The Million Dollar Mystery by Harold MacGrath (cool books to read .TXT) 📖

the grocery. There have been no telegrams. Some one in that house knows where the money is, and it's ten to one that it will be the girl."

"She looks enough like Katrina to be her ghost."

Braine went over to the window and stared up at the stars.

"You have made a good impression on the girl?" with his back still toward her.

"I had her in my arms."

"Olga, my hat is off to you," turning, now that his face was again in repose. "Your very frankness regarding your relationship will pull the wool over their eyes. Of course they'll make inquiries and they'll find out that you haven't lied. It's perfect. Not even that newspaper weasel will see anything wrong. Toward you they will eventually ease up and you can act without their even dreaming your part in the business. We must not be seen in public any more. This butler may know where I stand even though he can not prove it. Now, I'm going to tell you something. Perhaps you've long since guessed it. Katrina was mine till Hargreave—never mind what his name was then—till Hargreave came into the fold. So sure of her was I that I used her as a lure to bring him to us. She fell in love with him, but too late to warn him. I had the satisfaction of seeing him cast her aside, curse her, and leave her. In one thing she fooled us all. I never knew of the child till you told me."

He paused to light a cigarette.

"Hargreave was madly in love with her. He cursed her, but he came back to the house to forgive her, to find that she had been seized by the secret police and entombed in the fortress. I had my revenge. It was I who sent in the information, practically bogus. But in Russia they never question; they act and forget. So he had a daughter!"

He paced the floor, his hands behind his back; the woman watched him, oscillating between love and fear. He came to a halt abruptly and looked down at her.

"Don't worry. You have no rival. I'll leave the daughter to your tender mercies."

"The butler," she said, "has full power of attorney to act for Hargreave while absent, up to the day the girl becomes of legal age."

"I'll keep an eye on our friend Jones. From now on, day and night, there will be a cat at the knothole, and 'ware mouse! Could you make up anything like this girl?" suddenly.

"A fair likeness."

"Do it. Go to the ship which picked up the man at sea and quiz the captain. Either the aviator or Hargreave is alive. It is important to learn which at once. Be very careful; play the game only as you know how to play it. And if Hargreave is alive, we win. To-morrow morning, early. Tears of anguish, and all that. Sailors are easy when a woman weeps. No color, remember; just the yellow wig and the salient features. Now, by-by!"

"Aren't you going to kiss me, Leo?"

He caught her hands. "There is a species of Delilah about you, Olga. A kiss to-night from your lips would snip my locks; and I need a clear head. Whether we fail or win, when this game is played you shall be my wife." He kissed the hands and strode out into the hall.

The woman gazed down at her small white hands and smiled tenderly. (The tigress has her tender moments!) He meant it!

She went into her dressing-room and for an hour or more worked over her face and hair, till she was certain that if the captain of the ship described her to any one else he could not fail to give a fair description of Florence Hargreave.

But Norton reached the captain first. Other reporters had besieged him, but they had succeeded in gathering the vaguest kind of information. They had no description of Hargreave, while Norton had. Before going down to the boat, however, he had delved into the past of the Countess Olga Perigoff. It cost him a pocketful of money, but the end justified the means. The countess had no past worth mentioning. By piecing this and that together he became assured that she had told the simple truth regarding the relationship to Florence's mother. A cablegram had given him all the facts in her history; there were no gaps or discrepancies. It read clear and frank. Trust a Russian secret agent to know what he was talking about.

NORTON REACHED THE CAPTAIN FIRST
NORTON REACHED THE CAPTAIN FIRST

So Norton's suspicions—and he had entertained some—were completely lulled to sleep. And he wouldn't have doubted her at all except for the fact that Braine had been with her when he had introduced Hargreave. Hargreave had feared Braine; that much the reporter had elicited from the butler. But there wasn't the slightest evidence. Braine had been in New York for nearly six years. The countess had arrived in the city but a year ago. And Braine was a member of several fashionable clubs, never touched cards, and seldom drank. He was an expert chess player and a wonderful amateur billiardist. Perhaps Jones, the taciturn and inscrutable, had not told him all he knew regarding his master's past. Well, well; he had in his time untangled worse snarls. The office had turned him loose, a free lance, to handle the case as he saw fit, to turn in the story when it was complete.

But what a story it was going to be when he cleared it up! The more mystifying it was, the greater the zest and sport for him. Norton was like a gambler who played for big stakes, and only big stakes stirred his cravings.

The captain of the tramp steamer Orient told him the same tale he had told the other reporters: he had picked up a man at sea. The man had been brought aboard totally exhausted.

"Was there another body anywhere?"

"No."

"What became of him?"

"I sent a wireless and that seemed to bother him. It looked as though he did not want anybody to learn that he had been rescued. The moment the boat touched the pier he lost himself in the crowd. Fifty reporters came aboard, but he was gone. And I could but tell them just what I'm telling you."

"He had money."

"About five thousand."

"Please describe him."

The captain did so. It was the same description he had given to all the reporters. Norton looked over the rail at the big warehouse.

"Was it an ordinary balloon?"

"There you've got me. My Marconi man says the balloon part was like any other balloon; but the passenger car was a new business to him. It could be driven against the wind."

"Driven against the wind. Did you tell this to the other chaps?"

"Don't think I did. Just remembered it. Probably some new invention; and now it's at the bottom of the sea. Two men, as I understand, went off in this contraption. One is gone for good."

"For good," echoed the reporter gravely. "Gone for good, indeed, poor devil!"

Norton took out a roll of bills. "There's two hundred in this roll."

"Well?" said the captain, vastly astonished.

"It's yours if you will do me a small favor."

"If it doesn't get me mixed up with the police. I'm only captain of a tramp; and some of the harbor police have taken a dislike to me. What do you want me to do?"

"The police will not bother you. This man Hargreave had some enemies; they want either his life or his money; maybe both. It's a peculiar case, with Russia in the background. He might have laid the whole business before the police, but he chose to fight it out himself. And to tell the truth, I don't believe the police would have done any good."

"Heave her over; what do you want me to do for that handsome roll of money?"

"If any man or woman who is not a reporter comes to pump you tell them the man went ashore with a packet under his arm."

"Tie a knot in that."

"Say the man was gray-haired, clean-shaven, straight, with a scar high up on his forehead, generally covered up by his hair."

"That's battened down, my lad. Go on."

"Say that you saw him enter yonder warehouse, and later depart without his packet."

"Easy as dropping my mudhook."

"That's all." Norton gave the captain the money. "Good-by and many thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Norton left the slip and proceeded to the office of the warehouse. He approached the manager's desk.

"Hello, Grannis, old top!"

The man looked up from his work surlily. Then his face brightened.

"Norton? What's brought you here? Oh, yes; that balloon business. Sit down."

"What kind of a man is the captain of that old hooker in the slip?"

"Shifty in gun running, but otherwise as square as a die. Looks funny to see an old tub like that fixed up with wireless; but that has saved his neck a dozen times when he was running it into a noose. Not going to interview me, are you?"

"No. I'm going to ask you to do me a little favor."

"They always say that. But spin her out. If it doesn't cost me my job, it's yours."

"Well, there will be a person making inquiries about the mysterious aeronaut. All I want you to say is, that he left a packet with you, that you've put it in that safe till he calls to claim it."

Grannis nibbled the end of his pen. "Suppose some one should come and demand that I open the safe and deliver?"

"All you've got to do is to tell them to show the receipt signed by you."

The warehouse manager laughed. "Got a lot of sense in that ivory dome of yours. All right. But if anything happens you've got to come around and back me up. What's it about?"

"That I dare not tell you. This much, I'm laying a trap and I want some one I don't know to fall into it."

"On your way, James. But if you don't send me some prize fight tickets next week for this, I'll never do you another favor."

In reply Norton took from his pocket two bits of pasteboard and laid them on the desk. "I knew you'd be wanting something like this."

"Ringside!" cried Grannis. "You reporters are lucky devils!"

"I'd go myself if there was any earthly chance of a real scrap. You make me laugh, Gran. You're always going, always hoping the next one will be a real one. But it's all bunk. The pugs are the biggest fakers on top of the sod. They've got us newspaper men done to a frazzle."

"I guess you're right. Well, count on me regarding that mysterious bundle in the safe."

"At three o'clock this afternoon I want you to call me up. If no one has called, why the game is up. But if some one does come around and make inquiries, don't fail to let me know."

"I'll be here till five. I'd better call you up then."

Then Norton returned home and idled about till afternoon. He went over to Riverdale. Five times he walked up and down in front of the Hargreave place, finally plucked up his courage and walked to the door. After all, he was a lucky mortal. He had a good excuse to visit this house every day in the week. And there was something tantalizing in the risk he took. Besides, he wanted to prove to himself whether it was a passing fancy or something deeper. That's the way with humans; we never see a sign "Fresh Paint" that we don't have to prove it.

He chatted with Florence for a while and found that, for all she might be guileless to the world, she was a good linguist, a fine musician, and talked with remarkable keenness about books and arts. But unless he roused her, the sadness of her position always lay written in her face. It was not difficult for him to conjure up her dreams in coming to the city and the blow which, like a bolt