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Show -rw 17...:. . - ' It"" V."l '''"" ''' "" " 1 " TT touching the rim of his derby "yeh, too, ma'am, f'r buttin' in " "Hickey!" demanded Maltland, suddenly, sud-denly, in a tone of smoldering wrath, "what the what do you want?" "Yeh told me tuh call round to-morrow, yeh know. When'll yeh be in?" "I'll leave a note for you with O'Hagan. Is that all?" "Yep that is, there's somethin' else . . ." "Well?" "Excuse me for mentlonln' it, buf I didn't know it ain't generally known, yeh know, 'nd one uh th' boys might 've heard me speak tuh yer lady by name 'nd might pass it on to a reporter. re-porter. 'What I mean's this," hastily, as the Maitland temper showed dangerous dan-gerous indications of going into active eruption: "I s'pose yeh don't want me tuh mention 't yeh're married, jes' yet? Mrs. Maitland here," with a nod to her, "didn't seem tuh take kindly tuh the notion of it's bein' known " "Hickey! " "Ah, excuse me!" "Drive on, cabby instantly! Do you hear?" Hickey backed suddenly away and the cab sprang into motion; while Maitland with a face of fire sat, back and raged and wondered. Across Broadway toward Fourth avenue dashed the hansom; and from the curb-line Hickey watched it with a humorous light In his dull eyes. Indeed, In-deed, the detective seemed in extraordinary extraor-dinary conceit with himself. x He chewed with unaccustomed emotion upon his cold cigar, scratched his cheek, and chuckled; and, chuckling, chuck-ling, pulled his hat well down over brows, thrust both hands into his trousers pockets, and shambled back to the St. Luke building his heavy body vibrating amazingly with his secret mirth. And so, shuffling sluggishly, he merges into the shadows, into the mob that surges about the building, and passes from these pages. II. In the clattering hansom, steadying herself with a hand against the window-frame, to keep from being thrown against the speechless man beside her, the girl waited. And since Maitland Mait-land in confusion at the moment found no words, from this eloquent silence she drew an inference unjustified, such as lovers are prone to draw, the world over, one that lent a pathetic color to her thoughts, and chilled a little her mood. She had been too sure. tlent. He was hard to handle, sometimes. some-times. I wasn't sure, you know, about the jewels; I only said I thought they were at Greenfields. Then I undertook under-took to find out from you, but he was restive, and without saying anything to me went down to Greenfields on his own hook just to have a look around, he said. And so ... so the fat was in the fire." "Don't talk any more, Bannerman," Maltland tried to soothe him. "You'll pull through this all right, and Y'ou need never have gone to such lengths. If you'd come to me " The ghost of a sardonic smile flitted, incongruously, across the dying man's waxen, cherubic features. "Oh, hell," he said; "you wouldn't understand. Perhaps you weren't born with the right crook in your nature or the wrong one. Perhaps it's because be-cause you can't see the fun in playing the game. It's that that counts." He compressed his lips, and after a moment spoke again. "You never did have the true sportsman's love of the game for Its own sake. You're like most of the rest of the crowd content with mighty cheap virtue, Dan. . . . I don't know that I'd choose just this kind of a wind-up, but it's been fun while it lasted. Good-by, old man." He did not speak again, but lay with closed eyes. Five minutes later Maltland rose and unclasped the cold fingers from about his own. With a heavy sigh he turned away. At the door Hickey was awaiting him. "Yer lady," he said, as soon as they had drawn apart from the crowd, "is waitin' for yeh In the cab downstairs. down-stairs. She was gettin' a bit high-steerical high-steerical 'nd I thought I'd better get her away. . . . Oh, she's waitin' all right!" he added, alarmed by Mait-land's Mait-land's expression. But Maitland had left him abruptly; and now, as he ran down flight after echoing flight of marble stairs, there rested cold fear in his heart. In the room he had just quitted, a man whom he had called friend and looked upon with affectionate affection-ate regard, had died a self-confessed and unrepentant liar and thief. If now he were to find the girl another an-other time vanished if this had been but a ruse of hers finally to elude him if all men were without honor, all women faithless if he had indeed placed the love of his life, the only love that he had ever known, unworthily unworth-ily if she cared so little who had seemed to care much . . . "Please," She Said Gently "Please Tell the Cabby to Take Me Home, Mr. Maitland." But better to have it over with at once, rather than permit it to remain forever a wall of constraint betweeri them. He must not be permitted to think that she would dream of taking him upon his generous word. "It was very kind of you," she said in a steady small voice, "to pretend that we what you did pretend, in order or-der to save me from being held as a witness. At least, I presume that is why you did it?" with a note of uncertainty. un-certainty. "It is unnecessary that you should be drawn into the affair," he replied, with some resumption of his self-possession. "It isn't as if 3'ou were " "A thief?" she supplied, as he hesitated. hesi-tated. "A thief," he assented, gravely. "But I I am," with a break in her voice. "But you are not," he asserted almost al-most fiercely. And, "Dear," he said: boldly, "don't you suppose I know?" " what do you know?" "That you brought back the jewels, for one minor thing. I found them almost al-most as soon as you had left. And then I knew knew that you cared enough to get them from this fellow Anisty and bring them back to me. knew that I cared enough to search the world from end to end uirp-l found you, that you might wear them if you would." But she had drawn away, had averted her face; and he might not see it; and she shivered slightly, staring star-ing out of the window at the passing lights. He saw, and perforce paused. "You you don't understand," she told him in a rush. "You give me credit beyond my due. I didn't break into your flat again, to-night, in order to return the jewels at least, not for that alone.'' "But you did bring back the jewels?" She nodded. "Then doesn't that prove what 1 claim, prove that, you've cleared yourself?" your-self?" "No," she told him, firmly, with the firmness of despair; "it does not. Because Be-cause I did not come for that only. 1 came with another purpose to steal, ::s well as to make restitution. And 1 I stole." There was a moment's silence, on his part incredulous. "I don't know what you m?an. What, did you steal? Where is it?" "1 have lost it " "Was it in your hand-bag?" "You found that?" (TO BE CONTINUED.) CHAPTER XVII. Confessional. I. But the cab was there; and within it the girl was waiting for him. The driver, after taking up his fare, had at he direction drawn over to the further curb, out of the fringe of the rabble which besieged the St. Luke building in constantly growing numbers, and through which Maitland. too impatient to think of leaving by the basement exit, had elbowed and fought his way in an agony of apprehension appre-hension that brooked no hindrance, heeded no difficulty. He dashed round the corner, stopped short with a sinking heart, then as the cabby's signaling whip across the street caught his eye, fairly hurled himself to the other curb, pausing at the wheel, breathless, lifted out of himself with joy to find her faithful in this ultimate instance. She was recovering, whose high spirit spir-it and recuperative powers were to him then and always remained a marvelous mar-velous thing; and she was bending forth from the body of thehansom to welcome him with a smile that in a twinkling made radiant the world to him who stood in a gloomy side street of New Y'ork at three o'clock of a summer's morning a good hour and a half before the dawn. For up there in the tower of the sky-scraper he had as much as told her of his love; and she had waited; and now and now he had been blind indeed had he failed to read the promise in her eyes. Weary she was and spent and overwrought; bu: there is no tonic in all the world like the consciousness that where 0110 has placed one's love, there love has burgeoned bur-geoned in response. And despite all. that she had suffered and endured, tin happiness that ran like soft fire in her veins, wrapping her being with It beneficent rapture, had deepened the color in her cheeks and heightened the glamour in her eyes. And he stood and stared, knowing that in all time to no man had ever woman seemed more lovely than this girl to him; a knowledge that robbed his mind of all other thought and his tongue of words, so that to her fell the task of rousing him. "Please," she said gently "pleasi u-11 the cabby to take me home, Mr Maitland." lie came to and in confusion stammered: stam-mered: Yes, he would. And be climbed up on the siep with no other thought thau to seat himself ai her side and drive away forever. But (liis time the cabby brought, him te his senses, forcing him to reiiiombf! thai some measure of coherence was demanded even of a man in love. "Where to, sir?" "Eh, what? Oh!" And bending (c ike girl: "Home, you said ?" She told him the address a number num-ber on Park avenue, above Thirty-fourth Thirty-fourth street, below Forty-.-erond. Ho repeated it. mechanically, unaware that it would remain stamped forever on I. is memcry, indelibly the first personal detail that she had granted him; the first barrier down. He sat down. The cab b"gan to move, and halted again. A face appeared ap-peared at the apron Rickey's, red and moon-like and not lacking in complacency; com-placency; for the man counted on profiting variously by this night's work. "Excuse me, Mr. Maitland, 'nd" ; SYNOPSIS. -- "Mad" Dan Maltland, on reaching his Now York bachelor club, met an attractive attrac-tive young woman at the door. Janitor O'Hagan assured him no one had been within that day. Dan discovered a woman's wom-an's finger prints in dust on his desk, along with a letter from his attorney. Maltland dined with Bannerman. his attorney. at-torney. Dan set out for Greenfields, to get his family jewels. Maitland, on reaching home, surprised lady in gray, cracking the safe containing his gems. She. apparently, took him for a well-known well-known crook, Daniel Anisty. Half-hypnotized, Maitland opened his safe, took therefrom the jewels, and gave them to her, first forming a partnership in crime, j The real Dan Anisty, sought by police of the world, appeared. Maitland overcame him. He and the girl went to New York tn her auto. He had the jewels. She was to meet him that day. A "Mr. Bnalth" introduced himself as a detective. detec-tive. To shield the girl in gray, Maitland, about to show him the jewels, supposi ily lost, was felled by a blow from "Snaith's" cane. The latter proved to be Anisty ' himself and he secured the gems. Aniyty, ' who was Maitland's double, masqueraded as the latter. The criminal kept Mait-m- land's engagement with the girl in gray. He j?ave her the gems. The girl in gray visited Maitland's apanmcnts during his absence and returned gems. Maitland. without cash, called up his home and heard a woman's voice expostulating. Anisty, disguised as Maitland. tried to wring from her the location of the gems. A crasli was heard at the front door. Maltland overwhelmed the cronk. allowing allow-ing hmi to escape to shield the young woman. Tlie girl in gray made her escape, es-cape, jumping into a cab. An instant later, by working a ruse. Anisly was at her side, lie took her to Attorney Uan-nernian's Uan-nernian's oliiee. There, by torture, he tried In vai". to wring from her the location loca-tion of the gems. He left her a moment arul s'" phoned O'Hagan. only gi-tling in tv words: "Tell Mr. Maitland under the urass howl," t ho hiding place in the hitter's hit-ter's rooms, when Anisty heard her words, riannennan also was revealed as a crook, lie and Anisty set out to secure the gems and leave town. The girl was still imprisoned. Maitland rinding the girl iono. searched his rooms and unearthed the jewels under the brass howl. He nistvs !:'! in a big onice building, build-ing, where the crook was kill.-d. Mait-i,;i Mait-i,;i i and girl in gray confessed love for each other. CHAPTER XVI. Continued. "I dunno." Hickey licked his lips, watching with a somber eye the preparations prep-arations being made for the removal of Anisty's body. "I'd 've give a farm if I could 've caught that son of a gun alive;" he added at apparent random, and vindictively. "All right. Yeh be responsible for th' lady, if she's wanted, want-ed, will yeh?" "Positively." "I gotuih have her name nd address." add-ress." "Is thai essential?" j "Sure. Gottuh protect myself 'n case anythin' turns it). Yeh oughttuh to know that." "1 don't want it to come out." .Mail-land .Mail-land hesitated, trying to invent a plausible lie. "Well, any one can see how you feel about it." i .laitla;id drew a lung breath and anticipated rashly. "It's Mrs. Mait-i land." he told the man with a tremor. Hickey nodded, unimpressed. "L'h-hut.. "L'h-hut.. 1 knowed that all along," he replied. "But seein' as yeh didn't want it tallied about . . ." And, apparently appar-ently heedless of Maitland's startled iud suspicious stare: "If yeh're goin' o see yer fren', yeh better get a vigi-'le on. He wou't last long." 1 "Who? Bannerman? What the deuce do you mean?" "He's the feller I plugged in the elevator, that's all. Put a hole through his lungs. They took him into an office of-fice on the twenty-first floor, right opp'site the shaft." "But what in Heaven's name has he to do with this ghastly mess?" Hickey turned a shrewd eye upon Maitland. "I guess he can tell yeh better'n me." With a smothered exclamation, Maitland hurried away, still incredulous incredu-lous and impressed with a belief, firmer firm-er with every minute, that the wounded wound-ed man had been wrongly identified. He found him as Hickey had said he would, sobbing out his life, supine upon the couch of an office which the janitor had opened to afford him a place to die in. Maitland had to force a way through a crowded doorway, where the night-watchman was holding hold-ing forth in aggrieved incoherence on the cruel treatment he had suffered at the hands of the law-breakers. A phrase came to Maitland's ears as he shouldered through the group. ". . . . grabbed me an' trim me outer the cage, inter the hall, an' then the shootin' begins, an' I jumps downstairs down-stairs f the sixteent' floor. ..." Bannerman opened dull eyes as Maitland entered, and smiled faintly. "Ah-h, Maitland." he gasped: "thought you'd . . . come." Racked with sorrow, nothing guessing guess-ing of the career that had brought the lawyer to this pass, Maitland slipped into a chair by the head of the couch and closed his hand over Bannerman's chubly, icy fingers. "Poor, poor old chap!" he said, brokenly. "How in Heaven " But at Bannerman's look the words died on his lips. The lawyer moved restlessly. , "Don't pity me." he said in a low tone. "This is what 1 might have . . . expected, 1 suppose . . . man of Anisty's siamp . . . desperate des-perate character . . . it's all right, Dan. my just due. "1 don't understand, of course," faltered fal-tered Maitland. Bannerman lay still a moment, then continued: "I know you don't. That's why I sent for you. . . . 'Member that night at the Primordial? When the deuce was it? 1 . . . can't think straight long at a time. . . . That uight I dined with you and touched you up about the jewels? We had a bully salad, you know, and I spoke about the Graeme affair. . . ." "Yes, yes." "Well . I've been up to that game tor years. I'd 11ml out where the plunder was, and . . . Anisty always al-ways divided square. ... I used to advise him. ... Of course you won't understand you've never wanted want-ed for a dollar in your life. ..." Maitland said nothing. But his hand remained upon the dying man's. "This would never have happened if . . . Anisty hadn't been iniua-! |