OCR Text |
Show 7 SERIAL f ; I) STORY g, J I ELUSIVE 1 1 I Z S ji El EL I JACQUES FUTRELLE n 1 3 Iltujtrationj by M. KETTHER 1 1 I 8 ' I T ill fcopvrtifbt by The AHwoi-lalci Hun.1y SUcttistmjfc Copyright 1S09, by Th Soubs-ilerrlU Company. ' S SYNOPSIS. ' Count (11 Roslnl, the Italian ambassador. ambas-sador. Is at dinner with diplomats in rthp national capital when a messenger v "brings a note directing him to come to the ,-mhassy at once. Here a beautiful fyouni woman asks that she be given la licltol to the embassy ball. The ticket tick-et Is made out in the name of Miss Isabel Is-abel Thome. Chief Campbell of the sTret service, and Mr. Grimm, his head C detective, are warned that a plot of the Latin races against the English speaking speak-ing races is brewing in Washington, and Grimm goes to the state ball for Information. In a conservatory his at- tentlon is called to Miss Isabel Thorne, who with her companion, soon disappears. disap-pears. A revolver shot is heard and Campbell and Grimm hasten down the liall to find that Senor Alvarez of the TUexic'.in legation, has been shot. A woman wo-man did It. and Grimm is assured It was "Miss Thorne. He visits her. demanding fcn"wledt:e of the n rfalr. and there arrests a man named Pietro Petrozinnl. CHAPTER VII. The Signal. "And the original question remains unanswered," remarked Mr. Campbell. "The original question?" repeated Mr. Grimm. "Where is Prince Benedetto d'Abruz-zi, d'Abruz-zi, the secret envoy?" his chief reminded re-minded him. "I wonder!" mused the young man. "If the Latin compact is signed in the United States?" "The Latin compact will not be signed In the United States," Mr. Grimm interrupted. And then, after a moment: "Have we received any . further reports on Miss Thorne? I V mean reports from our foreign Jk agents?" V The chief shook his head. "Inevitably, by some act or word, she will lead us to the prince," declared de-clared Mr. Grimm, "and the moment he is known to us everything becomes be-comes plain sailing. We know she is a secret agent I expected a denial, but she was quite frank about it. And I had no intention whatever of placing her tinder arrest. 1 knew some one was in the adjoining room because of a slight noise in there, and I knew she knew it. She raised her voice a little, obviously for the benefit of ' whoever was there. ' From that point everything I said and did was to compel com-pel that person, whoever It was, to show himself." Mis chief nodded, understanding. 'Mr. Grimm was silent for a little, then went on: , "The last possibility In my mind at f that moment," he confessed, "was that V the person in there was the man who , shot Senor Alvarez. Frankly I had I half an idea that that it might be the prince in person." Suddenly his mood chanced: "And now our lady of mystery mys-tery may come and go as she likes because be-cause I know, even if a dozen of our men have ransacked Washington in vain for the prince, she will inevitably lead us to him. And that reminds me: J should like to . borrow Illalr, and Hastings, and Johnson. Please plant them so -they may keep constant watch on Miss Thorne. Let them report re-port to you, and. wherever 1 am, I will reach you over the 'phone." "I!y the way, what was In that seal-rd seal-rd packet that was taken from Senor Alvarez?'' Campbell inquired curiously. ' "(t had something to do with some railroad franchises," responded Mr. Grimm as he rose. "I sealed it again and '.turned it to the senor. Evidently Evident-ly It was not what Slgnor Petrozinnl expected to find in fact, he admitted ft wasn't what he was looking for." For a little while the two men gazed thoughtfully, each Into the eyes of the nther. then Mr. Grimm entered his private office where he sat for an hour with his Immaculate boots on his desk, thinking. A world-war he had Iicen thrust forward by his govern- V ment'to prevent It subtle blue-gray I ryes his Highness, Prince Benedetto I ri'.Uiruzzt a haunting smile and scar- let lies. Al about the moment he rose to go i fiitl. Miss Thorne. closely veiled, left the Yeneruelan legation and walked rapidly down the street to a corner, where, without a word, she entered a vaitii'g autoniobtlw The wheels spun and the car leaped forward. For a mile or more It wound aimlessly In End out. occasionally bisecting its own k pain; finally Miss Thorne leaned for- 1 b ward and touched the chauffeur on the j rui. "Now!" she said. The car straightened out into a treet of stately residences and scuttled scut-tled nlong until thelacid bosom of 1 the Potomac came Into view; besides that for a few minutes, then over the ; ' bridge to the Yirginia side, in the I iilapidatrd little city of Alexandria. I The car did not slacken its speed, but wound in and out through dingy ' Fte'-t. pist tumble-down negro huts, fr 1 ,!f fti hour before It came to a fnt-rt 'i'l in front of an old brick t ; :c:i. "This 13 number ninety-seven," the chauffeur announced. Miss Thorne entered the house with a key and was gone for ten minutes, perhaps. She was readjusting ben veil when she came out and stepped into the car silently. Again it moved forward, on to the end of the dingy street, and finally into the open country. coun-try. Three, four, five miles, perhaps, out the old Baltimore Road, and again the car stopped, this time In front of an ancient colonial farm-house. Outwardly the place seemed to be deserted. The blinds, battered and stripped of paint by wind and rain, were all closed, and one corner of the small veranda had crumbled away from age and neglect. A narrow path, strewn with pine needles, led tortuously tortu-ously up to the door. In the rear of the house, rising from an old barn, a thin pole with a cup-like attachments at the apex, thrust its point into the open above the dense, odorous pines. It appeared to be a wireless mast Miss Thorne passed around the house, and entered the barn. A man came forward and kissed her a thin, little man of indeterminate age drying his hands on a piece of cotton waste. His face was pale with the pallor of one who knows little outdoor out-door life, his eyes deep-set and a-glit-ter with some feverish Inward fire, and the thin lips were pressed together togeth-er in a sharp line. Behind him was a long bench on which were scattered tools of various sorts, fantastically shaped chemical apparatus, two or three electric batteries of odd sizes, and ranged along one end of It, in a row, were a score or more metal spheroids, a shade larger than a one-pound one-pound shell. From somewhere In the rear came the clatter of a small gasoline gaso-line engine, and still farther away was an electric dynamo. "Is the test arranged, Rosa?" the little lit-tle man queried eagerly in'Italian. "The date is not fixed yet," she replied re-plied in the same language. "It will be, I hope, within the next two weeks. And then " , "Fame and! fortune for both of us," he interrupted with quick enthusiasm. "Ah, Rosa, I have worked and waited so long for this, and now it will come, and with it the dominion of the word again by our country How will I know when the data is fixed? It would not be well to write me here." My lady of mystery stroked the slender, nervous hand caressingly, and a great affection shone in the blue-gray blue-gray eyes. "At eight o'clock on the night of the test," she explained, still speaking Italian, "a single light will appear at the apex of the capitol dome In Wash- Jyir xmMSi t I i 1 1 1 "With That We Control the World," Exclaimed the Man, Triumphantly. ington. That is the signal agreed upon; up-on; it can be seen by all in the city, and is visible here from the window of your bedroom." "Yes, yes," he exclaimed. The feverish fe-verish glitter In his eyes deepened. "If there is a fog, of course you will not attempt the test," she went on. "No, not in a fog," he put in quickly. quick-ly. "It must be clear." "And if it is clear you can see the light in the dome without difficulty." "And all your plans are working out well?" "Yes. And yours?" "I don't think there is any question but that both England and the United States will buy. Do you know what it means? Do you know what It means?" He was silent a moment, his hands working nervously. Then, with an effort: "And his Highness?" "His Highness Is safe." The subtle eyes grew misty, thoughtful for a moment, mo-ment, then cleared again. "He is safe," she repeated. "Mexico and Venezuela were ?" he began. "We don't know, yet, what they will do. The Venezuelan answer Is locked in the safe at the legation; I will know what it Is within forty-eight hours." She was silent a little. "Our difficulty now, our greatest difficulty, is the hostility of the French ambassador ambas-sador to the compact. His government govern-ment has not yet notified him of the presence of Prince d'AbruzzI; he does not believe In the feasibility of the plan, and we have to to proceed to extremes to prevent him working against us." "But they must see the incalculable advantages to follow upon such a coni-! coni-! pact, with the vast power that will j he given to them over the whole earth by this." Revindicated the long, lit-I lit-I tered work-table. "They must see it." "They will see it, Luigi," said Miss I Thome gently. "And now, how are I you? Are you well? Are you com-' com-' fortable? It's such a dreary old place here." "I suppose so," he replied. f and he met the solicitous blue-gray eyes for an Instant. "Yes. 1 am quite comfortable," com-fortable," he added. "I have no time ! to be otherwise with all the work 1 ' must do. It will mean so much!" They were both silent for a time. Finally Miss Thorne walked over to the long table and curiously lifted one of the spheriods. It was a sinister looking thir, nickeled, glittering. At one end of it was a delicate, vibratory apparatus, not unlike the transmitter of a telephone, and the other end was threaded, as if the spheroid was made as an attachment to some other device. de-vice. "With that we control the world!" exclaimed the man triumphantly. "And It's mine, Rosa, mine!" "It's wonderful!" she mused softly "Wonderful! And now I must go. I may not see you again until after the test, because I shall be watched and followed wherever I go. If I get an opportunity I shall reach you by telephone, tele-phone, but not even that unless it is necessary. There is always danger, always danger!" she repeated thoughtfully. thought-fully. She was thinking of-Mr. Grimm. "I understand," said the man simply. sim-ply. "And look out for the signal the light in the apex of the capitol dome," she went on. "I understand the night must be perfectly clear; and you understand un-derstand that the test is to be made promptly at three o'clock by ypur chronometer?" "At three o'clock," he repeated. For a moment they stood with their arms around each other, then tenderly tender-ly his visitor kissed him, and went out. He remained looking after her vacantly until the chug-chug of her automobile, as it moved off down the road, was lost in the distance, then turned again to the long work-table. CHAPTER VIII. Miss Thorne and Not Miss Thorne. From a pleasant, wide-open bay-window of her apartments on the second floor, Miss Thorne looked out upon the avenue with inscrutable eyes. Behind Be-hind the closely drawn shutters of another an-other bay-window,, farther down the avenue, on the corner, she knew a man named Hastings was hiding; she knew that for an hour or more he had been watching her as she wrote. In the other direction, in a house near the corner, another man named. Blair was similarly ensconced, and he, too, had been watching as she wrote. There should be a third man, Johnson. Miss Thorne curiously studied the face of each passer-by, seeking therein something some-thing to remember. She sat at the little mahogany desk and a note with the ink yet wet upon it lay face up before her. It was addressed ad-dressed to Signor Pietro Petrozlnni in the district prison, and read: "My Dear Friend; "I have been waiting to write you with the hope that I could report Senor Alvarez out of danger, but his condition, I regret to say, remains unchanged. un-changed. Shall I send an attorney to you? Would you like a book of any kind? Or some delicacy sent in from a restaurant? Can I be of any service to you in any way? If I .can please drop me a line. "Sincerely, "ISABEL THORNE." At last she rose and standing in the window read the note over, folded it, placed it in an envelope and sealed it, A maid came in answer to her ring, and there at the window, under the watchful eyes of Blair and Hastings and, perhaps, Johnson she handed the note to the maid with instructions to mail it immediately. Two minutes later she saw the maid go out along, the avenue to a post-box on the corner. cor-ner. Then she drew back into the shadow shad-ow of the room, slipped on a dark-colored wrap, and, standing away from the window,' safe beyond the reach of prying eyes, waited patiently for the postman. He appeared about five o'clock and simultaneously another man turned the corner near the post-box post-box and spoke to him. Then, together, togeth-er, they disappeared from view around the corner. "So .that's Johnson, is it?" mused Miss Thorne, and she smiled a little. "Mr. Grimm certainly pays me the compliment of having me carefully watched." A few minutes later she dropped into the seat at the desk again. The dark wrap had been thrown aside and Hastings and Blair from their hiding places could see her distinctly. After a while they saw her rise quickly, as an automobile turned into the avenue, and lean toward the window eagerly looking out. The car came to a standstill stand-still in front of the legation, and Mr. Cadwallader, an under secretary of the British embassy, who was alone in the car, raised his cap. She nodded and smiled, then disappeared In the shadows shad-ows of the room again. Mr. Cadwallader went to the door, spoke to the servant there, then returned re-turned and busied himself about the car. Hastings and Blair watched intently in-tently both the door and the window for a long time: finally a closely veiled veil-ed and muffled figure appeared at the hay-window, and waved a gloved hand at Mr. Cadwallader. who again lilted his cap. A minute later the veiled woman came out of the front door, shook hands with Mr. Cadwallader, and got in the car. He also climbed in, and the car moved slowly away. (T( fc"iE CONTINUED.) |