An hour pa.s.sed while the young man sought in vain to enchain his incoherent thoughts. He could think of nothing vividly. He could recall nothing at all.
Whenever the wail of that infant the matron was caring for reached him he writhed and ground his teeth.
In this sad plight he remained until a door near him opened and a man in plain clothes came stealthily in. He walked straight to Barnes, bent down and whispered:
"If you"ve got a hundred-dollar bill about you drop it onto the floor and walk out. The lieutenant won"t see you."
The individual turned on his heel and went out the way he had come.
He did not shut the door tightly behind him. Barnes felt that an eye was watching through the slit, so he lost no time in jumping to his feet, getting his money out of his wallet and dropping two one-hundred-dollar bills on the floor.
This done, he jammed the wallet back in his pocket, picked up his cane and gloves and opened the door through which he had entered the room.
He started warily forward with his eyes straight ahead. He could feel that the lieutenant who sat behind the high-railed-off desk was the only person in the room and he could hear the scratch of his busy pen.
Gaining the street entrance, he drew an immense sigh of relief, opened it eagerly and fairly leaped outside to the steps. As the door shut behind him he thought he heard a sudden explosive laugh, but it meant nothing to him as he hurried along blindly, increasing his pace at every stride.
At the corner of Third avenue he stopped and consulted his watch. It was midnight!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AN INSTANCE OF EPIC NERVE.
Travers Gladwin scaled the great staircase three steps at a time.
Stumbling against a divan he threw himself across it and lay for a few moments stretched on his back with every muscle relaxed. He felt as if he had been buffeted by mighty tempests and overwhelmed by cataclysms.
His head throbbed with fever and he felt a sickening emptiness inside.
How was he going to avert the catastrophe of an elopement and at the same time save himself and that charming young girl from a shrieking scandal? There didn"t seem any coherent solution. If Whitney Barnes had only remained with him--at least to lend him moral courage!
Where had the confounded a.s.s gone? Why didn"t he return? A fine friend in need was he!
There was no time to unravel his perplexities and lay any definite plan. He must act, taking his cue as it was presented to him by the racing events of the moment.
He got up from the divan and rushed downstairs. He cleared the last landing, with a momentum that slid him across the polished floor of the hallway after the manner of small boys who slide on ice. He fairly coasted into the room, but his precipitate intrusion did not in the least disturb his visitor.
During Gladwin"s brief absence that supernaturally composed individual had cut the Rembrandt from the frame and laid it on one of the sheets of wrapping paper he had spread out on the chest. He had also cut out a Manet, a Corot and a Vegas--all small canvases--and hung them over the back of a chair.
As the owner of these masterpieces skidded into the room the thief was taking down a Meissonier, frame and all, fondling it tenderly and feasting his eyes on the superb wealth of detail and the rich crimson and scarlet pigments in the tiny oblong within the heavy gilt mounting.
"Ah, Officer, you are back," he said easily, as Gladwin staggered against a table and gripped it for support. The methodical despoiler did not so much as turn his head as he placed the Meissonier on the chest and deftly cut out the canvas. His back was still squared to the flabbergasted young man as he continued:
"Come, get busy, Officer, if you are going to help me. Take down that picture over there on the right."
He pointed, and went on wrapping up the immensely valuable plunder.
Gladwin got up on a chair and reached for one of the least noteworthy of his collection.
"No, no--not that one," said the thief, sharply,--"the one above," an old Dutch painting that had cost a round $10,000.
The young man took it down gingerly, biting his lips and cursing inwardly.
"That"s it," he was rewarded, "bring it here."
Gladwin managed to cross the room with an appearance of stolid indifference and as he handed the picture to the "collector" he said haltingly:
"I take it these pictures is worth a lot of money, sorr."
"You"re right, I take it," said the other with a laugh, beginning at once to slash out the canvas.
"Yes, sorr, I mean, _you take it_!" said Gladwin viciously. The wrathful emphasis missed its mark. The "collector" was humming to himself and working with masterful deftness.
"Now that woman"s head to the left," he commanded as soon as he had disposed of the Dutch masterpiece. "And be quick about it. You move as if you were in a trance."
Gladwin saw that he was to take down his only Rubens, wherefore he deliberately reached for another painting, "The Blue Boy."
"No, not that thing!" exclaimed the "collector."
"Why, what"s the matter with this one, sorr," snapped back Gladwin.
"It"s a fake," said the other, contemptuously. "I paid two old frauds five hundred pounds for that thing in London a couple of years ago--it"s absolutely worthless from the standpoint of art."
Gladwin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement and slid from the chair to the floor.
How had this astounding person come by the secret of "The Blue Boy?"
There was a positive awe in Gladwin"s gaze as he sized up the big man--again from his shining patent leather shoes to his piercing eyes and broad, intellectual forehead. He fairly jumped when the command was repeated to take down the Rubens and hand it to him. As he handed it over he stammered:
"I don"t think much of this one, sorr."
"You don"t?" said the other, in pitying disgust. "Well, it"s a Rubens--worth $40,000 if it"s worth a cent."
"Yez don"t tell me," Gladwin managed to articulate.
Indicating the full length portrait of the ancestral Gladwin, he added, "Who is that old fellow over there, sorr?"
"Kindly don"t refer to the subject of that portrait as fellow," the other caught him up. "That is my great-grandfather, painted by Gilbert Charles Stuart more than a century ago."
"You monumental liar," was on Gladwin"s lips. He managed to stifle the outburst and ask:
"Are yez goin" to take all these pictures away with yez to-night?"
"Oh, no, not all of them," was the careless reply. "Only the best ones."
"How unspeakably kind of him!" thought the unregarded victim.
"If yez wanted the others," he said with fine sarcasm, "I could pack "em up afther ye"re gone an" sind thim to yez."