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THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIE

CONSTANCE
DUNLAP
Arthur B.Reeve
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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
AOTOR, LENOX AND
TH.DKN FOUNDATIONS
B 1941 L
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Constance Dunlap
Copyright, 1913, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America


CONTENTS
CHAPTEB PAGE
I The Foegees 1
II The Embezzlees 37
III The Gun Bunnebs . ... 64
IV The Gamblees . .... 92
V The Eavesdeoppebs .... 124
VI The Olaibvoyanis .... 148
VTI The Plitngees 176
VIII The Abductoes . . 204
IX The Shopliftees 232
X The Blackmailees 259
XI The Dope Fiends ..;,.. 287
XII The Fugitives . . . ... 315





CONSTANCE DUNLAP





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See page 54
They dined quietly and she told him more of her story than
she ever breathed to any other living soul.


HOL L ,
THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES
CONSTANCE
DUNL AP
BY
ARTHURB.REEVE
WITH FRONTISPIECE
& aufmaenſischer Verein won 133;
HARPER®BROTHERS. pUBLISHERS
NEvv YORK AND LONDON
H


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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
f :23, , ; ; ;
AğTGR, LENOX AND
TH.DEN Fºn DATIONS
R 1941 L
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CoNSTANCE DUNLAP
Copyright, 1913, by HARPER & BROTHERS
Printed in the United States of America
*—ºn


CONTENTS
-
CHAPTER - PAGE
I THE FORGERs . . - . . . 1
II THE EMBEZZLERs . . . 37
III THE GUN RUNNERS . . . . 64
IV THE GAMBLERs . . . . . . 92
V THE EAVESDROPPERS . . . 124
VI THE CLAIRvoyANIS - . . 148
VII THE PLUNGERS - e . . . 176
VIII THE ABDUCTORS . . . 204
IX THE SHOPLIFTERs . . - . . 232
X THE BLACKMAILERs . . . . 259
YI THE DOPE FIENDs . . . . . 287
XII THE FUGITIVEs . . . . . . .315
i





CONSTANCE DUNLAP





Constance Dunlap
CHAPTER I
THE FORGERS
THERE was something of the look of the
hunted animal brought to bay at last in Carlton
Dunlap's face as he let himself into his apart-
ment ate one night toward the close of the
year.
On his breath was the lingering odor of
whisky, yet in his eye and hand none of the
effects. He entered quietly, although there was
no apparent reason for such excessive caution.
Then he locked the door with the utmost care,
although there was no apparent reason for
caution about that, either.
, Even when he had thus barricaded himself,
he paused to listen with all the elemental fear
of the cave man who dreaded the footsteps of
his pursuers. In the dim light of the studio
apartment he looked anxiously for the figure of
his wife. Constance was not there, as she had
been on other nights, uneasily awaiting his re-
1. - :-


2 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
turn. What was the matter? His hand shook
a trifle now as he turned the knob of the bed-
room door and pushed it softly open.
She was asleep. He leaned over, not realiz-
ing that her every faculty was keenly alive to
his presence, that she was acting a part.
"Throw something around yourself, Con-
stance, '' he whispered hoarsely into her ear, as
she moved with a little well-feigned start at
being suddenly wakened, " and come into the
studio. There is something I must tell you to-
night, my dear."
"My dear!" she exclaimed bitterly, now
seeming to rouse herself with an effort and pre-
tending to put back a stray wisp of her dark
hair in order to hide from him the tears that
still lingered on her flushed cheeks. "You can
say that, Carlton, when it has been every night
the same old threadbare excuse of working at
the office until midnight?"
She set her face in hard lines, but could not
catch his eye.
"Carlton Dunlap," she added in a tone that
rasped his very soul, " I am nobody's fool. I
may not know much about bookkeeping and ac-
counting, but I can add—and two and two, when
the same man but different women compose
each two, do not make four, according to my
arithmetic, but three, from which,"—she


THE FORGERS 3
finished almost hysterically the little speech she
had prepared, but it seemed to fall flat before
the man's curiously altered manner—" from
which I shall subtract one.''
She burst into tears.
"Listen," he urged, taking her arm gently to
lead her to an easy-chair.
** No, no, no!" she cried, now thoroughly
aroused, with eyes that again snapped accusa-
tion and defiance at him, "don't touch me.
Talk to me, if you want to, but don't, don't come
near me." She was now facing him, standing
in the high-ceilinged " studio," as they called
the room where she had kept up in a desultory
manner for her own amusement the art studies
which had interested her before her marriage.
"What is it that you want to say? The other
nights you said nothing at all. Have you at last
thought up an excuse? I hope it is at least a
clever one."
"Constance," he remonstrated, looking fear-
fully about. Instinctively she felt that her ac-
cusation was unjust. Not even that had dulled
the hunted look in his face. "Perhaps—per-
haps if it were that of which you suspect me,
we could patch it up. I don't know. But, Con-
stance, I—I must leave for the west on the first
train in the morning." He did not pause to
notice her startled look, but raced on. "I


4 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
have worked every night this week trying to
straighten out those accounts of mine by the
first of the year and—and I can't do it. An
expert begins on them in a couple of days.
You must call up the office to-morrow and tell
them that I am ill, tell them anything. I must
get at least a day or two start before they"
"Carlton," she interrupted, "what is the
matter? What have you—"
She checked herself in surprise. He had been
fumbling in his pocket and now laid down a
pile of green and yellow banknotes on the table.
"I have scraped together every last cent I
can spare," he continued, talking jerkily to sup-
press his emotion. "They cannot take those
away from you, Constance. And—when I am
settled—in a new life," he swallowed hard and
averted his eyes further from her startled gaze,
"under a new name, somewhere, if you have
just a little spot in your heart that still re-
sponds to me, I—I—no, it is too much even to
hope. Constance, the accounts will not come
out right because I am—I am an embezzler."
He bit off the word viciously and then sank
his head into his hands and bowed it to a depth
that alone could express his shame.
Why did she not say something, do some-
thing? Some women would have fainted.
Some would have denounced him. But she


THE FORGERS 5
stood there and he dared not look up to read
what was written in her face. He felt alone,
all alone, with every man's hand against him,
he who had never in all his life felt so or had
done anything to make him feel so before. He
groaned as the sweat of his mental and physical
agony poured coldly out on his forehead. All
that he knew was that she was standing there,
silent, looking him through and through, as
cold as a statue. Was she the personification of
justice? "Was this but a foretaste of the
ostracism of the world?
"When we were first married, Constance,"
he began sadly, '' I was only a clerk for Green
& Co., at two thousand a year. We talked it
over. I stayed and in time became cashier at
five thousand. But you know as well as I that
five thousand does not meet the social obliga-
tions laid on us by our position in the circle in
which we are forced to move."
His voice had become cold and hard, but he
did not allow himself to be betrayed into add-
ing, as he might well have done in justice to
himself, that to her even a thousand dollars a
month would have been only a beginning. It
was not that she had been accustomed to so
much in the station of life from which he had
taken her. The plain fact was that New York
had had an over-tonic effect on her.


6 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"You were not a nagging woman, Con-
stance," he went on in a somewhat softened
tone. "In fact you have been a good wife;
you have never thrown it up to me that I was
unable to make good to the degree of many of
our friends in purely commercial lines. All you
have ever said is the truth. A banking house
pays low for its brains. My God! " he cried
stiffening out in the chair and clenching his
fists, " it pays low for its temptations, too."
There had been nothing in the world Carlton
would not have given to make happy the woman
who stood now, leaning on the table in cold
silence, with averted head, regarding neither
him nor the pile of greenbacks.
"Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed
through my hands every week," he resumed.
"That business owed me for my care of it.
It was taking the best in me and in return was
not paying what other businesses paid for the
best in other men. When a man gets thinking
that way, with a woman whom he loves as I
love you—something happens."
He paused in the bitterness of his thoughts.
She moved as if to speak. "No, no," he inter-
rupted. "Hear me out first. All I asked was
a chance to employ a little of the money that I
saw about me—not to take it, but to employ it
for a little while, a few days, perhaps only a


THE FORGERS . 7
few hours. Money breeds money. "Why should
I not use some of this idle money to pay me
what I ought to have?
""When Mr. Green was away last summer I
heard some inside news about a certain stock.
So it happened that I began to juggle the ac-
counts. It is too long a story to tell how I did
it. Anybody in my position could have done
it—for a time. It would not interest you any-
how. But I did it. The first venture was suc-
cessful. Also the spending of the money was
very successful, in its way. That was the money
that took us to the fashionable hotel in Atlantic
City where we met so many people. Instead of
helping me, it got me in deeper.
"When the profit from this first deal was
spent there was nothing to do but to repeat
what I had done successfully before. I could
not quit now. I tried again, a little hypotheca-
tion of some bonds. Stocks went down. I had
made a bad bet and five thousand dollars was
wiped out, a whole year's salary. I tried again,
and wiped out five thousand more. I was at
my wits' end. I have borrowed under fictitious
names, used names of obscure persons as bor-
rowers, have put up dummy security. It was
possible because I controlled the audits. But
it has done no good. The losses have far out-


8 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
balanced the winnings and to-day I am in for
twenty-five thousand dollars."
She was watching him now with dilating eyes
as the horror of the situation was burned into
her soul. He raced on, afraid to pause lest she
should interrupt him.
'' Mr. Green has been talked into introducing
scientific management and a new system into the
business by a certified public accountant, an ex-
pert in installing systems and discovering irreg-
ularities. Here I am, faced by certain ex-
posure," he went on, pacing the floor and look-
ing everywhere but at her face. '' What should
I do? Borrow? It is useless. I have no
security that anyone would accept.
"There is just one thing left." He lowered
his voice until it almost sank into a hoarse
whisper. "I must cut loose. I have scraped
together what I can and I have borrowed on
my life insurance. Here on the table is all that
I can spare.
"To-night, the last night, I have worked
frantically in a vain hope that something, some
way would at last turn up. It has not. There
is no other way out. In despair I have put this
off until the last moment . But I have thought
of nothing else for a week. Good God, Con-
stance, I have reached the mental state where
even intoxicants fail to intoxicate."


THE FORGERS 9
He dropped back again into the deep chair
and sank his head again on his hands. He
groaned as he thought of the agony of pack-
ing a bag and slinking for the Western ex-
press through the crowds at the railroad ter-
minal.
Still Constance was silent. Through her
mind was running the single thought that she
had misjudged him. There had been no other
woman in the case. As he spoke, there came
flooding into her heart the sudden realization of
the truth. He had done it for her.
It was a rude and bitter awakening after the
past months when the increased income, with no
questions asked, had made her feel that they
were advancing. She passed her hands over her
eyes, but there it was still, not a dream but a
harsh reality. If she could only have gone back
and undone it! But what was done, was done.
She was amazed at herself. It was not horror
of the deed that sent an icy shudder over her.
It was horror of exposure.
He had done it for her. Over and over again
that thought raced through her mind. She
steeled herself at last to speak. She hardly
knew what was in her own mind, what the con-
flicting, surging emotions of her own heart
meant.


10 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"And so, you are leaving me what is left,
leaving me in disgrace, and you are going to do
the best you can to get away safely. You want
me to tell one last lie for you.''
There was an unnatural hollowness in her
voice which he did not understand, but which cut
him to the quick. He had killed love. He was
alone. He knew it. With a final effort he tried
to moisten his parched lips to answer. At last,
in a husky voice, he managed to say,
"Yes."
But with all his power of will he could not
look at her.
"Carlton Dunlap," she cried, leaning both
hands for support on the table, bending over
and at last forcing him to look her in the eyes,
"do you know what I think of you? I think
you are a damned coward. There!''
Instead of tears and recriminations, instead
of the conventional " How could you do it?"
instead of burning denunciation of him for ruin-
ing her life, he read something else in her face.
What was it?
"Coward?" he repeated slowly. "What
would you have me do—take you with me?"
She tossed her head contemptuously.
"Stay and face it? "he hazarded again.
"Is there no other way? " she asked, still
leaning forward with her eyes fixed on his.


12 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
him. Why should he not act on it? Why
hesitate? Why stop at it? He was already an
embezzler. Why not add a new crime to the list?
As he looked into her eyes he felt a new
strength. Together they could do it. Hers was
the brain that had conceived the way out. She
had the will, the compelling power to carry the
thing through. He would throw himself on her
intuition, her brain, her skill, her daring.
On his desk in the corner, where often until
far into the night he had worked on the huge
ruled sheets of paper covered with figures of
the firm's accounts, he saw two goose-necked
vials, one of lemon-colored liquid, the other of
raspberry color. One was of tartaric acid, the'
U-~«ther of chloride of lime. It was an ordinary
ink eradicator. Near the bottles lay a rod of
glass with a curious tip, an ink eraser made of
finely spun glass threads which scraped away
the surface of the paper more delicately than
any other tool that had been devised. There
were the materials for his, their rehabilitation if
they were placed in his wife's deft artist fingers.
Here was all the chemistry and artistry of
forgery at hand.
"Yes," he answered eagerly, "there is a
way, Constance. Together we can do it."
There was no time for tenderness between
them now. It was cold, hard fact and they


THE FORGERS 13
understood each other too well to stop for
endearments.
Far into the night they sat up and discussed
the way in which they would go about the
crime. They practised with erasers and with
brush and water color on the protective color-
ing tint on some canceled checks of his own.
Carlton must get a check of a firm in town, a
check that bore a genuine signature. In it they
would make such trifling changes in the body
as would attract no attention in passing, yet
would yield a substantial sum toward wiping
out Carlton's unfortunate deficit.
Late as he had worked the night before,
nervous and shaky as he felt after the sleepless
hours of planning their new life, Carlton was
the first at the office in the morning. His hand
trembled as he ran through the huge batch of
mail already left at the first delivery. He
paused as he came to one letter with the name
"W. J. REYNOLDS CO." on it.
Here was a check in payment of a small bill,
he knew. It was from a firm which habitually
kept hundreds of thousands on deposit at the
GOrham Bank. It fitted the case admirably.
He slit open the letter. There, neatly folded,
was the check:


14 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
No. 15711. Dec. 27, 191—.
THE GORHAM NATIONAL BANK
Pay to the order of Green & Co
Twenty-five 00/100 Dollars
$25.00/100
W. J. Reynolds Co.,
per Chas. M. Bbown, Treas.
It flashed over him in a moment what to do.
Twenty-five thousand would just about cover
his shortage. The Reynolds firm was a big
one, doing big transactions. He slipped the
check into his pocket. The check might have
been stolen in the mail. Why not?
The journey uptown was most excruciatingly
long, in spite of the fact that he had met no one
he knew either at the office or outside. At last
he arrived home, to find Constance waiting
anxiously.
"Did you get a check? " she asked, hardly
waiting for his reply. "Let me see it. Give
it to me."
The coolness with which she went about it
amazed him. "It has the amount punched on
it with a check punch," she observed as she
ran her quick eye over it while he explained his


THE FORGERS 15
plan. "We'll have to fill up some of those
holes made by the punch."
"I know the kind they used," he answered.
"I'll get one and a desk check from the
Gorham. You do the artistic work, my dear.
My knowledge of check punches, watermarks,
and paper will furnsh the rest. I'll be back
directly. Don't forget to call up the office a
little before the time I usually arrive there and
tell them I am ill."
With her light-fingered touch she worked
feverishly, partly with the liquid ink eradi-
cator, but mostly with the spun-glass eraser.
First she rubbed out the cents after the written
figure " Twenty-five." Carefully with a blunt
instrument she smoothed down the roughened
surface of the paper so that the ink would not
run in the fibers and blot. Over and over she
practised writing the " Thousand " in a hand
like that on the check. She already had the
capital " T " in " Twenty " as a guide. Dur-
ing the night in practising she had found that in
raising checks only seven capital letters were
used—0 in one, T in two, three, ten, and thou-
sand, F in four and five, S in six and seven, E
in eight, N in nine and H in hundred.
At last even her practice satisfied her. Then
with a coolness born only of desperation she
wrote in the words, "Thousand 00/100."


16 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
When she had done it she stopped to wonder
at herself. She was amazed and perhaps a
little frightened at how readily she adapted her-
self to the crime of forgery. She did not know
that it was one of the few crimes in which
women had proved themselves most proficient,
though she felt her own proficiency and native
ability for copying. '>
Again the eraser came into play to remove
the cents after the figure "25." A comma and
three zeros following it were inserted, followed
by a new'' 00/100.'' The signature was left un-
touched.
Erasing the name of " Green & Co.," pre-
sented greater difficulties, but it was accom-
plished with as little loss of the protective
coloring on the surface of the check as possible.
Then after the "Pay to the order of" she
wrote in, as her husband had directed, " The
Carlton Realty Co."
Next came the water color to restore the pro-
tective tint where the glass eraser and the acids
had removed it. There was much delicate
matching of tints and careful painting in with
a fine camel's hair brush, until at last the color
of those parts where there had been an erasure
was apparently as good as any other part.
Of course, under the microscope there could
have been seen the angry crisscrossing of the


THE FORGERS 17
fibers of the paper due to the harsh action of
the acids and the glass eraser. Still, painting
the whole thing over with a little resinous liquid
somewhat restored the glaze to the paper, at
least sufficiently to satisfy a cursory glance of
the naked eye.
There remained the difficulty of the pro-
tective punch marks. There they were, a star
cut out of the check itself, a dollar sign and 25
followed by another star.
She was still admiring her handiwork, giv-
ing it here and there a light little fillip with the
brush and comparing this check with some of
those which had been practised on last night,
to see whether she had made any improvement
in her technique of forgery, when Carlton re-
turned with the punch and the blank checks on
the Gorham Bank.
From one of the blank checks he punched out
a number of little stars until there was one
which in watermark and scroll work corre-
sponded precisely with that punched out in the
original check.
Constance, whose fingers had long been ac-
customed to fine work, fitted in the little star
after the *$25*, then took it out, moistened the
edges ever so lightly with glue on the end of a
toothpick, and pasted it back again. A hot iron


THE FORGERS 19
had reduced forgery to a fine art and demon-
strated what an amateur might do. For, al-
though they did not know it, nearly half the
fifteen millions or so lost by forgeries every
year was the work of amateurs such as they.
The next problem was presenting the check
for collection. Of course Carlton could not put
it through his own bank, unless he wanted to
leave a blazed trail straight to himself. Only
a colossal bluff wouhi do, and in a city where
only colossal bluffs succeed it was not so im-
possible as might have been first imagined.
Luncheon over, they sauntered casually into
a high-class office building on Broadway where
thfire were offices to rent. The agent was duly
k/jpressed by the couple who talked of their
large real estate dealings. Where he might
have been thoroughly suspicious of a man and
might have asked many embarrassing but per-
fectly proper questions, he accepted the woman
without a murmur. At her suggestion he even
consented to take his new tenants around to
the Uptown Bank and introduce them. They
made an excellent impression by a first cash
deposit of the money Carlton had thrown down
on the table the night before. A check for the
first month's rent more than mollified the agent
and talk of a big deal that was just being signed
up to-day duly impressed the bank.


20 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
The next problem was to get the forged check
certified. That, also, proved a very simple
matter. Any one can walk into a bank and get
a check for $25,000 certified, while if he ap-
pears, a stranger, before the window of the
paying teller to cash a check for twenty-five
dollars he would almost be thrown out of the
bank. Banks will certify at a glance practically
any check that looks right, but they pass on
the responsibility of cashing them. Thus be-
fore the close of banking hours Dunlap was
able to deposit in his new bank the check
certified by the Gorham.
Twenty-four hours must elapse before he
could draw against the check which he had de-
posited. He did not propose to waste that time,
so that the next day found him at Green & Co. 's,
feeling much better. Really he had come pre-
pared now to straighten out the books, know-
ing that in a few hours he could make good.
The first hesitation due to the newness of the
game had worn off by this time. Nothing at all
of an alarming nature had happened. The
new month had already begun and as most
firms have their accounts balanced only once a
month, he had, he reasoned, nearly the entire
four weeks in which to operate.
Conscience was dulled in Constance, also, and
she was now busy with ink eraser, the water


THE FORGERS 21
colors, and other paraphernalia in a wholesale
raising of checks, mostly for amounts smaller
than that in the first attempt.
"We are taking big chances, anyway," she
urged him. "Why quit yet? A few days more
and we may land something worth while."
The next day he excused himself from the
office for a while and presented himself at his
new bank with a sheaf of new checks which she
had raised, all certified, and totaling some thou-
sands more.
His own check for twenty-five thousand was
now honored. The relief which he felt was
tremendous after the weeks of grueling anxiety.
At once he hurried to a broker's and placed an
order for the stocks he had used on which to
borrow. He could now replace everything in
the safe, straighten out the books, could make
everything look right to the systematizer, could
blame any apparent irregularity on his old
system. Even ignorance was better than dis-
honesty.
Constance, meanwhile, had installed herself
in the little office they had hired, as stenog-
rapher and secretary. Once having embarked
on the hazardous enterprise she showed no dis-
position to give it up yet. An office boy was
hired and introduced at the bank.
The mythical realty company prospered, at


22 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
least if prosperity is measured merely by the
bank book. In less than a week the skilful pen
and brush of Constance had secured them a
balance, after straightening out Carlton's debts,
that came well up to a hundred thousand dol-
lars, mostly in small checks, some with genuine
signatures and amounts altered, others com-
plete forgeries.
As they went deeper and deeper, Constance
began to feel the truth of their situation. It was
she who was really at the helm in this enter-
prise. It had been her idea; the execution of it
had been mainly her work; Carlton had fur-
nished merely the business knowledge that she
did not possess. The more she thought of it dur-
ing the hours in the little office while he was at
work downtown, the more uneasy did she be-
come.
What if he should betray himself in some
way? She was sure of herself. But she was al-
most afraid to let him go out of her sight. She
felt a sinking sensation every time he mentioned
any of the happenings in the banking house.
Could he be trusted alone not to betray himself
when the first hint of discovery of something
wrong came?
It was now near the middle of the month. It
would not pay to wait until the end. Some one


THE FORGERS 23
of the many firms whose checks they had forged,
might have its book balanced at any time now.
From day to day small amounts in cash had al-
ready been withdrawn until they were twenty
thousand dollars to the good. They planned to
draw out thirty thousand now at one time.
That would give them fifty thousand, roughly
half of their forgeries.
The check was written and the office boy was
started to the bank with it. Carlton followed
him at a distance, as he had on other occasions,
ready to note the first sign of trouble as the boy
waited at the teller's window. At last the boy
was at the head of the line. He had passed the
check in and his satchel was lying open, with
voracious maw, on the ledge below the wicket
for the greedy feeding of stacks of bills. Why
did the teller not raise the wicket and shove out
the money in a coveted pile? Carlton seemed to
feel that something was wrong. The line
lengthened and those at the end of the queue be-
gan to grow restive at the delay. One of the
bank's officers walked down and spoke to the
boy.
Carlton waited no longer. The game was up.
He rushed from his coign of observation, out
of the bank building, and dashed into a tele-
phone booth.
"Quick, Constance," he shouted over the


24 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
wire, “leave everything. They are holding up
our check. They have discovered something.
Take a cab and drive slowly around the square.
You will find me waiting for you at the north
end.”
That night the newspapers were full of the
story. There was the whole thing, exaggerated,
distorted, multiplied, until they had become
swindlers of millions instead of thousands. But
nevertheless it was their story. There was only
one grain of consolation. It was in the last
paragraph of the news item, and read: “There
seems to be no trace of the man and woman
who worked this clever swindle. As if by a
telepathic message they have vanished at just
the time when their whole house of cards col-
lapsed.”
They removed every vestige of their work
from the apartment. Everything was de-
stroyed. Constance even began a new water
color so that that might suggest that she had
not laid aside her painting.
They had played for a big stake and lost.
But the twenty thousand dollars was something.
Now the great problem was to conceal it and
themselves. They had lost, yet if ever before
they loved, it was as nothing to what it was now
that they had tasted together the bitter and the
sweet of their mutual crime.


THE FORGERS 25
Carlton went down to the office the next day,
just as before. The anxious hours that his wife
had previously spent thinking whether he might
betray himself by some slip were comparative
safety as contrasted with the uncertainty of the
hours now. But the first day after the alarm of
the discovery passed off all right. Carlton
even discussed the case, his case, with those
in the office, commented on it, condemned the
swindlers, and carried it off, he felt proud to
say, as well as Constance herself might have
done had she been in his place.
Another day passed. His account of the first
day, reassuring as it had been to her, did not
lessen the anxiety. Yet never before had they
seemed to be bound together by such ties as
knitted their very souls in this crisis. She tried
with a devotion that was touching to impart to
him some of her own strength to ward off de-
tection.
It was the afternoon of the second day that
a man who gave the name of Drummond called
and presented a card of the Reynolds Company.
“Have you ever been paid a little bill of
twenty-five dollars by our company? '’ he asked.
Down in his heart Carlton knew that this
man was a detective. “I can’t say without
looking it up,” he replied.


26 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Carlton touched a button and an assistant
appeared. Something outside himself seemed
to nerve him up, as he asked: " Look up our
account with Reynolds, and see if we have been
paid—what is it?—a bill for twenty-five dol-
lars. Do you recall it?"
"Yes, I recall it," replied the assistant.
"No, Mr. Dunlap, I don't think it has been
paid. It is a small matter, but we sent them a
duplicate bill yesterday. I thought the original
must have gone astray.''
Carlton cursed him inwardly for sending the
bill. But then, he reasoned, it was only a ques-
tion of time, after all, when the forgery would
be discovered.
Drummond dropped into a half-confidential,
half-quizzing tone. "I thought not. Some-
where along the line that check has been stolen
and raised to twenty-five thousand dollars," he
remarked.
"Is that so? " gasped Carlton, trying hard
to show just the right amount of surprise and
not too much. "Is that so?"
"No doubt you have read in the papers of
this clever realty company swindle? Well, it
seems to have been part of that.''
"I am sure that we shall be glad to do all
in our power to cooperate with Reynolds," put
in Dunlap.


28 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
sensation in her heart, as she realized that it
was, after all, herself on whom he depended,
that it was she who had been the will, even
though he had been the intellect of their enter-
prise. She could not overcome the feeling that,
if only their positions could be reversed, the
thing might even yet be carried through.
Drummond appeared again at the office the
next day. There was no concealment about him
now. He said frankly that he was from the
Burr Detective Agency, whose business it was
to guard the banks against forgeries.
"The pen work, or, as we detectives call it,
the penning," he remarked, "in the case.of
that check is especially good. It shows rare
skill. But the pitfalls in this forgery game are
so many that, in avoiding one, a forger, ever so
clever, falls into another."
Carlton felt the polite third degree, as he
proceeded: '' Nowadays the forger has science
to contend with, too. The microscope and
camera may come in a little too late to be of
practical use in preventing the forger from
getting his money at first, but they come in very
neatly later in catching him. What the naked
eye cannot see in this check they reveal. Be-
sides, a little iodine vapor brings out the
original ' Green & Co.' on it.


30 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
fertile mind, as ever, hitting directly on a plan
of action. "If we separate, they will be less
likely to trace us, for they will never think we
would do that."
It was evident that the words were being
forced out by the conflict of common sense and
deep emotion. '' Perhaps it will be best for you
to stick to your original idea of going west. I
shall go to one of the winter resorts. We shall
icommunicate only through the personal column
of the Star. Sign yourself Weston. I shall sign
Easton."
The words fell on Carlton with his new and
deeper love for her like a death sentence. It
had never entered his mind that they were to be
separated now. Dissolve their partnership in
crime? To him it seemed as if they had just
begun to live since that night when they had at
last understood each other. And it had come
to this—separation.
"A man can always shift for himself better
if he has no impediments," she said, speaking
rapidly as if to bolster up her own resolution.
"A woman is always an impediment in a crisis
like this."
In her face he saw what he had never seen
before. There was love in it that would sacrifice
everything. She was sending him away from
her, not to save herself but to save him. Vainly


THE FORGERS 31
he attempted to protest. She placed her finger
on his lips. Never before had lie felt such over-
powering love for her. And yet she held him
in check in spite of himself.
"Take enough to last a few months," she
added hastily. "Give me the rest. I can hide
it and take care of myself. Even if they trace
me I can get off. A woman can always do that
more easily than a man. Don't worry about me.
Go somewhere, start a new life. If it takes
years, I will wait. Let me know where you are.
We can find some way in which I can come back
into your life. No, no,"—Carlton had caught
her passionately in his arms—" even that can-
not weaken me. The die is cast. We must go.''
She tore herself away from him and fled into
her room, where, with set face and ashen lips,
she stuffed article after article into her grip.
With a heavy heart Carlton did the same. The
bottom had dropped out of everything, yet try
as he would to reason it out, he could find no
other solution but hers. To stay was out of the
question, if indeed it was not already too late
to run. To go together was equally out of the
question. Constance had shown that. "Seek
the woman," was the first rule of the police.
As they left the apartment they could see
a man across the street following them closely.


32 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
They were shadowed. In despair Carlton
turned toward his wife. A sudden idea had
flashed over her. Thero were two taxicabs at
the station on the corner.
"I will take the first," she whispered.
"Take the second and follow me. Then he can-
not trace us."
They were off, leaving the baffled shadow only
time to take the numbers of the cab. Constance
had thought of that. She stopped and Carlton
joined her. After a short walk they took an-
other cab.
He looked at her inquiringly, but she said
nothing. In her eyes he saw the same fire that
blazed when she had asked him if there was no
way to avoid discovery and had suggested it
herself in the forgery. He reached over and
caressed her hand. She did not withdraw it,
but her averted eyes told that she could not
trust even herself too far.
As they stood before the gateway to the steps
that led down into the long under-river tunnel
which was to swallow them so soon and project
them, each into a new life, hundreds, perhaps
thousands of miles apart, Carlton realized as
never before what it all had meant. He had
loved her through all the years, but never with
the wild love of the past two weeks. Now there
was nothing but blackness and blankness. He


34 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
was always first at the news-stand, and the boy
handed out to her, as a matter of habit, the Star.
Yet no one ever saw her read it. Directly after-
ward she would retire to her room. There she
would pore over the first page, reading and re-
reading every personal in it. Sometimes she
would try reading them backward and transpos-
ing the words, as if the message they contained
might be in the form of a cryptograph.
The strain and the suspense began to show
on her. Day after day passed, until it was
nearly two weeks since the parting in New York.
Day after day she grew more worn by worry
and fear. What had happened?
In desperation she herself wired a personal to
the paper: '' Weston. Write me at the Ocean-
view. Easton.''
For three days she waited for an answer.
Then she wired the personal again. Still there
was no reply and no hint of reply. Had they
captured him? Or was he so closely pursued
that he did not dare to reply even in the cryptio
manner on which they had agreed?
She took the file of papers which she kept and
again ran through the personals, even going
back to the very day after they had separated.
Perhaps she had missed one, though she knew
that she could not have done so, for she had
looked at them a hundred times. Where was


THE FORGERS 35
he? Why did he not answer her message in
some way? No one had followed her. Were
they centering their efforts on capturing him?
She haunted the news-stand in the lobby of
the beautifully appointed hotel. Her desire to
read newspapers grew. She read everything.
It was just two weeks since they had left New
York on their separate journeys when, on the
evening of another newsless day, she was pass-
ing the news-stand. From force of habit she
glanced at an early edition of an evening paper.
The big black type of the heading caught her
eye:
NOTED FORGER A SUICIDE
With a little shriek, half-suppressed, she
seized the paper. It was Carlton. There was
his name. He had shot himself in a room in a
hotel in St. Louis. She ran her eye down the
column, hardly able to read. In heavier type
than the rest was the letter they had found on
him:
My deaeest Constance,
When you read this I, who have wronged and
deceived you beyond words, will be where I can
no longer hurt you. Forgive me, for by this act
I am a confessed embezzler and forger. I could


36 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
not face you and tell you of the double life I was
leading. So I have sent you away and have
gone away myself—and may the Lord have
mercy on the soul of
Your devoted husband,
CARLTON DUNLAP.
Over and over again she read the words, as
she clutched at the edge of the news-stand to
keep from fainting—“wronged and deceived
you,” “the double life I was leading.” What
did he mean? Had he, after all, been concealing
something else from her? Had there really
been another woman?
Suddenly the truth flashed over her. Tracked
and almost overtaken, lacking her hand which
had guided him, he had seen no other way out.
And in his last act he had shouldered it all on
himself, had shielded her nobly from the
penalty, had opened wide for her the only door
of escape.


CHAPTER n
THE EMBEZZLEKS
"I came here to hide, to vanish forever from
those who know me."
The young man paused a moment to watch
the effect of his revelation of himself to Con-
stance Dunlap. There was a certain cynical
bitterness in his tone which made her shudder.
"If you were to be discovered—what then?"
she hazarded.
Murray Dodge looked at her significantly, but
said nothing. Instead, he turned and gazed
silently at the ruffled waters of Woodlake.
There was no mistaking the utter hopelessness
and grim determination of the man.
"Why—why have you told so much to me, an
absolute stranger? " she asked, searching his
face. "Might I not hand you over to the
detectives who, you say, will soon be looking for
you?"
"You might," he answered quickly, "but
you won't."
There was a note of appeal in his voice as he
pursued slowly, not as if seeking protection, but
37


38 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
as if hungry for friendship and most of all her
friendship, " Mrs. Dunlap, I have heard what
the people at the hotel say is your story. I think
I understand, as much as a man can. Anyhow,
I know that you can understand. I have
reached a point where I must tell some one or
go insane. It is only a question of time before
I shall be caught. "We are all caught. Tell
me,'' he asked eagerly, bending down closer to
her with an almost breathless intensity in his
face as though he would read her thoughts,
"am I right? The story of you which I have
heard since I came here is not the truth, the
whole truth. It is only half the truth—is it
not?"
Constance felt that this man was dangerously
near understanding her, as no one yet had
seemed to be. It set her heart beating wildly
to know that he did. And yet she was not
afraid. Somehow, although she did not betray
the answer by a word or a look, she felt that
she could trust him.
Through the door of escape from the penalty
of her forgeries, which Carlton Dunlap had
thrown open for her by the manner of his death,
Constance had passed unsuspected. To return
to New York, however, had become out of the
question. She had plenty of money for her
present needs, although she thought it best ta


THE EMBEZZLERS 39
say nothing about it lest some one might wonder
and stumble on the truth.
She had closed up the little studio apartment,
and had gone to a quiet resort in the pines.
Here, at least, she thought she might live un-
observed until she could plan out the tangled
future of her life.
There had seemed to be no need to conceal
her identity, and she had felt it better not to do
so. She knew that her story would follow her,
and it had. She was prepared for that . She
was prepared for the pity and condescension of
the gossips and had made up her mind to stand
aloof.
Then came a day when a stranger had reg-
istered at the hotel. She had not noticed him
especially, but it was not long before she
realized that he was noticing her. Was he a
detective? Had he found out the truth in some
uncanny way? She felt sure that the name on
the hotel register, Malcolm Dodd, was not his
real name.
Constance had not been surprised when the
head waiter had seated the young man at her
table. No doubt he had manoeuvred it so. Nor
did she avoid the guarded acquaintance that re-
sulted in the natural course of events.
One afternoon, shortly after his arrival, she


40 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
had encountered him unexpectedly on a walk
through the pines. He appeared surprised to
meet her, yet she knew intuitively that he had
been following her. Still, it was so different
now to have any one seek her company that, in
spite of her uncertainty of him, she almost wel-
comed his speaking.
There was a certain deference in his manner,
too, which did not accord with Constance's
ideas of a detective. Yet he did know something
of her. How much? Was it merely what the
rest of the world knew? She could not help
seeing that the man was studying her, while she
studied him. There was a fascination about it,
a fascination that the human mystery always
possesses for a woman. On his part, he showed
keenly his interest in her.
Constance had met him with more frankness
as she encountered him often during the days
that followed. She had even tried to draw him
out to talk of himself.
"I came here," he had said one day when
they were passing the spot where he had over-
taken her first, " without knowing a soul, not
expecting to meet any one I should care for,
indeed hoping to meet no one."
Constance had said nothing, but she felt that
at last he was going to crash down the barrier
of reserve. He continued earnestly, " Some-


THE EMBEZZLERS 41
how or other I have come to enjoy these little
walks."
"So have I," she admitted, facing him;
"but, do you know, sometimes I have thought
that Malcolm Dodd is not your real name ?''
"Not my real name? " he repeated.
'' And that you are here for some other pur-
pose than—just to rest. You know, you might
be a detective."
He had looked at her searchingly. Then in
a burst of confidence, he had replied, " No, my
name is not Dodd, as you guessed. But I am
not a detective, as you suspected at first. I
have been watching you because, ever since I
heard your story here, I have been—well, not
suspicious, but—attracted. You seem to me to
have faced a great problem. I, too, have come
to the parting of the ways. Shall I run or shall
I fight?"
He had handed her a card without hesitation.
It bore the name, " Murray Dodge, Treasurer,
Globe Importing Company."
"What do you mean?" she had asked
quickly, hardly expecting an answer. "What
have you done?"
"Oh, it is the usual trouble, I suppose," he
had replied wearily, much to her surprise. "I
began as a boy in the company and ultimately
worked myself up as it grew, until I became


THE EMBEZZLERS 43
crooked, but not as bad, I think, as the rest who
put the actual work on me. I was unfortunate,
weak perhaps. That is all. I tried to get mine,
too. I lost what I meant to put back after I had
used it. They are after me now, or soon will be
—the crooks! And here I am, momentarily ex-
pecting some one to walk up quietly behind me,
tap me on the shoulder and whisper, 'You're
wanted.'"
Time had not softened the bitterness of Con-
stance's feelings. Somehow she felt that the
world, or at least society owed her for taking
away her husband. The world must pay. She
sympathized with the young man who was ap-
pealing to her for friendship. Why not help
him?
"Do you really, really want to know what I
think? " asked Constance after he had at last
told her his wretched story. It was the first
time that she had looked at him since she
realized that he was unburdening the truth to
her.
"Yes," he answered eagerly, catching her
eye. "Yes," he urged.
"I think," she said slowly, "that you are
running away from a fight that has not yet be-
gun."
It thrilled her to be talking so. Once before
she had tasted the sweetness and the bitterness


44 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
of crime. She did not stop to think about right
or wrong. If she had done so her ethics would
have been strangely illogical. It was enough
that, short as their acquaintance had been, she
felt unconsciously that there was something
latent in the spirit of this man akin to her own.
Murray also felt rather than understood the
bond that had been growing so rapidly between
them. His was the temperament that im-
mediately translates feeling into action. He
reached into his breast pocket. There was the
blue-black glint of a cold steel automatic. A
moment he balanced it in his hand. Then with
a rapid and decisive motion of the arm he flung
it far from him. As it struck the water with a
sound horribly suggestive of the death gurgle
of a lost man, he turned and faced her.
"There," he exclaimed with a new light in
the defiant, desperate smile that she had ob-
served many times before,'' there. The curtain
rises—instead of falls."
Neither spoke for a few moments. At last he
added, " What shall I do next?"
"Do?" She repeated. She felt now the
weight of responsibility for interfering with his
desperate plans, but it did not oppress her. On
the contrary, it was a pleasant burden. « Ac-
cording to your own story," she went on, « they
know nothing yet, as far as you can see. You
X


THE EMBEZZLERS 45
would have forestalled them by taking this little
vacation during which you could disappear
while they would discover the shortage. Do?
Go back."
"And when they discover it? "he asked evi-
dently prepared for the answer she had given
and eager to know what she would propose next.
Constance had been thinking rapidly.
"Listen," she cried, throwing aside restraint
now. "No one in New York outside my former
little circle knows me. I can live there in an-
other circle unobserved. For weeks I have been
amusing myself by the study of shorthand. I
have picked up enough to be able to carry the
thing off. Discharge your secretary. Put an
advertisement in the newspapers. I will answer
it. Then I will be able to help you. I cannot
say at a distance what you should do next.
There, perhaps, I can tell you."
What was it that had impelled her to say it?
She could not have told. Murray looked at her.
Her very presence seemed to infuse new deter-
mination into him.
It was strange about this woman, what a
wonderful effect she had on him.
A few days before he would have laughed at
any one who had suggested that any woman
might have aroused in him the passions that
were now surging through his heart. Ten


46 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
thousand years ago, perhaps, he would have
seized her and carried her off in triumph to his
clan or tribe. To-day he must, he would win her
by more subtle means.
His mind was made up. She had pointed the
way. That night Dodge left Woodlake hastily
for New York.
To Constance a new purpose seemed to have
entered into a barren life. She was almost gay
as she packed her trunks and grips and quietly
slipped into the city a few hours later and
registered at a quiet hotel for business women.
Sure enough in the Star the next morning was
the advertisement. She wrote in a formal way,
giving her telephone number. That afternoon,
apparently as soon as the letter had been de-
livered, a call came. The following morning she
was the private secretary of Murray Dodge, sit-
ting unobtrusively before a typewriter desk in
a sort of little anteroom that guarded the door
to his office.
She took pains to act the part of private
secretary and no more. As appeared natural to
the rest of the office force at first she was much
with Murray, who made the most elaborate ex-
planations of the detail of the business.
"Do they suspect anything? " she asked anx-
iously as soon as they were absolutely alone.



THE EMBEZZLERS 47
"I think so," he replied. "They said noth-
ing except that they had not expected me back
so soon. I think the ' so soon ' was an after-
thought. They didn't expect me back at all.
For," he added significantly, " I've been in fear
and trembling until I could get you. They al-
ready have asked the regular audit company to
go over the books in advance of the time when
we usually employ them. I didn't ask why. I
merely accepted it with a nod. It might have
meant bringing matters to a crisis now.''
He felt safer with Constance installed as his
private secretary. True, Beverley and Dumont
had viewed her from the start with suspicion.
Constance had been thinking hard out in her
little office since she had begun to understand
how matters stood. "Well? " she demanded.
"What of it? Don't try to conceal it. Let
them discover it. Go further. Dare them.
Court exposure.''
It was bold and ingenious. What a woman
she was for meeting emergencies. Murray, who
had a will that had been accustomed to bend
others to his purposes except in the instance
where they had bent him and nearly broken him,
recognized the masterful mind of Constance.
He was willing to allow her to play the
game.


48 CONSTANCE DT7XLAP
Thus Constance began collecting the very
data that would have sent Murray to jail for
bribery. Day by day as she worked on, the
situation became more and more delicate. They
found themselves alone much of the time now.
Beverley was, or pretended to be, busy on other
matters and avoided Dodge as much as possible.
Only the regular routine affairs passed through
his hands, but he said nothing. It gave him
more time with her. Dumont came in as rarely
as it was possible.
And as they worked along gathering the data
Constance came to admire Murray more than
ever. She worked patiently over the big books,
taking only those on which the accountant was
not engaged at such times as she could get them
without exciting suspicion. Together they dug
out the extent of the frauds that had been prac-
ticed on the Government for years back. From
the letter files they rescued notes and orders and
letters, pieced them together into as near a con-
tinuous record as they could make. With his
own knowledge of the books Dodge could count
on making better progress on the essential
things than the regular accountant of the audit
company. He felt sure that they would finish
sooner and that they would have a closer report
of the frauds of all kinds than could be un-
covered by the man who had been set on the


THE EMBEZZLERS 49
trail of Dodge to discover just how much of the
illicit gains he had taken for himself.
Constance became aware soon that whenever
she left the office at night she was being fol-
lowed. She had at first studiously repelled the
offers of Murray to see her home. It was not
that he had taken advantage of the situation into
which she had put herself. He would never
have done that. Still, she wished a little more
time to analyze her own conflicting feelings to-
ward him. Then, too, several times in the
crowded subway cars she had noticed a face that
was familiar. It was Drummond, never look-
ing directly at her, always engrossed in some-
thing else, yet never failing to note where she
was going. That must be, she reasoned, some of
the work of Beverley and Dumont.
Murray was now working feverishly. As he
worked he found himself feeling differently to-
ward the whole affair. He actually came to en-
joy it with all its risks and uncertainty, to en-
joy gathering the data which, he should have
said, ought really to be destroyed. Often he
caught himself wishing that everything had
come out all right in the end and that Constance
really was his private secretary.
Every moment with her seemed now to pass
so quickly that he would willingly have smashed


50 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
all the clocks and destroyed all the calendars.
Association with other women had been tame
beside his new friendship with her. She had
suffered, felt, lived. She fascinated him, as
often over the books they would stop to talk, talk
of things the most irrelevant, yet to him the
most interesting, until she would bring him back
inevitably to the point of their work and start
him again with a new power and incentive to-
ward the purpose she had in mind.
To Constance he seemed to fill a blank spot in
her empty life. If she had been bitter toward
the world for what had happened to her, the
pleasure of helping another to beat that harsh
world seemed an unspeakably sweet compensa-
tion.
At last even Constance herself began to
realize it. It was not, after all, merely the bit-
terness toward society, that lured her on. She
was not a woman carved out of a block of stone.
There was a sweetness about this association
that carried her along as if in a dream. She was
actually falling in love with him.
One day she had been working later than
.usual. The accountant had shown signs of ap-
proaching the end of his task sooner than they
had expected. Murray was waiting, as was his
custohi, for her to finish before he left.
There was no sound in the almost deserted


THE EMBEZZLERS 51
office building save the banging of a door echo-
ing now and then, or an insistent ring of the ele-
vator bell as an anxious office boy or stenog-
rapher sought to escape after an extra period
of work.
Murray stood looking at her admiringly as
she deftly shoved the pins into her hat. Then
he held her coat, which brought them close to-
gether.
"It will soon be time for the final scene,"
he remarked. His manner was different as he
looked down at her. "We must succeed, Con-
stance," he went on slowly. "Of course, after
it is over, it will be impossible for me to remain
here with this company. I have been looking
around. I must—we must clear ourselves. I
already have an offer to go with another com-
pany, much better than this position in every
way—honest, square, with no dirty work, such
as I have had here."
It was a moment that Constance had foreseen,
without planning what she would do. She
moved to the door as if to go.
"Take dinner with me to-night at the River-
side," he went on, mentioning the name of a
beautifully situated inn uptown overlooking
the lights of the Hudson and thronged by gay
parties of pleasure seekers.
Before she could say no, even though she


52 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
would have said it, he had linked his arm in
hers, banged shut the door and they were being
whisked to the street in the elevator.
This time, as they were about to go out of
the building, she noticed Drummond standing
in the shadow of a corner back of the cigar
counter on the first floor. She told Murray of
the times she had seen Drummond following
her. Murray ground his teeth.
“He’ll have to hustle this time,” he mut-
tered, handing her quickly into a cab that was
waiting for a fare.
Before he could give the order where to drive
she had leaned out of the window, “To the
ferry,” she cried.
Murray looked at her inquiringly. Then he
understood. “Not to the Riverside—yet,” she
whispered. “That man has just summoned a
cab that was passing.”
In her eyes Murray saw the same fire that
had blazed when she had told him he was run-
ning away from a fight that had not yet begun.
As the cab whirled through the now nearly de-
serted downtown streets, he reached over in
sheer admiration and caressed her hand. She
did not withdraw it, but her averted eyes and
quick breath told that a thousand thoughts were
hurrying through her mind, divided between


THE EMBEZZLEKS 53
the man in the cab beside her and the man in
the cab following perhaps half a block be-
hind.
At the ferry they halted and pretended to be
examining a time table, though they bought
only ferry tickets. Drummond did the same,
and sauntered leisurely within easy distance of
the gate. Nothing seemed to escape him, and
yet never did he seem to be watching them."
The gateman shouted " All aboard!"
The door began to close.
"Come," she tugged at his sleeve.
They dodged in just in time. Drummond
followed. They started across the wagonway
to the opposite side of the slip. He kept on the
near side. Constance swerved back again to
the near side. Drummond had been opposite
them and they had now fallen in behind him.
He was now ahead, but going slowly. Murray
felt her pulling back on his arm. With a little
exclamation she dropped her purse, which con-
tained a few coins. She had contrived to open
it, and the coins ran in every possible direction.
Drummond was now on the boat.
"All aboard," growled the guard surlily.
"All aboard."
"Go ahead, go ahead," shouted Murray, try-
ing to pick up the scattered change and scat-
tering it the more. At last he understood.


54 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Go ahead. We'll take the next boat. Can't
you Bee the lady has dropped her purse!"
The gates closed. The warning whistle blew,
and the ferryboat departed, bearing off Drum-
mond alone.
Another cab took them to the Riverside. A
new bond of experience had been established
between them. They dined quietly and as the
lights grew mellow she told him more of her
story than she had ever breathed to any other
living soul.
As Murray listened he looked his admiration
for the daring of the little woman opposite him
at the table.
They drifted. . . .
It was the day of the threatened exposure.
Curiously enough, Dodge felt no nervousness.
The understanding which he had reached or
felt that he had reached with Constance made
him rather eager than otherwise to have the
whole affair over with at once.
Drummond had been shut up for some time
in the office of Beverley with Dumont, going
over the report which the accountant had pre-
pared and other matters. He had come in with-
out seeing either Constance or Murray, though
they knew he must be nursing his chagrin over
the episode of the night before.


THE EMBEZZLERS 55
"They are waiting to see you," reported
Constance to Dodge, half an hour later, after
one of the office boys had been sent over as a
formal messenger to their office.
"We are ready for them? " he asked, smil-
ing at her.
Constance nodded.
'' Then I shall go in. Wait a moment. When
they have hurled their worst at me I shall call
on you. Have the stuff ready."
There was no hesitation, no misgiving on
the Dart of either, as he strode into Beverley's
office. Constance had prepared the record
which they had been working on, and for days
had been momentarily expecting this crisis.
She felt that she was ready.
An ominous silence greeted Dodge as he en-
tered.
'' We have had experts on your books, Dodge,''
began Beverley, clearing his throat, as Murray
seated himself, waiting for them to speak first.
*' I have seen that," he replied dryly.
"They are fifty thousand dollars short,"
shot out Dumont.
"Indeed?"
Dumont gasped at the coolness of the man.
4' Wh-what? You have nothing to say? Why,
sir," he added, raising his voice, "you have
actually made no effort to conceal it!"


56 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Dodge smiled cynically. "A consultation
will rectify it," was all he said. "A confer-
ence -will show you that it is all right."
"A consultation?" broke in Beverley in
rage. "A consultation in jail!"
Still Dodge merely smiled.
"Then you consider yourself trapped. Ton
admit it,'' ground out Dumont.
"Anything you please," repeated Dodge.
"I am perfectly willing"
"Let us end this farce—now," cried Bev-
erley hotly. "Drummond!"
The deteetive had been doing some rapid
thinking. "Just a moment," he interrupted.
"Don't be too precipitate. Hear his side, if he
has any. I can manage him. Besides, I have
something else to say about another person that
will interest us all."
'' Then you are willing to have the consulta-
tion?"
Drummond nodded.
"Miss Dunlap," called Murray, taking the
words almost from the detective's lips, as he
opened the door and held it for her to enters,
"No—no. Alone," almost shouted Beverley.
The detective signaled to him and he sub-
sided, muttering.
As she entered Drummond looked hard at her.
Constance met him without wavering an instant
*


THE EMBEZZLERS 57
"I think I've seen you before, Mrs. Dunlap,"
insinuated the detective.
"Perhaps," replied Constance, still meeting
his sharp ferret eye squarely, which increased
his animosity.
'' Your husband was Carlton Dunlap, cashier
of Green & Company, was he not?"
She bit her lip. The manner of his raking
up of old scores, though she had expected it,
was cruel. It would have been cruel in court, if
she had had a lawyer to protect her rights. It
was doubly cruel, merciless, here. Before
Dodge could interrupt, the detective added,
""Who committed suicide after forging cheeks
to meet his"
Murray was at Drummond like a hound.
"Another word from you and I'll throttle
you," he blurted out.
"No, Murray, no. Don't," pleaded Con-
stance. She was burning with indignation, but
it was not by violence that' ,,she expected to pre-
vail. "Let him say what he has to say."
Drummond smiled. He had no scruples about
a "third degree" of this kind, and besides
there were three of them to Dodge.
"You were—both of you—at "Woodlake not
long ago, were you not? " he asked calmly.
There was no escaping the implication of the
tone. Still Drummond was taking no chances


58 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
of being misunderstood. "There was one
man," he went on, "who embezzled for you.
Here is another who has embezzled. How will
that look when it goes before a jury? " he con-
cluded.
The fight had shifted before it had well be-
gun. Instead of being between Dodge on one
side and Beverley and Dumont on the other, it
now seemed to be a clash between a cool detec-
tive and a clever woman.
"Mrs. Dunlap," interrupted Murray, with a
mocking smile at the detective, "will you tell
us what you have found out since you have
been my private secretary?"
Constance had not lost control of herself for
a moment.
"I have been looking over the books a little
bit myself," she began slowly, with all eyes
riveted on her. "I find, for instance, that your
company has been undervaluing its imported
goods. Undervaluing merchandise is consid-
ered, I believe, one of the meanest forms of
smuggling. The undervaluer has frequently
to make a tool of a man in his employ. Then
that tool must play on the frailties of an
unfortunate or weak examiner at the Public
Stores where all invoices and merchandise from
foreign countries are examined."


THE EMBEZZLERS 59
Drummond had been trying to interrupt, but
she had ignored him, and was speaking rapidly
so that he could get no chance.
"You have cheated the Government of
hundreds of thousands dollars," she hurried
on, facing Beverley and Dumont. "It would
make a splendid newspaper story."
Dumont moved uneasily. Drummond was
now staring. It was a new phase of the matter
to him. He had not counted on handling a wo-
man like Constance, who knew how to take ad-
vantage of every weak spot in the armor.
"We are wasting time," he interrupted
brusquely. "Get back to the original subject.
There is a fifty thousand-dollar shortage on
these books."
The attempt clumsily to shift the case away
again from Constance to Dodge wa^ apparent.
"Mrs. Dunlap's past troubles," Dodge as-
serted vigorously,'' have nothing to do with the
case. It was cowardly to drag that in. But the
other matter of which she speaks has much to
do with it."
"One moment, Murray," cried Constance.
"Let me finish what I began. This is my fight,
too, now.''
She was talking with blazing eyes and in
quick, cutting tone.
"For three years he did your dirty work,"


60 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
she flashed. "He did the bribing—and you
saved half a million dollars."
"He has stolen fifty thousand," put in
Beverley, white with anger.
"I have kept an account of everything,"
pursued Constance, without pausing. "I have
pieced the record together so that he can now
connect the men higher up with the actual acts
he had to do. He can gain immunity by turn-
ing state's evidence. I am not sure but that he
might be able to obtain his moiety of what
the Government recovers if the matter were
brought to suit and won on the information he
can furnish."
She paused. No one seemed to breathe.
"Now," she added impressively, "at ten
per cent. commission the half million that he
saved for you yields fifty thousand dollars.
That, gentlemen, is the amount of the shortage
—an offset."
*' The deuce it is!" exclaimed Beverley.
Constance reached for a telephone on the
desk near her.
*' Get me the Law Division at the Customs
House," she asked simply.
Dumont was pale and almost speechless.
Beverley could ill suppress his smothered rage.
What could they do? The tables had been
turned. If they objected to the amazing pro-


THE EMBEZZLERS 61
posal Constance had made they might all go to
jail. Dodge even might go free, rich. They
looked at Dodge and Mrs. Dunlap. There was
no weakening. They were as relentless as their
opponents had been before.
Dumont literally tore the telephone from her.
"Never mind about that number, central," he
muttered.
Then he started as if toward the door. The
rest followed. Outside the accountant had been,
waiting patiently, perhaps expecting Drum-
mond to call on him to corroborate the report.
He had been listening. There was no sound of
high voices, as he had expected. What did it
mean?
The door opened. Beverley was pale and
haggard, Dumont worn and silent. He could
scarcely talk. Dodge again held the door for
Constance as she swept past the amazed ac-
countant.
All eyes were now fixed on Dumont as chief
spokesman.
"He has made a satisfactory explanation,"
was all he said.
"I would lock all that stuff up in the
strongest safe deposit vault in New York," re-
marked Constance, laying the evidence that in-
volved them all on Murray's desk. "It is your
only safeguard."


62 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Constance," he burst forth suddenly, " you
were superb.''
The crisis was past now and she felt the ner-
vous reaction.
"There is one thing more I want to say," he
added in a low tone.
He had crossed to where she was standing by
the window, and bent over, speaking with great
emotion.
"Since that afternoon at Woodlake when
you turned me back again from the foolish and
ruinous course on which I had decided you—
you have been more to me than life. Constance,
I have never loved until now. Nothing has
ever mattered except money. I never had any
one else to think of, care for, except myself.
You have changed everything."
She was gazing out of the window at the tall
buildings. There, in a myriad of offices, lay
wealth untold, opportunity as yet untasted to
seize that wealth. Only for an instant she
turned and looked at him, then dropped her
eyes. What lay that way?
"You are clear now, respected, respect-
able," she said simply.
"Yes, thank God. Clear and with a new am-
bition, thanks to you."
She had been expecting this ever since that
last night. The relief of Murray to feel that


THE EMBEZZLERS 63
the old score that would have ruined him was
now wiped off the slate was precisely what she
had anticipated.
. Yet, somehow, it disappointed her. She felt
instinctively that her triumph was burning fast
to ashes.
"Keep clear," she faltered.
"Constance," he urged, approaching closer
and taking her cold hand.
Was she to be the one to hold him back in any
way from the new life that was now before
him? What if Drummond, in his animosity,
ever got the truth? She gently unclasped her
hand from his. No, that happiness was not
for her.
"I am afraid I am a crook at heart, Mur-
ray," she said sadly. "I have gone too far to
turn back. The brand is on me. But I am not
altogether bad—yet. Think of me always with
charity. Yes," she cried wildly, " I must re-
turn to my loneliness. No, do not try to stop
me, you have no right," she added bitterly as
the reality of her situation burned itself into
her heart.
She broke away from him wildly, but with
set purpose. The world had taken away her
husband; now it was a lover; the world must
pay.


CHAPTER m
THE GUN BUHNERS
"We'll land here, Mrs. Dunlap."
Ramon Santos, terror of the Washington
State Department and of a half dozen con-
sulates in New York, stuck a pin in a map of
Central America spread out on a table before
Constance.
"Insurrectos will meet us," he pursued,
then added, "but we must have money, first,
my dear Senora, plenty of money."
Dark of eye and skin, with black imperial and
mustache, tall, straight as an arrow, Santos
had risen and was now gazing down with rapt
attention, not at the map, but at Constance her-
self.
Every curve of her face and wave of her hair,
every line of her trim figure which her filmy
gown seemed to accentuate rather than conceal
added fire to his ardent glances.
He touched lightly another pin sticking in a
little, almost microscopic island of the Carib-
bean.
"Our plan, it is simple," he continued with
64


THE GUN RUNNERS 65
animation in spite of his foreign aecent. "On
this island a plant to print paper money, to coin
silver. With that we shall land, pay our men
as they flock to us, collect forces, seize cities,
appropriate the customs. Once we start, it is
easy."
Constance looked up quickly. "But that is
counterfeiting, "she exclaimed.
"No," rejoined Santos, " it is a war meas-
ure. We—the provisional government—merely
coin our own money. Besides, it will not be
done in this country. It will not come under
your laws."
There was a magnetism about the man that
fascinated her, as he stood watching the effect
of his words. Instinctively she knew that it
was not alone enthusiasm over his scheme that
inspired his confidences.
"Though we are not counterfeiters," he
went on, "we do not know what moment our
opponents may set your Secret Service to des-
troy all our hopes. Besides, we must have
money—now—to buy machinery, arms, ammu-
nition. We must find some one,'' he lowered his
voice, "who can persuade American bankers
and merchants to take risks to gain valuable
concessions in the new state."
Santos was talking rapidly and earnestly,
urging his case on her,


66 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"We are prepared," he hurried on confi-
dentially, '' to give you, Senora, half the money
that you can raise for these purposes."
He paused and stood before her. He was
certainly a handsome figure, this soldier of for-
tune, and he was at his best now.
Constance looked out of the window of her
sitting room. This was a business proposition,
not to be influenced by any sentiment.
She watched the lights moving up and down
the river and bay. There were craft from the
ends of the earth. She speculated on the
romantic secrets hidden in liner and tramp.
Surely they could scarcely be more romantic
than the appeal Santos was making.
""Will you help us? " urged Santos, leaning
further over the map to read her averted
face.
In her loneliness after she had given up Mur-
ray Dodge, life in New York had seemed even
more bitter to Constance than before. Yet the
great city cast a spell over her, with its count-
less opportunities for adventure. She could not
leave it, but had taken a suite in a quiet board-
ing house overlooking the bay from the Heights
in Brooklyn.
One guest in particular had interested her.
He was a Latin American, Ramon Santos.


THE GUN RUNNERS 67
She noticed that he seldom appeared at break-
fast or luncheon. But at dinner he often or-
dered much as if it were seven o'clock in the
morning instead of the evening. He was a mys-
tery and mysteries interested her. Did he work
all night and sleep all day? What was he
doing?
She was astonished a few nights after her
arrival to receive a call from the mysterious
evening breakfaster.
"Pardon—I intrude," he began gracefully,
presenting his card. "But I have heard how
clever you are, Senora Dunlap. A friend, in
an importing firm, has told me of you, a Mr.
Dodge."
Constance was startled at the name. Mur-
ray had indeed written a little note expressing
his entire confidence in Mr. Santos. Formal
as it was, Constance thought she could read
between the lines the same feeling toward her
that he had expressed at their parting.
Santos gave her no time to live over the
past.
"You see, Mrs. Dunlap," he explained, as
he led up to the object of his visit, " the time
has come to overthrow the regime in Central
America—for a revolution which will bring to-
gether all the countries in a union like the old
United States of Central America."


68 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
He had spread out the map on the table.
“Only,” he added, “we would call the new
state, Vespuccia.”
“We?” queried Constance.
“Yes—my—colleagues—you call it in Eng-
lish? We have already a Junta with head-
quarters in an old loft on South Street, in New
York.”
Santos indicated the plan of campaign on
the map.
“We shall strike a blow,” he cried, bringing
his fist down on the table as if the blow had al-
ready fallen, “that will paralyze the enemy at
the very start!”
He paused.
“Will you help us raise the money?” he re-
peated earnestly.
Constance had been inactive long enough.
The appeal was romantic, almost irresistible.
Besides—no, at the outset she put out of con-
sideration any thought of the fascinating
young soldier of fortune himself.
The spirit of defiance of law and custom was
strong upon her. That was all.
“Yes,” she replied, “I will help you.”
Santos leaned over, and with a graceful
gesture that she could not resent, raised her
finger tips gallantly to his lips.


THE GUN RUNNERS 69
“Thank you,” he said with a courtly smile.
“We have already won!”
The next day Ramon introduced her to the
other members of the Junta. It was evident
that he was in fact as well as name their leader,
but they were not like the usual oily plotters of
revolution who congregate about the round
tables in dingy back rooms of South Street
cafés, apportioning the gold lace, the offices,
and the revenues among themselves. There
was an “air '' about them that was differ-
ent.
“Let me present Captain Lee Gordon of
the Arroyo,” remarked Santos, coming to a
stockily-built, sun-burned man with the unmis-
table look of the Anglo-Saxon who has spent
much time in the neighborhood of the tropical
sun. “The Arroyo is the ship that is to
carry the arms and the plant to the island—
from Brooklyn. We choose Brooklyn because it
is quieter over there—fewer people late at
night on the streets.”
Captain Gordon bowed, without taking his
eyes off Constance.
“I am, like yourself, Mrs. Dunlap, a recent
recruit,” he explained. “It is a wonderful
plan,” he added enthusiastically. “We shall
sweep the country with it.”
He flicked off the ash of his inevitable eig-


70 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
arette, much as if it were the opposition of the
governments they were to encounter.
It was evident that the Captain was much im-
pressed by Constance. Yet she instinctively
disliked the man. His cameraderie had some-
thing offensive about it, as contrasted with the
deferential friendship of Santos.
With all her energy, however, Constance
plunged directly into her work. Indeed, even
at the start she was amazed to find that money
for a revolution could be raised at all. She soon
found that it could be done more easily in New
York than anywhere else in the world.
There seemed to be something about her that
apparently appealed to those whom she went to
see. She began to realize what a tremendous
advantage a woman of the world had in pre-
senting the case and convincing a speculator of
the rich returns if the revolution should prove
successful. More than that, she quickly learned
that it was best to go alone, that it was she, quite
as much as the promised concessions for to-
bacco, salt, telegraph, telephone monopolies,
that loosed the purse strings.
Her first week's report of pledges ran into
the thousands with a substantial immediate
payment of real dollars.
"How did you do it? " asked Santos in un-


THE GUN RUNNERS 71
disguised admiration, as she was telling him
one night of her success, in the dusty, cob-
webbed little ship chandlery on South Street
where the Junta headquarters had been estab-
lished.
"Dollar diplomacy," she laughed, not dis-
pleased at his admiration. "We shall soon
convert American dollars into Vespuccian bul-
lets."
They were alone, and a week had made much
difference in the fascinating friendship to Con-
stance.
"Let me show you what I have done,"
Ramon confided. '' Already, I have started to-
gether the ' counterfeiting plant,'as you call it."
Piece by piece, as he had been able to afford
them, he had been ordering the presses, the
stamping machine, and a little " reeding" or
milling machine for the edges of the coins.
"The paper, the ink, and the bullion, we
shall order now as we can,'' he explained, rest-
ing his head on his elbow at the table beside her.
"Everything will be secured from firms which
make mint supplies for foreign governments.
A photo-engraver is now engaged on the work
of copying the notes. He is making the plates
by the photo-etching process—the same as that
by which the real money plates are made.
Then, too, there will be dies for the coins.
6


72 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Coined silver will be worth twice the cost of
the bullion to us. Why," he added eagerly, " a
few more successful days, Senora, and we shall
have even arms and ammunition.''
A key turned in the door. Santos sprang to
his feet. It was Gordon.
"Ah, good evening," the Captain greeted
them. The fact that they had been talking so
earnestly alone was not lost on him. "May I
join the conspiracy? " he smiled. "What luck
to-day? By the way, I have just heard of a
consignment of a thousand rifles as good as new
that can be bought for a song."
Santos, elated at the progress so far, told
hastily of Constance's success. "Let us get
an option on them for a few days," he cried.
"Good," agreed Gordon, " only," he added,
shaking his finger playfully at Constance, as
the three left the headquarters, " don't let the
commander-in-chief monopolize all your time,
Eemember, we all need you now. Santos, that
was an inspiration to get Mrs. Dunlap on our
side."
Somehow she felt uncomfortable. She half
imagined that a frown had flitted over Santos'
face.
"Are you going to Brooklyn?" she asked
him.


THE GUN KUNNERS 73
"No, we shall be working at the Junta late
to-night,'' he replied, as they parted at the sub-
way, he and Gordon to secure the option on the
guns, she to plan for the morrow.
"I have made a good beginning," she con-
gratulated herself, when, later in her rooms,
she was going over the list of names of com-
mission merchants who handled produce of
South American countries.
There was a tap on the door.
Quickly, she shoved the list into the drawer
of the table.
"A gentleman to see you, downstairs,
ma'am," announced the maid.
As she pushed aside the portieres, her heart
gave a leap—it was Drummond.
"Mrs. Dunlap," began the wily detective,
seeming to observe everything with eyes that
seldom had the appearance of looking at any-
thing, " I think you will recall that we have met
before.''
Constance bit her lip. "And why again?"
she queried curtly.
"I am informed," he went on coolly ignoring
her curtness, "that there is a guest in this
house named Santos—Ramon Santos."
He said it in a half insinuating, half ques~
tioning tone.


74 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"You might inquire of the landlady," re-
plied Constance, now perfectly composed.
"Mrs. Dunlap," he burst forth, exasper-
ated, " what is the use of beating about? Do
you know the real character of this Santos?"
"It is a matter of perfect indifference,'? she
returned.
"Then you do not think a warning from me
worth troubling about? " demanded the detec-
tive.
Constance continued to stand as if to ter-
minate the interview.
"I came here," continued the detective
showing no evidence of taking the hint, "to
make a proposition to you. Mrs. Dunlap, you
are in bad again. But this time there is a
chance for you to get out without risk. I—I
think I may talk plainly? We understand each
other?"
His manner had changed. Constance could
not have described to herself the loathing she
felt for the man as it suddenly flashed over her
what he was after. If she had resented his
familiarity before, it brought the stinging
blood to her cheeks now to realize that he was
actually seeking to persuade her to betray her
friends.
"Do you want to know what I think? " she


THE GUN RUNNERS 75
"A scorned, then without waiting added, " I think
you are a crook—a blackmailer,—that's what
sper- I think of a private detective like you."
ft The defiance of the little woman amazed even
s!" Drummond. Instead of fear as of the pursued,
sit- Constance Dunlap showed all the boldness of
the pursuer.
me "You have got to stop this swindling," the
ec- detective raged, taking a step closer to her. "I
know the bankers you have fooled. I know how
>r- much you have worked them for."
"Swindling?" she repeated coolly, in as-
sumed surprise. "Who says I am swin-
dling?"
"You know well enough what I mean—this
revolution that is being planned to bring about
the new state of Vespuccia, as your friends
Santos and Gordon call it."
"Vespuccia—Santos—Gordon?"
"Yes," he shouted, "Vespuccia—Santos—
Gordon. And I'll go further. I'll tell you
something you may not care to hear."
Drummond leaned over closer to her in his
favorite bulldozing manner when he dealt with
a woman. All the malevolence of the human
bloodhound seemed concentrated in his look.
"Who forged those Carlton Realty checks?"
he hissed. "Who played off the weakness
of Dumont and Beverley against the clever


THE GUN RUNNERS 77
to *' throw a scare into " her. She turned sud-
denly and swept out of the room.
"I thank you for your kindness," she said
icily. "It is unnecessary. Good-night."
In her own room she paced the floor ner-
vously, now that the strain was off. Should she
desert Santos and save herself? He had more
need of her help now than ever before. She did
not stop to analyze her own feelings. She knew
he had been making love to her during the past
week as only a Spaniard could. It fascinated
her without blinding her. Yes, she would match
her wits against this detective, clever though
she knew he was. But Santos must be warned.
Santos and Gordon were alone when she burst
in on them, breathlessly, an hour later at the
Junta.
"What is the matter?" inquired Ramon
quickly, placing a chair for her.
Gordon looked his admiration for the little
woman, though he did not speak it. She saw
him cast a sidewise glance at Santos and her-
self.
Though the three were friends, it was evi-
dent to her that Gordon did not trust Santos
any further than the suspicious Anglo-Saxon
trusts a foreigner usually when there is a
woman in the case.
"The Secret Service!" exclaimed Con-


78 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
stance. '' I have just had a visit from a private
detective employed by one of the consulates.
They know too much. He has threatened to tell
all to the Secret Service, has even had the
effrontery to ask me to betray you."
"The scoundrel," burst out Santos im-
pulsively.
"You are not frightened!" Gordon asked
quickly.
"On the contrary, I expected something of
the sort soon, but not from this man. I can
meet him!''
"Good," exclaimed the Captain.
There was that in his voice that caused her
to look at him quickly. Santos had noticed it,
too, and a sullen scowl spread over his face.
Intuitively Constance read the two men be-
fore her. She had fled from one problem to a
greater. Both Santos and Gordon were in love
with her.
In the whirl of this new discovery, two things
alone crowded all else from her mind. She
must contrive to hold off Drummond until that
part of the expedition which was ready could be
got off. And she must play the jealous rivals
against each other with such finesse as to keep
them separated.
Far into the night after she had left the


THE GUN RUNNERS 79
Junta she debated the question with herself.
She could not turn back now. The attentions
of Gordon were offensive. Yet she could have
given no other reason than that she liked
Santos the better. Yet what was Santos to her,
after all? Once she had let herself go too far.
She must be careful in this case. She must not
allow this to be other than a business proposi-
tion.
The crisis for her came sooner than she had
anticipated. It was the day after the visit of
Drummond. She was waiting at the Junta
alone for Santos when Gordon entered. She
had dreaded just that. There was no mistaking
the man.
"Mrs. Dunlap," began Gordon bending
down close over her.
She was almost trembling with emotion, and
he saw it.
"You can read me like a book," he hurried
on, mistaking her feelings. "I can see that
you know how much I think of you—how much
I—"
"No, no," she implored. "Don't talk to me
that way. Remember—there is work to do.
After it is over—then—"
""Work! " he scorned. "What is the whole
of Central America to me compared to you?"
"Captain Gordon!" she stood facing him.


80 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"You must not. Listen to me. You do not
know—I—please, please leave me. Let me
think."
She did not dare accept him; she could not
reject him. It seemed that with an almost
superhuman effort Gordon gripped himself.
But he did not go.
Constance was distracted, what if Santos with
his fiery nature should find Gordon talking to
her alone? She must temporize.
"One week," she murmured. "When the
Arroyo sails—that night—I shall give you my
answer."
Gordon shot a peculiar glance at her—half
doubt, half surprise. But she was gone. As she
hurried unexpectedly out of the Junta she
fancied she caught a glimpse of a familiar
figure. It must have been Drummond. Every
move at the Junta was being watched.
At the boarding house all night she waited.
She must see Santos. Plan after plan whirled
through her brain as the hours dragged.
It was not until almost morning that, seeing
a light, he tapped cautiously at her door.
"You were not at the Junta to-night," he
remarked.
There was something of jealousy in the tone.
"No. There is something I wanted to say to


THE GUN RUNNERS 81
you where we should not be interrupted," she
answered as he sat down.
A fold of her filmy house dress fluttered near
him. Involuntarily he moved closer. His eyes
met hers. She could feel the passions surging
in the man beside her.
"I saw Drummond again, to-day," she be-
gan. '' Captain Gordon—''
The intense look of hatred that blazed in
the eyes of Santos frightened her. What might
have happened if he instead of Gordon had met
her at the Junta she could not have said. But
now she must guard against it. If flashed over
her that there was only one thing to be done.
She rose and laid her hand on his arm. As
quickly the look changed. There was only one
way to do it; she must make this man think
they understood each other without saying so.
"You must get the counterfeiting plant down
on the island—immediately—alone. Don't tell
any of the others until it is there safely. You
were going to send it down on the Arroyo next
week. It must not go from New York at all.
It must be shipped by rail, and then from New
Orleans. You must—"
"But—Gordon?" His voice was hoarse.
She looked at Santos long and earnestly. '' I
will take care of him," she said in a tone that
Santos could not mistake. "No—Ramon, no.


82 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
After the revolution—perhaps—who shall say?
But now—to work!"
It was with a sigh of relief that she sank to
rest at last when he had gone. For the moment
she had won.
Piece by piece, Santos and she secretly
carried out the goods that had already been col-
lected at the Junta, during the next few days.
Without a word to a soul they were shipped
south. The boxes and barrels remained in the
musty shop, apparently undisturbed.
Next the order for the arms and ammunition
was quietly diverted so that they, too, were on
their way to New Orleans. Instead, cases
resembling them were sent to the Junta head-
quarters. Drummond, least of all, must be
allowed to think that there was any change in
their plans.
While Santos was at work gathering the
parts, the stamping machine, the press, the dies,
the plates, and the rest of the counterfeiting
plant which had not yet been delivered, Con-
stance, during the hours that she was not col-
lecting money from the concession-grabbers,
haunted the Junta. There was every evidence
of activity there as the week advanced.
She was between two fires, yet never had she
enjoyed the tang of adventure more than now.


THE GUN RUNNERS 83
It was a keen pleasure to feel that she was out-
witting Drummond when, as some apparently
insurmountable difficulty arose, she would over-
come it. More delicate was it, however, to
preserve the balance between Santos and Gor-
don. In fact it seemed that the more she sought
to avoid Gordon, the more jealously did he pur-
sue her. It was a tangled skein of romance and
intrigue that Constance was weaving.
At last all was ready. It was the night before
the departure of Santos for the south. Con-
stance had decided on the last interview in her
own rooms where the first had been.
"I shall go ahead preparing as if to ship
the things on the Arroyo,'''' she said. "Let me
know by the code the moment you are ready."
Santos was looking at her, oblivious of every-
thing else.
He reached over and took her hand. She
knew this was the moment against which she
had steeled herself.
"Come with me," he asked suddenly.
She could feel his breath, hotly, on her
cheek.
It was the final struggle. If she let go of
herself, all would be lost.
"No, Ramon," she said softly, but without
withdrawing her hand. "It can never be—•
listen."


84 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
It was terrific, to hold in check a nature such
as his.
“I went into this scheme for—for money. I
have it. We have raised nearly forty thousand
dollars. Twenty thousand you have given me
as my share.”
She paused. He was paying no attention to
her words. His whole self was centered on her
face.
“With me,” she continued, half wearily with-
drawing her hand as she assumed the part she
had decided on for herself, “with me, Ramon,
love is dead—dead. I have seen too much of the
world. Nothing has any fascination for me now
except excitement, money—”
He gently leaned over and recovered the hand
that she had withdrawn. Quickly he raised it to
his lips as he had done that first night.
“You are mine,” he whispered, “not his.”
She did not withdraw the hand this time.
“No-not his—nobody’s.”
For a moment the adventurers understood
each other.
“Not his,” he muttered fiercely as he threw
his arms about her wildly, passionately.
“Nobody's,” she panted as she gave one
answering caress, then struggled from him.
She had conquered not only Ramon Santos
but Constance Dunlap.


THE GUN RUNNERS 85
Early the next morning he was speeding
southward over the clicking rails.
Every energy must be bent toward keeping
the new scheme secret until it was carried out
successfully. Not a hint must get to Drummond
that there was any change in the activities of the
Junta. As for the Junta itself, there was no
one of those who believed implicitly in Santos
whom Constance need fear, except Gordon.
Gordon was the bête noire.
Two days passed and she was able to guard
the secret, as well as to act as though nothing
had happened. Santos had left a short note for
the Junta telling them that he would be away
for a short time putting the finishing touches on
the purchase of the arms. The arrival of a cart-
load of cases at the Junta, which Constance ar-
ranged for herself, bore out the letter. Still,
she waited anxiously for word from him.
The day set for the sailing of the Arroyo
arrived and with it at last a telegram: “Buy
corn, oats, wheat. Sell cotton.”
It was the code, telling of the safe arrival of
the rifles, cartridges and the counterfeiting
plant in New Orleans, a littie late, but safe.
** Sell cotton,” meant “I sail to-night.”
On the way over to the Junta, she had noticed
one of Drummond's shadows dogging her. She


86 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
must do anything to keep the secret until that
night.
She hurried into the dusty ship chandlery.
There was Gordon.
"Good morning, Mrs. Dunlap," he cried.
"You are just the person I am looking for.
Where is Santos? Has the plan been
changed?"
Constance thought she detected a shade of
jealousy in the tone. At any rate, Gordon was
more attentive than ever.
"I think he is in Bridgeport," she replied as
casually as she could. "Your ship, you know,
sails to-night. He has sent word to m^ to give
orders that all the goods here at the Junta be
ready to cart over by truck to Brooklyn. There
has been no change. The papers are to be
signed during the day and she is to be scheduled
to sail late in the afternoon with the tide. Only,
as you know, some pretext must delay you. You
will hold her at the pier for us. He trusts all
that to you as a master hand at framing such
excuses that seem plausible."
Gordon leaned over closer to her. He was
positively revolting to her in the role of
admirer. But she must not offend him—yet.
"And my answer? " he asked.
There was something about him that made
Constance almost draw away involuntarily.


THE GUN RUNNERS 87
"To-night—at the pier," she murmured forc-
ing a smile.
Shortly after dark the teams started their
lumbering way across the city and the bridge.
Messengers, stationed on the way, were to re-
port the safe progress of the trucks to
Brooklyn.
Constance slipped away from the boarding-
house, down through the deserted streets to the
waterfront, leaving word at home that any mes-
sage was to be sent by a trusty boy to the
pier.
It was a foggy and misty night on the water,
an ideal night for the gun-runner. She was
relieved to learn that there had been not a
hitch so far. Still, she reasoned, that was
natural. Drummond, even if he had not been
outwitted, would scarcely have spoiled the
game until the last moment.
On the Arroyo every one was chafing. Be-
low decks, the engineer and his assistants were
seeing that the machinery was in perfect order.
Men in the streets were posted to give Gordon
warning of any danger.
In the river a tug was watching for a pos-
sible police boat. On the wharf the only foot-
falls were those of Gordon himself and an as-
sistant from the Junta. It was dreary waiting,


88 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
and Constance drew her coat more closely
around her, as she shivered in the night wind
and tried to hrace herself against the unex-
pected.
At last the welcome muffled rumble of heavily
laden carts disturbed the midnight silence of
the street leading to the river.
At once a score of men sprang from the hold
of the ship, as if by magic. One by one the
cases were loaded. The men were working
feverishly by the light of battle lanterns—big
lamps with reflectors so placed as to throw the
light exactly where it was needed and nowhere
else. They were taking aboard the Arroyo
dozens of coffin-like wooden cases, and bags
and boxes, smaller and even heavier. Silently
and swiftly they toiled.
It was risky work, too, at night and in the
tense haste. There was a muttered exclama-
tion—a heavy case had dropped! a man had
gone down with a broken leg.
It was a common thing with the gun-runners.
The crew of the Arroyo had expected it. The
victim of such an accident could not be sent to
a hospital ashore. He was carried, as gently
as the rough hands could carry anything, to one
side, where he lay silently waiting for the ship's
surgeon who had been engaged for just such an


THE GUN RUNNERS 89
emergency. Constance bent over and made the
poor fellow as comfortable as she could.
There was never a whimper from him, but he
looked his gratitude.
Scarcely a fraction of a minute had been lost.
The last cases were now being loaded. The
tug crawled up and made fast. Already the
empty trucks were vanishing in the misty
darkness, one by one, as muffled as they came.
Suddenly lights flashed through the fog on
the river.
There was a hurried tread of feet on the land
from around the corner of a bleak, forbidding
black warehouse.
They were surrounded. On one side was the
police boat Patrol. On the other was Drum-
mond. With both was the Secret Service. The;
surprise was complete.
Constance turned to Gordon. He was gone.
Before she could move, some one seized her.
"Where's Santos?" demanded a hoarse
voice in her ear. She looked up to see Drum-
mond.
She shut her lips tightly, secure in the secret
that Ramon was at the moment or soon would
be on the Gulf, out of reach.
Across in the fog she strained her eyes. Was
that the familiar figure of Gordon moving in
the dim light?


90 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
There lie was, now,—with Drummond, the
police, and the Secret Service. It was exactly
as she had suspected to herself, and a smile
played over her face.
All was excitement, shouts, muttered im-
precations. Constance was ,the calmest in the
crowd—deaf to even Drummond's " third de-
gree."
They had begun to break open the boxes
marked " salt " and " corn."
A loud exclamation above the sharp crunch-
ing of the axes escaped Gordon. "Damn them!
They've put one across on us!"
The boxes of " salt " and " corn " contained
—salt and corn.
Not a stock of a rifle, not a barrel, not a
cartridge was in any of them as the axes
crashed in one case after another.
A boy with a telegram emerged indiscreetly
from the misty shadows. Drummond seized it,
tore it open, and read, " Buy cotton."
It was the code: "I am off safely.''
The double cross had worked. Constance was
thinking, as she smiled to herself, of the money,
her share, which she had hidden. There was
not a scrap of tangible evidence against her,
except what Santos had carried with him in the
filibustering expedition already off from New
Orleans. Her word would stand against that of


THE GUN EUNNERS 91
all of the victims combined before any jury
that could be empaneled.
"You thought I needed a warning," she cried,
facing Drummond with eyes that flashed scorn
at the skulking figure of Gordon behind him.
'' But the next time you employ a stool-pigeon
to make love,'' she added,'' reckon in that thing
you detectives scorn—a woman's intuition."


CHAPTER IV
THE GAMBLERS
"Won't you come over to see me to-night?
Just a friendly little game, my dear—our own
crowd, you know."
There was something in the purring tone
of the invitation of the woman across the
hall from Constance Dunlap's apartment that
aroused her curiosity.
"Thank you. I believe I will," answered
Constance. "It's lonely in a big city without
friends.''
"Indeed it is," agreed Bella LeMar. "I've
been watching you for some time and wondering
how you stand it. Now be sure to come, won't
you?"
"I shall be glad to do so," assured Con-
stance, as they reached their floor and parted at
the elevator door.
She had been watching the other woman, too,
although she had said nothing about it.
"A friendly little game," repeated Con-
stance to herself. "That sounds as if it had
the tang of an adventure in it. I'll go."
92


THE GAMBLERS 93
The Mayf air Arms, in which she had taken a
modeet suite of rooms, was a rather recherche
apartment, and one of her chief delights since
she had been there had been in watching the
other occupants.
There had been much to interest her in the
menage across the hall. Mrs. Bella LeMar,
as she called herself, was of a type rather
common in the city, an attractive widow on
the safe side of forty, well-groomed, often
daringly gowned. Her brown eyes snapped
vivacity, and the pert little nose and racy ex-
pression of the mouth confirmed the general
impression that Mrs. LeMar liked the good
things of life. ^
Quite naturally, Constance observed, her
neighbor had hosts of friends who often came
early and stayed late, friends who seemed to
exude, as it were, an air of prosperity and high
living. Clearly, she was a woman to cultivate.
Constance felt even more interest in her, now
that Mrs. LeMar had pursued a bowing ac-
quaintance to the point of an unsolicited invita-
tion.
"A friendly little game," she speculated.
"What is the game?"
That night found Constance at the buzzer be-
side the heavy mahogany door across the hall.


94 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
She wore a new evening gown of warm red.
Her face glowed with heightened color, and her
nerves were on the qui vive for the unlocking at
last of the mystery of the fascinating Mrs. Le-
Mar.
"So glad to see you, my dear," smiled Bella,
holding out her hand engagingly. "You are
just in time."
Already several of the guests had arrived.
There was an air of bonhomie as Bella pre-
sented them to Constance—a stocky, red-faced
man with a wide chest and narrow waist, Ross
Watson; a tall, sloping-shouldered man who in-
clined his head forward earnestly when he
talked to a lady and spoke with animation,
Haddon Halsey; and a fair-haired, baby-blue
eyed little woman gowned in becoming pink,
Mrs. Lansing Noble.
"Now we're all here—just enough for a
game," remarked Bella in a business-like tone.
'' Oh, I beg pardon—you play, Mrs. Dunlap ?''
she added to Constance.
"Oh, yes," Constance replied. "Almost
anything—a little bit."
She had already noted that the chief object
in the room, after all, appeared to be a round
table. About it the guests seemed naturally to
take their places.
"What shall it be to-night—bridge? " asked


THE GAMBLERS 95
Watson, nonchalantly fingering a little pack of
gilt-edged cards which Bella had produced.
"Oh, no," cried Mrs. Noble. "Bridge is
such a bore."
"Rum?"
"No—no. The regular game—poker."
"A dollar limit?"
"Oh, make it five," drawled Halsey im-
patiently.
Watson said nothing, but Bella patted
Halsey's hand in approval, as if all were on
very good terms indeed. "I think that will
make a nice little game," she cut in, opening
a drawer from which she took out a box of
blue, red and white chips of real ivory. Wajson
seemed naturally to assume the role of banker.
"Aren't you going to join us? " asked Con-
stance.
"Oh, I seldom play. You know, I'm t©o
busy entertaining you people," excused Bella,
as she bustled out of the room, reappearing a
few minutes later with the maid and a tray
of slender hollow-stemmed glasses with a bottle
wrapped in a white napkin in a pail of ice.
Mrs. Noble shuffled the cards with practiced
hand and Watson kept a calculating eye on
every face. Luck was not with Constance on
the first deal and she dropped out.


96 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Mrs. Noble and Halsey were betting eagerly.
Watson was coolly following along until the
show-down—which he won.
"Of all things," exclaimed the little woman
in pink, plainly betraying her vexation at los-
ing. "Will luck never turn?"
Halsey said nothing.
Constance watched in amazement. This was
no " friendly little game." The faces were too
tense, too hectic. The play was too high, and
the desire to win too great. Mrs. LeMar was
something more than a gracious hostess in her
solicitude for her guests.
All the time the pile of chips in front of
Watson kept building up. At each new deal a
white chip was placed in a little box—the kitty
—for the '' cards and refreshments.''
It was in reality one of the new style gam-
bling joints for men and women.
The gay parties of callers on Mrs. LeMar
were nothing other than gamblers. The old
gambling dens of the icebox doors and steel
gratings, of white-coated servants and free food
and drink, had passed away with " reform."
Here was a remarkable new phase of sporting
life which had gradually taken its place.
Constance had been looking about curiously
in the meantime. On a table she saw copies of
the newspapers which published full accounts of


THE GAMBLERS 97
the races, something that looked like a racing
sheet, and a telephone conveniently located near
writing materials. It was a poolroom, too, then,
in the daytime, she reasoned.
Surely, in the next room, when the light was
on, she saw what looked like a miniature
roulette wheel, not one of the elaborate affairs
of bright metal and ebony, but one of those that
can almost be packed into a suitcase and carried
about easily.
That was the secret of the flashily dressed
men and women who called on Bella LeMar.
They were risking everything, perhaps even
honor itself, on a turn of a wheel, the fall of a
card, a guess on a horse.
Why had Bella LeMar invited her here? she
asked herself.
At first Constance was a little bit afraid that
she might have plunged into too deep water.
She made up her mind to quit when her losses
reached a certain nominal point. But they did
not reach it. Perhaps the gamblers were too
clever. But Constance seemed always to keep
just a little bit ahead of the game.
One person in particular in the group inter-
ested her as she endeavored intuitively to take
their measure. It was Haddon Halsey, im-
maculately garbed, with all those little touches
of smartness which women like to see.


98 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Once she caught Halsey looking intently at
her. Was it he who was letting her win at his
expense? Or was his attention to her causing
him to neglect his own game and play it poorly?
She decided to quit. She was a few dollars
ahead. For excuse she pleaded a headache.
Bella accepted the excuse with a cordial nod
and a kind inquiry whether she might not like
to lie down.
"No, thank you," murmured Constance.
"But the cards make me nervous to-night.
Just let me sit here. I'll be all right in a
minute."
As she lolled back on a divan near the players
Constance noted, or thought she noted, now and
then exchanges of looks between Bella and
Watson. What was the bond of intimacy be-
tween them? She noted on Mrs. Noble's part
that she was keenly alive to everything that
Halsey did. It was a peculiar quadrangle.
Halsey was losing heavily in his efforts to
retrieve his fortunes. He said nothing, but
accepted the losses grimly. Mrs. Noble, how-
ever, after each successive loss seemed more
and more nervous.
At last, with a hasty look at her wrist watch,
she gave a little suppressed scream.
"How the time flies!" she cried. "Who


THE GAMBLERS 99
would have thought it as late as that! Really
I must go. I expect my husband back from a
director's meeting at ten, and it's much easier
to be home than to have to think up an excuse.
No, Haddon, don't disturb yourself. I shall get
a cab at the door. Let me see—two hundred
and twenty-eight dollars." She paused as if
the loss staggered her. "I'll have to sign an-
other I 0 U for it, Bella. There!"
She left in a flutter, as if some one had winked
out the light by which she, poor little butter-
fly, had singed her wings, and there was nothing
for her but to fly away alone in the darkness
with her secret.
Halsey accompanied her to the door. For a
moment she raised a questioning face to his, and
shot a half covert glance at Constance. Then,
as if with an effort, adhering to her first resolu-
tion to go alone, she whispered earnestly, " I
hope you win. Luck must turn."
Halsey plunged back into the game, now with
Bella holding a hand. He played recklessly,
then conservatively. It made no difference.
The cards seemed always against him. Con-
stance began really to feel alarmed at his
manner.
Once, however, he chanced to look up at her.
Something in her face must have impressed
him. Turning, he flung down the cards in dis-
1230i:IB


THE GAMBLERS 101
determined to see the thing through to a finish,
confident that she was quite able to take care
of herself.
Outside the raw night air smote dankly on
their fevered faces. As they walked along
briskly, too glad to get into the open to summon
a cab, Constance happened to turn. She had
an uncomfortable feeling. She could have
sworn some one was following them. She said
nothing about a figure a few feet behind them.
The lively, all-night restaurant was thronged.
Halsey seemed to throw himself into the gayety
with reckless abandon, ordering about twice as
much as they could eat and drink. But in spite
of the fascination of the scene, Constance could
not forget the dark figure skulking behind them
in the shadow of the street.
Once she looked up. At another table she
could just catch a glimpse of Drummond, of the
Burr Detective Agency, alone, oblivious.
Never did he look at them. There was noth-
ing to indicate that he was even interested.
But Constance knew that that was the method
of his shadowing. Never for a moment, she
knew, did he permit himself to look into the eyes
of his quarry, even for the most fleeting glance.
She knew, too, that there must be some
psychological reason for his not looking at
them, as he otherwise must have done, if only


102 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
by chance. It was the method followed by the
expert modern trailer. She knew that if one
looks at a person intently while in a public
place, for instance, it will not be long before the
gaze will be returned. Try as she would, she
could not catch Drummond's eye, however.
Halsey, now that the strain of the game was
off, was rattling along about his losses in an
undertone to her.
'' But what of it? "he concluded. '' Any day
luck may change. As for myself, I go always
on the assumption that I am the one exception—
unlucky both at cards and love. If the event
proves I am right, I am not disappointed. If I
am wrong, then I am happy."
There was something in the tone of the
whimsicality that alarmed her. It covered a
desperation which she felt instinctively.
Why was he talking thus to her, almost a
stranger? Surely it could not have been for
that that Bella LeMar had brought them to-
gether.
Gradually it came to her. The man had
really, honestly been struck by her from the
moment of their introduction. Instead of allow-
ing others, to say nothing of himself, to lead
her on in the path he and Mrs. Noble and the
others had entered, he was taking the bit in his


THE GAMBLERS 103
teeth, like a high-strung race horse, and was
running away, now that Bella LeMar for the
moment did not hold the reins. He was warn-
ing her openly against the game!
Somehow the action appealed to Constance.
It was genuine, disinterested. Secretly, it was
flattering. Still, she said nothing about Bella,
nor about Mrs. Noble. Halsey seemed to ap-
preciate the fact. His face showed plainly as
if he had said it that here, at least, was one
woman who was not always talking about
others.
There had been a rapid-fire suddenness about
his confidences which had fascinated her.
"Are you in business? " she ventured.
'' Oh, yes,'' he laughed grimly. "I 'm in busi-
ness—treasurer of the Exporting & Manufac-
turing Company."
"But," she pursued, looking him frankly in
the face, " I should think you'd be afraid to—
er—become involved"
"I know I am being watched," he broke in
impatiently. "You see, I'm bonded, and the
bonding companies keep a pretty sharp lookout
on your habits. Oh, the crash will come some
day. Until it does—let us make the most of it—
while it lasts."
He said the words bitterly. Constance was
confirmed in her original suspicion of him now.


104 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Halsey was getting deeper and deeper into the
moral quagmire. She had seen his interest in
Mrs. Noble. Had Bella LeMar hoped that she,
too, would play will-o'-the-wisp in leading him
on?
Over the still half-eaten supper she watched
Halsey keenly. A thousand questions about
himself, about Mrs. Noble, rushed through her
mind. Should she be perfectly frank?
"Are you—are you using the company's
money? " she asked at length pointedly.
He had not expected the question, and his
evident intention was to deny it. But he met her
eye. He tried to escape it, but could not. What
was there about this little woman that had com-
pelled his attention and interest from the mo-
ment he had been introduced?
Quickly he tried to reason it out in his heart.
It was not that she was physically attractive
to him. Mrs. Noble was that. It was not that
fascination which Bella aroused, the adven-
turess, the siren, the gorgon. In Constance
there was something different. She was a
woman of the world, a man's woman. Then,
too, she was so brutally frank in inviting his
confidences.
Over and over he turned the answer he had
intended to make. He caught her eye again and
knew that it was of no use.


THE GAMBLERS 105
"Yes," lie muttered, as a cloud spread over
his faee at not being able, as usual, to let the
gay life put the truth out of his mind. "Yes,
I have been using—their funds."
As if a switch had been turned, the light
broke on Constance. She saw herself face to
face with one of the dark shadows in the great
city of high lights.
"How? " she asked simply, leaning forward
over the table.
There was no resisting her. Quickly he told
her alL
'' At first with what little money of my own I
had I played. Then I began to sign IOU's and
notes. Now I have been taking blank stock
certificates, some of those held as treasury stock
in the company's safe. They have never been
issued, so that by writing in the signatures of
myself and the other officers necessary, I have
been able to use it to pay off my losses in gam-
bling."
As he unfolded to her the plan which he had
adopted, Constance listened in amazement.
"And you know that you are watched," she
repeated, changing the subject, and sensing
rather than seeing that Drummond was watch-
ing them then.
"Yes," he continued freely. "The Interna-
tional Surety, in which I'm bonded, has a sort


106 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
of secret service of its own, I understand. It is
the eye that is never closed, but is screened
from the man under bond. When you go into
the Broadway night life too often, for instance,''
he pursued, waving his hand about at the gay
tables, '' run around in fast motors with faster
company—well, they know it. Who is watching,
I do not know. But with me it will be as it
has been when others came to the end. Some
day they will come to me, and they are going
to say,' We don't like your conduct. Where do
you get this money?' They will know, then, too.
But before that time comes I want to win, to be
in a position to tell them to go—"
Halsey clenched his fist. It was evident that
he did not intend to quit, no matter what the
odds against him.
Constance thought of the silent figure of
Drummond at the other table—watching, watch-
ing. She felt sure that it was to him that the
Surety Company had turned over the work of
shadowing Halsey. Day after day, probably,
the unobtrusive detective had been trailing
Halsey from the moment he left his apartment
until the time when he returned, if he did return.
There was nothing of his goings and comings
that was not already an open book to them. Of
what use was it, then, for Halsey to fight?


THE GAMBLERS 107
It was a situation such as she delighted in.
She had made up her mind. She would help
Haddon Halsey to beat the law.
Already it seemed as if he knew that their
positions had been reversed. He had started to
warn her; she now was saving him.
Yet even then he showed the better side of his
nature.
"There is some one else, Mrs. Dunlap," he
remarked earnestly, " who needs your help even
more than I do."
It had cost him something to say that. He
had not been able to accept her help, even under
false pretenses. Eagerly he watched to see
whether jealousy of the other woman played any
part with her.
"I understand," she said with a hasty glance
at her watch and a covert look at Drummond.
"Let us go. If we are to win we must keep our
heads clear. I shall see you to-morrow."
For hours during the rest of the night Con-
stance tossed fitfully in half sleep, thinking over
the problem she had assumed.
How was she to get at the inside truth of what
was going on across the hall? That was the
first question.
In her perplexity, she rose and looked out of
the window at the now lightening gray of the
courtyard. There dangled the LeMar tele-


108 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
phone wire, only a few feet from her own
window.
Suddenly an idea flashed over her. In her
leisure she had read much and thought more.
She recalled having heard of a machine that just
fitted her needs.
As soon as she was likely to find places of
business open Constance started out on her
search. It was early in the forenoon before she
returned, successful. The machine which she
had had in mind proved to be an oak box, per-
haps eighteen inches long, by half the width,
and a foot deep. On its face it bore a little dial.
Inside there appeared a fine wire on a spool
which unwound gradually by clockwork, and,
after passing through a peculiar small arrange-
ment, was wound up on another spool. Flexible
silk-covered copper wires led from the box.
Carefully Constance reached across the dizzy
intervening space, and drew in the slack LeMar
telephone wires. With every care she cut into
them as if she were making an extension, and at-
tached the wires from the box.
Perhaps half an hour later the door buzzer
sounded. Constance could scarcely restrain her
surprise as Mrs. Lansing Noble stepped in
quickly and shut the door herself.


THE GAMBLERS 109
"I don't want her to know I'm here," she
whispered, nodding across the hall.
"Won't you take off your things? " asked
Constance cordially.
"No, I can't stay," returned her visitor
nervously, pausing.
Constance wondered why she had come. Was
she, too, trying to warn a newcomer against the
place?
She said nothing, but now that the effort had
been made and the little woman had gone
actually so far, she felt the reaction. She sank
down into an easy chair and rested her pretty
head on her delicately gloved hand.
"Oh, Mrs. Dunlap," she began convulsively,
'' I hope you will pardon an entire stranger for
breaking in on you so informally—but—but I
can't—I can't help it. I must tell some one."
Accustomed as she was now to strange con.
fidences, Constance bent over and patted the
little hand of Mrs. Noble comfortingly.
"You seemed to take it so coolly," went on
the other woman. "For me the glamour, the
excitement are worse than champagne. But you
could stop, even when you were winning. Oh,
my God! What am I to do? What will happen
when my husband finds out what I have done?"
Tearfully, the little woman poured out the
sordid story of her fascination for the game, of


110 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
her losses, of the pawning of her jewels to pay
her losses and keep them secret, if only for a few
days, until that mythical time when luck would
change.
"When I started," she blurted out with a
bitter little laugh, " I thought I'd make a little
pin money. That's how I began—with that and
the excitement. And now this is the end.''
She had risen and was pacing the floor wildly.
"Mrs. Dunlap," she cried, pausing before
Constance, " to-day I am nothing more nor less
than a ' capper,' as they call it, for a gambling
resort."
She was almost hysterical. The contrast with,
the gay, respectable, prosperous-looking woman
at Bella's was appalling. Constance realized
to the full what were the tragedies that were
enacted elsewhere.
As she looked at the despairing woman, she
could reconstruct the terrible situation. Culti-
vated, well-bred, fashionably gowned, a woman
like Mrs. Noble served admirably the purpose
of luring men on. If there had been only women
or only men involved, it perhaps would not have
been so bad. But there were both. Constance
saw that men were wanted, men who could
afford to lose not hundreds, but thousands, men
who are always the heaviest players. And so
Mrs. Noble and other unfortunate women no


THE GAMBLERS 111
doubt were sent out on Broadway to the cafes
and restaurants, sent out even among those of
their own social circle, always to lure men on, to
involve themselves more and more in the web
into which they had flown. Bella had hoped
even to use Constance!
Mrs. Noble had paused again. There was
evident sincerity in her as she looked deeply into
the eyes of Constance.
Nothing but desperation could have wrung
her inmost secrets from her to another woman.
"I saw them trying to throw you together
with Haddon Halsey," she said, almost trag-
ically. "It was I who introduced Haddon to
them. I was to get a percentage of his losses
to pay off my own—but "—her feelings seemed
to overcome her and wildly, desperately, she
added—" but I can't—I can't. I—I must
rescue him—I must.''
It was a strange situation. Constance
reasoned it out quickly. What a wreck of life
these two were making! Not only they were
involved, but others who as yet knew nothing,
Mrs. Noble's husband, the family of Halsey.
She must help.
"Mrs. Noble," said Constance calmly, " can
you trust me?"
She shot a quick glance at Constance.
"Yes," she murmured.


112 CONSTANCE DXJNLAP
"Then to-night visit Mrs. LeMar as though
nothing had happened. Meanwhile I will have
thought out a plan."
It was late in the afternoon when Constance
saw Halsey again, this time in his office, where
he had been waiting impatiently for some word
from her. The relief at seeing her showed only
too plainly on his face.
"This inaction is killing me," he remarked
huskily. "Has anything happened to-day f"
She said nothing about the visit of Mrs.
Noble. Perhaps it was better that each should
not know yet that the other was worried.
"Yes," she replied, "much has happened.
I cannot tell you now. But to-night let us all
go again as though nothing had occurred."
"They have twenty-five thousand dollars in
stock certificates already which I have given
them," he remarked anxiously.
"Some way—any way, you must get them
back for a time. Let me see some of the
blanks."
Halsey shut the door. From a seeret drawer
of his desk he drew a package of beautifully
engraved paper.
Constance looked at it a moment. Then
with a fountain pen, across the front of each,
she made a few marks. Halsey looked on


THE GAMBLERS 113
eagerly. As she handed them back to him,
not a sign showed on any part of them.
"You must tell them that there is some-
thing wrong with the others, that you will give
them other certificates of your own about
which there is no question. Tell them any-
thing to get them back. Here—take this other
fountain pen, sign the new certificates with that,
in their presence so that they will suspect
nothing. To-night I shall expect you to play
up to the limit, to play into Mrs. Noble's hand
and assume her losses, too. I shall meet you
there at nine."
Constance had laid her plans quickly. That
night she waited in her own apartment until
she heard Halsey enter across the hall. She
had determined to give him plenty of time to
obtain the old forged certificates and sub-
stitute for them the new forgeries.
Perhaps half an hour later she heard Mrs.
Noble enter. As Constance followed her in,
the effusive greeting of Bella LeMar showed
that as yet she suspected nothing. A quick
glance at Halsey brought an answering nod and
an unconscious motion toward his pocket where
he had stuffed the old certificates carelessly.
A moment later they had plunged into the
game. The play that night was spirited.
Soon the limit was the roof.


114 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
From the start things seemed to run against
Halsey and Mrs. Noble even worse than be-
fore. At the same time fortune seemed to
favor Constance. Again and again she won,
until even Watson seemed to think there was
something uncanny about it.
"Beginner's luck," remarked Bella with a
forced laugh.
Still Constance won, not much, but steadily,
though not enough to offset the larger win-
nings of Watson.
Fast and furious became the play and as
steadily did it go against Halsey. Mrs. Noble
retired, scarcely repressing the tears. Con-
stance dropped out. Only Halsey and Watson
remained, fighting as if it were a duel to the
death.
"Please stop, Halsey," pleaded Mrs. Noble.
"What is the use of tempting fortune?"
An insane half light seemed to glow in his
eyes as, with a quick glance at Constance and
a covert nod of approval from her, he forced
a smile and playfully laid his finger on Mrs.
Noble's lips.
"Double or quits, Watson," he cried. "Re-
turn the new certificates or take others for
twice the amount. Are you game?"
"I'm on," agreed Watson coolly.


THE GAMBLERS 115
Halsey laid down his hand in triumph.
There were four kings.
"I win," ground out "Watson viciously, as
he tossed down four aces.
Constance was on her feet in a moment.
"You are a lot of cheats and swindlers,"
she cried, seizing the cards before any one
could interfere.
Deftly she laid out the four aces beside the
four deuces, the four kings beside the four
queens. It was done so quickly that even
Halsey, in his amazement, could find nothing
to say. Mrs. Noble paled and was speechless.
As for Bella and Watson, nothing could have
aroused them more than the open charge that
they were using false devices.
Yet never for a moment did Watson lose his
iron cynicism.
"Prove it," he demanded. "As for Mr.
Halsey, he may pay or I'll show the stock I
already hold to the proper people."
Constance was facing Watson, as calm as
he.
"Show it," she said quietly.
There was a knock at the door.
"Don't let any one in," ordered Bella of
the maid, who had already opened the door.
A man's foot had been inserted into the
opening. "What's the matter, Chloe?"


116 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Good Lawd, Mis' Bella—we done been
raided! " burst out the maid as the door flew
wholly open.
Halsey staggered back. "A detective!" he
exclaimed.
"Oh, what shall I do? " wailed Mrs. Noble.
'' My husband will never forgive me if this be-
comes known."
Bella was as oalm as a good player with a
royal straight flush.
"I've caught you at last," fairly hissed.
Drummond. "And you, too, Mrs. Dunlap.
Watson, I overheard something about some
stock. Let me see it. I think it will interest
International Surety as well as Exporters and
Manufacturers.''
Through the still open door Constance had
darted across the hall to her apartment.
"Not so fast," cried Drummond. "You
can't escape. The front door is guarded. You
can't get out."
She was gone, but a moment later emerged
from the darkness of iier rooms, carrying the
oak box.
As she set it down on the card table, no one
said a word. Deliberately she opened the box,
disclosing two spools of wire inside. To the
machine she attached several head pieces such
as a telephone operator wears. She turned a


THE GAMBLERS 117
switch and the wire began to unroll from one
spool and wind up on the other again.
A voice, or rather voices, seemed to come
from the box itself. It was uncanny.
"Hello, is this Mrs. LeMar? " came from it.
"What is it? " whispered Halsey, as if fear-
ful of being overheard.
"A telegraphone," replied Constance, shut-
ting it off for a moment.
"A telegraphone? What is that?"
"A machine for" registering telephone con-
versations, dictation, anything of the sort you
wish. It was invented by Valdemar Poulsen,
the Danish Edison. This is one of his new
wire machines. The record is made by a new
process, localized charges of magnetism on this
wire. It is as permanent as the wire itself.
There is only one thing that can destroy them—
rubbing over the wire with this magnet.
Listen."
She had started the machine again. Whose
voice was it calling Bella? Constance was look-
ing fixedly at Drummond. He shifted uneasily.
"How much is he in for now? " pursued the
voice.
Halsey gasped. It was Drummond's own
voice.
"Two hundred and fifty shares," replied
Bella's voice.


118 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Good. Keep at him. Don't lose him. To-
night I'll drop in."
"And your client will make good?" she
anxiously.
"Absolutely. We will pay five thousand
dollars for the evidence that will convict him.''
Constance's little audience was stunned. But
she did not let the telegraphone pause. Skip-
ping some unimportant calls, she began again.
This was a call from Bella to Watson.
"Ross, that fellow Drummond called up to-
day."
"Yes?"
"He is going to pull it off to-night. His
client will make good—five thousand if they
catch Halsey with the goods. How about
it?"
"Pretty soft—eh, Bella? " came back from
Watson.
"My God! it's a plant! " exclaimed Halsey,
staggering and dropping heavily into a chair.
"I'm ruined. There is no way out!"
"Wait," interrupted Constance. "Here's
another call. It may serve to explain why luck
was with me to-night. I came prepared."
"Yes, Mrs. LeMar," came another strange
voice from the machine. "We'd do anything
for Mr. Watson. What is it—a pack of
strippers?"


THE GAMBLERS 119
"Yes. The aces stripped from the ends, th«,
kings from the sides."
The group looked eagerly at Constance.
"From the maker of fake gambling apr
paratus, I find," she explained, shutting off the
machine. '' They were ordering from him cards
cut or trimmed so that certain ones could be
readily drawn from the deck, or 'stripped.'
Small wedge-shaped strips are trimmed off the
edges of all the other cards, leaving the aces,
say, projecting just the most minute fraction of
an inch beyond the others. Everything is done
carefully. The rounded edges at the corners
are recut to look right. When the cards are
shuffled the aces protrude a trifle over the edges
of the other cards. It is a simple matter for the
dealer to draw or strip out as many aces as he
wants, stack them on the bottom of the pack as
he shuffles the cards, and draw them from the
bottom whenever he wants them. Strippers are
one of the newest things in swindling. Marked
cards are out of date. But some decks have the
aces stripped from the ends, the kings from
the sides. With this pack, as you can see, a
sucker can be dealt out the kings, while the
bouse player gets the aces."
Drummond brazened it out. With a muttered
oath he turned to Watson again. '' What rot is
this? The stock, Watson," J>e repeated.


120 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Where is that stock I heard them talking
about?"
Mrs. Noble, forgetting all now but Halsey,
paled. Bella LeMar was fumbling at her gold
mesh bag. She gave a sudden, suppressed little
scream.
"Look!" she cried. "They are blank—
those stock certificates he gave me."
Drummond seized them roughly from her
hands.
Where the signatures should have been there
was nothing at all!
Across the face of the stock were the words
in deep black, " SAMPLE CERTIFICATE,"
written in an angular, feminine hand.
What did it mean? Halsey was as amazed as
any of them. Mechanically he turned to Con-
stance.
"I didn't say anything last night," she re-
marked incisively. "But I had my suspicions
from the first. I always look out for the purry
kind of ' my dear ' woman. They have claws.
Last night I watched. To-day I learned—
learned that you, Mr. Drummond, were nothing
but a blackmailer, using these gamblers to do
your dirty work. Haddon, they would have
thrown you out like a squeezed lemon as soon as
the money you had was gone. They would have
taken the bribe that Drummond offered for the


THE GAMBLERS 121
stock—and they would have left you nothing but
jail. I learned all that over the telegraphone.
I learned their methods and, knowing them, even
I could not be prevented from winning to-
night."
Halsey moved as if to speak. "But," he
asked eagerly, " the stock certificates—what of
them?"
"The stock? " she answered with delibera-
tion. "Did you ever hear that writing in
quinoline will appear blue, but will soon fade
away, while other writing in silver nitrate and
ammonia, invisible at first, after a few hours
appears black? You wrote on those certificates
in sympathetic ink that fades, I in ink that
comes up soon."
Mrs. Noble was crying softly to herself.
They still had her notes for thousands.
Halsey saw her. Instantly he forgot his own
case. What was to be done about her? He
telegraphed a mute appeal to Constance, forget-
ful of himself now. Constance was fingering the
switch of the telegraphone.
"Drummond," remarked Constance signif-
icantly, as though other secrets might still be
contained in the marvelous little mechanical
detective, " Drummond, don't you think, for the
sake of your own reputation as a detective, it
might be as well to keep this thing quiet?"


122 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
For a moment the detective gripped his wrath,
and seemed to consider the damaging record of
his conversation with Bella LeMar.
"Perhaps," he agreed sullenly.
Constance reached into her chatelaine. From
it she drew an ordinary magnet, and slowly
pulled off the armature.
"If I run this over the wires," she hinted,
holding it near the spools, " the record will be
wiped out." She paused impressively. "Let
me have those I 0 IPs of Mrs. Noble's. By the
way, you might as well give me that blank stock,
too. There is no use in that, now."
As she laid the papers in a pile on the table
before her she added the old forged certificates
from Halsey's pocket. There it lay, the in-
criminating, ruining evidence.
Deliberately she passed the magnet over the
thin steel wire, wiping out what it had recorded,
as if the recording angel were blotting out from
the book of life.
"Try it, Drummond," she cried, dropping
on her knees before the open fireplace. "You
will find the wire a blank."
There was a hot, sudden blaze as the pile of
papers from the table flared up.
"There," she exclaimed. "These gambling
debts were not even debts of honor. If you will
call a cab, Haddon, I have reserved a table at


THE GAMBLERS 123
Jack's for you and Mrs. Noble. It is a fare-
well. Drummond will not occupy his place in
the corner to-night. But—after it—you are to
forget—both of you—forever. You under-
stand?"


CHAPTER V
THE EAVBSDBOPPEES
"I sttppobe you have heard something about
the troubles of the Motor Trust? The other
directors, you know, are trying to force me
out."
Rodman Brainard, president of the big Motor
Corporation, searched the magnetic depths of
the big brown eyes of the woman beside his
desk. Talking to Constance Dunlap was not like
talking to other women he had known, either
socially or in business.
"A friend of yours, and of mine," he added
frankly,'' has told me enough about you to con-
vince me that you are more than an amateur at
getting people out of tight places. I asked you
to call because I think you can help me.''
There was a directness about Brainard which
Constance liked.
"It's very kind of you to place such con-
fidence in me—on such short acquaintance," she
returned pointedly, searching his face.
Brainard laughed.
"I don't need to tell you, Mrs. Dunlap, that
\
124


THE EAVESDROPPERS 125
anything I have said so far is an open secret in
Wall Street. They have threatened to drag in
the Sherman law, and in the reorganization that
will follow the investigation, they plan to elim-
inate Rodman Brainard—perhaps set in motion
the criminal clauses of the law. It's nothing,
Mrs. Dunlap, but a downright hypocritical pose.
They reverse the usual process. It is doing
good that evil may result."
He watched her face intently. Something in
her expression seemed to please him. "By
George,'' he thought to himself,'' this is a man's
woman. You can talk to her."
Brainard, accustomed to quick decisions,
added aloud, " Just now they are using Mrs.
Brainard as a catspaw. They are spreading that
scandal about my acquaintance with Blanche
Leblanc, the actress. You have seen her? A
stunning woman—wonderful. But I long ago
saw that such a friendship could lead to nothing
but ruin." He met Constance's eye squarely.
There was nothing of the adventuress in it as
there had been in Blanche Leblanc. '' And, "he
finished, almost biting off the words," I decided
to cut it out."
"How does Blanche Leblanc figure in the
Motor Trust trouble? "asked Constance keenly.
"They had been shadowing me a long time
before I knew it, ferreting back into my past.


126 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Yesterday I learned that some one had broken
into Miss Leblanc's apartments and had stolen
a package of letters which I wrote to her. It
can't hurt her. People expect that sort of thing
of an actress. But it can hurt the president of
the Motor Trust—just at present."
"Who has been doing the shadowing?"
"Worthington, the treasurer, is the guiding
spirit of the 'insurgents ' as they call them-
selves—it sounds popular, like reform. I un-
derstand they have had a detective named
Drummond working for them."
Constance raised her eyes quickly at the
name. Was Drummond always to cross her
trail?
"This story of the letters," he went on,
"puts on the finishing touch. They have me all
right on that. I can tell by the way that Sybil—
er, Mrs. Brainard—acts, that she has read and
reread those letters. But, by God," he con-
cluded, bringing down his fist on the desk, " I
shall fight to the end, and when I go down,"—
he emphasized each word with an additional
blow,—" the crash will bring down the whole
damned structure on their own heads, too."
He was too earnest even to apologize to her.
Constance studied the grim determination in the
man's face. He was not one of those destined
to fail


THE EAVESDROPPERS 127
"All is not lost that is in peril, Mr.
Brainard," she remarked quietly. "That's
tone of the maxims of your own Wall Street."
"What would you do? " he asked. It was
Hot an appeal; rather it was an invitation.
"I can't say, yet. Let me come into the
office of the Trust. Can't I be your private
secretary?"
"Consider yourself engaged. Name your
figure—after it is over. My record on the
Streets speaks for how I stand by those who
stand by me. But I hate a quitter."
"So do I," exclaimed Constance, rising and
giving him her hand in a straight-arm shake
that made Brainard straighten himself and
look down into her face with unconcealed
admiration.
The next morning Constance became private
secretary to the president of the Motor Trust.
"You will be 'Miss' Dunlap," remarked
Brainard. "It sounds more plausible."
Quietly he arranged her duties so that she
would seem to be very busy without having
anything which really interfered with the pur-
pose of her presence.
She had been thinking rapidly. Late in the
forenoon she reached a decision. A little
errand uptown kept her longer than she ex-


128 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
pected, but by the late afternoon she was back
again at her desk, on which rested a small
package which had been delivered by messenger
for her.
"I beg you won't think as badly of me as it
seems on the surface, Miss Dunlap,'' remarked
Brainard, stopping beside her desk.
"I don't think badly of you," she answered
in a low voice. "You are not the only man
who has been caught with a crowd of crooks
who plan to leave him holding the bag.''
"Oh, it isn't that," he hastened, " I mean
this Blanche Leblanc affair. May I be frank
with you?"
It was not the first time Constance had been
made a confidante of the troubles of the heart,
and yet there was something fascinating about
having a man like Brainard consider her worthy
of being trusted with what meant so much to
him.
"I'm not altogether to blame," he went on
slowly. "The estrangement between my wife
and myself came long before that little affair.
It began over—well—over what they call a
serious difference in temperament. You know a
man—an ambitious man—needs a partner, a
woman who can use the social position that
money gives not alone for pleasure but as a
means of advancing the partnership. I never


THE EAVESDROPPERS 129
had that. The more I advanced, the more I
found her becoming a butterfly—and not as
attractive as the other butterflies either. She
went one way—I, another. Oh well—what's the
use? I went too far—the wrong way. I must
pay. Only let me save what I can from the
wreck."
It was not Constance, the woman, to whom
he was talking. It was Constance, the secretary.
Yet it was the woman, not the secretary, who
listened.
Brainard stopped again beside her desk.
"All that is neither here nor there," he re-
marked, forcing a change in his manner. "I
am in for it. Now, the question is—what are
we going to do about it?"
Constance had unwrapped the package on her
desk, disclosing an oblong box.
"What's that? "he asked curiously.
"Mr. Brainard," she answered tapping the
box, " there's no limit to the use of this little
machine for our purposes. We can get at their
most vital secrets with it. We can discover
every plan which they have against us. We may
even learn the hiding place of those letters.
Why, there is no limit. This is one of those
new microphone detectives."
"A microphone? " he repeated as he opened
the box, looked sharply at the two black little


130 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
storage batteries inside, the coil of silk-covered
wire, a little black rubber receiver and a curious
black disc whose face was pierced by a circular
row of holes.
"Yes. You must have heard of them. You
hide that transmitter behind a picture or under
a table or desk. Then you run the wire out of
the room and by listening in the receiver you
can hear everything!"
"But that is what detectives use"
"Well? " she interrupted coolly, "what of
it? If it is good for them, is it not just as good
for us?"
"Better! " he exclaimed. "By George, you
are the goods."
It was late before Constance had a chance
to do anything with the microphone. It seemed
as if Worthington were staying, perversely,
later than usual. At last, however, he left with
a curt nod to her.
The moment the door was closed she stopped
the desultory clicking of her typewriter with
which she had been toying in the appearance
of being busy. With Brainard she entered the
board room where she had noticed Worthington
and Sheppard often during the day.
It was, without exaggeration, one of the most
plainly furnished rooms she had ever seen. A


THE EAVESDROPPERS 131
long mahogany table with eight large mahogany-
chairs, a half inch pile of velvety rug on the
floor and a huge chandelier in the middle of
the ceiling constituted the furniture. Not a
picture, not a cabinet or filing case broke the
blankness of the brown painted walls.
For a moment she stopped to consider.
Brainard waited and watched her narrowly.
"There isn't a place to put this transmitter
except up above that chandelier," she said at
length.
He gave her his hand as she stepped on a
chair and then on the table. There was a
glimpse of a trim ankle. The warmth and soft-
ness of her touch caused him to hold her hand
just a moment longer than was absolutely
necessary. A moment later he was standing on
the table beside her.
"This is the place, all right," she said, look-
ing at the thick scum of dust on the top of the
reflector.
Quickly she placed the little black disc close
to the center on the top of the reflector. "Can
you see that from the floor? " she asked.
"No," he answered, walking about the room,
"not a sign of it."
"I'll sit here," she said in just a tremor of
excitement over the adventure, "and listen
while you talk in the board room."


132 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Brainard entered. It seemed ridiculous for
him to talk to himself.
"If the microphone works," he said at
length, "rap on the desk twice." Then he
added, half laughing to himself, " If it doesn't,
rap once—Constance."
A single rap came in answer.
"If you couldn't hear," he smiled entering
her office, " why did you rap once?"
"It didn't work smoothly on that last
word."
"What—Constance?"
He thought there was a subtle change in
their relations since the microphone incident.
At any rate she was not angry. Were they not
partners?
"I think it will be better if I turn that micro-
phone around," she remarked. "I placed it
face downwards. Let me change it."
Again he helped her as she jumped up on the
board room table. This time his hand lingered
a little longer in hers and she did not withdraw
it so soon. When she did there was a quick
twinkle in her eyes as she straightened the mi-
crophone and offered her hand to him again.
"Jump! " he said, as if daring her.
A moment she paused. "I never could take
a dare," she answered.
She leaped lightly to the floor. For just a


THE EAVESDRC 35
moment she seemed about to id
Then she felt an arm steadyk tiee. y
caught her and for an instant th, had i
"Well, Rodman—I scarcely th^et.
brazen as this!" ^s aa
They turned in surprise.
Mrs. Brainard was standing in
way. ">T-
She was a petite blonde little womt
deceptive age which the beauty parlors^
to thousands of their assiduous patrons.'
For a moment she looked coldly from c
the other.
"To what am I indebted for the pleas
of this unexpected visit, Sybil?" asfc
Brainard with sarcastic emphasis. "I sha
finish those letters to-morrow, Miss Dunlap.
You need not wait for them."
He held the door to his own office open for
Mrs. Brainard.
Sybil Brainard shot a quick glance at
Constance. "Well, young lady," she said
haughtily, '' do you realize what you are doing
and with whom you are ?''
"It isn't necessary, Sybil, to bother about
Miss Dunlap. The lights were out of order and
I found Miss Dunlap standing on the table try-
ing to fix them. You came just in time to see
her jump down. By the way, Worthington


JNSTANCE DUNLAP
1?
1-
U
'another who works late. He left
s minutes ago."
nee passed a restless night. To have
ig at the very start worried her. Over
iT she thought of what had happened.
Jways she came back to one question.
had Brainard meant by that reference
'orthington?
e came in late the next day, however. Still,
re was no change in his manner as he greeted
r. The incident had not affected him, as it
ad her. Neither of them said anything about it.
A young man had been waiting to see
Brainard and as he entered he asked him in.
Just then Sheppard walked casually through
the reception room and into the board room.
Constance quickly closed her door. She heard
the young man leave Brainard's office but shg
was too engrossed to pay attention to anything
but the voices that were coming through the
microphone. She was writing feverishly what
she heard.
"Yes, Sheppard, I saw her again last night."
"Where?"
'' She was to meet me here, but he stayed later
than usual with that new secretary of his. So
I cut out and met her at the street entrance.''
"And?"


THE EAVESDROPPERS 135
*' I told her of the new secretary. She did
just what I wanted—came up here—and, say
Sheppard—what do you think? They were in
this room and he had his arms about her!"
"The letters are all right, are they? How
much did you have to pay the Leblanc girl?"
"Twenty thousand. That's all charged up
against the pool. Say, Leblanc is—well—give
you my word, Sheppard—I can hardly blame
Brainard after all.''
"You are the last word in woman haters,
Lee."
Both men laughed.
"And the letters?"
"Don't worry. They are where they '11 do the
most good. Sybil has them herself. Now, what
have you to report? You saw the district at-
torney?"
"Yes. He is ready to promise us all im-
munity if we will go on the stand for the state.
The criminal business will come later. Only,
you have to play him carefully. He's on the
leveL A breath of what we really want and it
will be all off."
"Then we'll have to hold the stock up, as
though nothing was going to happen.''
They had left the board room.
Constance hurried into Brainard's office. He
was sunk deep in his chair reading some papers.
10


136 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"What's the matter? " she asked.
"She has entered a suit for divorce. That
young man was a process server.''
"Yes."
'' You are named as co-respondent along with.
Blanche Leblanc."
'' Yes. It must have been an afterthought.
Everything is going—fortune, reputation—even
your friendship, now, Constance—"
"Going? Not yet."
She read hastily what she had overheard.
"Devil take Worthington," ground out
Brainard, gripping the arms of his chair. '' For
weeks I have suspected him. They have been
too clever for me. Constance, while I have been
going around laying myself open to discovery,
Sybil has played a cool and careful game."
He was pacing the floor.
"So—that's the plan. Hold back, keep the
stock up until they get started. Then let it go
down until I'm forced to sell out at a loss, buy
it back cheap, and control the reorganization.
"Well, I haven't control now, alone. I wish I
did have. But neither have they. The public
owns the stock now. I need it. Who'll get it
first—that's the question!"
He was thinking rapidly.
"If you could do a little bear manipula-
,x


THE EAVESDROPPERS 137
tion yourself," she suggested. "That might
get the public scared. You could get enough to
control, perhaps, then. They wouldn't dare sell
—or if they did they would weaken their own
control. Either way, you get them, going or
coming."
"Exactly what I was thinking. Play their
own game—ahead of them—accelerate it."
It was just after the lunch hour that Con-
stance resumed her place at her desk with the
receiver at her ear.
There were voices again in the board room.
"My God, Sheppard, what do you think?
Someone is selling Motors—five points off and
still going down."
"Who is it? What shall we do?"
"Who? Brainard, of course. Some one has
peached. What are you going to do?"
"Wait. Let's call up the News Agency.
Hello—yes—what? Unofficial rumor of pros-
ecution of Motors by the government—large
selling orders placed in advance. The deuce—
say, we'll have to meet this or—"
"Meet nothing. It's Brainard. He's going
down in a big crash. We pour our money into
his pockets now and let him sell at the top and
grab back control with our money? Not much.
I sell, too."


138 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Already boys were on the street with extras
crying the great crash in Motors. It was only a
matter of minutes before all the news reading
public were thoroughly scared at the apparently
bursting bubble. Shares were dug up in small
lots, in huge blocks and slammed on the market
for what they would bring. All day the pound-
ing went on. Thousands of shares were poured
out until Motors which had been climbing to-
ward par in the neighborhood of 79 had de-
clined forty points. Brainard had jumped in
first and had realized the top price for his hold-
ings.
Yet during all the wild scenes when the tele-
phone was ringing insistently for him, Brainard,
having set the machinery in motion and having
been ostentatiously in the office when it started
in order to avert suspicion, could not now be
found.
The market had closed and Constance was
reading the account of the collapse as it was
interpreted in the Wall Street editions of the
papers, when the door opened and Brainard
entered.
"This has been a good day's work, Con-
stance," he said, flinging himself into a
chair.
'' Yes, I was just reading of it in the papers.
The little microphone has put an entirely new


THE EAVESDROPPERS 139
twist on affairs. And the best of it is that the
financial writers all seem to think it was planned
by Worthington and the rest."
"Oh, hang Worthington—hang Motors.
That is what I meant."
He slapped down a packet of letters on the
desk.
"You—you found them?" gasped Con-
stance. She looked at him keenly. It was
evident that a great weight had been taken off
his mind.
"Yes indeed. I knew there was only one
place where she would put them—in her safe
with her jewels. She would think I would never
suspect that she had them and, besides, she had
the combination changed. I went up to the
house this afternoon when she was out. I had
an expert with me. He worked two hours,
steady,—but he opened it. Here they are. Now
for the real game.'v
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I noticed the name of the
manufacturer on your microphone. I have had
one installed in the room which she uses most
of all. The wires run to the next house where
I've hired an apartment. I intend to ' listen in'
there. I'll get this Worthington—yet!"
That night Constance and Brainard sat for


140 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
hours in the empty apartment patiently waiting
for word over the microphone.
At last there was a noise as of a door open-
ing.
"Show them in here."
"Sybil," whispered Brainard as if perhaps
she might even hear.
Then came more voices.
"Worthington and Drummond," he added.
"They suspect nothing yet."
"Drummond knows this Dunlap woman,"
said Worthington.
The detective launched forth in a tirade
against Constance.
"But she is clever, Drummond. You admit
that."
"Clever as they make 'em."
"You will have her shadowed?"
"Every moment, Mrs. Brainard."
"What's all this about the panic in Motors,
Lee!,"
"Some other time, Sybil, not now. Drum-
mond, what do people say?"
Drummond hesitated.
'' Out with it, man.''
"Well, Mr. Worthington, it is said yotl
started it."
"The deuce I did. But I guess Sheppard and
I helped it along. We'll go the limit, too.


THE EAVESDROPPERS 141
After all, it had to come. We'll load up after
it reaches the bottom."
The voices trailed off.
"Good night, Mrs. Brainard."
"Good night, Mr. Drummond. That was
what I wanted to know."
A pause.
"Lee, how can I ever thank you?"
A sound suspiciously like a Mss came over
the wire. Brainard clenched his fist.
"Good night, Sybil. I must go now—"
Again the voices trailed off.
It was several minutes before Brainard spoke.
Then it was that he showed his wonderful
power of concentration.
"I have a conference in half an hour, Con-
stance," he remarked, looking at his watch.
"It is very important. It means getting money
to support Mctors on the opening to-morrow
after I have gathered in again what I need. I
think I can come pretty near doubling my hold-
ings if I play it right. That's important. But
so is this."
"I will listen," put in Constance. "Trust
me. If anything else occurs I will tell you."
She was at the office early the next day, but
not before Brainard who, bright and fresh, even
though he had been up all night, wos primed


142 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
for the battle of his life at the opening of the
market.
Brainard had swung in at the turn and had
quietly accumulated the stock control which he
needed. He was now bulling the market by
matching orders, pyramiding stock which he
owned, using every device that was known to his
astute brain.
On up went Motors, recovering the forty
points, gradually, and even going beyond in the
reaction. Worthington and Sheppard had been
squeezed out. Not for a moment did he let up.
As the clock on Trinity church struck three,
the closing hour, Brainard wheeled suddenly in
his chair.
"Miss Dunlap," he said quietly. "I wish
that you would tell Worthington and Shep-
pard that I should like to see them in the board
room at four."
Constance looked at her watch. There was
time also to execute a little scheme of her own.
Four o'clock came. Brainard lounged cas-
ually across to the board room. Instantly Con-
stance had the receiver of the microphone at her
ear, straining to catch every word, and to make
notes of the stormy scene, if necessary.
Her door opened. It was Sybil Braixiard.
The two women looked at each other «oldly.
Constance was the first to speak.


THE EAVESDBOPPERS 143
"Mrs. Brainard," she began, " I asked you
to come down here—not Mr. Worthington.
More than that, I asked the office boy to direct
you here instead of to his office. Do you see that
machine?"
Sybil looked at it without a sign of recogni-
tion.
"It is a microphone detective. It was the
installing of that machine in the board room
which you interrupted the other night."
"Was it necessary that Mr. Brainard should
put his arm around you for that? " inquired
Mrs. Brainard with biting sarcasm.
"I had just jumped down from the table and
had almost lost my balance—that was all," pur-
sued Constance imperturbably.
"Another of these microphone eavesdrop-
pers told me of a conversation last night in your
own apartment, Mrs. Brainard."
Her face blanched. "You—have one—,
there?"
"Yes. Mr. Brainard heard the first con-
versation, when Drummond and Mr. Worthing-
ton were there. After they left he had to at-
tend a conference himself. I alone heard what
passed when Mr. Worthington returned."
"You are at liberty to—"
"Mrs. Brainard. You do not understand.
I have no reason to want to make you—"


144 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
An office boy tapped on the door and entered.
"Mr. Brainard wants you, Miss Dunlap."
'' I cannot explain now,'' resumed Constance.
"Won't you sit here at my desk and listen over
the microphone to what happens?"
She was gone before Mrs. Brainard could
reply. What did it all mean? Sybil put the
black disc receiver to her ear as she had seen
Constance do. Her hand trembled. "Why
did she tell me that? " she murmured.
"You can't prove it," shouted a voice
through the black disc at her ear. She was
startled. It was the voice of Worthington.
"Miss Dunlap—have you that notebook?"
came the deep tones of her husband.
Constance read from her first notes that part
relating to the conspiracy to control Motors,
carefully omitting the part about the Leblanc
letters.
"It's a lie—a lie."
"No, it is not a lie. It is all good legal evi-
dence, the record taken over the new micro-
phone detective. Look up there over the
chandelier, Worthington. The other end is in
the top drawer of Miss Dunlap's desk."
"I'll fight that to a finish, Brainard. You
are clever but there are other things besides
Motors that you have to answer for."
'' No. Those letters—that is what you mean


THE EAVESDROPPERS 145
—are in my possession now. You didn't know-
that? All the eavesdropping, if you choose to
call it that, was not done here, either, by a
long shot, Worthington. I had one of these
machines in my wife's reception room. I have
all sorts of little scraps of conversation," he
boasted. "I also have an account of a visit
there from two—er—scoundrels—"
"Mrs. Brainard to see you, sir," announced
a boy at the door.
Constance had risen. Her face was flushed
and her breast rose and fell with excitement.
"Mr. Brainard," she interrupted. "I must
explain—confess. Mrs. Brainard has been sit-
ting in my office listening to us over the micro-
phone. I arranged it. I asked her to come
down, using another name as a pretext. But
I didn't think she would interrupt so soon. Be-
fore you see her—let me read this. It was a
conversation I got after you had left last night
and so far I have had no chance to tell you of
it. Some one," she laid particular stress on
the word, "came back after that first inter-
view. Listen.''
"No, Lee," Constance read rapidly from
her notes, " no. Don't think I am ungrateful.
You have been one friend in a thousand through
all this. I shall have my decree—soon, now.
Don't spoil it—"


146 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"But Sybil, think of him. What did he ever
care for youT He has made you free already."
"He is still my husband."
"Take this latest escapade with this Miss
Dunlap.''
"Well, what do I really know about that?"
"You saw him."
"Yes, but maybe it was as he said."
The door was flung open, interrupting Con-
stance's reading, and Sybil Brainard entered.
The artificiality of the beauty parlor was all
gone. She was a woman, who had been
wronged and deceived.
"Next friend—a true next friend—fiend
would be better, Lee Worthington," she
scorned. "How can you stand there and look
me in the face, how could you tell me of your
love for me, when all the time you cared no
more for me or for any other woman than for
that—that Leblanc? You knew that I, who was
as jealous as I could be of Rodman, had heard
a little—you added more. Yet when you had
played on my feelings, you would have cast me
off, too—I know it; I know your kind.''
She paused for breath, then turned slowly to
Brainard with a note of pathos in her voice.
"Our temperaments may have been dif-
ferent, Rodman. They were not when we were
poor. Perhaps I have not developed with you,



THE EAVESDROPPERS 147
the way you want of me. But, Rodman, did
you ever stop to think that perhaps, perhaps
if I had ever had the chance to be taken into
your confidence more often—"
"Will you—forgive me?" Brainard man-
aged to blurt out.
"Will you forgive me?" she returned
frankly.
"I—forgive? I have nothing to forgive."
'' I could have understood, Rodman, if it had
been Miss Dunlap. She is clever, wonderful.
But that Leblanc—never!"
Sybil Brainard turned to Constance.
"Miss Dunlap—Mrs. Dunlap," she sobbed,
"forgive me. You—you are a better woman
than I am.''


CHAPTER VI
THE CLAIBVOYANTS
"Do you believe in dreams?" Constance
Dunlap looked searchingly at her interrogator,
as if her face or manner betrayed some new
.side of her character.
Mrs. deForest Caswell was an attractive wo-
man verging on forty, a chance acquaintance
at a shoppers' tea room downtown who had
proved to be an uptown neighbor.
"I have had some rather strange expe-
riences, Mildred," confessed Constance tenta-
tively. "Why?"
"Because—" the other woman hesitated,
then added, " why should I not tell you? Last
night, Constance, I had the strangest dream.
It has left such an impression on me that I
can't shake it off, although I have tried all
day."
"Yes? Tell me about it."
Mildred Caswell paused a moment, then be-
gan slowly, as if not to omit anything from her
story.
"I dreamt that Forest was dying. I could
148


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 149
see him, could see the doctor and the nurse,
everything. And yet somehow I could not get
to him. I was afraid, with such an oppressive
fear. I tried—oh, how I tried! I struggled,
and how badly I felt! " and she shuddered at
the very recollection.
"There seemed to be a wall," she resumed,
"a narrow wall in the way and I couldn't get
over it. As often as I tried, I fell. And then I
seemed to be pursued by some kind of animal,
half bull, half snake. I ran. It followed
closely. I seemed to see a crowd of people and
I felt that if I could only get to that crowd,
somehow I would be safe, perhaps might even
get over the wall and—I woke up—almost
screaming."
The woman's face was quite blanched.
"My dear," remonstrated Constance, " you
must not take it oO. Remember—it was only a
dream.
"I know it was only a dream," she said,
"but you don't know what is back of it."
Mildred Caswell had from time to time hinted
to Constance of the growing incompatibility of
her married life, but as Constance was getting
used to confidences, she had kept silent, know-
ing that her friend would tell her in time.
"You must have guessed," faltered Mrs.


150 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Caswell, " that Forest and I are not—not on
the best of terms, that we are getting further
and further apart."
It rather startled Constance to hear frankly-
stated what she already had observed. She
wondered how far the estrangement had gone.
The fact was that she had rather liked deForest
Caswell, although she had only met her friend's
husband a few times. In fact she was sur-
prised that momentarily there flashed through
her mind the query as to whether Mildred her-
self might be altogether blameless in the grow-
ing uncongeniality.
Mildred Caswell had drawn out of her
chatelaine a bit of newspaper and handed it to
Constance, not as if it was of any importance
to herself but as if it would explain better than
she could tell what she meant.
Constance read:
MME. CASSANDRA,
THE VEILED PROPHETESS
Born with a double veil, educated in occult
mysteries in Egypt and India. Without asking
a question, tells your name and reads your
secret troubles and the remedy. Reads your
dreams. Great questions of life quickly solved.
Failure turned to success, the separated brought
V


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 151
together, advice on all affairs of life, love, mar-
riage, divorce, business, speculation, and in-
vestments. Overcomes all evil influences. Ever
ready to help and advise those with capital to
find a safe and paying investment. No fee
until it succeeds. Could anything be fairer?
THE RETREAT, W. 47th Street.
"Won't you come with me to Madame Cas-
sandra?" asked Mrs. Caswell, as Constance
finished reading. "She always seems to do
me so much good."
"Who is Madame Cassandra? " asked Con-
stance, rereading the last part of the advertise-
ment.
"I suppose you would call her a dream
doctor," said Mildred.
It was a new idea to Constance, this of a
dream doctor to settle the affairs of life. Only
a moment she hesitated, then she answered sim-
ply, "Yes, I'll go."
"The retreat" was just off Longacre
Square among quite a nest of fakers. A queue
of automobiles before the place testified, how-
ever, to the prosperity of Madame Cassandra,
as they entered the bronze grilled plate glass
d«or and turned on the first floor toward the
11


152 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
home of the Adept. Constance had an un-
comfortable feeling as they entered of being
watched behind the shades of the apartment.
Still, they had no trouble in being admitted, and
a soft-voiced colored attendant welcomed them.
The esoteric flat of Madame Cassandra was
darkened except for the electric lights glowing
in amber and rose-colored shades. There were
several women there already. As they entered
Constance had noticed a peculiar, dreamy odor.
There did not seem to be any hurry, any such
thing as time here, so skilfully was the place
run. There was no noise; the feet sank in half-
inch piles of rugs, and easy-chairs and divans
were scattered about.
Once a puff of light smoke appeared, and
Constance awoke to the fact that some were
smoking little delicately gold-banded cigarettes.
Indeed it was all quite recherche.
Mrs. Caswell took one from a maid. So did
Constance, but after a puff or two managed to
put it out and later to secure another which she
kept.
Madame Cassandra herself proved to be a
tall, slender, pale woman with dark hair and a
magnetic eye, an eye that probably accounted
more than anything else for her success. She
was clad in a house gown of purplish silk which
clung tightly to her, and at her throat a diamond


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 153
pendant sparkled, as well as other brilliants on
her long, slender fingers.
She met Mildred and Constance with out-
stretched hands.
"So glad to see you, my dears," purred
Madame, leading the way into an inner sanctum.
Mrs. Caswell had seated herself with the air
of one who worshiped at the shrine, while
Constance gazed about curiously.
"Madame," she began a little tremu-
lously, " I have had another of those dreadful
dreams."
"You poor dear soul," soothed Madame,
stroking her hand. "Tell me of it—all."
Quickly Mrs. Caswell poured forth her story
as she had already told it to Constance.
"My dear Mrs. Caswell," remarked the
high priestess slowly, when the story was com-
plete, " it is all very simple. His love is dead.
That is what you fear and it is the truth. The
wall is the wall that he has erected against you.
Try lo forget it—to forget him. You would be
better off. There are other things in the
world—"
'' Ah, but I cannot live as I am used to with-
out money," murmured Mrs. Caswell.
"I know," replied Madame. "It is that
that keeps many a woman with a brute. When
financial and economic independence come, then


154 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
woman will be free and only then. Now, listen.
Would you like to be free—financially? You re-
member that delightful Mr. Davies who has
been here? Yes? Well, he is a regular client
of mine, now. He is a broker and never em-
barks in any enterprise without first consulting
me. Just the other day I read his fortune in
United Traction. It has gone up five points al-
ready and will go fifteen more. If you want, I
will give you a card to him. Let me see—yes,
I can do that. You too will be lucky in specula-
tion."
Constance, with one ear open, had been busy
looking about the room. In a bookcase she saw
a number of books and paused to examine their
titles. She was surprised to see among the old
style dream books several works on modern
psychology, particularly on the interpretation
of dreams.
"Of course, Mrs. Caswell, I don't want to
urge you," Madame was saying. "I have only
pointed out a way in which you can be inde-
pendent. And, you know, Mr. Davies is a per-
fect gentleman, so courteous and reliable. I
know you will be successful if you take my ad-
vice and go to him."
Mildred said nothing for a few moments, but
as she rose to go she remarked, " Thank you


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 155
very much. I'll think about it. Anyhow,
you've made me feel better."
"So kind of you to say it," murmured the
Adept . "I'm sorry you must go, but really I
have other appointments. Please come again—
with your friend. Good-bye.''
"What do you think of her! " asked Mrs.
Caswell on the street.
"Very clever," answered Constance du-
biously.
Mrs. Caswell looked up quickly. "You don't
like her?"
"To tell the truth," confessed Constance
quietly, " I have had too much experience in
Wall Street myself to trust to a clairvoyant."
They had scarcely reached the corner before
Constance again had that peculiar feeling
which some psychologists have noted, of being
stared at. She turned, but saw no one. Still
the feeling persisted. She could stand it no
longer. »
"Don't think me crazy, Mildred," she said,
"but I just have a desire to walk back a block."
Constance had turned suddenly. As she
glanced keenly about she was aware of a
familiar figure gazing into the window of an
art store across the street. He had stopped so
that although his back was turned he could, by
a slight shift of his position, still see by means


156 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
of a mirror in the window what was going on
across the street behind him.
One look was enough. It was Drummond,
the detective. What did it mean?
Neither woman said much as they rode up-
town, and parted on the respective floors of
their apartment house. Still Constance could
not get out of her head the recollection of the
dream doctor and of Drummond.
Eestless, she determined that night to go
down to the Public Library and see whether
any of the books at the clairvoyant's were on the
shelves. Fortunately she found some, found in-
deed that they were not all, as she had half sus-
pected, the works of fakers but that quite a
literature had been built up around the new
psychology of dreams.
Deeply she delved into the fascinating sub-
jects that had been opened by the studies of the
famous Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna, and as
she read she found that she began to under-
stand much about Mrs. Caswell—and, with a
start, about her own self.
At first she revolted against the unpleasant
feature of the new dream philosophy—the irre-
sistible conclusion that all humanity, under-
neath the shell, is sensuous or sensual in na-
ture, that practically all dreams portray some


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 157
delight of the senses and that sexual dreams are
a large proportion of all visions. But the more
she thought of it, the more clearly was she able
to analyze Mrs. Caswell's dream and to get
back at the causes of it, in the estrangement
from her husband and perhaps the brutality of
his ignorance of woman. And then, too, there
was Drummond. What was he doing in the
case?
She did not see Mildred Caswell again until
the following afternoon. But then she seemed
unusually bright in contrast with the depres-
sion of the day before. Constance was not
surprised. Her intuition told her that some-
thing had happened and she hardly needed to
guess that Mrs. Caswell had followed the ad-
vice of the clairvoyant and had been to see the
wonderful Mr. Davies, to whom the mysteries
of the stock market were an open book.
"Have you had any other dreams? " asked
Constance casually.
"Yes," replied Mildred, "but not like the
one that depressed me. Last night I had a very
pleasant dream. It seemed that I was break-
fasting with Mr. Davies. I remember that
there was a hot coal fire in the grate. Then
suddenly a messenger came in with news that
United Traction had advanced twenty points.
Wasn't it strange?"


158 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Constance said nothing. In fact it did not
seem strange to her at all. The strange thing
to her, now that she was a sort of amateur
dream reader herself, was that Mrs. Caswell
did not seem to see the real import of her own
dream.
"You have seen Mr. Davies to-day? " Con-
stance ventured.
Mrs. Caswell laughed. "I wasn't going to
tell you. You seemed so set against speculating
in Wall Street. But since you ask me, I may as
well admit it."
"When did you see him before? " went on
Constance. '' Did you have much invested with
him already?"
Mrs. Caswell glanced up, startled. "My—
you are positively uncanny, Constance. How
did you know I had seen him before? n
"One seldom dreams," said Constance,
"about anything unless it has been suggested
by an event of the day before. You saw him to-
day. That would not have inspired the dream
of last night. Therefore I concluded that
you must have seen him and invested before.
Madame Cassandra's mention of him yesterday
caused the dream of last night. The dream of
last night probably influenced you to see him
again to-day, and you invested in United Trac-
tion. That is the way dreams work. Probably


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 159
more of conduct than we know is influenced by
dream life. Now, if you should get fifteen or
twenty points you would be in a fair way to
join the ranks of those who believe that dreams
do come true."
Mrs. Caswell looked at her almost alarmed,
then attempted to turn it off with a laugh,
"And perhaps breakfast with him!"
'' When I do set up as interpreter of dreams,''
answered Constance simply, "I'll tell you
more."
On one point she had made up her mind.
That was to visit Mr. Davies herself the next
day.
She found his office a typical bucket shop,
even down to having a section partitioned off
for women clients of the firm. She had not
intended to risk anything, and so was prepared
when Mr. Davies himself approached her cour-
teously. Instinctively Constance distrusted
him. He was too cordial, too polite. She could
feel the claws hidden in his velvety paw, as it
were. There was a debonaire assurance about
him, the air of a man who thought he under-
stood women, and indeed did understand a cer-
tain type. But to Constance, who was essen-
tially a man's woman, Davies was only revolt-
ing.


leO CONSTANCE DUNLAP
She managed to talk without committing her-
self, and he in his complacency was glad to
hope that he was making a new customer. She
had to be careful not to betray any of the real
and extensive knowledge about Wall Street
which she actually possessed. But the glib mis-
representations about United Traction quite
amazed her.
When she rose to go, Davies accompanied her
to the door, then out into the hall to the elevator.
As he bent over to shake hands, she noted that
he held her band just a little longer than was
necessary.
"He's a swindler of the first water," she
concluded as she was whisked down in the
elevator. "I'm sure Mildred is in badly with
this crowd, one urging her on in her trouble,
the other making it worse and fleecing her into
the bargain.''
At the entrance she paused, undecided which
was the quickest route home. As by chance she
turned just for a moment she thought she caught
a fleeting glimpse of Drummond dodging behind
a pillar. It was only for an instant but even
that apparition was enough.
"I will get her out of this safely," resolved
Constance. '' I will keep one more fly from his
web."
Constance felt as if, even now, she must see


162 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Then you do really—care for him? " asked
Constance mercilessly.
"No—no, a thousand times—no. How can I?
I have put all such thoughts out of my mind—
long ago." She paused, then went on more
calmly, " Constance, believe me or not—I am
just as good a woman to-day as I was the day
I married Forest. No—I would not even let
the thought enter my head—never!"
For perhaps an hour after her friend had
gone, Constance sat thinking. What should she
do? Something must be done and soon. Ag she
thought, suddenly the truth flashed over her.
Caswell had employed Drummond to shadow
his wife in the hope that he might unearth some-
thing that might lead to a divorce. Drummond,
like so many divorce detectives, was not averse
to guiding events, to put it mildly. He had in-
gratiated himself, perhaps, with the clairvoyant
and Davies. Constance had often heard before
of clairvoyants and brokers who worked in con-
junction to fleece the credulous. Now another
and more serious element than the loss of money
was involved. Added to them was a divorce
detective—and honor itself was at stake. She
remembered the doped cigarettes. She had
heard of them before at clairvoyants'. She saw
it all—Madame Cassandra playing on Mildred's


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 163
wounded affections, the broker on both that and
her desire to be independent—and Drummond
pulling the wires that all might take advantage
of her woman's frailty.
That moment Constance determined on ac-
tion.
First she telephoned to deForest Caswell at
his office. It was an unconventional thing to do
to ask him to call, but she made some plausible
pretext. She was surprised to find that he ac-
cepted it without hesitating. It set her thinking.
Drummond must have told him something of her
and he had thought this as good a time as any
to face her. In that case Drummond would
probably come too. She was prepared.
She had intended to have one last talk with
Mildred, but had no need to call her. Utterly
wretched, the poor little woman came in again
to see her as she had done scores of times before,
to pour out her heart. Forest had not come
home to dinner, had not even taken the trouble
to telephone. Constance did not say that she
herself was responsible.
"Do you really want to know the truth about
your dreams? " asked Constance, after she had
prevailed upon Mildred to eat a little.
"I do know,'' she returned.
"No, you don't," went on Constance, now de-


164 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
termined to tell her the truth whether she liked
it or not. "That clairvoyant and Mr. Davie s
are in league, playing you for a seeker, as they
say."
Mrs. Caswell did not reply for a moment.
Then she drew a long breath and shut her eyes.
"Oh, you don't know how true what she says
is to me. She"
"Listen," interrupted Constance. "Mil-
dred, I'm going to be frank, brutally frank.
Madame Cassandra has read your character,
not the character as you think it is, but your
unconscious, subconscious self. She knows that
there is no better way to enter into the intimate
life of a client, according to the new psychology,
than by getting at and analyzing the dreams.
And she knows that you can't go far in dream
analysis without finding sex. It is one of the
strongest natural impulses, yet subject to the
strongest repression, and hence one of the
weakest points of our culture.
"She is actually helping along your aliena-
tion for that broker. You yourself have given
me the clue in your dreams. Only I am telling
you the truth about them. She holds it back
and tells you plausible falsehoods to help her
own ends. She is trying to arouse in you those
passions which you have suppressed, and she
has not scrupled to use drugged cigarettes with


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 165
you and others to do it. You remember the
breakfast dream, when I said that much could
be traced back to dreams? A thing happens.
It causes a dream. That in turn sometimes
causes action. No, don't interrupt. Let me
finish first.
"Take that first dream," continued Con-
stance, rapidly thrusting home her interpreta-
tion so that it would have its full effect. '' You
dreamed that your husband was dying and you
were afraid. She said it meant love was dead.
It did not. The fact is that neurotic fear in a
woman has its origin in repressed, unsatisfied
love, love which for one reason or another is
turned away from its object and has not suc-
ceeded in being applied. Then his death. That
simply means that you have a feeling that you
might be happier if he were away and didn't
devil you. It is a survival of childhood, when
death is synonymous with absence. I know
you don't believe it. But if you had studied
the subject as I have in the last few days
you'd understand. Madame Cassandra under-
stands.
"And the wall. That was Wall Street,
probably, which does divide you two. You
tried to get over it and you fell. That means
your fear of actually falling, morally, of being
a fallen woman."


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 167
to restrain her, knowing that such indignation
was the first sign that she had struck at the
core of truth in her interpretation.
"My dear," she urged, "I'm only telling
you the truth, for your own sake, and not to
take advantage of you as Madame Oassandra
is doing. Please—remember that the best
evidence of your normal condition is just what
I find, that absence of love would be abnormal.
My dear, you are what the psychologists call a
consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate
woman. Consciously you reject this Davies;
unconsciously you accept him. And it is the
more dangerous, although you do not know it,
because some one else is watching. It was
not one of his friends who told your hus-
band"
Mrs. Caswell had paled. "Is—is there a—
detective? " she faltered.
Constance nodded.
Mildred had collapsed completely. She was
sobbing in a chair, her head bowed in her
hands, her little lace handkerchief soaked.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?"
There was a sudden tap at the door.
"Quick—in there," whispered Constance,
shoving her through the portieres into the
drawing room.
It was Forest CaswelL
12


168 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
For a moment Constance stood irresolute,
wondering just how to meet him, then she said,
"Good evening, Mr. Caswell. I hope you will
pardon me for asking you to call on me, but,
as you know, I've come to know your wife—
perhaps better than you do."
"Not better," he corrected, seeming to see
that it was directness that she was aiming at.
"It is bad enough to get mixed up badly in
Wall Street, but what would you yourself say—
you are a business woman—what would you say
about getting into the clutches of a—a dream
doctor—and worse?"
He had put Constance on the defensive in a
sentence.
"Don't you ever dream? " she asked quietly.
He looked at her a moment as if doubting
even her mentality.
"Lord," he exclaimed in disgust, " you, too,
defend it?"
"But, don't you dream? " she persisted.
"Why, of course I dream," he answered
somewhat petulantly. "What of it? I don't
guide my actions by it."
"Do you ever dream of Mildred?" she
asked.
"Sometimes," he admitted reluctantly.
"Ever of other—er—people? " she pursued.
"Yes," he replied, "sometimes of other



THE CLAIRVOYANTS 169
people. But what has that to do with it? I
cannot help my dreams. My conduct I can help
and I do help."
Constance had not expected him to be frank
to the extent of taking her into his confidence.
Still, she felt that he had told her just enough.
She discerned a vague sense of jealousy in his
tone which told her more than words that what-
ever he might have said or done to Mildred he
resented, unconsciously, the manner in which
she had striven to gain sympathy outside.
"Fortunately he knows nothing of the new
theories," she said to herself.
"Mrs. Dunlap," he resumed, "since you
have been frank with me, I must be equally
frank with you. I think you are far too sensible
a woman not to understand in just what a
peculiar position my wife has placed me."
He had taken out of his pocket a few sheets
of closely typewritten tissue paper. He did not
look at them. Evidently he knew the contents
by heart. Constance did not need to be told
that this was a sheaf of the daily reports of the
agency for which Drummond worked.
He paused. She had been watching him
searchingly. She was determined not to let him
justify himself first.
"Mr. Caswell," she persisted in a low,


170 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
earnest tone, " don't be so sure that there ia
nothing in this dream business. Before you
read me those reports from Mr. Drummond, let
me finish."
Forest Caswell almost dropped them in sur-
prise.
"Dreams," she continued, seeing her ad-
vantage, '' are wishes, either suppressed or ex-
pressed. Sometimes the dream is frank and
shows an expressed wish. Other times it shows
a suppressed wish, or a wish which in its fulfil-
ment in the dream is disguised or distorted.
"You are the cause of your wife's dreams.
She feels in them anxiety. And, according to
the modern psychologists who have studied
dreams carefully and scientifically, fear and
anxiety represent love repressed or sup-
pressed."
She paused to emphasize the point, glad to
note that he was following her.
"That clairvoyant," she went on, "has
found out the truth. True, it may not have been
tbe part of wisdom for Mildred to have gone to
her in the first place. I pass over that. I do
not know whether you or she was most to blame
at the start. But that woman, in the guise of
berug her friend, has played on every string of
your wife's lonely heart, which you have wrung
u>»*il it vibrates.
^


THE CLAIEVOYANTS 171
4' Then,'' she hastened on, '' came your
precious friend Drummond, Drummond who
has, no doubt, told you a pack of lies about me.
You see that?"
She had flung down on the .able a cigarette
which she had managed to get at Madame Cas-
sandra's.
"Smoke it."
He lighted it gingerly, took a puff or two,
puckered his face, frowned, and rubbed the
lighted end on the fireplace to extinguish it.
"What is it? " he asked suspiciously.
"Hashish," she answered tersely. "Things
were not going fast enough to suit either
Madame Cassandra or Drummond. Madame
Cassandra helped along the dreams by a drug
noted for its effect on the passions. More than
that," added Constance, leaning over toward
h'im and catching his eye, " Madame Cassandra
was working in league with a broker, as so many
of the fakers do. Drummond knew it, whether
he told you the truth about it or not. That
broker was a swindler named Davies."
She was watching the effect on him. She saw
that he had been reserving this for a last shot
at her, that he realized she had stolen his own
ammunition and appropriated it to herself.
"They were only too glad when Drummond
approached them. There you are, three against


174 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
which her dreams reveal, her inmost soul—I
know her better than you do, better than she
does herself. I know that even now she is as
good and true and would be as loving as—"
Constance had paused and taken a step to-
ward the drawing room. Before she knew it,
the portieres flew apart and an eager little wo-
man had rushed past her and flung her arms
about the neck of the man.
Caswell's features were working, as he gently-
disengaged her arms, still keeping one hand.
Half shoving her aside, ignoring Constance, he
had faced Drummond. For a moment the
brazen detective flinched.
As he did so, deForest Caswell crumpled up
the mass of tissue paper reports and flung them
into the fireplace.
"Get out! " he said, suppressing his voice
with difficulty. "Send me—your bill. I'll pay
it—but, mind, if it is one penny more than it
should be, I'll—I'll fight if it takes me from
the district attorney and the grand jury to the
highest court of the State. Now—go!"
Caswell turned slowly again toward his
wife.
"I've been a brute," he said simply.
Something almost akin to jealousy rose in
Constance's heart as she saw Mildred, safe at
last


CHAPTER Vn
THE PLUNGERS
"They have the most select clientele in the
city here."
Constance Dunlap was sitting in the white
steamy room of Charmant's Beauty Shop. Her
informant, reclining dreamily in a luxurious
wicker chair, bathed in the perspiring vapor,
had evidently taken a fancy to her.
"And no wonder, either; they fix you up so
well," she rattled on; then confidingly, " Now,
last night after the show a party of us went to
supper and a dance—and it was in the wee small
hours when we broke up. But Madame here
can make you all over again. Floretta," she
called to an attendant"who had entered, " if Mr.
Warrington calls up on the 'phone, say I'll call
him later."
"Yes, Miss Larue."
Constance glanced up quickly as Floretta
mentioned the name of the popular young
actress. Stella Larue was a pretty girl on
176


THE PLUNGERS 177
whom the wild dissipation of the night life of
New York was just beginning to show its effects.
The name of Warrington, too, recalled to Con-
stance instantly some gossip she had heard in
Wall Street about the disagreement in the board
of directors of the new Rubber Syndicate and
the effort to oust the president whose escapades
were something more than mere whispers of
scandal.
This was the woman in the case. Constance
looked at Stella now with added interest as she
rose languidly, drew her bathrobe about her
superb figure carelessly in such a way as to
show it at best advantage.
"I've had more or less to do with Wall Street
myself," observed Constance.
"Oh, have you? Isn't that interesting,"
cried Stella.
"I hope you're not putting money in Rub-
ber? " queried Constance.
"On the contrary," rippled Stella, then
added, " You're going to stay? Let me tell you
something. Have Floretta do your hair. She's
the best here. Then come around to see me in
the dormitory if I'm here when you are
through, won't you?"
Constance promised and Stella fluttered away
like the pretty butterfly that she was, leaving
Constance to wonder at the natural gravita-


178 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
tion of plungers in the money market toward
plungers in the white lights.
Charmant's Beauty Parlor was indeed all its
name implied, a temple of the cult of adorn-
ment, the last cry in the effort to satisfy what
is more than health, wealth, and happiness to
some women—the fundamental feminine in-
stinct for beauty.
Constance had visited the beauty specialist
to have an incipient wrinkle smoothed out.
Frankly, it was not vanity. But she had come
to realize that her greatest asset was her per-
sonal appearance. Once that had a chance to
work, her native wit and keen ability would
carry her to success.
Madame Charmant herself was a tall, dark-
skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, well-groomed
woman who looked as if she had been stamped
from a die for a fashion plate—and then the
die had been thrown away. All others like her
were spurious copies, counterfeits. More than
that, she affected the name of Vera, which in
itself had the ring of truth.
And so Charmant had prevailed on Con-
stance to take a full course in beautification and
withhold the wrinkle at the source.
"Besides, you know, my dear," she purred,
"there's nothing discovered by the greatest
minds of the age that we don't apply at once."


THE PLUNGERS 179
Constance was not impervious to feminine
reason, and here she was.
"Has Miss Larue gone? " she asked when
at last she was seated in a comfortable chair
again sipping a little aromatic cup of coffee.
"No, she's resting in one of the little dress-
ing rooms."
She followed Floretta down the corridor.
Each little compartment had its neat, plain
white enameled bed, a dresser and a chair.
Stella smiled as Constance entered. "Yes,"
she murmured in response to the greeting, " I
feel quite myself now."
"Mr. Warrington on the wire," announced
Floretta a moment later, coming down the cor-
ridor again with a telephone on a long unwind-
ing wire.
"Hello, Alfred—oh, rocky this morning,"
Constance overheard. "I said to myself,
'Never again—until the next time. Verat Oh,
she was as fresh as a lark. Can I lunch with
you downtown? Of course.'" Then as she
hung up the receiver she called, " Floretta, get
me a taxi."
"Yes, Miss Larue."
"I always have a feeling here," whispered
Stella, " that I am being listened to. I mean to
speak to Vera about it some time. By the way,
wouldn't you like to join us to-night? Vera will


180 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
be along and Mr. Warrington and perhaps
* Diamond Jack' Braden—you know hunt"
Constance confessed frankly that she did not
have the pleasure of the acquaintance of the
well-known turfman and first nighter.
She hesitated. Perhaps it was that that
Stella liked. Almost any one else would have
been overeager to accept. But to Constance,
sure of herself now, nothing of the sort was
worth scrambling for. Besides, she was won-
dering how a man with the fight of his life on
his hands could find time to lunch downtown
even with Stella.
"I've taken quite a fancy to you," pressed
Stella.
"Thank you, it's very kind of you," Con-
stance ai swered. "I shall try very hard to be
there."
"I'll leave a box for you at the office. Come
around after the performance to my dressing
room."
"Miss Larue, your taxi's waiting," an-
nounced Floretta.
"Thanks. Are you going now, Mrs. Dunlap?
Yes? Then ride down in the elevator with me.''
They parted at the foot of the elevator and
Constance walked through the arcade of the
office building in which the beauty parlor oc-


THE PLUNGERS 181
eupied the top floor. She stopped at a florist's
stand to admire the flowers, but more for an
excuse to look back at Stella.
As Stella stepped into a taxicab, showing a
generous wealth of silken hosiery beneath the
tango gown, Constance was aware that the
driver of another cab across the street was also
interested. She noticed that he turned and
spoke to his fare through the open window.
The cab swung around to follow the other and
Constance caught a fleeting glimpse of a
familiar face.
"Drummond," she exclaimed almost aloud.
What did it mean? Why had the detective
been employed to follow Stella? Instinctively
she concluded that he must be engaged by Mrs.
Warrington.
"I must accept Stella's invitation," she said
to herself excitedly. "At least, she should be
put on her guard."
That evening, as she was looking over the
newspapers, her eye caught the item in the
Wall Street edition:
RUBBER SYNDICATE DISSENSION
Break in Stock Follows Effort of Strong
Minority to Oust Warrington from
Presidency


182 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Then followed a brief account of the struggle
of a powerful group of directors to force War-
rington, Braden, and the rest out, with a hint
at the scandal of which every one now was talk-
ing.
"I never yet knew a man who went in for
that sort of thing that lasted long in business,"
she observed. "This is my chance—a crowd
riding for a fall."
Constance chose a modest orchestra seat in
preference to the place in a box which Stella
had reserved for her at the office, and, aside
from the purpose which was rapidly taking
shape in her mind, she enjoyed the play very
much. Stella Larue, as the " Grass Widow,"
played her part with a piquancy which Con-
stance knew was not wholly a matter of book
knowledge.
As the curtain went down, the andience, its
appetite for the risque whetted, filed out on
Broadway with its myriad lights and continuous
film of motion. Constance made her way
around to Stella's dressing room.
She had scarcely been welcomed by Stella,
whose cheeks beneath the grease paint were now
genuinely ablaze with excitement, when a man
entered. He was tall, spare, the type whose


THE PLUNGEKS 183
very bow is ingratiating and whose '' delighted,
I assure you '' is suave and compelling.
Alfred Warrington seemed to be on very good
terms indeed with Stella as she introduced him
to Constance.
"You will join us, Mrs. Dunlap? " he asked,
throwing an opera cloak over Stella's shoulders.
'' Vera Charmant and Jack Braden are waiting
for us at the Little Montmartre."
As he mentioned the famous cabaret, Con-
stance took a little tighter grip on herself and
decided to take the plunge and see the affair out,
although that sort of thing had very little attrac-
tion for her.
They were leaving the theater when she saw
lurking in the crowd the familiar figure of
Drummond. She turned her head quickly and
sank back into the dark recesses of the li-
mousine.
Should she tell them now about him?
She leaned over to Warrington. "I saw a
man in the crowd just now who seemed to
be quite interested in us," she said quickly.
"Can't we drive around a bit to throw him off
if he should get into a cab?"
Warrington looked at her keenly. It was
quite evident that he thought it was Constance
who was being followed, not Stella or himself.
Constance decided quickly to say nothing more
is


174 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
which her dreams reveal, her inmost soul—I
know her better than you do, better than she
does herself. I know that even now she is as
good and true and would be as loving as-—"
Constance had paused and taken a step to-
ward the drawing room. Before she knew it,
the portieres flew apart and an eager little wo-
man had rushed past her and flung her arms
about the neck of the man.
Caswell's features were working, as he gently-
disengaged her arms, still keeping one hand.
Half shoving her aside, ignoring Constance, he
had faced Drummond. For a moment the
brazen detective flinched.
As he did so, deForest Caswell crumpled up
the mass of tissue paper reports and flung them
into the fireplace.
"Get out! " he said, suppressing his voice
with difficulty. "Send me—your bill. I'll pay
it—but, mind, if it is one penny more than it
should be, I'll—I'll fight if it takes me from
the district attorney and the grand jury to the
highest court of the State. Now—go!"
Caswell turned slowly again toward his
wife.
"I've been a brute," he said simply.
Something almost akin to jealousy rose in
Constance's heart as she saw Mildred, safe at
last.


THE CLAIRVOYANTS 175
Then Caswell turned slowly to her. "You,"
he said, stroking his wife's hand gently but
looking at Constance, '' you are a real clairvoy-
ant."


THE PLUNGERS 185
When they entered, two of the performers
were rendering the Apache dance with an
abandon that improved on its namesake.
Scarcely had they finished when the orchestra
began all over again, and a couple of diners
from the tables glided past them on the danc-
ing floor, then another couple and another.
"Tanguez-vous?" bowed Braden, leaning
over to Stella.
"Oui, je tanguerai," she nodded, catching
the spirit of the place.
It left Warrington and Constance at the
table with Vera, and as Constance looked
eagerly after tbe graceful form of the little
actress, Warrington asked, " Will you dance?"
"No, thank you," she said, trying him out.
"I haven't had time to learn these new steps.
And, besides, I have had a bad day in the
market. Steel, Reading, everything is off. Not
that I have lost much—but it's what I haven't
made."
Warrington, who had been about to repeat
his question to Vera, turned suddenly. This
was something new to him, to meet a woman
like Constance. If she knew about other
stocks, she must know about the Syndicate.
Already he had felt an attraction toward Con-
stance physically, an attraction of maturity
which somehow or other seemed more satisfy*


186 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
ing, at least novel, in contrast with the gay
butterfly talk of Stella.
He did not ask Vera to dance. Instead he
began banteringly to discuss Wall Street and
in five minutes he found out that she really
knew as much about certain features of the
game as he did. She did not need to be told
that Alfred Warrington, plunger, man about
town, was quite unexpectedly struck by her
personality.
Now and then she could see Stella eyeing her
covertly. The little actress had had, like many
another, a few dollars to invest or rather with
which to speculate. Her method had been
usually to make a quick profit on a tip from
some Wall Street friend. Often, if the tip went
wrong, the friend would return the money to
the unsuspecting little girl, with some muttered
apology about having been unable to get it
placed in time, and then, as the market went
down or up, seeing that it was too late, adding
a congratulation that at least the principal was
saved if there was no profit.
The little actress was plainly piqued. She
saw, though she did not understand, that Con-
stance was a different kind of plunger from
what she had thought at first up at Charmant's.
Instead of trying to compete with Constance


THE PLUNGERS 187
in her field, she redoubled her efforts in her
own. Was Warrington, a live spender, to slip
through her grasp for a chance acquaint-
ance?
Another dance. This time it was Stella and
Warrington. Braden, who had served excel-
lently as a foil to lead Warrington on when he
had eyes for no one else, not even Vera, was left
severely alone. Nothing was said, not an action
done openly, but Constance, woman-like, could
feel the contest in the air. And she felt just a
little quiver when they sat down and Warring-
ton resumed the conversation with her where
he had left it. Even the daring cut of Stella's
gown and the exaggerated proximity of her
dainty person had failed this time.
As they chatted gaily, Constance enjoyed her
triumph to the full. Yes, she could see that
Stella was violently jealous. But she intended
that she should be. That was now a part of her
plan as it shaped itself in her mind, since she
had plunged or, perhaps better, had been
dragged into the game.
As the evening wore on and the dancing be-
came more furious, Warrington seemed to catch
the spirit of recklessness that was in the very
air. He talked more recklessly, once in a while
with a bitterness not aimed at any one in
particular, which passed among the others as


188 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
blase sarcasm of one who had seen much and to
whom even the fastest was slow.
But to Constance, as she tried to fathom him,
it presented an entirely different interpretation.
For example, she asked herself, why had he
been so ready, apparently, to transfer his in-
terest from Stella? Was it because, having cut
loose from the one feminine tie that morally
bound him, he no longer felt any restraint in
cutting loose from others? Was it the same
spirit that had carried him on in the money
game, having cut loose from one financial prin-
ciple, to let all go and to guide his course as
close to the edge of things as he dared? There
had been the same reckless bravado in the way
he had urged on the driver of his car in the
wild ride of the earlier evening, violating the
speed laws yet succeeding in escaping the traffic
squad.
Warrington was a plunger. Yet there was
something about him that was different from
others she had seen. Perhaps it was that he
had a conscience, even though he had succeeded
in detaching himself from it.
And Stella. There was something different
about her, too. Constance more than once was
on the point of revising her estimate of the
little actress. Was she, after all, wholly



THE PLUNGERS 189
mercenary in her attitude toward Warrington?
"Was he merely a live spender whom she could
not afford to lose? Or was she merely a beauti-
ful, delicate creature caught in the merciless
maelstrom of the life into which she had been
thrown? Did she realize the perilous position
this all was placing her in?
They were among the last to leave and Vera
and Braden offered to take Constance to her
apartment in Braden's car, while Stella con-
trived prettily to take so much of Warrington's
time with the wraps that by the time they were
ready to go the manner of the breaking up of
the party was as she wanted it. In her final
triumph she could not help just an extra in-
flection on, " I hope I'll see you again at Vera's
soon, my dear."
All night, or at least all that was left of it,
Constance tried to straighten out the whirl of
her thoughts. With the morning she had an
idea. Now, in a moment when the exhilaration
of the gay life was at low ebb, she must see
Stella.
It was early yet, but Stella was not at her
hotel when Constance cautiously called up the
office to find out. Where was she? Constance
drove around to Charmant's on the chance that
she might be there. Vera greeted her a trifle


THE PLUNGERS 191
not vanity, either. It's—well—you see, she's
trying to get him back, to look like a sport."
Constance thought of the hopeless fight so far
which the little woman was waging to keep up
with the dashing actress. Then she thought of
Warrington, of last night, of how he had sought
her, so ready, it seemed, to leave even the
"other woman." Then Floretta's remark re-
peated itself mechanically. "We have to do
some tall scheming to keep them apart." Was
Stella here, after all?
Mrs. Warrington was not a bad looking wo-
man and in fact it was difficult to see how she
expected to be improved by cosmetics that
would lighten her complexion, bleaches that
would flaxen her hair, tortures for this, that,
and the other defect, real or imagined.
Now, however, she was a creature of rein-
forcements, from her puffy masses of light hair
to her French heels and embroidered stockings
that showed through the slash in the drapery
of her gown.
Constance felt sorry for her, deeply sorry.
The whole thing seemed not in keeping with her.
She was a home-maker, not a butterfly. Was
Warrington worth it all? asked Constance of
herself. '' At least she thinks so,'' flashed over
her, as Mrs. Warrington rose, and left the room,


194 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"All right. You had better go out as you
came in. It's better that no one up here should
suspect anything."
The voices ceased.
What did it mean? Constance rose and
sauntered around into the next room. It was
empty, but when she looked hastily up on the
shelf there was a bottle of white tablets and on
a table a pad of note paper from which a sheet
had been torn.
She picked up the bottle gingerly. Who had
touched it? Her mind was working quickly.
Somewhere she had read of finger prints and
the subject had interested her because the
system had been introduced in banks and she
saw that it was going to become more and more
important.
But how did they get them in a case like this?
She had read of some powder that adhered to
the marks left by the sweat glands of the
fingers. There was the talcum powder. Per-
haps it would do.
Quickly she shook the box gently over the
glass. Then she blew it off carefully.
Clear, sharp, distinct, there were the im-
prints of fingers!
But the paper. Talcum powder would not
bring them out on that. It must be something
black.


THE PLUNGERS 195
A lead pencill Eagerly she seized it and with
a little silver pen-knife whittled off the wood.
Scrapel scrapel until she had a neat little pile
of finely powdered graphite.
Then she poured it on the paper and taking
the sheet daintily by the edges, so that she
would not mix her own finger prints with the
others, she rolled the powder back and forth.
As she looked anxiously she could see the little
grains adhering to the paper.
A fine camel's hair brush lay on the table, for
penciling. She took it deftly. It made her
think of that first time when she painted the
checks for Carlton. A lump came into her
throat.
There they were, the second pair of telltale
prints. But what tale did they tell? Whose
were they?
Her reading on finger prints had been very
limited but, like everything she did, to the
point. She studied those before her, traced out
as best she could the loops, whorls, arches, and
composites, even counted the ridges on some of
them. It was not so difficult, after all.
She stopped in an uptown branch of her
brokers in one of the hotels. The market was
very quiet, and even the Rubber Syndicate
seemed to be marking time. As she went out


196 CONSTANCE DUXLAP
she passed the telephone booths. Should she
call up "Warrington T "Would he misinterpret it T
What if he did T She was mistress of her own
tongue. She need not say too much. Besides,
if she were going on a fishing expedition, a tele-
phone line was as good as any other—better
than a visit
.
"This is Mrs. Dunlap," she said directly.
"Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Dunlap. I have
been intending to call you up, but," he paused,
and added, " you know we are having a pretty
strenuous time down here."
There was a genuine ring to the first part of
his reply. But the rest of it trailed off into the
old blase tone.
"I'm sorry," she replied. "I enjoyed last
night so much."
"Did you? " came back eagerly.
Before he could add anything she asked, " I
suppose you are going to see Stella again this
afternoon."
"Why—er—yes," he hesitated. "I think
so."
"Where? At Vera's?" she asked, adopt-
ing a tone not of curiosity but of chiding him
for seeing Stella instead of herself.
The moment of hesitation, before he said that
he didn't know, told her the truth. It was as
good as a plain, " Yes."


198 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
to Stella, as though nothing had happened.
"There is something I'd like to say to you be-
sides thanking you most kindly for the good
time last—"
"Is there anything I can do for you? " in-
terrupted Madame Charmant in a business-!:^
tone. '' I am sure that Miss Larue invited you
last night because she thought you were lonely.
She and Mr. Warrington, you know, are old
friends.''
Charmant emphasized the remark to mean,
"You trespassed on forbidden ground, if you
thought you could get him away."
Constance seemed not to notice the implica-
tion.
"There is something I'd like to say," she
repeated gently.
She picked up a little inking pad which lay
on a mahogany secretary which Vera used as
an office desk.
"If you will be so kind, Stella, as to place
your fingers flat on this pad—never mind about
the ink; call Floretta; she will wipe them off
afterwards—and then on this piece of paper,
I won't bother you further."
Almost before she knew it, the little actress
had placed her dainty white hand on the pad
and then on the paper.
Constance did the same, to illustrate, then
^


THE PLUNGERS 199
called Floretta. "If Vera will do as I have
done," she said, offering her the pad, and tak-
ing her hand. Charmant complied, and when
Floretta arrived her impressions were added
to the others.
"There's a man wishes to see you, outside,
Madame," said Floretta, wiping off the soiled
finger tips.
"Tell him to wait—in the little room."
Floretta opened the door to go out and
through it Constance caught sight of a familiar
face.
A moment later the man was in the room
with them. It was Drummond, the same sneer,
the same assurance in his manner.
"So," he snarled at Constance. "Yofi
here?"
"I seem to be here," she answered calmly.
"Why?"
"Never mind why," he blustered. "I knew
you saw me the other night.. I heard you tell
'em to hit it up so as to shake me. But I found
out all right."
"Found out what? " asked Constance coldly.
"Say, that's about your style, isn't it? You
always get in when it comes to trimming the
good spenders, don't you?"
"Mr. Drummond," she replied, "I don't
care to talk to you.''
14


THE PLUNGERS 201
stance, determined to bring the affair to a show-
down on the spot.
As the door swung open, Warrington looked
at the group in unfeigned surprise.
"Mr. Warrington," greeted Constance with-
out giving any of the others a chance, " this
morning, I heard a little conversation up here.
Floretta, will you go into the little room, and
on the top shelf you will find a bottle. Bring it
here carefully. I have a sheet of paper, also,
which I am going to show you. I had already
seen the little woman, Mr. Warrington, whom
you have treated so unjustly. She was here
trying vainly to win you back by those arts
which she thinks must appeal to you."
Floretta returned with the bottle and placed
it on the secretary beside Constance.
'' Some one took some tablets from this bottle
and gave them to some one else who wrote on
this paper," she resumed, bending first over the
paper she had torn from the pad. "Ah, a loop
with twelve ridges, another loop, a whorl, a
whorl, a loop. The marks on this paper cor-
respond precisely with those made here just
now by—Vera Charmant herself!"
"You get out of here—quick," snarled
Drummond, placing himself between the now
furious Vera and Constance.
"One minute," replied Constance calmly.
r


202 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"I am sure Mr. Warrington is a gentleman,
if you are not. Perhaps I have no finger prints
to correspond with those on the bottle. If not,
I am sure that we can send for some one whose
prints will do so.''
She was studying the bottle.
"The other, however," she said slowly to
conceal her own surprise, " was a person who
has been set to trail you and Stella, Mr. War-
rington, a detective named Drummond!"
Suddenly the truth flashed over her. Drum-
mond was not employed by Mrs. Warrington at
alL Then by whom? By the directors. And
the rest of these people? Grafters who were
using Stella to bait the hook. Braden had gone
over to them, had aided in plunging Warring-
ton into the wild life until he could no longer
play the business game as before. Charmant
was his confederate, Drummond his witness.
"Stella," said Constance, turning suddenly
to the little actress, " Stella, they are using
you, ' Diamond Jack ' and Vera, using you to
lead him on, playing the game of the minority
of the directors of the Syndicate to get him
out. There is to be a meeting of the directors
to-night at the Prince Henry. He was to be in
no condition to go. Are you willing to be mixed
up in such a scandal?"
Stella Larue was crying into a lace handker-
^i


THE PLUNGERS 203
chief. "You—you are all—against me," she
sobbed. "What have I done?"
"Nothing," soothed Constance, patting her
shoulder. "As for Charmant and Drummond,
they are tied by these proofs," she added, tap-
ping the papers with the prints, then picking
them up and handing them to Warrington. "I
think if the story were told to the directors at
the Prince Henry to-night with reporters wait-
ing downstairs in the lobby, it might produce a
quieting effect."
Warrington was speechless. He saw them all
against him, Vera, Braden, Stella, Drummond.
"More than that," added Constance, " noth-
ing that you can ever do can equal the patience,
the faith of the little woman I saw here to-day,
slaving, yes, slaving for beauty. Here in my
hand, in these scraps of paper, I hold your old
life,—not part of it, but all of it," she em-
phasized. "You have your chance. Will you
take it?"
He looked up quickly at Stella Larue. She
had risen impulsively and flung her arms about
Constance.
"Yes," he muttered huskily, taking the
papers, " all of it."
/"


CHAPTER VTII
THE ABDTJCTOBS
"Take care of me—please—please!"
A slip of a girl, smartly attired in a fur-
trimmed dress and a chic little feather-tipped
hat, hurried up to Constance Dunlap late one
afternoon as she turned the corner below her
apartment.
** It isn't faintness or illness exactly—but—
it's all so hazy," stammered the girl breath-
lessly. "And I've forgotten who I am. I've
forgotten where I live—and a man has been
following me—oh, ever so long."
The weariness in the tone of the last words
caused Constance to look more closely at the
girl. Plainly she was on the verge of hysterics.
Tears were streaming down her pale cheeks and
there were dark rings under her eyes, sug-
gestive of a haunting fear of something from
which she fled.
Constance was astounded for the moment.
Was the girl crazy? She had heard of cases
like this, but to meet one so unexpectedly was
surely disconcerting.
204


THE ABDUCTORS 205
"Who has been following you? " asked Con-
stance gently, looking hastily over her shoulder
and seeing no one.
"A man," exclaimed the girl, " but I think
he has gone now."
"Can't you think of your name?" urged
Constance. "Try."
"No," cried the girl, " no, I can't, I can't."
"Or your address?" repeated Constance.
"Try—try hard!"
The girl looked vacantly about.
"No," she sobbed, "it's all gone—all."
Puzzled, Constance took her arm and slowly
walked her up the street toward her own apart-
ment in the hope that she might catch sight of
some familiar face or be able to pull herself
together.
But it was of no use.
They passed a policeman who eyed them
sharply. The mere sight of the blue-coated
officer sent a shudder through the already
trembling girl on her arm.
"Don't, don't let them take me to a hospital
—don't," pleaded the girl in a hoarse whisper
when they had passed the officer.
"I won't," reassured Constance. "Was
that the man who was following you?"
"No—oh, no," sobbed the girl nervously
looking back.


206 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Who was he, then?" asked Constance
eagerly.
The girl did not answer, but continued to
look back wildly from time to time, although
there was no doubt that, if he existed at all,
the man had disappeared.
Suddenly Constance realized that she had on
her hands a case of aphasia, perhaps real, per-
haps induced by a drug.
At any rate, the fear of being sent away to
an institution was so strong in the poor
creature that Constance felt intuitively how
disastrous to her might be the result of disre-
garding the obsession.
She was in a quandary. What should she do
with the girl? To leave her on the street was
out of the question. She was now more help-
less than ever.
They had reached the door of the apart-
ment. Genily she led the trembling girl into
her own home.
But now the question of what to do arose
with redoubled force. She hesitated to call
a physician, at least yet, because his first ad-
vice would probably be to send the poor little
stranger to the psychopathic ward of some
hospital.
Constance's eye happened to rest on the


THE ABDUCTORS 207
dictionary in her bookcase. Patrhaps she might
recall the girl's name to her, if she were not
shamming, by reading over the list of women's
names in the back of the book.
It meant many minutes, perhaps hours. But
then Constance reflected on what might have
happened to the girl if she had chanced to
appeal to some one who had not felt a true
interest in her. It was worth trying. She
would do it.
Starting with " A," she read slowly.
4' Is your name Abigail?"
Down through Barbara, Camilla, Deborah,
Edith, Faith, she read.
"Flora? " she asked.
The girl seemed to apprehend something, ap-
pear less blank.
"Florence? " persisted Constance.
"Oh, yes," she cried, " that's it—that's my
name."
But as for the last name and the address she
was just as hazy as ever. Still, there was now
something different about her.
"Florence—Florence what?" reiterated
Constance patiently.
There was no answer. But with the con-
tinued repetition it seemed as if some depth
in her nature had been stirred. Constance


206 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
could not help feeling that the girl had really
found herself.
She had risen and was facing Constance,
both hands pressed to her throbbing temples
as if to keep her head from bursting. Con-
stance had assisted her off with her coat and
hat, and now the sartorial wreck of her masses
of blonde hair was apparent.
"I suppose," she cried incoherently, "I'm
just one more of the thousands of girls who
drop out of sight every year."
Constance listened in amazement. As the
spell of her influence seemed to calm the over-
wrought mind of the girl there succeeded a
hardness in her tone that was wholly out of
keeping with her youth. There was something
that breathed of a past where there should have
been nothing but the thought of a future.
"Tell me why," soothed Constance with an
air that invited confidence.
The girl looked up and again passed her
hand over her white forehead with its mass of
tangled fallen hair. Somehow Constance felt a
tingling sensation of sympathy in her heart.
Impulsively she put out her hand and took the
cold moist hand of the girl.
"Because," she hesitated, struggling now
with re-flooding consciousness, "because—I


THE ABDUCTORS 209
don't know. I thought, perhaps—" she added,
dropping her eyes, " you could—help me."
She was speaking rapidly enough now. "I
think they have employed detectives to trace
me. One of them is almost up with me. I'm
afraid I can't slip out of the net again. And—
I—I won't go hack to them. I can't. I won't."
"Go back to whom?" queried her friend.
"Detectives employed by whom?"
"My folks," she answered quickly.
Constance was surprised. Least of all had
she expected that.
"Why won't you go home? " she prompted
as the girl seemed about to lapse into a sort of
stolid reticence.
"Home? " she repeated bitterly. "Home?
No one would believe my story. I couldn't go
home, now. They have made it impossible for
me to go home. I mean, every newspaper has
published my picture. There were headlines
for days, and only by chance I was not rec-
ognized. ''
She was sobbing now convulsively. "If they
had only let me alone! I might have gone
back, then. But now—after the newspapers
and the search—never! And yet I am going
to have revenge some day. When he least ex-
pects it I am going to tell the truth and—"
She stopped.


210 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"And what? " asked Constance.
"Tell the truth—and then do a cowardly
thing. I would—"
"You would not!" blazed Constance.
There was no mistaking the meaning.
"Leave it to me. Trust me. I will help you."
She pulled the girl down on the divan beside
her.
"Why talk of suicide? " mused Constance.
"You can plead this aphasia I have just seen.
I know lots of newspaper women. We could
carry it through so that even the doctors would
help us. Remember, aphasia will do for a girl
nowadays what nothing else can do."
'' Aphasia!'' Florence repeated harshly.
"Call it what you like—weakness—anything.
I—I loved that man—not the one who followed
me—another. I believed him. But he left me
—left me in a place—across in Brooklyn. They
said I was a fool, that some other fellow, per-
haps better, with more money, would take care
of me. But I left. I got a place in a factory.
ffhen some one in the factory became sus-
picious. I had saved a little. It took me to
Boston.
"Again some one grew suspicious. I came
back here, here—the only place to hide. I got
another position as waitress in the Betsy Ross
Tea Room. There I was able to stay until
w
X


212 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"that you wanted to be independent, that yon
went away to make your own living?"
"But—they—my father—is well off. And
they have this detective who follows me. He
will find me some day—for the reward—and
will tell the truth."
"The reward?"
"Yes—a thousand dollars. Don't you re-
member reading—"
The girl stopped short as if to check herself.
"You—you are Florence Gibbons! " gasped
Constance as with a rush there came over her
the recollection of a famous unsolved mystery
of several months before.
The girl did not look up as Constance bent
over and put her arms about her.
"Who was he? " she asked persuasively.
"Preston—Lansing Preston," she sobbed
bitterly. "Only the other day I read of his
engagement to a girl in Chicago—beautiful, in
society. Oh—I could kill him," she cried,
throwing out her arms passionately. "Think
of it. He—rich, powerful, respected. I—poor,
almost erazy—an outcast."
Constance did not interfere until the tempest
had passed.
"What name did you give at the tea room?''
asked Constance.
"Viola Cole," answered Florence.
~


THE ABDUCTORS 213
"Best here," soothed Constance. "Here
at least you are safe. I have an idea. I shall
be back soon."
The Betsy Ross was still open after the rush
of tired shoppers and later of business women
to whom this was not only a restaurant but a
club. Constance entered and sat down.
"Is the manager in?" she asked of the
waitress.
"Mrs. Palmer? No. But, if you care to
wait, I think she'll be back directly."
As Constance sat toying absently with some
food at one of the snowy white tables, a man
entered. A man in a tea room is an anomaly.
For the tea room is a woman's institution, run
by women for women. Men enter with dif-
fidence, and seldom alone. This man was quite
evidently looking for some one.
His eye fell on Constance. Her heart gave
a leap. It was her old enemy, Drummond, the
detective. For a moment he hesitated, then
bowed, and came over to her table.
"Peculiar places, these tea rooms," ob-
served Drummond.
Constance was doing some quick thinking.
Could this be the detective Florence Gibbons
had mentioned?
"The only thing lackiag to make them com-


214 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
plete," he rattled on, "is a license. Now,
take those places that have a ladies' bar—that
do openly what tea rooms do covertly. They
don't reckon with the attitude of women.
This is New York—not Paris. Such things
are years off. I don't say they'll not come or
that women won't use them—but not by that
name—not yet."
Constance wondered what his cynical incon-
sequentialities masked.
"I think it adds to the interest," she ob-
served, watching him furtively, " this evasion.
of the laws."
Drummond was casting about for something
to do and, naturally, to a mind like his, a
drink was the solution. Evidently, however,
there were degrees of brazenness, even in tea
rooms. The Betsy Boss not only would not
produce a labeled bottle and an obvious glass
but stoutly denied their ability to fill such an
order, even whispered.
"Bussian tea?" suggested Drummond
cryptically.
"How will you have it—with Scotch ev
rye! " asked the waitress.
"Bourbon," hazarded Drummond.
When the " Bussian tea " arrived it was in
a neat little pot with two others, the first con-
taining real tea and the second hot water. 5t


218 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Not dead? " he repeated eagerly, catching
at even such a straw as an unknown woman
might cast out. "Then you know—"
"No," she interrupted positively, "I can-
not tell you any more. You must call off all
other searchers. I will let you know."
"When?"
"To-morrow, perhaps the next day. I will
call you on the telephone."
She rose and made a hasty adieu before the
man who had been prematurely aged might
overwhelm her with questions and break down
her resolution to carry the thing through as
she had seen beet.
Cheerily, Constance turned the key in the
lock of her door.
There was no light and somehow the silence
smote on her ominously.
"Florence! " she called.
There was no answer.
Not a sign indicated her presence. There
was the divan with the pillows disarranged as
they had been when she left. The furniture
was in the same position as before. Hastily
she went from one room to another.
Florence had disappeared!
She went to the door again. All seemed
right there. If any one had entered, it must


220 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
ject a narcotic by a sudden jab of a hypodermia
syringe. That was rather a slow, careful and
deliberate operation, to be submitted to with
patience.
Yet Florence was gone!
Suddenly it flashed over Constance that
Drummond might not be seeking the reward
primarily, after all. His first object might be
shielding Preston. She recollected that Mr.
Gibbons had said nothing about Drummond,
either one way or the other. And if he were
both shielding Preston and working for the
reward, he would care little how much Florence
suffered. He might be playing both ends to
serve himself.
She rang the elevator bell.
'' Has anybody called at my apartment while
I was out? " she asked.
'' Yes 'm. A man came here.''
"And you let him up?"
"I didn't know you were out. You see I
had just come on. He said he was to meet
some one at your apartment. And when he
pressed the buzzer, the door opened, and I ran
the elevator down again. I thought it was all
right, ma'am."
"And then what?" inquired Constance
breathlessly.


THE ABDUCTORS 221
*' "Well, in about five minutes my bell rang.
I ran the elevator up again, and, waiting, was
this man with a girl I had never seen before.
You understand—I thought it was all right—
he told me he was going to meet some one."
"Yes—yes. I understand. Oh, my God, if
I had only thought to leave word not to let her
go. How did she look?"
"Her clothes, you mean, Ma'am?"
"No—her face, her eyes?"
"Beggin' your pardon, I thought she was—
well, er,—acted queer—scared—dazed-like."
"You didn't notice which way they went, I
suppose?"
"No ma'am, I didn't."
Constance turned back again into her empty
apartment, heart-sick. In spite of all she had
planned and done, she was defeated—worse
than defeated. Where was Florence? What
might not happen to her? She could have sat
down and cried. Instead she passed a fever-
ishly restless night.
All the next day passed, and still not a word.
She felt her own helplessness. She could not
appeal to the police. That might defeat the
very end she sought. She was single-handed.
For all she knew, she was fighting the almost
limitless power of brains and money of Preston.
Inquiry developed the fact that Preston him-


222 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
self was reported to be in Chicago with his
fiancee. Time and again she was on the point
of making the journey to let him know that
some one at least was watching him. But, she
reflected, if she did that she might miss the one
call from Florence for help.
Then she thought bitterly of the false hopes
she had raised in the despairing father of
Florence Gibbons. It was maddening.
Several times during the day Constance
dropped into the Betsy Ross, without finding
any word.
Late that night the buzzer on her door
sounded. It was Mrs. Palmer herself, with a
letter at last, written on rough paper in pen-
cil with a trembling hand.
Constance almost literally pounced on it.
"Will you tell the lady who was so kind to
me that while she was out seeing you at the
tea room, there was a call at her door? I didn 't
like to open it, but when I asked who was there,
a man said it was the steam-fitter she had asked
to call about the heat. %
"I opened the door. From that moment
when I saw his face until I came to myself here
I remember nothing. I would write to her,
only I don't know where she lives. One of the
bell-boys here is kind enough to smuggle this


THE ABDUCTORS 223
note out for me addressed to the Betsy
Ross.
"Tell her please, that I am at a place in
Brooklyn, I think, called Lustgarten's—she can
recognize it because it is at a railroad crossing
—steam railroads, not trolleys or elevateds.
"I know you think me crazy, Mrs. Palmer,
but the other lady can tell you about it. Oh,
it was the same horrible feeling that came over
me that night as before. It isn't a dream; it's
more like a trance. It comes iii a second—
usually when I am frightened. I suddenly feel
nervous and shaky. I can't- tell what is going on
around me. I lose my hearing. Part of the
time it is as though, I had a paralytic stroke
of the tongue. The next day, perhaps, it is
gone. But while it lasts it is terrifying. It's
like walking into a new world, with everybody,
everything strange about me."
The note ended with a most pathetic appeal.
Constance was already nervously putting on
her hat.
"You are going to go there? " asked Mrs.
Palmer.
"If I can locate the place," she answered.
"Aren't you afraid? " inquired the other.
Constance did not reply. She ostentatiously
slipped a little ivory-handled revolver into her
handbag.


224 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"It's a new one," she explained finally,
'' like nothing you ever heard of bef ore, I guess.
I bought it only the other day after a friend of
mine told me about it."
Mrs. Palmer was watching her closely.
"You—you are a wonderful woman," she
burst out finally. "It isn't good business, it
isn't good sense."
Constance stopped short in her preparations
for the search. '' What are business and sense
compared to the—the life of—"
She checked herself on the very point of re-
vealing the girl's real name.
"Nothing," replied Mrs. Palmer. "I had
already made up my mind to go with you before
I spoke—if you will let me."
In a moment the two understood each other
better than after years of casual acquaintance.
Back and forth through the mazes of streets
and car lines of the city across the river the
two women traveled, asking veiled questions of
every wearer of a uniform, until at last they
found such a place as Florence had described
in her note.
There, it seemed, had sprung up a little center
of vice. While reformers were trying to clamp
down tight the "lid" in New York, all the
vicious elements were prying it up here.


THE ABDUCTORS 227
turn. Through a transom of one of the rooms
they could hear voices but could see no light.
'' Well, go back then,'' growled a gruff voice.
"Your family will never believe your story,
never believe that you came again and stayed
at Lustgarten's against your will. Why," the
voice taunted with a harsh laugh, "if they
knew the truth, they would turn you from the
door, instead of offering a reward."
There was a moment of silence. Then a
woman's voice, strangely familiar to Con-,
stance, spoke.
"The truth! " she exclaimed bitterly. "He
knew it was a case of a girl who liked a good
time, liked pretty clothes, a ride in an automo-
bile, theaters, excitement, bright lights, night
life—a girl with a romantic disposition in
whom all that was repressed at home. He
knew it," she repeated, raising the tone to an
almost hysterical pitch, " led me on, made me
love him because he could give them all to me.
And when I began to show the strain of the
pace—they all show it more than the men—he
cast me aside like a squeezed-out lemon."
As she listened, Constance understood it all
now-. It was to make Florence Gibbons a piece
of property, a thing to be traded in, bartered—
that was the idea. Discover her—yes; but first
to thrust her into the life if she would not go


THE ABDUCTOKS 229
voice which Constance now knew was Flor-
ence's.
"With the new German Secret Service gun,"
answered Constance quietly, keeping it leveled
to cow any assistance that might be brought.
"It blinds and stupefies without killing—a
bulletless revolver intended to check and ren-
der harmless the criminal instead of maiming
him. The cartridges contain several chemicals
that combine when they are exploded and form
a vapor which blinds a man and puts him out.
No one wants to kill such a person as this."
She reached over and switched on the lights.
The man on the floor was Drummond him-
self.
"You will tell your real employer, Mr.
Preston," she added contemptuously, "that
unless he agrees to our story of his elopement
with Florence, marries her, and allows her to
start an undefended action for divorce, we in-
tend to make use of the new federal Mann Act—
with a jail sentence—for both of you."
Drummond looked up sullenly, still blinking
and choking.
"And not a word of this until the suit is
filed. Then we will see the reporters—not he.
Understand? ".
"Yes," he muttered, still clutching his
throat.


230 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
An hour later Constance was at the telephone
in her own apartment.
"Mr. Gibbons? I must apologize for troub-
ling you at this late, or rather early, hour. But
I promised you something which I could not
fulfill until now. This is the Mrs. Dunlap whor
called on you the other day with a clue to your
daughter Florence. I have found her—yes-^
working as a waitress in the Betsy Ross Tea
Room. No—not a word to anyone—not even to
her mother. No—not a word. You can see her
to-morrow—at my apartment. She is going to
live with me for a few days until—well—until
we get a few little matters straightend out."
Constance had jammed the receiver back on,
the hook hastily.
Florence Gibbons, wild-eyed, trembling, im-
ploring, had flung her arms about her neck.
"No—no—no," she cried. "I can't. I
won't."
With a force that was almost masculine, Con-
stance took the girl by both shoulders.
"The one thousand dollar reward which
comes to me," said Constance decisively, " will
help us—straighten out those few little matters
with Preston. Mrs. Palmer can stretch the time
which you have worked for her."
Something of Constance's will seemed to be


CHAPTER IX
THE SHOPLIFTERS
'' Madam, would you mind going with me for
a few moments to the office on the third floor?"
Constance Dunlap had been out on a shopping
excursion. She had stopped at the jewelry
counter of Stacy's to have a ring repaired and
had gone on to the leather goods department
to purchase something else.
The woman who spoke to her was a quietly
dressed young person, quite inconspicuous, with
a keen eye that seemed to take in everything
within a radius of a wide-angled lens at a
glance.
She leaned over and before Constance could
express even surprise, added in a whisper,
"Look in your bag."
Constance looked hastily, then realized what
had happened. The ring was gone!
It gave her quite a shock, too, for the ring,
a fine diamond, was a present from her hus-
band, one of the few pieces of jewelry, treas-
232


THE SHOPLIFTERS 233
tired not only for its intrinsic value but as a
remembrance of Carlton and the supreme sacri-
fice he had made for her.
She had noticed nothing in the crowd, nothing
more than she had noticed scores of times be-
fore. The woman watched her puzzled look.
"I've been following you," she said. "By
this time the other store detectives must have
caught the shoplifter and bag-opener who
touched you. You see, we don't make any ar-
rests in the store if we can help it, because we
don't like to make a scene. It's bad for busi-
ness. Besides, if she had anything else, we are
safer when the case comes to court, if we have
caught her actually leaving the store with it.
Of course, when we make an arrest on the side-
walk, we bring the shoplifter back, but in a
private, back elevator."
Constance was following the young woman
mechanically. At least there was a chance of
recovering the ring.
'' She was standing next to you at the jewelry
counter," she continued, " and if you will help
identify her the store management will appre-
ciate it—and make it worth your while. Be-
sides," she urged, "It's really your duty to
do it, madam."
Constance remembered now the rather simply


236 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
it had been any other ring in the world she felt
sure that she would have said no. But, then,
she reflected, there was that pile of stuff. There
was no use in concealing her ownership of the
ring. "Yes," she murmured.
"One moment, please," answered the man
brusquely. "I must send down for the sales-
girl who waited on you to identify you and your
check—a mere formality, you know, but neces-
sary to keep things straight."
Constance sat down.
"I suppose you don't realize it," explained
the man, turning to Constance, " but the shop-
lifters of the city get away with a couple of
million dollars' worth of stuff every year. It's
the price we have to pay for displaying our
goods. But it's too high. They are the depart-
ment store's greatest unsolved problem. Now
most of the stores are working together for
their common interests, seeing what they can do
to root them out. We all keep a sort of private
rogue's gallery of them. But we don't seem to
have anything on this girl, nor have any of
the other stores who exchange photographs
and information with us anything on her."
"Evidently, then, it is her first offense," put
in Constance, wondering at herself. Strangely,
she felt more of sympathy than of anger for
the girl.


THE SHOPLIFTERS 237
"You mean the first time she has been caught
at it," corrected the head of the store detec-
tives.
"It is my weakness," sobbed the girl.
"Sometimes an irresistible impulse to steal
comes over me. I just can't help it."
She was sobbing convulsively. As she talked
and listened there seemed to come a complete
breakdown. She wept as though her heart
would break.
'' Oh,'' exclaimed the man,'' can it! Cut out
the sob stuff!"
"And yet," mused Constance half to herself,
watching the girl closely, "when one walks
through the shops and sees thousands of dol-
lars' worth of goods lying unprotected on the
counters, is it any wonder that some poor
woman or girl should be tempted and fall!
There, before her eyes and within her grasp,
lies the very article above all others which she
so ardently craves. No one is looking. The
salesgirl is busy with another customer. The
rest is easy. And then the store detective steps
in—and here she is—captured."
The girl had been listening wildly through her
tears. "Oh," she sobbed, " you don't under-
stand—none of you. I don't crave anything.
I—I just—can't help it—and then, afterwards—


238 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
I—I hate the stuff—and I am so—afraid. I
hurry home—and I—oh, what shall I do—what
shall I do?"
Constance pitied her deeply. She looked from
the wild-eyed, tear-stained face to the miscel-
laneous pile of material on the table, and the
unwinking gaze of the store detectives. True,
the girl had taken a very valuable diamond ring,
and from herself. But the laces, the trinkets,
all were abominably cheap, not worth risking
anything for.
Constance's attention was recalled by the
man who beckoned her aside to talk to the sales-
girl who had waited on her.
"You remember seeing this lady at the
counter? " he asked of the girl. She nodded.
"And that woman in there?" he motioned.
Again the salesgirl nodded.
"Do you remember anything else that hap-
pened?" he asked Constance as they faced
Kitty Carr and he handed Constance the ring.
Constance looked the detective squarely in
the face for a moment.
'' I have my ring. You have the other stuff,''
she murmured. "Besides, there is no record
against her. She doesn't even look like a pro-
fessional bad character. No—I'll not appear
to press the charge—I'll make it as hard as I
can before I'll do it," she added positively.


240 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
complaint of larceny, OF WHICH I AM
GUILTY, I hereby remise, release, and forever
discharge the said Stacy Co. or its representa-
tives from any claims, action, or causes of ac-
tion which I may have against the Stacy Co. or
its representatives or agents by reason of the
withdrawal of said charge of larceny and fail-
ure to prosecute.
Signed, Kitty Carr."
"Now, Kitty," soothed Constance, as the
trembling signature was blotted and added to
a photograph which had quietly been taken,
"they are going to let you go this time—with
me. Come, straighten your hat, wipe your eyes.
You must take me home with you—where we
can have a nice long talk. Remember, I am
your friend."
On the way uptown and across the city the
girl managed to tell most of her history. She
came from a family of means in another city.
Her father was dead, but her mother and a
brother were living. She herself had a small
annuity, sufficient to live on modestly, and had
come to New York seeking a career as an artist.
Her story, her ambitions appealed to Constance,
who had been somewhat of an artist herself and


242 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Constance nodded, and the woman held out
her hand frankly.
"Very glad to meet you," she said. "My
husband, Jim, is not at home, but we are a very
happy little family up here. Why, Kitty, what
is the matter?"
. The girl had turned her face down in the sofa
pillows and was sobbing again. Between sobs
she blurted out the whole of the sordid story.
And as she proceeded, Annie glanced quickly
from her to Constance, for confirmation.
Suddenly she rose and extended her hand to
Constance.
"Mrs. Dunlap," she said, " how can I ever
thank you for what you have done for Kitty?
She is almost like a sister to me. You—you
were—too good."
There was a little catch in the woman's voice.
But Constance could not quite make out
whether it was acted or wholly genuine.
"Did she ever do anything like that be-
fore? " she asked.
"Only once," replied Annie Grayson, " and
then I gave her such a talking to that I thought
she would be able to restrain herself when she
felt that way again."
It was growing late and Constance recollected
that she had an engagement for the evening.


THE SHOPLIFTERS 243
As she rose to go Kitty almost overwhelmed
her with embraces.
"I'll keep in touch with Kitty," whispered
Constance at the door,'' and if you will let me
know when anything comes up that I may help
her in, I shall thank you."
"Depend on me," answered Mrs. Grayson,
"and I want to add my thanks to Kitty's for
what you have done. I'll try to help you."
As she groped her way down the as yet un-
lighted stairs, Constance became aware of two
men talking in the hall. As she passed them
she thought she recognized one of the voices.
She lowered her head, and fortunately her thin
veil in the half-light did the rest. She passed
unnoticed and reached the door of the apart-
ment.
As she opened it she heard the men turn and
mount the stairs. Instinctively she realized that
something was wrong. One of the men was her
old enemy, Drummond, the detective.
They had not recognized her, and as she stood
for a moment with her hand on the knob, she
tried to reason it out. Then she crept back, and
climbed the stairs noiselessly. Voices inside the
apartment told her that she had not been mis-
taken. It was the apartment of the Graysons
and Kitty that they sought.
The hall door was of thin, light wood, and as


244 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
she stood there she could easily hear what
passed inside.
'' What—is Kitty ill?" she heard the strange
man's voice inquire.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Grayson, then her voice
trailed off into an indistinguishable whisper.
"How are you, Kitty? " asked the man.
"Oh, I have a splitting headache, Jim. I've
had it all day. I could just get up and—
screech!"
"I 'm sorry. I hope it gets better soon.''
*' Oh, I guesa it will. They often go away as
suddenly as they come. You know I've had
them before."
Drummond's voice then spoke up.
"Did you see the Trimble ad. to-night T " he
asked, evidently of Annie. "They have a lot of
new diamonds from Arkansas, they say,—one
of them is a big one, the Arkansas Queen, I be-
lieve they call it."
"No, I didn't see the papers," replied Annie.
There was the rustle of a newspaper.
*' Here's a picture of it. It must be great. I 've
heard a good deal about it.''
"Have you seen it? " asked Annie.
"No, but I intend to see it."
They had passed into the next room, and Con-
stance, fearing to be discovered, decided to get
away before that happened.


THE SHOPLIFTERS 245
Early the next morning she decided to call on
Kitty, but by the time Constance arrived at the
apartment it was closed, and a neighbor in-
formed her that the two women had gone out
together about half an hour before.
Constance was nervous and, as she left the
apartment, she did not notice that a man who
had been loitering about had quickened his pace
and overtaken her.
"So," drawled a voice, "you're traveling
with shoplifters now."
She looked up quickly. This time she had
run squarely into Drummond. There was no
concealment possible now. Her only refuge was
silence. She felt the hot tingle of indignation
in her cheeks. But she said nothing.
"Huh!" exclaimed Drummond, walking
along beside her, and adding contemptuously,
'' I don't know the young one, but you know who
the other is?"
Constance bit her lip.
"No? " he queried. "Then I'll show you."
He had taken from his pocket a bunch of ob-
long cards. Each bore, she could see from the
corner of her eye, a full face and a profile pic-
ture of a woman, and on the back of the card was
a little writing.
He selected one and handed it to Constance.


246 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Instantly she recognized the face. It was Annie
Grayson, with half a dozen aliases written after
the name.
"There! " he fairly snorted. "That's the
sort of people your little friend consorts with.
Why, they call Annie Grayson the queen of the
shoplifters. She has forgotten more about
shoplifting than all the rest will ever know."
Constance longed to ask him what had taken
him to the Grayson flat the night before, but
thought better of it. There was no use in anger-
ing Drummond further. Instead, she let him
think that he had succeeded in frightening her
off.
She went back to her own apartment to wait
and worry. Evidently Drummond was pretty
sure of something, or he would not have dis-
closed his hand to her, even partially. She felt
that she must see Kitty before it was too late.
Then the thought crossed her mind that per-
haps already it was too late. Drummond evi-
dently was working in some way for an alliance
of the department stores outside.
Constance had had her own ideas about Kitty.
And as* she waited and watched, she tried to
reason how she might carry them out if she had
a chance.
She had just been insured, and had been very


THE SHOPLIFTERS 251
cheapest and most tawdry. It was a truly re-
markable collection, which the raiding detec-
tives had brought to light.
As Constance took in the scene—the raiding
detectives holding the stormy Annie Grayson at
bay, Drummond, cool, supercilious, Kitty al-
most on the edge of collapse—she wondered
how Jim Grayson had managed to slip through
the meshes of the net.
She had read of such things. Annie Grayson
was to all appearances a " fence " for stolen
goods. This was, perhaps, a school for shop-
lifters. In addition to her other accomplish-
ments, the queen of the shoplifters was a
"Fagin," educating others to the tricks of her
trade, taking advantage of their lack of facility
in disposing of the stolen goods.
Just then the woman caught sight of Con-
stance standing in the doorway.
In an instant she had broken loose and ran
toward her.
"What are you," she hissed, " one of these
department store Moll Dicks, too?"
Quick as a flash Kitty Carr had leaped to her
feet and placed herself between them.
"No, Annie, no. She was a real friend of
mine. No—if your own friends had been as
loyal as she was to me this would never have


252 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
happened—I 3hould never have been caught
again, for I should never have given them a
chance to get it on me."
"Little fool! " ground out Annie Grayson,
raising her arm.
"Here—here—ladies!" interposed Drum-
mond, protruding an r.rm between the two, and
winking sarcastically to the two other men.
"None of that. We shall need both of you in
our business. I've no objection to your talking;
but cut out the rough stuff."
Constance had stepped back. She was cool,
cool as Drummond, although she knew her heart
was thumping like a sledge-hammer. There was
Kitty Carr, in a revulsion of feeling, her hands
pressed tightly to her head again, as if it were
bursting. She was swaying as if she would
faint.
Constance caught her gently about the waist
and forced her down on the couch where she had
been lying the night before. With her back to
the others, she reached quickly into her hand-
bag and pulled out the little instrument she had
hastily stuffed into it. Deftly she fastened it to
Kitty's wrist and forearm.
She dropped down on her knees beside the
poor girl, and gently stroked her free hand, re-
assuring her in a low tone.
"There, there," she soothed. "You are not


THE SHOPLIFTERS 255
steal—merely for stealing's sake—a morbid
craving. Of course in a sense it is stealing.
But it is persistent, incorrigible, irrational, mo-
tiveless, useless.
"Stop and think about it a moment," she
concluded, lowering her voice and taking ad-
vantage of the very novelty of the situation she
had created. "Such diseases are the product
of civilization, of sensationalism. Naturally
enough, then, woman, with her delicately bal-
anced nervous organization, is the first and
chief offender—if you insist on calling such
a person an offender under your antiquated
methods of dealing with such cases."
She had paused.
"What did you say you called this thing?"
asked Drummond as he tapped the arrange-
ment on Annie Grayson's arm.
He was evidently not much impressed by it,
yet somehow instinctively regarded it with
somewhat of the feelings of an elephant toward
a mouse.
"That? " answered Constance, taking it off
Annie Grayson's wrist before she could do any-
thing with it. "Why, I don't know that I
said anything about it. It is really a sphyg-
momanometer—the little expert witness that
never lies—one of the instruments the insur-
ance companies use now to register blood


256 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
pressure and discover certain diseases. It oc-
curred to me that it might be put to other and
equally practical uses. For no one can con-
ceal the emotions from this instrument, not
even a person of cast-iron nerves."
She had placed it on Drummond's arm. He
appeared fascinated.
"See how it works? " she went on. "You
see one hundred and twenty-five millimeters
is the normal pressure. Kitty Carr is abso-
lutely abnormal. I do not know, but I think
that she suffers from periodical attacks of
vertigo. Almost all kleptomaniacs do. Dur-
ing an attack they are utterly irresponsible."
Drummond was looking at the thing care-
fully. Constance turned to Annie Grayson.
"Where's your husband?" she asked off-
hand.
"Oh, he disappeared as soon as these de-
partment store dicks showed up," she replied
bitterly. She had been watching Constance
narrowly, quite nonplussed, and unable to
make anything out of what was going on.
Constance looked at Drummond inquiringly.
He shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid
we'll never catch him," he said. "He got the
jump on us—although we have our lines out
for him, too."
She had glanced down quickly at the little


THE SHOPLIFTERS 257
innocent-looking but telltale sphygmomano-
meter.
"You lie!" she exclaimed suddenly, with
all the vigor of a man.
She was pointing at the quivering little
needle which registered a sudden access of emo-
tion totally concealed by the sang-froid of
Drummond's well-schooled exterior.
She wrenched the thing off his wrist and
dropped it into her bag. A moment later she
stood by the open window facing the street,
a bright little police whistle gleaming in her
hand, ready for its shrill alarm if any move
were made to cut short what she had to say.
She was speaking rapidly now.
"You see, I've had it on all of you, one after
another, and each has told me your story, just
enough of it for me to piece it together. Kitty
is suffering from a form of vertigo, an insanity,
kleptomania, the real thing. As for you, Mr.
Drummond, you were in league with the alleged
husband—your own stool pigeon—to catch
Annie Grayson."
Drummond moved. So did the whistle. He
stopped.
"But she was too clever for you all. She
was not caught, even by a man who lived with
'


258 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
her as her own husband. For she was not oper-
ating. ''
Annie Grayson moved as if to face out her
accusers at this sudden turn of fortune.
"One moment, Annie," cut in Constance.
'' And yet, you are the real shoplifter, after all.
You fell into the trap which Drummond laid for
you. I take pleasure, Mr. Drummond, in pre-
senting you with better evidence than even your
own stool pigeon could possibly have given you
under the circumstances."
She paused.
"For myself," she concluded, "I claim
Kitty Carr. I claim the right to take her, to
have her treated for her—her disease. I claim
it because the real shoplifter, the queen of the
shoplifters, Annie Grayson, has worked out a
brand-new scheme, taking up a true klepto-
maniac and using her insanity to carry out the
stealings which she suggested—and safely, to
this point, has profited by I"


CHAPTER X
THE BLACKMAILERS
"They'be late this afternoon."
"Yes. I think they might be on time. I
wish they had made the appointment in a
quieter place."
"What do you care, Anita? Probably some-
body else is doing the same thing somewhere
else. What's sauce for the gander is sauce for
the goose."
"I know he has treated me like a dog, Alice,
bul^"
There was just a trace of a catch in the voice
of the second woman as she broke off the re-
mark and left it unfinished.
Constance Dunlap had caught the words un-
intentionally above the hum of conversation
and the snatches of tuneful music wafted from
the large dining-room where day was being
turned into night.
She had dropped into the fashionable new
Vanderveer Hotel, not to meet any one, but
because she liked to watch the people^n^ Pea-
259


260 CONSTANCE DUNLAP

cock Alley," as the corridor of the hotel was
often popularly called.
Somehow, as she sat inconspicuously in a
deep chair in an angle, she felt that very few
of the gaily chatting couples or of the waiting
men and women about her were quite what
they seemed on the surface.
The conversation from around the angle
confirmed her opinion. Here, apparently at
least, were two young married women with a
grievance, and it was not for those against
whom they had the grievance, real or imagined,
that they were waiting so anxiously.
Constance leaned forward to see them bet-
ter. The woman nearest her was a trifle
the elder of the two, a very attractive-look-
ing woman, tastefully gowned and carefully
groomed. The younger, who had been the
first speaker, was, perhaps, the more dashing.
Certainly she appeared to be the more sophis-
ticated. And as Constance caught her eye she
involuntarily thought of the old proverb,
"Never trust a man who doesn't look you in
the eye or a woman who does."
Two men sauntered down the long corridor,
on the way from a visit to the bar. As they
caught sight of the two ladies, there was a
smile of recognition, an exchange of remarks
lESfr iyv_-


THE BLACKMAILERS 261
between each pair, and the men hurried in the
direction of the corner.
They greeted the two ladies in low, banter-
ing, familiar terms—" Mr. Smith," "Mrs.
Jones," "Mr. White" and "Mrs. Brown."
"You got my card? " asked one of the men
of the woman nearest Constance. "Sorry
we're late, but a business friend ran into us
as we were coming in and I had to shunt him
off in the other direction."
He nodded toward the opposite end of the
corridor with a laugh.
"You've been bad boys," pouted the other
woman, "but we forgive you—this time."
"Perhaps we may hope to be reinstated
after a little—er—tea—and a dance?" sug-
gested the other man.
The four were all moving in the direction of
the dining-room and the gay music.
They had disappeared in the crush about the
door before Constance noticed that the woman
who had been sitting nearest her had dropped
an envelope. She picked it up. It was on the
stationery of another fashionable hotel, evi-
dently written by one of those who lounge in
and on the strength of a small bill in the esfS
use the writing room. In a man's hand was
the name, " Mrs. Anita Douglas, The Mel«
combe Apartments, City"


262 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Before she realized it, Constance had pulled
out the card inside and glanced at it. It read:
My deabest A:
Can you meet us in the Vanderveer to-mor-
row afternoon at four? Bring along your lit-
tle friend.
With many * * * *
Yours,
T??M
Mechanically Constance crumpled the card
and the envelope in her hand and held them as
she regarded the passing throng, intending to
throw them away when she passed a scrap
basket on the way out.
Still, it was a fascinating scene, this of the
comedy and tragedy of human weaknesses,
and she stayed much longer than she had in-
tended. One by one the people had either
gone to dinner in the main dining-room or
elsewhere and Constance had nearly decided
on going, too.
She was looking down the corridor toward
the desk when she saw something that caused
her to change her mind. There was the young
lady who had been talking so flippantly to the
woman with a grievance, and she was now
talking, of all people, to Drummond!


THE BLACKMAILERS 263
Constance shrank back into her wicker chair
in the protecting angle. What did it mean?
If Drummond had anything to do with it,
even remotely, it boded no good, at least.
Suddenly a possible explanation crossed her
mind. Was it a side-light upon that peculiar
industry of divorce as practiced in no place
except New York?
It was not only that Constance longed for,
lived by excitement. She felt a sense of curi-
osity as to what the detective was up to now.
And, somehow, she felt a duty in the case. She
determined to return the envelope and card,
and meet the woman. And the more she
thought of it the more imperative became the
idea.
So it came about that the following forenoon
Constance sought out the Melcombe Apart-
ments, a huge stone and brick affair on a street
which, the uptown trend of population was
transforming.
Anita Douglas, she had already found out
by an inquiry or two, was the wife of a well-
known business man. Yet, as she entered the
little apartment, she noticed that there was no
evidence about it of a man's presence.
Mrs. Douglas greeted her unexpected visitor
with an inquiring look.
18


264 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"I was passing through the corridor of the
Vanderveer yesterday afternoon," began Con-
stance, leaping into the middle of her errand,
"and I happened to see this envelope lying on
the carpet. I thought first of destroying it;
then that perhaps you would rather destroy it
yourself."
Mrs. Douglas almost pounced on the letter
as Constance handed it to her. "Thajik you,"
she exclaimed. "It was very thoughtful of
you."
For a moment or two they chatted of incon-
sequential things.
"Who was your friend? " asked Constance
at length.
The woman caught her breath and flushed a
bit, evidently wondering just how much Con-
stance really knew.
"The young lady," added Constance, who
had put the question in this form purposely.
"Why do you ask? " Mrs. Douglas inquired
in a tone that betrayed considerable relief.
"Because I can tell you something of her,
I think."
"A friend of mine—a Mrs. Murray.
Why?"
"Aren't you just a little bit afraid of—er—
friends that you may chance to make in fee
city? " queried Constance.


THE BLACKMAILERS 265
"Afraid?" repeated the other.
"Yes," said Constance, coming gradually
to the point. "You know there are so many
detectives about."
Mrs. Douglas laughed half nervously. "Oh,
I've been shadowed," she replied confidently.
"I know how to shake them off. If you can't
do anything else, you can always take a taxi.
Besides, I think I can uncover almost any
shadow. All you have to do, if you think
you're being shadowed, is to turn a corner and
stop. That uncovers the shadow as soon as he
comes up to the corner, and after that he is use-
less. You know him.''
"That's all right," nodded Constance;
"but you don't know these crooked detectives
nowadays as I do. They can fake up evidence
to order. That is their business, you know,
to manufacture it. You may uncover a six-
dollar operative, Mrs. Douglas, but are you
the equal of a twenty-dollar-a-day investi-
gator?"
The woman looked genuinely scared. Evi-
dently Constance knew some things she didn't
know, at least about detectives.
"You—you don't think there is anything
like that, do you? " she asked anxiously.
"Well," replied Constance slowly to im-
press her, " I saw your friend, Mrs. Murray,


THE BLACKMAILERS 267
"Now, for instance," added Constance
quickly, "you say she is a friend of yours.
How did you meet her?"
Mrs. Douglas did not raise her eyes to Con-
stance's now. Yet she seemed to feel that
Constance was different from other chance ac-
quaintances, to feel a sort of confidence, and
to want to meet frankness with frankness.
"One day I was with a friend of mine at
the new Palais de Maxixe," she answered in a
low voice as if making a confession. "A
woman in the dressing-room borrowed a cigar-
ette. You know they often do that. We got
talking, and it seemed that we had much in
common in our lives. Before I went back to
him—"
She bit her lip. She had evidently not in-
tended to admit that she knew any other men.
Constance, however, appeared not to notice
the slip.
"I had arranged to meet her at luncheon
the next day," she continued hastily. "We
have been friends ever since."
"You went to luncheon with her, and—"
Constance prompted.
"Oh, she told me her story. It was very
much like my own—a husband who was a per-
fect bear, and then gossip about him that so


270 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
He had, in fact, spent the evening in her
company, after the other couple had excused
themselves on one pretext or another.
She called up Alice Murray at the number
she had given. She was not there. In fact, no
one seemed to know when she would be there.
It was strange, because always before it had
seemed possible to get her at any moment, al-
most instantly. That, too, worried her.
She tried to get the thing out of her mind,
but she could not. She had a sort of forebod-
ing that her new friend had not spoken with-
out reason, a feeling of insecurity as though
something were impending over her.
The crisis came sooner than even Constance
had anticipated when she called on Anita
Douglas. It was early in the afternoon, while
Anita was still brooding, that a strange man
called on her. Instinctively she seemed to di-
vine that he was a detective. He, at least, had
the look.
"My name," he introduced himself, "is
Drummond.''
Drummond paused and glanced about as if
to make sure that he could by no possibility b©
overheard.
"I have called," he continued, "ona rather
delicate matter."


THE BLACKMAILERS 271
He paused for effect, then went on:
"Some time ago I was employed by Mr.
Douglas to—er—to watch, his wife."
He was watching her narrowly to see what
effect his sudden remark would have on her.
She was speechless.
"Since then," he added quietly, "I have
watched, I have seen—what I have seen."
Drummond had faced her. Somehow the
effect of his words was more potent on her
than if he had not accused her by indirection*
Still she said nothing.
"I can suppress it," he insinuated.
Her heart was going like a trip-hammer.
"But it will cost something to do that."
Here was a straw—she caught at it eagerly.
"Gost something?" she repeated, facing
him. "How much?"
Drummond never took his eyes from her
anxious face.
"I was to get a fee of one thousand dollars
if I obtained some letters that had passed from
her to a man named Lynn Munro. He has gone
out of town—has left his rooms unguarded. I
have the letters."
She felt a sinking sensation. One thousand
dollars!
Suddenly the truth of the situation flashed
over her. He had come with an offer that set


272 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
her bidding against her husband for the let-
ters. And in a case of dollars her husband
would win. One thousand dollars! It was
blackmail.
"I—I can't afford it," she pleaded weakly.
"Can't you make it—less?"
Drummond shook his head. Already he had
learned what he had come to learn. She did
not have the money.
"No," he replied positively, adding, by way
of inserting the knife and turning it around,
"I shall have to turn the letters over to him
to-day.''
She drew herself up. At least she could fight
back.
"But you can't prove anything," she cut in
quickly.
"Can't I? he returned. "The letters don't
speak for themselves, do they? You don't
realize that this interview helps to prove it, do
you? An innocent woman wouldn't have con-
sidered my offer, much less plead with me.
Bah! can't prove anything. Why, it's all in
plain black and white!"
Drummond flicked the ashes from his cigar
into the fireplace as he rose to go. At the door
he turned for one parting shot.
"I have all the evidence I need," he con-
cluded. "I've got the goods on you. To-night


THE BLACKMAILERS . 273
it will be locked in his safe—documentary evi-
dence. If you should change your mind—you
can reach me at his office. Call under an as-
sumed name—Mrs. Green, perhaps."
He was gone, with a mocking smile at the
parting shot
.
Anita Douglas saw it all now. Things had
not been going fast enough to suit her new
friend, Mrs. Murray. So, after a time, she had
begun to tell of her own escapades and to try to
get Anita to admit that she had had similar
adventures. It was a favorite device of detec-
tives, working under the new psychological
method by use of the law of suggestion.
She had introduced herself, had found out
about Lynn Munro, and in some way, after he
had left town, had got the letters. Was he in
the plot, too? She could not believe it
.
Suddenly the thought came to her that the
blackmailers might give her husband material
that would look very black if a suit for divorce
came up in court.
What if he were able to cut off her little al-
lowance? She trembled at the thought of be-
ing thus cast adrift on the world.
Anita Douglas did not know which way to
turn. In her dilemma she thought only of
Constance. She hurried to her.


THE BLACKMAILERS 275
indiscreet friendships. You are more sinned
against than sinning."
Sympathy had its effect. Anita was now
sobbing softly, as Constance stole her arm
about her waist.
"The next question," she reasoned, consid-
ering aloud, " is, of course, what to do? If it
was just one of these blackmailing detective
cases it would be common, but still very hard
to deal with. There's a lot of such blackmail-
ing going on in New York. Next to business
and political cases, I suppose, it is the private
detective's most important graft. Nearly
everybody has a past—although few are will-
ing to admit it. The graft lies in the fact that
people talk so much, are so indiscreet, take such
reckless chances. It's a wonder, really, that
there isn't more of it."
"Yet there is the—evidence, as he called
it—my letters to Lynn—and the reports that
that woman must have made of our—our con-
versations," groaned Anita. "How they may
distort it all!"
Constance was thinking rapidly.
"It is now after four o'clock," she said
finally, looking at her wrist watch. "You say
it was not half an hour ago that Drummond
called on you. He must be downtown about
now. Your husband will hardly have a chance
^


THE BLACKMAILERS 277
sufficient answer to a host of unspoken ques-
tions.
A moment after Mrs. Douglas had gone, Con-
stance opened a cabinet. From the false back
of a drawer she took two little vials of powder
and a small bottle with a sponge.
Then she added a long steel bar, with a pe-
culiar turn at the end, to her paraphernalia for
the trip.
Nothing further occurred until they met at
the Terminal, or, in fact, on the journey out.
On most of the ride Mrs. Douglas kept her face
averted, looking out of the window into the
blackness of the night. Perhaps she was think-
ing of other journeys out to Glenclair, perhaps
she was afraid of meeting the curious gaze of
any late sojourners who might suffer from
acute suburban curiosity.
Quietly the two women alighted and quickly
made their way from the station up the main
street, then diverged to a darker and less fre-
quented avenue.
"There's the house," pointed out Mrs.
Douglas, halting Constance, with a little bitter
exclamation.
Evidently she had reasoned well. He had
gone out there early and there was a light in
the library.
"He isn't much of a reader," whispered


THE BLACKMAILERS 279
Quickly they advanced Over the open space
to the cottage, approaching in the shadow as
much as possible.
Tiptoeing over the porch, Constance tried a
window, the window through which had shown
the tantalizing light. It was fastened.
Without hesitation she pulled out the long
steel bar with the twisted head, and began to
insert the sharp end between the sashes.
"Aren't—you—afraid?" chattered her
companion.
"No," she whispered, not looking up from
her work. "You know, most persons don't
know enough about jimmies. Against them an
ordinary door lock or window catch is no pro-
tection at all. Why, with this jimmy, even a
woman can exert a pressure of a ton or so. Not
one catch in a thousand can stand it—certainly
not this one."
Constance continued to work, muffling the
lever as much as possible in a piece of felt.
At last a quick wrench and the catch yielded.
The only thing wrong about it was the noise.
There had been no wind, no passing trolley,
nothing to conceal it.
They shrank back into the shadow, and
waited breathless. Had it been heard? Would
a window open presently and an alarm be
sounded?
'
18


280 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
There was not a sound, save the rustle of the
leaves in the night wind.
A few minutes later Constance carefully
raised the lower sash and they stepped softly
into the house—once the house over which Anita
Douglas had been mistress.
Cautiously Constance pressed the button on
a little pocket storage-battery lamp and flashed
it slowly about the room.
All was quiet in the library. The library table
was disordered, as if some one in great stress
of mind had been working at it. Anita won-
dered what had been the grim thoughts of the
man as he pondered on the mass of stuff,
the tissue of falsehoods that the blackmailing
detective had handed to him at such great
cost.
At last the cone of light rested on a little safe
at the opposite end.
"There it is," whispered Anita, pointing,
half afraid even of the soft tones of her own
voice.
Constance had pulled down all the shades
quietly, and drew the curtains tightly between
the room and the foyer.
On the top of the safe she was pouring some
of the powder in a neat pile from one of the
vials.


282 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
Was it an optical illusion, a freak of her
sight?
"Wh-what is it?" she whispered in awe,
drawing closer to her friend.
"Thermit," whispered Constance in reply,
as the two watched the glowing mass fascinated,
"an invention of a German chemist named
Goldschmidt. It will bum a hole right through
steel—at a terrific temperature, three thousand
or more degrees."
The almost burned out mass seemed to fall
into the safe as if it had been a wooden box in-
stead of chrome steel.
They waited a moment, still blinking, to re-
gain control over their eyes in spite of the care
they had used to shield them.
Then they tiptoed across the floor.
In the top of the safe yawned a hole large
enough to stick one's hand and arm through!
Constance reached into the safe and drew out
something on which she flashed the pocket light.
There was bundle after bundle of checks, the
personal checks of a methodical business man,
carefully preserved.
Hastily she looked them over. All seemed to
be perfectly straight—payments to tradesmen,
to real estate agents, payments of all sorts, all
carefully labeled.


THE BLACKMAILERS 283
"Oh, he'd never let anything like that lie
around," remarked Anita, as she began to com-
prehend what Constance was after.
Constance was scrutinizing some of the checks
more carefully than others. Suddenly she held
one up to the light. Apparently it was in pay-
ment of legal services.
Quickly she took the little bottle of brownish
fluid which she had brought with the sponge.
She dipped the sponge in it lightly and
brushed it over the check. Then she leaned for-
ward breathlessly.
"Eradicating ink is simply a bleaching pro-
cess," she remarked, " which leaves the iron of
the ink as a white oxide instead of a black oxide.
The proper reagent will restore the original
color—partially and at least for a time. Ah—
yes—it is as I thought. There have been era-
sures in these checks. Other names have been
written in on some of them in place of those that
were originally there. The sulphide of am-
monia ought to bring out anything that is hid-
den here.
There, faintly, was the original writing. It
read, " Pay to the order of—Helen Brett—"
Mrs. Douglas with difficulty restrained an
exclamation of anger and hatred at the mere
sight of the name of the other woman.
"He was careful," remarked Constance.


284 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
'' Reckless at first in giving checks—he has tried
to cover it up. He didn't want to destroy them,
yet he couldn't have such evidence about. So
he must have altered the name on the canceled
vouchers after they were returned to him paid
by the bank. Very clever—very."
Constance reached into the safe again. There
were some personal and some business letters,
some old check books, some silver and gold
trinkets and table silver.
She gave a low exclamation. She had found a
packet of letters and a sheaf of typewritten
flimsy tissue paper pages.
Mrs. Douglas uttered a little cry, quickly sup-
pressed. The letters were those in her own
handwriting addressed to Lynn Munro.
"Here are Drummond's reports, too," Con-
stance added.
She looked them hastily over. The damning
facts had been massed in a way that must in-
evitably have prejudiced any case for the de-
fense that Mrs. Douglas might set up.
"There—there's all the evidence against
you," whispered Constance hoarsely, handing it
over to Anita. "It's all yours again. Destroy
it."
In her eagerness, with trembling hands, Anita
had torn up the whole mass of incriminating


THE BLACKMAILERS 285
papers and had cast them into the fireplace.
She was just about to strike a match.
Suddenly there came a deep voice from the
stairs.
"Well—what's all this?"
Anita dropped the match from her nerveless
hands. Constance felt an arm grasp her tightly.
For a moment a chill ran over her at being
caught in the nefarious work of breaking and
entering a dwelling-house at night. The hand
was Anita's, but the voice was that of a man.
Lights flashed all over the house at once, from
a sort of electric light system that could be in-
stantly lighted and would act as a " burglar ex-
peller."
It was Douglas himself. He was staring an-
grily at his wife and the stranger with her.
"Well?" he demanded with cold sarcasm.
"Why this—this burglary?"
Before he could quite take in the situation,
with a quick motion, Constance struck a match
and touched it to the papers in the fireplace.
As they blazed up he caught sight of what
they were and almost leaped across the floor.
Constance laid her hand on his arm. "One
moment, Mr. Douglas," she said quietly.
"Look at that!"
"Who—who the devil are you? " he gasped.
'• What's all this?"


286 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
n
I think,' remarked Constance slowly and
quietly,'' that your wife is now in a position to
prove that you—well, don't come into court with
clean hands, if you attempt to do so. Besides,
you know, the courts rather frown on detectives
that practice collusion and conspiracy and
frame up evidence, to say nothing of trying to
blackmail the victims. I thought perhaps you'd
prefer not to say anything about this—er—visit
to-night—after you saw that."
Constance had quietly laid one of the erased
checks on the library table. Again she dipped
the sponge into the brownish liquid. Again the
magic touch revealed the telltale name. With
her finger she was pointing to the faintly legible
"Helen Brett" on the check as the sulphide
had brought it out.
Douglas stared—dazed.
He rubbed his eyes and stared again as the
last of the flickering fire died away. In an in-
stant he realized that it was not a dream, that
it was all a fact.
He looked from one to the other of the women.
He was checkmated.
Constance ostentatiously folded up the erased
vouchers.
"I—I shall not—make any—contest," Doug-
las managed to gasp huskily.


THE DOPE FIENDS 289
and shifted his eyes from Adele to Constance.
"Just what seems to be the difficulty? " he in-
quired.
Constance told him how she felt, of her gen-
eral lassitude and the big, throbbing veins in her
temples.
"Ah—a woman's headaches!" he smiled,
adding, "Nothing serious, however, in this
case, as far as I can see. We can fix this one
all right, I think."
He wrote out a prescription quickly and
handed it to Constance.
"Of course," he added, as he pocketed his
fee, " it makes no difference to me personally,
but I would advise that you have it filled at
Muller's—Miss Gordon knows the place. I
think Muller's drugs are perhaps fresher than
those of most druggists, and that makes a great
deal of difference.''
He had risen and was politely and suavely
bowing them out of another door, at the same
time by pressing a button signifying to his at-
tendant to admit the next patient.
Constance had preceded Adele, and, as she
passed through the other door, she overheard
the doctor whisper to her friend, "I'm going
to stop for you to-night to take a ride. I have
something important I want to say to you."
She did not catch Adele's answer, but as they


290 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
left the marble and onyx, brass-grilled entrance,
Adele remarked: " That's his car—over there.
Oh, but he is a reckless driver—dashes along
pell-mell—but always seems to have his eye out
for everything—never seems to be arrested,
never in an accident.''
Constance turned in the direction of the car
and was startled to see the familiar face of
Drummond across the street dodging behind it.
What was it now, she wondered—a divorce
case, a scandal—what?
The medicine was made up into little powders,
to be taken until they gave relief, and Constance
folded the paper of one, poured it on the back
of her tongue and swallowed a glass of water
afterward.
Her head continued to throb, but she felt a
sense of well-being that she had not before.
Adele urged her to take another, and Constance
did so.
The second powder increased the effect of the
first marvelously. But Constance noticed that
she now began to feel queer. She was not used
to taking medicine. For a moment she felt that
she was above, beyond the reach of ordinary
rules and laws. She could have done any sort
of physical task, she felt, no matter how diffi-
cult. She was amazed at herself, as compared


THE DOPE FIENDS 291
to what she had been only a few moments be-
fore.
"Another one? " asked Adele finally.
Constance was by this time genuinely alarmed
at the sudden unwonted effect on herself.
"N-no," she replied dubiously, " I don't think
I want to take any more, just yet."
"Not another?" asked Adele in surprise.
"I wish they would affect me that way. Some-
times I have to take the whole dozen before they
have any effect."
They chatted for a few minutes, and finally
Adele rose.
""Well," she remarked with a nervous
twitching of her body, as if she were eager to
be doing something, " I really must be going.
I can't say I feel any too well myself."
"I think I'll take a walk with you," answered
Constance, who did not like the continued effect
of the two powders. "I feel the need of exer-
cise—and air."
Adele hesitated, but Constance already had
her hat on. She had seen Drummond watching
Dr. Price's door, and it interested her to know
whether he could possibly have been following
Adele or some one else.
As they walked along Adele quickened her
pace, until they came again to the drug
store.


292 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"I believe I'll go in and get something," she
remarked, pausing.
For the first time in several minutes Con-
stance looked at the face of her friend. She was
amazed to discover that Adele looked as if she
had had a spell of sickness. Her eyes were large
and glassy, her skin cold and sweaty, and she
looked positively pallid and thin.
As they entered the store Muller, the drug-
gist, bowed again and looked at Adele a moment
as she leaned over the counter and whispered
something to him. Without a word he went into
the arcana behind the partition that cuts off the
mysteries of the prescription room in every drug
store from the front of the store.
f
When Muller returned he handed her a
packet, for which she paid and which she
dropped quickly into her pocketbook, hugging
the pocketbook close to herself.
Adele turned and was about to hurry from the
store with Constance. "Oh, excuse me," she
said suddenly as if she had just recollected
something, " I promised a friend of mine I'd
telephone this afternoon, and I have forgotten
to do it. I see a pay station here.'' Constance
waited.
Adele returned much quicker than one would
have expected she could call up a number, but
Constance thought nothing of it at the time.


294 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
ner had checked her headache, and now the
axcitement of the chase of something, she knew
not what, completed the cure.
It was not long before she discovered that
Drummond was watching intently, without
seeming to do so, a nervous-looking fellow
whose general washed-out appearance of face
was especially unattractive for some reason
or other. He was very thin, very pale, and
very stary about the eyes. Then, too, it
seemed as if the bone in his nose was going,
due perhaps to the shrinkage of the blood ves-
sels from some cause.
Constance noticed a couple of girls whom she
had seen Adele speak to on several other oc-
casions approaching the young man.
There came an opportune lull in the music
and from around the corner of her protecting
angle Constance could just catch the greeting
of one of the girls, " Hello, Sleighbells! Got
any snow?"
It was a remark that seemed particularly
malapropos to the sultry weather, and Con-
stance half expected a burst of laughter at
the unexpected sally.
Instead, she was surprised to hear the young
man reply in a very serious and matter-of-fact
manner, " Sure. Got any money, May?"
She craned her neck, carefully avoiding


THE DOPE FIENDS 295
coming into Drnmmond's line of vision, and
as she did so she saw two silver quarters gleam
momentarily from hand to hand, and the young
man passed each girl stealthily a small white
paper packet.
Others came to him, both men and women.
It seemed to be an established thing, and Con-
stance noted that Drummond watched it all
covertly.
"Who is that?" asked Constance of the
waiter who had served her sometimes when
she had been with Adele, and knew her.
"Why, they call him Sleighbells Charley,"
he replied, " a coke fiend."
'' Which means a cocaine fiend, I suppose ?''
she queried.
"Yes. He's a lobbygow for the grapevine
system they have now of selling the dope in
spite of this new law."
"Where does he get the stuff? " she asked.
The waiter shrugged his shoulders. "No-
body knows, I guess. I don't. But he gets it
in spite of the law and peddles it. Oh, it's all
adulterated—with some white stuff, I don't
know what, and the price they charge is out-
rageous. They must make an ounce retail at
five or six times the cost. Oh, you can bet that
some one who is at the top is making a pile of
money out of that graft, all right."
20


296 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
He said it not with any air of righteous in-
dignation, but with a certain envy.
Constance was thinking the thing over in her
mind. Where did the "coke" come from?
The " grapevine" system interested her.
"Sleighbells" seemed to have disposed of
all the " coke " he had brought with him. As
the last packet went, he rose slowly, and
shuffled out. Constance, who knew that Adele
would not come for some time, determined to
follow him. She rose quietly and, under cover
of a party going out, managed to disappear
without, as far as she knew, letting Drummond
catch a glimpse of her. This would not only
employ her time, but it was better to avoid
Drummond as far as possible, at present, too,
she felt.
At a distance of about half a block she fol-
lowed the curiously shuffling figure. He
crossed the avenue, turned and went uptown,
turned again, and, before she knew it, disap-
peared in a drug store. She had been so en-
grossed in following the lobbygow that it was
with a start that she realized that he had en-
tered Muller's.
What did it all mean? Was the druggist,
Muller, the man higher up? She recalled sud-
denly her own experience of the afternoon.


THE DOPE FIENDS 297
Had Muller tried to palm off something on
her? The more she thought of it the more
sure she was that the powders she had taken
had been doped.
Slowly, turning the matter over in her mind,
she returned to the Mayfair. As she peered in
cautiously before entering she saw that Drum-
mond had gone. Adele had not come in yet,
and she went in and sat down again in her old
place.
Perhaps half an hour later, outside, she
heard a car drive up with a furious rattle of
gears. She looked out of the window and, as
far as she could determine in the shadows, it
was Dr. Price. A woman got out, Adele. For
a moment she stopped to talk, then Dr. Price
waved a gay good-bye and was off. All she
could catch was a hasty, "No; I don't think
I'd better come in to-night," from him.
As Adele entered the Mayfair she glanced
about, caught sight of Constance and came and
sat down by her.
It would have been impossible for her to
enter unobserved, so popular was she. It was
not long before the two girls whom Constance
had seen dealing with "Sleighbells" saun-
tered over.
"Your friend was here to-night," remarked
one to Adele.
"


298 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
"Which one? " laughed Adele.
"The one who admired your dancing the
other night and wanted to take lessons.''
"You mean the young fellow who was sell-
ing something?" asked Constance pointedly.
"Oh, no," returned the girl quite casually.
"That was Sleighbells," and they all laughed.
Constance thought immediately of Drum-
Mond. "The other one, then," she said, " the
thick-set man who was all alone?"
"Yes; he went away afterward. Do you
know him?"
"I've seen him somewhere," evaded Con-
stance; " but I just can't quite place him."
She had not noticed Adele particularly until
now. Under the light she had a peculiar worn
look, the same as she had had before.
The waiter came up to them. "Your turn
is next," he hinted to Adele.
"Excuse me a minute," she apologized to
the rest of the party. "I must fix up a bit.
No," she added to Constance, "don't come
with me."
She returned from the dressing room a dif-
ferent person, and plunged into the wild dance
for which the limited orchestra was already
tuning up. It was a veritable riot of whirl and
rhythm. Never before had Constance seen


THE DOPE FIENDS 303
most imperceptible opening. It was tedious
work, and toward the end needed great care
so as not to excite suspicion. But finally she
was rewarded. Through it she could see just
a trace of daylight, and by squinting could see
a row of bottles on a shelf opposite.
Then, through the hole, she pushed a long,
narrow tube, like a putty blower. When at last
she placed her eye at it, she gave a low excla-
mation of satisfaction. She could now see the
whole of the little room.
It was a detectascope, invented by Gaillard
Smith, adapter of the detectaphone, an instru-
ment built up on the principle of the cyto-
scope which physicians use to explore inter-
nally down the throat. Only, in the end of the
tube, instead of an ordinary lens, was placed
what is known asa" fish-eye '' lens, which had
a range something like nature has given the
eyes of fishes, hence the name. Ordinarily
cameras, because of the flatness of their lenses,
have a range of only a few degrees, the great-
est being scarcely more than ninety. But this
lens was globular, and, like a drop of water,
refracted light from all directions. When
placed so that half of it caught the light it
"saw" through an angle of 180 degrees,
"saw " everything in the room instead of just


308 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
know she's there. My shadow saw her tray
the dope and take it home."
Her heart was thumping wildly. It was
Drummond leading his squad of raiders, and
they were about to enter the apartment of
Adele. They knocked, but there was no an-
swer.
A few moments before Constance would have
felt perfectly safe in saying that Adele was
out. But if Drummond's man had seen her
enter, might she not have been there all the
time, be there still, in a stupor? She dreaded
to think of what might happen if the poor girl
once fell into their hands. It would be the
final impulse that would complete her ruin.
Constance did not stop to reason it out.
Her woman's intuition told her that now was
the time to act—that there was no retreat.
She opened her own door just as the raiders
had forced in the flimsy affair that guarded the
apartment of Adele.
"So!" sneered Drummond, catching sight
of her in the dim light of the hallway. "You
are mixed up in these violations of the new
drug law, too!''
Constance said nothing. She had deter-
mined first to make Drummond display his
hand.
"Well," he ground out, "I'm going to get


310 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
happened next in the hurly-burly of events,
until the ambulance pulled up at the door and
the white-coated surgeon burst in carrying a
heavy suitcase.
With one look at the unfortunate girl he
muttered, "Paralysis of the respiratory or-
gans—too large a dose of the drug. You did
perfectly right," and began unpacking the case.
Constance, calm now in the crisis, stood by
him and helped as deftly as could any nurse.
It was a curious arrangement of tubes and
valves, with a large rubber bag, and a little
pump that the doctor had brought. Quickly
he placed a cap, attached to it, over the nose
and mouth of the poor girl, and started the
machine.
"Wh-what is it? " gasped Drummond as he
saw Adele's hitherto motionless breast now
rise and fall.
"A pulmotor," replied the doctor, working
quickly and carefully, "an artificial lung.
Sometimes it can revive even the medically
dead. It is our last chance with this girl.''
Constance had picked up the packet which
had fallen beside Adele and was looking at the
white powder.
'' Almost pure cocaine,'' remarked the young
surgeon, testing it. "The hydrochloride,
large crystals, highest quality. Usually it is


THE DOPE FIENDS 313
istered a stimulant and she vaguely opened her
eyes, began to talk hazily, dreamily. Con-
stance bent over to catch the faint words which
would have been lost to the others.
"They—are going to—double cross the
Health Department," she murmured as if to
herself, then gathering strength she went on,
"Muller and Sleighbells will be arrested and
take the penalty. They have been caught with
the goods, anyhow. It has all been arranged
so that the detective will get his case. Money
—will be paid to both of them, to Muller and
the detective, to swing the case and protect
him. He made me do it. I saw the detective,
even danced with him and he agreed to do it.
Oh, I would do anything—I am his willing tool
when I have the stuff. But—this time—it
was—" She rambled off incoherently.
"Who made you do it? Who told you?"
prompted Constance. "For whom would you
do anything?"
Adele moaned and clutched Constance's hand
convulsively. Constance did not pause to con-
sider the ethics of questioning a half-uncon-
scious girL Her only idea was to get at the
truth.
"Who was it? " she reiterated.
Adele turned weakly.
"Dr. Price," she murmured as Constance


THE FUGITIVES 317
Yet she felt an admiration for the sang-froid
of Macey. She felt a spell thrown over her by,
the magnetic eyes that seemed to search her
own. They were large eyes, the eyes of a
dreamer, rather than of a practical man, eyes
of a man who goes far and travels long with
the woman on whom he fixes them solely.
"You haven't answered my hypothetical
question," he reminded her.
She brought herself back with a start. "I
was only thinking," she murmured.
"Then there is doubt in your mind what you
would do?"
"N—no," she hesitated.
He bent over nearer across the table. "You
would at least recall the old adage, ' Do unto
others as you would that they should do unto
you '? " he urged.
It was uncanny, the way this man read her
thoughts.
"You know whom they say quotes scrip-
ture," she avoided.
"And am I a—a devil?"
"I did not say so."
"You hinted it."
She had. But she said, " No, nor hinted it."
"Then you did not mean to hint it?"
She looked away a moment at the gay


THE FUGITIVES 321
Acquaintances with Constance ripened fast
into friendships. She had known Macey, as he
called himself, only a fortnight. He had been
introduced to her at a sort of Bohemian gath-
ering, had talked to her, direct, as she liked a
man to talk. He had seen her home that night,
had asked to call, and on the other nights had
taken her to the theater and to supper.
Delicately unconsciously, a bond of friend-
ship had grown up between them. She felt
that he was a man vibrating with physical and
mental power, long latent, which nothing but
a strong will held in check, a man by whom she
could be fascinated, yet of whom she was just
a little bit afraid.
With Macey, it would have been difficult to
analyze his feelings. He had found in Con-
stance a woman who had seen the world in all
its phases, yet had come through unstained by
what would have drowned some in the depths
of the under-world, or thrust others into the
degradation of the demi-monde, at least. He
admired and respected her. He, the dreamer,
saw in her the practical. She, an adventurer
in amateur lawlessness saw in him something
kindred at heart.
And so when a newspaper came to her in
which she recognized with her keen insight
Lawrence Macey's face under Graeme Mac-


330 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
sale at a high price. Every stratagem that
Drummond's astute mind could devise was
called into play. But nothing, not a scrap of
new evidence did they find.
Yet all the time Constance was in direct com-
munication with Mackenzie.
Graeme, in his enforced idleness, was more
deeply in love with Constance now than ever.
He had eyes for nothing else. Even his for-
tunes would have been disregarded, had he not
felt that to do that would have been the surest
way to condemn himself before her.
They had cut out the evening trips now, for
fear of recognition. She was working faith-
fully. Already she had cleaned up something
like fifty thousand dollars on the turn over of
the stuff he had stolen. Another week and it
would be some thousands more.
Yet the strain was beginning to show.
"Oh, Graeme,", she cried, one night after
she had a particularly hard time in shaking
Drummond's shadows in order to make her
unconventional visit to him, " Graeme, I'm so
tired of it all—tired."
He was about to pour out what was in his
own heart when she resumed, " It's the lone-
someness of it. We are having success. But,
what is success—alone?"


THE FUGITIVES 333
the point of her self-imposed mission, "per-
haps there may be some other way to settle this
case than through Mr. Drummond."
"We might hold you," he shot out quickly.
"No," she replied, "you have nothing on
me. And as for Mr. Mackenzie, I understand,
you don't even know where he is—whether he
is in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, or
whether he may not go from one city to an-
other at any moment you take open action."
Wickham bit his lip. He knew she was right.
Even yet the case hung on the most slender
threads.
"I have been wondering," she continued,
"if there is not some way in which this thing
can be compromised."
"Never," exclaimed Wickham positively.
"He must return the whole sum, with interest
to date. Then and only then can we consider
his plea for clemency."
"You would consider it? " she asked keenly.
"Of course. We should have to consider it.
Voluntary surrender and reparation would be
something like turning state's witness—against
himself.''
Constance said nothing.
"Can you do it? *' he asked, watching craft-
ily to see whether she might not drop a hint
that might prove valuable.


THE FUGITIVES 335
be left as free a man as he is at this moment—
why,—I can have him give up."
"Mrs. Dunlap," said Wickham with an air
of finality, " I will make one concession. I will
adopt any method of restitution he may prefer.
But it must be by direct dealing between Mac-
kenzie and myself, with Drummond present as
well as Mr. Taylor, president of the Trust
Company, who is now also in New York. That
is my ultimatum. Good-afternoon."
Constance left the room with flushed face
and eyes that glinted with determination.
Over and over she thought out methods to ac-
complish what she had planned. When they
complied with all the conditions that would
safeguard Mackenzie, she had determined to
act. But Graeme must be master of the situ-
ation.
Cautiously she went through her usual elab-
orate precautions to shake off any shadows
that might be following her, and an hour later
found her with Mackenzie.
"What has happened? " he asked eagerly,
surprised at her early visit.
Briefly she ran over the events of the after-
noon. "Would you be willing," she asked,
"to go to District Attorney Wickham, hand
over the half million with, say, twelve thou-


340 CONSTANCE DUNLAP
canny to be true. Here he was, without stir-
ring forth from the security of his hiding
place; there were his pursuers in their hotel.
With the precautions taken by Constance,
neither party knew where the other was. Yet
they were in instant touch, not by the ear alone,
but by handwriting itself.
He placed the stylus on the paper. She had
already written in the number of the check, the
date, the bank, the amount, and the payee,
Marshall Taylor. Hastily Graeme signed it,
as though in fear that they might rescind their
action before he could finish.
"Now the securities," she said. "I have
withdrawn already the amount we have made
trading—it is a substantial sum. Write out an
order to the Safe Deposit Company to deliver
the key and the rest of the contents of the
box to Taylor. I have fixed it with them after
a special interview this morning. They under-
stand."
Again Graeme wrote, feverishly.
"I—we—are entirely free from prosecution
of any kind? " he asked eagerly.
"Yes," Constance murmured, with just a
catch in her throat, as now that the excitement
was over, she realized that he was free, inde-
pendent of her again.
The telautograph had stopped. No, it was


THE FUGITIVES 341
starting again. Had there been a slip? Was
the dream at last to turn to ashes? They
watched anxiously.
"Mrs. Dunlap," the words unfolded, "I
take my hat off to you. You have put it across
asain.
"Dbummond."
Constance read it with a sense of over-
whelming relief. It was a magnanimous thing
in Drummond. Almost she forgave him for
many of the bitter nours ne had caused in the
discharge of his duty.
As they looked at the writing they realized
its import. The detective had abandoned the
long' search. It was as though he had put his
"0. K." on the agreement.
"We are no longer fugitives!" exclaimed
Graeme, drawing in a breath that told of the
weight lifted from him.
For an instant he looked down into her up-
turned face and read the conflict that was going
on in her. She did not turn away, as she had
before. It flashed over him that once, not
long ago, she had talked in a moment of con-
fidence of the loneliness she had felt since she
had embarked as the rescuer of amateur crim-
inals.
Graeme bent down and took her hand, as he