"Do you think there is poison in it?"
"I shouldn"t be surprised," he admitted.
She slipped the ring from her finger and gave it to him.
"There is poison in it; so be careful how you handle it," she said.
The policeman accepted it gingerly and dropped it into his capacious pocket. It tinkled as it fell against the handcuffs.
At that moment the other policeman broke in the door.
"All right, Dolan; she"s given up the game."
"She didn"t kill the man after all," said Dolan.
"He"s alive?" she screamed.
"Yes; and they"ve taken him off to the Tombs. Just a scalp wound.
He"ll be all right in a day or two."
"Alive!" murmured Olga. She had not killed the man she loved, then?
And if they were indeed taken to Siberia, she would be with him until the end of things.
With her handsome head proudly erect, she walked toward the door. She paused for a moment to look at the portrait of Hargreave. Somehow it seemed to smile at her ironically. Then on, down the stairs, between the two officers, she went. Her glance traveled coolly from face to face, and stopped at Florence"s. There she saw pity.
"You are sorry for me?" she asked skeptically.
"Oh, yes! I forgive you," said the generous Florence.
"Thanks! Officers, I am ready."
So the Countess Olga pa.s.sed through that hall door forever. How many times had she entered it, with guile and treachery in her heart? It was the game. She had played it and lost, and she must pay her debts to Fate the fiddler. Siberia! The tin or lead mines, the ankle-chains, the knout, and many things that were far worse to a beautiful woman! Well, so long as Braine was at her side, she would suffer all these things without a murmur. And always there would be a chance, a chance!
When they heard the taxicab rumble down the driveway to the street, Hargreave turned to Florence.
"Come along, now, and we"ll have the bad taste taken off our tongues.
To win out is the true principle of life. It takes off some of the tinsel and glamour, but the end is worth while."
They all trooped up-stairs to Florence"s room. So wonderful is the power and attraction of money that they forgot the humiliation of their late enemies.
Hargreave approached the portrait of himself, took it from the wall, pressed a b.u.t.ton on the back, which fell outward. Behold! There, in neat packages of a hundred thousand each, lay the mystic million! The spectators were awed into silence for a moment. Perhaps the thought of each was identical--the long struggle, the terrible hazards, the deaths, that had taken place because of this enormous sum of money.
A million, sometimes called cool; why, n.o.body knows. There it lay, without feeling, without emotion; yellow notes payable to bearer on demand. Presently Florence gasped, Norton sighed, and Hargreave smiled. The face of Jones (or Jedson) alone remained impa.s.sive.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AFTER THE STORM, THE SUNSHINE]
A million dollars is a marvelous sight. Very few people have ever seen it, not even millionaires themselves. I dare say you never saw it; and I"m tolerably certain I never have, or will! A million, ready for eager, careless fingers to spend, or thrifty fingers to multiply! What Correggio, what Rubens, what t.i.tian, could stand beside it? None that I wot of.
"Florence, that is all yours, to do with as you please, to spend when and how you will. Share it with your husband-to-be. He is a brave and gallant young man, and is fortunate in finding a young woman equally brave and gallant. For the rest of my days I expect peace. Perhaps sometimes Jones here and I will talk over the strange things that have happened; but we"ll do that only when we haven"t you young folks to talk to. After your wedding journey you will return here. While I live this shall be your home. I demand that much. Free! No more looking over my shoulder when I walk the streets; no more testing windows and doors. I am myself again. I take up the thread I laid down eighteen years ago. Have no fear. Neither Braine nor Olga will ever return. Russia has a grip of steel."
Three weeks later Servan, the Russian agent, left for Russia with his three charges, Olga, Braine and Vroon. It was a long journey they went upon, something like ten weeks, always watched, always under the strictest guard, compelled to eat with wooden forks and knives and spoons. Waking or sleeping they knew no rest from espionage. From Paris to Berlin, from Berlin to St. Petersburg, as Petrograd was then called; and then began the cruel journey over the mighty steppes of that barbaric wilderness to the Siberian mines. The way of the transgressor is hard.
On the same day that Olga and Braine made their first descent into the deadly mines, Florence and Norton were married. After the storm, the sunshine: and who shall deny them happiness?
[Ill.u.s.tration: IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE CEREMONY]
Immediately after the ceremony the two sailed for Europe, on their honeymoon; and it is needless to say that some of the million went with them, but there was no mystery about it!
THE END
Harold MacGrath
A Sketch of the Author at Work and at Play
Harold MacGrath, author of more than a dozen best sellers, the book of an operetta, and short stories without number, is a native of Syracuse, N. Y., having been born in that city on September 4, 1871, and lived there ever since, except when he is out circling the globe or in Gotham looking things over.
Mr. MacGrath was a journalist before he essayed the higher form of literature that sells on a royalty basis, instead of by the yard, and he claims that he owes his start in "romancing" to a physical defect.
Mr. MacGrath is partially deaf and while serving as a newspaper reporter he heard only about half of what was said to him, and had to "make up" the other half himself. Thus, his imagination was given quite a course in physical culture before its owner"s conscience began to p.r.i.c.k him. "Why not do the thing right?" MacGrath asked himself.
"I don"t knew," he replied. "Let"s try it," he suggested. "All right," he answered. And he quit the newspaper game and started a novel, "Arms and the Woman," which appeared in 1890. This was followed by many good sellers, the speed limit of the author being three books some years.
Next to being a novelist MacGrath is a globe-trotter. He has been in every nook and corner on the face of the globe where white man dares to go and can get there without swimming or flying. As a result, he has obtained the inspirations for most of his novels while amid the fascinating surroundings in some Asiatic harbor town, while traveling down the Rhine, or while listening to strains of Viennese music in some little out-of-the-way cafe along the Danube. He is a genius in pen picturing and can impart the color, the life, the action of real life into his pages in a manner that is bound to attract.
He is fond of tennis and out-of-door sports. He likes boxing and is one of the best amateur pool and billiard players in the country. He has friends in almost every large city in the world and has met more "crowned heads" than any other author, perhaps, outside of Hallie Erminie Rives, wife of Post Wheeler, the versatile secretary of the American Emba.s.sy at Tokio.
As a collector and connoisseur, Mr. MacGrath has a wide reputation, his especial hobby being Turkish rugs and antique jewelry, of which he has a wonderful collection. Another of his hobbies is horses, and although he owns only one himself, he will never pa.s.s a good looking horse by without stopping to pat it. He even carries lump sugar in his pocket and takes great delight in feeding it to the horses of the mounted officers in New York, many of whom (the officers) know him.
His method of working up his stories is unique. According to his own statement, he first "thinks out" the start of his story, carrying his idea through what develops into the first few chapters of the book.
Then he drops the thread of thought and starts again, but this time at the end, and figures out how he will dispose of his characters and how best the story should end. This accomplished, he sits down to his typewriter and "goes to work." While writing, he often strikes on good ideas to be incorporated in parts already considered. Immediately he jots down his idea on the back of an envelope or a sc.r.a.p of paper and inserts the note among the pages of his ma.n.u.script just where it belongs After completing his first draft, he goes back over the entire ma.n.u.script, making corrections here and there and additions. He then sits down to sum the whole story up in his mind and by this process is able to pick out the flaws. His second draft, therefore, is quite a finished product. He makes the final draft of his ma.n.u.script himself, as he has found that he often strikes upon improvements at the eleventh hour that go far to better his stories. If he turned the work of making the final draft over to a stenographer, this last chance would be lost.
He is one of the few modern writers who does not have to try to be funny. It is natural with him to amuse.
Those interested in the chronological order of his stories will find them as follows:
In 1901 he published his second book, "The Puppet Crown." "The Grey Cloak" followed in 1903, and by the time it appeared, most of the readers of fiction had acquired the MacGrath habit and were on the lookout for the next dose of his delightful literary stimulant that chased the "blues." Then came the story which established MacGrath"s reputation, "The Man on the Box," which appeared in 1904 and is still one of the best sellers in popular editions. In 1905 MacGrath put on some extra speed. He worked a double shift in his brain mill and the result was that before the dawn of the next New Year"s Day he had three more successful books to his credit. They were "The Princess Elopes,"
a novelette; "Enchantment," a book of short stories, and "Hearts and Masks," a novel that dealt with entanglements developing at a mask ball. In the same year he wrote "Half a Rogue," another highly popular story. In 1906 he turned out "The Watteau Shepherdess," an operetta.
These two productions were followed by "The Best Man" in 1907; "The Enchanted Hat" and "The Lure of the Mask" in 1908. "The Goose Girl"
was MacGrath"s next novel, and went far to uphold his reputation. "A Splendid Hazard" and "The Carpet of Bagdad" followed within the s.p.a.ce of little more than a year. Next "The Place of Honeymoons" was published, then "Parrot & Co.," "Deuces Wild," "Pidgin Island," "The Adventures of Kathlyn," and "Voice in the Fog."
The "purpose novel," as that term is generally understood, finds but little sympathy at the hands of Harold MacGrath. Yet he has a definite purpose of his own. It is to amuse.
"The one definite idea I have in mind in writing stories," he says, "is to afford an agreeable, pleasant hour or two to my readers. I wish to amuse them, to make them wish that they, too, might have lived as this or that hero, in this or that land, probable or improbable. I prefer sunshine, mirth, buoyancy, and I believe most readers prefer the same.
Grown-up people never wholly lose their love of fairy tales; and grown up fairy tales have been the scheme of most of my novels."