, thin and wiry, with a ferret face; the other, Chicago Red, a brawny ruffian, whose stolid features nevertheless exhibited something of half-sullen good nature.

"Everything all right so far," Garson said rapidly. He turned to Griggs and pointed toward the heavy hangings that shrouded the octagonal window. "Are those the things we want?" he demanded.

"Yes," was the answer of English Eddie.

"Well, then, we've got to get busy," Garson went on. His alert, strong face was set in lines of eagerness that had in it something of fierceness now.

But, before he could add a direction, he was halted by a soft buzzing from the telephone, which, though bell-less, still gave this faint warning of a call. For an instant, he hesitated while the others regarded him doubtfully. The situation offered perplexities. To give no attention to the summons might be perilous, and failure to respond might provoke investigation in some urgent matter; to answer it might easily provide a larger danger.

"We've got to take a chance." Garson spoke his decision curtly. He went to the desk and put the receiver to his ear.

There came again the faint tapping of some one at the other end of the line, signaling a message in the Morse code. An expression of blank amazement, which grew in a flash to deep concern, showed on Garson's face as he listened tensely.

"Why, this is Mary calling," he muttered.

"Mary!" Griggs cried. His usual vacuity of expression was cast off like a mask and alarm twisted his features. Then, in the next instant, a crafty triumph gleamed from his eyes.

"Yes, she's on," Garson interpreted, a moment later, as the tapping ceased for a little. He translated in a loud whisper as the irregular ticking noise sounded again.

"I shall be there at the house almost at once. I am sending this message from the drug store around the corner. Have some one open the door for me immediately."

"She's coming over," Griggs cried incredulously.

"No, I'll stop her," Garson declared firmly.

"Right! Stop her," Chicago Red vouchsafed.

But, when, after tapping a few words, the forger paused for the reply, no sound came.

"She don't answer," he exclaimed, greatly disconcerted. He tried again, still without result. At that, he hung up the receiver with a groan. "She's gone——"

"On her way already," Griggs suggested, and there was none to doubt that it was so.

"What's she coming here for?" Garson exclaimed harshly. "This ain't no place for her! Why, if anything should go wrong now——"

But Griggs interrupted him with his usual breezy cheerfulness of manner.

"Oh, nothing can go wrong now, old top. I'll let her in." He drew a small torch from the skirt-pocket of his coat and crossed to the hall door, as Garson nodded assent.

"God! Why did she have to come?" Garson muttered, filled with forebodings. "If anything should go wrong now!"

He turned back toward the door just as it opened, and Mary darted into the room with Griggs following. "What do you want here?" he demanded, with peremptory savageness in his voice, which was a tone he had never hitherto used in addressing her.

Mary went swiftly to face Garson where he stood by the desk, while Griggs joined the other two men who stood shuffling about uneasily by the fireplace, at a loss over this intrusion on their scheme. Mary moved with a lissome grace like that of some wild creature, but as she halted opposite the man who had given her back the life she would have thrown away, there was only tender pleading in her voice, though her words were an arraignment.

"Joe, you lied to me."

"That can be settled later," the man snapped. His jaw was thrust forward obstinately, and his clear eyes sparkled defiantly.

"You are fools, all of you!" Mary cried. Her eyes darkened and distended with fear. They darted from Garson to the other three men, and back again in rebuke. "Yes, fools! This is burglary. I can't protect you if you are caught. How can I? Oh, come!" She held out her hands pleadingly toward Garson, and her voice dropped to beseeching. "Joe, Joe, you must get away from this house at once, all of you. Joe, make them go."

"It's too late," was the stern answer. There was no least relaxation in the stubborn lines of his face. "We're here now, and we'll stay till the business is done."

Mary went a step forward. The cloak she was wearing was thrown back by her gesture of appeal so that those watching saw the snowy slope of the shoulders and the quick rise and fall of the gently curving bosom. The beautiful face within the framing scarf was colorless with a great fear, save only the crimson lips, of which the bow was bent tremulously as she spoke her prayer.

"Joe, for my sake!"

But the man was inexorable. He had set himself to this thing, and even the urging of the one person in the world for whom he most cared was powerless against his resolve.

"I can't quit now until we've got what we came here after," he declared roughly.

Of a sudden, the girl made shift to employ another sort of supplication.

"But there are reasons," she said, faltering. A certain embarrassment swept her, and the ivory of her cheeks bloomed rosily. "I—I can't have you rob this house, this particular house of all the world." Her eyes leaped from the still obdurate face of the forger to the group of three back of him. Her voice was shaken with a great dread as she called out to them.

"Boys, let's get away! Please, oh, please! Joe, for God's sake!" Her tone was a sob.

Her anguish of fear did not swerve Garson from his purpose.

"I'm going to see this through," he said, doggedly.

"But, Joe——"

"It's settled, I tell you."

In the man's emphasis the girl realized at last the inefficacy of her efforts to combat his will. She seemed to droop visibly before their eyes. Her head sank on her breast. Her voice was husky as she tried to speak.

"Then——" She broke off with a gesture of despair, and turned away toward the door by which she had entered.

But, with a movement of great swiftness, Garson got in front of her, and barred her going. For a few seconds the two stared at each other searchingly as if learning new and strange things, each of the other. In the girl's expression was an outraged wonder and a great terror. In the man's was a half-shamed pride, as if he exulted in the strength with which he had been able to maintain his will against her supreme effort to overthrow it.

"You can't go," Garson said sharply. "You might be caught."

"And if I were," Mary demanded in a flash of indignation, "do you think I'd tell?"

There came an abrupt change in the hard face of the man. Into the piercing eyes flamed a softer fire of tenderness. The firm mouth grew strangely gentle as he replied, and his voice was overtoned with faith.

"Of course not, Mary," he said. "I know you. You would go up for life first."

Then again his expression became resolute, and he spoke imperiously.

"Just the same, you can't take any chances. We'll all get away in a minute, and you'll come with us." He turned to the men and spoke with swift authority.

"Come," he said to Dacey, "you get to the light switch there by the hall door. If you hear me snap my fingers, turn 'em off. Understand?"

With instant obedience, the man addressed went to his station by the hall door, and stood ready to control the electric current.

The distracted girl essayed one last plea. The momentary softening of Garson had given her new courage.

"Joe, don't do this."

"You can't stop it now, Mary," came the brisk retort. "Too late. You're only wasting time, making it dangerous for all of us."

Again he gave his attention to carrying on the robbery.

"Red," he ordered, "you get to that door." He pointed to the one that gave on the passageway against which he had set the chair tilted. As the man obeyed, Garson gave further instructions.

"If any one comes in that way, get him and get him quick. You understand? Don't let him cry out."

Chicago Red grinned with cheerful acceptance of the issue in such an encounter. He held up his huge hand, widely open.

"Not a chance," he declared, proudly, "with that over his mug." To avoid possible interruption of his movements in an emergency, he removed the chair Garson had placed and set it to one side, out of the way.

"Now, let's get to work," Garson continued eagerly. Mary spoke with the bitterness of defeat.

"Listen, Joe! If you do this, I'm through with you. I quit."

Garson was undismayed by the threat.

"If this goes through," he countered, "we'll all quit. That's why I'm doing it. I'm sick of the game."

He turned to the work in hand with increased energy.

"Come, you, Griggs and Red, and push that desk down a bit so that I can stand on it." The two men bent to the task, heedless of Mary's frantic protest.

"No! no! no! no! no, Joe!"

Red, however, suddenly straightened from the desk and stood motionless, listening. He made a slight hissing noise that arrested the attention of the others and held them in moveless silence.

"I hear something," he whispered. He went to the keyhole of the door leading into the passage. Then he whispered again, "And it's coming this way."

At the words, Garson snapped his fingers. The room was plunged in darkness.



CHAPTER XVIII. THE NOISELESS DEATH.

There was absolute silence in the library after the turning of the switch that brought the pall of darkness. Long seconds passed, then a little noise—the knob of the passage door turning. As the door swung open, there came a gasping breath from Mary, for she saw framed in the faint light that came from the single burner in the corridor the slender form of her husband, Dick Gilder. In the next instant he had stepped within the room and pulled to the door behind him. And in that same instant Chicago Red had pounced on his victim, the huge hand clapped tight over the young man's mouth. Even as his powerful arm held the newcomer in an inescapable embrace, there came a sound of scuffling feet and that was all. Finally the big man's voice came triumphantly.

"I've got him."

"It's Dick!" The cry came as a wail of despair from the girl.

At the same moment, Garson flashed his torch, and the light fell swiftly on young Gilder, bowed to a kneeling posture before the couch, half-throttled by the strength of Chicago Red. Close beside him, Mary looked down in wordless despair over this final disaster of the night. There was silence among the men, all of whom save the captor himself were gathered near the fireplace.

Garson retired a step farther before he spoke his command, so that, though he held the torch still, he like the others was in shadow. Only Mary was revealed clearly as she bent in alarm toward the man she had married. It was borne in on the forger's consciousness that the face of the woman leaning over the intruder was stronger to hold the prisoner and to prevent any outcry than the might of Chicago Red himself, and so he gave the order.

"Get away, Red."

The fellow let go his grip obediently enough, though with a trifle of regret, since he gloried in his physical prowess.

Thus freed of that strangling embrace, Dick stumbled blindly to his feet. Then, mechanically, his hand went to the lamp on the table back of the couch. In the same moment Garson snapped his torch to darkness. When, after a little futile searching, Dick finally found the catch, and the mellow streamed forth, he uttered an ejaculation of stark amazement, for his gaze was riveted on the face of the woman he loved.

"Good God!" It was a cry of torture wrung from his soul of souls.

Mary swayed toward him a little, palpitant with fear—fear for herself, for all of them, most of all for him.

"Hush! hush!" she panted warningly. "Oh, Dick, you don't understand."

Dick's hand was at his throat. It was not easy for him to speak yet. He had suffered severely in the process of being throttled, and, too, he was in the clutch of a frightful emotion. To find her, his wife, in this place, in such company—her, the woman whom he loved, whom, in spite of everything, he had honored, the woman to whom he had given his name! Mary here! And thus!

"I understand this," he said brokenly at last. "Whether you ever did it before or not, this time you have broken the law." A sudden inspiration on his own behalf came to him. For his love's sake, he must seize on this opportunity given of fate to him for mastery. He went on with a new vehemence of boldness that became him well.

"You're in my hands now. So are these men as well. Unless you do as I say, Mary, I'll jail every one of them."

Mary's usual quickness was not lacking even now, in this period of extremity. Her retort was given without a particle of hesitation.

"You can't," she objected with conviction. "I'm the only one you've seen."

"That's soon remedied," Dick declared. He turned toward the hall door as if with the intention of lighting the chandelier.

But Mary caught his arm pleadingly.

"Don't, Dick," she begged. "It's—it's not safe."

"I'm not afraid," was his indignant answer. He would have gone on, but she clung the closer. He was reluctant to use over-much force against the one whom he cherished so fondly.

There came a diversion from the man who had made the capture, who was mightily wondering over the course of events, which was wholly unlike anything in the whole of his own rather extensive housebreaking experience.

"Who's this, anyhow?" Chicago Red demanded.

There was a primitive petulance in his drawling tones.

Dick answered with conciseness enough.

"I'm her husband. Who are you?"

Mary called a soft admonition.

"Don't speak, any of you," she directed. "You mustn't let him hear your voices."

Dick was exasperated by this persistent identification of herself with these criminals in his father's house.

"You're fighting me like a coward," he said hotly. His voice was bitter. The eyes that had always been warm in their glances on her were chill now. He turned a little way from her, as if in instinctive repugnance. "You are taking advantage of my love. You think that because of it I can't make a move against these men. Now, listen to me, I——"

"I won't!" Mary cried. Her words were shrill with mingled emotions. "There's nothing to talk about," she went on wildly. "There never can be between you and me."

The young man's voice came with a sonorous firmness that was new to it. In these moments, the strength of him, nourished by suffering, was putting forth its flower. His manner was masterful.

"There can be and there will be," he contradicted. He raised his voice a little, speaking into the shadows where was the group of silent men.

"You men back there!" he cried. "If I give you my word to let every one of you go free and pledge myself never to recognize one of you again, will you make Mary here listen to me? That's all I ask. I want a few minutes to state my case. Give me that. Whether I win or lose, you men go free, and I'll forget everything that has happened here to-night." There came a muffled guffaw of laughter from the big chest of Chicago Red at this extraordinarily ingenuous proposal, while Dacey chuckled more quietly.

Dick made a gesture of impatience at this open derision.

"Tell them I can be trusted," he bade Mary curtly.

It was Garson who answered.

"I know that you can be trusted," he said, "because I know you lo——" He checked himself with a shiver, and out of the darkness his face showed white.

"You must listen," Dick went on, facing again toward the girl, who was trembling before him, her eyes by turns searching his expression or downcast in unfamiliar confusion, which she herself could hardly understand.

"Your safety depends on me," the young man warned. "Suppose I should call for help?"

Garson stepped forward threateningly.

"You would only call once," he said very gently, yet most grimly. His hand went to the noiseless weapon in his coat-pocket.

But the young man's answer revealed the fact that he, too, was determined to the utmost, that he understood perfectly the situation.

"Once would be quite enough," he said simply.

Garson nodded in acceptance of the defeat. It may be, too, that in some subtle fashion he admired this youth suddenly grown resolute, competent to control a dangerous event. There was even the possibility that some instinct of tenderness toward Mary herself made him desire that this opportunity should be given for wiping out the effects of misfortune which fate hitherto had brought into her life.

"You win," Garson said, with a half-laugh. He turned to the other men and spoke a command.

"You get over by the hall door, Red. And keep your ears open every second. Give us the office if you hear anything. If we're rushed, and have to make a quick get-away, see that Mary has the first chance. Get that, all of you?"

As Chicago Red took up his appointed station, Garson turned to Dick.

"Make it quick, remember."

He touched the other two and moved back to the wall by the fireplace, as far as possible from the husband and wife by the couch.

Dick spoke at once, with a hesitancy that betrayed the depth of his emotion.

"Don't you care for me at all?" he asked wistfully.

The girl's answer was uttered with nervous eagerness which revealed her own stress of fear.

"No, no, no!" she exclaimed, rebelliously.

Now, however, the young man had regained some measure of reassurance.

"I know you do, Mary," he asserted, confidently; "a little, anyway. Why, Mary," he went on reproachfully, "can't you see that you're throwing away everything that makes life worth while? Don't you see that?"

There was no word from the girl. Her breast was moving convulsively. She held her face steadfastly averted from the face of her husband.

"Why don't you answer me?" he insisted.

Mary's reply came with all the coldness she could command.

"That was not in the bargain," Mary said, indifferently.

The man's voice grew tenderly winning, persuasive with the longing of a lover, persuasive with the pity of the righteous for the sinner.

"Mary, Mary!" he cried. "You've got to change. Don't be so hard. Give the woman in you a chance."

The girl's form became rigid as she fought for self-control. The plea touched to the bottom of her heart, but she could not, would not yield. Her words rushed forth with a bitterness that was the cover of her distress.

"I am what I am," she said sharply. "I can't change. Keep your promise, now, and let's get out of this."

Her assertion was disregarded as to the inability to change.

"You can change," Dick went on impetuously. "Mary, haven't you ever wanted the things that other women have, shelter, and care, and the big things of life, the things worth while? They're all ready for you, now, Mary.... And what about me?" Reproach leaped in his tone. "After all, you've married me. Now it's up to you to give me my chance to make good. I've never amounted to much. I've never tried much. I shall, now, if you will have it so, Mary; if you'll help me. I will come out all right, I know that—so do you, Mary. Only, you must help me."

"I help you!" The exclamation came from the girl in a note of incredulous astonishment.

"Yes," Dick said, simply. "I need you, and you need me. Come away with me."

"No, no!" was the broken refusal. There was a great grief clutching at the soul of this woman who had brought vengeance to its full flower. She was gasping. "No, no! I married you, not because I loved you, but to repay your father the wrong he had done me. I wouldn't let myself even think of you, and then—I realized that I had spoiled your life."

"No, not spoiled it, Mary! Blessed it! We must prove that yet."

"Yes, spoiled it," the wife went on passionately. "If I had understood, if I could have dreamed that I could ever care—— Oh, Dick, I would never have married you for anything in the world."

"But now you do realize," the young man said quietly. "The thing is done. If we made a mistake, it is for us to bring happiness out of that error."

"Oh, can't you see?" came the stricken lament. "I'm a jail-bird!"

"But you love me—you do love me, I know!" The young man spoke with joyous certainty, for some inflection of her voice had told the truth to his heart. Nothing else mattered. "But now, to come back to this hole we're in here. Don't you understand, at last, that you can't beat the law? If you're caught here to-night, where would you get off—caught here with a gang of burglars? Tell me, dear, why did you do it? Why didn't you protect yourself? Why didn't you go to Chicago as you planned?"

"What?" There was a new quality in Mary's voice. A sudden throb of shock masked in the surface indifference of intonation.

Dick repeated his question, unobservant of its first effect.

"Why didn't you go to Chicago as you had planned?"

"Planned? With whom?" The interrogation came with an abrupt force that cried of new suspicions.

"Why, with Burke." The young man tried to be patient over her density in this time of crisis.

"Who told you that I had arranged any such thing?" Mary asked. Now the tenseness in her manner got the husband's attention, and he replied with a sudden gravity, apprehensive of he knew not what.

"Burke himself did."

"When?" Mary was standing rigid now, and the rare color flamed in her cheeks. Her eyes were blazing.

"Less than an hour ago." He had caught the contagion of her mood and vague alarm swept him.

"Where?" came the next question, still with that vital insistence.

"In this room."

"Burke was here?" Mary's voice was suddenly cold, very dangerous. "What was he doing here?"

"Talking to my father."

The seemingly simple answer appeared the last straw to the girl's burden of frenzied suspicion. Her voice cut fiercely into the quiet of the room, imperious, savage.

"Joe, turn on that light! I want to see the face of every man in this room."

Something fatally significant in her voice set Garson a-leap to the switch, and, in the same second, the blaze of the chandelier flamed brilliantly over all. The others stood motionless, blinking in the sudden radiance—all save Griggs, who moved stealthily in that same moment, a little nearer the door into the passage, which was nearest to him.

But Mary's next words came wholly as a surprise, seemingly totally irrelevant to this instant of crisis. Yet they rang a-throb with an hysterical anxiety.

"Dick," she cried, "what are those tapestries worth?" With the question, she pointed toward the draperies that shrouded the great octagonal window.

The young man was plainly astonished, disconcerted as well by the obtrusion of a sordid detail into the tragedy of the time.

"Why in the world do you——?" he began, impatiently.

Mary stamped her foot angrily in protest against the delay.

"Tell me—quick!" she commanded. The authority in her voice and manner was not to be gainsaid.

Dick yielded sullenly.

"Oh, two or three hundred dollars, I suppose," he answered. "Why?"

"Never mind that!" Mary exclaimed, violently. And now the girl's voice came stinging like a whiplash. In Garson's face, too, was growing fury, for in an instant of illumination he guessed something of the truth. Mary's next question confirmed his raging suspicion.

"How long have you had them, Dick?"

By now, the young man himself sensed the fact that something mysteriously baneful lay behind the frantic questioning on this seemingly trivial theme.

"Ever since I can remember," he replied, promptly.

Mary's voice came then with an intonation that brought enlightenment not only to Garson's shrewd perceptions, but also to the heavier intelligences of Dacey and of Chicago Red.

"And they're not famous masterpieces which your father bought recently, from some dealer who smuggled them into this country?" So simple were the words of her inquiry, but under them beat something evil, deadly.

The young man laughed contemptuously.

"I should say not!" he declared indignantly, for he resented the implication against his father's honesty.

"It's a trick! Burke's done it!" Mary's words came with accusing vehemence.

There was another single step made by Griggs toward the door into the passage.

Mary's eye caught the movement, and her lips soundlessly formed the name:

"Griggs!"

The man strove to carry off the situation, though he knew well that he stood in mortal peril. He came a little toward the girl who had accused him of treachery. He was very dapper in his evening clothes, with his rather handsome, well-groomed face set in lines of innocence.

"He's lying to you!" he cried forcibly, with a scornful gesture toward Dick Gilder. "I tell you, those tapestries are worth a million cold."

Mary's answer was virulent in its sudden burst of hate. For once, the music of her voice was lost in a discordant cry of detestation.

"You stool-pigeon! You did this for Burke!"

Griggs sought still to maintain his air of innocence, and he strove well, since he knew that he fought for his life against those whom he had outraged. As he spoke again, his tones were tremulous with sincerity—perhaps that tremulousness was born chiefly of fear, yet to the ear his words came stoutly enough for truth:

"I swear I didn't! I swear it!"

Mary regarded the protesting man with abhorrence. The perjured wretch shrank before the loathing in her eyes.

"You came to me yesterday," she said, with more of restraint in her voice now, but still with inexorable rancor. "You came to me to explain this plan. And you came from him—from Burke!"

"I swear I was on the level. I was tipped off to the story by a pal," Griggs declared, but at last the assurance was gone out of his voice. He felt the hostility of those about him.

Garson broke in ferociously.

"It's a frame-up!" he said. His tones came in a deadened roar of wrath.

On the instant, aware that further subterfuge could be of no avail, Griggs swaggered defiance.

"And what if it is true?" he drawled, with a resumption of his aristocratic manner, while his eyes swept the group balefully. He plucked the police whistle from his waistcoat-pocket, and raised it to his lips.

He moved too slowly. In the same moment of his action, Garson had pulled the pistol from his pocket, had pressed the trigger. There came no spurt of flame. There was no sound—save perhaps a faint clicking noise. But the man with the whistle at his lips suddenly ceased movement, stood absolutely still for the space of a breath. Then, he trembled horribly, and in the next instant crashed to the floor, where he lay rigid, dead.

"Damn you—I've got you!" Garson sneered through clenched teeth. His eyes were like balls of fire. There was a frightful grin of triumph twisting his mouth in this minute of punishment.

In the first second of the tragedy, Dick had not understood. Indeed, he was still dazed by the suddenness of it all. But the falling of Griggs before the leveled weapon of the other man, there to lie in that ghastly immobility, made him to understand. He leaped toward Garson—would have wrenched the pistol from the other's grasp. In the struggle, it fell to the floor.

Before either could pick it up, there came an interruption. Even in the stress of this scene, Chicago Red had never relaxed his professional caution. A slight noise had caught his ear, he had stooped, listening. Now, he straightened, and called his warning.

"Somebody's opening the front door!"

Garson forgot his weapon in this new alarm. He sprang to the octagonal window, even as Dick took possession of the pistol.

"The street's empty! We must jump for it!" His hate was forgotten now in an emotion still deeper, and he turned to Mary. His face was all gentleness again, where just before it had been evil incarnate, aflame with the lust to destroy. "Come on, Mary," he cried.

Already Chicago Red had snapped off the lights of the chandelier, had sprung to the window, thrown open a panel of it, and had vanished into the night, with Dacey at his heels. As Garson would have called out to the girl again in mad anxiety for haste, he was interrupted by Dick:

"She couldn't make it, Garson," he declared coolly and resolutely. "You go. It'll be all right, you know. I'll take care of her!"

"If she's caught——!" There was an indescribable menace in the forger's half-uttered threat.

"She won't be." The quality of sincerity in Dick's voice was more convincing than any vow might have been.

"If she is, I'll get you, that's all," Garson said gravely, as one stating a simple fact that could not be disputed.

Then he glanced down at the body of the man whom he had done to death.

"And you can tell that to Burke!" he said viciously to the dead. "You damned squealer!" There was a supremely malevolent content in his sneer.



CHAPTER XIX. WITHIN THE TOILS.

The going of Garson left the room deathly still. Dick stared for a moment at the space of window left uncovered by the draperies now, since the man had hurried past them, without pausing to draw them after him. Then, presently, the young man turned again to Mary, and took her hand in his. The shock of the event had somehow steadied him, since it had drawn his thoughts from that other more engrossing mood of concern over the crisis in his own life. After all, what mattered the death of this crook? his fancy ran. The one thing of real worth in all the world was the life that remained to be lived between him and her.... Then, violently, the selfishness of his mood was made plain to him. For the hand he held was shaking like some slender-stalked lily in the clutch of the sirocco. Even as he first perceived the fact, he saw the girl stagger. His arm swept about her in a virile protecting embrace—just in time, or she would have fallen.

A whisper came from her quivering lips. Her face was close to his, else he could not have caught the uncertain murmuring. That face now was become ghastly pale. The violet eyes were widened and dull. The muscles of her face twitched. She rested supinely against him, as if bereft of any strength of body or of soul. Yet, in the intensity of her utterance, the feeble whisper struck like a shriek of horror.

"I—I—never saw any one killed before!"

The simple, grisly truth of the words—words that he might have spoken as well—stirred the man to the deeps of his being. He shuddered, as he turned his eyes to avoid seeing the thing that lay so very near, mercifully merged within the shadows beyond the gentle radiance from the single lamp. With a pang of infinite pity for the woman in his arms, he apprehended in some degree the torture this event must have inflicted on her. Frightful to him, it must in truth be vastly worse to her. There was her womanly sensitiveness to enhance the innate hideousness of the thing that had been done here before their eyes. There was, too, the fact that the murderer himself had been the man to whom she owed her life. Yes, for him, Dick realized with poignant sympathy, the happening that night was terrible indeed: for her, as he guessed now at last, the torture must be something easily to overwhelm all her strength. His touch on her grew tender beyond the ordinary tenderness of love, made gentler by a great underlying compassion for her misery.

Dick drew Mary toward the couch, there let her sink down in a huddled attitude of despair.

"I never saw a man—killed before!" she said again. There was a note of half-hysterical, almost childish complaint in her voice. She moved her head a little, as if to look into the shadows where it lay, then checked herself violently, and looked up at her husband with the pathetic simplicity of terror.

"You know, Dick," she repeated dully, "I never saw a man killed before."

Before he could utter the soothing words that rose to his lips, Dick was interrupted by a slight sound at the door. Instantly, he was all alert to meet the exigencies of the situation. He stood by the couch, bending forward a little, as if in a posture of intimate fondness. Then, with a new thought, he got out his cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette, after which he resumed his former leaning over the woman as would the ardent lover. He heard the noise again presently, now so near that he made sure of being overheard, so at once he spoke with a forced cheerfulness in his inflection.

"I tell you, Mary," he declared, "everything's going to be all right for you and me. It was bully of you to come here to me like this."

The girl made no response. She lived still in the nightmare of murder—that nightmare wherein she had seen Griggs fall dead to the floor.

Dick, in nervous apprehension as to the issue, sought to bring her to realization of the new need that had come upon them.

"Talk to me," he commanded, very softly. "They'll be here in a minute. When they come in, pretend you just came here in order to meet me. Try, Mary. You must, dearest!" Then, again, his voice rose to loudness, as he continued. "Why, I've been trying all day to see you. And, now, here we are together, just as I was beginning to get really discouraged.... I know my father will eventually——"

He was interrupted by the swift swinging open of the hallway door. Burke stood just within the library, a revolver pointed menacingly.

"Hands up!—all of you!" The Inspector's voice fairly roared the command.

The belligerent expression of his face vanished abruptly, as his eyes fell on Dick standing by the couch and Mary reclining there in limp helplessness. His surprise would have been ludicrous but for the seriousness of the situation to all concerned. Burke's glance roved the room sharply, and he was quickly convinced that these two were in fact the only present spoil of his careful plotting. His face set grimly, for the disappointment of this minute surged fiercely within him. He started to speak, his eyes lowering as he regarded the two before him.

But Dick forestalled him. He spoke in a voice coldly repellent.

"What are you doing in this house at this time of night?" he demanded. His manner was one of stern disapproval. "I recognize you, Inspector Burke. But you must understand that there are limits even to what you can do. It seems to me, sir, that you exceed your authority by such an intrusion as this."

Burke, however, was not a whit dismayed by the rebuke and the air of rather contemptuous disdain with which it was uttered. He waved his revolver toward Mary, merely as a gesture of inquisitiveness, without any threat.

"What's she doing here?" he asked. There was wrath in his rough voice, for he could not avoid the surmise that his shrewdly concocted scheme to entrap this woman had somehow been set awry. "What's she doing here, I say?" he repeated heavily. His keen eyes were darting once more about the room, questing some clue to this disturbing mystery, so hateful to his pride.

Dick's manner became that of the devoted husband offended by impertinent obtrusion.

"You forget yourself, Inspector," he said, icily. "This is my wife. She has the right to be with me—her husband!"

The Inspector grinned sceptically. He was moved no more effectively by Mary's almost hysterical effort to respond to her husband's leading.

"Why shouldn't I be here? Why? Why? I——"

Burke broke in on the girl's pitiful histrionics ruthlessly. He was not in the least deceived. He was aware that something untoward, as he deemed it, had occurred. It seemed to him, in fact, that his finical mechanisms for the undoing of Mary Turner were in a fair way to be thwarted. But he would not give up the cause without a struggle. Again, he addressed himself to Dick, disregarding completely the aloof manner of the young man.

"Where's your father?" he questioned roughly.

"In bed, naturally," was the answer. "I ask you again: What are you doing here at this time of night?"

Burke shook his shoulders ponderously in a movement of impatience over this prolonging of the farce.

"Oh, call your father," he directed disgustedly.

Dick remonstrated with an excellent show of dignity.

"It's late," he objected. "I'd rather not disturb him, if you don't mind. Really, the idea is absurd, you know." Suddenly, he smiled very winningly, and spoke with a good assumption of ingenuousness.

"Inspector," he said briskly, "I see, I'll have to tell you the truth. It's this: I've persuaded my wife to go away with me. She's going to give all that other sort of thing up. Yes, we're going away together." There was genuine triumph in his voice now. "So, you see, we've got to talk it over. Now, then, Inspector, if you'll come back in the morning——"

The official grinned sardonically. He could not in the least guess just what had in very deed happened, but he was far too clever a man to be bamboozled by Dick's maunderings.

"Oh, that's it!" he exclaimed, with obvious incredulity.

"Of course," Dick replied bravely, though he knew that the Inspector disbelieved his pretenses. Still, for his own part, he was inclined as yet to be angry rather than alarmed by this failure to impress the officer. "You see, I didn't know——"

And even in the moment of his saying, the white beam of the flashing searchlight from the Tower fell between the undrawn draperies of the octagonal window. The light startled the Inspector again, as it had done once before that same night. His gaze followed it instinctively. So, within the second, he saw the still form lying there on the floor—lying where had been shadows, where now, for the passing of an instant, was brilliant radiance.

There was no mistaking that awful, motionless, crumpled posture. The Inspector knew in this single instant of view that murder had been done here. Even as the beam of light from the Tower shifted and vanished from the room, he leaped to the switch by the door, and turned on the lights of the chandelier. In the next moment, he had reached the door of the passage across the room, and his whistle sounded shrill. His voice bellowed reinforcement to the blast.

"Cassidy! Cassidy!"

As Dick made a step toward his wife, from whom he had withdrawn a little in his colloquy with the official, Burke voiced his command viciously:

"Stay where you are—both of you!"

Cassidy came rushing in, with the other detectives. He was plainly surprised to find the room so nearly empty, where he had expected to behold a gang of robbers.

"Why, what's it all mean, Chief?" he questioned. His peering eyes fell on Dick, standing beside Mary, and they rounded in amazement.

"They've got Griggs!" Burke answered. There was exceeding rage in his voice, as he spoke from his kneeling posture beside the body, to which he had hurried after the summons to his aides. He glowered up into the bewildered face of the detective. "I'll break you for this, Cassidy," he declared fiercely. "Why didn't you get here on the run when you heard the shot?"

"But there wasn't any shot," the perplexed and alarmed detective expostulated. He fairly stuttered in the earnestness of his self-defense. "I tell you, Chief, there hasn't been a sound."

Burke rose to his feet. His heavy face was set in its sternest mold.

"You could drive a hearse through the hole they've made in him," he rumbled. He wheeled on Mary and Dick. "So!" he shouted, "now it's murder!... Well, hand it over. Where's the gun?"

Followed a moment's pause. Then the Inspector spoke harshly to Cassidy. He still felt himself somewhat dazed by this extraordinary event, but he was able to cope with the situation. He nodded toward Dick as he gave his order: "Search him!"

Before the detective could obey the direction, Dick took the revolver from his pocket where he had bestowed it, and held it out.

And it so chanced that at this incriminating crisis for the son, the father hastily strode within the library. He had been aroused by the Inspector's shouting, and was evidently greatly perturbed. His usual dignified air was marred by a patent alarm.

"What's all this?" he exclaimed, as he halted and stared doubtfully on the scene before him.

Burke, in a moment like this, was no respecter of persons, for all his judicious attentions on other occasions to those whose influence might serve him well for benefits received.

"You can see for yourself," he said grimly to the dumfounded magnate. Then, he fixed sinister eyes on the son. "So," he went on, with somber menace in his voice, "you did it, young man." He nodded toward the detective. "Well, Cassidy, you can take 'em both down-town.... That's all."

The command aroused Dick to remonstrance against such indignity toward the woman whom he loved.

"Not her!" he cried, imploringly. "You don't want her, Inspector! This is all wrong!"

Now, at last, Mary interposed with a new spirit. She had regained, in some measure at least, her poise. She was speaking again with that mental clarity which was distinctive in her.

"Dick," she advised quietly, but with underlying urgency in her gently spoken words, "don't talk, please."

Burke laughed harshly.

"What do you expect?" he inquired truculently. "As a matter of fact, the thing's simple enough, young man. Either you killed Griggs, or she did."

The Inspector, with his charge, made a careless gesture toward the corpse of the murdered stool-pigeon. For the first time, Edward Gilder, as his glance unconsciously followed the officer's movement, looked and saw the ghastly inanimate heap of flesh and bone that had once been a man. He fairly reeled at the gruesome spectacle, then fumbled with an outstretched hand as he moved stumblingly until he laid hold on a chair, into which he sank helplessly. It suddenly smote upon his consciousness that he felt very old and broken. He marveled dully over the sensation—it was wholly new to him. Then, soon, from a long way off, he heard the strident voice of the Inspector remorselessly continuing in the vile, the impossible accusation.... And that grotesque accusation was hurled against his only son—the boy whom he so loved. The thing was monstrous, a thing incredible. This whole seeming was no more than a chimera of the night, a phantom of bad dreams, with no truth under it.... Yet, the stern voice of the official came with a strange semblance of reality.

"Either you killed him," the voice repeated gratingly, "or she did. Well, then, young man, did she kill him?"

"Good God, no!" Dick shouted, aghast.

"Then, it was you!" Such was the Inspector's summary of the case.

Mary's words came frantically. Once again, she was become desperate over the course of events in this night of fearful happenings.

"No, no! He didn't!"

Burke's rasping voice reiterated the accusation with a certain complacency in the inevitability of the dilemma.

"One of you killed Griggs. Which one of you did it?" He scowled at Dick. "Did she kill him?"

Again, the husband's cry came with the fierceness of despair over the fate of the woman.

"I told you, no!"

The Inspector, always savagely impressive now in voice and look and gesture, faced the girl with saturnine persistence.

"Well, then," he blustered, "did he kill him?"

The nod of his head was toward Dick. Then, as she remained silent: "I'm talking to you!" he snapped. "Did he kill him?"

The reply came with a soft distinctness that was like a crash of destiny.

"Yes."

Dick turned to his wife in reproachful amazement.

"Mary!" he cried, incredulously. This betrayal was something inconceivable from her, since he believed that now at last he knew her heart.

Burke, however, as usual, paid no heed to the niceties of sentiment. They had small place in his concerns as an official of police. His sole ambition just now was to fix the crime definitely on the perpetrator.

"You'll swear he killed him?" he asked, briskly, well content with this concrete result of the entanglement.

Mary subtly evaded the question, while seeming to give unqualified assent.

"Why not?" she responded listlessly.

At this intolerable assertion as he deemed it, Edward Gilder was reanimated. He sat rigidly erect in his, chair. In that frightful moment, it came to him anew that here was in verity the last detail in a consummate scheme by this woman for revenge against himself.

"God!" he cried, despairingly. "And that's your vengeance!"

Mary heard, and understood. There came an inscrutable smile on her curving lips, but there was no satisfaction in that smile, as of one who realized the fruition of long-cherished schemes of retribution. Instead, there was only an infinite sadness, while she spoke very gently.

"I don't want vengeance—now!" she said.

"But they'll try my boy for murder," the magnate remonstrated, distraught.

"Oh, no, they can't!" came the rejoinder. And now, once again, there was a hint of the quizzical creeping in the smile. "No, they can't!" she repeated firmly, and there was profound relief in her tones since at last her ingenuity had found a way out of this outrageous situation thrust on her and on her husband.

Burke glared at the speaker in a rage that was abruptly grown suspicious in some vague way.

"What's the reason we can't?" he stormed.

Mary sprang to her feet. She was radiant with a new serenity, now that her quick-wittedness had discovered a method for baffling the mesh of evidence that had been woven about her and Dick through no fault of their own. Her eyes were glowing with even more than their usual lusters. Her voice came softly modulated, almost mocking.

"Because you couldn't convict him," she said succinctly. A contented smile bent the red graces of her lips.

Burke sneered an indignation that was, nevertheless, somewhat fearful of what might lie behind the woman's assurance.

"What's the reason?" he demanded, scornfully. "There's the body." He pointed to the rigid form of the dead man, lying there so very near them. "And the gun was found on him. And then, you're willing to swear that he killed him.... Well, I guess we'll convict him, all right. Why not?"

Mary's answer was given quietly, but, none the less, with an assurance that could not be gainsaid.

"Because," she said, "my husband merely killed a burglar." In her turn, she pointed toward the body of the dead man. "That man," she continued evenly, "was the burglar. You know that! My husband shot him in defense of his home!" There was a brief silence. Then, she added, with a wonderful mildness in the music of her voice. "And so, Inspector, as you know of course, he was within the law!"



CHAPTER XX. WHO SHOT GRIGGS?

In his office next morning, Inspector Burke was fuming over the failure of his conspiracy. He had hoped through this plot to vindicate his authority, so sadly flaunted by Garson and Mary Turner. Instead of this much-to-be-desired result from his scheming, the outcome had been nothing less than disastrous. The one certain fact was that his most valuable ally in his warfare against the criminals of the city had been done to death. Some one had murdered Griggs, the stool-pigeon. Where Burke had meant to serve a man of high influence, Edward Gilder, by railroading the bride of the magnate's son to prison, he had succeeded only in making the trouble of that merchant prince vastly worse in the ending of the affair by arresting the son for the capital crime of murder. The situation was, in very truth, intolerable. More than ever, Burke grew hot with intent to overcome the woman who had so persistently outraged his authority by her ingenious devices against the law. Anyhow, the murder of Griggs could not go unpunished. The slayer's identity must be determined, and thereafter the due penalty of the law inflicted, whoever the guilty person might prove to be. To the discovery of this identity, the Inspector was at the present moment devoting himself by adroit questioning of Dacey and Chicago Red, who had been arrested in one of their accustomed haunts by his men a short time before.

The policeman on duty at the door was the only other person in the room, and in consequence Burke permitted himself, quite unashamed, to employ those methods of persuasion which have risen to a high degree of admiration in police circles.

"Come across now!" he admonished. His voice rolled forth like that of a bull of Bashan. He was on his feet, facing the two thieves. His head was thrust forward menacingly, and his eyes were savage. The two men shrank before him—both in natural fear, and, too, in a furtive policy of their own. This was no occasion for them to assert a personal pride against the man who had them in his toils.

"I don't know nothin'!" Chicago Red's voice was between a snarl and a whine. "Ain't I been telling you that for over an hour?"

Burke vouchsafed no answer in speech, but with a nimbleness surprising in one of his bulk, gave Dacey, who chanced to be the nearer of the two, a shove that sent the fellow staggering half-way across the room under its impetus.

With this by way of appreciable introduction to his seriousness of purpose, Burke put a question:

"Dacey, how long have you been out?"

The answer came in a sibilant whisper of dread.

"A week."

Burke pushed the implication brutally.

"Want to go back for another stretch?" The Inspector's voice was freighted with suggestions of disasters to come, which were well understood by the cringing wretch before him.

The thief shuddered, and his face, already pallid from the prison lack of sunlight like some noxious growth of a cellar, became livid. His words came in a muffled moan of fear.

"God, no!"

Burke left a little interval of silence then in which the thieves might tremble over the prospect suggested by his words, but always he maintained his steady, relentless glare on the cowed creatures. It was a familiar warfare with him. Yet, in this instance, he was destined to failure, for the men were of a type different from that of English Eddie, who was lying dead as the meet reward for treachery to his fellows.... When, at last, his question issued from the close-shut lips, it came like the crack of a gun.

"Who shot Griggs?"

The reply was a chorus from the two:

"I don't know—honest, I don't!"

In his eagerness, Chicago Red moved toward his questioner—unwisely.

"Honest to Gawd, I don't know nothin' about it!"

The Inspector's fist shot out toward Chicago Red's jaw. The impact was enough. The thief went to his knees under the blow.

"Now, get up—and talk!" Burke's voice came with unrepentant noisiness against the stricken man.

Cringingly, Chicago Red, who so gloried in his strength, yet was now altogether humble in this precarious case, obeyed as far as the getting to his feet was concerned.... It never occurred to him even that he should carry his obedience to the point of "squealing on a pal!" Had the circumstances been different, he might have refused to accept the Inspector's blow with such meekness, since above all things he loved a bit of bodily strife with some one near his own strength, and the Inspector was of a sort to offer him a battle worth while.

So, now, while he got slowly to his feet, he took care to keep at a respectful distance from the official, though his big hands fairly ached to double into fists for blows with this man who had so maltreated him.

His own self-respect, of its peculiar sort, was saved by the interference of Cassidy, who entered the Inspector's office to announce the arrival of the District Attorney.

"Send 'im in," Burke directed at once. He made a gesture toward the doorman, and added: "Take 'em back!"

A grin of evil humor writhed the lips of the police official, and he added to the attentive doorman a word of direction that might well be interpreted by the malevolent expression on his face.

"Don't be rough with 'em, Dan," he said. For once, his dominating voice was reduced to something approaching softness, in his sardonic appreciation of his own humor in the conception of what these two men, who had ventured to resist his importunities, might receive at the hands of his faithful satellites.... The doorman grinned appreciatively, and herded his victims from the place. And the two went shamblingly in sure knowledge of the things that were in store. Yet, without thought of treachery. They would not "squeal"! All they would tell of the death of Eddie Griggs would be: "He got what was coming to him!"

The Inspector dropped into his swivel chair at the desk whilst he awaited the arrival of Demarest, the District Attorney. The greetings between the two were cordial when at last the public prosecutor made his appearance.

"I came as soon as I got your message," the District Attorney said, as he seated himself in a chair by the desk. "And I've sent word to Mr. Gilder.... Now, then, Burke, let's have this thing quickly."

The Inspector's explanation was concise:

"Joe Garson, Chicago Red, and Dacey, along with Griggs, broke into Edward Gilder's house, last night! I knew the trick was going to be pulled off, and so I planted Cassidy and a couple of other men just outside the room where the haul was to be made. Then, I went away, and after something like half an hour I came back to make the arrests myself." A look of intense disgust spread itself over the Inspector's massive face. "Well," he concluded sheepishly, "when I broke into the room I found young Gilder along with that Turner woman he married, and they were just talking together."

"No trace of the others?" Demarest questioned crisply.

At the inquiry, Burke's face crimsoned angrily, then again set in grim lines.

"I found Griggs lying on the floor—dead!" Once again the disgust showed in his expression. "The Turner woman says young Gilder shot Griggs because he broke into the house. Ain't that the limit?"

"What does the boy say?" the District Attorney demanded.

Burke shook his head dispiritedly.

"Nothing," he answered. "She told him not to talk, and so, of course, he won't, he's such a fool over her."

"And what does she say?" Demarest asked. He found himself rather amused by the exceeding chagrin of the Inspector over this affair.

Burke's voice grew savage as he snapped a reply.

"Refuses to talk till she sees a lawyer." But a touch of cheerfulness appeared in his tones as he proceeded. "We've got Chicago Red and Dacey, and we'll have Garson before the day's over. And, oh, yes, they've picked up a young girl at the Turner woman's place. And we've got one real clue—for once!" The speaker's expression was suddenly triumphant. He opened a drawer of the desk, and took out Garson's pistol, to which the silencer was still attached.

"You never saw a gun like that before, eh?" he exclaimed.

Demarest admitted the fact after a curious examination.

"I'll bet you never did!" Burke cried, with satisfaction. "That thing on the end is a Maxim silencer. There are thousands of them in use on rifles, but they've never been able to use them on revolvers before. This is a specially made gun," he went on admiringly, as he took it back and slipped it into a pocket of his coat. "That thing is absolutely noiseless. I've tried it. Well, you see, it'll be an easy thing—easiest thing in the world!—to trace that silencer attachment. Cassidy's working on that end of the thing now."

For a few minutes longer, the two men discussed the details of the crime, theorizing over the baffling event. Then, presently, Cassidy entered the office, and made report of his investigations concerning the pistol with the silencer attachment.

"I got the factory at Hartford on the wire," he explained, "and they gave me Mr. Maxim himself, the inventor of the silencer. He said this was surely a special gun, which was made for the use of Henry Sylvester, one of the professors at Yale. He wanted it for demonstration purposes. Mr. Maxim said the things have never been put on the market, and that they never will be."

"For humane reasons," Demarest commented, nodding approbation.

"Good thing, too!" Burke conceded. "They'd make murder too devilish easy, and it's easy enough now.... Well, Cassidy?"

"I got hold of this man, Sylvester," Cassidy went on. "I had him on the 'phone, too. He says that his house was robbed about eight weeks ago, and among other things the silencer was stolen." Cassidy paused, and chuckled drily. "He adds the startling information that the New Haven police have not been able to recover any of the stolen property. Them rube cops are immense!"

Demarest smiled slyly, as the detective, at a nod from his superior, went toward the door.

"No," he said, maliciously; "only the New York police recover stolen goods."

"Good-night!" quoth Cassidy, turning at the door, in admission of his discomfiture over the thrust, while Burke himself grinned wryly in appreciation of the gibe.

Demarest grew grave again, as he put the question that was troubling him most.

"Is there any chance that young Gilder did shoot Griggs?"

"You can search me!" the Inspector answered, disconsolately. "My men were just outside the door of the room where Eddie Griggs was shot to death, and none of 'em heard a sound. It's that infernal silencer thing. Of course, I know that all the gang was in the house."

"But tell me just how you know that fact," Demarest objected very crisply. "Did you see them go in?"

"No, I didn't," the Inspector admitted, tartly. "But Griggs——"

Demarest permitted himself a sneer born of legal knowledge.

"Griggs is dead, Burke. You're up against it. You can't prove that Garson, or Chicago Red, or Dacey, ever entered that house."

The Inspector scowled over this positive statement.

"But Griggs said they were going to," he argued.

"I know," Demarest agreed, with an exasperating air of shrewdness; "but Griggs is dead. You see, Burke, you couldn't in a trial even repeat what he told you. It's not permissible evidence."

"Oh, the law!" the Inspector snorted, with much choler. "Well, then," he went on belligerently, "I'll charge young Gilder with murder, and call the Turner woman as a witness."

The District Attorney laughed aloud over this project.

"You can't question her on the witness-stand," he explained patronizingly to the badgered police official. "The law doesn't allow you to make a wife testify against her husband. And, what's more, you can't arrest her, and then force her to go into the witness-stand, either. No, Burke," he concluded emphatically, "your only chance of getting the murderer of Griggs is by a confession."

"Then, I'll charge them both with the murder," the Inspector growled vindictively. "And, by God, they'll both go to trial unless somebody comes through." He brought his huge fist down on the desk with violence, and his voice was forbidding. "If it's my last act on earth," he declared, "I'm going to get the man who shot Eddie Griggs."

Demarest was seriously disturbed by the situation that had developed. He was under great personal obligations to Edward Gilder, whose influence in fact had been the prime cause of his success in attaining to the important official position he now held, and he would have gone far to serve the magnate in any difficulty that might arise. He had been perfectly willing to employ all the resources of his office to relieve the son from the entanglement with a woman of unsavory notoriety. Now, thanks to the miscarried plotting of Burke to the like end, what before had been merely a vicious state of affairs was become one of the utmost dreadfulness. The worst of crimes had been committed in the house of Edward Gilder himself, and his son acknowledged himself as the murderer. The District Attorney felt a genuine sorrow in thinking of the anguish this event must have brought on the father. He had, as well, sympathy enough for the son. His acquaintance with the young man convinced him that the boy had not done the deed of bloody violence. In that fact was a mingling of comfort and of anxiety. It had been better, doubtless, if indeed Dick had shot Griggs, had indicted a just penalty on a housebreaker. But the District Attorney was not inclined to credit the confession. Burke's account of the plot in which the stool-pigeon had been the agent offered too many complications. Altogether, the aspect of the case served to indicate that Dick could not have been the slayer.... Demarest shook his head dejectedly.

"Burke," he said, "I want the boy to go free. I don't believe for a minute that Dick Gilder ever killed this pet stool-pigeon of yours. And, so, you must understand this: I want him to go free, of course."

Burke frowned refusal at this suggestion. Here was a matter in which his rights must not be invaded. He, too, would have gone far to serve a man of Edward Gilder's standing, but in this instance his professional pride was in revolt. He had been defied, trapped, made a victim of the gang who had killed his most valued informer.

"The youngster'll go free when he tells what he knows," he said angrily, "and not a minute before." His expression lightened a little. "Perhaps the old gentleman can make him talk. I can't. He's under that woman's thumb, of course, and she's told him he mustn't say a word. So, he don't." A grin of half-embarrassed appreciation moved the heavy jaws as he glanced at the District Attorney. "You see," he explained, "I can't make him talk, but I might if circumstances were different. On account of his being the old man's son, I'm a little cramped in my style."

It was, in truth, one thing to browbeat and assault a convict like Dacey or Chicago Red, but quite another to employ the like violence against a youth of Dick Gilder's position in the world. Demarest understood perfectly, but he was inclined to be sceptical over the Inspector's theory that Dick possessed actual cognizance as to the killing of Griggs.

"You think that young Gilder really knows?" he questioned, doubtfully.

"I don't think anything—yet!" Burke retorted. "All I know is this: Eddie Griggs, the most valuable crook that ever worked for me, has been murdered." The official's voice was charged with threatening as he went on. "And some one, man or woman, is going to pay for it!"

"Woman?" Demarest repeated, in some astonishment.

Burke's voice came merciless.

"I mean, Mary Turner," he said slowly.

Demarest was shocked.

"But, Burke," he expostulated, "she's not that sort." The Inspector sneered openly.

"How do you know she ain't?" he demanded. "Well, anyhow, she's made a monkey out of the Police Department, and, first, last, and all the time, I'm a copper... And that reminds me," he went on with a resumption of his usual curt bluntness, "I want you to wait for Mr. Gilder outside, while I get busy with the girl they've brought down from Mary Turner's flat."



CHAPTER XXI. AGGIE AT BAY.

Burke, after the lawyer had left him, watched the door expectantly for the coming of the girl, whom he had ordered brought before him. But, when at last Dan appeared, and stood aside to permit her passing into the office, the Inspector gasped at the unexpectedness of the vision. He had anticipated the coming of a woman of that world with which he was most familiar in the exercise of his professional duties—the underworld of criminals, some one beautiful perhaps, but with the brand of viciousness marked subtly, yet visibly for the trained eye to see. Then, even in that first moment, he told himself that he should have been prepared for the unusual in this instance, since the girl had to do with Mary Turner, and that disturbing person herself showed in face and form and manner nothing to suggest aught but a gentlewoman. And, in the next instant, the Inspector forgot his surprise in a sincere, almost ardent admiration.

The girl was rather short, but of a slender elegance of form that was ravishing. She was gowned, too, with a chic nicety to arouse the envy of all less-fortunate women. Her costume had about it an indubitable air, a finality of perfection in its kind. On another, it might have appeared perhaps the merest trifle garish. But that fault, if in fact it ever existed, was made into a virtue by the correcting innocence of the girl's face. It was a childish face, childish in the exquisite smoothness of the soft, pink skin, childish in the wondering stare of the blue eyes, now so widely opened in dismay, childish in the wistful drooping of the rosebud mouth.

The girl advanced slowly, with a laggard hesitation in her movements obviously from fear. She approached the desk, from behind which the Inspector watched, fascinated by the fresh and wholesome beauty of this young creature. He failed to observe the underlying anger beneath the girl's outward display of alarm. He shook off his first impression by means of a resort to his customary bluster in such cases.

"Now, then, my girl," he said roughly, "I want to know——"

There came a change, wrought in the twinkling of an eye. The tiny, trimly shod foot of the girl rose and fell in a wrathful stamp.

"How dare you!" The clear blue eyes were become darkened with anger. There was a deepened leaf of red in either cheek. The drooping lips drooped no longer, but were bent to a haughtiness that was finely impressive.

Before the offended indignation of the young woman, Burke sat bewildered by embarrassment for once in his life, and quite at a loss.

"What's that?" he said, dubiously.

The girl explained the matter explicitly enough.

"What do you mean by this outrage?" she stormed. Her voice was low and rich, with a charming roundness that seemed the very hallmark of gentility. But, now, it was surcharged with an indignant amazement over the indignity put upon her by the representatives of the law. Then, abruptly, the blue eyes were softened in their fires, as by the sudden nearness of tears.

"What do you mean?" the girl repeated. Her slim form was tense with wrath. "I demand my instant release." There was indescribable rebuke in her slow emphasis of the words.

Burke was impressed in spite of himself, in spite of his accustomed cold indifference to the feelings of others as necessity compelled him to make investigation of them. His harsh, blustering voice softened perceptibly, and he spoke in a wheedling tone, such as one might employ in the effort to tranquillize a spoiled child in a fit of temper.

"Wait a minute," he remonstrated. "Wait a minute!" He made a pacifically courteous gesture toward one of the chairs, which stood by an end of the desk. "Sit down," he invited, with an effort toward cajoling.

The scorn of the girl was superb. Her voice came icily, as she answered:

"I shall do nothing of the sort. Sit down, indeed!—here! Why, I have been arrested——" There came a break in the music of her tones throbbing resentment. A little sob crept in, and broke the sequence of words. The dainty face was vivid with shame. "I—" she faltered, "I've been arrested—by a common policeman!"

The Inspector seized on the one flaw left him for defense against her indictment.

"No, no, miss," he argued, earnestly. "Excuse me. It wasn't any common policeman—it was a detective sergeant."

But his effort to placate was quite in vain. The ingenuous little beauty with the child's face and the blue eyes so widely opened fairly panted in her revolt against the ignominy of her position, and was not to be so easily appeased. Her voice came vibrant with disdain. Her level gaze on the Inspector was of a sort to suggest to him anxieties over possible complications here.

"You wait!" she cried violently. "You just wait, I tell you, until my papa hears of this!"

Burke regarded the furious girl doubtfully.

"Who is your papa?" he asked, with a bit of alarm stirring in his breast, for he had no mind to offend any one of importance where there was no need.

"I sha'n't tell you," came the petulant retort from the girl. Her ivory forehead was wrinkled charmingly in a little frown of obstinacy. "Why," she went on, displaying new symptoms of distress over another appalling idea that flashed on her in this moment, "you would probably give my name to the reporters." Once again the rosebud mouth drooped into curves of sorrow, of a great self-pity. "If it ever got into the newspapers, my family would die of shame!"