Arthur Stringer

“ The woman's resolute young face took on an expression of almost childlike stubbornness. Her color had come back to her, touching her with a look of girlishness that was surprising to the watching Skeel. "You can't do that!" she declared, with the cloak already over her left arm.
"Pardon, Mademoiselle!" murmured the Russian, with his impassive shrug. "But there are other things that cannot be done. Ladies, however charming they may be, cannot enter private rooms and rifle a safe!"
"You hire other people to do it for you!" cried the woman. "You haven't the courage to do it with your own hand!" ”

“ And again, as he heard that foolishly girlish cry, Skeel was astonished at the thought of her youthful blindness.
"I will dare much more than that," said the Russian, calmly studying her face under the strong light. He too was not insensible of its beauty. His pallor suddenly increased. Of the two faces, Skeel saw, the man's was now the whiter.
"You seem to forget," cried the girl against the wall, "that one word over that telephone will bring an officer to this room, a dozen men to that door!" She was frightened now; but still courageous. ”

“ Skeel gasped a little as he became aware of the fact that the Russian was holding a revolver in his hands, a silver plated, pearl handled revolver with an uncommonly long barrel, as exotic looking as the beard that bent over it. Then the stranger dropped the revolver into the side pocket of his camelhair jacket, meditatively stroked his beard, and moved once more in front of the mirror, where he once more stood purring contentedly and triumphantly at his own reflection. ”

“ She was breathing quicker and harder by this time.
"There are a hundred friends of mine under this roof, in this hotel," she cried, her voice rising higher and higher, "a hundred men who would make you answer for this insult, a hundred men who'd knock down that door and drag you off where you belong! Do you hear? And if you come one inch closer to me I'll call for help!"
The bearded man in the rough haired dressing jacket raised a deprecatory hand. "You are a clever young woman," he said, so quietly that Skeel could scarcely hear him; "but it is not wise to enter a room as you have done. ”

“ His peace of mind was being wrecked on a puny metal collar button.
HE suddenly crossed the room and flung open the door. He called fretfully across the corridor to his friend Burchard. But the congestion below stairs seemed to have drawn the last human corpuscle from the upper floors—there came no answer to his call. The place seemed to be deserted. A desolating sense of helplessness crept through the man with the broken collar button.
Skeel stood in the doorway for an irresolute moment or two. Then he slipped across the silent corridor and stepped into Burchard's bedroom. ”

“ The two heads, so different in appearance, staring at each other so closely, in some way reminded Skeel of a Zoo visitor face to face with a caged man killer. But in this instance, with the knowledge that no barrier stood between them, curiosity was eclipsed by rising terror.
The woman suddenly thrust a hand into the bosom of her gown and drew forth a handful of crumpled papers. Her fingers were shaking visibly as she held these papers out to her captor. "You can have them back!" she gasped. "Take them, and let me go!" ”

“ Skeel could no longer see the man's face; but there must have been something horrifying in it, for the woman, as she stared up at it, emitted an audible and repeated "Oh!" of terror with each quick rise and fall of her bare shoulders. ”

“ Then the talk seemed to revert to the problem of "Panama" again; and again the woman explained and protested, until the Russian stepped closer to her and spoke in an unbroken low rumble which scarcely reached Skeel's ears. The hidden listener saw her lower the upthrust veil, speaking through it as she adjusted her hat with her fingertips. And when for the last time he overheard the name of "Wilkie" he began to wonder if the man under discussion was not the Wilkie he had somewhere read of as head of the Secret Service. But he was too busy watching the outer room to give the matter much thought. ”

“ He took a deep breath and turned back to the tilted mirror at the other side of the room.
Still again, in his nervous hurry, he struggled to force the stud top through the uncompromising starched linen. He fretfully wondered why some genius could not invent an elastic collar, one capable of adjusting itself to any manner of neckband. And, as he made a final effort to penetrate that armor plate of cotton harveyized with cooked starch, the collar button itself broke under the strain.
Skeel stood looking down at the useless button shank, once more moist with apprehension. It was the final blow! ”

“ She stopped once or twice to consult he slip of paper on the safetop; then her hand passed from the lock dial to the metal knob. It seemed to take all her strength to the swing back the two narrow steel doors.
She was down now on both knees before the opened safe. Skeel could see the white flutter of her hands as she dabbled and explored about the dark interior of the strongbox, rustling through papers, closing and opening drawers, bending lower and lower over her work. He heard her catch her breath, in something that was almost a sob, as she continued her search. ”

“ However dubious or unsavory the hazard in which she was engaged, she seemed without the metallic hardness, the worldly wise sophistication, of her sister conspirator. There was something incongruous in even her costume; for she was gowned in what Skeel took to be chiffon over blue silk low cut at the throat, and with a blue cloak braided with gold hanging loose over one arm. Her bare neck and shoulders and her free arm shone white, alluringly white, against the green of the portière. ”

“ As he stood there, a little intimidated by the shaded globes and cutglass and chased silver shimmering about him, he deliberated whether he should leave a nickel on the bureau top as a more or less humorous compensation for what he was appropriating. Then, as he looked about at the green velour portière covering the halldoor, at the soft toned draperies receding into unbroken shadow, at the scattering of monogramed toilet accessories, he became disturbingly conscious of something distinctly feminine about the place. ”

“ THE BUTTON THIEF
/ IN TWO PARTS--Part I. By ARTHUR STRINGER
SKEEL, the mild eyed young expert of the Amalgamated Wireless, began to realize that he was going to be late. And the thought of being late at this, his first official dinner in Washington, made him desperate. He took a deep breath, thrust a determined thumb knuckle down between his Adam's apple and the starched linen that abraded it, and, throwing back his head, raised his elbows outward and upward, until his whole attitude was strangely like that of a gosling essaying its first aerial flight. ”

“ The Russian laughed. Then he reached down into the right-hand pocket of his dressing jacket. A little shiver sped up and down Skeel's tired legs as he realized that the bearded foreigner was reaching for his revolver.
"Consider," the man in the camelhair jacket was saying, in his calm and ironic perfunctoriness. "The owner of the room might return unexpectedly. In the darkness he might see the figure at the safe. 'A burglar, a thief.' he might conclude. So! ”

“ He's bound to be out of that trance inside of three minutes!"
She looked down at the Russian. He lay there with his arms crooked up. like the wings of a duck shot in midair.. "What can we do?" she said at last, turning back to Skeel. ”

“ These he folded together into one packet.
"The coast defense plans and the projectile test reports," he said, not wholly unconscious of the dramatic values that lurked in the laconism. "Stolen from your father's desk!" ”