"Won"t take a second to get "em out." He hurried around the corner of the house, leaving Barnes alone with the car.
A dry, quiet chuckle fell upon Barnes"s ears. He glanced about in surprise and alarm. No one was in sight.
"Look up, young man," and the startled young man obeyed. His gaze halted at a window on the second story, almost directly over his head.
Mr. Sprouse was looking down upon him, his sharp features fixed in a sardonic grin.
"Well, I"ll be d.a.m.ned!" burst from Barnes"s lips. He could not believe his eyes.
"Surprised to see me, eh? If you"re not in a hurry, I"d certainly appreciate a lift as far as the Tavern, old man. I"ll be down in a jiffy."
"Hold on! What the deuce does all this mean? How do you happen to be here, and where are the--"
"Sh! Not so loud! Don"t get excited. I dare say you know all there is to know about me by this time, so we needn"t waste time over trifles.
Stand aside! I"m going to drop." A moment later he swung over the sill, and dropped lightly to the ground eight feet below. Dusting his hands, he advanced and extended one of them to the bewildered Barnes. "Oh, you won"t shake, eh? Well, it doesn"t matter. I don"t blame you."
"See here, Sprouse or whatever your name is,--"
"Cool off! I"ll explain in ten words. I didn"t get the stuff. I came back this morning to have a quiet, undisturbed look around. My only reason for revealing myself to you now, Barnes, is to ask your a.s.sistance in--"
"Ask my a.s.sistance, you infernal rogue!" roared Barnes. "Why, I"ll--I"ll--"
"Better hear me out," broke in Sprouse calmly.
"I could drill a hole through you so quickly you"d never know what did it," he went on. His hand was in his coat pocket, and a quick glance revealed to Barnes a singularly impressive angle in the cloth, the point of which seemed to be directed squarely at his chest. "But I"m not going to do it. I just want to set myself straight with you. In a word, I never got anywhere near the room in which the jewels were hidden. This is G.o.d"s truth, Barnes. I didn"t stick a knife into that poor devil up there the other night. Here"s what actually happened. I--"
"Wait a moment. You intended to steal the jewels, didn"t you? You were not playing fair with me then, so why should I put any faith in you now?"
"Honest confession is good for the soul," said Sprouse easily. "I wasn"t the only one who was trying to get the baubles, my friend. It was a game in which only the best man could win."
"I know the truth now about Roon and Paul," said Barnes significantly.
"You do?" sneered Sprouse. "I"ll bet you a thousand to one you do not.
If the girl told you what she believes to be true, she didn"t have it straight at all. She was led to believe that they were a couple of crooks and that they fixed me in that Tavern down there. Isn"t that what she told you? Well, that story was cooked up for her special benefit. I don"t mind telling you the truth about them, and you can tell it to her. Roon was the Baron Hedlund--But all this can wait.
Now--"
"Did you shoot either of those men?"
"I did not. Baron Hedlund was shot, I firmly believe, by Prince Ugo. I might as well go on with the story now and have it over with. Tell that chauffeur to take a little stroll. He doesn"t have to hear the story, you know. Hedlund came up here a week or so ago to keep a look-out for his wife. The Baroness is supposed to be deeply enamoured of Prince Ugo. He found letters which seemed to indicate that she was planning to join the Prince up here. In any event, he came to watch. Well, she didn"t come. She had been headed off, but he didn"t know that. When he heard of the arrival of a lady at Green Fancy the other afternoon, he got busy. He went right up there with blood in his eye. I admit that I am the gentleman who telephoned the warning up to the Prince. They tried to head the Baron and his man off at the cross-roads, but he beat them to it. If there was to be a fight, they didn"t want it to happen anywhere near the house. Part of them, led by Ugo himself, took a short cut up through the woods and met the two men in the road.
"There is only one man in the world to-day who is a better shot at night than Prince Ugo, and modesty keeps me from mentioning his ill.u.s.trious name. That"s why I believe Ugo is the one who got the Baron,--or Roon, as you know him. The other fellow was halted at the cross-roads when he made a run for it. A couple of men had been sent there for just such an emergency. Hedlund was a curiously chivalrous chap. He went to extreme measures to protect his wife"s good name by wiping out all means of identification. His wife"s good name! It is to laugh! Now, that is the true story of the little affair, and if you are as much of a gentleman as I take you to be, Barnes, you will respect Hedlund"s desire to shield the woman he loved, and let him lie up yonder in an unmarked grave. That is what he figured on, you know, in case things went against him, and I"ll stake my head that if you put it up to the Countess Therese, she will feel as I do about it. She will beg you to keep the secret. Hedlund was a lifelong friend of her family. He was beloved by all of them. He married an actress in Vienna three or four years ago. On second thoughts, if I were you I"d spare the Countess. I"d let her go on thinking that the story she has heard is true,--at least for the time being. She"s a nice girl and there"s no sense in giving her any unnecessary pain. But that"s up to you. You can do as you please about it.
"Now to go back to my own troubles. When I got out into the hall night before last, after leaving her room, I heard voices whispering in Prince Ugo"s room. Naturally I thought that some one had lamped us on the outside, and that I was likely to be in a devil of a mess if I wasn"t careful. The last place for me to go was back into her room.
They would cut me off from the outside. So I beat it up the stairway into the attic. Nothing happened, so I sneaked down to have a peep around. The door to Ugo"s room was open, but there was no light on the inside. He came to the door and looked up and down the hall. Then some one else came out and started to sneak away. I leave you to guess the s.e.x.
"Nicholas b.u.t.ted in at this unfortunate juncture. He made the mistake of his life. I could see him as plain as day, standing in the hall grinning like an ape. Ugo jumped back into his room. In less than a second he was out again. He landed squarely on Nicholas"s back as the fellow turned to escape. I saw the steel flash. Poor old Nick went down in a heap, letting out a horrible yell. Ugo dragged him into the room and dashed back into his own. A moment later he came out again, yelling for help. I heard him shouting that the house had been robbed,--and in two seconds there was an uproar all over the place. I thought I was done for. But he had them all rushing downstairs, yelling that the thief had gone that way. There was only one thing left for me to do and that was to get out on the roof if possible, and wait for things to quiet down. I got out through a trap door and stayed there for an hour or so. They were beating the forest for the thief, and I give you my word, believe it or not, I actually sent up a prayer, Barnes, that you had got off safely with the girl. I prayed harder than I ever dreamed a man could pray.
"Well, to shorten the story, I finally took a chance and slid down to the eaves where I managed to find the limb of a tree big enough to support me,--just as if the Lord had ordered it put there for my special benefit. I was soon on the ground, and that meant safety for me. I had heard Ugo tell the others that Nicholas said the man who stabbed him was yours truly. Can you beat it? And then every mother"s son of them declared it was a feat that no one else in the world could have pulled off but me, and as I was nowhere to be found, it was only natural that all of them should believe the lie that Ugo told.
"And now comes the maddening part of the whole business. He said that the crown jewels were gone! I heard him telling how he was awakened out of a sound sleep by a man with a gun, who forced him to open the safe and hand over the treasure. Then he said he was put to sleep again by a crack over the head with a slung-shot. He was only partially stunned,--Lord, what a liar!--and came to in time to hear the struggle across the hall. The thief was running downstairs when he staggered to the door. It seems that the door at the bottom of the steps had not been closed that night.
"Now, my dear Mr. Barnes, when I asked you to lend your a.s.sistance awhile ago, it was only to have you tell me when it was that Mr. Loeb left this place, which way he went, and who accompanied him. If we are to find the crown jewels, my friend, we will first have to find Prince Ugo. He has them."
Barnes had not taken his eyes from the face of this amazing rascal during the whole of the recital. He had been deceived in him before; he was determined not to be fooled again.
"I don"t believe a word of this yarn," he said flatly. "You have the jewels and--"
"Don"t be an a.s.s," snapped Sprouse. "If I had them do you suppose I"d be fiddling around here to-day? Not much. I saw the gang making their getaway last night, and I saw Peter depart this morning. I concluded to have a look about the place. Hope springs eternal, you know. There was a bare possibility that he might have forgotten them!" He scowled as he grinned, and never had Barnes looked upon a countenance so evil.
"Why should I tell YOU anything about Prince Ugo? It would only be helping you to carry out the game--"
"Look here, Mr. Barnes, I"m not going to double-cross you again. That"s all over. I want to get that scurvy dog who knifed poor old Nick. Nick was a decent, square man. He wasn"t a crook. He was a patriot, if such a thing exists in this world to-day. If you can give me a lead, I"ll try to run Prince Ugo down. And if I do, we"ll get the jewels."
"We? You amuse me, Sprouse."
"Well, I can"t do any more than give my promise, my solemn oath, or something like that. I can"t give a bond, you know. I swear to you that if I lay hands on that stuff, I will deliver it to you. Might just as well trust me as Ugo. You won"t get them from him, that"s sure; and you may get them from me."
"Is it revenge you"re after?"
"My G.o.d," almost shouted Sprouse in his exasperation, "didn"t he give me a black eye among my friends up here? Didn"t he put me in wrong with all of them? Do you think I"m going to stand for that? Think I"m going to let him get away with it? You don"t know me, my friend. I"ve got a reputation at stake. No one has ever double-crossed me and got away with it. I want to prove to the world that I didn"t take those jewels.
I--"
"Just what do you mean by "the world," Sprouse?"
"My world," he replied succinctly. "I"m not a piker, you know," he went on, c.o.c.king one eye in a somewhat supercilious manner. "The stakes are always high in my game. I don"t play for pennies."
"Get in the car," said Barnes suddenly. He had decided to take a chance with the resourceful, indefatigable rascal. There was nothing to be lost by setting him on the track of Prince Ugo, who, if the man"s story was true, had betrayed his best friends. There was something convincing about Sprouse"s version of the affair at Green Fancy. He called out to Peter.
"I suppose you know that the whole game is up, Naismith," he said, lowering his voice. Peter was wrathfully cranking the car. "The government is going to take a hand in this business up here."
"If you mean that as a hint to me, it"s unnecessary. I"ll be on my way inside of an hour. This is no place for me. And that Tavern is no place for--er--for her, Barnes. Just mention that you saw me and that I"m going after Mr. Loeb. If I get the stuff, I"ll do the square thing by her. Not for sentimental reasons, bless you, but just because I like to do things that make people wonder what the h.e.l.l I"ll do next. Tell her the whole story if you feel like it, but if I were you I"d wait till she is safe among her friends, where she won"t be nervous. Hit it up a bit, Peter, old boy. I"m in a hurry."
Peter eyed him in an unfriendly manner. "Where did you come from, Mr.
Perkins? Mighty queer you--"
Sprouse spoke softly out of the corner of his mouth. "Nice old New England name, isn"t it, Barnes?" To Peter: "It"s a long story. I"ll write it to you. Speed up."
Barnes told all that he knew of Prince Ugo"s flight. Sprouse looked thoughtful for a long time.
"So O"Dowd knows that I really was after the swag, eh? He believes I got it?"
"I suppose so."
"The only one who thinks I"m absolutely innocent is Ugo, of course,--and Mrs. Van d.y.k.e. That"s good." Sprouse smacked his lips.
"Just send me on to Hornville in the car, and don"t give me another thought till you hear from me. I"ve got a pretty fair idea where I can find Mr. Loeb. It will take a little time,--a couple of days, perhaps,--but sooner or later he"ll turn up in close proximity to the beautiful baroness."