m "I'll go nowhere without a reason' PLUNDER By ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE Author of LOOT, etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL FOSTER INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHTED BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY UNDER THE TITLE A SCRAP OF PAPER COPYRIGHT 1917 THE BOBBS-MEKRILL COMPANY PRI8B OF BHAUNWOHTH CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN. N. V. Sweetheart: You laughed because I wouldn't change her name, because I insisted on calling her Kirby Rowland. But if I wanted to draw you, as well as my poor pen might, I saw no reason why I should not, by my heroine's name, tell my read- ers that you were her model. And so the name was kept, the name so like your own. But, oh, my dear, I have fallen so far short. One can not, after all, describe the heart. And the you I love is not just the memory of your lovely face, your brave eyes, your merry smile it is the heart of you, the soul of you, that has not gone, that is so near me now. 2132329 PLUNDER PLUNDER MASTERMAN'S eyes gleamed through his heavy glasses. "You've heard me, gentlemen," he said. "I have given you, verbatim, the words of Schloss- felt, the words of MontfoucaulL What's the answer ?" Blaisdell and Cardigan looked at each other. Multimillionaires, wielders of titanic power, they shrank in the presence of Masterman. They controlled a country's food supply, a country's fuel supply ; but Masterman was bigger than they Masterman controlled transportation. Blaisdell fumbled with his collar. "It looks like a pretty big thing," he said nerv- ously. "Too big! I'm pretty well satisfied with things as they are. The United States are big enough for me. I don't know enough about con- ditions abroad " I 2 PLUNDER "You don't have to," snapped Masterman. "Let Schlossf elt and Montfoucault attend to that ! You, Cardigan?" Cardigan was less of a coward than Blaisdell. The latter had inherited his wealth at least, the foundation of it. But Cardigan had begun life as a laborer, and had not entirely lost the burly courage that had made him master of coal. But even Cardigan hesitated. "There'll be the devil's own row, Masterman. Have you discounted that?" Masterman's smile was contemptuous. "Row? Of course there will. But what we do we do with the sanction of the law. And does a man gain a whole world without risk? Have you run no risks in your lives? Faugh! I've said enough. Shall I give Schlossfelt and Mont- foucault the word to go ahead, that we are with them?" He was not eloquent; yet no actor, no orator, could have spoken more intently, with greater suggestion of power, of force held in leash. It was as though, having summed up, he left the choice with them, and yet, despite his calm, both PLUNDER 3 men knew that they would do as he bade them, not because he would compel them, but because greed and the logic of his position impelled them. It was not the first time the subject at issue had been discussed. Many times before had Mas- terman laid the whole project before the two men whom he would have as his allies. But, now, with Schlossfelt and Montfoucault with him, with the two greatest bankers in the country allied with the masters of transportation, of fuel and of food "I want you with me whole-heartedly or not at all," said Masterman. "What is the answer?" "Give them the word," said Blaisdell. Yet as he spoke he cast a furtive glance out the window, down upon the hurrying throngs on Broad Street, as though fear dwelt among those busy pedestrians, fear for Blaisdell, not fear of him. "I'm in," said Cardigan. Masterman looked from one to the other, as though he would read their hearts. Indeed, he did read their hearts; read the crookedness and treachery that the pious exterior of Blaisdell and 4 PLUNDER the bluff and burly front of Cardigan tried to conceal. He smiled, thin-lipped. "One moment, gentlemen." He rose from his place at the head of the table andl walked to a typewriter by the window, and sitting down before it slid in a sheet of paper. There had been many occasions in the past when it had been dangerous to entrust certain writings to the knowledge of even the most trustworthy secretary. Masterman picked out the letters with a quite remarkable celerity. He wrote ten min- utes, whipped the paper out of the machine, walked to the table, with a fountain pen signed his name at the foot of the sheet, and shoved the writing over to Blaisdell. Blaisdell read ; his jaw dropped. "Why this is madness, Masterman! You don't expect us to sign such a thing as this !" "I've signed it," said Masterman coldly. Cardigan arose and peered over Blaisdell's shoulder. He, too, read the writing. He, too, protested. "But, look here, Masterman, you said that what we did we did with the sanction of the law. But PLUNDER 5 there are a dozen laws against this thing! It would mean jail. Jail? There isn't a jail in the country strong enough to hold the signers of that paper from the clutches of the mob if ever they should find out. This isn't within the law." "You mean our contemplated action or the signing of that paper?" queried Masterman, smiling. "The action is all right, because collusion and agreement can never be proved," replied Cardigan. "Each event will apparently be independent of any other, and due solely to economic conditions, to the weather to anything to which we choose to ascribe each single happening. But this thing lumps them all together! This is proof conclu- sive why, this is putting our necks into the noose! Why should we sign it?" "Yes, why?" demanded Blaisdell. "Montfoucault, Schlossfelt and their associates can not win alone," replied Masterman. "They must have assurance that we are with them. This paper is assurance." "But you don't intend to give them that paper," cried Blaisdell, aghast. 6 PLUNDER "Certainly not," said Master-man, still cool. "I intend to keep it myself." "Then if they'll accept your verbal assurance that we're with them, why this paper?" Masterman smiled still; but it was a smile be- neath which the questioning eyes of Blaisdell wavered, and the florid face of Cardigan became a shade redder. "Why? Well, gentlemen, between equals the word of Martin Masterman has never been doubted, because it has never been broken. Schlossfelt and the others will accept my word where, if I must be plain, they would not accept your bonds. My word is good; they will go ahead and risk millions on my word. But I, gen- tlemen, will not risk millions, or thousands even, on your words! I want your signatures to that paper, and then if you try to welch, if you try to draw back, I'll go down to ruin myself, but you'll go with me! Am I dear?" "You're insulting!" said Blaisdell, with an effort at dignity. But Cardigan laughed; Cardigan had no thin skin. PLUNDER 7 "Forget it, Blaisdell," he jeered. "When money is the prize well, any man can talk as he likes to me if he pays the price! Masterman is paying the price. It means we know what it means. If Masterman doesn't care to accept our words well, I wouldn't take the word of more than one man in a matter like this. His name is Martin Masterman. You see, Blaisdell, you and I decided to become tremendously rich by any means at hand. So did Masterman with the one exception that he w r ould not betray a business as- sociate until the association was ended. He's kept to that. We both know that his word is good to us while he's doing business with us. But yours and mine well, Blaisdell, I'm willing to admit that when a matter of millions is involved I think of myself all the time. So do you, only you won't admit it even to yourself. Here, give me the paper I'll sign!" He wrote his name beneath that of Masterman, in the huge scrawl that was all his clumsy fingers, still stiffened by that youthful toil as a laborer, tould accomplish. He eyed his signature with satisfaction ; he had not been able to read or write 8 PLUNDER until his twenty-sixth year, and had not yet lost his pride in the art. He pushed the paper toward Blaisdell, who still hesitated. "Masterman, you're going to keep this thing guarded like " "All our plans would be irrevocably wrecked if that paper were discovered," replied Master- man. "Indeed, we'd be torn limb from limb. But I would rather be torn limb from limb than have my fortune wrested from me. And you and Cardigan by treachery could wrest it from me. This paper is a guarantee against your treach- ery. Should you and Cardigan break faith with me, I shall show this paper to the world, knowing that my downfall is yours. But while you work with me this paper will be as secure as man can make anything. It will be in the vaults down- stairs. I will take it there myself immediately you have signed it." With this assurance Blaisdell seemed content, as well he might have been, for the vaults in the basement of the Masterman Building were the last word in burglar, fire and earthquake protec- tion. The document would be safe there. Blais- PLUNDER 9 dell signed, his very small chirography seeming indicative of character as against the huge scrawl of Cardigan, which seemed to express the pirati- cal nature of the coal lord. For Cardigan was a modern pirate, while Blaisdell was a Machiavelli, who worked in the dark, and did not disdain smallness in attaining his ends. Both were Lilli- putians beside Martin Masterman. The Lord of the Granary and the Market pushed the paper toward Masterman, and he who was Transportation, again showing his thin-lipped smile, reached for it. A knock on the door made his hand pause, hovering over the paper. "Well?" he called angrily. It was a rule, here- tofore inviolate, that no one should approach this private office, when Masterman was in confer- ence, unless he had rung his bell. The voice of the man on the other side of the door showed that he was fearful of the reception that would be accorded the breaking of the rule. It quavered. "Excuse me, Mr. Masterman, but you said that no matter where you were, if a wire should come from Mr. Schlossfelt to bring it to you at once." io PLUNDER Masterman's frown vanished as swiftly as it had come. He walked to the door and unlocked it. A hand appeared, holding a yellow paper. The master of transportation seized it and read the message. "Reply 'All settled; will write details.' Sign my name." He closed the door and turned to his companions. "Schlossfelt is in a hurry," he said exultingly. "In three months or less we'll have the people of this country " He stopped short and stared. Cardigan was standing on the table, clawing madly at a sheet of paper that floated upward. Blaisdell, white of face, was watching him helplessly. For the clos- ing of the 1 door had caused a puff of wind which had lifted the signed agreement from the polished surface of the table! Masterman stood still only a fraction of a sec- ond. Then: "You can't reach it! Close the window " He acted upon his own word. He sprang to the window, open at top and bottom. He brought down the lower half with a crash that shook the room. He pushed upward at the other half; but PLUNDER II it needed a long pole to push that closed, and the long pole stood six feet away. Before Mas- terman could grab it and return, the paper, on the vagrant current of air that had been set in motion by the closing door, floated through the opened top and out of the room! Cardigan, who had faced two thousand strik- ing, murder-bent miners and cursed them into silence, and Blaisdell, whose nimble wit had come to the aid of the highest-priced lawyers when these had been stumped, stared gaping. It was Mas- terman who acted, who proved why he was greater than these. "Watch it," he ordered, "where it falls! Watch!" He leaped to the door and opened it. To some one in the outer room he called : "Paper out my window in the street ten thousand to the man that brings it back if no one has had a chance to read it. Quick into the street I'll point from the window!" He was back in the room and at the window, elbowing the slight Blaisdell and the burly Car* digan aside, that he might have the better view. 12 PLUNDER Together they stared, while the flimsy sheet, wind- borne, rose and fell. It swooped suddenly down ; then an upward draft caught it ; it rose a hundred feet; it passed over a low roof. Masterman rushed from the room; he dashed through a couple of offices and came to a window that looked out upon a side street. Behind him came the other two, while amazed clerks that dared not show their amazement lifted eyebrows and shoul- ders. It was Blaisdell who saw the paper first. "There!" he cried. The others looked and saw it. It was dropping now limply, no current of air sustaining it. Mas- terman turned to the others. "Stay here," he gasped. "Watch ! The clerks the other street " He was out of the office, and hatless, flushed, a sight to cause the market to drop fifty points, was rushing down a flight of stairs to the side street where his reward-desirous clerks were not waiting. Behind, Cardigan and Blaisdell strained their eyes, watching the paper that meant more than fame or fortune, that meant life itself, should PLUNDER 13 it fall into strange hands. And then a breeze swept up the side street. While Masterman was yet on the stairs they saw the paper swoop up- ward, then slant downward and drop before a man far up the street. They saw the man bend over and pick it up. Fear clutching at their hearts, they saw him read. Cardigan imagined he saw a smile of vicious exultation on the man's face; Blaisdell thought he could see the lips set in a grim threat. Then Masterman appeared on the sidewalk below. He looked up at them; they pointed frantically up the street. He did not understand. Cardigan started from the office; Blaisdell followed. They dashed into the hall and, like Masterman a few seconds before, raced down the stairs. A dozen clerks looked after them. One spoke. "I hope they don't trip on the stairs," he said. "My lip's cracked." And the innocent joy with which this hackneyed humor was received was proof that social unrest was growing. When clerks dare gibe at their divinely appointed masters the world is in a sad state. II SIR FITZ-ROY EUSTACE CLAVERING BRAY, born Peter Whittier, and known internationally to the police and the top planes of the underworld as "Handsome Harry" Mack, was as quick-witted a denizen of the world of crime as had ever outwitted the detective bureaus of a score of cities. He was no dealer in petty lar- ceny; anything less than ten thousand dollars looked like chicken feed to Handsome Harry. And there was no sum which his imagination had set as the limit in hauls. He knew that the famous Adam Worth had dealt in the hundreds of thou- sands; it was Handsome Harry's ambition to make Worth look like a piker. Handsome Harry had always believed that some day he would deal in millions. Meanwhile, until that day of millions came along 1 , he would continue to deal in tens and scores of thousands. He had done so, with such remarkable success that he had never graced a PLUNDER 15 jail for more than eight days on a stretch, lack of conclusive evidence causing his speedy release always. For Handsome Harry always chose his victims from that class which, given time to cool down, decides that it is better to put up with the loss of a lot of money than to admit to the world how easily it may be swindled. In other words, Handsome Harry chose to mulct those who were conceited snobs as well as millionaires. And they always failed to appear against him in court. Technically speaking, he had no criminal rec- ord, inasmuch as no conviction had ever been found against him; but in New York, Paris and London his dossier was on police file, and plain- clothes men often called him aside from little gatherings in hotel bars or dining-rooms and hinted to him that if he didn't return to his friends the plain-clothes men would be glad to make his apologies for him. He was catalogued as a sus- picious character, and the police tried to keep in- formed of his whereabouts. And there is inter- national courtesy between police departments. Twelve days ago Scotland Yard had cabled New York that Handsome Harry Mack, under the nom 1 6 PLUNDER de guerre of Archibald Grantham, was aboard a certain liner. Detectives had met the ship at quarantine. They had congratulated Mr. Gran- tham on having 1 won approximately twelve thou- sand dollars at poker on the short voyage, an incident that had come to their attention as soon as they boarded the ship, and told him that such a lucky man was not desired in the United States he might amass all the wealth in the country. He was advised to take the first ship back to London, whereupon Handsome Harry had smil- ingly proved to their satisfaction that he was an American citizen, and had been reluctantly per- mitted to land. But within twelve hours he was taken to police headquarters and assured that it was the earnest intention of the department to make the town too hot to hold him, and asked if some other city wouldn't be as welcome a resi- dence for him. He took the hint. He boarded a train for Chicago, and a plain-clothes man saw him off. He went to Chicago, but stayed there only until a train left for Montreal. In the Canadian city he f uir.ed and fretted for a week, cursing the luck PLUNDER 17 that had drawn him into a poker game, thus advertising the name of Archibald Grantham, for under that name he had intended to trim certain New York bucket-shops with a new and highly involved scheme of swindling that had stood the acid test in Berlin, Madrid and Paris. He had brought letters of introduction forged by a chirographic friend and now they were useless, for Handsome Harry was clumsy with a pen, and knew not how to imitate another's handwriting. Of course the name of Grantham was worse than useless now. So in Montreal he cursed his luck. Then that luck was good to him. He became acquainted in the hotel bar with an English gentleman, who, in one hour was due to take a train and travel, for a bit of hunting, into the Canadian Northwest, to be gone some four months. They drank to- gether, Handsome Harry making the English- man's last hour one of joyous memory. Before parting they exchanged cards, and Handsome Harry Mack also managed to abstract from the Englishman's pocket a letter introducing the seeker of sport to a New York bank. Evidently i8 PLUNDER the Englishman purposed visiting New York be- fore his return home. Handsome Harry saw the Englishman aboard his train. A little later he, too, took a train for New York. He presented the stolen letter of introduction to the bank, and deposited therein English gold and paper to the value of fifteen thousand dollars. He then registered at an up- town hotel under the name of the sporting Eng- lishman Sir Fitz-Roy Eustace Clavering Bray. Everything had worked out well. It was im- perative that he pose as a man of means and position for the furtherance of his scheme against the bucket-shops. The identity of Archibald Grantham had been rudely torn from him; but that of Sir Fitz-Roy was for the time being his- unless the police happened to see him. This, how- ever, was a risk he must take, a risk worth taking, too, for the part of Sir Fitz-Roy, vouched for as it would be by the bank to which he had presented the letter and where he had made the good-sized deposit, was capable of greater results even than that of the carefully prepared part of Grantham which carelessness had lost to him. PLUNDER 19 For a week he had managed to avoid recogni- tion by any detectives. One week longer, and he wouldn't care if he were recognized, for he would have concluded the trimming, already well on its way, of the bucket-shop near Broad Street which he had chosen as his victim, and would have done so in a way so entirely within the law, that re- covery, even by civil suit, of the money he'd have won, would be a hazy thing, and one not attempt- ed by any bucket-shop, undesirous of certain kinds of advertising as these places were. So "Sir Fitz-Roy," swinging round the corner from Broadway into the side street that ran down to Broad, was in an extremely happy frame of mind. The police didn't dream that he was back in New York again ; it was great sport posing as an English baronet. Cards had been left at his hotel by many persons prominent in New York society; and he told himself that with his address and apparent position and wealth he might even make the acquaintance of some heiress and marry her before his real identity was suspected. Pleas- ant vistas opened before him, but he turned his eyes from them. They were uncertainties; the 20 PLUNDER bucket-shop trick almost a reality. Yet it did no harm to dream, and he was dreaming when a paper dropped on the pavement before him. Half -unconsciously he stooped and picked it up; but he was wholly alert one-tenth of a second later, for the first words he read were the names, freshly inked, of Masterman, Cardigan and Blais- dell. He had seen facsimiles of the signatures of all three, and knew them as he would have known their owners' much-published faces. Two seconds more and he had read the typewritten lines above the signatures. He saw at once the tremendous value of his possession. His time had come! He had always known that it would come, and now that it was here he was not taken off his feet. A lesser man would have been dazed ; but Handsome Harry Mack only saw in this paper his big oppor- tunity. Adam Worth was to be made to look like a piker at last! He folded the paper swiftly and thrust it into a pocket. No doubt of its genuineness assailed his confidence. How it had happened to drop before him, how its signers had let it get from their possession, these were matters of unimpor- PLUNDER 21 tance, questions whose answers could wait. The important thing was to make his get-away until he had time to plan. For it was inconceivable that the loss of this paper could remain unnoticed for more than a few moments, or that an imme- diate search would not be made for it. He turned on his heel toward Broadway, to stare into the eyes, a score of yards away, of Detective Con- nors, who had been among those headquarters' gentlemen who had greeted him on his arrival in America. Connors' eyes lighted with surprised recognition. He took a step toward the interna- tional crook. The mind of Handsome Harry was lightning quick. Connors would place him under arrest as a suspicious character. As a matter of form he would be searched at headquarters. And this paper, of incalculable value, would be turned over to the dull-witted police. He did not know or care what the police would do with it. Enough for him that the golden path of fortune would be closed if the paper were read by them it must not be found on him! As Detective Connors stepped forward Hand- 22 PLUNDER some Harry turned. It would do no good to run ; in the crowded Wall Street district he'd be lucky to go a hundred yards without capture. But the bucket-shop which he had been honoring with his patronage was only two doors away. With De- tective Connors fifteen yards back and coming strong, Handsome Harry entered the office of Bryant, Manners & Company. He glanced over his shoulder; Connors was approaching at rather better .than a fast walk. Bryant, Manners & Company had a safe for the convenience of their customers, but there was no time to avail himself of that repository. Con- nors was right behind him. Undoubtedly a hun- dred-dollar bill passed to a clerk would make one of those underpaid worthies keep the paper for him. But he could not risk the clerk reading it, and there was no time to place it in an envelope. All these considerations had passed through Handsome Harry's brain in the few seconds that elapsed between his recognition of Connors and his entrance into the bucket-shop. And his plan, risky and reckless, yet the only plan, was formed before he crossed the threshold. PLUNDER 23 Bryant, Manners & Company was a fifth-rate concern. It did business on a one-point margin, and though prosperous enough to be worthy Handsome Harry's swindling efforts, its large volume of business was transacted with clerks, office boys, cheap scalpers and other speculators of low degree. There were no rich furnishings, no breath-taking surroundings of wealth. Such things are all very well, reasoned Bryant, Man- ners & Company, but they awed their class of clientele. The outer office of the bucket-shop resembled nothing so much as the outer office of a prosperous police-court shyster, save that the bucket-shop was larger. Customers shed their coats in the warm weather and hung them upon nails on the wall. Cheap cuspidors ornamented the corners. Messenger boys smoked cigarettes and exchanged badinage or brag with the office boys. Clerks made a point of learning a customer's first name and hailing him familiarly. Handsome Harry, who promised to be a comparatively heavy trader, who seemed to have strolled into the office by accident, and who, because his presence lent prestige to the 24 PLUNDER place, was accorded a courtesy rare in these brisk surroundings, knew the office far better than he knew his hotel bedroom. He knew which row of nails was for the use of customers; on which hung the coats of the employees. He had that observance for details that would have made him successful as a detective or a reporter. Your first-class crook always has. He stepped swiftly toward the hat-and-coat- hung nails. He lifted his own hat from his head and placed it upon the last nail on the wall de- voted to customers. He stood in the corner formed by two sides of the room. At his left was the row of clerkly garments. Swift as a prestidig- itator, he whipped the folded paper from his pocket. Unobserved, he slipped it into the outer pocket of the last coat hanging in the row devoted to employees' garments. It was a desperate thing to do, but not for nothing had Handsome Harry frequented this bucket-shop in the last few days. He had used his eyes; he knew that this coat belonged to one of the bookkeepers, a young fellow named Grant. His observing eye was backed up by a photographic and retentive mem- PLUNDER 25 ory. He knew that Grant, at precisely twelve- thirty, would pass swiftly from his ledgers behind a grated barrier, would jam his hat on his head and wriggle into his coat and make for the door. Handsome Harry had seen the young man do this on four successive days, and he recalled that not once in the four days had Grant examined his pockets at least, not while in the office. Of course there was the chance that when he got out- side the young man would put his hands inside them, but again there was the chance that he wouldn't. And there was absolutely no chance that Handsome Harry could escape search at headquarters. The risk was great, but there was nothing else to do. If luck were with Handsome Harry he would get the paper back; if luck were against him but the fate that had placed fortune within his grasp would not snatch it away. Hand- some Harry, like every other criminal, was super- stitious. Fate had always had great things in store for him ; Fate would not snatch them away. He hung up his hat and turned round to face ( the door. Connors entered. The detective didn't waste a moment. He 26 PLUNDER crossed the room and spoke to the international crook. "Back in town again, eh? Better come along with me." "Why?" demanded Harry. "I'm doing noth- ing." Connors grinned. "That's what they all say, always. Get your hat." Handsome Harry shrugged his well-squared shoulders. "Oh, very well," he said, reaching for his hat. Connors linked arms with him. It happened that the plain-clothes man played the market on occasion. Bryant, Manners & Company was the firm that accepted his margins. He was grateful to Handsome Harry for coming along without protest. It does no business any good to have a violent arrest perpetrated within its precincts, and Connors would not willingly injure the bucket- shop, which accorded him favors because of his connection with the police. "We'll just duck out quiet," said the detective. "Later I'll come back and see these people, and PLUNDER 27 if you've been putting up a game on them well, we'll see." It happened that there was a little flurry on that morning in Amalgamated Tin; only unim- portant clerks, and these busy with books, were in the outer office. They paid no attention to the de- parture of detective and crook. Captor and cap- tured reached the street and turned toward Broadway. Handsome Harry was too self-con- tained to protest, although, had it been feasible, he would have killed Connors with as little com- punction as he'd have trimmed a sucker. White- hot murder was in his brain and heart. A moment ago and millions had been within his reach ; now they were out of his reach, for the moment, at least, and might remain so. "Why didn't you stay out west, Mack?" de- manded Connors. "Don't you know you can't get along in this town? You look like a good sensible guy; why can't you take a friendly tip? Why don't you " He turned and looked into the crook's face. What he saw there made him drop his jaw, made the words die away on his lips. For Handsome 28 PLUNDER Harry could control his speech and his actions* but not his thoughts, and the murderous thoughts within him glared through his eyes. Connors tightened his grip of the crook's arm. "Well," he gasped, "I think I'd better frisk you for a gun! So help me, if I don't think you'd croak me with as much regret as you'd He ran a hand over Harry's hip pockets. The crook had no weapon. Connors' jaw jutted for- ward. "Smile, blast you, smile!" he snarled. "I'll have no crook give me an eye like that if I Behind them came the sound of running feet. Connors glanced back over his shoulder, and what he saw there made him almost lose his hold of Harry Mack. For the three richest men in Ameri- ca, hatless, breathless, stared at by gaping clerks who recognized them, were coming up the side street. Masterman was slightly in advance; be- hind him was Cardigan; and, elbows against his ribs, puffing and sweating, Blaisdell brought up the rear. "Well, I'll be " Connors never finished that remark, for Masterman flung himself upon Hand- PLUNDER 29 some Harry. His fingers twined about the lapels of Harry's coat. He turned to Blaisdell and Cardigan. "Is this he?" Cardigan seized one arm of the crook, and Blaisdell the other, before the astonished Connors could frame a question. "He's the man," cried Cardigan. Blaisdell merely puffed. "Where's that paper?" cried Masterman. "Where is it?" He was not so young as once upon a time, and sedentary occupations had soft- ened his muscles, but nerve force lent the muscles fictitious strength. He shook the crook savagely. "Where's that paper?" Then Connors found speech. "What's the matter here? Leggo this man! I'm Connors, of the detective bureau. Leggo him " Masterman glared at the detective. "Shut up!" roared the master of transporta- tion. Then to Harry: "Where's that paper?" "Connors, take this crazy man off me," de- manded the crook. "Take him off!" 30 PLUNDER The detective placed a hand on Masterman's shoulder. "Look here, Mr. Masterman, I'm taking this man to headquarters, and " Masterman looked at the detective again, and Connors withered. "Don't you dare to interfere with me," he said. "Bring this man to my office at once ! Now!" Of course it was Connors' duty to take his prisoner to headquarters; but Connors was wise in his day and generation. He knew that the word of Martin Masterman came very near to being law in New York City, and elsewhere in the country. So while gaping hundreds decided that Handsome Harry must be some sneak thief who had assaulted the proud integrity of the Mas- terman offices, the three multimillionaires and the detective herded the international crook down the side street and into the Masterman Building. Up a flight of stairs and to the private office where the missing document had been signed, Master- man, still gripping the coat of the crook, led the way. At the door he waved Connors back. "This is private business. Wait outside!" he PLUNDER 31 snapped, and slammed the door in the plain-clothes man's face. Connors knew better than to show re- sentment. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to a clerk : "What's up, anyway?" he asked. "Some paper blew out a window. Guess that guy found it," was the answer. "Ah!" said Connors. He composed himself to wait. In ten minutes Masterman came out. He pressed a slip of paper into Connors' hand. The detective looked at it. It was an order on the Masterman cashier for two hundred dollars. "What's this for?" queried Connors. "The time I've made you lose," said Master- man. "And where's my man?" "You don't want him," said Masterman quietly. Connors looked into the hard gray eyes of the master of transportation. "But I've got my report to make out. Some one may have seen " "He was a sneak thief; I sent you after him. Later I refused to make a charge, and asked you to say nothing about the matter. I have some 3 2 PLUNDER slight influence with your commissioner, Connors. I am going to recommend to him that you be made a sergeant. Do you understand? Good morn- ing." "Thank you, sir; good morning," replied Con- nors. He understood that he had his choice of being broken or promoted. He preferred promo- tion, so he made no report of the interrupted arrest of Handsome Harry Mack. That incident was never placed upon police record; for the threads of the Masterman power ran high and low, and into the farthest corners. Ill WHEN the three richest men in America, accompanied by Handsome Harry, reached Masterman's office, the latter took charge. "Hand over that paper," he ordered. Handsome Harry looked bewildered. "What paper? What's all this about? I tell you, I'm an American citizen with rights. I'll have the police " "You picked up a paper from the street," in- terrupted Masterman. "These gentlemen saw you. No possible mistake, Blaisdell, Cardigan?" The two men had got a good look at Hand- some Harry from the window of the other office ; and his dress was distinctive. This beyond ques- tion was the man. But they had not seen him enter the offices of Bryant, Manners & Company. Blaisdell and Cardigan had been on the stairs at that moment, and Masterman, not knowing for which person on the crowded street to look, did not know of that excursion either. 33 34 PLUNDER "He read it, too," said Blaisdell. "Hand it over," demanded Masterman. "I don't know what you're talking about," in- sisted Mack. Cardigan's jaws set heavily. His great fists were knotted. "Take off your clothes," he ordered. Handsome Harry had heard enough about the three men in the room with him to realize that they had slight respect for such trifles as a man's constitutional rights or the law. Further, he had read the paper, and knew that they must be des perate, that he was playing with death. Sullenly he removed his garments. Every inch of them was searched by all three financiers, but the paper was not produced. "But he had it," piped the thin voice of Blaisdell. "I saw him read it," rumbled the bass of Car- digan. Masterman looked at the crook. "You know who we are," he said. "You know what that paper means. Where did you put it?" Handsome Harry had donned his clothing PLUNDER 35 again. Being dressed brought back his courage, which had been at its lowest ebb while he stood, naked, before these ithree men, whose very fright rendered them the more dangerous. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. Masterman surveyed him a moment. "The detective outside had arrested you ; you're some sort of criminal. I think that a word from me will make it certain that you'll be confined in jail until you're willing to tell us where that paper is. Shall I give him that word?" Handsome Harry was no fool; he knew that, dangerous and powerful as these men were, he would be safe at their hands so long as they be- lieved he knew of the whereabouts of the paper and would not divulge his knowledge. It was time to end his bluff. "And suppose I told him or any man that's my jailer the contents of that paper? Think he'd let me go and help me get it, or not?" There was force to this remark. The multi- millionaires knew, each of them, that they'd pay millions for the return of that paper. The veriest 36 PLUNDER tyro would know its value as a lever for the prying up of blackmail. "How much do you want for it?" demanded Masterman. "Send Connors away," said Handsome Harry. It was then that Masterman got rid of the de- tective. Returning, he repeated his question. "I haven't decided yet," said Harry. "I'll have to think it over." "Why temporize with him, Masterman?" de- manded Cardigan. "Send out for some dope ; put him to sleep ; take him down to my place on Long Island I'll make him talk." He glared at Hand- some Harry, and nervousness again attacked the crook. But his position was as strong as theirs. "Oh, you won't do anything like that," he said. "A good many people have seen me come in here. You come an inch nearer me and I'll yell at the top of my lungs. You can't vouch for all your clerks outside. Some one of them will talk, you know that. You wouldn't really dare to kill me." "No? Are you certain?" asked Cardigan. "Not while a friend of mine has that paper," sneered Handsome Harry. PLUNDER 37 "Who's the friend?" asked Masterman. Handsome Harry took a cigarette from a case and lighted it "Oh, don't be silly," he yawned. "Let's get down to business. How much for that paper? And let's not have any argument about it. I'm no fool; I know exactly what it's worth to me. How much is it worth to you?" "I'll give you ten thousand dollars for it," said Masterman quickly. "And I want one million," smiled Handsome Harry. "Not a cent less! What do you say? You can't murder me. Even if you could in safety, you'd not dare until you got that paper back. The whip hand is mine. Gentlemen, what's the answer?" Just as brainy in his own way as either of his three antagonists, was this crook. Masterman realized that at once. A million was a fearful price to pay for one second's carelessness; but the crook spoke truly; he held the whip hand. More important, he had the brains to perceive what he held. 38 PLUNDER "A million," said Masterman slowly. "Well, Mr. er " "Mack," said Handsome Harry, discarding the titled alias in favor of the one whereby he was known to the police. "Well, Mr. Mack, how long will it take you to get that paper?" "Not long after you've handed me my price," smiled Handsome Harry. The smile was a proof of his histrionic abilities, for it was nearing half past twelve. In a few moments young Grant, in whose pocket was the document, would go for his luncheon. If he happened to put his hand into his pocket well, Handsome Harry smiled, but the Spartan boy who said nothing about the fox gnawing at his vitals had nothing on Handsome Harry Mack at that moment. "You don't expect a million in advance !" cried Blaisdell. "You don't expect me to return that paper be- fore I get it, do you ?" sneered Handsome Harry. It was an impasse. Masterman shrugged his shoulders. "Will your friend give the paper back to you?" PLUNDER 39 "If he doesn't you're in a million," replied Mack. He lighted another cigarette and grinned cheer- fully. He had the three richest men in America in the world, perhaps on the hip, and the sit- uation suited him right down to the ground. "And you'll be back here how soon ?" "You'll have time to raise the cash," said Harry. "Cashiers' checks on any good bank will do me. And don't try any nonsense! I won't have the paper with me when I return. I'll have it near, but not on me. I'll phone you before I'm coming. I'll fix my plans and you follow them. Understand? And now I guess I'll be going." "Don't you trust us?" demanded the ashen shaking Blaisdell. "About as far," said Handsome Harry, "as I could throw an ocean liner over my shoulder left- handed." Masterman pressed a bell with his foot; he pressed it twice swiftly, and then gave one long ring. It was a well understood signal. It meant that the person just leaving the private office was to be shadowed by private operatives of the 40 PLUNDER Greenham Detective Agency, situated on the ground floor of the Masterman Building. The Greenham Detective Agency existed for the sole purpose of aiding Mr. Martin Masterman, and it employed the cleverest sleuths that money could retain. Needless to state, Mr. Masterman had no intention of paying a million to Handsome Harry if such payment could be avoided. "You understand the vital importance of our getting that paper back," said Masterman. "The high price you name proves your understanding of its importance. We'll pay the price; but in return for that price we demand speed. We want that paper before it's been read by others." "I'm not anxious to have its value lessened by others seeing it and blabbing," said Handsome Harry. "I'll phone you as soon as I see my friend. You do as I tell you to do, or well, there's newspapers that'll pay something for that paper !" He rose, and stood a moment looking round the office. In a few days he'd have squared the police with a few thousands, and he, Handsome Harry Mack, millionaire, would have an office like this. PLUNDER 41 Not that he intended to work, but he desired to enter society, and opening a bank or something would afford an entering wedge. "Good morning, gentlemen," he said with su- perb aplomb. Then he left the office. Cardigan's mouth opened; Blaisdell's lips parted. But the mighty Masterman cut off their speech. "Don't bark," he ordered. "I know what you have to say; but it was your fault as much as mine. You ought to have hung on to it when I opened the door " "We ought to have done what I suggested," growled Cardigan. "Drug him " "Gentlemen, I'm doing this," said Masterman. "Are you paying the whole million?" said Blaisdell with a snarl. "A million?" Masterman smiled. "I had to let him go; but I think the Greenham people will save me from that expenditure. There are ways and ways." He turned and spoke into a tube that connected with the office of the manager of the detective office down-stairs. 42 PLUNDER "Man leaving my office; going to get valuable paper; blackmail millions. Be careful; get him when he has the paper !" Not much, but enough for such shrewd people as the Greenhams. Masterman let the tube drop back into its socket in his desk, and wiped his forehead with a trembling hand. Man of iron nerve that he was, this morning had tried him to the limit. He stared at Cardigan and Blaisdell. They were in worse shape than he, for self -repression was a religion with Masterman, and he held himself in as they could not. "What'll we do now?" quavered Blaisdell. "Where could he have put .that paper? Why didn't we see him hand it to a friend if he did? Why " Burly Cardigan frowned little Blaisdell into silence. The ex-laborer looked almost pleadingly at Masterman. "Martin," he said, "it's going to be hell waitin' to hear from the Greenhams or that crooked shrimp Mack. Can't you suggest something we could be doing?" PLUNDER 43 "Yes," said Masterman. "A drink." He procured a bottle and glasses from a recess in the wall. That recess was approached only on the most important occasions, usually to celebrate some tremendous coup on the part of the great master of transportation; but to-day Masterman and his companions were in no mood for cele- brations; they were drinking to settle their nerves. IV HANDSOME HARRY MACK paused a moment in the street and drew a long breath. On a broken flush he had once forced an opponent to lay down four kings, when there were six thousand dollars in the pot, and he had never turned a hair. He had nerve to spare ; like a Bret Harte gambler, he was always cool. But now for once he was unnerved. He had met the most powerful man on earth, looked him in the eye, and played his cards to victory! The man who could do this thing was destined to mighty things. A million dollars was the prize; but a million was but the start. There was no reason why the nerve and brain and cool resource of Handsome Harry Mack, backed by this first million, should not carry him to that very pinnacle which Mas- terman occupied. A few minutes ago he'd thought of the pleasure of entering society; now he decided that he would use his fortune to attain 44 PLUNDER 45 power. He started up the side street toward the offices of Bryant, Manners & Company. It was a blowy day, such as often comes in early June. One of those errant winds that had wafted the document into the crook's hands now lifted the hat from his head. He turned swiftly and leaped after it, and caught it in a dozen yards. As he ran he passed a man whom he had once seen in Monte Carlo. The man had been pointed out as a detective from America in search of a missing bank defaulter. The man was coming toward Harry, and as the international crook clapped his hat upon his head, the detective passed by and continued up the side street with- out so much as a glance at Harry. But the crook's keen eyes hardened as he stared back at the Masterman Building. He remembered what was gossip among the denizens of the under- world that Martin Masterman' s vaults were the best protected in the world, both by mechan- ical and by human agencies. It was the last that counted. For through the crooked channels of its information had seeped to the underworld the news that in the 46 PLUNDER Masterman Building itself were stationed, under charge of Robert and Terence Greenham, a score of detectives who, having made their marks in police, secret-service or private-agency circles, had been attracted to the financier's service by reason of the salaries he paid. For ten seconds Handsome Harry stared at the Masterman Building; then he turned and con- tinued up the side street. He walked past the offices of Bryant, Manners & Company, and on into Broadway, for he was clever enough to give his opponents credit for brains even in the mo- ment of his own triumph. He blessed fate for the wind that had taken off his hat and made him alive to his danger. His lips were smiling as he turned up Broadway, smiling at the good luck that was still with him, that had given him warn- ing when, overconfident, he had been about to betray himself into the hands of Masterman's de- tectives. He had never a doubt in the world but that the man he had recognized had been upon his trail, and that undoubtedly there were a dozen others, whom he could not recognize, round him now, in PLUNDER 47 the throng that crowded the sidewalk. Martin Masterman was not the man to give ten thousand dollars, much less a million, to any man on any threats, without an effort to avoid payment. And Handsome Harry, flushed with triumph, had almost forgotten that. Almost, but not quite! The smile left his lips and his mouth became grim as he walked on, with a briskness that would deceive those following him into thinking that he had some definite objective point for this walk. He looked at his watch and found that it was twenty-five minutes past twelve. It was absurd to hope to throw those whom he knew were upon his trail off the scent in five minutes, and gain the office of Bryant, Manners & Company. As he recognized this fact, and its important corol- lary, that Grant might find the paper in his pock- et, he set his wits to work. He stepped into a cigar store and entered the telephone booth. He got the bucket-shop in a moment. "I'd like to speak to Mr. Grant." "Not here." He choked back an exclamation. His schem- ing brain had evolved a plan whereby he hoped 48 PLUNDER to get Grant to meet him, away from the pres- ence of the following detectives, and before, if Fate willed, the clerk had found the paper in his pocket. And Grant was not there. He might at this moment be gloating over the document that meant millions to Handsome Harry Mack! "Not there?" His voice was cool enough, though his temples pounded. "Thought he didn't go to lunch until half past twelve?" "Went at noon to-day," came the answer. "Any message?" "Where does he lunch?" asked Harry. "Search me," was the cheerful reply. "Any message ?" "N-no," said Handsome Harry. He hung up the receiver and was about to open the booth door, when he saw a man lounge into the store and toss a coin upon the cigar case. There is something about the detective that tells the crook of his natural enemy, even as there is about the crook an aura that informs the detective of the presence of his natural prey. Handsome Harry smiled and dropped another coin in the slot. PLUNDER '49 "Plaza 90,000," he said. And a moment later: "Mr. Robinson? * Not there? Wrong number? Excuse me." Then he rang off and stepped out of the booth. In the door of the cigar store he stood long enough to note that the cigar-purchasing gentle- man had entered the booth. Then he walked up Broadway, still smiling. For the detective, if he inquired what number Harry had just asked for, would be given Plaza 90,000, a number that had hopped into Harry's brain from nowhere at all. Harry knew detectives; it was a million to one that the sleuth would never think of asking if there had been a previous number requested by the crook. And million to one shots are worth playing when millions are at stake. But this momentary triumph, if such it could be called, was soon lost sight of in the presence of the defeat that had swept his desperate plans away. Grant had left the bucket-shop before Harry had been able to speak with him! Even now the clerk might be reading the precious doc- ument; even now he might be planning to seize the profit that belonged to Harry Mack. He 50 PLUNDER stopped short and clenched his hands. He dared not go in search of Grant; the detectives follow- ing him would undoubtedly arrest him on some trumped-up charge the moment he spoke to any one. And arrest that "any one," too! Further- more, there were hundreds of restaurants and lunch rooms in the down-town district; to which of these could he turn with any real hope of find- ing Grant? Just then a saloon near by caught his eye; he entered it, had a stiff drink at the bar and then sat down at a table in the rear, where "Business Men's Lunch" was served. The drink gave back to him that nerve that Grant's absence had shaken. He was himself again; he was able to feel real mirth as he noticed two men enter and line up at the bar. They were men he had never seen before, so far as he knew ; and they did not wear the broad shoe of the detective who has been promoted from the uniformed force. Ap- parently they were prosperous business or profes- sional men. But the eye of Handsome Harry was at its keenest now, and at its keenest it is PLUNDER 51 doubtful if any detective living could have hidden his occupation from it. Now that he had got his nerve back again, it amused the crook to know that he was fol- lowed. In his own good time he would elude his trailers, clever though they might be; he had no fear of his ability to do that, if he were given time. Handsome Harry ate his steak and fried potatoes leisurely and heartily; he ordered pie, and washed it down with beer. It was a little after one when he arose and paid his check. Grant should be back from luncheon by now. There was a booth in the bar. He used it, once to call up the bucket-shop and learn that Grant had not yet returned, and once to call up the Hotel Astor and ask for a Mr. Clarkin, another myth- ical friend. Then he came out of the booth, and any lingering doubt as to the identity of the two men who had lingered drinking at the bar was dispelled when one of them entered the booth. Handsome Harry had another drink, to settle nerves a little ruffled again. An hour is a long luncheon time for a clerk in a busy bucket-shop. 52 PLUNDER What if Grant had read the paper? He gulped his drink and shook his shoulders to dispel this thought. His every fiber itched to race to the bucket-shop and meet Grant upon his return ; but this he dared not do. He could only wait and phone again. And while he waited he would give his friends the Greenhams a chase. He did. He led them to the Battery, a twenty- minute walk. He had another drink there, before telephoning the bucket-shop. Grant had not re- turned! He took a surface car up Broadway, clear to Twenty-third Street. There once again he telephoned, as in the other cases, asking for a second number after learning that Grant was still absent. The clerk who answered the telephone expressed ignorance of any business that could detain Grant so long. Even the various drinks that he had absorbed could no longer give to Handsome Harry the nerve that Grant's strange absence was destroying. For Harry had asked, this last time, if Grant had worn his coat when he went out to luncheon, and was told that he had. There was perspiration on his forehead when, three-quarters of an hour later, he called PLUNDER 53 up the office of Bryant, Manners & Company for the last time. "Grant hasn't come back from lunch," said the telephone clerk. "And if you're a friend of his and happen to see him to-night, better tell him to frame up a good excuse for the boss. Mr. Man- ners is sore as can be." There was no doubt any longer! Grant, as might have been expected from the very begin- ning of Handsome Harry's desperate grab for fortune, had found and read the paper signed by the millionaires ! Handsome Harry knew it, and the knowledge made his light-gray eyes darken, made his muscles tighten, and his thin lips harden. Inured to defeat in his schemes, as is every crook, yet he was not the sort to accept defeat easily. For a moment the anger that swept over him left him speechless. Finally he managed to ask : "Can you tell me where he lives? This is Sir Fitz-Roy Bray talking. He was to show me some of the sights of interest in your charming city " Once started he lied fluently, and the cultured English accent that had been missing in previous inquiries returned to him. "He was 54 PLUNDER to take me out to-night, you know, and I've dis- covered that I have a previous engagement " The telephone clerk whistled softly to himself. He had not known that Grant and the English- man, whose custom was such an asset to the bucket-shop, were at all friendly. But he did not keep the crook waiting for an answer, great as was his surprise. Like many other good Americans the telephone clerk hated titled per- sonages in the abstract; but in the concrete they were people of whose acquaintance one might brag to one's dying day, incurring the envy of all other royalty-hating Americans. We owe much to England, the mother-country, including snob- bery. "Just a minute, Sir Fitz-Roy, sir. One sec- ond. I'll get it." And while Handsome Harry drew a furtive hand across a wet forehead, the telephone clerk looked up the address requested. A moment later : "His address is West Twenty-third Street. But if he ain't there, Sir Fitz-Roy, I'll gladly tell him when he comes in here, if he does. Maybe somethin' 's happened to him though. It PLUNDER 55 ain't like him to leave his work all afternoon. And if anythin' had happened to him, and you want to see the town, I'd be glad " "Thank you," said Handsome Harry. "Per- haps I will." He rang off. He had presence of mind enough to call up a second number and ask for some non-existent person, wondering, as he did so, how soon the various gentlemen who were always waiting for him to leave the booth would tumble to his trick. He was down-town now, near City Hall, hav- ing ridden in a surface car between his Twenty- third Street and his final telephone calls. He wished that he had had sense enough to ask Grant's address earlier. That he hadn't was proof that during the past few hours his acute- ness had been waning. He would go to that ad- dress as soon as he had thrown off the scent the detectives who followed him. And that, given a little time, was simple. He entered the lobby of a building near City Hall Park. He knew its various entrances per- fectly. Like the experienced crook that he was, he had spent several afternoons in familiarizing 5 6 PLUNDER himself with the floor plans of most of the larger office buildings on Broad Street, Wall Street, Nassau Street, lower Broadway and other thor- oughfares. He rarely neglected details that might later aid him in a get-away. That care re- paid him now, for he knew the building which he entered. He waited in the lobby a moment, until the starter signaled a car to go aloft, then he sprang forward just in time to avoid being caught by the closing door of the elevator. He might have been crushed by the door and rising car. That was a risk of the trade. But he was not, and the angrily cursing elevator boy was silenced by the bill which Handsome Harry thrust into his hand. "The fourth floor," snapped Harry. "I'm in a hurry!" Potent is money. The elevator was an ex- press, due to make no stops before the twelfth floor; but it stopped and Handsome Harry bounded into the corridor. While Greenham operatives took later elevators and combed the PLUNDER 57 upper floors, he had walked down three flights of stairs that led to a side exit, and was out of the building. A few minutes later, and he was on a Ninth Avenue elevated train. In twenty minutes he was ringing the door-bell at a number on West Twenty-third Street. "Is Mr. Grant in?" he inquired. The slattern maid looked at him. She shook her head. "He ain't here." "Has he been here this afternoon?" This time she nodded. "About a hour ago." "When will he be back?" "He won't be back. He paid his bill and packed his suit-case and left. He said he'd send for his trunk next week maybe. But he's gone for good ! And he didn't leave no address." Before this doubt had departed; now hope went the same way. Young Grant had read the paper, and had disappeared, that from some un- known point of vantage he might reap the reward that should have been Handsome Harry's but 58 PLUNDER for the meddling of Detective Connors. There and then Handsome Harry swore an oath to get even with that gentleman of the police. The slattern slavey watched him with interest as he went down the path through the narrow grass-plot that fronts the block of houses where Grant had roomed. "I'll bet," she told herself, "that Mr. Grant s him money an' is duckin' town on that ac- count." She could not know that she was looking upon a man upon whose door Opportunity had knocked, only to pass along before he could answer. TWO people stared at each other across the white cloth of a restaurant table. Their tea grew cold, and the pile of English muffins had not diminished since the waiter had brought them half an hour before. Dimpled elbows on the table and firm chin in palms, the girl stared^ at the man. Less nervous than he, it, neverthe- less, was evident that the strain under which he so patiently labored had communicated itself to her. For the dozenth time she put the question : "And you're sure it's genuine?" "I've seen their signatures hundreds of times on stock certificates," replied the young man. "Furthermore, the newspapers have had accounts of Masterman's conferences with Schlossfelt and ' Montfoucault. The papers couldn't guess the reason for the conferences, but we can guess now, eh?" Her voice did not partake of the triumph that was in his. 59 60 PLUNDER "Yes, we can," she agreed soberly. There was a moment's silence. "And you haven't even the vaguest idea of how it came into your coat pocket?" He shook his head. "I've told you all I know, Kirby. I went to lunch a bit early to-day. I wore my raincoat, not because it was cloudy, but because of my cold. As I was taking it off in Moquin's I felt a paper in the pocket. I took it out and read it. Then well. I've told you how I felt, what I did, how I wandered the streets for a couple of hours, trying to make up my mind, trying to fathom the mystery of how it got into my possession. I gave up wondering about that. I had it, that was enough. And I knew that it was genuine ; I know it now! I couldn't go back to the office; whoever put that paper in my coat might come back for it. And my title to it was certainly as good as the title of the man who placed it there. It was undoubtedly stolen, and it was a danger- ous thing to have in one's possession. Men have been killed for things worth a thousandth part what this paper is worth. And as I couldn't PLUNDER 61 make up my mind what to do, and knew my dan- ger well, I went home, packed a suit-case, gave up my room, paid my bill, telephoned you, and here we are!" He tried to laugh, but there was little mirth in his tones. "You wanted my advice, Dick?" He nodded. She was thoughtful. "And hadn't you planned anything ?" He smiled nervously. "Well, I'd planned honeymooning with you on one of the finest yachts afloat. I'd planned a place in the hills of Virginia, a suite overlook- ing Central Park, a bungalow at Palm Beacji and a villa at Bar Harbor. I hadn't planned much beyond that, Kirby." She looked him in the eye. He met her gaze shamefacedly, yet with a certain questioning. She shook her head slowly. "You really hadn't planned to blackmail them?" "That's an ugly word, Kirby. Let us say that I had something to sell worth some mil- lions probably. If they wanted to buy " 62 PLUNDER "You don't mean that, Dick." "Why not?" "You couldn't!" "I might." He swallowed painfully and reached for a muf- fin. Between the strong fingers of his right hand he crumpled the bread. He leaned across the table until his face was close to hers. The waiter, who had observed with rising choler their failure to touch either tea or muffins, smiled vaguely to himself. It was a lovers' tiff, in pro- cess now of being made up. Soon they would ring for fresh tea and would be smiling at each other. The waiter's tip would be very large. "Look here, Kirby," said the young man, "think what this means! Trips abroad, yachts, automobiles, country houses " " 'And he took Him up upon a mountain and showed Him the kingdoms of the earth,' " said the girl. The youth flushed. "Dick," she went on, "you don't, you can't mean it!" "You think so?" He smiled, a mocking ten- derness in his eyes. "You really think that I'm good enough to give up a chance at millions ?" PLUNDER 63 "Good isn't the word," she answered. "Strong enough! The man I love is strong enough to put behind him the wrong and to choose the right. There are times when mere 'goodness' is not enough for that; it requires strength, and the man I love is strong." He flushed. "And I earn twenty-two dollars a week, Kirby. By the time I'm thirty-five I may be making enough to be married on." "You're making enough now," she retorted. "What do you mean?" A light leaped into his eye. "I mean that I am ready to marry you at any time, Dick; ready to share whatever you may provide in honesty. In honesty!" "And if I made a few millions out of this " "I should not marry you," she said slowly. Let those laugh at love who will. It works its marvels just the same. For Dixon Grant, an average youth of average morals, put behind him the chance for a fortune all because of love. Let those who work for twenty-two dollars a week ask themselves if they can blame Dixon 64 PLUNDER Grant for those dreams which love dispelled. For love did dispel them. His fingers dropped the crumbled muffin. "I guess, Kirby, that if you're satisfied with an eleven-hundred-a-year man he ought to be satis- fied with his job." For a second her fingers touched his and her eyes smiled at him. "I knew, Dick, you didn't really mean it." "Don't rate me too highly," he said ruefully. "I did mean it! Think of those three thieves! What they have is theirs by right of might. My right is as great as theirs " "That sounds well, Dick; but it won't stand the acid, and you know it. Stealing from a thief is stealing just the same." He sighed; then laughed resignedly. "Well, I guess it's exit Mr. Dixon Grant, multimillionaire; enter Dick Grant, clerk. What have you to say to him?" "Many things that will wait a more suitable place, Dick." Her eyes shone as she looked at him. "Other things that must be said now. What are you going to do?" PLUNDER 65 "Go down to Masterman's office, hand in the paper, and maybe accept the job he'll give me," he answered. "And yet you sent for me to ask my advice?" "That was when I planned hang it all, Kirby, I don't suppose I really intended to blackmail them! I only knew the possession of the paper was dangerous; that I might well," flushing, "I wanted to get away and think; with you to help me. I was rattled, dazed! Now, what is there to be done? The paper really isn't mine. If I can't use it to get money out of them I can't use it to get money out of a newspaper. I can't use it at all. I might as well return it to Master- man and get the thing over with, go back to the office to-morrow and take up my job again, and " "And let Masterman and the others go ahead with their plans to scourge the country?" "What can I do to stop them?" he asked bit- terly. "Is there anything that compels you to return that paper to them?" "But I can't use it for my own benefit." 66 PLUNDER "How about a greater benefit than yours or ours, Dick? How about a benefit to the coun- try?" "You mean " Face flushed, eyes sparkling, she looked at him. "Dick, to try to acquire benefit for yourself from the possession of this paper is to commit blackmail. To benefit the country is war ! This paper shows that Masterman and his crowd are enemies to the nation, desirous of crushing the people into the ground. Masterman would pay millions to you to get that paper back, for it means revolution, Dick, if the people learn of its contents." He didn't quite grasp her meaning. "You mean then that I should turn it over to some paper without pay, of course?" "No, that would mean revolution! And what would revolution gain the people? Masterman and his crowd would be ousted, but the whole system would start all over again, plus the handi- cap which revolution always imposes." He shook his head. PLUNDER 67 "Then what?" "Organize a new system! You saw enough to realize that whoever put that paper in your pocket would do murder to get it back. But the Mas- terman crowd they, too, would do murder and worse to get that paper back ! Don't you see, that as long as they can't get it back, as long as it hangs over their heads, we can do what we will with them. They're our servants, Dick, and we we are the servants of the people." Again his fingers toyed with the crumbled muffin. "Make war on Masterman and his crowd?" "They are enemies, avowed enemies this paper proves it of the people. Because the peo- ple would go insane with wrath if they knew of this paper, we will not show it to them. But we ourselves will declare a people's war upon Masterman and the rest. We will make them return what they have stolen from the public. We can do it!" "King Dick and Queen Kirby, eh?" he smiled. "How long do you suppose we could get away with it? A 1 thousand detectives " 68 PLUNDER "You'd have risked that for money," she countered. "I'll risk it for the people," he said, flushing. "Only, I can't have you " "Who will know ? You have disappeared ; we will give no names; no one will know who we are." "We're taking a lot on our shoulders, Kirby. Wiser and older heads might counsel - "We don't know what wiser and older heads would counsel," she cried ; "but we do know what we can do. We can make Masterman return what he has stolen. After all, what can be wiser than justice ? And that is all we shall ask. Dick, you and I will accomplish what revolutions could not, because the people are always blinded by false leaders; because, too, the people are them- selves selfish, with each out for himself and his own. Where Masterman would have set the World back, we will advance it!" "All with this little paper," he said "if it's genuine." "But you said " She pushed back her PLUNDER 69 chair and rose. "Dick, I'll know in a moment if it's genuine. I'll know!" She made for a telephone booth in the hall out- side the restaurant entrance, he following her, still a bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of the plan she proposed. She asked for Masterman's office. The telephone girl waved her to a booth. She made room inside for Dick. "Mr. Masterman himself, please," she re- quested. "Busy? Then tell him it has to do with a certain paper signed by him and two other gentlemen." She gripped Dick's hand with nervous fingers. There was a moment of wait- ing, then: "Mr. Masterman? You lost a paper to-day signed by yourself, Mr. Blaisdell and Mr. Cardigan. You know to what I refer? Yes? Mr. Masterman, I want you to issue universal transfers for the city. I want you to send for the reporters at once and announce the fact. At once! I shall expect to read of it in the morn- ing papers. You understand ? I have that paper. If the announcement is not made, and if its pro- visions are not carried into effect by to-morrow 7 o PLUNDER noon you may guess the answer, Mr. Master- man." She hung up the receiver with one hand and with the other pushed Grant before her from the booth. "What did he say?" queried Grant. "Pay your check hurry," she commanded. "Hurry!" She stamped her foot. Grant stared, but only for a second. He hur- ried into the dining-room and gave the waiter a bill. He did not wait for his change, but seized his hat from the chair on which it lay and came out into the hall. Kirby was not there. He looked around, bewildered. "Lady went outside," volunteered the tele- phone girl. "Said for you to " Her instrument engaged her attention then, and Grant waited for no more. As he passed through the street door the telephone girl's dull eyes lighted. She rang a buzzer and in a moment the house detective stood before her. "Well?" "Office of Martin Masterman wanted young woman trailed She just left here blue tailored PLUNDER 71 suit, hat with green feather, brown hair, gray eyes. Better hustle." The house detective hustled, marveling, as he did so, at that facility for description of another woman's costume possessed by all women. He hustled, for whatever Martin Masterman wanted he usually got. But the taxi-starter informed him that the couple had driven off "just for a drive round," the girl had said. There was no use in pursuit; they might have gone in any one of a hundred directions once they turned the corner. The chauffeur would tell later where he dropped them. So the house detective returned to the telephone, where he called up the Masterman offices and expressed his great regret that he had been unable to serve the billionaire who, by the way, owned in fee simple the site of the restau- rant and, therefore, was so willingly served by its employees. And Martin Masterman, learning of the detective's failure the second of the kind that day, for it had already been reported to him that the Greenham men had lost Handsome Harry stared blankly at Blaisdell and Cardigan, still with him in the private office ! 72 PLUNDER Meanwhile, uncomprehending but knowing that Miss Kirby Rowland did nothing without very good reason, Grant had stepped into the taxicab in which the girl was already seated. It had started immediately. As they rounded the first corner the youth looked at the girl. "Well, for heaven's sake, Kirby, what was the hurry?" he asked, with that resentment which comes to every one on having to obey unexplained instructions. "I heard Masterman telling some one to find out where my call came from," she answered, "and I'm certain the hotel people would have detained us. That wouldn't have done." "Not if we're going ahead with our people's war," he answered. She turned and looked at him. "Dick, we are! And we've won. I know it, the first battle." "Did he say he'd do it about the transfers?" "He begged me to wait a moment," she answered. "He begged me to come down and see him. But I rang off. Dick, he'll do it !" PLUNDER 73 "If he doesn't, Your Highness, he'll hear from King Dick to-morrow." But he ceased to smile as he noted the quiver of her lips. "Dick, we're doing right; I know we are, b-but " She had brain enough to conceive and inaugu- rate a war upon the most powerful combination of capital the world had ever known, and cour- age and resolution enough not to be deterred from continuing the war, but she was a woman, and in love. There were tears in her eyes as, in the shelter of the taxicab, Dick drew her to him. "I I'm afraid," she confessed. So, if the truth were told, was he, a little. Millions of money have awed older and wiser men. But her own momentary weakening strengthened his own nerve. Perhaps that was why she permitted herself to show weakness. Women make men in various ways; sometimes they appeal to love, and other times to pride. But they usually know just exactly what they are doing. 74 PLUNDER "You needn't be," he said. "They'll never find us not until we've won!" "And we will we must!" She drew away from him and dabbed at her eyes with a very small handkerchief. "That's over," she an- nounced with a smile. "Tell the chauffeur to take us to the square." Grant did so obediently. They alighted a lit- tle later and entered the subway. "If we should be followed the starter might have given the number of this car. Dick, we might be located, driving 1 round." "You think of everything," he said admiringly. "I don't," she said, "but I'm going to try. Dick, do you know that you might be traced? The man, whoever he was, who put that paper in your pocket may look you up." "I've thought of that. I've moved at least, I've left my room." "But you mustn't stay in the city," she urged. "The Masterman money will be spent in search for you. Every man that works in your office may be hired to look for you, because they know you." PLUNDER 75 "But Masterman didn't put the paper in my pocket," laughed Dick. "He certainly doesn't know I have it." "But he may find it out," persisted the girl. "Anyway, too many people in this city know you by sight. You must leave the city. Dick, your life isn't safe." Another man to another girl might have replied soothingly, and laughed at the danger. But Dixon Grant knew Kirby Rowland ; knew her to be one of those girls with whom one may talk as with another man; who; despite momentary lapses into fear, is brave and resourceful too. Frank- ness, the frankness of love and mutual respect, is the only way to deal with such women. "I know that, Kirby," he said, with unwonted solemnity, for him. "And you how about that telephone girl?" "She will remember my clothes, supposing that! she should be asked," smiled the girl. "I'll not wear these things again, and my hair will be dressed differently. She will never know me if she sees me. But you Dick, where is your suit- case?" ;6 PLUNDER "At the terminal." "Go there, get it and go into Jersey." "And when do we two meet again ?" he smiled. "I'll come over to see you, and plan," she answered. "Without a chaperon?" he chaffed. "Dick, conventions are forgotten in war. And this, Dick, this is war for the people against their masters!" The subway train in which they rode stopped and they alighted. "Don't wait," she ordered. "Go quickly. Some one might get off the trains, some one who knew you. And, Dick, take care of that paper, won't you? Keep it safe. If you should lose it Dick, we have a chance given to few in this world to benefit the people. We mustn't lose it." "Do you want to keep it?" he asked. "I wish you'd let me." He took the paper from his pocket and handed it to her. She folded it and put it in the bottom of her hand-bag. "You trust me, don't you, Dick?" "Your Royal Highness, Queen Kirby the First, PLUNDER 77 I love you. Is that enough? And where will Your Majesty secrete this document worth a people's ransom?" She looked at him ; her eyes crinkled. "The Masterman vaults are the best in the world, aren't they?" He stared. "Kirby, you're a genius!" "I'm a woman," she answered. "The same thing in your case. And you'll take it there?" "Now!" He lingered. "I let you do the fighting, while I run away, eh?" "To come back and fight another day. It's the same thing." "Then I suppose I'll have to do it for the sake of variety," he laughed. A south-bound train roared into the station. "I'll take it," she said quickly. "And, Dick, please get out of the city now! War has its dogs, and they're unleashed now. Go, will you, please ?" 78 PLUNDER "The minute you're aboard that train," he answered. That minute came and went; he watched the lights of the train until they disappeared. Then he climbed the steps from the subway and boarded an open car bound west. At Seventh Avenue he took another car to the terminal. While he rode he wondered how this war, in which he was so suddenly enlisted, would come out; wondered, shamefacedly, how it was that he, a son of people who had worked with their hands for their living 1 , should not have thought at once of the benefit for the people that this strangely found document held, but had to be reminded of them by Kirby Rowland, daughter of cultured ancestors who had been of the pro- fessional class, who was herself a miniature painter of promise, and whose every association was with a class of people who often think, if they do think at all, only with tolerant scorn of the submerged nine-tenths. Why was it ? It was as mysterious as that other question of why Kirby Rowland, able to choose almost where she willed, PLUNDER 79 should love Dixon Grant, clerk in a bucket-shop! He was still puzzling when he alighted from the surface car at the terminal. . . . It was almost closing hour at the Masterman vaults, in the cellars of the Masterman Building, when Kirby Rowland arrived there. But a pretty girl has privileges beyond other people. The Masterman vaults stayed open five minutes beyond their ordinary closing time in order that "Miss Margaret Blake" might be assigned a box and might deposit therein certain papers of value. She did so, paid a quarter's rent and left. The elevated deposited her at her destination half an hour later. A few minutes afterward saw her in her little Greenwich Village studio apartment. Another little while, and she was brewing tea. Still a little later, and she was seated by the window, overlooking a tiny park, staring into the waning day, a teacup on her knee. She was dreaming, not of love alone, but of how complete her love would be when she and Grant had carried into effect their plans, as yet inchoate, along lines suggested by her demand 8o PLUNDER of a short time before upon the master of trans- portation. In her heart burned fires greater than those of patriotism the fires of love for her kind. A student of economics, she believed with all the ardor of youth that civilization, by rea- son of its own complexity, had failed to civilize, that slavery was to-day as real a thing as ever in the feudal ages. Now a great opportunity had been offered her, and she wondered, fear- somely, if she and Grant were capable of using it. Her forehead was crisscrossed with wrinkles ; her eyes were narrowed and unseeing as she looked out into the evening. Then a knock at her studio door brought her back to the pres- ent. She opened the door. A man, extremely good-looking, and groomed with a care that made her think of Piccadilly, bowed to her. "Miss Kirby Rowland, the miniature painter?" She inclined her head. "My name is Bray." He handed her a card. She read: "Sir Fitz-Roy Eustace Clavering Bray, Allston, Suffolk." "I found a letter from you on his body" PLUNDER 81 "Well?" "I came to see you about a mutual friend, Mr. Dixon Grant. May I come in?" He followed her into the room. He appraised the furnishings with a knowing eye. If he noted her perturbation he hid it from her. "You're quite a friend of Mr. Grant's, are you not?" he inquired. "Why do you ask?" "I found a letter from you on his body," was the reply. "On his his body? Has he " "Killed," said Sir Fitz-Roy. She put out a hand and grasped an easel on which stood a landscape, evidence of her attempts at other than miniature painting. The piercing eyes of the well-groomed gentleman read the emotion reflected on her face. "K-killed," she whispered. "Oh, not that!" The well-groomed gentleman sat down and crossed his legs. "No, not that, Miss Rowland," he said. "I just wanted to be sure that you knew him pretty 82 PLUNDER well and thought a lot of him. I know now. Please excuse my scaring you. Grant's all right, as far as I know. Buck up! I want to talk to you. I want to know if he's told you what he's done with a paper I put in his pocket this morning. That's all, Miss Rowland." VI OPPORTUNITY had knocked at the door of Handsome Harry Mack, and had passed on. He had been perched high upon the elevation of his own imaginings and his fall had been tremendous. The disappearance of Dixon Grant had been the blow to toss him into the abyss of despair. But he had the elastic nature possessed by every high-class crook, and the harder he fell the higher, after an interval, his spirits rose. For obstacles but spurred him on, defeat but made him the more dangerous. At first he was overwhelmed by the informa- tion given him by the slavey. He entered a saloon, prepared to drown the broken hopes of the morning. He did not stop to reason or to plan, but he had the temperament upon which liquor acts as a spur, not a halter. His first drink he gulped, his second he sipped, his third he carried to a table in a corner. This drink 83 84 PLUNDER he did not touch for several minutes, and in the meantime he thought hard. His position was not so hopeless, now that he began to think. In the first place, young Grant must be a crook like himself. Handsome Harry did not, of course, refer to himself as a crook; he merely stated, mentally, that the young book- keeper must be "out for himself, like me." It is by equivocation that conscience is soothed, 'And what would a person "out for himself" do upon discovery of such a valuable document as the paper signed by the millionaires? Certainly, if he intended to deliver it to its signers he would not steal swiftly away from his lodgings, leaving no address. If he proposed selling it to some newspaper there would be no need for him to disappear. He would need to hide himself only if he purposed doing what Handsome Harry himself had intended doing, and so dreaded the very men he intended to mulct. And the mulcting would take time! Not very long, but quite a while! There would be the preliminary demand, the negotiations. Hand PLUNDER 85 some Harry lifted his third drink. Into his eyes flashed that avid gleam that had been absent since certainty of Grant's reading of the docu- ment had come to him. He seemed to be drink- ing a toast to himself. "If I can't locate him before he gets to Mas- terman, then I'll take back all I've ever said about detectives. Their jobs are harder than they look." He set the glass down empty. Then he left the saloon and retraced his steps to the lodging house. For his search was to begin again where it had left off, and was to start with obedience to that old and wise command: "Find the woman." The slavey looked surprised at the reappear- ance of Handsome Harry. "I want to see your mistress," said the inter- national crook. "She don't know where Mr. Grant went, but I'll get her just the same," she added delightedly, as her palm came in contact with a bill. "You came a little while ago asking for Mr. Grant, didn't you?" inquired the landlady, ,a 86 PLUNDER moment later. "Well, I can't tell you where he went; he didn't tell me. He left in an awful rush, just like the police was after him. If it hadn't been that he'd always paid up regular every Saturday night, and never caused any trouble, not being the drinking kind, I'd 'a* thought he'd done something and was doing a Dutch. What you want him for?" Handsome Harry shoved back his coat lapel. The landlady caught a glimpse of silver. "You ain't a bull?" she gasped. "What's Mr. Grant been doing? It ain't going to get in the papers, is it, about him rooming with me, and give my house a bad name? Lord knows, it's hard enough for a decent woman to get lodgers, without the papers having it that she runs a house for crooks!" "The papers will print nothing about this," Handsome Harry assured her. "As a matter of fact, it's something that's got to be kept out of the papers. Too big a matter, madam. You understand, of course." He smiled meaningly. The landlady hadn't the slightest idea what he was driving at, but PLUNDER 87 she nodded emphatically. Here was mystery, and she was keen for mystery. "And just to think of Mr. Grant being so meek and mild and pleasant, and regular as clock work with the rent, when all the time he was robbing and murdering!" She shivered delightedly. "He ain't murdered any one, has he?" "Not yet," said Handsome Harry porten- tously. "That's why I've got to get on his trail. You can't tell what he will do." "Them quiet kind is desperate, ain't they?" said the landlady. "My first husband was like that. All week he was like a mouse, but come Saturday night and the pay envelope, and, mister, you couldn't tell him from a threshing machine after his second drink. Desperate? He'd bat a bull over the chops quick's he'd look at him, come Saturday night. You never can tell!" "Right," agreed Handsome Harry. "And now do you know anything about Grant? Where he'd be liable to go? Who his friends are?" She lifted her hands above her head. "Honest, mister, I don't. I never butt into 88 PLUNDER my lodgers' private affairs. If I'd known Mr. Grant was a crook what'd you say he did, any- way?" "I'll let you know later, maybe," said Harry. "At present I'm trusting you a whole lot in let- ting you know he's wanted." "I'm a clam," said the landlady quickly. "Not a word outa me; but I don't know any of his friends at all." "He left his trunk? Let me see it." Her eyebrows raised. "It's locked. You wouldn't open it without a warrant, would you? And if I let you I'd be liable " Handsome Harry drew a roll of bills from his pockets. He stripped off two of them. "Will that be enough? Mind, Grant will never come back and start anything, but " "I'd do most anything for a couple of these," said the landlady. "Come along." Harry followed her to a hall bedroom on the second floor, whence the trunk of Grant had not yet been removed to the cellar for storage until he sent for it. It took the crook just two PLUNDER 89 minutes to open the trunk; it took him little longer to discover that there was in it not a scrap of paper, not a picture, not a single thing that would tell who were the friends of Dixon Grant. The clerk either had no friends who wrote to him, or he destroyed their letters. Handsome Harry arose from the trunk. "Nothing here," he said gloomily. "And you never heard him say anything about any sweet- heart, any intimate friends? Nothing like that?" "He never talked about himself at all," was the reply. "He had friends all right, for he went out quite often at night, but he never mentioned them. And he wasn't only on bow- ing terms with the people in the house. Kept apart from them. I don't know a thing about him." "Never saw the address on any letter he wrote or received?" The landlady colored. "Would I be apt to look, mister?" But the maid who, unrebuked, had followed them to the hall room, could contain herself no longer; also, she had no false shame. What- 9d PLUNDER ever she did she was willing to admit she did, especially to a gentleman that handed out five- dollar bills to a servant and fifties to her mis- tress. "I seen a letter to him," she announced. "He forgot it one morning. It was on his bureau. I hadn't read it all when he come back and bawled me out sump'n awful, but I seen the name and address. It was from somebody what signed herself Kirby and lived in thcs Greenwich Studios." "A man," said Harry thoughtfully. "She began it 'My dearest Dick,' " said the slavey. "A girl," said Handsome Harry. He strip- ped another bill from his roll, and the maid gasped with delight. Handsome Harry hardly heard the gasp, for he was running down-stairs. It was char- acteristic of him that in his excitement he did not forget to reward the maid. Like nearly all crooks, he was generous. Easy come, easy go. Two women, the richer by one hundred and fifty-five dollars for his call, stared blankly PLUNDER 91 at each other. It was a long time before they got their breath. Then the mistress spoke. "The first thing I do, Mamie," she said earn- estly, "is to get me that tailored blouse for twenty-two-fifty I saw at Lacy's." "And the first thing I do, Missus Kimball, is to get me a pair of new garters," said the slavey. "These ones I has is all wore out, and believe me, I ain't trustin' fifty-five in bills to them! No, ma'am!" Then, fairly started and limbered up, their voices beat against the air like hail upon the window-panes. About this time Handsome Harry, having learned Kirby's last name by a glance at the cards above the letter boxes on the ground floor of the Greenwich Studios, and having learned her professional specialty by asking the elevator boy, entered the young woman's apartment, and, by his lightning as- sault, learned at once that she was, if not in love with Dixon Grant, at least a dear enough friend to justify him in having followed the maxim "Find the woman." Reassured that Grant was not really dead, 92 PLUNDER Kirby sank into a chair; the color came back to her cheeks; her eyes, that had been staring, now narrowed. She surveyed Handsome Harry as though he were some subject for her deft brushes. She was a real artist, which means that she did more than transfer to ivory fea- tures and coloring; she transferred character as well. She had that ability to read souls inval- uable to those who live by their brains. For of these is the artist. It is his brain, more than his cunning hand, that lifts him to fame. And she read the character of Handsome Harry in that swift glance from under lowered lids that she bestowed on him before he spoke again. She read his dishonesty, the cruelty latent be- neath the impulsive generosity, the craft behind the frank countenance, so good-looking in an ani- mal way. And she did not fear him. "Well, recovered? Sorry I had to shock you, but you can guess why, Miss Rowland. Now, then, let's not waste any time. Where is Grant ?" "Not admitting your right to question me," she answered, "I do not know where he is." "And the fact that you don't order me out PLUNDER 93 of here proves that you know all about the paper I put in his pocket," said Harry shrewdly. "And if I do?" Her hand strayed to a flat desk by the chair into which she had sunk, and toyed with a silver paper-knife. "Why, then you don't dare order me out," was Harry's reply. She realized that Handsome Harry had been drinking heavily; but whether he had drunk enough to be on the verge of sudden intoxica- tion or not she did not know. She knew that anger sometimes hastens the effect of liquor, and did not wish to anger him more than would be necessary, for there were a hundred reasons why this erstwhile possessor of the document whereby she was to reconstruct civilization should not go to pieces in her studio. She did not know yet that liquor's only effect on Hand- some Harry was to render him more crafty, more cruel, more dangerous than in his normal condition. He watched her face, and, somewhat of a character reader himself, knew that he had no mean opponent to deal with. 94 PLUNDER "What's Grant going to do with that paper?" he demanded. That she knew of Grant's inten- tions he did not doubt for a moment. "What did you intend to do with it?" she countered. "Sell it for a million dollars," he answered frankly. "I found it; I had to slip it into his pocket because I was due to stand a pinch." He had dropped all pretense of titled culture now. "I put it in the handiest place, thinking I'd get it back O. K. I didn't. Grant has it. But" and his voice was hard "I don't intend Grant or any one else to slip in ahead of me. I'll divide; I'm no piker; I'll play fair and square. But I want that paper!" "You stole it?" "It came into my hands by accident. It left my hands by hard luck. But it takes more than hard luck to put me out of business. I've found out where Grant's best friend lives; it won't be hard for me to find out where Grant himself is. And if I have to find out without help I'll get it all, I won't divide." "Are you sure there'd be anything to divide?" PLUNDER 95 "Masterman offered me a million for it," he snapped. Her eyes flashed at this further proof of the paper's value, though none was needed. He saw the gleam and mistook it for greed. "You want to be fair," he said. "If it wasn't for me Grant and you wouldn't have had a chance at it. You don't want to make an enemy of me. Besides, I'm not a new hand at this game; you might get rattled and caught. I can handle it like an ordinary business deal. And I'll be fair. Suppose you get hold of Grant now and we all have a little dinner together? We'll talk it over and " "I don't know where Grant is," she inter- rupted. "And if I did, I would not tell you." "You mean you're not going to let me in on it?" "Exactly," she smiled. He stared at her. "My life, Miss Rowland, is worth a mil- lion dollars to me or it isn't worth a cent. No, I'll correct that half a million dollars. For half a million dollars I'll do anything. I'll risk 96 PLUNDER my life; for that money I'll go to the chair. Understand what I mean?" "You'd commit murder for that paper?" "For half its value," he replied. "Get Grant to take me in, and everything will be fine. Leave me out, and I tell you, Miss Rowland, I'll go to the chair for one or both of you. I mean it." "But supposing that we plan to make no profit ? Supposing that we plan to use the paper for the benefit of the people? Doesn't that appeal to you? Wouldn't you care to come in with us?" "Suppose Mars is inhabited; what of it? Let's not talk moonshine. Do you or don't you intend to tell me where Grant is, or have him meet me and declare me in?" "I do not," she answered. For a moment it looked as though he would spring. "I could scream once anyway before you stopped me," she answered. He relaxed. "There are more ways than one of killing, Miss Rowland," he said grimly. "Put up the paper-knife; you don't need it. I'm going to tell you something. I'm known as Harry PLUNDER 97 Mack to the police. I've never killed any one yet, because it's not been worth my while. It is worth my while now. You probably think I can't find Grant, but I will. And there'll be no further chance to dicker. I'll have that paper from him, and grab it all. Or if he's sold the paper to Masterman, I'll do no bargaining. As surely as I am sitting here with you I'll kill him, if I wait ten years. It won't be a case of give me my share and we'll call it square. I'll kill him. Now am I in with you or not?" He had not raised his voice; he was calm as though he were indeed Sir Fitz-Roy, discussing some ordinary topic with a lady. His very repression lent earnestness to his words. He meant what he said, there was not the slightest doubt of that. Furthermore, he would do as he said, if possible. Another risk must be borne by the man that Kirby loved; a greater risk than those already invited, because the man who threatened knew Grant's identity which, as yet, the millionaires did not know. Yet the girl ac- cepted it. "You are not," she said. 98 PLUNDER Mack rose, and with a return of his borrowed identity bowed to her. Then very quietly he left the apartment. She rose and walked to the window; she watched him cross the street and turn a corner. She turned back to the center of the room. Suddenly she felt herself shaking. "Oh, God," she said softly; "it is for Your people; give me strength." VII BLAISDELL bit his nails; Cardigan tore viciously at scraps of paper, littering the floor; only Masterman preserved the appearance of calm. But even his voice shook. "Well, what have you done, Greenham?" Terence Greenham, junior partner in the detective agency, and the real brains of the firm, shrugged his shoulders. "Little as yet, Mr. Masterman. But our men will soon pick up Mack again, and then " "And he no longer has the paper I told you to get," thundered Masterman. "I told you that paper meant millions! And your men let Mack slip away from them! And now some one else has it. I'm ordered to " He sat down and wiped his forehead. When he spoke again he was a little calmer. "I need not tell you the contents of that paper, Greenham. If you or any of your men recover 99 ioo PLUNDER it you will know at once that it is the docu- ment I want. Further, you will be paid well for forgetting its contents. Sufficient now to tell you that it is a document whose publication would not only ruin us three in the room, but cost us, possibly, our lives. It must be recov- ered!" "It will," began Greenham eagerly. "My men can't be fooled long by any crook that - Masterman's stony face frowned the detec- tive into silence. "I've told you that Mack hasn't it any longer. Just now I was telephoned to by a woman. I learned that she is young, pretty, wore a blue tailored suit, hat with green feather, has brown hair and gray eyes. The telephone operator at the Disnore gave me that information. The Disnore house detective failed to capture her. She informed me that she had possession of that paper." "A pal of Mack's," said Greenham. "Let me finish," roared Masterman. The detective flushed. The master of transportation swallowed a little water from a glass on his desk. PLUNDER 101 "This woman is not a pal of Mack's. This is proved by the fact that I had offered Mack a million dollars for the return of that paper. I wish now I'd kept my faith with him and not let those fools in your employ follow him! This woman is not after money for herself. She asks a price greater than a million. She asks she orders that universal transfers be granted in this city. Universal transfers ! Do you realize what that means? It means the ruin of every road in the city. It means And Greenham, I can't refuse her !" Terence Greenham was absolutely trust- worthy. But even if he hadn't been it would have been necessary for Masterman to tell him of Kirby's demands, for in no other way could the gravity of the situation be impressed upon the detective. For Greenham, thanks to Master- man, was by way of being a rich man himself; his sympathies lay with the rich. He could under- stand the dire consequences of permitting to remain free a force that could dictate the policy of the transportation lines of New York. The detective asked one question: 102 PLUNDER "And the orders of this woman, will they be confined to transportation in this city?" "They will be confined," said Masterman slowly, "to what organizations are controlled, directly or indirectly, by myself and my associ- ates." "And that means " Greenham was aghast. "That until that paper is recovered that woman is absolute master of this country. And a master for evil! A woman anarchist! One who will destroy, wipe out! Greenham, she must be found! That she is no friend to this Mack is shown by her demands. He wanted wealth for himself; she there's no knowing what she wants! But whatever it is, she must have it! Greenham, what are you going to do? She must be found before midnight!" Terence Greenham had executed many orders for Masterman; orders that involved millions. But the present situation, as he readily saw, in- volved still more. It staggered him. "Before midnight? But, Mr. Masterman, I don't even know her name. You don't. A gen- eral description that might fit a thousand worn- PLUNDER 103 en and you know nothing? You have no clue as to how she got the paper?" There was a silence. Masterman looked at Cardigan, at Blaisdell, but they were helpless, bereft of ideas, able to think only of the peril that confronted them : Blaisdell thinking of his life, Cardigan of his wealth. Masterman shrugged his shoulders; he lifted a face deeply lined. "I know nothing about her," he said. "That she is the friend to whom Mack referred I can not believe, for her demands are so different. That she is the person whom he tried to reach by telephone " He stopped. More than a great executive was Martin Masterman. He had that insight into the brains of men that made him able to anticipate and forestall their best- laid plans. A greater detective than a dozen Greenhams rolled into one he might have been. His eyes lighted. "Your men called up the numbers Mack asked for, didn't they? And learned nothing. Yet he wasn't telephoning for mere pleasure. He had a reason! And after one of those calls he evaded 104 PLUNDER your men. Why? Because he had learned what he wished, Greenham!" In his excitement he rose now and paced the office floor. "Don't you see? Because he had learned what he wished! Because he called two numbers, and the fools who work for you asked but for one! It's what I would have done, and this Mack, he's as clever as I!" A great admission for the mighty Mar- tin Masterman to make. "Am I right?" The reports of his detectives were fresh in Greenham's mind. He saw how simple a trick, yet so clever, might have deceived his men. He picked up the telephone, and was immediately connected with the superintendent of the tele- phone company. "Terence Greenham talking, from Martin Masterman's office, on the latter's business. I want " He spoke for two minutes; then he was silent, holding the receiver to his ear. A moment later his rigidity told that he was listen- ing. "Yes, any one of the calls. Broad 69,000? And that is? Bryant, Manners & Company. Much obliged." PLUNDER 105 He hung 1 up and sat still a moment. Shamed that the master of transportation had seen through Mack's trick, Greenham worked his own brain to its utmost. Like nearly every other de- tective, fiction to the contrary, Greenham lacked imagination to any remarkable degree. He dis- covered the perpetrators of crime by questioning stool-pigeons in the majority of cases. He fol- lowed old and routine paths. But it was his painstaking covering of every lead that brought him results. His mind responded to the pres- sure of the moment and he thought of a lead as yet unfollowed. He leaned toward the trans- mitter again. He asked for a number. "Police Headquarters. Give me the commis- sioner. Terence Greenham talking. . . . Com- missioner Murray? Terence Greenham. I want to speak with Detective Connors. Important. . . . Connors? This is Terence Greenham. You pulled a man to-day. The Masterman man. . . , Where? Bryant, Manners & Company? All right. And see that your lips are sewed. Thanks." He rang off and turned to Masterman. io6 PLUNDER "Mack was out of sight of all three of you for a minute to-day," he said. "Connors told me what you didn't ask him that he pulled Mack in Bryant-Manners' office. Yet he couldn't have been in there more than a minute. You had him under your eyes for all but a minute or so." A gleam of hope shone in Masterman's eyes. "You think then ?" Greenham pulled his watch from his pocket. "It's five now. I don't know when I'll have anything to report. Mr. Masterman, you'll be at home all this evening?" "I'll be waiting up to hear from you," replied Masterman grimly. "And Blaisdell and Cardi- gan will be with me." The others kept silence; the hours of strain had been too much for them. They could only sit dully by, not fully comprehending, while the 'detective and Masterman talked. Greenham reached the door. "If it was any one in the Bryant-Manners' office I'll get him." "Her," corrected Masterman. "And this is something extra, Greenham. The usual retainer PLUNDER 107 doesn't apply. If you land that woman by mid- night, ask for what you want; I'll give you a blank check I'll give you " "And you'll stand behind any measures I take to get the paper?" For a minute the master of transportation looked into the detective's eyes. "You get that paper," he said. And Green- ham thought he understood. He left the office. Two minutes later, accom- panied by his brother Robert, and trailed by half a dozen operatives, he entered the bucket-shop. The junior member of the detective agency knew what he wanted ; a lead like this was simple. To Mr. James Manners he gave a description of Handsome Harry Mack, which Masterman had given him, "Sir Fitz-Roy Bray, of England," said Man- ners nervously. "Surely, Mr. Greenham, you have nothing derogatory to tell me of Sir Fitz- Roy?" "Nothing except to tell you that he's Harry Mack, classiest gun in the con game, Manners," responded Greenham. "Better look up your log PLUNDER dealings with him. But never mind that now. Has he any particular friend here? Did he tele- phone any one here to-day?" Manners, unnerved by the information that his most exalted client was a swindler of parts, and feverish with anxiety to examine his books to learn whether or not anything had been put over on him already, yet not daring to offend the brothers Greenham, who might, if they so chose, investigate his business with disastrous results for the owners, summoned the telephone clerk. "Sir Fitz-Roy? Sure, he asked for Dixon Grant, and when Grant wasn't in he asked for his address. I gave it to him, and " "What is the address?" interrupted Terence Greenham. The clerk supplied it. "That's all, Manners," said the detective, "ex- cept to keep quiet about our little call. And if this man Grant shows up in the morning and you haven't heard from us, let my office know. You say he never took an afternoon off before without permission?" PLUNDER 109 "And never will again," said Manners. "Chums of crooks " "Couldn't be very chummy if Mack didn't even know his home address," said Greenham the younger. Then, fearful that he had said too much, or at least violated the proverbial resem- blance to a clam of the species detective, he left the office with his brother. Outside he gave that less brilliant worthy his ideas. "Mack saw Connors after picking up that paper. ' He ducked in here and gave it to Grant. Grant double-crossed him and Mack went after him ; that's why he asked for the address. Mean- while, Grant has either slipped the paper to some girl or told her all about it. That's plain as Bill Taft's smile. I'll get up to Twenty-third Street and find out what girls young Grant knows. Cinch that he isn't there; if he's clever enough to double-cross Mack, he's clever enough to have lighted out. But the girl is the trail he leaves. Robert, you take a few men and go up to Mack's hotel on the off chance he'll turn up there. He's valuable to us yet, never mind what Masterman says." no PLUNDER He turned and signaled one of the operatives, who discreetly followed them. "Schmidt, you come with me.'* He spoke again to his brother. "Forgot something. Find out where Mack or Sir Fitz-Roy banks. De- tail a man to be there in the morning. I'll phone you at Mack's hotel the Blare, Manners said? All right? So long." Followed by Schmidt, he dashed down a street that led to the elevated, while his slower-witted brother assumed command of the five men left behind and started up-town, for Mack's hotel, in the subway. Handsome Harry had paved the way for Ter- ence Greenham. The flash of a bill and the mention of his errand, and the slavey who opened the door gave them the information, upon which Mack had so quickly acted. And the highly ex- cited landlady corroborated it eagerly. The two women had more to gossip about and were at it joyously before Greenham reached the side- walk. "I'll bet there is a murder somewhere in it. If these men are detectives, who was the gent PLUNDER in with the fifty-dollar bills?" demanded the land- lady. "It's a girl ! Mr. Grant he's eloped with some millionaire's daughter, and " And so they had it, and were still having it when Greenham and Schmidt reached the street on which stood the Greenwich Studios. "Wait at this corner," ordered Greenham. "If I'm not back in twenty minutes come after me with your gun out. Mack might be there Grant Lord knows who. Twenty minutes." He started for the studios. Kirby Rowland was not an extraordinary girl physically. She played a little tennis, golfed oc- casionally, canoed, and was an average sort of outdoor girl, but her strength was not tremen- dous. Far removed from the girl of the early Victorian era, she was not the fainting sort, the kind to grow white at sight of blood; neither was she the woman, devoid of nerves, that modern conditions are bringing forth. She was a whole- some girl, but not at all suited to undergo great strain without reaction. She was suffering re- action now. j 12 PLUNDER She had been endowed with more than good looks, more than brain with insight, with vis- ion. To some, of little faith in man, vision is a curse. But to those of faith, vision is a bless- ing. It causes them to disregard the present, to realize that all is part of the Great Plan, which has not yet reached fulfillment, but that ever progresses, in accordance with His wish. To her, of insight and vision, had come the means, she believed, could she but handle them, to advance Time a century, to force the preda- tory powers to give now what another century Would see taken from them. And when she prayed for strength, she prayed, not as a weak- ling, but as one who realized her own physical limitations and wished she had none. For her nerves were shaken, not merely by her scene with Handsome Harry, but by what that scene meant in added dangers and difficulties. It was hard enough to work in the dark, to pit her youthful brain and heart against the craft and animosity of Masterman and his associates. But now that one of the underworld, keen, cunning and unscrupulous, was her avowed enemy and PLUNDER 113 knew of her identity, her course was trebly per- ilous. Moreover, at any moment Handsome Harry Mack might destroy her effectiveness in any one of a score of ways. Strength came back to her after a while. Her brain began to itemize the things she might do, the difficulties that would inevitably arise. More clearly than anything else she realized that she must hide! Even as Grant had been forced to hide, so must she. Action followed swiftly upon reaction now. If the man who called himself Sir Fitz-Roy Bray one moment and Harry Mack the next had been able to trace her relationship to Grant and her address, so might the emissaries and agents of Masterman. Further, Mack might come back! True, Grant was to telephone her at her studio; and Grant would worry if she were not there; but what were the worries of one person, how- ever dear, compared to the consummation of her scheme ? She snatched up a suit-case, and then dropped it. If Martin Masterman had been willing to pay Harry Mack a million for the return of the ii 4 PLUNDER paper, he would be willing to spend great sums in tracing her, if he learned her name. And a woman who carries a suit-case is more conspicu- ous than one who does not. She would leave without baggage, and at once! Exactly where she would go she did not know. That was a question better decided after she was away from her studio. She opened the door and stepped into the hall. A man alighted from the elevator as she closed the door, and approached her. He lifted his hat. "Miss Rowland? My name is Greenham Terence Greenham, Mr. Martin Masterman has retained me to look you up in regard to a certain paper." Even in the dim light of the hall the detective could see that her face grew white, and that her bosom heaved. It was going to be very easy. He had the right person, too. She gave herself away when he mentioned the paper. Yet the elevator boy, in answer to a bill, had informed him that Miss Rowland Greenham had worked the same scheme of looking at the letter boxes to learn Kirby's last name had received a caller PLUNDER 115 not long ago, and the caller's description accord- ed with that of Handsome Harry Mack. Had Mack come away empty-handed? Or were he and the girl accomplices? Another moment would answer these questions. The frightened girl turned back to her apart- ment. "If you'll come inside " Her voice quav- ered. Greenham smiled. Martin Masterman had spoken of blank checks! She was opening the door now, and the key rattled as her fingers shook. She drew back and motioned Greenham to precede her. Courtesy and caution both demanded that he should not do so, but Greenham was human, and elated at what promised to be an easy victory. He stepped into the apartment. The door closed upon him with a clash, and, in the hall, Kirby hurled her- self upon it while fingers that trembled no longer turned the key. She turned and raced down the hall. The descending elevator stopped for her, then bore her swiftly to the ground floor. Up-stairs in her apartment Greenham had thrown himself against the door, but it was too ii6 PLUNDER strong. He cursed once, then laughed. He rushed to the window, threw it open and leaned out. Schmidt, at the corner, caught his signal. He came swiftly down the street, on the oppo- site side. 'As Kirby emerged from the building Greenham signaled once more. Schmidt crossed the street. Kirby had gone but a dozen yards when the Greenham operative touched her arm. She wheeled. "Don't be in such a hurry, ma'am," said Schmidt. "There's a gentleman back in your apartment that ain't finished talkin' to you, ma'am." His fingers tightened on her arms. She jerked her arm suddenly, and the fingers bit into her flesh. "Come quiet, ma'am," counseled Schmidt, "or I'll put somethin' on your wrists that " "By what right?" she gasped. "By what right do you stop me? I'll call for help ! I'll - Many of the tradespeople in the vicinity knew her well. Many of the tenants of the shabbier apartments near the studios had reason to love Kirby Rowland, the lady who took their children PLUNDER 117 on summer excursions, who hunted up jobs for workless husbands, who sent coal and groceries to the poor. Without a warrant these men had no right to detain her. Her friends among these tenements would come to her aid. Yet a rescue would entail questions that must be answered. Her quick wit did not desert her. Also, like every other modest woman, she hated a scene. Already people were staring at her and the man who held her arm. "Let go of my arm," she said. "And I'll " She did not finish the sentence, for in the midst of it something hard and bony hit Schmidt be- hind the ear. He dropped Kirby's arm and turned to defend himself from a pair of fists that were like sledge hammers, and that would have dropped at the first punch any one less hardened to blows than Julius Schmidt, late heavyweight champion of the police department. As it was, the blows staggered the detective ; he fell into a clinch ; there came the crash of heavy blows against ribs. The two men went down together, the detective on top. The man underneath writhed and hurled Schmidt over; Kirby saw his face it was Mack! n8 PLUNDER "Beat it, Miss Rowland, beat it! I'll hold the dog till you're gone ! Beat it !" It was no time to ask questions or to offer thanks. She merely obeyed instructions. Through the front door of a tenement, along a hall, out upon a fire escape, through a back yard, upon another fire escape, through another building, and out upon a street! Not for nothing, it now seemed, had she learned the habitations of the poor when on missions of charity. The knowl- edge served her well now. Back on the street Mack drove his fists into the face of Schmidt, striving to break the detec- tive's bulldog hold, for now that the girl had es- caped, Mack clamored and fought to be free. Chivalry had not been behind his assault upon Schmidt. Hard common sense had been the in- centive, for he realized that if Kirby Rowland were captured she might surrender the paper, and gone would be the dreams of wealth for Hand- some Harry Mack. This was his reason for leap- ing from the saloon whither he had been waiting and watching save for two minutes when he used the telephone for Kirby Rowland since his PLUNDER 119 quiet departure from the studios. Better that he himself, Harry Mack, be captured, than that the possessor of the document signed by the million- aires pass back into its signers' possession. But better still if both girl and he went free ! Schmidt was on top now. Handsome Harry lifted his knee suddenly. The detective sprawled limp upon the body of the crook! Mack gained his knees, his teeth showing in a snarl. Then suddenly the lips covered the gums and he smiled, for he found himself looking into a gun held by Terence Greenham. The door of Kirby's apartment had given way before a chair wielded by the detective. Still smiling, for it was part of his code to smile at defeat, Handsome Harry arose to his feet, brushing the knees of his trousers sedulously. "Well, now you've got me, what you going to do?" he asked coolly. VIII TRAIN after train left the terminal, but Dixon Grant boarded none of them. He had told Kirby that he would leave the city, and had agreed with her that it was dangerous for him to remain ; but he was a red-blooded youth, and the more he considered leaving Kirby in the city while he be- took himself elsewhere, the more his courage re- belled at the plan. If he were traced by the Mas- terman agents it was possible that his relation to Kirby might be discovered. He had never told any of his associates in the bucket-shop of Kirby ; he had never told any of his fellow lodgers; but detectives might learn of her existence. They might look up all his acquaintances in that artistic colony to which Kirby belonged and where he had first met her at a studio supper. He had always held aloof from his business associates, despising, as he did, the business in which he was engaged, and having a mild contempt for those similarly 1 20 PLUNDER x*i employed and without desire for a change of vo- cation. But the set to which Kirby belonged, and into which by virtue of an old school friend be- come author he had entered, knew that he and Kirby were close friends. If one of this set were approached, and should happen to talk, in some way or other Kirby might be subjected to annoy- ance, if nothing worse, and it ill became him to leave her to face it alone. At any rate, not until he had communicated with Kirby and learned that she had accomplished her mission of storing the paper in a Masterman vault would he think of leaving the city. Brave and capable as he knew her to be, there might be a moment when two husky fists would be of in- finitely more value than her ready woman's wit. Until she had arranged to hide herself, a move that, in his rising alarm for her, appeared to him as advisable as his own flight, he would be near at hand. So he stayed in the terminal, while trains by the score pulled out for Jersey and be- yond, standing near a row of telephone booths. Once, twice, and again, he entered the telephone booth, each time certain that she jcould not have 122 PLUNDER returned from down-town so soon, yet unable, in his impatience that magnified danger, to let a rea- sonable time elapse. After the third unsuccessful attempt to reach her at the Greenwich Studios, he walked over to the cigar stand and purchased a smoke. He was lighting the cigar at the little gas flame when he was touched on the arm. "Well, what have you been doing tapping the firm's till?" He turned to face Gene Carnahan, a fellow clerk in the office of Bryant, Manners & Com- pany. It took an effort for him to return Carna- han's smile. "If I had I'd not be standing quietly here, Gene," he laughed Carnahan was the only one of his fellow clerks with whom he had much to do. They occasional- ly lunched together, and Grant rather liked the jolly little fat man, although they were not at all intimate. But Grant felt that Carnahan, like him- self, worked for the bucket-shop only because of dire need, and that Carnahan was as anxious as himself to get into something else. So a subtle PLUNDER 113 bond of sympathy had thus been created between them. Grant offered Carnahan a cigar. "What's the point of the merry wheeze, Gene?" Carnahan looked quickly at Grant. He got his cigar going before he replied. "Personally, Dick," he said, "about the only thing that restrains me from grabbing off a bank roll from our esteemed bosses is the fact that I have a wife and two kids. The way Bryant and Manners get their coin doesn't establish for them any valid title to it, so far as I can see. It could hardly be termed stealing to take anything from them at least, so broad-minded a man as myself wouldn't consider it such. So I'm not shocked. Dick, have you been nicking the office funds? If so, let me assure you that while you're a con- founded rascal, you have my deepest sympathy, my undying envy at your nerve, and my blessing and best wishes for a speedy voyage to a port where extradition doesn't reign. If you haven't, and of course you haven't, why does the Green- ham Detective Agency take such an interest iri 124 PLUNDER your whereabouts? And since when have you become so pally with his lordship, Sir Fitz-Roy Bray?" "Chop the chatter, Gene," said Grant. "Get down to cases. What are you driving at?" "I just phoned the office. I've had the after- noon off to attend to some private business. I phoned to inquire about some work I'd left un- finished. Young Clarkin, the phone clerk, he of the cavernous ear and clacking tongue, slipped me some information which, in view of your re- pressed excitement, I will now pass swiftly on to you." He dropped the grandiloquent manner. "Clarkin, anxious as ever to disseminate informa- tion, told me that the Greenhams had just been in the office inquiring about Sir Fitz-Roy. Seems that he's a well-known crook named Harry Mack. The Greenhams wanted to know if Mack had phoned the office this afternoon and whom he had asked for. Clarkin said that you were the baby, and that he had given Sir Fitz-Roy, or Mack, your address. Said that the firm was quite het up about your not showing up this P. M. What's the answer, old top?" PLUNDER 1 35 Grant stared at Carnahan. "When I know the answer fully, some day, I'll let you know, Gene. In the meantime, do you suppose you can forget having seen me to-day? I haven't robbed anybody. You're not making yourself accessory after the fact." "As if I couldn't be a little thing like that for a man I like!" said Carnahan. "I've forgotten I ever knew you, Dick. Is that enough?" Grant pressed his hand. "It's enough, Gene. Thanks." "Forget it! And if you want There's my train. S'long, Dick." And the little fat man dashed off. Grant looked after him. He had learned some- thing in the last few minutes that he had a friend on whom he could count. It was knowl- edge that cheered for a moment. But only for that long, for then it was shoved aside by a sterner knowledge, the knowledge that the Green- hams were upon his trail. His reasoning had been correct; he had been traced by the Masterman agents. How long before Kirby would be traced ? .He leaped again into the telephone booth. 126 PLUNDER He got the Greenwich Studios and asked for Miss Rowland's apartment. A voice undisguis- ably masculine answered. Grant's heart thumped. "Is Miss Rowland there?" "Who is this?" "I wish to speak to Miss Rowland." "Who is this?" "The King of Spain," snapped Grant "Is Miss Rowland there?" He seemed to detect caution in the voice that replied : "She's just stepped out. Any message. It is her brother talking. Who is this ?" It was clumsy work ; it would have been better for the man not to have answered the telephone. For Grant stepped quietly out of the booth, paid for the call and walked swiftly out into the street There he stood a moment in indecision. Kirby Rowland had no brother! Who, then, could be posing as that non-existing brother ex- cept some one vitally interested in the paper signed by the millionaires? Of course it might have been a burglar, it might have been the janitor, it might have been any one at all playing an asinine PLUNDER 127 joke. But the probabilities were strongly against any such coincidence. It was an agent of Mas- terman or else Sir Fitz-Roy Bray, otherwise Harry Mack. He walked slowly down the street Sir Fitz- Roy Harry Mack. He knew that Mack was a client of the firm, and that was all. He had nod- ded to the man occasionally, but no more. Why, then, should Mack have telephoned for him and inquired his address? Why should the Green- hams, commonly known to be retained by the Masterman interests, inquire for Sir Fitz-Roy? Because Sir Fitz-Roy, otherwise Harry Mack, had gained, and was known to have gained, pos- session of the paper now in the Masterman vaults probably. And Mack had telephoned him, Dixon Grant, because it was Mack who had placed in Grant's pocket the paper. But why had he parted with possession of the paper? Grant shook his head. Why had Mack chosen such a repository as Grant's pocket? Again he shook his head. The answers to those questions were not clear. Suffi- cient that the thing had been done, that Mack had 128 PLUNDER learned Grant's address, that the Greenhams had learned as much as he, Mack, knew, and that The telephone conversation was no impertinent joke perpetrated by some one who had gained access to Kirby's room ; it was no burglar. Bur- glars do not answer the telephone in apartments they are robbing. It was Mack or a Masterman agent. And this being so, where was Kirby? She was due home now, some little time ago. His next to the last telephone call had been a bit too early for her return, but she should have been home a few moments after that. And that was almost three-quarters of an hour ago. What had happened in those forty-five minutes between her coming home and the answering of the last phone call by her pseudo brother? It was that question that made him leap aboard a south-bound car and that made him fret at its slowness. It was a question that no fear for self, no fear for the wrecking of their great plan, nothing could prevent him seeking answer to. For he loved Kirby Rowland, and if anything had happened to her, he was to blame, because PLUNDER 129 he had left her alone to face issues that would have appalled strong men even. But discretion is ever the better part of valor. His blood cooled on the all too slow journey down-town. If Kirby were, say, imprisoned in her own apartment, he alone would be unable to rescue her by violent assault. Cunning would be needed, unless, indeed, he chose to give up their great plan. And that, imbued as he now was with her altruism, he hoped not to do. But cunning needs thought and wariness. So he 'Swung off the car at the next stop, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and, thinking hard, approached the Green- wich Studios at a gait that, being slower, was less an invitation to curiosity than the breakneck pace at which he had first started out. He turned the corner of the street on which stood the Greenwich Studios. He sauntered down it. From the Greenwich Studios came two men ; they turned toward Grant. His mouth grew hard as he recognized, too late to turn back, he thought, without being recognized himself, the handsome countenance of Harry Mack. And with Mack 130 PLUNDER was a man who had been pointed out to him a$ Terence Greenham ! Their arms were linked ; to the casual observer they would have seemed two middle-aged chums. To Grant's understanding eye that linking of arms was seizure ; the twain were captor and cap- tured. And they had come from the Greenwich Studios, which housed Kirby Rowland! His slow pace slackened for a few strides into a dawdle. Mack was Greenham's prisoner. That meant, since they came from Kirby's house, that Greenham had caught Mack there, most likely, for it was hardly probable that Mack had led the detective there. If so he would not be held by the arm by the detective. They would have reached a compromise which would have assured Mack his freedom. The man capable of posing as an English nobleman, and of stealing the precious paper, would hardly be driven by threats. Grant knew character a little, and he had seen the handsome but hard face of Harry Mack too often to deem the man weak. They had met at Kirby's house; that was the answer. But where Was Kirby? PLUNDER 131 This question, important though it was, he put aside for the moment. If necessary, he would divulge the hiding-place of the document and so save Kirby from harm. But until he knew what danger, if any, menaced her now, he would do well to keep his face from the eyes of Harry Mack. He turned abruptly into a tobacconist's and asked for cigarettes, while he kept one eye upon the door. The two men with the linked arms stopped outside the shop. "Really, old fellow, you can't put a bullet through me because I want a smoke, and insist on buying my own cigars, you know," said the voice of Handsome Harry, in the assumed drawl that fitted the identity of Sir Fitz-Roy. "Very well," Grant heard Greenham reply. "But no tricks!" It was evident that although Greenham had Mack under arrest, he did not care to advertise the fact by a brawl. Still with linked arms the two men entered the tobacconist's. Inwardly cursing the luck that had driven them to enter his place of refuge, Grant bent over the counter, as though choosing from its contents. I 3 2 PLUNDER "What have you, my man?" Mack asked the shopkeeper. "All your deuced American cigars burn my tongue. Have you anything mild?" And then he touched Grant on the shoulder. "I say, my friend, can you recommend anything de- cent ? My cousin here doesn't smoke, so he can't tell me. What would you recommend?" And unless the sense of touch lied, Grant felt the fingers of Harry Mack pinch his shoulder. There was nothing to do but answer. Face avert- ed, wondering, ready for a mad dash past both men, Grant mumbled the name of the cigar he had bought at the terminal a while ago. But Mack was not satisfied. "I say, you mention it as though you didn't believe it's any good at all. Can't you look me in the eye and give me your word of honor that it is a good cigar?" "Come on, Mack, quit annoying the man," said Greenham testily. But Grant lifted his eyes to Handsome Harry. Certain that the crook had recognized him and was making game of him, the young man doubled his fists and lifted his shoulders, prepared to PLUNDER 133 swing at the nearest jaw, but the expression on the face of Handsome Harry made his fingers unfold. For the international crook, his back to Greenham, shook his head the least trifle, while his forehead wrinkled in a frown that could be nothing other than a warning. It was a signal .that lasted only a fraction of a second, but was unmistakable. Then Mack laughed. "Beg pardon for ragging you, sir. That cigar is really good? Give me a half dozen," he said to the tobacconist. Mystified, inwardly trembling, wondering what could have been Mack's reason for the warning and what it meant and why the crook did not leap upon him, despite Greenham's presence, and de- mand the return of the paper, Grant lighted a cigarette at the stand, still keeping his face from Greenham. The detective did not know him, so far as Grant was aware, but he might have ob- tained a description of Grant, and the latter knew not how effective, in a capable detective's brain, such a description might be. Mack took his cigars with his free hand and paid for them with the same member. He put I 3 4 PLUNDER one in his mouth and leaned toward the lighter. He removed it; then turned toward his captor. "I tell you flat, Greenham," and he enunciated the detective's name clearly. "I won't go back to those studios. I wouldn't for anything." Greenham stared at his prisoner. "Now what the devil do you mean by that ?" he demanded, surprised into the question. "Just what I say," said Mack. "There's noth- ing there for me, and I tell you flat I'll go no- where without a reason. I'll go to your bally headquarters if you insist, but there's nothing at the Greenwich Studios and I won't go back there." Greenham's jaw dropped slightly. "Well, who the dickens asked you to? Look here, Mack, I'll have no more of your nonsense. You come along with me or I'll ring for a wag- on!" Despite the presence of tobacconist and stranger, Greenham grew angry, and did not lower his voice. "Why, you cheap con man, do you think you can make a rag of me? You've stalled long enough. Who' re you trying to kid, anyway? I've had enough of this! I've stopped PLUNDER 135 to get a drink and now for a smoke, and I've had enough. Come on !" "Why, blast it all, if you haven't a temper, Greenham, old cock! Deuced if I thought it of you ! Lead on, my friend !" And, smiling and chipper, Handsome Harry allowed the frowning detective to lead him from the shop. The tobacconist stared after them. He turned to Grant, as mystified as himself: "Well, I'll bet that's a fly cop making a pinch ! 'And I thought they were pals. Class to that crook, eh?" "There is," said Grant dully. A moment later he, too, passed out into the street, and turned again toward the Greenwich Studios. But he took only a couple of steps before he paused. Why hadn't Mack recognized him ? Or, rather, not that, for Mack had recognized him; his frown and nodded head were proof of that. But why hadn't the crook denounced him to Greenham? The chances were a million to one that Greenham had taken Mack into custody because of the affair of the paper, and million-to-one chances maj; 136 PLUNDER ordinarily be looked upon as facts. Then why didn't Mack, under arrest, with his hold on for- tune broken, denounce Grant ? There was no use in trying to figure that out; let it suffice that Mack had not denounced Grant. Sir Fitz-Roy Bray had not impressed Grant as being a fool; and Gene Carnahan had said that Bray was a crook named Mack. A crook clever enough to pass himself off as an English noble- man was not a fool. Then why the queer talk that had angered Greenham? Why should Mack want to anger his captor? "There's nothing at the Greenwich Studios. I'll go nowhere without a reason." These scraps from Mack's statements to the detective came back to Grant. Only fools make meaningless remarks. Mack was no fool ; there- fore, his remarks held meaning. For whom? For Grant! It was clear enough. For reasons of his own Mack would not denounce Grant. More, he was shielding Grant, for he was warning the clerk that Kirby Rowland was not at the studios, and that there was danger there. There was no other PLUNDER 137 meaning save that. And there was no reason in the world for Mack to attempt to deceive Grant. Kirby was not in the studios. Nor could she be under arrest. Mack had informed him of so much that he would have informed him of this last had it happened. He felt a sudden unaccountable faith in the man whom he knew to be a crook, and who, undoubtedly, if his hard face were any indication of his character, would kill without compunction any who stood in his path. Mack's hints were truthful ones. Kirby was not at home, and further, she could not be ex- pected home. This last deduction was as plain as the first. Otherwise Mack would not have made the statement so emphatically that he would not go back to the studios. But how could Mack know she was not coming back? His heart leaped as he answered that question because she had come and gone ! But where ? That was for Dixon Grant to find out. He set out at once in search of Kirby. IX THE dock on a near-by church tower struck eleven, each note distinct, menacing. The three men in the library seemed to brace them- selves against the sounds, as slaves might before the lash of the whip. Their attitudes beneath the real whips could not more clearly have indicated their character, for Blaisdell seemed to cringe as each stroke of the bell floated through the open window; Cardigan seemed to grit his teeth and square his shoulders; while Masterman's face grew more and more impassive as the strokes continued. Only his eyes, gloomy, brooding, showed the fire pent up within him. And thus, in other and less happy incarnations, might all three have stood physical torture. A knock sounded gently on the door as the last stroke died away. "Come in," said Masterman harshly. A liveried servant showed for a second on the threshold. 138 PLUNDER 139 "Mr. Greenham," he announced softly, then closed the door, himself outside. As a taptive at the stake might have looked at a rescuer Blaisdell looked at the detective. "Well, well, well, have you caught her, have you caught her, have you caught her?" His teeth chattered, though his forehead was moist and his eyes feverish. "Have you got the paper ?" rumbled Cardigan, his head thrust forward. Masterman merely looked at the detective, and it was to him that Greenham directed his answer. "Not yet. But I hope " "Hope," said Masterman, "is the refuge of the incompetent What have you done?" Greenham flushed. "I have operatives at the railroad station. I've notified practically every hotel in the city to have their house detective keep on the lookout for a woman answering this Rowland girl's description. As I phoned you earlier in the evening, she got away by a trick, but it's only a matter of time when " "When seconds mean millions, Greenham, 140 PLUNDER kindly refrain from referring to time so careless- ly," snapped Masterman. "She got away? A young girl an artist, you said ? Away from you, said to be one of the greatest detectives on earth ! Greenham, at any other time I'd laugh. As it is what else have you done?" "I have operatives tracing her friends. I ex- pect at any moment to hear from them that she has been located." "Hope again," said Masterman, "when I want facts! And this Mack? Have you discovered his reason for interfering?" "He refuses to talk," replied Greenham, "ex- cept to state that if he isn't released by midnight he'll have something to say to the papers." "To the papers!" Cardigan's bull-like roar shook the chandelier. "Another bit of your damned incompetency, Greenham. When you had the man why didn't you hide him somewhere ? Why take him to headquarters where he could get lawyers, and Greenham, if I had an office boy as big a fool as you I'd fire him!" "Kidnaping isn't so feasible as it sounds," said Greenham angrily. "I did the best I could. I've PLUNDER 141 had him locked up, and you 'talk about kidnap- ing. What good would that have done? He's in league with this Rowland woman, that's cer- tain, else why did he rescue her from Schmidt? And when he's turned loose he'll try to see her, won't he? And won't my men be on his trail?" "And weren't they this afternoon?" sneered Cardigan. "They'll not lose him again," promised Green- ham. "Perhaps," said Masterman. "In the mean- time " He walked to the window and stared out into the night. Somewhere in this city was a chit of a girl, who was defying him, Martin Masterman, whom no man had ever defied save to his cost. She was defying Martin Masterman; she would make her defiance good! To-day she had asked the car lines of the city to issue universal transfers; to-morrow but there must be no to-morrow! He turned back into the room and the light from the chandelier struck full upon his face, showing things there that up to that time had been hidden. "Greenham," he said, "men may be made to 143 PLUNDER talk. This afternoon it did not seem possible that Mack was in league with this woman. Their demands are so different." He was silent for a moment. Might it not be possible that the woman's demands were made merely to show that there must be no trifling with the demands of Mack? To emphasize, as it were, Mack's demands? He shook his head. This did not seem probable, much as he wished it were. Mack's actions during the afternoon as learned by Greenham and reported to Master- man, gave the lie to that conclusion. The crook and the girl were independent factors. That Mack had aided the girl clouded this reasoning, but Mack was a blackmailer, pure and simple, while the girl Masterman had never seen her, but she had talked to him, and the voice indicates as much, more sometimes, than features do. She was no blackmailer. Yet Mack had rescued her. He must have had a reason. He must know where to find her. There was ruthless purpose on the face of Masterman when he spoke again. "You're right, Greenham, when you say that Mack will try to find this Rowland person. But PLUNDER 143 you're probably wrong when you say that your operatives will not lose him again. He's too clever. If he knows where this Rowland woman may be found he must be made to tell ! This is no petty matter; this is a matter that affects the business of the nation. And one man can not stand in the way of business and progress. Understand?" "You mean ?" Greenham hesitated. "Don't be an ass," snapped Masterman. ''You're no child! I told you this afternoon that I'd stand behind you. And you merely placed him under arrest on some trumped-up charge." Greenham wet his suddenly dry lips. "Mr. Masterman, I thought you meant that any false-arrest stuff any suits for dam- ages " Masterman cut him short with a gesture. "I said I'd stand behind you. I meant it. Find out where this girl is !" Greenham shook his head. "It's too late." "Too late? Who says so? I tell you this woman must be found. I tell you " For 144 PLUNDER the first and last time in his life Martin Master- man lost control of himself. "Find her!" he cried; "find her!" The demon unleashed in the soul of the master of transportation frightened Greenham. He an- swered almost in a whisper. "It's too late!" he repeated. "That's twice you've said that," raged Master- man. "Don't you understand that I control the authorities ?" "But not the judges," said Greenham. "And Mack has seen a judge." Masterman regained his self-control at once. He sat down. "Seen a judge? Who?" This gave him something to plot against, a chance for scheming. The world was a stage his stage, and all men were actors his actors. But just now it had seemed that the play was ended, the plot run out, and so he had lost control of himself. But there was to be an epilogue. "How did Mack see a judge?" "He didn't himself, but a lawyer did. He went to Judge Marchand, and the judge granted PLUNDER 145 a writ of habeas, returnable to-morrow morning. Mack must have planted the lawyer; had some deal with him that if he didn't show up at a cer- tain time to apply for the writ " "Who's his lawyer?" "Peterthwaite." "Purchasable?" "I don't know, but it's too late, anyhow. He found Marchand at his home and got the writ. Even if he backed out, Marchand wouldn't. There's one man that can't be reached." Masterman nodded. No one need tell him of the incorruptibility of Judge Marchand. "But a business necessity Marchand might do something," said Greenham. "He can't recall the writ if it's been served on the commissioner a writ demanding that Mack be produced in court to-morrow morning," snap- ped Masterman. Greenham had known this as well as the finan- cier. Only to ease the tension had he volun- teered the suggestion. Masterman's face was im- passive once again. His voice was chill. "The writ returnable to-morrow morning, eh? 146 PLUNDER But that's ten hours off. In the meantime, Mack might be made to talk !" "When he has to be produced before the judge in the morning?" "Well?" The great man's tones were icy. Greenham shook his head. "I don't know just what this crisis is, Mr. Masterman ; you haven't told me. But it can't be any greater than the one if anything happened to the man for whom Judge Marchand had issued a writ of habeas corpus. I know Marchand; I'll not monkey with him. And I advise you not to. Better let Mack go at midnight as he demands. The Citizen is after you all the time. If Mack should choose to talk to one of their report- ers " "Keep reporters from him," said Masterman. "He'll talk to some one the policeman on guard in the corridor. He said to tell you that." "He said that this morning, but I thought a friend of his had the paper then. As it is, no paper would believe his story, would dare to print it without proof." "But it's known that I arrested him, and that PLUNDER 147 I work for you. The Citizen's reporters are clever. They'd put these facts with Mack's story." Masterman sank a little lower in his chair. "Greenham, release the man. Have your men follow him, but get the Rowland woman! I'll pay you you know me- You needn't bother about pay. Greenham, she's won her first move ; I leave it to you to see that she makes no other." "The first move? Then the universal trans- fers " The liveried servant knocked again on the door. "Mr. Lindley Jackson, sir." "Show him up," said Masterman. Still impassive, he turned to Greenham. "Greenham," he said rapidly, "if Mack is re- leased and his lawyer informs Judge Marchand of that fact, the habeas proceedings fall flat, don't they? Then get Peterthwaite to see Marchand to-night and tell him of Mack's release. Then Ah, Mr. Jackson, glad to see you. You know Cardigan and Blaisdell, eh? Sit down and have Something to smoke." He walked with Green- i 4 8 PLUNDER ham to the door. "Mack might elude any one following him, eh?" he said in a whisper. "But if they shouldn't follow him? If they rush him away in an auto? You understand?" Greenham nodded. Not for long was Master- man circumvented by the entrance of the incor- ruptible Judge Marchand upon the scene. Mar- chand, not knowing the gravity of the situation, merely thinking that Peterthwaite's client was some victim of ordinary police activity, would be satisfied with that shyster's statement that Mack had been released 1 before the serving of the writ of habeas. If Peterthwaite's eloquence had been enough to persuade the judge to issue the writ in advance of any preliminary hearing before a magistrate; if he had played upon Judge Marchand's well-known distaste for police deten- tion, under insufficient reason, of innocent men, he would be able to gull that able but too-trusting jurist further. And Mack could be spirited away, made to talk. He came out of his dream of justi- fying Masterman's faith in himself with a jar, for, seated at the wheel of a powerful runabout that stood beneath an arc light, was a man whom PLUNDER, 149 he knew well, Tom Hanrahan, of the Citizen. Across the street were two other small cars, and on the sidewalk, talking to Hanrahan, were two other reporters from the paper owned and pub- lished by Lindley Jackson. Greenham stared. "What's the idea?" he asked, as Hanrahan grinned and the other two approached. "You're news, old top," said Hanrahan. "When our respected boss is invited at the witch- ing hour to visit Masterman, he takes a few of us along. WTiere you going, Chief? For I'm going the same place and I'll take you with me." And Tom Hanrahan could give all the trumps to the best detective that ever lived Greenham admitted this himself and score a grand slam. He could not be eluded. Right off the bat Mas- terman's scheme had been beaten. There could be no kidnaping of Harry Mack while Hanrahan, at his chief's behest, was trailing the people who left the Masterman household. Greenham made the best of a bad matter. "Headquarters, Tom," he said. A little later Handsome Harry Mack was re- leased. 150 PLUNDER "I pinched him on general principles interna- tional crook," Greenham explained to the re- porter. "No charge against him; made a mis- take. Meant to have him released earlier, but cable from England saying he wasn't wanted for job over there didn't arrive till late, while I was conferring with Masterman about some matters that are nobody's business, Tom, old chap. I didn't want Mack to have to sleep in a cell if he's done nothing, that's all." He had to tell all this, for the reporter, he knew, would not leave him until he went to bed, and would certainly learn the detective's mission at police headquarters. However, he still hoped to have his men trail Mack after his release and carry out Masterman's suddenly conceived, plan. But Tom Hanrahan had no explicit orders from his chief. He was to trail whoever left the Masterman household, on general principles; if there was no news in them, he could drop the trail. There was no news, so far as Hanrahan could see, in Greenham, But an international crook was always good for a few sticks on the front page. PLUNDER 151 "Blind steer the boss gave me, eh?" mused Hanrahan. "Well, then I'll get a yam out of this Mack." And when Mack was released the reporter proffered the use of his car, which Handsome Harry, with a grin at Greenham he was no chicken, this Handsome Harry, and was quick to guess Greenham's impotent anger and its cause accepted thankfully. In the reporter's high-powered runabout owned, be it remarked, by Mr. Jackson Handsome Harry sped up- town. After they had ridden for a couple of squares 'the crook spoke to the reporter. "I suppose you know," he said, "that Green- ham's men are following us in taxis?" "What's the answer?" inquired Hanrahan. "Where do you and Martin Masterman hitch up?" It was imperative, thought Handsome Harry, that he shake off the trailing sleuths. He under- stood perfectly that the next time he was taken into custody he would be placed where no writs of habeas or threats to tell the newspapers what he knew would earn his release. Of course he 1 52 PLUNDER could tell Hanrahan the truth, and Hanrahan's paper would protect him from Greenham's agents. But, needless to say, Handsome Harry was not telling any one the truth just yet, not until his own game had been played and lost. And he did not intend to lose. "The answer?" echoed Handsome Harry eas- ily. "Well, suppose I should tell you that the Botticelli bought by Martin Masterman last winter for one hundred and forty thousand dol- lars was a fake, and that Martin Masterman thought he could prove I planned the fake and copped his money? What sort of a story would that make?" "And those birds behind are unsatisfied still of your innocence and are trailing you to lead them to better evidence?" "Go to the head of the class, Mr. Reporter for the Citizen," laughed Handsome Harry. They were crossing a crowded street. Hanra- han looked back again. A story that would make Martin Masterman ridiculous would tickle Lind- ley Jackson, who hated the billionaire, and Jack- son was Hanrahan's employer. PLUNDER 153 "Those taxis can make forty-five if they have to. This baby," and he patted the wheel, "will do ninety. Do you like fast riding, Mr. Mack ?" "Anything less than fifty feels tame to me," grinned Mack. "Well, let's be wild for once," said Hanrahan. The runabout shot ahead like a bullet. A few squares farther on it was bettering fifty miles, and before many minutes the pursuing taxicabs were out of sight. X IN ONE corner Masterman discussed with Creighton, publisher of the Tribunal, some additions lately made to the Art Museum. Blais- dell, nervous and showing slight traces of the fact that he had consumed three pints of cham- pagne, complimented Highlands, owner of the Star, on the series of Sunday articles the Star was printing about the food sources of the coun- try; a series, by the way, which proved to the satisfaction of its author, his employer and Blais- dell, that the country would starve but for the genius of the little greedy man who was Lord of the Granary and Market. Sanderson, Mannering and Cowdray, owners of the Planet, the Orb and the Despatch, chatted on various subjects with Cardigan. Yerkes and MlcGaffey, of the Wire and the Transcript, two papers as wide apart in politics and treatment of the news as the two poles, who, through their 154 PLUNDER 155 editorial columns sneered and decried each other, chatted with every evidence of pleasure. Only Lindley Jackson, owner, publisher and editor of the Citizen, sat alone. His champagne was untasted; the plate of sandwiches on the little table beside his chair remained undimin- ished. He even smoked one of his own cigars, rather than the rare, expressly manufactured panetelas of Martin Masterman. Careless about his appearance apparently, one looked twice at Lindley Jackson, greatest newspaper genius of his age, before one saw that everything about him was in harmony. If his hair seemed untidy one noted that it was a careful untidiness. The loosely knotted tie with its poetically flowing ends bore out the scheme. An artistic poseur, even the pose gave the effect required of loosely restrained energy. A 1 man of great genius, he was not above de- manding flattery of his genius. Altruistic pub- licly, always making the Citizen stand for the rights of the people, privately he was a bit of a snob. But his snobbishness was intellectual; it was not based on any material possessions. He 156 PLUNDER despised the three millionaires more because he deemed them vulgarians than because of their methods of acquiring wealth. His real, though unuttered, objection to colossal wealth was that it brutalized the possessor and all those with whom the possessor came into contact. He had no real love for the people, because he did not respect them. That, for centuries, they had per- mitted a few to rob them in wholesale fashion, and enslave them, made them worthy of contempt. He believed the people neither capable of self- rule nor worthy of it, but he believed, and sin- cerely, that because the people did not deserve a thing was no reason why they should not have it. The people could hardly make a greater mess of their affairs than was being made for them by others; it was their inalienable privilege to go to the deuce in their own way. He believed that all had inherited the earth equally; that one man had as much right to rule as another. That he might not be fit to rule was beside the question. A queer combination was Lindley Jackson, and he fought with all his genius, unsparing of his health or wealth, for a people in whose genius, PLUNDER 157 in the mass, he did not trust, because the divinity in each human being, however clouded by ignor- ance, carried with it title to a share in earthly power. So he believed, and so he fought. And now he glowered at Masterman. He hurled his cigar into a fireplace. "I take it," he said, suavely insulting, "that we aren't here to discuss art, prize-fighting, or" with a sneer at Blaisdell "the wonderful genius of the gentleman who invented the food corner. We're here because Masterman wants something of us. What is it, Masterman?" There were very few men who spoke to the master of transporation without 'the prefix "Mister." If they knew him intimately he was "Martin." Otherwise, "Mr. Masterman." But Lindley Jackson was one of the few who did not fear Martin Masterman. His great newspaper was financially independent of the financier. More than once had Masterman planned to ruin Jackson, but the latter had been too clever for him. He even forced the very interests he de- nounced to advertise in his paper, in very fear of what further injury he might do them. I 5 8 PLUNDER Cowdray and Yerkes frowned at the publisher of the Citizen. Others stared at him, hostility in their eyes; but Masterman smiled ingratiatingly. He struck his library table with the palm of his hand, and those present came to attention as at a chairman's gavel. Masterman came directly to the point. "Mr. Jackson is right; I beg his pardon for taking up his time with trivialities. I have invited you gentlemen who lead public opinion to come to my house because I wished to ask something of you. But not for myself for the nation." He paused and looked into every face. From all save one he received the glance of encourage- ment, of subservience, he wished. That one was the scowling countenance of Lindley Jackson. "Patriotism, gentlemen," continued Master- man, "is not dead yet. I know that, and because I know it " Jackson took out his watch. "Five minutes of twelve," he interrupted rudely. "I have to be at my office at twelve- thirty. Forget the introduction, Masterman. Come down to earth." PLUNDER 159 Masterman winced slightly at the interruption, but he held in his anger. It would not do to quarrel with Lindley Jackson. "I will," said he. "To-night, gentlemen, there is loose a force that menaces have I your as- surance that what I say will be treated con- fidentially?" There was a murmur of assent from all save Jackson. He answered: "You most certainly have not, Masterman. I'll print anything you say to-night if it has news value." It was an impasse. Unless Jackson could be made to reconsider this, there was no use in going further in the effort to render harmless the bombshell which Kirby Rowland promised to fire. The financier was silent a moment. "Look here, Jackson," he said at length, "be reasonable. It's a mighty vital situation. I have assurance that my words will be kept secret" Jackson thought in his turn. "Masterman, you just mentioned some force that menaced something probably yourself. Is 160 PLUNDER it possible that I will hear of this force from some one other than yourself?" "It is," said Masterman. There was nothing else to say. "Then go ahead talk," said Jackson. "If I hear of this elsewhere I will not be bound by my promise to you." "Certainly not," said Masterman. "Not bound by a promise, but bound by patriotism. Listen: A certain paper was signed by certain men, who in that paper agreed, with other men, to follow a given course of action. I can be no clearer. That paper has been lost. The person who has found it threatens to take the paper to the news- papers. The publication of that paper would mean anarchy. I mean that. It is as serious as that, because the contents of the paper would be misunderstood by the people. Have I your promises, gentlemen, that, out of patriotism, you will refuse to print the contents of that docu- ment if it is offered to you?" "In so serious a matter," said Cowdray pomp- ously, "I am certain that none of my brethren of the press would think of printing it. You, PLUNDER 161 Mr. Masterman, are not given to idle utterances. What you say is received with consideration. I think my colleagues agree with me." There were nods of assent. Jackson sneered. "How much of your bond issue did Master- man handle, Cowdray?" he laughed. "You'll have to do better than that, Masterman. I'll print such a paper if it's offered to me." "Even though it wrecked business?" inquired Masterman. Jackson smiled, crossed his knees and brought the tips of his fingers together. "Of course, Masterman, it's clear that you and some of your precious friends signed this mys- terious document, and it is equally clear that it must be inimical to the interests of the people. A newspaper's business is to print the news. What you do is news. What you do inimical to the interests of the people is tremendous news. If I get a crack at that paper I'll certainly print it." "Though it might mean the end of the present order?" "If this republic can't stand the exposure of i6a PLUNDER the schemes of you and your fellow highbinders, Masterman, then heaven help the republic!" "You have no patriotism!" cried Masterman. "Patriotism, my dear man," smiled Jackson, "is capable of many definitions. I do not define it as love for a government; I define it as love for a people. I do not love the people I despise them; but I am very sorry for them, sorry that they have been cheated out of their rights so long. If to restore to the people their rights it became necessary to tear down the system you have corrupted, then I'd tear down the system. Am I clear?" "Exceedingly," said Masterman. "Thank you," said Jackson. "Now, then, why are we here? You did not call us here to tell us in inchoate terms of this document. You called us here to get our attitude in order that you might know what to do in case of our refusal to be gulled by you. That alternative has a news value, of course, or you would not have invited us to be present to-night. You have something else up your sleeve, Masterman. What is it?" PLUNDER 163 "Will you gentlemen excuse us a moment?" Masterman asked the others. Obsequious assents were swiftly given. In response to a nod Jackson followed Masterman into another room. There the financier took out his pocketbook; he opened it. "We are still speaking in confidence, Jackson ? Well, I had doubts of your attitude in regard to the matter we have just discussed. I telephoned Mr. Warren Sheldon this evening. He imme- diately wrote and sent me this note. I shall read it to you. " 'My dear Mr. Masterman : Permit me to answer your telephonic question of ten minutes ago to this effect : I have for Mr. Lindley Jack- son the highest esteem and respect, though he has seen fit to pillory me as a conscienceless politi- cal boss times without number. But even though it has been my misfortune to oppose him in the past, it will be my good fortune to stand behind him in the future if you so wish. If your inter- ests will be served by his nomination for the governorship, rest assured that it is a pleasure to me to serve you. With the highest esteem, " 'Yours sincerely, " 'WARREN SHELDON.' " 164 PLUNDER Warren Sheldon had, the year previously, snatched a nomination from the hands of Jack- son. And now the great boss was to stand behind him if Jackson willed. Jackson smiled. "Because I have sometimes admitted that I do not believe the people have, as a mass, any com- mon sense, people like you think I am a hypo- crite in fighting for their rights. I don't blame you; small minds understand only small natures. But confound you, Masterman, I can't be bought. I'm a newspaper man first, last, and all the time ! I want the news, and the public wants me to give it to them! The public I serve because it ought to be served, whether it appreciates service or not. I want no more of your confidences or your bribes. You have news for my paper? Then give it to me now!" .There was a silence in the room, broken, as an hour earlier, by the strokes of the clock in the near-by tower. Only this time the clock struck twelve. r And before its last deep tones had died away, in the next room Martin Masterman was making an announcement. "To-morrow, morning, gentleman," he said, PLUNDER 165 "the transportation lines of this city will issue universal transfers to all passengers. I bespeak, on behalf of the corporations interested, your own and the public's tolerance until the new system has had a chance. It will take time to print the millions of transfer tickets needed. There will be necessary reconstruction of many things." He paused. The cup of defeat was bit- ter. "This step is being taken for the benefit of the public, because the companies feel it is the public's due," he concluded. Only Lindley Jackson dared to laugh at the last words of the grim-faced man who, all under- stood vaguely, had waged some sort of losing fight that night, but at the gravity of whose defeat not even Jackson could guess. Martin Master- man had invoked the aid of the press and had lost! For if ninety-nine papers concealed what another paper printed, to the hundredth shall come the victory. Which is one of the reasons why the press must be honest. Silently and swiftly the publishers departed. News articles must be written, editorials prepared. At twenty minutes past one the first editions 166 PLUNDER were on the street, declaiming, in deep head-lines, the news which was to save a million nickels a day to the people of New York, and which was really the announcement of the first victory in Kirby Rowland's war. XI IT WAS Grant's first intention to call upon those of Kirby's friends with whom she might have taken refuge, but his second thought showed him the folly of this, not to speak of the waste of time. It would be better to telephone, though his anxiety for her safety could hardly brook the time required for telephoning. But if Greenham knew enough to find out Kirby's address, the chances were that he knew enough to put men to work tracing Kirby's social rela- tionships. One of the Greenham men might have found Kirby already. He would be losing time chasing from place to place. Four num- bers he called without result; Kirby was not at these places, nor had her friends seen her. But the fifth call was answered by a voice that always thrilled young Grant. "Kirby!" he gasped. "Then you're all right?" 167 168 PLUNDER "Why, how did you know? Aren't you in "Be right over," he interrupted. "Don't you dare leave!" He had phoned from a drug store that was not many blocks distant from the apartments where Kirby's friend lived. A car left him a few steps from her door in five minutes. Another minute and Kirby had admitted him to the apartment. "Alone?" he asked. She blushed ; whereupon he put his arms round her. Then she led him into the drawing-room. "What happened?" he demanded. She told him of her escape, and of her coming to the apartment of Jessie Sigmund, a fellow artist "I wanted to get somewhere, to think, to plan. I phoned Jessie and told her that I wanted her to put me up for the night. Jessie isn't the kind to ask questions, you know. She told me to come over, and offered to break an engagement she had made for the evening if I wished her to. But I didn't. So, as she was going right out, "He wants that paper for the money in it" PLUNDER 169 she left the key with the elevator boy. But why aren't you in Jersey? How did you know " He told her of his experiences. "Mack," he said thoughtfully, "saved us both. Why?" "Underneath his crookedness and cruelty," she suggested, "he must have a streak of chivalry that made him " "Not Mack!" laughed Grant. "He had his reasons, but chivalry was not among them. It wouldn't account for his tipping me off that you weren't at home, but that some one else probably was there. No, not chivalry. And yet, what was his reason? He hadn't experienced a change of heart, Kirby. He wants that paper for the money in it. It's beyond me!" "Me too," she said. There was silence while both thought. "Dick," she asked at length, "what are we going to do you, I mean ? You won't leave the city?" "I've thought it all over," he answered, "and I absolutely refuse to leave you alone to face Masterman and Mack. I'm going to stay." 170 PLUNDER "Where?" "Oh, I'll find a hundred places," he answered easily. "But you ? Where will you stay ?" "Here with Jessie." He laughed. "How long before Greenham's men will be here looking for you? You slipped away once, Kirby, but they'll take care not to let you again. We must think " The door-bell rang. They started. "Don't answer," whispered Kirby. He shrugged his shoulders. "The hallboy knows I entered." He started for the door, but she ran in front of him. "If it's one of Greenham's men I may be able to put him off. Don't let him see you." She half pushed him into the little den off the drawing-room, and then she opened the front door. His eye at the crack in the den door, Grant saw a man face Kirby. "Miss Sigmund?" he inquired. "Well?" said Kirby. "I'm looking for a friend of yours Miss Kirby Rowland. Is she here?" PLUNDER 171 "Miss Rowland? There is no other woman here," said Kirby. Though her back was to him Grant guessed the expression on her face; the slightly raised eyebrows, the faintly quizzical expression, with a touch of superiority in the eyes ; the hint of a haughty curl to the lips. "Then you ain't seen her to-day, Miss Sig- mund?" persisted the man, politely abashed. "And if I had, is there any reason why I should inform utter strangers of the fact? What is your business with Miss Rowland? You look, if I may say it without offense, like a detective." "No offense at all, ma'am. That's me. I'm lookin' for the young lady, and I want her bad." "Want Kirby Rowland? What on earth ha> she done?" Amazement was in every syllable. "Why, nothin', ma'am leastwise, nothin' criminal, I don't think. But I got a friend that's mighty anxious to see her and " "I can't believe any such thing," snapped Kirby. "You you're insulting! Miss Rowland is well known to me. Good evening!" She closed the door upon an utterly crestfallen detective. It was not what she had said; it was 172 PLUNDER the timbre of her voice, the lightning play of expression upon her mobile features. There was abjectness almost in the man's manner as he backed away. Kirby Rowland could play the grandc dame as well as any tragedy queen. She laughed as Grant emerged from the den. "Did I do well?" she asked. He did not answer as he walked swiftly across the room, raised the shade a few inches and knelt on the floor, peering from the side of the win- dow lest the electric light cast his shadow and betray his watchfulness. "You did well, Kirby," he then said softly, "but the game isn't over yet." He watched a moment, then beckoned to her. He made room for her to look out. "In that areaway opposite. See him just a blotch in the shadows?" Kneeling side by side they looked at each other. "And what does that mean?" she asked nervously. "Didn't he believe that I was Jessie ?" He rose and helped her up. "Undoubtedly he did and does. But, Kirby, I wonder if either of us realizes the immensity of the forces we've set in motion against ourselves? PLUNDER 173 That was a Greenham operative, as they call them, no doubt of that. Why did he come here? Because he had learned that Miss Sigmund is one of your friends. Why, not finding you here, hasn't he gone on to some other of your friends? Because, Kirby, there's a Greenham man watch- ing the home of every friend of yours in the city. Already ! I'll wager my life on it" "Absurd!" she scoffed. Yet her lips quivered slightly, and her eyes took on a hunted look. "That would take Oh, I know scores of peo- ple over a hundred whom I meet round at various places." "And if there were a thousand homes to watch, the Greenham shrewdness and the Masterman money would supply those men by noon to-mor- row, Kirby. As it is " "More absurd!" she said, though her expres- sion belied her words. "How would they know my friends? And so soon? Of course I often call up Jessie, and the hallboy at the studios could have given her name and address ; but the others ? The ones I never telephone to and do not see often, but that are yet good friends?" 174 PLUNDER "Every newspaper office keeps a department devoted to clippings from its own and other papers," he answered. "Your name is there lots of clippings about you, without doubt, for you're getting known in the art world. More- over, you attend various functions given by peo- ple not without some social prominence. How simple! One of Greenham's men looked up 'Rowland Kirby' in the clippings. He sees your name among the list of guests at various affairs. And the Greenham men are shadowing every one of those other guests, who may or may not be intimate friends of yours." She was appalled. "Not really?" "I don't say that it's been done already to that extent. At least I doubt if every person whose name has been mentioned in the same item with yours has been shadowed. But by to-morrow yes ! Kirby, think what's at stake ! What is the spending of a few thousand dollars to Masterman now ? Miss Sigmund will be home at midnight, you said? Well, leave it to that man across the PLUNDER 175 street to find out the name of every person that enters this apartment house from now on! We were lucky just now. The night boy has come on since Miss Sigmund left ; he didn't know that you'd got her key from the day boy. But when she comes home that man across the street will make inquiries." "And what can they do now that we are pre- pared, that you are with me?" she demanded. "They don't dare " "The Masterman influence can get a warrant for your arrest on any charge," replied Grant soberly. "For mine too. And we'd never reach the police station. It would be a case of kidnap- ing, pure and simple. Unless we took some other person into our confidence and had them threaten Masterman but that wouldn't do. Too many people knowing of it it would be public property in a day or so. And that means we'd almost rather lose than see anarchy destroy this city, this nation, wouldn't we, Kirby?" She shuddered. "But what can I do ?" For a moment she was 176 PLUNDER helpless, looking to him for suggestion. But she was the kind that rallies quickly. "Of course! I can go to some hotel. Now!" "Only Greenham and one operative have seen you so far, eh at least, so far as we know ? That would help a little, but mighty little. You don't realize the whole extent of the Masterman power and the Greenham shrewdness. Kirby, I'll bet my last cent that every hotel in the city is on the lookout for a pretty girl that answers your description. Every young woman that enters any New York hotel to-night or to-morrow will be looked over, shortly after registering, by a Green- ham agent. Every house detective will have his eyes peeled for you, not knowing why you're wanted, but simply knowing that you are wanted. That man who just came in here the last thing in the world he expected was that you yourself would answer the door at his ring. Moreover, the light was in his eyes, while your face was in shadow, and you've put on something of Jessie's, haven't you?" She nodded. PLUNDER 177 "She told me I could when I phoned her. We're about the same size." "Well, that helped some. He was looking for a girl who wore the same sort of clothes you had on when Greenham saw you. But at a hotel where every girl will be scrutinized, and where you couldn't always have your face in the shadow, and where suspicion will be pointing toward you because you are young, pretty and alone it won't do, Kirby." "I don't suppose it would," she answered thoughtfully. "But there are hundreds of board- ing and lodging houses. There no one would sus- pect anything, unless my description were printed in the papers, and Masterman dare not do that, for fear of what I may do in retaliation." "Right," he admitted. "But, Kirby, you can't be chasing round to a lodging house to-night. You have no baggage, either." "Jessie's," she said. "I could borrow a suit- case and stock it and to-morrow return the things, after buying others for myself." "It might be done," he agreed slowly, "and still " 178 PLUNDER Again a ring at the door. Like a flash he leaped to the window, and kneeling, looked out. The blotch was still visible in the deepening shadows of the areaway. He arose and tiptoed into the den. She looked a question at him. He pointed toward the window. "Still outside, so it's not he," he whispered. "Open." From behind the den door, as before, he watched, ready to leap to her rescue if need arose. He dared not answer the door himself lest another Greenham detective be there and his presence in some manner arouse suspicion. While Kirby was probably being sought more earnestly than himself, she had deceived the first Greenham man and it was probable she could do the same thing again. It was not cowardice that made him seek concealment, it was Common sense. For if this were a Greenham agent ringing at the door, the failure of Kirby to open it as she had done for the other man would inevitably make the man anxious for a good look at her. Whereas, if she went to the door her very boldness would win again. Then he laughed silently from his watch- PLUNDER 179 ing place as Kirby opened the door and disclosed the cause for all this wild reasoning a dimin- utive and most worldly messenger. "Miss Jessie Sigmund, lady? Message for youse, ma'am. Kin'ly sign here, an' don't forget the han'some blond that brings the good nooze. I always loves to bring telegrams to the ladies, ma'am, because they're so gen'rous. God bless their lovely eyes." He inhaled smoke from his cigarette, tipped his cap a trifle to one side, and looked at Kirby with all the harmless impudence of a cocky young sparrow. He was about sixteen, but an old man in experience. Silently Kirby tipped him, and closed the door upon his thanks. "Did you see his eyes, Dick?" she asked. "There were pouches beneath them, and they were old, old! And his hand shook. Sixteen or seventeen no more. And look at him! He never was a child; he has had no youth. It's for him, and thousands like him, that we are fighting that they may have a fairer chance; that the children may see green fields and breathe fresh air ! At times to-day I've wondered i8o PLUNDER if I dared go on. But there are thousands of boys like him, right in this city, who will never have a chance, unless those who make conditions that raise a boy like that are forced to make better conditions. Dick, the universal transfer is but the measure of our sword. If we succeed in our first move, what more may we not accomplish? We can't, we won't give up!" "Give up, Kirby? Why, the fight is hardly started. But what about that telegram?" She was holding it at arm's length. Tele- grams held for her the dread they hold for all women who receive them rarely. She continued to stare at it. "Poor Jessie," she said slowly; "her father may be dead." Grant laughed. "Kirby, a moment ago you frightened me. I thought you were an avenging angel, and angels, as I understand it, never marry. Now I know you're a woman, and women do marry, don't they?" She flashed a smile that was his answer. "But what shall I do with this?" she asked PLUNDER 181 "Why, put it on a table where Jessie will see it the first thing when she comes home." "But supposing it's very important. She'd want to know." "You know where she went ? Then phone her and tell her that it's here." "And frighten her half to death! Men are so silly!" she exclaimed. "All right," he chuckled; "we're back where we started. Put it on the table." "But supposing it's very important? It will be hours and hours " "Then open it yourself," he suggested. "If it's news she ought to have it telephoned her. If it isn't you can easily explain " "I wonder if I ought to?" "I refuse to make the final decision," he smiled. "You know Jessie pretty well ; it wouldn't be pry- ing curiosity that would make you open it. She couldn't very well be offended." She opened the message and read it; then she looked at Grant. Tiny lines appeared at the corners of her eyes; her mouth pursed bewitch- ingly in puzzlement. 182 PLUNDER "Listen," she commanded. She read: " 'Inform Mastermans can not leave Denver for three weeks. Going on camping trip. " 'ADELE.' ' "What's the answer?" he inquired. "You don't read the art news, do you? Not so much as I do, anyway. This telegram is from Adele Rohan, a great friend of Jessie's they were together in the Latin Quarter in Paris. She's a portrait painter who's created a furor in the last year. A genius, with all of genius' eccentricities. It was in the papers a month ago that Masterman had commissioned her to paint the portrait of his little girl. You've read of her Laurel Masterman, his invalid daughter? Jessie told me at the time that she'd be surprised if Adele ever executed the commission. She hates the very rich. She's half French and half west- ern, you know, with the exuberance of both temperaments. This is her method of flouting Masterman's millions. She wires a friend to inform Masterman ; doesn't bother to inform him herself. Going on a camping trip when a ten- PLUNDER 183 thousand-dollar commission is awaiting her pleasure! And Jessie told me that Masterman and Adele had never met. He simply saw some of her portraits of children at the last exhibi- tion at the Academy, and wrote to her. He's never seen her!" Her words were crisp and clear and her teeth met sharply over the last of them. "Well?" said Grant. "He's going to see her to-night!" "Still I don't understand, Kirby." "Men are stupid," she smiled. "Look, m'sieu, upon Ma'mselle Rohan, combination of cow- puncher and danseuse ! Look ! For you may not have a chance again, m'sieu. I might flout you in a second and refuse to talk with you. I am a genius; no mere worker at miniatures, unknown and humble. I am Ma'mselle Rohan, m'sieu, and if you read the papers and believe them, you must know that I have all the grace of a French- woman and all the strength of a broncho-buster. Also, I am eccentric, rude and careless as to whom I offend. I despise millionaires. I work when it suits me; I come when I choose and I 1 84 PLUNDER leave in the middle of a portrait if the mood seizes me. For, m'sieu, I am Adele Rohan, and a genius before whom mere riches bow down. Do you understand? Look?" And she tore the telegram across and across again, dropping the pieces in a waste-basket. "Kirby, you wouldn't! It's madness. I won't permit " "We aren't married yet, Dick, you know." "But the risk ! Masterman may not know Miss Rohan, but his friends " "I told you she was eccentric. She knows no one in New York but Jessie. She divides her time between Colorado and Paris; she is in New York merely between ocean liner and transconti- netal train. And even if some one who has met her in Paris or Denver should see me there is risk in everything, Dick. Where else can I go in safety? Some boarding house? I refuse. The risk of this other scheme tempts me. And, besides, what was it you said a moment ago? The man who came here the last thing in the world he expected was for me, in flight from his fellows, to answer the bell. Will Masterman PLUNDER 185 dream that I dare go to his own house ? Remem- ber Poe's story of the purloined letter. The safest hiding-place is the most obvious; no one thinks you will be there. I am going to Martin Master- man's." He knew how useless it was to battle against her will when this reckless mood was upon her. Moreover, there was hard common sense in what she proposed. She must go somewhere to hide. Why not in Masterman's house? Still he ob- jected. "Supposing Miss Rohan comes on after all? You'd be arrested as an impostor." "I can risk that, Dick, in a war like this." "But how will you manage? You haven't clothes " "I will take Jessie's suit-case with a few things ; I'll leave a note telling her what I've bor- rowed. To-morrow I'll go shopping. I'll say my trunk is on the road somewhere. I have plenty of money; I took all that was in the apart- ment two hundred dollars." She looked sud- denly at him. "And you, Dick, have you any money?" i86 PLUNDER He smiled assurance. "All I own in the world is in my pocket, Kirby. I'm stronger financially than you are. I have three hundred dollars. Not enough to make it worth while to bother with a bank-account, and it's always with me. I'm all right. Do you really insist on going to Masterman's house?" "I do. From there I'll dictate terms and never be suspected. And you can telephone me in per- fect safety. Ask for Miss Rohan. Dick, what we've started we must finish, mustn't we? I am certain God is with us." "He is always on the side of justice," he answered. "Then since we work for justice, there is no wrong in my impersonating Adele Rohan. And luckily I can paint a large portrait as well as a miniature. By the time she is due here I will have worked out our plans with your help, for we must see each other. And after that let Mas- terman find out, I don't care. But where will you be?" she asked with quick concern. "In some lodging house," he told her. "I'll be safe; but, Kirby, go slow. Let's see how this PLUNDER 187 transfer business works out before we demand more. You know it's the custom of the ages after all, and you and I well, let's go slow." "You don't believe we're doing wrong?" "No, not that. But we want to see how it works out." "It will work out for the benefit of the people whose war we wage," she answered. She disappeared into a bedroom, where she put some things of Jessie Sigmund's into a suit- case. Then she reentered the little parlor and wrote a note to Jessie. It was a request to keep her visit secret, and to forgive her for not wait- ing to see her friend. "It will do," she said, after reading it to Dick. "Jessie is my dearest girl friend, and what would make another suspicious will not have that effect on her." "But you don't tell her about the telegram," remonstrated Dick. "And give the whole game away ? That would be bright!" He flushed. "I'm dull. But we better not leave the pieces 1 88 PLUNDER of the message." He drew them from the basket and burned them. They looked about the apart- ment as a ship-wrecked couple might look at the island that had given them succor, and which they dreaded leaving for the flimsy craft they had con- structed themselves. Then, having telephoned for a taxi and learned that it waited below, they left the apartment. Kirby gave the key to the night hallboy, and did not wait to notice if he was surprised. Undoubt- edly he was, for the Greenham operative had given him a generous tip, and almost immediately he crossed the street and told the waiting detec- tive that it could not have been Miss Sigmund who had opened the apartment door for him. But by that time the taxicab had rounded a corner and was gone. Later its chauffeur informed the Greenham operative that he had dismissed his charges at the terminal, but no one there remem- bered having seen a couple who answered to the descriptions of Kirby and Dick either take a train or another taxi. The reason was obvious. They had separated. Kirby had crossed the street and taken a taxi alone, for the house of Martin Mas- PLUNDER 189 terman. Dick had gone to the express office and ordered the suit-case sent to Miss Adele Rohan, care of Martin Masterman. Then he had van- ished into the subway. While Terence Greenham reported to Master- man, and while the obstinacy of Lindley Jackson prevented Masterman from defying Kirby's demands, that young woman, thoroughly worn- out by her exciting day, was sleeping in an apart- ment provided by the nervous elderly wife of Masterman, who, born to comparative poverty, had never really grown used to wealth at least, not so used to it that she dared snub genius. And genius had very bruskly refused to talk, but had demanded to be shown her room. She even refused to look at the sleeping child whom she was to begin painting on the morrow or soon after. For Kirby had heard Terence Greenham's voice as she passed the financier's library, with Mrs. Masterman, and bed seemed the safest haven for her. XII IN HIS sanctum in the Citizen office Lindley Jackson, the editor, read the morning papers and such afternoon editions as were already off the press. And all save his own paper treated the universal transfer story in the same fashion. A Blow to Government Ownership! Corpora- tions Have Souls! Consolidated Car Lines Con- fer Benefit on Public! Big-Hearted Corporation Puts Public Above Dividends! Of this sort were the headings above the editorials, and the mat- ter below the headings was full of praise for Masterman and his associates. Martin Master- man had struck a giant blow at the theory of gov- ernment ownership. He had shown that privately owned monopolies held the public's interests close to their hearts. When a whole city had uncom- plainingly been paying two fares for a ride in subway and surface cars, or three fares if they also rode in the elevated, Martin Masterman had 190 PLUNDER 191 freely and cheerfully ordered the consolidated companies to issue transfers from one line to the other or others. All hail to Martin Masterman, the man who put the soul in corporations! Thus spoke the sheets owned by the men who, with Jackson, had conferred with the three mil- lionaires the previous night. But not so the Citi- zen, owned by Lindley Jackson, yellow journalist, genius and champion of the people. Jackson turned to his own paper and reread his own edi- torial, hastily written the previous night. It was headed, A Gambler's Underhandedness, and was about as savage a roast as Masterman had ever suffered. Without mincing words, Jackson charged Masterman with having organized a conspiracy to sell a stock short, and then granted universal transfers in order that the market value of the Consolidated Car Lines stock might be depressed, affording Masterman an opportunity to buy in at fifty what he had sold round ninety. Master- man's greed was too well known for the Citizen to have any faith in his sudden altruism. Martin Masterman did nothing without a reason; money I 9 2 PLUNDER was his only reason; therefore, to enrich his private pocket he had mulcted his stockholders by depressing the value of their holdings. Not that the Citizen was against universal transfers; it had always fought for them. But this sudden granting of the right to the people savored of crookedness toward the innocent stockholders. Masterman could have announced the plan months ago and given the market time to readjust itself; as it was, the innocent and ignorant stock- holders would be impoverished and Masterman and his clique would be enriched. The announce- ment was another argument in favor of the peo- ple's control of the things which they had made valuable by their patronage. For under govern- ment ownership men like Masterman could not rob a thousand Peters to pay a dozen Pauls. There was more along the same line, and the editorial was written to give the impression that the editor could say a whole lot more if he chose, and undoubtedly would when he considered the time opportune. Frowning, Jackson reread his own editorial. In it he had not abused the confi- dence of last evening. The word of Lindley PLUNDER 193 Jackson was good. But Masterman had admit- ted that there was a chance that the mysterious paper of which he spoke might find its way into the hands of the publisher, in which case, of course, Jackson would use it as he saw fit. And there is such a thing as compelling chance. The publisher of the Citizen gloomed at his desk. What was the nature of the paper the real nature and how might it be obtained? He thought he knew the answer to the first half of this question. Certain gentlemen, Masterman had said, had agreed in that paper to follow a given course of action. His own logic told him what that course of action must be to sell Con- solidated Car Lines short. What Masterman had said about ruining business was tommyrot. Mas- terman was afraid that the contents of that paper would become known to Jackson; hence he had tried to tie up the publisher to an agreement to keep quiet about the paper. He had talked myste- riously of vague calamities which would result from publication of the paper, in order to obtain that withheld promise of suppression. That was all. Masterman feared that publication of such i 9 4 PLUNDER an agreement would mean jail for himself, and probably was sincere in his statements about black ruin to follow publication. For Masterman undoubtedly believed that if anything happened to himself the country would go at once to destruction. That was the solution of Masterman' s myste- rious attitude and his request of Lindley Jackson. Jackson smiled grimly. He would like nothing better than to put Masterman behind the bars. But now as to the other half of the question how the paper might be obtained! He could find in his fertile brain no answer to it. Abstractedly he turned over the pages of the Citizen. On the last page was a story whose heading, Martin Masterman Made a Monkey, attracted him. He read it. It was Tom Hanra- han's account of the swindle that had been perpe- trated on the financier when he bought, for one hundred and forty thousand dollars, a purported painting by the late Mr. Botticelli. It was cleverly written; it avoided stating that the painting was a fake, but pointed to that fact that Harry Mack, notorious international crook, PLUNDER 195 had been arrested on a charge of obtaining money by false pretenses; that the charge had been lodged by the Greenhams, well-known agents of the Masterman interests; and contained an inter- view with the crook in which the latter refused to deny that the painting was a fraud. Also it told of Harry's midnight release, of the attempted trailing of him by the Greenhams, and the crook's escape in a high-powered car, the name of the driver of which Hanrahan had neglected to state. Jackson pressed a bell; a boy answered. "Ask Mr. Lyden who wrote the story about the Masterman painting," ordered the publisher, "and have him send the reporter in to see me." Hanrahan had sauntered into the office half an hour ago, and was patiently waiting for an assignment when the city editor told him that Jackson wished to see him. He went at once to Jackson's private office. "Sit down, Tom. Have a cigar." Jackson respected the men who gave him their brains and hearts, and he did not pose before them. He passed a panetela to the reporter. "How'd you drop on to that story about the 196 PLUNDER Masterman Botticelli ? Too busy to talk with you last night, and didn't suppose there was any need. You didn't report to me that you'd learned any- thing about the meaning of the conference at Masterman's I mean, nothing suspicious hap- pened that I couldn't have seen myself, I suppose. Eh?" "Nothing," said Hanrahan. "And when I got into the office the other boys told me that you'd called the sleuthing off, so " "Sure. But about this Mack person? How did you tumble to it?" "Greenham led me to it," grinned Hanrahan. Jackson tilted back in his swivel chair. "Tell me about it," he requested. The reporter told him. "I saw Terence Greenham at Masterman's," said the publisher thoughtfully, when Hanrahan had finished recounting his experiences of the night before. "I've never met him, but I recog- nized him. I wondered then why he should be there. I wondered more after Masterman had talked a while. I'm wondering now." PLUNDER 197 "Doesn't what I've told you make it clear?" asked Hanrahan. "It would," said Jackson, "but for one thing." "And that?" "Is that I've seen Masterman's Botticelli. It was on exhibition at the Plaza last fall, and if old James B. Botticelli himself didn't paint that pic- ture I never wrote an editorial. That painting is no fake. I know a little about art, and the day I saw the painting I was with Ralph Reid, who's the greatest little expert on Old Masters that ever breathed. Ralph pronounced it original. That's enough for me. It's a corking good story and it isn't libelous, and it makes a good joke of Martin Masterman, which is very fine in our business; but just the same this Harry Mack was stringing you. He never sold a fake picture to Masterman ; and Greenham's men never arrested him on that charge. It was for something else. What?" "You pan search me," said the bewildered Hanrahan. "Me too," admitted Jackson. "But that some- thing else has to do with Martin Masterman's 198 PLUNDER reasons for asking me to be present at his house last night. I gave my word that I'd not divulge certain things that were said last night ; but I can give you a hint, Tom. The governorship of this state is pretty enticing bait, isn't it?" "It most certainly is!" "And I'm about the last man on earth that Mar- tin Masterman would want to see at Albany, eh ?" "I should think so," chuckled Hanrahan, think- ing of the multitude of attacks the publisher had made on the financier. "And yet, Tom, it wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world for me to become governor of New York!" The reporter stared at his employer in silence. Jackson leaned forward until his face was close to the countenance of his reporter. "Tom," he said, "it would take something pretty big to make Martin Masterman willing to see me governor, eh? Something big! So big that we want to know what it is. I can't tell you more; even a confidence given to a Master- man is inviolate. But this much I can tell you: Martin Masterman wasn't thinking of pretty pic- PLUNDER 199 tures, whatever their value, last night; he was thinking of mighty big things. And Terence Greenham wasn't at Masterman's to pay a social call. He was there on business he must have been business so big that even if Mack had defrauded Masterman it would have been drop- ped for the time being. But and mind this the Botticelli is not a fraud, as a dozen experts will probably announce in the late afternoon papers. Why, then, did Terence Greenham leave Martin Masterman, at a time when Martin Masterman was scared I can tell you that much, Tom within an inch of his life, to go to headquarters to release a crook named Mack? And why did his men trail Mack, or try to, after his release? Because, Tom, this Mack has something to do with a thing so big that Martin Masterman, under certain conditions, would gladly see me, me the man who hates him, in the governor's chair at Albany! And what Mack has to do with this something big we must find out. Tom, it's up to you to locate Mack and make him talk! Can you do it?" "Maybe," said Hanrahan slowly. "I can try." 200 PLUNDER "You'll have to do more than that, my boy, if you want to be managing editor of the Citi- zen." "Is that the reward?" "If Mack talks the way I think he can, that's the reward. Now then, how're you going about it ?" Hanrahan arose and flecked cigar ashes from his coat. Like every other good reporter he would take an assignment to interview Satan without, after his first start, showing any sur- prise. "I'll look up some of the hangouts where his kind resort," he answered. "I ought to be able to find him unless he's keeping almighty close." "Good!" said Jackson. "And if you want any money drop in on the cashier. I'll phone him to be nice to you." "Thanks," grinned Hanrahan. "G'-by, Chief." Jackson grunted. He was already pressing a button, and the office boy entered almost as Han- rahan left "Tell Mr. Lovett I want him," said Jackson. Within a minute Lovett, the blackmail man of PLUNDER 201 the Citizen, entered the private office; but Jack- son did not offer him the seat Hanrahan had vacated, nor did he invite him to smoke. There was a limit to Jackson's friendliness with his men, and Lovett was the limit. Not that Lovett was treated with discourtesy. On the contrary, Jack- son treated him with courtesy, albeit frigidity. One does not insult the man to whom one pays one hundred and fifty dollars a week for bring- ing in more news stories than any other two men on the staff. And that's what Lovett did. But no one, least of all Lindley Jackson, who used him, respected him. The blackmail man is one of the by-products of yellow journalism. It is his job to approach politicians suspected of being venal and try to bribe them, that their corruptibility and conse- quent shame may furnish reading matter for the public. It is the blackmail man who bribes cham- bermaids to steal the contents of waste-paper baskets that torn-up letters may be pieced to- gether and printed for the edification of the readers of the yellows. It is the blackmail man who performs all the dirty work of the yellows, 202 PLUNDER who rarely writes his stories, but furnishes the news which cleaner men must transcribe into print. Lovett was a master of his art. There was nothing he would disdain to do for money. Such a man is mighty handy round a yellow journal, although none of his fellows ever invite him into their poker games or to split a pint with him. Lindley Jackson despised the man. Yet it was his belief that the public had a right to know something of the private affairs of its political and financial leaders. Such knowledge could be obtained only by the use of men like Lovett. Men high in place and shamefully unfaithful to the public trust had been exposed in the Citizen through the medium of Lovett, and good had been accomplished. So Jackson justified his employment of Lovett; but he was not friendly to him. "Lovett," he said tersely, "this man who gave you the tip last winter about Masterman's being behind that water-power bill is he still in Mas- terman's employ?" Lovett shook his head. PLUNDER 203 "Couldn't keep away from the drink," he said. "Talked. Masterman learned of it. Fired." Lovett never wasted anything, even words. It was commonly said of him that the only thing he ever spent was the evening. "I see," said Jackson. "Is there any one else in Masterman's office that can be reached?" He would not use the word bribe. Lovett smirked. "I've been quite friendly with the telephone clerk," he answered. "That's the only one I know in that office." "H'm. Well, see him. Find out if if any- thing's been lost in the Masterman office. If there was any particular fuss raised about it. Get all the gossip you can. And stop at the cashier's for money. Report as soon as possible." When Lovett had left the office Jackson tossed his cigar away in disgust. He had gone danger- ously close to breaking his word when he told Lovett to ask if anything had been lost. Still he had observed the letter of the confidence. Indeed, it might be argued that he had observed its spirit. "Anyway, Masterman never fought fair in his 204 PLUNDER life," he told himself. "I'm for the people and against him. If I stick to the letter of fairness " So he soothed his conscience. Hanrahan, meantime, with a curl of his lips and a shrug of his shoulders, saw Lovett start in the direction of the private office. He was able to guess that the blackmail man was to be used to ferret information from some one near to Mas- terman for he knew by his chief's seriousness that something big was in the air and that he would not be permitted to handle the case alone and glad that his reputation was such that no publisher dared ask him to deviate from the strictest newspaper ethics, he closed his typewriter into his desk and started for the street. An office boy caught him waiting for the elevator. "Some one on the phone for you, Mr. Hanra- han. Happened to see you going out and I chased after you. Lady too. Bet she's a queen !" He grinned cheerfully at the reporter. Every one loved Tom Hanrahan. "I'll bet she is," smiled the reporter, and his change pocket was immediately minus one dime, and the boy was enriched by exactly that sum. PLUNDER 205 Hanrahan stepped into the booth the boy indi- cated. "Hello? This is Hanrahan." "Oh, Tom ! I'm so glad I caught you. This is Jessie." "And the top o' the mornin' to ye, Jessie ma- vourneen," he laughed. He heard his laugh echoed nervously, as though the girl at the other end of the wire were a little overwrought. "Why, what's wrong, Jessie girl?" he asked quickly. "Oh, Tom, I'm a bit frightened. I don't know just how to I can't tell you over the phone I don't want to something's happened " "Well," gasped Hanrahan, "if that something is happening in fifteen minutes it's liable to get a swift punch on the jaw, for I'm coming up that fast to see you!" "Do," she said. And again he caught that note of strain in her voice. He started again for the street, this time on the run. If any one had been bothering Jessie Sig- mund It happened that Jessie's parents 206 PLUNDER were rather strict and old-fashioned. They loved their daughter and she loved them; but they did not approve of a young woman painting for money. They only tolerated the idea because they loved her too well to make her unhappy by refus- ing their assent to her coming to New York. It also happened that they did not approve of news- paper reporters thought them wild carousing youths. So it further happened that Jessie Sig- mund and Tom Hanrahan kept their engagement very much of a secret, waiting for the day when Tom should become a managing editor, or at least a city editor, before shocking Jessie's folks with the announcement. No wonder Tom hurried! He was closer to-day, he felt, to his goal than ever before. He'd find Mack, become a manag- ing 1 editor and marry Jessie. Meantime, some- thing was bothering his girl. He bumped into a man and knocked him down so great was his hurry to reach the elevated. XIII A MAN should never put love before duty; but inasmuch as it happened that Hanra- han's first place of inquiry for Handsome Harry Mack was a rather low resort not very far from Jessie Sigrnund's apartments, he did not feel that he was neglecting his duty in calling first on her. Moreover, duty is comparative. A man doesn't owe the same duty to his boss that he does to his country. Private business duties may well be set aside in favor of love. Anyway, Tom Hanra- han made a bee-line for the home of Jessie Sig- mund. Arriving there he found her in a state of alarm which, though quite a distance away from hysteria, nevertheless, gave him concern. He put his arm round her, led her to a couch and made her sit down. "Now then, Jessie, tell me what's happened to you." "It's not happened to me, Tom, it's happened to Kirby." 207 208 PLUNDER "Miss Rowland, the miniature painter ?" "Yes, Tom, and I don't understand at all. Th-the telegram, the man watching the house " "What's that?" he demanded truculently. "Where?" She drew him to the window and pointed at a man lounging with careful carelessness down the street a bit. "He's been here this morning, and he asked for Kirby. When I said that she wasn't here he said that she had been here, and if I knew where she was I'd better tell him quick or it would be worse for me. I shut the door in his face, and Tom, I don't understand it." Hanrahan cast a menacing glance at the uncon- scious watcher down the street. Then he drew the girl once more to the couch. "Now then, Jessie, tell me all about it from the beginning." His strength communicated itself to her; his firm clasp steadied her nerves. She even essayed a smile. "Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a "What's that he demanded where ?" PLUNDER 209 molehill," she began. "Last night, or rather quite early in the evening, Kirby phoned me. She said that she wanted to spend the night with me. Her voice seemed kind of I don't know, not exactly frightened, but worked up, I guess. I told her to come right over, that I had a dinner-dance engagement, but that I'd gladly break it and stay home if she wished. She said not to do that; merely to leave the key with the elevator boy, which I did. You know, Tom, Kirby is my dear- est girl friend. We studied together, and she'll be bridesmaid at our wedding, if she doesn't do it first then she'll be matron of honor. You haven't met her, for things have always come up to prevent, as you know; but she's the dearest, truest " "If you say so, that's guarantee enough," said Tom stoutly. "Go on." "Well I left the key and went off. I came back about midnight. I was at the Morrisons' dance, as you know, and Freeland Morrison brought me home. Well, the night boy gave me my key. I was surprised, but supposed that Kirby had decided not to stay, and went to the 2 io PLUNDER apartment here. On the table I found a note from Kirby asking me not to say anything about her having been here, and telling me that she'd bor- rowed a suit-case and some things of mine, which she'd return soon. Here's the note." She handed it to Tom and he read it, returning it without comment. "Well," continued Jessie, "I found a letter on my bureau that I'd forgotten to mail, and I rang for the elevator boy. When he came I gave him the letter, and, out of pure idle curiosity, asked him what time Miss Rowland had left. He re- plied that she and the gentleman had gone out about nine or ten, he couldn't remember just when. He described the 'gentleman,' because I was curious, and it seems to have been Dixon Grant, a young man whom I know only slightly, but who seems to have been paying lots of atten- tion to Kirby lately." "You girls don't confide in each other much, for all your chumminess, do you ?" grinned Han- rahan. "Well," retorted Jessie, "I can't talk about you without letting people know where my heart is, PLUNDER 2ii and that's a secret, isn't it? Possibly Kirby has her own reasons for not having told me much about Grant. Perhaps he hasn't asked her yet, and she hopes he will girls keep quiet when things are at that stage, you know." "All right," he smiled. "What next?" "Well, just as I was beginning to wonder if Kirby had eloped with Dixon Grant, and was puz- zled why she should take my clothing and not her own, the bell rang and a man insisted on talking with me. He said that he wanted to know where Kirby was. Not the man outside now, but another one. They both reminded me of police- men, somehow or other " Tom whistled softly. "Plain-clothes men or private detectives, eh? What did you tell him ?" "I told him I knew nothing about her, and got rid of him; but my own curiosity was aroused then, and I lay awake half the night puzzling. And this morning a message came to me from the telegraph office. It said that there had been an error in the transmission of a telegram to me; it said that in the message sent me last night the 212 PLUNDER word 'three' had been written instead of 'two/ The corrected message was to the effect that Adele Rohan who's been commissioned to paint the portrait of little Laurel Masterman is going on a camping trip, won't leave Denver for two weeks, and wants me to inform the Mastermans." "Well? I don't get the connection." "You will in a moment," she answered. "I didn't at first, because I had not received the orig- inal telegram. But I had noticed a piece of yel- low paper in the fireplace. I must be a born detective, Tom, or else I've imbibed detection from hearing you talk about some of your stories. I picked that piece of paper out of a little mass of ashes. It was the corner of a message blank. It had not been there when I left the apartment last night, I'm sure, so it's obvious that Kirby re- ceived and opened a message addressed to me. I made it certain by going right to the telegraph office and asking to see the book in which was the signature for the telegram. It was my name, all right, but Kirby's handwriting." She paused a moment before continuing. PLUNDER 213 "Tom, what on earth does it mean?" "You may search me," he answered slowly. "Is Kirby er all there?" "The sanest girl I ever knew," she answered indignantly. "H'm! Then why on earth should she act so queerly?" "That's what I want to find out, Tom. I think a lot of Kirby. I'm worried; I've phoned the Greenwich Studios where she lives, and they tell me there that she is not at home. I don't under- stand it, and Tom, this is a bad city for a girl alone." "Seems to me she wasn't alone. Looks as though she had her best-beloved with her, doesn't it?" "But not going home; borrowing my clothes; destroying a telegram addressed to me it isn't like Kirby. I don't understand " The door-bell rang. Jessie stopped short her speech, smoothed her hair, and opened the door. A messenger boy handed her a telegram. She signed for it and closed the door. 214 PLUNDER "Maybe this explains it," she said. She opened the message, and her eyes expressed surprise. "It's not from Kirby," she said; "it's from Adele. She announces that she has clianged her mind once again, and will leave Denver to-day; she hopes I have not told the Mastermans that she wouldn't be here." She laughed. "That's the flighty brilliant Adele always. But she is a gen- ius and can afford to do things that poor plodding grubs like myself oh, well, I have you ; let Adele have her genius!" She flashed a smile on Tom, but she sobered again at once. "Tom, you're the best reporter in New York; the best amateur detective, too, and that means, with all the newspapermen in this town, as good as the best professional. Tell me, can you find Kirby? Can you find out what's happened to her?" "I'll try," he said. "Know anything about this Grant?" "I've heard her say he was with some brokers. Bryant, Manners & Company, I think." "Brokers nothing ! Bucket-shoppers, she means. PLUNDER 215 Well, I'll try them." He did, on the telephone, only to learn from the careful telephone clerk cautioned by his employers, as had been his em- ployers by Terence Greenham, against letting slip any information whatsoever as to Mr. Dixon Grant that Mr. Grant was no longer with the firm. "Maybe he's lost his job," suggested Hanrahan. "That might have upset Miss Rowland." But Jessie shook her head. "Kirby has plenty for both, I happen to know," was her objection to this offered solution. "But that isn't all you can do." Hanrahan laughed. "Indeed not! I'll 'tip off the police and have them keep their eyes " "Police!" Jessie was scornful. "Indeed you won't, Tom Hanrahan ! Have the police looking for Kirby Rowland! Absurd! Why, Kirby would never speak to me again. Is that as clever as you are, Tom? For if you can't think of any- thing better than the police or the newspapers look here, Tom, after all, Kirby is of age and probably knows what she is doing. That I am 2i6 PLUNDER worried is no reason that her private business should be known to police and public. You prom- ise me that you won't have her name mentioned in the papers, or told to the police, or Tom, I couldn't forgive you if you did." "Of course I won't, dear," he promised. "But, as you must see, that limits me. But I'll go to her apartment Greenwich Studios, you said? All right. And don't worry, she's probably O. K. If she isn't well, bad news comes soon enough. Myself, I think that she's eloped with Grant" "I hope so," said Jessie fervently. "Then we'd know she was all right. You'll try to find her, though?" "I surely will," he said. "And speaking of finding people reminds me that I've got to find some one for the paper and I'm not doing it. Don't worry. By-by, dear." He kissed her and was swiftly gone. Comforted by his assurance that he would find Kirby, Jessie went to the mirror, with deft fingers to repair the damage to her coiffure done by his parting embrace, and so did not witness the little drama enacted a few rods down the street. The PLUNDER 217 worthy Greenham agent who had relieved the man who had questioned both Jessie and Kirby the previous night this latter had been clever enough to avoid rebuke from his employers by concealing the fact that he had met Kirby face to face; a fact he discovered shortly after the real Miss Sigmund came home leaned against an iron railing, trying to seem as though he were just a simple-minded gentleman taking the air. Hanrahan walked up to him. "The air," said the reporter abruptly, "is very bad on this street. Do you grasp my meaning?" The man stared. "Who you kiddin'?" he demanded. "No one," said Hanrahan; "I'm in deadly earnest. To-day you threatened a young lady by the name of Sigmund. You're watching her place now. Undoubtedly you intended to keep an eye on me. You don't need to; here's my card Hanrahan, of the Citizen." The man took the card dazedly. "What's all this about?" he asked. "Just this I want you to beat it. Understand ? Move, vanish, git!" 218 PLUNDER "Who you orderin' round?" demanded the de- tective truculently. "You," said Hanrahan. "If you aren't on your way in just two seconds, I'm going to hand you something that won't taste a bit nice. Further- more, I'm coming back here later, and if I find you here I'll clean house with you. For your information and edification I'll inform you that when it comes to licking cheap detectives I am the one and only, blown-in-the-bottle, original White Hope. Your two seconds are up. Are you going?" "Well, I like your nerve !" began the detective. He didn't speak again for a moment, for Hanra- han's fist colliding with his mouth cut short his words. The reporter bent over the prostrate de- tective. "Are you going?" "I'll have you pinched," mumbled the man. "And I'll get you thirty days for annoying a lady! Are you going?" The law is even less kind to annoyers of wom- en than Tom Hanrahan had shown himself. Also it had been impressed upon the Greenham opera- PLUNDER 219 lives that secrecy was essential in this present mysterious case. The man shambled off, nursing a bleeding jaw. "I'll get you !" he mumbled. "I'll get you yet !" "So will the goblins, if I don't watch out," laughed Hanrahan. He watched the man out of sight, then continued toward the Greenwich Studios. He felt much better. Be he ever so civilized, there is nothing so gratifying to a man as the discovery that he still "packs a punch." Humanity is very human, after all. XIV MOSE, the colored elevator boy at the Green- wich Studios, glared at Tom Hanrahan. "What you askin' me questions for ? You an- other one of dem bulls? Believe me, mister, I hopes you chokes if you is. Miss Rowland she had plenty annoyance from you people yesterday, and if I knowed where she was I wouldn't tell you. I just wisht I'd seen dem men lay a hand on her ; I'd just about busted dem. Go long outa here, white man! I got nothin' to say." The reporter pulled a bill from his pocket. It had a V on it, and would have been able ordi- narily to purchase the soul of Mose. But not to- day. "Put your money away," he growled. "Ain't got nothin' to say; don't know nothin'. And just you listen to me! Miss Rowland, when my wife was sick, she got de doctor and hired de nurse, and what you take me for? Git along, git along!" 220 PLUNDER 221 Hanrahan smiled in his friendliest fashion. The most uncommunicative persons had thawed before thai smile, and given the reporter valuable information. The decent clean soul of the man showed in that smile. "Look here," said he, "I'm a friend of Miss Rowland. I'm afraid something has happened to her. You talk as though something did hap- pen to her yesterday. What was it ? I give you my word that I'm her friend." The colored boy shuffled his feet. "Dat sounds all right, boss, and I believe you. But dere's one of 'em up-stairs now, and de owner of dis house give me orders to keep my mouth closed, and you're dead sure you're a friend of Miss Rowland?" "Do you know Miss Sigmund?" "De lady what's chummy with Miss Rowland ? Sure I do." "Call her up and ask her if it's all right to trust me. Hanrahan's my name." Mose looked the reporter over. If ever a man looked honest, Hanrahan was the man. "I ain't got such a awful lot to tell anyway," 222 PLUNDER said the negro. "What dere is I'll tell you, boss. But I dassent do it here. De man up-stairs might come down and see me, and he'd tell de owner, and de owner would fire me just like dat!" And he snapped his fingers. "But I'll be off for de afternoon in ten min- utes. De other boy '11 be here den. You jus' wait round de corner, will you?" Considerably puzzled, Hanrahan assented. In less than the specified time Mose met him. "Here's what happened," he began. "First, a gemman calls on Miss Rowland. Real swell. He stays about a minute. Then another gemman calls on her. 'Pears like they're ol' friends, and 'pears like they ain't. For they both looks in the letter box as though to find out if she lives here, but neither of dem phones up to her first. Jus' tells me to take 'em up. Well, Miss Rowland comes down about two seconds after de second gemman calls. She's in a hurry. About three minutes after dat I hears a banging up-stairs. I shoot de cyar up in time to see de second gem- man comin' through her door, what he'd busted wid a chair. I grab him, but he flashed a badge PLUNDER 223 on me, an' I know he's a bull. He outs of the buildin' like a flash, an' I start after him, wonder- in' what's up. But the elevator bell rings, an' I has to go back. , "It's five minutes before I'm free to look out, an' den, before I gits to de door, de first gemman and de second gemman an' anodder gemman, dey all comes in. An' de first one de swell gemman an' de third gemman, is all mussed up like dey been scrappin'. And it looks like de first gemman is pinched by de odder two. Well, I'm puzzled by all dis, an' refuses to let 'em go up- stairs. But de owner lives here, you know. Dey ask for him, and dey buzz him in a corner, an' it's all right. I has to take 'em up-stairs. Well, little while passes, and de first gemman and de second gemman comes out arm in arm, but lookin' like de swell one is prisoner of de other. And de third gemman stay in Miss Rowland's apart- ment, and de owner tells me dat if she gets any phone calls to connect de third gemman. She only gits one, and I hears him tell the party what calls dat he's Miss Rowland's brother. Dat call came jus' as I'd taken de two gemmen down-stairs. But 224 PLUNDER de gemman what phones he don't come down here, and after a while de gemman up-stairs has a visitor who's up-stairs now been dere all night, takin' de place of de gemman what answered de phone, I guess. He's got a badge, too, for he showed it to me, and says if I talks he'll put me in de cooler for eighty years. "An' dat ain't all! For when I gets through las' night de fruit man on de corner tells me what happened in de street. 'Pears dat when Miss Rowland ran outa de building a man grabs her. He's got her by de arm when anodder man jumps on him an' bats his jaw. While dey're scrappin' Miss Rowland ducks through a tenement, and she's gone. Den de second gemman what busted the door open comes down with a gun, and well, dey comes back here, like I tol' you. But dey ain't got Miss Rowland, cuss 'em ! and I hopes dey don't, no matter what she done. I'll bet she ain't done nothin' either, a nice HT lady like her. And dat's all, and for de Lawd's sake, don't tell no one I told you, for I'd lose my job, mister." Hanrahan promised. He cross-questioned the boy; got him to describe the three gentlemen. PLUNDER 225 Though he did not recognize two of them, he did recognize the "first gemman." For that person wore exactly the clothes, had the same colored hair, and was the same general build as Harry Mack whom he had left at a Tenderloin restaur- ant at one o'clock that morning ! Harry Mack! What connection had he with Kirby Rowland? And who were these other two? The description of one of them might fit Terence Greenham; but Mack's raiment had ab- sorbed Mose's attention to the neglect of the other two. If only he could be sure that the others had been Greenham men. But why not be sure? It was not so very long after this fracas, according to the record of Mack's arrest which he had scanned the previous night, that Greenham had brought the crook to headquarters. Could there be anything in Mack's tale of the faked portrait after all ? Miss Rowland was an artist. Was it conceivable that she was in league with Harry Mack to palm off fraudulent Old Masters on un- suspecting financiers, using her knowledge of art in combination with Mack's knowledge of ways that were evil ? 226 PLUNDER It seemed a good theory. But Lindley Jack- son had stated positively that the Botticelli was an original! The suddenly evolved theory was smashed to smithereens ! Hanrahan gave the col- ored boy the five-dollar bill and assured him that Miss Rowland was guilty of nothing, and that the people who were pursuing her would land in trouble. Then, cautioning him to say nothing about their talk, if he really were grateful to Miss Rowland for her many kindnesses, he left the boy and started for Village Hall. But neither in that dive, nor in any of a dozen that he visited that afternoon could he find any one who knew of Harry Mack other than by reputation as a big gun. Harry Mack, he decided, though a famous crook, was not the sort who traveled with the cheap gangsters who make up the cream of the city's admitted underworld. Mack went with only the highest-class crooks, and such crooks were more apt to live abroad, preying on their fellow Americans in a foreign land. The Americans on a vacation, or purchasing art works, were the victims of Harry Mack and his kind. He soon decided it was hopeless to attempt to PLUNDER 227 find Mack in these haunts of the underworld. But in certain hotels of the Tenderloin, at night, a man of Mack's vocation might be reasonably ex- pected to be found, unless he were strictly under cover. Hanrahan returned to his office. It would do no harm to look up Mack in the office files; there might be some record of the man's life there that would tell him who, were his criminal friends, if he had any in the city. And to these Hanrahan could apply for information as to the present ad- dress of the crook. It was his only chance, any- way. There were now two reasons why Mack must be located. He had rescued Kirby Rowland from the Greenhams. Undoubtedly, therefore, he knew where Kirby was. And Kirby was Jessie's friend. On his way down-town to the office Hanrahan reviewed what he had learned. He weighed all of Kirby 's actions as related to him by Jessie. The girl was crazy, or else had a bad character. No question about that. Only a person mentally or morally unsound would have destroyed the telegram addressed to Jessie. And yet Jessie Sigmund was no fool. It didn't seem reasonable that Jessie could have chummed with 228 PLUNDER a girl and never even suspected that that girl was not all right in every way. Still, the two hadn't been so intimate in the past few months, and peo- ple change in a mighty short time. Puzzling thus he reached the office. He went at once to the morgue and looked up the clippings about Harry Mack. There was a record of Mack's recent arrival in this country and his de- parture therefrom. Also his name was mentioned several times as having been arrested always abroad charged with various offenses of which later, it seemed, he had been proved innocent. But there was nothing to indicate who, if any, were his pals in this country. The reporter de- cided to make a round of the up-town hotels in the hope of locating his man by chance; but as he started to leave the office a boy brought a note to him. "Mr. Jackson left this for you. Said he'd be back at midnight gone to some banquet, I think and that even if you didn't have anything, to wait for him." "Thanks," said Hanrahan. He opened the note. It read : PLUNDER 229 "Dear Tom : Sent Lovett out on this Master- man matter. He reports that telephone clerk at M.'s office told him that there was quite a to-do in M.'s office yesterday about some paper that had been lost. Later a woman called up M. Evident- ly a stranger, for she didn't know M.'s private number but called up office. When told M. was busy, as is always done when calls come over listed wires, said to tell M. that she wished to speak about a paper signed by M. and certain other gentlemen. That's all clerk got. None of this is for publication yet! I must observe a confidence. But that confidence applies merely to publication, I take -it. Therefore, get busy. For Lovett also learned that after paper was lost Masterman offered ten thousand to clerk who would recover it. It had blown out a window. Also the Greenhams are busy on the case, as you know. I'm certain this paper has something to do with universal transfers. Take my word for it, but not to be used in your story. But I'm not divulging any confidence in what I'm writing, be- cause what Lovett learned was caused by our put- ting two and one together Masterman and Greenham and Mack. Get hold of Mack if you haven't done so already. If we can make him talk I think we've got the biggest story of the decade. JACKSON." Hanrahan leaned back in his chair and thought over the situation. A woman had called up Mas- terman in words that might be construed to hold 230 PLUNDER a threat. Later the Greenhams 'tried to arrest a woman, but she was rescued by Harry Mack. Later Greenham, after a conference with Master- man, went to police headquarters and released Mack. Mack was then followed until he, Han- rahan, aided him to elude his pursuers. What was the answer ? The answer was this, clear as day: In some scheme that affected the Masterman interests, Kirby Rowland and Harry Mack were partners. Kirby had fled to Jessie's for refuge, not daring to return to her own studio. Then Dixon Grant had located her, and they had decided to seek some safer spot. That was clear. Suddenly Hanrahan thought of the burned telegram of whose existence Jessie had learned only by acci- dent. Why had Kirby done this ? What possible reason could she have for withholding from Jessie the information contained in the telegram ? And then, lightning-like, came the answer to that. Kirby Rowland was not withholding informa- tion from Jessie nearly so much as she was with- holding it from Masterman! Another link; an- PLUNDER 231 other evidence that Miss Rowland was inimical to the financier. But what petty spirit actuated her enmity? Why hide from the financier infor- mation about such a trifle? But was it a trifle? Kirby Rowland was an artist. It seemed certain that, with Harry Mack, she was scheming some- thing inimical to the Masterman interests; also that the Masterman agents knew of her part in the plot against their employer, were seeking her, and she had chosen a hiding-place where Masterman would never look for her in the Masterman house itself, impersonating Adele Rohan! It was clever reasoning and it held no flaw! Straight up to the Masterman mansion he would go, ask for Miss Adele Rohan But Jessie had insisted that what she had told him was for his earsalone. Without her first aid he could never have deduced what he had. It was up to him to see Jessie first, explain as much as he could hang confidences anyway ! He and Jackson were tied up with them! However, he could explain to Jessie all that he had learned, and she would, of course, tell him to go to Kirby. But he must 232 PLUNDER see her first! He must play absolutely fair with the girl he loved. He jammed his hat on his head and started for the door. "Oh, Tom!" It was Lyden, the city editor, calling. "In an awful rush, Boss! Chief has me work- ing on a special assignment " "Well, stick around a second," grinned Lyden. "The business office thought there might be a story in this 'ad,' and they're stalling the man down-stairs until I get a slant at it and send some one down. Read it." "Oh, all right," snapped Hanrahan. He grabbed the "personal" which had been handed in at the business office, and which that department had promptly rushed up-stairs by automatic tube. This was the advertisement: "K. R. and D. G. If don't hear from you bjt Thursday at six p. M. will tell all to newspapers. Address this office. H. M." The name of Kirby Rowland was buzzing in Hanrahan's brain. Almost unconsciously he fitted it to the first initials. Having done that it was PLUNDER 233 obvious that he should fit Dixon Grant and Harry Mack to the other initials. He crumpled the paper in his fingers and ran for the door. "I'll tend to this, Lyden," he called over his shoulder, and the city editor, amazed, watched him disappear through the door, and heard him wildly ordering the elevator boy to return and get him. Harry Mack was in the business office down- stairs, wondering why newspapers were so fussy about accepting advertisements, when Hanrahan touched him on the shoulder. He wheeled, to meet a smile. "Nice work last night, Mack. You fooled me to the queen's taste. However, I got a readable yarn, even if it wasn't true. But now I want a more readable yarn that is true. I want you to tell me just what your little game is; what you've been trying to do to Masterman; and how Miss Kirby Rowland figures in it ? Going to talk ?" Over the face of Handsome Harry spread a smile of admiration. "Hanrahan, you certainly are there ! How on earth sure, I'll talk. I'm always willing to talk 234 PLUNDER when the game is up. I know when I'm licked. Will your paper treat me right?" "Have to ask the boss about that," said Hanra- han, elated at his easy victory, "but he's always mighty generous to whoever hands the paper a tip. Spill it" "It's a long story. Let's go somewhere and sit down," suggested Mack. "All right," agreed the reporter. "Right across the street is a good place." He led the way to a well-known resort of the down-town thirsty. They sat down in a booth and ordered highballs, for which Mack insisted on paying. "Now, then," said the international crook, "how much do you know? Ask me questions if you like; that's the quickest way." "How much do I know?" echoed Hanrahan. "Well, I know that you and Miss Rowland have some club you're holding over Masterman's head. I know that you rescued her from the Greenhams yesterday ; I know that she's shaken you, she and Dixon Grant am I right ? Yes and that you're threatening to tell all unless they communicate PLUNDER 235 with you at this office. I know and this is no breach of confidence, Mack, though I learned it in confidence, for you know it yourself that Masterman lost a paper which you evidently have found. Judging by your 'ad/ I should say that Miss Rowland has double-crossed you in some way. Now then, talk." "You know a lot," commented Mack admiring- ly. "You're certainly one clever newspaperman! I suppose you even know where Miss Rowland is now?" Despite himself he could not keep his eagerness out of his tones ; and Hanrahan felt that if he told Mack where he believed Kirby Rowland to be he would get no information from the crook. He had no reason for thinking this, but instinct is sometimes stronger than reason. Somehow he felt certain that Mack's complaisance was a blind ; that perhaps the international crook was not quite so ready to tell everything as he appeared to be. "Would I be asking you questions if I could locate Miss Rowland and ask her? She'd be easier than you, Mack." 236 PLUNDER "Maybe," said Mack grimly. "Then that's all you know ?" "All I intend telling you," smiled Hanrahan. "Then I guess I haven't any conversation to waste on you," said Mack. He pushed back his chair as though to leave. Hanrahan smiled. A mighty good poker player was Tom Hanrahan, as his fellows on the Citizen would vouch. "So? Very well, then. How's it going to affect your game when I publish in the morning's Citizen that the paper lost by Masterman is a signed agreement between Masterman and - It was a most artistic pause ; a wonderful bluff. It worked. The face of Mack went dead white. Then he forced his lips to curl a smile. "You win, I guess. If I tell the whole story I get something, eh?" "A generous something," promised Hanrahan. "And my name won't come out? You won't tell a soul who gave it to you? But how can I be sure? Other people know now in your office, and they may give me away." PLUNDER 237 "Not a soul knows what I do about the matter," said Hanrahan eagerly. A faint flicker showed in Mack's eyes. He was a good poker player, too. "That right? Well, drink up! Here's success to me in my line and to you in your line." He held out his glass and Hanrahan permitted his own to touch it. There was an almost invisible flick of Handsome Harry's little finger. "How!" said the international crook. They drank. Hanrahan turned pale; he man- aged to place his glass back on the table, but that was all. He slid from his chair to the floor. Handsome Harry Mack smiled. "There's one guy that's honest; you can tell it in his eyes. He said no one knew about the stuff he mentioned but himself; he said no one would learn about my part in it. Well, I guess he told the truth in the first part of that; I'm dead cer- tain about the last part. For he won't talk to any one for a while yet." Quietly he left the booth. No one noticed that he left his companion lying on the floor. Hanra- 238 PLUNDER ban was not discovered for fifteen minutes, and by that time Handsome Harry Mack was far from Park Row. XV MRS. MASTERMAN stood timidly on the threshold. Kirby dug at her eyes with her small fists and yawned. Then she sat bolt up- right in bed and stared at the unfamiliar sur- roundings. She swept windows, walls, table and bureau with an uncomprehending eye. When she saw Mrs. Masterman she remembered. She smiled, and the nervousness and timidity of the financier's wife melted away before the charm of those curved lips and crinkled eyes. She advanced boldly into the room. "Well, my dear, I was a little afraid. I thought you'd be angry at my slipping in here ; but a girl who smiles like that isn't one to be afraid of, is she?" Kirby's smile deepened. "I don't think I'm very awesome," she con- fessed. "You didn't look it as you lay there sleeping," 239 240 PLUNDER said Mrs. Masterman. Her eyes clouded with tears. "You looked so like our first child, the one that we lost when she was sixteen, that Did you rest well? Did I wake you up? I hope not But Laurel is wild to see the lady who's to paint her, and I was as quiet as possible "Waked up of my own sweet will," laughed Kirby. "And now I'll get up." Mrs. Masterman backed away. "Will you breakfast here? Or would you care to join Laurel in the breakfast room? She isn't well, and she doesn't rise so early as my husband or myself. It would give you a chance to begin studying her, and " "I'd be delighted," said Kirby. "In half an hour." And in just that time, radiant from her toilet, Kirby entered the breakfast room, where the ner- vous wife of the master of transportation, whose health had been wrecked by giving birth to a child in middle life, and whose child was as delicate as the plant for which she was named was not, await- ed her. The introductions were speedily accom- plished, and Laurel Masterman, a gentle little girl "I thought you'd be angry at my slipping in here" PLUNDER 441 of an exquisite beauty rendered pathetic by its delicacy, gave her heart at once to the brown- haired painter. Indeed, before the breakfast was half over she announced that she loved Miss Rohan, and that the artist must write her name in the little girl's birthday book. Only the feeling that the end justified the means, and that the work in which she was en- gaged, to which she had dedicated herself, as it were, held so tremendous a good as to condone a little bad, forced Kirby to inscribe the name of Adele Rohan in the book. And as she did so, she prayed fervently that the Mastermans did not, by any mishap, know the age of Adele Rohan. For Kirby had written the other woman's name on the page given over to March sixteenth, her own birthday, and gave the date of her own birth. "And it isn't just for show I won't forget you," promised Laurel. At which Kirby tried to smile, but would have found it easier to weep. For, cruel though Mas- terman was, his wife and daughter were gentle. It was necessary for Kirby to conjure up an image of the tough little messenger boy of the 242 PLUNDER previous evening, to remember the conditions which poverty created, and which bred hundreds of thousands, boys and girls, like that little tough, to corrupt the generations unborn. It was hard to have to strike at Mrs. Masterman, gentle, thoughtful, considerate; it was hard to launch a blow that would in any way at all injure little Laurel. Only the thought of what she believed to be the greater good, in whose accomplishment the innocent must suffer, prevented Kirby from seeking immediate excuses for withdrawal from her great plan. It had been easy to picture Masterman as a sort of human devil grinding down the poor. But the way in which his little girl spoke of him, lov- ingly, tenderly, the pride and affection evidenced by Mrs. Masterman every time she mentioned his name these created another Masterman, a hus- band and father, tender, true and strong. And if an hour of conversation with the wife and daughter of the man whom she sincerely believed to be the worst enemy to enlightened progress in the world could make her resolution waver, what would two weeks do ? She must steel her heart ; PLUNDER 243 she must nerve herself to go ahead with what she had planned. "And though ignorant and jealous people try to decry him, he's one of the greatest men that ever lived," Mrs. Masterman was saying. "Think what he's done for the country; how he's labored that transportation might be better, that business might be combined, that waste might be avoided. And how generous ! Millions he's given to differ- ent charities and institutions of learning. And to-day why, he's caused his road to issue uni- versal transfers! I shouldn't wonder if the city lines all over the country were forced to follow his lead. It's a great thing. The papers would you like to see what they say about him?" Kirby would ; and a servant brought sheaves of the morning editions. She glanced at them all, and learned enough to know that Martin Master- man, by many editors at least, was considered a great public benefactor. The public would prob- ably praise Masterman. She hid a smile as she thought of how unwelcome all this praise must be to Masterman ; how at this moment his detectives were scouring the city for her, who had forced *44 PLUNDER him to pose as a public benefactor. She read the Citizen, and smiled again to see how far astray the shrewd reasoning of Jackson was. But it gave her food for thought She must be careful not to give Masterman a chance further to enrich himself by short selling. He'd not had opportu- nity to do it this time, but he might next. And now she asked herself what her next demand should be. Whatever it might be, it must be made quickly. She had eluded the financier's detec- tives, but Adele Rohan would be here in a few weeks. Before that time she must have com- pelled the financier to do many things. A servant entered. "A telephone for Miss Rohan." She followed him to the hall, where, in a little room partitioned off for privacy, was the tele- phone. "Miss Rohan?" It was Grant's voice. "Yes." She could almost hear him sigh with relief. "All right?" "All right. And you?" "Same here. When can I see you?" PLUNDER 245 She thought a moment. "I'll have to do some shopping. The art de- partment of Lacy's in an hour. And be careful," she added softly. "I understand. Good-by." He rang off. Trembling a little, Kirby re- joined Mrs. Masterman and Laurel in the break- fast room. "Your friends, I suppose, will make so many demands upon you," said Mrs. Masterman with a tinge of regret in her voice, "that I don't sup- pose we'll see much of you outside of business hours?" "And I want Miss Rohan lots," announced Laurel. "I want her to begin painting me to- day." "Oh, but I didn't bring anything with me," smiled Kirby. "I have to shop for brushes, pal- ettes, paints " "When you accepted my husband's offer he commissioned an art dealer to turn the playroom into a studio," said Mrs. Masterman. "There is everything there everything an artist could pos- sibly need. My husband said so." 246 PLUNDER "That was kind of him," said Kirby. "But still, you don't understand artists, I'm afraid, Mrs. Masterman. Not my kind of an artist, anyway. Before I paint a portrait I must study my subject; it's character, not mere feature, that I try to place on the canvas. I won't start painting for several days." "Oh," said Laurel disappointedly. "But you're going to study me? How lovely! And I'll be my goodest good for you. Won't you come now and see the studio?" Kirby naturally was in a fever of impatience to see Dick. Finally she convinced the mother and daughter, against their reluctant wills, that she was not only in lack of certain things which she could not permit their courtesy to supply, but was also a bit worn out. "Of course! Three days on a train. You simply mustn't work for several days." She ordered a car for the girl, and shortly be- fore the time agreed upon, Kirby entered the art department of Lacy's. She had refused the prof- fered services of Mrs. Masterman's maid, and so was alone. Dick was waiting for her. Their PLUNDER 247 hands met, and they sat down on a seat near the door. "Well," he asked excitedly, "have you seen the papers?" "I have. We've won!" "The first battle. And you're perfectly safe, you feel?" "So safe that I'm ashamed! Dick, it doesn't seem fair or right ! Mrs. Masterman and her dear little girl why should we have to strike the in- nocent with the guilty?" He smiled. "I hardly think we'll deprive them of a single automobile, Kirby. We aren't going to make Masterman restore his fortune to the people, you know. We're simply going to cinch things so that other fortunes like his can't spring into existence again. What's the matter weakening?" "Not at all," she answered ; "but I hate deceit. And I'm playing a deceitful part, that's all. But still where did you spend the night, Dick?" "A hotel off the Square. Easy for me, hard for you. You're certain that there's no suspicion? You haven't been followed?" 248 PLUNDER "That's why I hate it. They accept me so trustfully for what I profess to be." "Has Masterman seen you?" "Not yet; but he's to dine at home to-night, and but I'm not afraid of him. It's the deceiv- ing his wife, poor, nervous little woman. And his daughter ; I almost love her already, Dick. To think that she'll learn " Her mouth hard- ened. "War isn't a path of roses, is it? But we must decide what to do next? I don't know enough about conditions. I can see things that are wrong and should be righted, but I want to right them right! Have you made any plans?" "You haven't commented on my haggard ap- pearance," he said aggrievedly. "You are tired," she said quickly. "Poor Dick!" She squeezed his hand surreptitiously, and a smile chased away the lines of weariness on his face. "Perfectly well now," he said. "Planned? Well, rather! I've been up all night planning. I'm more eager than you know, I fear, Kirby. Do you realize, girl ? Yesterday we were excited. We said and did things in a haphazard fashion. PLUNDER 249 But now I've a night of thought behind me, a night of planning, a night of work! Kirby, we're going to make Masterman, Blaisdell, Cardigan, and those allied with them, restore to the people that which they have taken. We've begun a little on transportation ; we'll go further. And we'll start on foodstuffs; on coal. Listen!" He drew a piece of foolscap from his pocket. "Typewrote it in a hotel before you were up,' f he said. "Here are the demands we make of Masterman. First, a flat passenger rate of one cent a mile on every road he controls. Of course where commutation tickets are less than that, the commutation rate to stand. A" reduction of twen- ty-five per cent, on every freight schedule. An in- crease of wages of thirty per cent, to every man employed on those railroads. That will do for Masterman for the present. "Cardigan ! Coal to be reduced to four dollars a ton to the householder at once! Wages in the mines to be increased one hundred per cent. at once! "Blaisdell ! The price of all meats and of other foodstuffs prepared by concerns under his control 250 PLUNDER to be reduced one-half. Wages paid by him to be increased forty per cent. at once! There, what do you think of that?" She frowned. "Isn't it a bit too radical, Dick ? Won't their businesses fail?" "Exactly! And then the government can buy them in. The government isn't going to have its eyes closed while these things are happening. The government will step in when these great concerns show signs of bankruptcy. We'll give the gov- ernment the tip; we'll Kirby, a government is as successful as its citizens, and no more so. And a government can't be successful when its citizens are hungry, illy clothed, badly housed, as hun- dreds of thousands are to-day in this country. We're going to make anew this country. We've started already. Early this morning I mailed this list of first things to Masterman ; this is a carbon I have here. I gave him forty-eight hours in which to put these plans into effect. If he doesn't " "Dick, would we really, do you think, publish this paper?" PLUNDER 251 "I haven't thought of that contingency," he said. "The rich are cowards ; wealth makes them so. Fear of what we can do will drive Master- man and his gang. Kirby, we've won! For as soon as these things go into effect, the war is over. Masterman and his crowd will never go back to the old order. The people will never let them." "But you gave them forty-eight hours. The Citizen this morning claims that Masterman has been selling short. You and I know differently: but can't they sell short now and reap colossal profits?" "It's too big a thing," said Dick. "If the stock- holders of all -the concerns to be affected by our demands learned that Masterman and his asso- ciates had been selling short, they would think the whole change a mere gambler's trick and murder would follow. It surely would, Kirby, and Mas- terman has sense enough to know it. He'll take no chances of that. He would dare trim a thou- sand people, twenty thousand, but not half a mil- lion. He'll reap no profit." She rose. "You'll call me up on the telephone each day, 252 PLUNDER Dick? And how long will I have to play this hateful part?" "A couple of days, that's all. It's only that you may be safe. For, Kirby, if you are found and your safety threatened, I'd give up the whole business." "And I, too," she confessed. "It's wrong to place one above the many, but that's love, isn't it, Dick?" "It surely is with me, at any rate," he told her. "But the whole thing will be over soon. Then with Masterman involved so that he can not retreat, we won't care if he knows our identity." "I will," said Kirby. "His wife and child- oh, well, good-by, Dick. And phone me." There was not even opportunity for a stolen kiss. They dared not be seen on the street to- gether. They were not really safe even here. Some one might see them. Some Greenham op- erative might be buying a present for his wife. They separated and went in opposite directions. Down-town Martin Masterman, Cardigan and Blaisdell looked into the grinning face of ruin. XVI MARTIN MASTERMAN had but one pas- sion that was his invalid daughter. Power, place and fortune, these were not passions they were a disease with him. For Laurel he would have faced poverty cheerfully. No man is wholly bad, and Masterman, unmoral rather than immoral, hard, cruel, grasping, had his soft spot. If any doctor could have convinced him that it lay in his power to heal the little girl, and had demanded therefor all of Masterman's for- tune, Masterman would have given it. Laurel dined seldom with her parents once or twice a week at the outside. When she did it was an event, planned a couple of days in advance, and Masterman allowed nothing to prevent his attending the function. The day following the loss of the fateful paper he left Cardigan and Blaisdell at five o'clock to keep his engagement to dine at home. What good did it do them to 253 254 PLUNDER sit and brood? The Greenhams were doing the best they could and the Greenhams were the best detectives in the business. If the Greenhams couldn't find the girl and young man who had procured the paper from Harry Mack well, no one could find them. "And if they don't," Blaisdell had piped, in reply to this summing up of the situation by Mas- terman, "what then?" "Then," said Masterman heavily, "we confess defeat and do as this pair of precious maniacs de- mand." "That means ruin !" cried Blaisdell. "And our refusal means the same thing, doesn't it?" There the argument had ended, to be succeeded by futile worryings. There was nothing to be done, except hope that the Greenhams would suc- ceed in finding the possessors of the paper and wresting it from them. And the Greenhams were working as they had never worked before, for Martin Masterman had held before the two brothers the promise of a reward which would lift them at once into the wealthy class. They PLUNDER 255 were combing the city. The three millionaires could do nothing save irritate one another. So Masterman went home. Kirby dreaded the meeting with Masterman. She had pictured him as some all-devouring ogre whose baleful glance alone was enough to wither and shrivel ordinary humans. Instead, she met a grim-faced old man, deeper-lined of face, and more burning of eye than any one she had ever met. The events of the day, Kirby could see, were telling on him, but she noted the effect mere- ly because she knew the cause. To his wife and to his daughter he seemed the same gentle hus- band and father he had always been, for they knew only his soft side. Mrs. Masterman was ab- solutely convinced that her husband had never done a wrong thing in his life, but that he was the victim of jealousy. She believed none of the attacks made against him. Her faith was su- preme. The dinner passed pleasantly. Masterman, on being introduced to "Miss Rohan," had given her one moment of fright. On hearing her voice he had raised his eyebrows faintly. 256 PLUNDER "Your voice is vaguely familiar, Miss Rohan. Have I ever heard it before?" "Possibly," said Kirby, with a flash of her teeth, "but I do not know where." "My imagination probably," said Masterman. Then he spoke to her of Paris, of Colorado, com- plimented her on her work, asked what sort of portrait she planned to paint of Laurel, and other conventional questions. But mostly he devoted himself to his little daughter, causing Kirby to wonder at the many-sidedness of human nature. Here was a man whose every business action tended to reduce the opportunities in life of mil- lions of children. Yet he loved his own daugh- ter above everything else. Though in his busi- ness life he was relentless in pursuit of power to the exclusion of aught else, yet at home his every smile, his every look, his every caress showed that he was as human as other fathers. Why, then, this cruelty toward the world? She began to understand: Masterman recog- nized nothing save family. Community, nation, world, these were less than nothing to him ! Only his family counted where tenderness and gener- PLUNDER 257 osity were concerned. Like the caveman, he protected his own, cherished them, but with all others he was at war. The family was his unit and his whole! This was the explanation. He had the caveman's attitude toward the world, and like the caveman had been outgrown by the rest of the world, passed in the race of civilization. Kirby told herself that though the innocent suf- fer with the guilty, it is the greater good that counts. So she steeled her heart once more. The meal passed. Laurel, clinging to her fa- ther's hand, insisted that he see her birthday book. "I've four more names in it since you saw it last, daddy," she said. "You must seem them." He assented, and she sped away to her own room to fetch the volume. "You are going to give me your best efforts?" queried Masterman, while his daughter was away. "Miss Rohan, no one, not even her mother, understands my little girl as I do. She has the soul of Joan of Arc! You have seen her; you know she is lovely; there is no doubt of your technical skill; you can reproduce her fea- 258 PLUNDER tures. But so can a thousand other artists. I obtained your services for two reasons: One is because you are a fair and just woman. How do I know? I am somewhat of a connoisseur, Miss Rohan, despite that lying tale about my Bot- ticelli in this morning's Citizen. I can read be- tween the strokes of the brush even as one may sometimes read between the lines of a story or letter. I saw your portrait of Senora Davost, the Spanish dancer. That woman is a bad wom- an, and a woman like you," and he bowed, "would recognize and despise her in spite of her charm and good looks. And yet, in your por- trait, while you do not hide the evil that is in her, while you bring it out upon the canvas with a soul analysis that is almost uncanny, you do not stop there. You also bring out the traits of generosity, of impulsive nobility that are in her soul. I read them in your painting, and I ad- mired you. For it is not every woman, nor yet every man, that can be absolutely fair. And you were, when it was not necessary, for all the senora wanted was a portrait of herself, showing her hair, complexion and figure, eyes and teeth. PLUNDER 259 But you painted her as the Book of Judgment must have her recorded. "That is one of the reasons why I want you to paint my daughter because you will accord her her spiritual due. The other reason is really part of the first because you have genius. So then, Miss Rohan, you will paint, not the daugh- ter of Martin Masterman, but a little girl named Laurel. For genius and a sense of fairness mean no compromise with yourself. Other art- ists have painted Laurel they have made a doll of her, because they thought to flatter my pride in her. But you will give me her soul on canvas, and when she is gone for she is not here for long, Miss Rohan I shall have my child, not a painted image of her, to look upon." Kirby, swept away by the man's emotion, touched him on the arm: "Oh, Mr. Masterman, if you feel that way about her, I think " But a smile, not directed at her, cut short the words that would have inevitably caused suspic- ion. Masterman had caught sight of Laurel re- turning. 260 PLUNDER "Here it is, daddy. Here's the book." They were in Masterman's library now. Mas- terman was seated in a heavy armchair. Oppo- site him sat his sad-eyed, nervous wife. Laurel drew the book away as her father reached for it. "Get out your pen first, daddy," she com- manded. She looked at Kirby. "I give my presents to those whose names are written here," she announced proudly. "But little girls don't always know what grown-ups want, so daddy gets something else for them always. He never forgets!" "You see, Miss Rohan" the financier's smile left his daughter to rest on Kirby a moment "those whom my daughter loves must pay the price. They must accept the regard of Laurel's father, unwelcome though it may be." "As if any one isn't proud to have you love them, daddy," exclaimed Laurel indignantly. There was incredulity in the whimsical smile which the financier turned on Kirby. "When the important person feels this way I don't suppose it should matter about the rest of the world," he said. PLUNDER 261 Then he opened the book. Laurel's hand guided his. They found the first of the names, the second, the third and the fourth Adele Rohan's. Carefully Masterman had written down the names of the three. At the name which Kirby had written he found difficulty with his fountain pen. "All out of ink," he said with a smile. "I'll have to get another." He rose and walked into the little workroom which adjoined his library. Kirby stared after him, wide-eyed with apprehension. "Conscience doth make cowards of us all!" Not by the flicker of an eyelash had Master- man shown any emotion on seeing the signature of Adele Rohan. It was merely a coincidence that his pen should have run dry at the very moment it devolved upon it to transcribe the name of the Western-Parisian artist. It did not mean that Masterman knew the chirography of Miss Rohan, and, therefore, realized that an impostor was sitting in his library. Yet, though it was the merest coincidence, Kirby's muscles grew tense, and her brain was suddenly as alert as 262 PLUNDER though pricked with needles. But she relaxed at Masterman's speedy return. He had another pen in his hand and his countenance was alight with that tenderness which she knew he reserved for his daughter. "Now for Miss Rohan's name and birthday," he laughed. He worked sidewise into the chair on whose arm Laurel was still perched. With her arm about his neck, and her cheek close to his, while she watched the operation, he wrote the name of Adele Rohan in the little note-book which seemed wholly devoted to the uses to which it was being put to-night. He closed the little book, placed it in an inside pocket, swung Laurel into the air and set her gently on the ground. "And now to work," he said. "Daddy has a hundred and one things to do, so shoo-ooh !" He waved her from the room laughingly, and she responded to his mirth. "But Miss Rohan must stay with me till bed- time," she said, grasping Kirby by the hand. "Miss Rohan may want to read or write let- ters," suggested Mrs. Masterman, "or perhaps PLUNDER 263 she would like to call upon some of her friends in the city." That a young lady, unattended, should go out at night to pay calls was contrary to Mrs. Master- man's idea of the conventions; but artists, espe- cially women artists, even when as charming and well-mannered as Miss Rohan, were apt to be un- conventional. But Kirby shook her head. "I'd rather play with a certain dear little girl I know than do anything else," she said. "Then by all means do what you'd rather do," said Masterman, wkh a genial smile. But the benignity left his eye the moment that Kirby, hand in hand with Laurel and followed by Mrs. Masterman, left the room. He strode to the table, picked up the birthday book which Laurel, with the inconsequence of childhood, had left behind her, and carried it into his workroom. He placed the book upon a small table upon which was already an unfolded letter. The letter was dated Denver and was signed by Adele Rohan. Kirby's belief that Masterman and the girl she was impersonating had never met had been cor- 264 PLUNDER rect, but she had not thought upon the fact that they must have corresponded. Swiftly Masterman compared the two signa- tures. He did so carefully, although any one would have been certain at a glance that two dif- ferent hands had penned them. He wanted to be quite sure! There was, of course, the possi- bility that Miss Rohan had dictated this letter, and that some one had not only written it, but signed it. But there was nothing in this note, which was an acceptance of his offer of ten thou- sand for a portrait of Laurel, and which stated that the artist would arrive at about this very time, to indicate that it was other than Miss Rohan's own handwriting. "Certainly," said Masterman to himself, "she would not commission any one with so vile a handwriting to write her letters for her, eccentric though she may be. It's her own handwriting!" Then who was the impostor? Masterman answered that question without hesitation. It was Kirby Rowland, the young woman who had over the telephone given him the command about universal transfers. PLUNDER. 265 Masterman might have conversed with Kirby a year without definitely recognizing that voice which sounded so vaguely familiar that is, with- out extraneous suggestion. But that extraneous suggestion had come with suspicion. It is often so. We meet a person who looks familiar, but we can not name him. Then he mentions cas- ually that he hasn't been in Philadelphia for seven years. We know him! The train of thought leading to recognition has been started. So it was with Masterman. When he discov- ered, to his own satisfaction at any rate, that the guest in his household was not Adele Rohan, but was an impostor, he remembered at once the only place where he had ever heard her voice before over the telephone the previous day. At first his rage was almost ungovernable. Not quite cer- tain, or rather not willing to admit his certainty, until the two signatures were laid side by side, he had exhibited that wonderful self-control that had done so much toward placing him where he was. His first impulse was to send a servant for Kirby and force the truth from her; but he dis- 266 PLUNDER missed that idea at once. There was a bare pos- sibility that the guest in his house was not an im- postor. Masterman never acted on impulse when great issues were at stake ; he never acted on mere knowledge; he acted on evidence! And he wanted all the evidence obtainable. Quite calmly he sat down before his private telephone and had himself connected with the superintendent of the telegraph company, which Masterman practically owned. "I want you," he said, "to find out for me at once if a Miss Adele Rohan, an artist, has left Denver, and if so, find out her destination." He gave the address which was on Miss Rohan's let- ter. "I want an answer within one hour." "You'll have it, Mr. Masterman," said the su- perintendent obsequiously, and Masterman hung up. But he joggled the receiver again almost immediately. This time he connected with Ter- ence Greenham, and demanded his immediate presence. After that he called up Cardigan and Blaisdell, and those harassed gentlemen promised to be with him as soon as swift automobiles could convey them from their homes, where they had PLUNDER 267 been pacing their respective libraries, torn by a hundred fears. Blaisdell and Greenham arrived almost togeth- er, Cardigan a few moments later. A servant, used to surreptitious visitors, smuggled the three men into the Masterman library without any one else suspecting their presence. Masterman re- fused to talk until all three men were present. Then tersely he told them of his suspicions. "But why wait for the Denver message?" de- manded Greenham. "I've seen her; I'll know her! Send for her, and " "But wouldn't it be a good idea to find out if she really is Miss Rohan? It may not be Kirby Rowland masquerading as Adele Rohan, it may have been Adele Rohan masquerading as Kirby Rowland. She isn't alone in this, you know, Greenham. If by any chance she really is the Rohan woman, it will be the Rohan acquaintance among whom we must search for this Dixon Grant. That will help, won't it? Of course if she is really Kirby Rowland, you'll have to stick to her acquaintance in hope of locating Grant. This woman, whatever her real name is and 268 PLUNDER we'll know that in a little while isn't alone. Re- member that ! We've got her ; before taking her let's find out what we can. Smoke." In full control of himself he smoked in silence, while Blaisdell and Cardigan walked the floor, and Terence Greenham tried to compute how much Masterman would lop off his promised re- ward if Masterman had really succeeded where the detective had failed. Then the phone tinkled. Masterman listened a moment, then spoke : "I want you, Keeler, to send at once to this house a message for Miss Adele Rohan. It must bear the Denver date line of a couple of hours ago. Have it brief. Something like this : 'Come at once.' Sign it 'Elise,' or any other name that suits your fancy. Understand? At once!" He turned to his companions. "Well, gentlemen, Keeler has received word from Denver that Miss Adele Rohan left that 'city, bound for New York, this afternoon ! There is no possibility of mistake. Miss Rohan is well known in Denver, and the Denver office of the telegraph company even sent on the number of her drawing-room. I knew it before, but I am PLUNDER 269 certain now the young woman at present play- ing in the nursery with my daughter is not Miss Rohan, she is the woman who possesses the paper we lost yesterday." "Then bring her in here," roared Cardigan, "and we'll make her give it up!" Masterman shook his head. "I've had the pleasure of conversing with the young lady, Cardigan. The girl who's had the nerve to come up to my house when she knew that I'd give a fortune to get hold of her is not the kind to surrender in a moment. Besides, Laurel has taken a fancy to her, and no force is to be used on her." Cardigan, fists doubled, glared at him. "Then what do we do? Beg her to hand it back? Why are we here?" "No," said Masterman coldly, "we don't beg her. Nor do we use force. We use restraint. You spoke of incarcerating Mack in your Long Island place. What's the matter with' taking this young woman down there?" "I suppose she'll come gladly," sneered Cardi- gan. 270 PLUNDER "There are measures, my dear Cardigan, that are effective without being brutal. It is one of those we shall use." He unlocked a desk and from a drawer drew a little medicine case. From this he took a small bottle and a roll of gauze. "I think chloroform will do the work, eh?" He looked at Greenham, and the detective took bottle and gauze from the financier's hands. "I can use it," said Greenham. "Send for her." Masterman hesitated a moment. "We'll give her a chance first. I'll try to reason with her. If I can't this library is sound-proof; we'll go ahead with the chloroform. Then, Car- digan, you can carry her out the side entrance; I'll have a servant tell your chauffeur to move down there. And then take her to Bellmere. When she wakes up in the morning, and finds that she's locked in a room who's down at Bell- mere now?" "Only a caretaker," answered Cardigan. "And he'll keep his mouth shut he and his wife." "Good," said Masterman. "Well, then, when the young lady learns 'that she's to remain in Bell- mere until she surrenders that paper after I've PLUNDER 371 had a little talk with her convincing her that she'll stay there until she dies of old age if she doesn't surrender it I think we'll have no diffi- culty with her." Blaisdell put his finger on the weak spot in Masterman's logic. "But the men with her Grant and Mack? Perhaps they have the paper? What good'll it do " "Despite all that's happened Mack's rescue of her and all that I still do not believe that Mack and the girl are in league together. In the first place, their demands are so utterly opposed; in the second, I can not conceive of this young woman having anything at all to do with Mack. He is a blackmailing scoundrel; she, though act- ing insanely, is a lady who would not stoop to use the paper for personal profit. Why Mack rescued her I don't profess to understand, but that it means he has any understanding with her I refuse to believe. And I'm sure that Mack hasn't got the paper. She has it. Why, that's it!" he exclaimed. "She has it, was on the verge of cap- ture was captured and Mack rescued her. He 272 PLUNDER rescued her thinking that he could later obtain it from her. But he was immediately locked up, and since his release she's been in this house. Though she was out to-day shopping, she told my wife I do not believe she saw Mack. He is out of the game for the present, at any rate. "And the other man Grant. From what you have told us, Greenham, it seems certain that he is no friend of Mack's, although the latter gave him the paper. But he is a friend of Miss Row- land. More he must be her lover. To no one else would he have confided the nature of that document. To no one else would he have appor- tioned a part in this little play. "If this man Grant communicates with me I shall tell him that unless he surrenders the paper provided that she hasn't it he will never see her again. Further, if he threatens publication I will inform him that when it comes Martin Mas- terman's time to be destroyed by his enemies, he will take whatever of those enemies he can along with him. I will tell him that publication means death to me ; it will also mean death to Miss Row- land. Any more objections?" PLUNDER 273 The others were silent. Masterman spoke again. "We'll give her a chance. If she is stubborn Cardigan will take her to Bellmere. You, Green- ham, will at once order a woman operative, im- personating Miss Rowland, to take the night train to Chicago. Then let her disappear for a while. This is merely in case Grant should try to trace the young woman. He might hire some private detective agency to locate her. They would learn that the supposed 'Miss Rohan' had received a telegram and left at once for Denver. It merely covers her trail. For I shall see that my servants know of the telegram which Keeler will send here, and of Miss Rohan's sudden de- parture. Then, if Grant loves the girl, and he must, he will know that it is useless to attempt tracing her, and if he has the paper in his posses- sion he will surrender." "You count a lot on the effect of love, don't you?" sneered Cardigan. "The force that has made history is hardly to be scoffed at," was Mastennan's reply. Then he gave his last instructions : 274 PLUNDER "Greenham, you keep after this Grant and Mack, too, though I can not see where he figures. Cardigan, you stay with this girl at Bellmere; but" and he spoke with sudden vehemence "if you harm her you'll settle with me. You, Blaisdell, go home and try to stop whimpering. Ready?" He pressed a bell, a servant came, and imme- diately left to inform Miss Rohan that Mr. Mas- terman would like to see her in his library. Little Laurel had just been put to bed and Kirby was on the verge of retiring to her own room. Mrs. Masterman and Kirby, in fact, were just parting in the hall outside Laurel's bedroom when the servant gave Kirby the message. "If Mr. Masterman gets talking art he doesn't know when to stop. I think I'll say good night now," smiled Mrs. Masterman. Impulsively she kissed Kirby, and with a heavy heart why is it that a spy, doing a gallant service, despises him- self? Kirby went to the library. Once across the threshold, seeing that Master- man was not alone, recognizing the faces of Blaisdell and Cardigan from their newspaper pic- PLUNDER 275 tures, she would have turned and fled the room; but Greenham was too quick. He closed the door and locked it; and Kirby recognized him. She knew the purpose of the meeting. But the color came back to her cheeks as quickly as it fled. Her lips curled in a smile; her eyes sparkled with that light that illumines the eyes of the born fighter going joyously into battle. She had had tremors before; she had been frightened before; but this had been as the nervousness of the sol- dier on the eve of battle. Battle itself she did not dread. Moreover, she had taken a quick liking, that was really warm affection, for Laurel Masterman. It irked Kirby to be masquerading in the home of Laurel. She was glad the issue was joined. She waited for Masterman to speak. "Miss Rowland," he said heavily, "you are in my house on false pretenses. You can go to jail for that." "I dare you to send me there, Mr. Masterman," she smiled. "We'll discuss that later. First, I want a paper which you possess. We won't beatv about the bush, please. You know the paper I mean." 276 PLUNDER "Certainly. I shall not give it to you." "Then we shall be compelled to search your effects." She laughed. "You are perfectly welcome. It is not among them." "Then you will tell us where it is*" Again she laughed. "You think so?" "I am certain of it. If not now in the future." She met his eye. "Mr. Masterman, I will never surrender that paper until the work which I have begun is fin- ished. You may kill me, if you dare, but you will not get that paper." Only a fool could have doubted her sincerity. There was nothing to be gained by argument. Resolute, unafraid, defiance in every inch of her, Kirby faced the master of transportation; and the great financier was a reader of character. He knew that it was hopeless to argue, futile to threaten. The only thing to do was to imprison Kirby, wait for Grant to make a demand, and PLUNDER 277 then use her as the club whereby to swing him into line. He signaled Greenham. Ten minutes later a burly man descended the steps of the side entrance to the Masterman man- sion, bearing a limp figure in his arms. He placed his burden inside the waiting limousine, and spoke one word to the chauffeur: "Hurry!" XVII GRANT telephoned the Masterman home in the morning. Both Kirby and he had agreed that telephoning was not the safest thing in the world, yet, if he asked for Miss Rohan, and their conversation was confined to conven- tionalities, there seemed hardly any risk. He, of course, would give an assumed name if requested to tell who wished to speak with Miss Rohan. There might be danger, but, in the midst of the dangers which surrounded them, this particular one seemed almost negligible. "Miss Rohan is not here," said the servant who answered his call. "Not there!" Grant was aghast. "What do you mean?" "She left last night for Denver," was the amazing reply. For a moment, dazed, Grant could say noth- ing. And when he could it was merely a feeble question. 278 PLUNDER 279 "Are are you sure?" "Certainly, sir," said the servant icily. "If it's anything important you may speak with Mr. Masterman. His instructions are that any one calling for Miss Rohan shall be connected with him if desired." "Let me speak to him," said Grant hoarsely. A moment later a harsh voice sounded in his ears. "Well, who is this? Some one asking for Miss Rohan?" "Yes, a friend of hers. I'm told she left for Denver last night." "Are you inquiring for Miss Rohan or Miss Rowland?" queried the financier. The game was up! Grant choked back an explanation. "Either one," he stammered. A grim chuckle came along the wire. "Well, to any friends of Miss Rohan that hap- pen to have known of her presence in town, I can only say that she received a telegram last night, and took the night train for Chicago en route for Denver. To any one asking for Miss 280 PLUNDER Rowland, I can only say that if that person knew of Miss Rowland's presence in my home, he must also know of the existence of a certain little paper. Am I correct?" Grant glanced over his shoulder. He was tele- phoning from a drug store. His was the only booth. It would be impossible for Masterman to work the trick he had attempted when Kirby had phoned him that of trying to attempt deten- tion of the person talking with him. Drug stores do not have house detectives amenable to the sudden commands of money. Escape was easy if necessary. And of this last, now that Kirby was known for what and whom she was, he was not certain there was necessity. The game was up! Yet he temporized. "And if you are correct? What then?" "Then, Mr. Dixon Grant," snapped Master- man, "if you care to see Miss Rowland again you will turn that paper over to me at once." "And supposing that I meet threat with threat ? Unless I hear from Miss Rowland within the hour she knows where to reach me and PLUNDER 281 learn that she is not annoyed by you, I will turn that paper over to the newspapers." "Who wouldn't print it," jeered Masterman. "Are you sure ? I have noticed that one paper, the Citizen, seems glad to print anything that tends to show you up for what you really are! Furthermore, you seem to think yourself that certain papers would print it, else why did you grant universal transfers? Let's not bluff. You've hidden Miss Rowland away. You've taken advantage of her assumption of Miss Rohan's identity to concoct a telegram calling her away in order that any one anxious to see the real Miss Rohan would be fooled. And also to clear yourself of any charge of abduction. Very clever! Only it doesn't work, Mr. Martin Masterman! One hour! If I don't hear from Miss Rowland by then I turn that precious docu- ment over to the papers!" "And if you do, Mr. Grant, do you know what will happen? My life will be in danger in fact, I am prepared to admit that I do not believe there is a spot on earth where I would be safi 282 PLUNDER from the people. I am ready to take my medi- cine; but some one else will take it before myself. As surely as I speak to you now, Mr. Grant, so surely will Miss Kirby Rowland go before me! If I'm to die, so does she and first ! Now then, do you print that paper or do you give it up to me? I'll reward you. You'll not lose any- thing by abandoning this insane scheme of yours to ruin property. You'll be rich " A click at the other end of the wire made him realize that he was pouring his golden promises into a lifeless machine. For Grant had hung up and staggered from the booth. Not only was the game up, but Masterman had him on the hip! There was no doubting the sincerity of Masterman's threat. Grant believed implicitly that the publication of that paper meant the sign- ing of Kirby's death warrant. His first impulse had been to promise Masterman surrender of that paper at once; to tell him where it was. That he did not yield to his impulse was due to no lack of love for Kirby, no disregard of the dan- ger that menaced her; it was due to common PLUNDER 283 sense; common sense which, even in this moment of surprise and shock, bade him hesitate. Dimly he could see that there was a weakness in Mas- terman's position, that the financier was by no means impregnably intrenched in his demands. But he realized that until his brain cleared from the cloud that Kirby's capture had caused he was in no position to deal with Masterman. One thing alone was clear to him while publication of that paper was withheld Kirby was safe ! Mas- terman would not dare harm her, knowing the inevitable result publication and ruin and death! Masterman would wait. As he walked up the street his mind cleared; his mental processes became lucid once more. He sat down on a bench in a little park and reviewed the situation. Kirby had been captured ; she had been smuggled away to some hiding- place. Her trail had been covered by the pre- tense of her having received a telegram calling her to Denver. To the police Masterman could say that he had no idea that Miss Rohan was not what she purported and represented herself to 284 PLUNDER be the eccentric Western-Parisian portrait painter. Ostensibly, Miss Rohan had started for Denver; in reality, she had been taken She was not in the Masterman home that was positive. Masterman would not dare keep her there. So he had had her taken somewhere else. That was as certain as the course of the sun. And so was something else. Before abducting Kirby, Masterman had tried to get the paper from her. No one but a fool would have failed to demand the paper. Masterman was no fool. He had demanded it, and he had not got it! If he had he wouldn't be asking Grant for it. Why hadn't he got it? Because Kirby had refused. And why had Kirby refused ? Because the game wasn't up! It was clear as crystal. Kirby didn't want the paper surrendered. If she had well, she'd have told Masterman where it was. Why argue any further than that? Moreover, Kirby knew the name of the hotel where Grant was stopping. She'd have got him on the phone and told him what had happened. But why wasn't the game up? Because Kirby relied on him, Dixon Grant, PLUNDER 285 to play it through to a winning finish ! She relied on his wit to extricate her from her danger, and then go through with their plan to the end agreed upon by them. And if Kirby wasn't a quitter, if Kirby was game enough to risk indignity and restraint, he must do his part. For the time being Kirby was safe. While the paper was unpublished Master- man faced a weapon as dreaded by him as Kirby's capture was hateful to Grant. The odds had shifted, that was all. Instead of being in favor of Grant and Kirby, they were even now. It was up to Grant to rescue Kirby and cause another shifting of the odds in Kirby 's war. But how? There must be a way! Kirby, by her refusal to surrender the paper, showed her faith in Grant to find that way. It was up to him to justify that faith. He slumped farther down upon the bench, his brain clear now, and working at its utmost efficiency. Where had they taken Kirby? How could he rescue her? Half an hour of concentrated thought and his head was dizzy with the problem. It was clear enough what must be done. How to do it he 286 PLUNDER did not yet see clearly. Mechanically he reached for a morning paper, discarded by some earlier loiterer in the park. The sheet was open at the "Want Ads" page, and the first column of this page was devoted to personals. Idly, hardly see- ing what he read, his eyes went down the column. It stopped and read one advertisment a second time. It was the personal inserted by Harry Mack in every morning paper save the Citizen, which had not run his advertisement for the two simple reasons that Hanrahan had taken it away with him and had not returned, and that Mack had neglected to pay for its insertion. But as in the one intended to be inserted in the Citizen, this one gave the newspaper publishing it as the place to address Mack. There was no question in Grant's mind as to whom it was addressed. And this was Thursday. At six P. M., if Mack kept his word, the game would be out of the hands of the self-constituted battlers for the people. And on publication it would not matter to Masterman that Harry Mack caused the publication Kirby would die. Now, indeed, the game was up! Mack could undoubt- PLUNDER 287 edly tell a story so convincing that his inability to produce the paper itself would not greatly affect evidence in his tale. A paper like the Citi- zen, for example, careless of libel suits, would print greedily Mack's story. And Mack would give Kirby's name and his, Grant's. He must see Mack at once, and try to prevent his thwarted cupidity from wrecking a plan destined to ameli- orate the conditions of the poor. The man's conscience must be appealed to. Grant must try Here Grant laughed at the idea of Mack having a conscience. Then he remembered how Mack had rescued Kirby from the clutches of the Masterman agents. Grant had scoffed at the idea of chivalry hav- ing actuated that rescue. But did it matter what had actuated it? Mack had done it. For his own reasons Mack had not wanted Kirby cap- tured by Masterman. And then Grant laughed again at his own stupidity. For as Masterman had reasoned so did he at last. Mack had saved Kirby because she held the paper which he did not wish to pass into Masterman's possession. That was the answer to that riddle. And if 288 PLUNDER Mack had saved Kirby once, would he not try it again? And could not Mack, with his under- world cunning, be of invaluable assistance to Grant? Grant alone could hardly hope to res- cue Kirby if she were guarded properly. But with Mack he smiled at the idea of forming an alliance with the crook; but he needed help, and the shrewd brain of Harry Mack could give that help. He entered a telegraph office and swiftly wrote a message. "H. M. Will be in cafe of Hotel Blank wait- ing for you. D. G." He delivered the envelope to a clerk. "This will go at once? How soon will it be delivered ?" The clerk saw that it was addressed in care of the Despatch. "Boy ought to get down there in the subway in ten minutes." "Give him this for speed," said Grant, and passed a coin to the clerk. A moment later a boy dashed out of the office, and Grant entered the Blank and made his way to the cafe. Inside of an hour Harry Mack entered. For he had left PLUNDER 289 instructions with the Despatch business office to have any answers to his advertisement forwarded to him by special messenger at once, at a down- town address he gave, and he had wasted no time on receiving Grant's note. He sat down opposite Grant. "Well ? Going to declare me in, are you ?" Grant looked at him. "Mack, do you really intend to use this paper as a lever for blackmail?" "If you must be so crude of expression yes," replied Mack. "And there's no way in which I can persuade you to join with Miss Rowland and myself in urging it as a weapon to get the people their rightful dues?" Mack sneered. "I can get twenty-five thousand from a news- paper for what I can tell them. Twenty-five thousand is a drop in the bucket compared to what I ought to get, but even a drop is a sizable drink to a man dying of thirst. I don't even get the drop working with you crazy people. Of course I'm going to use that paper for myself. But I'll divide the coin in three pieces one for 290 PLUNDER each of us. What's the answer? Do you join with me, or do I grab what I can from the papers ?" "Why hurry?" inquired Grant "Because you people will gum the game," snarled Mack. "You'll get caught by the Mas- terman gang and lose the paper, and then where' 11 I be? You people are the kind that wouldn't back my story up if you didn't have the paper. You'd be afraid of trouble. You'd be afraid of anarchy and heaven knows what not, if you cor- roborated my statements. No, you people aren't after the coin. You'd have got it before this if you had been. Your girl gave me an idea of what you wanted. You want to reform the world. With this paper in ytfur possession you think Masterman will do as you say. He ain't got sense enough to see that you people wouldn't publish the thing anyway, for fear of awful con- sequences to the country. That's the way I dope you two anyway, and I'll bet I'm right!" Grant met his angry glance. "Maybe you are right, Mack; but as you say, no paper is going to pay you a large sum for PLUNDER 291 your story unless Miss Rowland and I corrob- orate it." "By your actions," amended Mack. "By the fact that you two are laying low and hiding from Masterman. That'll be corroboration enough, considering the straight yarn I can spring." "But you're too good a sport to sell for twenty-five thousand when there's a chance for millions." "Where's my chance?" "As long as Miss Rowland and I have the paper you think you have a chance, eh?" "I know I've got a chance," snarled Mack. "But you won't have the paper long. Master- man's gang'll land you and then I lose." "And supposing that Masterman had landed Miss Rowland? Would you try to rescue her, thinking that later you could get hold of the paper?" "Mr. Grant," said Mack, and his voice was menacing, "let's drop the foolish talk. I won't give my story to any paper. Twenty-five thou- sand or so won't buy that secret from me. I want a million. I put that advertisement in to scare 292 PLUNDER you people. I've done it. I want to get hold of you. I've done it. Now you hand me over that paper or I'll finish you here in this cafe!" "But I haven't the paper. It's locked away in a vault, and Miss Rowland is the only one who can get possession of it." "Then lead me to her. I mean it, Grant. As I'm a living man, you'll be a dead one if you don't. Where is she?" "Now we're getting down to cases," said Grant, apparently unmoved by the threat. "I don't know where she is." "You what?" "And as I don't care to entrust any one else with the secret of this paper, I thought you'd help me find her," continued Grant calmly. "After we've found her and rescued her well, then, Mr. Mack, I'll listen to your talk about gun play. But I haven't the paper. I can't get it. Miss Rowland can. Do you want to help me find her, with the understanding that after she's rescued you and I are on opposite sides again ?" Mack removed his hand from his pocket. Not until then did Grant realize how absolutely serious PLUNDER 293 Mack had been. For the coat pocket sagged, as the hand was removed, and the weapon inside settled back into place. Mack was desperate, but Mack also was the only person Grant knew who could help him now. Wars, even people's wars, can make as strange bedfellows as politics. After Kirby was rescued but let the future and Dixon Grant take care of Kirby. Kirby would come to no harm from Mack; Grant would die first. Moreover, armed men have been disarmed before this. The risk was slight, thought Grant, compared to the stake at issue the rescue of a people. "What's happened?" demanded Mack. SKviftly Grant told him of Kirby's venture into the house of Masterman, and his own recent telephonic conversation with Masterman. "You, Mack," he finished, "are powerless while Miss Rowland is in Masterman's hands. Though I warn you that you'll not get hold of that paper while I'm able to prevent you, you can see that you have absolutely no chance to get hold of it while Miss Rowland is a prisoner. Will you help me?" 294 PLUNDER "Can you drive a car?" demanded Mack, with seeming irrelevance. "Yes; why?" "Day before yesterday Cardigan wanted to drug me and take me to his place on Long Island. Masterman has country places at Bar Harbor and Pinehurst. Too far! Blaisdell's nearest country place is in the Thousand Islands. Now they wouldn't let any more people into the secret than necessary. They wouldn't send her to some other millionaire's place. Too risky. Cardigan's is the nearest place. It's a cinch they wouldn't keep her in town, so she must be in the country, and that means Cardigan's country place at Bellmere. You've heard of it?" "Seen photographs in the Sunday papers," said Grant. "So have I. Well, that seems the most likely place to look for her. Easily reached by auto- mobile, no need of taking her on a train where crew and passengers might see something to arouse suspicion. And it's the place Cardigan proposed taking me! I'll bet she's there!" "Then let's start now," said Grant, rising. PLUNDER 295 "It will take us four hours to get there, including the time we waste now getting started." "No hurry," said Mack. "We don't want to get there until after dark, you know. Still, we'll want to get down to Edgewater, the nearest village to Cardigan's place, and sort of scout round. Come on, let's hire a car !" At eleven o'clock that night an electric wire, cleverly concealed in the shrubbery that girded the lawns about the Cardigan country house, was trod upon by the foot of Harry Mack. Within the house six Greenham operatives prepared for action. Ten minutes later Handsome Harry Mack and Dixon Grant were dragged into the presence of Martin Masterman. For the master of transportation was a very shrewd man. It had occurred to him that Grant might learn where Kirby was, and that Cardigan and an aged care- taker might not be sufficient to cope with an out- raged lover. And as he wished to question Kirby, and try to succeed where the Cardigan threats had failed, he had come down to Bellmere him- self bringing the Greenham operatives. He looked from one to the other of the cap- 296 PLUNDER tives, who had been surprised and overcome before Mack could even place his hand on the automatic pistol in his coat pocket. "Well, gentlemen," said the master of trans- portation, "Miss Rowland won't tell where that paper is. One of you gentlemen will! No? I don't want to use force, gentlemen, but I want that paper! Cardigan, bring in the girl!" And Kirby Rowland, sick at sight of brutal ringers crushing the throat of Dixon Grant, told the hiding-place of the paper. "In my own vaults," said Masterman, gasping. "Of all the nerve " He never finished that sentence, for at that moment the front-door bell clanged ominously. Bellmere had other visitors besides Mack and Grant that night; and these later visitors came not like thieves in the night, but boldly and un- afraid. And they pounded on the front door. "There's a dozen of 'em," gasped a Greenham operative who had peered through a window. "A dozen, and I just heard one of 'em orderin' the others to fire their guns at the lock to bust it in !" Masterman glared. PLUNDER 397 "Cardigan, open the door for them, and see who and what they are. Threaten them, with the law. If that doesn't warn them off advise them that armed men are here and will resist any forced entrance." But it takes more than threats, more than bul- lets, to stop the advance of United States mar- shals. They swept in like a tide, and at Cardi- gan's protest one seized him by the arm and declared that he was under arrest. "On what charge?" demanded Cardigan. "On the charge of conspiracy in restraint of trade, and on a warrant issued by the Supreme Court of the United States ! And we want Mas- terman! Where is he?" They flooded into the house, followed by two men whom Cardigan, fear clutching at his throat, recognized. So did Masterman, a moment later, and he thanked the presence of mind that had made him order Kirby, Dixon Grant and Harry Mack hidden away in a room on the top floor. "What does this mean?" he blustered, glaring at the men he recognized. 298 PLUNDER But his bluster Woke down when one of them, ignoring his question, said : "In addition to other charges, Mr. Masterman, there will be the one of kidnaping, for which I guarantee you twenty years in jail unless you immediately produce one Kirby Rowland, alleged to be detained by you." Masterman knew the game was up. He looked at a Greenham operative. The man sullenly left the room. A moment later the three prisoners were confronting their erstwhile captors and their rescuers in a room where economic history was shortly to be made. For the thin-faced man with the stern manner was Morley Ellis, Attorney- General of the United States of America; and behind him stood Lindley Jackson. XVIII WHEN Handsome Harry Mack flicked a pellet into the highball of Tom Hanra- han, he thought that this little finger had sent enough of the deadly drug into Tom Hanrahan's glass to render the reporter harmless for at least ninety-six hours. But the international crook reckoned without the newspaperman's wonder- ful constitution. Hanrahan had been a football star and captain of his crew at college. And during the four years that had elapsed since graduation he had kept himself in fine condition. Within twenty-four hours after being found unconscious on the floor of the Tube Hanrahan awoke. He found himself in a small room, whose white furnishings were proof of its con- nection with a hospital. "Well, where the deuce how the deuce " Then he knew, and despite a splitting headache and a nausea, that enfeebled him, he rolled out 299 300 PLUNDER of bed, and staggered toward a half -opened closet wherein he could see his clothes hanging. Half- way to the closet he collapsed, and the noise of his fall brought in a nurse from the hall outside. A passing doctor came in answer to her cry, and together they managed to get Hanrahan back into bed. But when the nurse put something to his lips Hanrahan had recovered his senses again and brushed it aside. "Get Jackson Lindley Jackson," he gasped. "Here, here, my man, drink this," commanded the doctor. "You're mighty sick! No time to talk now." He put his arm about Hanrahan' s shoulders and raised him that he might swallow the easier. But a sudden fury seemed to sweep over Hanra- han. He broke the doctor's grip and hurled the glass across the room, where it splintered in a score of pieces. "I'm Hanrahan of the Citizen. Get Jackson * -Lindley Jackson!" The doctor looked at the nurse. "Is this so? Did you find any paper on him?" The nurse shook her head. PLUNDER 301 "Just some letters without their envelopes. Over ninety dollars, so we put him in a private room. His clothing was expensive, too; but no identification." The reporter listened to her, then spoke again. "Inside pocket my vest police card. Send for Jackson vital important get him." The nurse sped to the closet; she brought out the waistcoat, and in that neglected pocket which Hanrahan mentioned she found his police identifi- cation card. "Better phone his employers," suggested the doctor. "Tell them the man was found drugged in the Tube last night, that no one there seemed to know who he was. That we have just dis- covered his identity, and that, while he is in no danger, perhaps some one in the office might care to see him. Add that the man states that he has something of vital importance to tell his employers." Hanrahan heard the instructions, and sank back on his pillow with a sigh of relief. Twenty minutes later Lindley Jackson, who for twenty- four hours had wondered about Hanrahan, 3 02 PLUNDER greatly perturbed, entered the sick room. The doctor had told him of Hanrahan's condition, had stated that only a man wonderfully endowed with physical and mental strength could have recovered so quickly, and warned Jackson not to excite his employee. Hanrahan thrust out a feeble hand. "Got the goods, boss. Had most of it, and then met Harry Mack wanted to put personal in paper, threatening Kirby Rowland and Dixon Grant with exposure unless they came across. Mack got wise that I was next to his game. Drugged me. Guess they must have a new bar- keep in the Tube. All the old-timers know me." He grinned feebly. "Here's the dope: Mack found paper lost by Master man. Kirby Row- land, chum of girl I know, Jessie Sigmund and Miss Sigmund started me on right trail got hold of paper. With Dixon Grant, friend of hers, started some game of their own. Master- man's agents Greenhams after them. Miss Rowland hides in Masterman's house, under name of Adele Rohan, the artist. Rowland girl is artist herself. Don't know about Grant. Get PLUNDER 303 the girl. She can tell story. In Masterman's house. I know it. Don't ask me how get her! She'll talk. You'll find some way. But before you get her" and now he fought des- perately with the drowsiness that attacked him "ask permission of Jessie Sigmund. Gave me first tip. Must have her permission to use tip. Got to be square or she won't she won't marry me. Got to be fair " His voice died away. He was not to speak again for fifteen hours ; he was not to be his old, jovial, healthy self for a month. Jackson looked down at him. His eyes softened; he patted the unconscious head. "Some boy!" he said. Then he turned to the doctor. "The best the hospital can afford, Doc- tor," he said curtly. "Send the bills to me. Have you a telephone?" Of course they had, and Jackson was led to it. He found Miss Sigmund's number in the book and called her up. "Miss Sigmund ? . . . This is Lindley Jack- son, publisher of the Citizen. Mr. Hanrahan, one of my men, has informed me that before seeing 304 PLUNDER Miss Kirby Rowland I must ask your permis- sion. . . . Question of honor, I believe. . . . You gave him a tip that has led to her discovery. . . . Why doesn't he ask you? Well, Miss Sigmund, he's ill not seriously, no. . . . Yes, you can come up and see him Presbyterian Hospital. . . Drugged all right, in a day or so, I assure you. Miss Sig- mund. . . . We may act, then, upon what- ever tip you gave him. Thank you. . . . No, don't worry; he's all right. Sleeping and in no danger. . . . And when he's able to talk, Miss Sigmund, kindly tell him that the paper gives him a month's vacation, and that he's to be managing editor on his return." Then, with a last command that Hanrahan be treated well, Jackson dashed from the hospital and into the car that awaited him, giving his chauffeur the name of a hotel. In ten minutes he had sent up his name to Morley Ellis, a guest at the hotel, and was riding in the elevator to Ellis' room. The attorney-gen- eral met him at the door. They shook hands warmly. PLUNDER 305 Each admired the other tremendously, and in addition to admiration and liking there was grati- tude on the side of Ellis, for Lindley Jackson's money and support had made Ellis district attor- ney of his state. In that office he had made a remarkable record, and upon the accession of his party to national power, Jackson, who had supported the new administration with both money and brains, had forced upon a president reluctant to appoint so pronounced a radical, the name of Morley Ellis as his attorney-general. Ellis never forgot a friend. He knew that what he was he owed in great measure to Lind- ley Jackson. He was his own man, nobody owned him, but he knew his debt and would pay on demand, provided the demand was in accord with his conscience. And Lindley Jackson's demand would not offend the conscience of Ellis ! Jackson got right down to business. "Meant to see you to-night, anyway, Ellis," he said, "but didn't think it would be on busi- ness. However, it is. You're over here investi- gating the turpentine crowd, aren't you?" Ellis nodded. 306 PLUNDER "Suppose you've got a pile of blank warrants made out by the Supreme Court, eh?" "Lots of subpoenas and a few warrants, yes." "Would you have the nerve to arrest Martin Masterman ?" Ellis smiled grimly. "You know me, Lindley. Show me some evi- dence justifying his arrest, and I'll act." "Then you'll act," said Jackson grimly. Swiftly he reviewed the events of the past twenty-four hours, beginning with his invitation to attend the conference at Master-man's house and ending with the words of Tom Hanrahan. "Of course," he ended, "I learned of the exis- tence of this remarkable document only in confi- dence. I would not have thought to search for it except for what Masterman told me. And yet, what I've found out is without betraying the confidence. It was not to be expected of any newspaperman that, learning of the existence of such a paper, he should make no effort to find it, even though knowledge of its existence was learned in confidence. Masterman himself ad- mitted that the paper might be brought to me. In PLUNDER 307 that case I saw no reason why I shouldn't make an effort to have it brought to me. At any rate, right or wrong, I feel that I'm relieved of my promise to keep silent. From outside sources I have learned what Masterman was so anxious to keep secret. Further, before even exacting any confidences, he mentioned a force that menaced something himself. I've tried to be fair to him, Ellis, but the thing is too big. So then, do you summon a bunch of marshals, raid Masterman's house, get hold of the Rowland girl, force her if we can to tell the nature of this paper, arrest Masterman or not?" "You've given me evidence enough, Lindley," replied Ellis, "to make me believe that there is a criminal conspiracy behind this universal trans- fer business. And as the Consolidated Car Lines does a business in Jersey City, and is, therefore, an interstate concern, it comes under the control of the federal government. We'll raid Master- man in an hour." And in just exactly that time Morley Ellis rang the bell of the Masterman mansion. Behind him were a dozen United States marshals. It was the 3 o8 PLUNDER United States government against the Master- man money, and servants who would have scoffed at the police broke down before the attor- ney-general. In ten minutes Ellis had learned that Kirby Rowland was at Cardigan's place at Bellmere, and that Masterman had gone down there an hour earlier. The servants who had aided in the laying of the false trail to cover Kirby's whereabouts, who had witnessed bribe money time and again, dared not lie to a member of the cabinet. And four hours later the attorney- general, Jackson, Cardigan, Masterman, Mack, Grant and Kirby Rowland, with a dozen or more marshals and detectives to act as supernumera- ries, staged the final act of the drama that had begun when the hand of Handsome Harry Mack seized the paper that had blown from Master- man's office. XIX ROWLAND " said t* 16 attorney- general, "am I right in presuming that you have in your possession a paper signed by Martin Masterman?" The old gray wolf of finance was not dead yet. He showed his teeth. "I have it in my vaults," he snarled. "This woman just confessed to me that she had placed it there. You can't get it!" "No?" Ellis smiled his thin-lipped, frosty smile. "I have yet to learn of the vault that will refuse to open for the United States govern- ment! Miss Rowland, will you kindly tell us the nature of that document?" Again Masterman spoke. "There are a million dollars, Miss Rowland, to be distributed between you and Grant and Mack if you refuse to answer that question. No, Ellis, don't threaten me! You think you can jail me. 309 3 io PLUNDER For what? For kidnaping? But I think the young lady will listen to reason, a million dollars' worth of reason, and will refuse to press that charge. For conspiracy in restraint of trade? Prove it! My lawyers will fight for twenty years! Miss Rowland, refuse to answer him." "And, Miss Rowland, the alternative is jail for contempt of court," said Ellis. "We have evi- dence that you know of a paper, have a paper, that would convict Martin Masterman and others of agreeing to sell Consolidated 'short' in ad- vance of granting universal transfers. A conspi- racy! Am I correct?" "You are not," said Kirby. And while Jack- son and Ellis gasped, Masterman smiled. But only for a moment, for Kirby went on: "Clear the room, Mr. Ellis, of your detectives, and then I will tell you " Mack broke his silence. "You'll tell him? So help me, if you do, I'll " Grant, recovered from the throttling to which he had been subjected in the effort to make Kirby confess to Masterman, wheeled upon the crook. PLUNDER 311 "You'll do nothing, Mack," he said softly, "nothing ! You've bragged about being willing to go to the chair for either of us. You'll never see the chair. One threat against Miss Rowland, and I'll save the state expense with my own hands!'* Mack stared into eyes as coldly angry as his own were hotly venomous, and gone were his dreams of great wealth. Opportunity had knocked, but she had not paused. He sank down into a chair, and was a mere spectator and auditor of what followed. He held a part no longer. Cardigan's voice broke the pause that followed this by-play. "Make it more money, Martin!" Kirby stilled him. "Don't waste your breath," she counseled. Then she looked at her lover. "Will you tell Dick, or shall I?" He nodded. "Go ahead, Kirby." She turned to the attorney-general; her voice was calm, almost unexpressive. "Mr. Masterman, Mr. Cardigan and Mr. 3 12 PLUNDER Blaisdell signed a paper. In some way that paper got into the hands of Harry Mack there," and she pointed at the slumped figure of the interna- tional crook. "Mack placed it, for some reason or other probably because he was in danger of arrest in the pocket of Mr. Grant. Mr. Grant showed it to me. It seemed to me that with that paper Mr. Grant and I could reconstruct the country. We began by demanding Mr. Master- man to grant universal transfers in this city. We had made further demands that he and his associates reduce railroad fares, the price of coal and food, and that they increase wages. We thought that in this manner the great corpora- tions would be unable to meet expenses and that the government would be compelled to step in and take charge. Which was what we wanted all utilities, all wealth, to be owned by the people. Then Mr. Masterman captured me, and by hurt- ing Mr. Grant, forced me to confess that I had hidden this paper in his vaults, under the name of Margaret Blake." She paused. "But the contents of the paper?" demanded Ellis and Jackson almost in the same breath. PLUNDER 313 The girl walked to the door and opened it; the detectives and marshals had left the room and were not in the hall. She returned. "It would not do for others to know the contents of this paper," she said. "Too many know it now. Gentlemen, it was an agreement whereby Masterman, Cardigan and Blaisdell agreed to act in concert with certain bankers. They were to cease the mining of coal, cease the production of food, cease the manufacture of all raw materials, call all loans issued by banks to all merchants, reduce all transportation facilities to an absolute minimum ! In short, they were to tie up, not only business, but the function of eating of living, practically. That was the paper !" Ellis gasped. "But the reason, Masterman, the reason?" "To make money, more money. What better reason could we have?" said Masterman. "To make all the money possible to be made. To get the money of this country into the hands of the men who've made this country! If I could have trusted Cardigan and Blaisdell not to betray me by selling stocks short But you can't trust 3 i4 PLUNDER anybody in this world but yourself." He glared at Ellis and at Jackson. "Arrest me! Publish the story! And then what will the people say when they learn that half a dozen men could have done what I and my associates proposed doing?" Never so tremendous, so virile, so scornful of mere humans had Masterman been, as in this the hour of his defeat. Ellis stepped back from him, staring incredulously at the man whose ruthless motives had at last been disclosed. He spoke softly, incredulously. "So this was your plan, Masterman ?" He drew a paper from his pocket. "This, Masterman, is a warrant for your arrest." He tore the paper into several pieces, then rose from the chair into which he had dropped. "Miss Rowland, may we attend you back to town?" Masterman's jaw dropped; Jackson stared; the others stood rigid in amazement. "Good lord, Ellis, are you mad?" gasped Jack- son. "Aren't you going to arrest Masterman?" The blue eyes of the thin-faced radical who was attorney-general took on a filmy look. PLUNDER 315 Prophets scorned have worn that look, a look of communion with something beyond, something greater than this world holds. "Arrest him ? Jackson, it's too big ! With that paper I could do anything. I could do as this enthusiastic but misguided young lady hoped to do. I could break the power of money, force government ownership, could create a Utopia. But I won't! "Why? Because a Utopia created by force could not last! The people are not ready for it. When they are it will exist already. But the time has not yet come ! Only what God puts into the hearts and minds of men may last for long! Men do not want Utopia! If they wanted it they would have it. By struggle man shall achieve, not by gift ! That is and has been God's law! And a Utopia created but to fail as it inevitably would to-day would postpone the coming of the real Utopia a thousand years. When men are ready for a world for which the Golden Rule shall be sufficient government, that world will be theirs. It can not be forced upon them ahead of God's destined time! 3 i6 PLUNDER "Arrest Masterman and let the world know? Masterman is right! The people, with definite proof of the puppets they have always been, would tear down in a day a nation it has taken a century to build ! I will not see it torn down ! Come!" "But you can make yourself president," cried Jackson. "I get your point; almost I agree with you ; I do agree with you ! But the power, man, the power! You can win all your cases against the trusts ! You can make a record such as no prosecuting officer has ever made! The White House Ellis, are you mad? Don't pub- lish the paper, but keep it to force Masterman, not to establish government ownership or the Utopia you talk about, but to yield to the laws already established! You will win your cases " But Morley Ellis shook his head. "While that paper exists the nation is not safe ! I want it destroyed. Some one would find it some day. In whatever place I put it it would be found! The White House? Man dear, that's PLUNDER 317 why I want it destroyed! I am ambitious. If the paper were in my possession God knows to what ambition would lead me. I might use this paper to force the moneyed interests to support me. I dare not use it legitimately; I will not use it illegitimately! If I can not enforce the present laws against the trusts with the means provided my office, then I am a failure, and failures do not belong in the White House!" He looked at Masterman. "In your own heart, Masterman, you are con- victed of being a traitor to your country. You have been false to their kind, and you know it. No words of mine can add to that knowledge. Come!" He turned again to Jackson and Kirby, who stood with Grant, staring at a man whom sud- denly they knew to be worthy of standing beside the greatest the nation had produced. But Masterman stopped them with an up- raised hand. "Ellis, I thought all men were like myself; that all craved power, and merely pretended love for 218 PLUNDER "Who you orderin' round?" demanded the de- tective truculently. "You," said Hanrahan. "If you aren't on your way in just two seconds, I'm going to hand you something that won't taste a bit nice. Further- more, I'm coming back here later, and if I find you here I'll clean house with you. For your information and edification I'll inform you that when it comes to licking cheap detectives I am the one and only, blown-in-the-bottle, original White Hope. Your two seconds are up. Are you going?" "Well, I like your nerve!" began the detective. He didn't speak again for a moment, for Hanra- han's fist colliding with his mouth cut short his words. The reporter bent over the prostrate de- tective. "Are you going?" "I'll have you pinched," mumbled the man. "And I'll get you thirty days for annoying a lady! Are you going?" The law is even less kind to annoyers of wom- en than Tom Hanrahan had shown himself. Also it had been impressed upon the Greenham opera- PLUNDER 219 lives that secrecy was essential in this present mysterious case. The man shambled off, nursing a bleeding jaw. "I'll get you !" he mumbled. "I'll get you yet !" "So will the goblins, if I don't watch out," laughed Hanrahan. He watched the man out of sight, then continued toward the Greenwich Studios. He felt much better. Be he ever so civilized, there is nothing so gratifying to a man as the discovery that he still "packs a punch." Humanity is very human, after all. 3 2o PLUNDER "Miss Rowland, to-day my daughter wept because you had gone away. I understand that you are an artist. Could you not come to my house? You are a miniature painter, eh? I would like one of my little girl. Miss Rohan will paint the portrait that shall hang in my study, but you will paint the likeness that I shall always carry with me. Will will you come? It is not Martin Masterman who asks you; not the man you believe to be responsible for the poverty of millions a poverty he will try to remedy, my dear, if you do not ask too much but it is the father of a little girl named Laurel, who loves you, and is unhappy because her new friend has gone away. "You think I am a bad old man. Maybe I am, my dear, maybe I am not. At the moment it looks as though I were, and that my whole life has been wrongly employed. But I have only done what others before me, countless others, have done in lesser degrees gained power and forgotten the weak. And even if I am guilty of evil, surely my little daughter is not to blame for PLUNDER 321 my sins, sins which shall be balanced by good because Martin Masterman can play the game!" He lifted his shaggy old head. "You had me down, Ellis! You let me up! I was beaten and spared. I do not strike the hand that spared me!" He turned once more to Kirby. "Will you come to Laurel, not to me?" Kirby's hand stole out and gripped the fingers of Dick. "If if my husband" and she blushed "will let me, I'll come to both." Next day Martin Masterman announced the gift of ten million dollars to found recreation parks for the children of the city. The papers which announced this v munificent gift also an- nounced Morley Ellis' great victories over the trusts. The Citizen was the only paper which did not express surprise over the failure of the trusts to fight the government suits; but the Citi- zen gave no reason for its lack of surprise. Even Lindley Jackson, most violent radical, had yielded to the argument of Ellis. 'And he saw, as Ellis saw, that the time was not ripe for a people's 322 PLUNDER war; and when it should be ripe; there need be no war. For what belonged to the people would by that time have been given to them. Time can not be advanced. God does not hurry. THE END University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 95138* 5 ws ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 ptnm this material to the r.braryjrorn which it was borrowed, IVM 3 A 000 1 24 023 3