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Show ps lf SHEEP'S ' CLOTHING i By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE Author cl "THE LONE WOLF." "THE BRASS BOWL." , be. ft f CoprrifKl by I CHAPTER XIII. Continued. 15 "Peter Is hedging about referring to the diet that Craven put up u very prompt protest when you told me to take; tins necklace Into the sunlight and satisfy myself." "Yes," I'eter admitted gloomily. "Is the evidence; complete enough?" Mrs. lieggarstaff questioned gently. "We didn't want to tell you this, Betty. For my own prt, I'1' rather you had conspired with Tad to smuggle " "Don't!" pleaded the unhappy woman. wom-an. Bending forward, elliows on knees, hu stared somberly at t be carpet. "Hut how," she asked, "do you account for that perfect counterfeit?" "Simply," Quoin replied, "'after that nffalr of Thursday night, on my own responsibility I sent a wireless to Paris, to Cottier's, in lietty's name. The answer an-swer came through. Friday night, saying say-ing that the original owner had sold a paste duplicate to a dealer iu articles de Paris, which he lu turn had sold to u chance customer definite description descrip-tion unavailable the same day that the real necklace was taken from Cottier's Cot-tier's by your agent." "It seems Incredible. Of all men Tad Craven !" "You forget how little we know of him," the Dowager Dragon put in. . "Know of him?" Betty protested, looking up. "Why, everybody knows Tad Craven ! Go out among our friends and try to find one who believes he would do anything dishonest." "And still, I Insist, you forget how little we know of him. Hark buck Into your memory, my dear. How long have we known him? Twelve or fifteen years nt most. Plow did he come to know us? Through Introductions to a few clubs, indorsed by Lord Evesden who was later drummed out of town for curd cheating, and never came buck. But Tad Craven stuck. He didn't cheat, and he was amusing, and as long as he was personable, agreeable and seemed to have money nobody bothered about his pedigree." "I've been looking Craven up," Quoin supplemented. "Listen !" He began to read from a tiny memorandum book : "Came to New York in '93 with a British Brit-ish musical comedy company. His wife, Letty Craven, fell 111 during therun of the piece and died in a public hospital of quick consumption. Alter that Craven Cra-ven got a job with some show which perished on the road. When he turned up ngaln he was training with a gang of professional sharpers with whom he played a few turns on the transatlantic ferry route as cupper. But he dropped that before he became known to the olice. Later he was running with a guy Lord Evesden; but shook him as soon as he felt solid In New York and those ugly whispers began to go round about Evesden's play. The rest is mainly circumstantial damnation." Quoin put away his notebook and began be-gan to tick off his points on nis lingers. "It may not have escaped you that there've been some pretty stiff burglaries burglar-ies among our friends in the last twelve years or so. They weren't frequent; but they were all big hauls, and everyone every-one was well planned and culminated In a clean getaway. And it so happens, when one comes to look into it, that Craven was especially thick with all the people victim ized. The biggest coup was the theft of the Joachim collection, collec-tion, worth several hundred thousand dollars. Now Lydia Craven, when she came aboard the Alsatia. was wearing n cameo from the Joachim collection which she said her father had given her on her fifteenth birthday. Discreet pumping on the part of Mrs. Beggar-staff Beggar-staff has shown that date to have fallen just three months after Joachim was robbed. Incidentally, the cameo disappeared disap-peared as soon as Lydia and Craven met on board. There's a sinister thread running all through the history of Thaddeus Craven." His voice trailed off into fi'ence. Mrs. Merrilees wus eyi:rg hiai s,e;i'.!ly. "You never got all that information together since morning?" Mrs. Beggar-staff Beggar-staff prompted. "No." Quoin admitted. "I've had my eye on Crave.i for some time." "Why?" the old woman demanded bluntly. "What made you first suspect him?" "Well." replied Quoin, "he never rang true to me; and when it began to be rumored that he was a candidate for. Betty's hand I felt sure he wasn't worthy of her. and made up my mind to be sure before forbidding the Vi Ti S " After a pause Betty looked up defiantly. defi-antly. "It does make me out a bit of an Idiot, doesn't it?" "Nonsense! We were all taken in." . Peter protested. "Look how I've always al-ways stuck up for Tad! But there's one thing I want to say: He may be a rotter, and all that sort of thing; but that girl of his is as straight and fine a proposition " "Do hush, Peter! We all know you're -n love with her. But what Is all this to me?" Betty protested with a break in her voice. "I hope you're right Peter, and I hope if you are you may be happy. But what about me? To you, all old friends, I can talk about this terrible thing. But what about the outsiders? My name linked with that of a common criminal's oh, I am ashamed, ashamed!" Unknown to her, the Dowager Drug-on Drug-on was nodding vigorously to Quoin. This last rose awkwardly, and spoke with a hesitation uncommon in him. "If you'll leave it to me, Betty," he suggested almost timidly, "I think I can arrange matters with Craven and recover your necklace tonight, quite without publicity. And" he glanced at hi.s watch "It's a quarter of eleven. If I'm to do anything, I have no time to lose." CHAPTER XIV. True to her instinct for the dramatic moment, when the telephone interrupted interrupt-ed Mrs. Beggurstaff answered with no apparent emotion and nothing more than a noncommittal "Yes?" followed at a brief Interval by "Yes, if you please, ut once." Then, hanging up the receiver, she set herself artfully to delay de-lay Mrs. Merrilees. "This is all very well," she announced with complacent determination; "but I want to know what real evidence you have got against Craven." "Nothing," Quoin admitted, "beyond circumstantial evidence, which, however how-ever well grounded, wouldn't hold together to-gether a minute under the analysis of any able-bodied criminal lawyer." "No actual proof?" "Not a whit. You may be sure Craven Cra-ven never took an active hand in any of these affairs: merely engineered them with his inside information and superior intelligence. Be sure, too, that whenever a job was pulled off he was alwuys conspicuously somewhere else." "Then what do you propose doing?" "Why Betty permitting scare him silly and run him out of town. I don't think we want more than that aside from the necklace." "That will content me," Mrs. Merrilees Merri-lees affirmed. Here a knock fell on the door, and the Dowager Dragon, for all her protested pro-tested infirmity, rose with the spryness of youth. "No, don't go yet. It's only something some-thing I've been expecting. And I want one word more with you about the girl Lydia. Whatever you do, understand, under-stand, I won't have her run out of town, or annoyed, or frightened, or Ill-treated in any way." With this she disappeared down the hallway. Followed a sound of voices murmuring. Quoin and Mrs. Merrilees lingered in doubt and silence, the gaze of each seeking the other's; while, to one side, by these two forgotten, Peter Traft waited, watching, some little sadness and envy in his heart. Not that he grudged Quoin the guerdon guer-don of a lifetime's unselfish devotion ; but he felt quite justified in envying them the happiness that was to be theirs. If he could ever hope to see Lydia Craven look up into his face as Betty Merrilees was just then looking up at Quoin Betty, in a melting humor and a gown representing the finest flower of the Hue de la Pais, to Peter's fancy cut a figure that filled your eye. And in such matters Peter esteemed himself him-self a distinguished amateur. But once Lydia Craven had entered the drawing room Peter no longer cared to look at Betty. A fellow's got only a certain limited amount of aye-sight, aye-sight, after all, and it's no good wasting, wast-ing, it on anything he isn't really crazy about. In the severity of her street dress the girl's figure had a graciousness that even Betty's couldn't shadow. And Lydia's face, set against the darkness of one of those trim little hats which in those days were just beginning to oust the art-nouveau-coal-hod enormities enormi-ties Lydia's ruddy hair, the transpar ent pallor 01 ner m-ow, uie nue yiow in cheeks fresh from the rainy night, her dark and animated eyes brightening brighten-ing with surprise and half-timid pleasure pleas-ure taken altogether Peter thought Lydia's fairness was to Betty's as sun to candlelight. But with delight apprehension was mixed in his mind. There were still some phases of life Peter hadn't fathomed; fath-omed; for one, the auiagonism within the sexes within the sex, rather; for It was the attitudes often adopted toward one another by the most unliable unli-able and delightful of women that perplexed per-plexed his understanding. Now, with real provocation on her side, what would be Betty's attitude toward this rival beauty? J.l:s solicitude was wasted. Either lie underestimate! the generosity of Betty, or Lydia't ingenuousness disarmed. dis-armed. Constraint was absent from their meeting: they went at once to each other's arms. 1 "It's so good to 15 ml you here. Betty. ' Oh. good evening. Mr. Quoin Mr. Traft. good evening. The best part is. I thought you were stopping here, and was in despair when I found you weren't." "It's dear of you ; but " 'T was so anxious to give you this !" As she spoke the puzzle box left Lydia's Lyd-ia's keeping finally and for all time. Betty Merrilees uttered a low cry. "This?" she questioned in a strange voice. "What?" "Must I say?" Lydia laughed. "I don't believe you really want me to " "Not my necklace!" the woman gasped. "There! I didn't tell did I, Mrs. Eeggarstafi.'?" "No, dear child ; but we knew all the time." Incontinently Lydia was overwhelmed over-whelmed by a very unexpected, uncalled-for, motherly and protracted l embrace ; which, while it didn't lack affection, served as well the most diD- ' lomatlc purpose of preventing the girl from noticing Betty's half-hysterical attempts to open the puzzle box and that the Dowager Dragon was making significant faces at Quoin over her shoulder. "Permit me, Betty," Quoin suggested. suggest-ed. "I think I know the trick " In another breath the box was open, the necklace in its owner's hands. "Merely my foolish delight to see you again so soon, my dear." A hand patted affectionately one of Lydia's flushed cheeks as, released, breathless, and wondering, she stepped . back to readjust her hat. "You're awfully good to me, Mrs. Beggarstaff. But I can't stop a minute. I've another errand to run for father I he's very busy tonight " "Another errand !" Betty Merrilees parroted out of a mind perhaps pardonably par-donably confused. "Yes I sha'n't be long. Father asked me to bring that to you ; but promised to call for me within an hour. So I was to attend to the other errand first, and wait here with you for him. But my taxicab broke down and " "Craven coming here?" Betty Interrupted Inter-rupted incredulously, but checked suddenly sud-denly at a look from Quoin. "As soon as he can get away," Lydia affirmed. "I mean, of course, wherever wher-ever you're really stopping " "The Plaza." "That's just across the way, isn't It? It's odd of him to make such a mistake. mis-take. He said the Margrave distinctly. But I'll ask for you at the Plaza In half an hour, If you don't mind." "Mind ! On the contrary," Mrs. Merrilees Mer-rilees said pleasantly, "I'll be delighted. delight-ed. Tad, too. That will be fun rather! We'll have supper together all of us." "And so good night for thirty min utes," Lydia laughed. "I must hurry." "Walt a minute," Peter put in. "I'm off too, you know, and going your way." "How do you know you are !" Lydia demanded, smiling back from the doorway. door-way. "Because that's the way I'm going." "But I don't want you now, Mr. Traft though I shall hope to see you again in half an hour. Good-by." The hall-door closed, leaving Peter as dashed as Betty Merrilees was thunderstruck, as Quoin was thoughtful, thought-ful, as the smile of the Dowager Dragon Drag-on was satiric. There was a little pause. "What," Peter demanded, "what do you know about that?" "After her, you loon," Quoin snapped, waking up with a start. "If Craven told her to , go somewhere else first, be sure he never meant her to bring that necklace here. Don't you see?" "Ass !" Peter groaned, smiting his forehead. "Why didn't I think?" Seizing Seiz-ing hat and coat, he threw open the door even as the elevator gate clanged. The car had dropped from sight before be-fore he reached the shaft. Planting a thumb on the push-button, he educed only a thin, persistent grumble from the annunciator bell, steadily diminishing dimin-ishing in volume as the car continued wilfully to descend. Infuriated, the young man committed commit-ted the soul of the elevator attendant to the nethermost depths of damnation and, turning to the stairway, plunged down the flights in breakneck haste, three steps at a time. Across the lobby he sped as one hounded by furies, and gained the carriage car-riage entrance barely in time to see a taxicab pulling away from the curb. Peter gave chase, affording midnight wayfarers the diverting spectacle of a beautifully arrayed young man coat-tails coat-tails flat to the wind and rain, top coat streaming wildly from one arm, the other brandishing the dernier cri in toppers in mad, mute pursuit of a self-contained taxicab proceeding stolidly stol-idly about its business. Happily for Peter, its business involved in-volved observance of traffic regula tions; and when it paused to give precedence pre-cedence to a Fifty-ninth street cross-town cross-town car Peter caught up if something some-thing more rudely than he had thought to. Unable to check quickly on the greasy asphalt, he skidded against the door with a crash. "Hold hard !" he begged between breaths. "Give me a chance '" "What the " commented the chauf-fear chauf-fear suspiciously. But at the same time Peter jerked the door open, and a crawly, sinking sensation deserted his midst: the fare was Lydia, after all! She greeted this breathless apparition appari-tion with an inarticulate cry. "You forgot something," Peter gasped in response, climbing in. "What?" "Me!" he declared settling into the place by her side; then thrust his head out of the door and panted, "It's all right, driver. Cut aiong and don't go i too fast slippery pavements " j "But, Mr. Traft" Lydia expostulated. expostu-lated. Peter shut the door with a hang, and the car, with an unobstructed way, picked up wary heels and stole on up Fifth avenue. (TO EE CONTINUED.) |