"No, Polly, that won"t do. I"m sorry, but as you say, you can"t see life after you"re married and settled down, so I"ll have to do Paris alone."
"Harry, are you sure you love me?" Pauline whispered.
"Polly, I know it, and everybody else knows it except you. Get Owen, he"s a notary public, and I"ll take an oath before him that you have been the only girl in all the world, are now and ever will be, world without end, amen."
"And I love you, Harry," said Pauline, lowering her eyes until he saw only the silky lashes.
"Why, Polly, that"s the first time you ever volunteered that information."
"Yes, Harry, I love you too much to let you go to Paris."
"Paris can"t hurt me unless I let it hurt me."
"Harry, you won"t be quite the same sort of boy when you come back from Paris. Will you promise not to go until we are married?"
"Will you promise not to go on this trip of adventure?"
"Why should I?" demanded Pauline.
"Because you won"t ever be quite the same sort of girl when you come back."
After breakfast the next morning when the big touring car rolled up to the front door to got Pauline and Owen, Harry was hurt that he had not been consulted. Pauline"s belated invitation to go with them to the aviation field in the automobile was declined. Away went the big car to the fine stretch of roads, where it made short work of the distance to the aviation grounds.
Owen made a complete canva.s.s of the "hangars" and soon accounted for every machine entered in the race for the next day. From all but one of the aviators he obtained a flat refusal. Not for money or any other consideration would they take a strange woman as a pa.s.senger. The only exception was a Frenchman, whose hesitation in declining led Owen to further argument. At the last moment Pauline, impatient at the suspense, entered the Frenchman"s "hangar" and added her blandishments to Owen"s financial inducements. The gallant foreigner succ.u.mbed and a bargain was struck. He exhibited his tame bird of steel and wood and cloth with the utter pride of a mother showing off her only child.
The aviator"s fingers touched one of the wires and the easy smile left his face. He turned to his mechanics and sharp words followed. A moment later one of his a.s.sistants was at work tightening the wire.
Owen"s eyes scarcely left the wire, and when the opportunity arose he questioned the mechanic as, to what would happen if that particular steel strand should fail during flight. The foreigner explained frankly that the aeroplane would capsize and plunge to the earth. But he a.s.sured Owen that no such thing would happen, as he had just tightened the wire in question and would make another inspection after the practice flight that afternoon.
All the way home Owen"s thoughts were of that wire and what it would mean to him. In the meanwhile Harry, after watching the car depart toward Hempstead, concluded to follow. He went to the picturesque private garage behind the Marvin mansion and soon was, following in the tracks of the bigger car.
Arrived on the field, he recognized Pauline"s car and awaited patiently until he saw it drive away. Then he interviewed the aviator and learned of the proposed trip on the morrow. Harry"s French was nothing to boast of, nor was the Frenchman"s English. But they managed to have a long and in the end a heated argument. The birdman said he had given his word to a beautiful lady, and that settled it. Besides, there was no danger in his wonderful machine. Had he not flown upside down and done all the things the great Pegoud himself had done?
"As you Americans say--let"s see, what is your idiom?"
One of his mechanics prompted him:
"Ah, yes," he said, with a smile. "I believe the proper expression is, "I should worry.""
Harry threw up his hands and went home. As he buzzed his horn outside the garage the door was opened by the Marvin chauffeur with a telegram in his hand. The chauffeur"s wife was sick and he wanted a couple of days" leave of absence. Harry granted it instantly. That evening he made no mention of either the chauffeur"s absence or his trip to the field. Pauline thought she was teasing Harry by saying nothing of her plans. She was sure he was eaten up with curiosity to know the result of her visit and admired his ability, as she thought, to conceal it.
Owen spent a nervous evening. He walked out soon after dinner and from a drug-store telephone booth called up a friend in the insurance business. To the secretary"s surprise and disappointment he learned that the percentage of accidents to aviators had become comparatively small. Pa.s.sengers were particularly fortunate. The friend even agreed to obtain accident insurance for any one at a reasonable premium.
If aeroplanes had become reasonably safe the chance of Pauline"s being killed during the flight on the following day was insignificant. He must give up all hope of wealth from the permanent control of her estate. As the evening wore on Owen began to feel how he had unconsciously relied on this hope. He doubled his evening dose of morphine, but it neither soothed his disappointment nor brought him sleep.
Hour after hour, during the night, his sleepless eyes seemed to see that loose wire which the mechanic had explained to be so vitally important. He could see in imagination the machine flying off into the clouds with Pauline in it. He could see it suddenly waver, dip and plunge to the earth. In his mind"s eye he saw himself rushing to, the wreck, lifting out the girl"s crushed form, wildly calling for a doctor, and exulting all the time that she was beyond human aid.
About two o"clock Owen fell into a doze, and in that doze came one of his vivid opium dreams. He beheld Hicks enter his bedroom. It was not Hicks, the blackmailer, but Hicks, the counselor, who had told Owen how he might become rich. Hicks was speaking to him in a sort of noiseless voice, very different from his usual tones. He spoke in a sort of sh.e.l.ls or husks of words. The consonants were there, but the vowels were lacking. Yet he heard as plainly as if the red-faced man had shouted. Hicks advised him to be a man, to show courage for once, to risk something, and then reap the reward forever afterward. "Take your motorcycle, ride to the aviation field before daylight, file that wire half through, and fate will take care of the rest."
But Owen lacked the nerve. He feared that he would be seen sneaking onto the field at night or at daybreak. Hicks replied that the field was deserted at this hour. Owen then insisted that the aeroplane would be guarded, and even if it were not locked in its hangar the first rasp of a file on the wire would call the attention of some one on guard.
No, it was too much, Owen could not do it. Instead, he made a counter suggestion that Hicks should undertake the task, since he was so certain of its success. For his part the secretary agreed to divide all that the estate might be made to yield him.
Owen, like everybody else, had seen many strange things in dreams, but never had he known of any character in a dream admitting or even suggesting that he was a dream. Yet this was just what Hicks did.
"I would, Owen. I would do it in a minute if I were talking to you.
But this isn"t me at all. I"m only a dream, in, reality I"m sound asleep in a hotel on upper Broadway, where I am dreaming that I am talking to you. Tomorrow morning I"ll remember enough of this dream to make me go down to the aviation field with a sort of premonition that Pauline is going to be killed in an aeroplane."
"How did you know about that wire and that she is going to fly tomorrow," asked Owen.
"I don"t know that," said the phantom Hicks frankly in his empty voice. "There is a third party in this and I don"t know who he is or much about him, except that he is not a living being. He seems to be somebody from the past, a priest of some old religion I ought to have studied about when I was at school. I don"t know what his motive is, but he is with us. He wants her killed for some reason. He brought this dream of me to you so I could explain.
"You needn"t worry about the man on guard over the aeroplanes. That man won"t wake up, no matter how much noise you make."
"How do you know?" Owen asked.
"He knows," replied Hicks, "because he has transferred the effects of your morphine from your astral body to his. That"s how he knows. You ought to know, too, because you have taken almost enough of the drug to kill you tonight, and yet this is the first time you have even closed your eyes. You"d better let him help us and file that wire as he advises. I"m going now, you will wake up in a moment. This priest man told me after I had given you the message to drop this out of my hand and the dream would end. So here goes. Goodbye."
Owen saw Hicks hold his hand over a table and drop a small black shiny object upon it. As it dropped Hicks vanished and Owen awoke. He heard a sharp snap and saw something black and shiny on the table. For a moment the secretary sat quietly in his chair staring at the table and making sure that he was no longer dreaming. Then he examined the black object. It was the scarab which old Mr. Marvin had removed from the folds of the mummy. An image of the beetle which Egypt held sacred, carved in black stone. Owen had not noticed the scarab before his short nap and he could not account for its presence in his room anyway.
A little later he donned his motor-cycling suit, tip-toed downstairs, noiselessly went out by a back door and was soon trundling his big two-cylinder motorcycle from the garage. He was careful to push it out of the Marvin premises onto the highway before lighting his lamp and starting.
Arriving at the field just at dawn Owen found it as deserted as the spectral Hicks had promised. From the tool kit of his motor-cycle he took two files of different shapes and a pair of pliers and walked briskly and fearlessly over the uneven ground to the hangars. All were closed except one, and that one contained the French machine in which Pauline was to ascend. The secretary knew that this hangar would be open. He knew in advance that he would find a mechanic on guard and sound asleep.
Whether real or unreal, awake or asleep, the business of the moment was the filing of that wire. Owen recognized it readily and found it not to be a single wire, as he supposed, but a slender cable composed of many strands. These strands resisted his file and even the clipper attached to his pliers. After what seemed an hour"s work he had weakened or broken enough of the metal threads so that the cable stretched perceptibly at that point to do more might cause the cable to break at once and betray what had been done.
Owen hurriedly, returned to his machine had dashed back through the beautiful morning air to the Marvin home. Servants were stirring in their rooms and the gardener was engaged in shaking some sort of powder from a can onto a bare spot on the front lawn. He glanced up at Owen without surprise, for these early rides were known to be an old habit of the secretary.
Owen took the machine to the garage, satisfied that there was nothing guilty in his appearance or the gardener would have noted it. Stepping out of the garage he met Harry and could not help starting perceptibly. Harry looked him in the eye, and there was nothing for Owen to do but stare steadily back.
"You are up very early, Owen," said Harry, looking at the dust on the motor.
"Yes, I"ve been for a long ride. I think the morning air does me good."
"You don"t look well, Owen. Why don"t you go to bed today. I"ll take Polly to the meet."
"No, thanks. I wouldn"t miss seeing Miss Pauline fly," said Owen firmly.
CHAPTER IV
OWEN WINS THE FIRST GAME
Harry Marvin entered the little private garage back of the Marvin mansion, locked the door and drew the shades of the small windows.
There were only two automobiles in the garage. One was the big six cylinder touring car in which Pauline and Owen had made their trip the day before to the aviation field. The other was the two-seated runabout that Harry had driven over the same ground just behind them.
Having made sure that n.o.body was about, Harry lifted up the hood of the touring car and without the slightest provocation attacked it with a wrench. He removed the carburetor, took it to pieces, lifted out the hollow metal float and deliberately made two punctures in it. Then he tossed the dismembered parts upon a work bench and was about to operate on the runabout when he heard voices outside.