Wyndham Martyn

“ The thing that kept him was a chivalrous, burning desire to capture Kaufmann. Anthony Trent wondered how many men weaker than he had been forced to betray their country as he had very nearly done. And the knowledge that he had even considered such baseness for a moment awakened a deep smouldering wrath in his mind that needed for its outlet some expression of physical force. Kaufmann was strongly built and rugged but it would hardly be a smiling suave spy that he would drag before the police. ”

“ All those high resolves of his had been brought into being by a woman who must have been laughing at him all the while, who must have congratulated herself that her lies had touched a man’s heart and left fifty thousand dollars for her.
It was a bitter and harder Anthony Trent that came to the police court; a man who was now almost as ashamed at his determination of last night to abandon his career as he was now anxious to pursue it. ”

“ I guess that’ll hold you, Mister Anthony Trent.”
The other man made no answer. He thought instead of what such a prison term would do for him. He had seen the gradual debasement of men of even a high type during the long years of internment. Men who had gone through prison gates with the same instincts of refinement as he possessed to come out coarsened, different, never again to be the men they were. He would sidle through the gaping doors a furtive thing with cunning crafty eyes whose very walk stamped him a convict. ”

“ Trent wondered what he meant. And he wondered why for a day or two Devlin goaded him no more. Instead he looked at him as one who knew another was marked down for death and disgrace. It was inevitable that Anthony Trent could never know how near to discovery he was. The odds are against the best breakers of law. The history of crime told him that the cleverest had been captured by some trifling piece of carelessness. Had Devlin some such clue, he wondered? ”

“ It explained very clearly why the Jerome Dangerfields were going to Sunset Park. The collective value of the jewels appealed particularly to Trent. He wondered if the Mount Aubyn ruby would shine out on that festal night. And if so how would it be guarded? It would be less difficult to disguise the detectives in fancy costume than in evening dress. Of course the owner of such a world-famous gem might wear an imitation as the Baroness von Eckstein had done. But if Clarke had painted her aright this was an occasion when an ambitious woman would be willing to take risks. ”

“ Anthony Trent said bluntly.
“I do not,” said Kaufmann. “But I must have those formulae.” He leaned forward and touched Trent on the arm. “You must get them.”
Trent knocked the gray ashes from his pipe. The merchant of Zurich gazed into a face which wore amusement only. He was not to know the dismay into which his covert threat had thrown the younger man. Without doubt, Trent told himself, this stranger must have stumbled upon something which made this odd visit a logical one, some discovery which would be a sword over his head. ”

“ The occasional mentions of him he read in daily papers were too distorted to be interesting and McWalsh’s tribute to the unknown master was his only reward so far.
The life that was coming, was to be the life he desired. Leisure, the possession of books, the opportunity to wander as he chose through far countries when the war was over. And he liked to think that later he might find love. Often he had envied men with children. Well, he could offer the woman that he might find comforts that fiction would never have brought him. ”

“ It was not until midnight that Trent dropped into Webster Hall. It was the nearest approach to the boulevard dances that New York ever saw. The costumes were gorgeous, some of them, but for the greater part quaint and bizarre. As a Pierrot he was inconspicuous. There were a number of men he knew from the Scribblers’ Club. He greeted Lincoln with enthusiasm. He liked the lad. He envied him his record. It was while he was talking to him that a gorgeously dressed woman seized Lincoln’s hands as one might grasp those of an old and dear friend. ”

“ It happened that Trent had known the toastmaster, Captain Alan Kent, when the two had been newspaper cubs together. In those days Kent had been an irresponsible, happy-go-lucky youngster, liked by all for his carefree disposition. To-day, after three years of war, he was a sterner man, in whose eyes shone steadily the conviction of the cause he had espoused. War had purged the dross from him.
“You boys, here,” he said, “haven’t suffered enough. You haven’t seen nations in agony as we have. The theater of war is still too remote. ”

“ To invite electrocution by killing men was no part of Anthony Trent’s practice. It was plain that the servant was slumbering fitfully and the act of stepping over him to freedom likely to awaken him instantly. Even if he had the needed rope at hand binding and gagging a vigorous man was at best a matter of noise and struggle. But something had to be done. He must reach the street in time to follow O’Sheill. ”

“ Trent told him. “Surely there is some one more your strength who would make a better match of it?”
“Huh!” grunted the other, “think I don’t play well enough, eh?”
“I know it,” said Trent composedly.
Dangerfield regarded him sourly.
“You’re not overburdened with modesty, young man.”
“I hope not,” the other retorted, “nothing handicaps a man more in life. I happen to know golf, though, and my experience is that if I play with a much inferior player I get careless and that’s bad for my game. I’m perfectly frank about it. You know next to nothing about the game. ”

“ As writers we are sorry if Inspector McWalsh never heard of the Einthoven string galvanometer upon which the solution of the story he ridicules rests, yet we know it to exist. Were I a criminal instead of a writer I should enjoy to cross swords with men who think as the Inspector does. ”

“ Carr Faulkner leaves the Union Club at seven and walks up the Avenue in time to dress for his dinner at eight. There’s another gentleman leaves another club on the same Avenue and gets here as a rule at six and leaves in time to avoid the master.” The butler leaned forward and whispered in the tuner’s ear, “She’s crazy about him. The only man who doesn’t know is the boss. It’s always the way,” added the self-confessed man of the world, “I wouldn’t trust any woman living. The more they have the worse they are. If ever I marry I’ll take a job as lighthouse keeper and take my wife along.” ”

“ Some mischievous devil prompted Anthony Trent to rise to his aid. It was a bold thing to do, to draw the attention of the man who had been in charge of the detectives sent to run him to earth, but of late excitement had been lacking.
“Inspector McWalsh,” he commenced, “possesses precisely that type of mind one would expect to find in a successful policeman. He has that absolute absence of imagination without which one cannot attain his rank in the force. All he has done in his speech is to pour his scorn of a certain type of crime story on its author. ”

“ Kaufmann admitted readily. “Since then I have investigated you. I find you write no more; that you live well; that while your money supposedly comes from Australia you never present an Australian draft at your bank. Now, my dear Mr. Trent, I may misjudge you. Possibly I do. But in the interests of my friends the Baron and Baroness, to say nothing of my customer Jerome Dangerfield, I may be permitted to investigate any man whose way of living seems suspicious. I ought perhaps to put the matter into the hands of the police.” ”

“ Directly dusk fell Anthony Trent, in the evening garb of fashion, crossed over to Riverside Drive and presently came to the heroic statue of Jeanne d’Arc which stands at the foot of Ninety-third Street. By this time he knew the license number of the Williams’ limousine and the address. It was one of those small residences of gray stone containing a dozen rooms or so. Such houses, as he knew, were usually laid out on a similar plan and he was familiar with it.
It was very rarely that he made a professional visit to a house without having a definite plan of attack carefully worked out. ”

“ Because I am fighting for my happiness. Captain Monmouth knows nothing of what my life has been. I have told him that after the war I shall go back to France and sell my property and with it help him to buy a place that was once a seat of his family. There, away from the world, we shall live and die. I want only him and he wants only me. We have known life and its vanities. We want happiness. ”

“ Before he had sprung into notoriety he had been a salesman in a Seventh Avenue store, one of those persuasive gentlemen who waylay passersby. His speech was, of course, absurd. It was interesting mainly as an example that intelligence is not always necessary in the making of big money.
It was when he began to speak of the material rewards that his acumen had garnered, that Anthony Trent awoke to interest. The producer told his hearers that they had assuredly read of the sale to an unnamed purchaser of a Giorgione. “I am that purchaser!” said the great man. ”

“ To clear these nests of hornets, to search abandoned cellars and buildings where men or bombs might be lying in wait was a task far more deadly than participation in a battle. Only iron-nerved men, strong to act and quick to think, were needed. There was a day when volunteers were asked for. Anthony Trent was the first man to offer himself. ”

“ Anthony Trent pricked up his ears at this.
“I didn’t know she had a necklace of that value,” he mused.
“I guess you don’t know much about the fortunes these millionaire women hang all over ’em,” said Lincoln. Lincoln had an idea the other man was a bookish scholar, a collector of rare editions, one removed from knowledge of society life.
“That must be it,” Trent agreed. He wondered if another man in all America had so intimate a knowledge of the disposition of famous gems. “So she won’t give you any money for ambulances?” ”

“ Trent returned, “and not a friend.”
“I could spare him,” Mrs. Westward said decisively. “I know his wife and she has my friendship but for Andrew Apthorpe I have never cared.”
“Apthorpe?” Trent cried. “The cotton man?”
“The same,” Mrs. Westward assured him.
Anthony Trent was suddenly all attention. He surmised that the murder of so rich a man was actuated by a desire for his collection. And if so, where was the Takowaja emerald?
“Please tell me,” he entreated, “murders fascinate me. If the penalty were not so severe I should engage in murder constantly. What was it? Revenge? Robbery?” ”

“ It was a laudable ambition and would commence, he told himself, with a grand piano. He had only a hard-mouthed hired upright so far. Sometimes he had seen himself in the rôle of his hero amply able to indulge himself in his moderate ambitions. It was of this he had been thinking when Mr. Lund came to his room. And now the very editor for whom he had created his characters was making the suggestion.
“I was only joking,” Crosbeigh assured him.
“It is not a good thing to joke about,” Anthony Trent answered, “and an honest man at forty a week is better than an outlaw with four hundred.” ”

“ Who is your friend? Is she pretty? I don’t believe it’s a man at all.”
“It’s a man I know and respect,” he said, a trifle nettled at the comments his apparel had drawn. “It’s the man who takes me every year to the Yale-Harvard boat race.”
“Your annual jag party? He’s no fit company for a respectable editor.”
“It is college spirit,” Crosbeigh explained.
“You can call it by any name but it’s too strong for you. What is the name of your honored friend?”
“Conington Warren,” Crosbeigh said proudly.
“That’s the millionaire sportsman with the stable of steeple-chasers, isn’t it?” Trent demanded. ”

“ A few minutes before midday Anthony Trent strolled into the Ames building and saw that Andrew Apthorpe, cotton broker, occupied very large offices. A little later he followed one of the Apthorpe clerks, a well-dressed, good-looking young man, to the place where he lunched. It was curiously unlike a New York restaurant. Circular mahogany counters surrounded self possessed young women who permitted themselves to attend to those who hungered. ”

“ Lund conjured up a vision of such a restaurant peopled by such a festive crowd. He felt in that moment that an early manhood spent in Somerville had perhaps robbed him of a chance to live.
“They all get caught sooner or later,” asserted the little man in the morris chair.
“Because they get careless or because they trust another. If you want to be a successful crook, Mr. Lund, you’ll have to map out your plan of life as carefully as an athlete trains for a specific event. Now if you went in for crime you’d have to examine your weaknesses.” ”

“ Trent demanded.
“Because I might have had you investigated by the police. Instead I followed you here—not without difficulty I admit—and renew my offer.” He looked about the luxurious house that was miscalled a “camp.” It was not the kind of home a man would lose willingly. “I ask very little. I only want a certain package of letters which a man who lands to-morrow in New York has in his possession. One so skilled as you can get it easily. You have presence, education, ready wit. I confess it is difficult for me to believe you have sunk so low.” ”

“ It was Clarke, slave to the archdemon rum. He was trying to borrow enough money from a monotype man, who had admitted backing a winner, to get a prescription filled for a suffering wife. The monotype man, either disbelieving Clarke’s story or having little regard for wifely suffering, was indisposed to share his winnings with druggist or bartender.
It was at this moment that Clarke caught sight of his old reporter and more recent benefactor. He dropped the monotype man with all the outraged pride of an erstwhile city editor and shook Trent’s hand cordially. ”