CHAPTER VIII
After the affair of the auto bandits--three of whom were killed--a lull followed. If you"re a sailor you know what kind of a lull I mean--blue-black clouds down the southwest horizon, the water crinkly, the booms wabbling. Suddenly a series of "accidents" began to happen to Norton. At first he did not give the matter much thought. The safe which fell almost at his feet and crashed through the sidewalk merely induced him to believe he was lucky. At another time an automobile came furiously around a corner while he was crossing the street, and only amazing agility saved him from bodily hurt. The car was out of sight when he thought to recall the number.
Then came the jolt in the subway. Only a desperate grab by one of the guards saved him from being crushed to death. Even then he thought nothing. But when a new box of cigarettes arrived and he tried one and found it strangely perfumed, and, upon further a.n.a.lysis, found it to contain a Javanese narcotic, a slow but sure death, he became wide awake enough. They were after him. He began to walk carefully, to keep in public places as often as he possibly could.
He was not really afraid of death, but he did abhor the thought of its coming up from behind. Except for the cigarettes they were all "accidents;" he could not have proved anything before a jury of his intimate friends.
He never entered an elevator without scrupulous care. He never pa.s.sed under coverings over the sidewalks where construction was going on.
Still, careful as he was, death confronted him once more. It was his habit to have his coffee and rolls--he rarely ate anything more for his breakfast--set down outside his door every morning. The coffee, being in a silver thermos bottle, kept its heat for hours. When he took the stopper out and poured forth a cup it looked oddly black, discolored.
It is quite probable that had there been no series of "accidents" he would have drunk a cup--and died in mortal agony. It contained bichloride of mercury.
Very quietly he set about to make inquiries. This was really becoming serious. In the kitchens clown-stairs nothing could be learned. The maid had set the thermos bottle before the door at ten-thirty. Norton had opened the door at one-thirty--three hours after. The outlook was not the cheerfulest. He knew perfectly well why all these things "happened;" he had interfered with the plans of the scoundrels who were making every possible move to kidnap Florence Hargreave.
One afternoon he paid Florence a visit. Of course he told her nothing.
They had become secretly engaged the day after he had rescued her from the auto bandits. They were secretly engaged because Florence wanted it so. For once Jones suspected nothing. Why should he? He had troubles enough. As a matter of fact, Norton was afraid of him in the same sense as a boy is afraid of a policeman.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY HAD BECOME SECRETLY ENGAGED]
But on this day, when the time came, he accosted the butler and drew him into the pantry.
"Jones, they are after me now."
"You? Explain."
Norton briefly recounted the deliberate attempts against his life.
"You see, I"m not liar enough to say that I"m not worried. I am, devilishly worried. I"m not worth any ransom. I"m in the way, and they seem determined to put me out of it."
"To any other man I would say travel. But to you I say when you leave your rooms don"t go where you first thought you would--that is, some usual haunt. They"ll be everywhere, near your restaurants, your clubs, your office. You"re a methodical young man; become erratic. Keep away from here for at least three days, but always call me up by telephone some time during the day. Never under any circ.u.mstance, unless I send for you, come here at night. Only one man now watches the house during the day, but five are prowling around after dark. They might have instructions to shoot you on sight. I can"t spare you just at present, Mr. Norton. You"ve been a G.o.dsend; and if it seems that sometimes I did not trust you fully it was because I did not care to drag you in too deep."
Deep? Norton thought of Florence and smiled inwardly. Could anybody be in deeper than he was? Once it was on the tip of his tongue to confess his love for Florence, but the gravity of Jones" countenance was an obstacle to such move; it did not invite it.
To be sure, Jones had no real authority to say what Florence should or should not do with her heart. Still, from all points of view, it was better to keep the affair under the rose till there came a more propitious hour in which to make the disclosure.
Love, in the midst of all these alarms! Sharp, desperate rogues on one side, millions on the other, and yet love could enter the scene serenely, like an actor who had missed his cue and come on too soon.
Oddly enough, there was no real love-making such as you often read about. A pressure of the hand, a glance from the eye, there was seldom anything more. Only once--that memorable day on the river road--had he kissed her. No word of love had been spoken on either side. In that wild moment all conventionalities had disappeared like smoke in the wind. There had been neither past nor future, only the present in which they knew that they loved. With her he was happy, for he had no time to plan over the future. Away from her he saw the inevitable barriers providing against the marriage between a poor young man and a very rich young woman. A man who has any respect for himself wants always to be on equal terms with his wife. It"s the way this peculiar organization called society has written down its rules. Doubtless a relic of the stone age, when Ab went out with his club to seek a wife and drag her by the hair to his den, there to care for her and to guard her with his life"s blood. It is one of the few primitive sensations that remain to us, this wanting the female dependent upon the male.
Perhaps this accounts for man"s lack of interest on the suffragette question.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH HER HE WAS HAPPY, FOR HE HAD NO TIME TO PLAN OVER THE FUTURE]
Only Susan suspected the true state of affairs, being a woman. Having had no real romance herself, she delighted in having a second-hand one, as you might say. She intercepted many a glance and pretended not to see the stolen hand pressures. The wedding was already full drawn in her mind"s eye. These two young people should be married at Susan Farlow"s when the roses were climbing up the sides of the house and the young robins were boldly trying their fuzzy wings. It struck her as rather strange, but she could not conjure up (at this wedding) more than two men besides the minister, the bridegroom and the butler.
By forsaking his accustomed haunts, under the advice of Jones, the hidden warfare ceased temporarily. You can"t very well kill a man when you don"t know where to find him. He ate his breakfasts haphazardly, now here, now there. He received most of his a.s.signments by telephone and wrote his stories and articles in his club, in the writing rooms of hotels, and invariably despatched them to the office by messenger. The managing editor wanted to know what all this meant; but Norton declined to tell him.
It irked him to be forced to rearrange his daily life--his habits. It was a revolution against his ease, for he loved ease when he was not at work. He had the sensation of having been suddenly robbed of his home, of having been cast out into the streets. And on top of all this he had to go and fall in love!
There was no longer a shadow opposite the apartments of the Countess Perigoff. Braine came and went nightly without discovering any one.
This rather worried him. It gave him the impression that the shadow had found out what he had been seeking and no longer needed to watch the coming and going of either himself or the Countess Perigoff.
"Olga, it looks as if we were at the end of our rope," he said discouragedly. "We have failed in our attempts so far. The devil watches over that girl."
"Or G.o.d," replied the countess gloomily. In nearly every instance their success has been due to chance. "Somehow I"m convinced that we began wrong. We should have let Hargreave escape quietly, followed him, and made him fast when the right opportunity came. After a month or so his vigilance would have relaxed; he would have arrived at the belief that he had eluded us."
"Indeed!" ironically. "He wasn"t vigilant all these years in which he did elude us. How about the child he never sought but guarded?
Vigilance! He never was anything else all these seventeen years. The truth is, success has developed a coa.r.s.eness in our methods. And now it is too late for finesse. We have tried every device we can think of; and there they are--the girl free, Norton unharmed, and the father as secure in his retreat as though he wore an invisible cloak. My head aches. I have ceased to be inventive."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY WERE TO BE MARRIED]
"The two are in love with each other."
"Are you sure of that?"
"I have my eyes. But I begin to wonder."
"About what?"
"Whether or not Jones suspects me and is giving me rope to hang myself with. Not once have the police been called in and told what has really happened. They are totally at sea. And what has become of the man over the way?"
"By the Lord Harry!" exclaimed Braine, clapping his hands. "I believe I"ve solved that. We shot a man coming out of Hargreave"s. Since then there"s been no one across the way. One and the same man!"
"But that knowledge doesn"t get us anywhere."
"No. You say they are in love?"
"Secretly. I don"t believe the butler has an inkling of it. It is possible, however, that Susan has caught the trend of affairs. But, being rather romantic, she will in nowise interfere."
Braine smoked in silence. Presently a smile twisted his lips.
"You have thought of something?" she asked.
"You might try it," he said. "They have accepted your friendship; whether with ulterior purpose remains to be learned. She has been to your apartments two or three times to tea and always got home safely."
"No," she said determinedly. "Nothing shall happen here. I will not take the risk."
"Wait till I"m through. Break up the romance in such a way that the girl will bar Norton from the house. That"s what we"ve been aiming at; to get rid of that meddling reporter. We"ve tried poisons. Try your kind."
"What do you mean?"
"Lies."
"Ah! I understand. You want me to win him away from her. It can not be done."
"Pshaw! You have a bag full of tricks. You can easily manage to put him into an equivocal position out of which he can not possibly squirm so far as the girl is concerned. A little melodrama, arranged for the benefit of Florence. Fall into Norton"s arms at the right moment, or something like that."
"I suppose I could. But if I failed..."