Edwin Balmer

“ But no light sprang up in the windows of this second floor, and after waiting, McAdams made his way around to the rear. A little garden here entangled the detective's feet, which in the darkness he felt sink to the ankles in soft earth. On the second floor, some strange huge bird flapped its wings and uttered a sleepy cry; some other animal moved and noisily yawned. Very slowly it became clear to Detective McAdams that this was where Max Schimmel lived. ”

“ The Soesoehoenan of Surakarta, who had been to him until this moment merely a name, became suddenly a personality, a threat.
"You shall not debase yourself like this!" he cried. "This emerald shall not reach you tomorrow!"
"You are without doubt a very clever man, Mr. Hereford; but you are not so clever that I shall not receive the emerald." ”

“ The captain tried to check him, but Max now made no objection—he himself was reaching for the light. He switched it on. As they blinked in the blaze of light they saw that the box stood open; the watch, which had been locked inside, was gone! No one could have come in; no one could have gone out. Yet some one had been there, for it was done! It undeniably had been done!
In the hubbub of incredulity, questions and confusion Hereford stared about the room. He laughed nervously and looked to Lorine. She directed his eyes to the police captain. ”

“ About twelve the envoy was awakened by sounds of tearing paper and realized that some one was tearing the paper from the box. The noise was so loud and the tearing went on so heedlessly of the fact that he had moved that—in the darkness—he assumed that more than one man, enough to power him if he attacked, must be at the box. ”

“ Hereford could hear him breathing heavily as he discovered that even standing on the chair he was still far from reaching it—the uneven breathing of one who knows that in a moment a great matter will be decided for him one way or the other. His agitation seemed to increase. He descended to the floor, and turned his light upon and seized from against the wall a stout walking stick, and stepped back upon the chair. He found now that with the end of the stick he could feel along the top of the moulding. ”

“ MISS REGAN WILL MARRY THE SOESOEHOENAN
The confused half consciousness, in which Hereford had been only dimly aware that others were moving about him and that he, himself, was being moved, gave place to a restless sleep. He awoke in Max Schimmel's house—in Max's own bed. Clean clothes of his own, saw, had been brought and laid upon a chair. ”

“ She bit her lip, which whitened under her small teeth. "You are ungenerous. Yesterday, when you threatened to prevent me from receiving the emerald, I answered you with—with a sort of challenge, did I not?"
He studied her. "Exactly."
"To-day I withdraw that challenge, Mr. Hereford. If what I said yesterday has piqued you into doing something which otherwise you would not have done, I——"
She flushed painfully; but he did not feel that sense of triumph which comes to a man in the presence of a woman who concedes something against her will, which is not aroused by any other form of contest. ”

“ McAdams and Max both stared at Hereford in amazement. The young trustee, on his part, for the first time found difficulty in formulating what he had to say.
"I offered no proof," he repeated even more directly. "I was obliged to leave him, as well as the police, to imagine as they pleased what circumstances, what motives, could force a man of reputation and character like mine to remain silent as to how he received a wound that subjects him to the suspicions and the dangers I now run." ”

“ The drops of blood, too, do not lead to any door—only to the wall."
"But how could he go through the wall—or do you doubt the wall?" McAdams demanded.
"No, I do not doubt the wall," the Javanese replied. "I have tried it. I know it is there. But"—he fixed upon Hereford a suddenly superstitious look in which terror and anger seemed equally mingled—"there has been brought to my country from other lands the X-ray, by which men see the bones while they are still within the body; and the wireless, by which men can talk to men across a thousand miles of sea. ”

“ Hereford." Annis softly laughed. "I like Chicago. Six years with none but Asiatic amusements, Mr. Hereford—which debilitate rather than entertain—have made me eager, even without Mr. Lund's guidance to the city's sights, for the more diverse pleasures here. I do not see why I should give them up. Moreover, unless you are far more stupid than I have given you credit for being, a moment's reflection might make it occur to you that, if you wish the emerald not to be recovered at any moment, you will continue to be pleased with my presence here—and not locked up." ”

“ She sat still, paling and reddening in turn; then she looked swiftly up at him. "Yesterday I asked you to return the emerald to Baraka and you refused. So I have no intention of asking that again. But—Mr. Hereford, will you please give it to me?"
Her lip trembled and she stretched out her hands. He stiffened and drew back from her, shaking his head. She whitened suddenly; when she stood up she had regained in every way the look and bearing of the girl who planned to marry the Soesoehoenan.
"Then you will send for Farren," she commanded. ”

“ Wade Hereford seeing other men he knew fall in love and marry, had sometimes asked himself why, after his youthful, brief but wide experience of women, they had suddenly lost interest for him. He had told himself it was because he had found his chief pleasure in contest. It must be, he thought, that he had found the contest too easy with a sex taught from earliest infancy that its chief duty is to love—which therefore is vanquished from the beginning. He had laid to this the strange piquancy that he had found at all times in his relations with his ward. ”

“ It appeared to him, too, that, exactly as he had sometimes seen a savage gain fame and at the same time ruin himself in setting out a single meal, so these persons gained social distinction directly in the ratio of the amount they spent upon food. Immersed in the contemplation of these social facts—which he regarded with the same dispassionate interest he formerly had shown in observing the customs of the head-hunters of Borneo—Max seemed wholly oblivious that just now by his statement to Baraka he probably had done great injury to his friend Hereford. ”

“ I wanted to see this stone—but only partly because it could make a girl like Miss Regan promise to marry a Malay. I had another long argument with Baraka, at the end of which he acknowledged the justice of my claim and opened the box and showed me the emerald."
"It was the real one?" McAdams inquired.
"I am no judge of jewels," Hereford replied; "but the stone itself was proof of its own identity. It is a wonderful, an amazing gem. I could understand better, after I had seen it, the effect it had had upon my ward. Yes, it was the real one." ”

“ The atmosphere of even the outer office chilled and discouraged them. Their carefully prepared stories began to disintegrate long before they had penetrated as far as Hereford himself. He, on his part, treated every stranger as an impostor until he had proved himself otherwise. Matthew Regan had known the world and his daughter both too well to select as his executor a man of pleasant and agreeable manners, but Hereford was a strong man who did things by direct methods. ”

“ Lorine!" he cried.
"Then, when the fire was started in Baraka's rooms and the danger grew still greater, I even tried to make Baraka think that you had given me the emerald! And all the while you did not have it——"
She got up and shrank back from him, as he moved toward her.
"You do not understand!" she cried miserably. "Oh, don't you see what I have done? It is because of me—I have been the means of losing the Surakarta, which means a kingdom! What can I do now, if he still wants me, but—even against my will—marry the Soesoehoenan!" ”

“ So he located the place where the box had stood, stooped and seemed to examine whether the fire had left any of the drops of blood leading to the blank wall, and reaching the wall, instead of being puzzled, seemed to examine with satisfaction the place where the tapestry had hung. ”

“ McAdams asked.
"Whom do the police now suspect?"
"They find it impossible, I believe, to suspect any one," McAdams replied. "Because there are only two persons who could have had any possible information as to how to open the box and the police are obliged to admit that neither of these could have taken the emerald." ”

“ Rather than be put away she will destroy all things—the power, the throne—even the Soesoehoenan! The Surakarta—the great emerald in its box—is guarded always by men who will lose life before they lose the emerald. But she knew the secret of the box. Beyond doubt, when we are sent away with the emerald she sends the monkey to follow, choosing this American—James Annis—who for wealth will take risk and charge of all. ”

“ Max, having already visited this locality in the afternoon, had no need to inspect these houses one by one or to compare their numbers with the address given him by McAdams. He turned into one of them with an air of proprietorship.
This house was even more dismal than the rest, the sign in its window older, more faded, less hospitable in its invitation. On one side, only the difference in the color of its brick divided it from its neighbor; on the other a cement walk less than three feet wide led, tunnel-like, between the two brick walls back to the rear. ”

“ But no longer the sound of paper; instead, the clicking of the levers of the box! He is opening the box—he knows how to open it. You are a brave man, Mr. Hereford—five times I have shot, not knowing then who he was; yet in the dark, swiftly, without seeing at all, he makes to click the levers which, clicking so, throw the box open. ”

“ The man, Hereford knew, was certainly armed with a revolver. He himself was not. There was no chance for either to get out if a shot raised the alarm; but whether Annis would recognize this or would be reckless of it Hereford could not know. At all costs he must prevent Annis from drawing his revolver. This much he had thought in the clinch. He followed the other up, therefore, heedless of the blows he received, beating madly back with his own stick. ”

“ Rulogi is instructed to keep watch of you and, I have no doubt, to carry out his master's threat at the appointed time if any steps you take prevent Baraka himself from performing it. Rulogi would be absolutely reckless of any consequences to himself—a Malay running amuck against you. Consider, too, that if by any chance news of this has reached the Soesoehoenan today, and Baraka hears that the sultan has been killing one or two of his children, or a wife, as an indication of what further will happen if Baraka cannot recover the emerald, he may not even await the time he himself appointed. ”

“ However, I believe I can probably reach one of my bookkeepers by telephone who will meet us at the office and make any point clear to you."
"That isn't necessary," Lorine protested. "I want to see only—the general securities," she said vaguely.
Hereford gazed at her. "I see," he nodded and telephoned to his rooms before he remembered his man had gone out. He himself went up for his hat and coat. Obviously, he reflected, no mere desire for an immediate view of her securities was at the bottom of Lorine's demand. What her real purpose was he could not determine to himself. ”

“ Hereford considered that a man living long among inferior and despised races—holding, perhaps, his memory of American women as an ideal—would undoubtedly act as Annis had just done.
"But if these are facts," he said uneasily, "why have I heard nothing of them? Less than this about Miss Regan has deeply interested the newspapers before now."
"The sultan, without doubt—if for considerations of safety alone—would conceal the fact that the suite he is sending here has with it the emerald. Miss Regan, perhaps, has too good a sense of a news sensation to allow anything to leak out prematurely." ”