Part 24 (1/2)

”And no conscience,” commented Magee.

”Conscience,” said Mr. Cargan, ”ain't worth much except as an excuse for a man that hasn't made good to give his wife. How much did you say you was going to get for this article?”

Mr. Magee looked him coolly in the eye.

”If it's ever written,” he said, ”it will be a two-hundred-thousand-dollar story.”

”There ain't anything like that in it for you,” replied the mayor.

”Think over what I've told you.”

”I'm afraid,” smiled Magee, ”I'm too busy to think.”

He again crossed the office floor to the stairway. Before the fire sat the girl of the station, her big eyes upon him, pleadingly. With a rea.s.suring smile in her direction, he darted up the stairs.

”And now,” he thought, as he closed and locked the door of number seven behind him, ”for the swag. So Cargan would give twenty thousand for that little package. I don't blame him.”

He opened a window and glanced out along the balcony. It was deserted in either direction; its snowy floor was innocent of footprints.

Re-entering number seven, he knelt by the fireplace and dug up the brick under which lay the package so dear to many hearts on Baldpate Mountain.

”I might have known,” he muttered.

For the money was gone. He dug up several of the bricks, and rummaged about beneath them. No use. The fat little bundle of bills had flown.

Only an ugly hole gaped up at him.

He sat down. Of course! What a fool he had been to suppose that such treasure as this would stay long in a hiding-place so obvious. He who had made a luxurious living writing tales of the chase of gems and plate and gold had bungled the thing from the first. He could hammer out on a typewriter wild plots and counter-plots--with a boarding-school girl's cupid busy all over the place. But he could not live them.

A boarding-school cupid! Good lord! He remembered the eyes of the girl in blue corduroy as they had met his when he turned to the stairs. What would she say now? On this he had gaily staked her faith in him. This was to be the test of his sincerity, the proof of his devotion. And now he must go to her, looking like a fool once more--go to her and confess that again he had failed her.

His rage blazed forth. So they had ”got to him”, after all. Who? He thought of the smooth crafty mountain of a man who had detained him a moment ago. Who but Cargan and Max, of course? They had found his childish hiding-place, and the money had come home to their eager hands.

No doubt they were laughing slyly at him now.

Well, he would show them yet. He got up and walked the floor. Once he had held them up in the snow and spoiled their little game--he would do it again. How? When? He did not know. His soul cried for action of some sort, but he was up against a blind alley, and he knew it.

He unlocked the door of number seven. To go down-stairs, to meet the sweet eagerness of the girl who depended on him, to confess himself tricked--it took all the courage he had. Why had it all happened, anyhow? Confound it, hadn't he come up here to be alone with his thoughts? But, brighter side, it had given him her--or it would give him her before the last card was played. He shut his teeth tightly, and went down the stairs.

Mr. Bland had added himself to the group about the fire. Quickly the eyes of Miss Norton met Magee's. She was trembling with excitement.

Cargan, huge, red, cheery, got in Magee's path once more.

”I'll annihilate this man,” thought Magee.

”I've been figuring,” said the mayor, ”that was one thing he didn't have to contend with. No, sir, there wasn't any bright young men hunting up old Napoleon and knocking him in the monthly magazines. They didn't go down to Sardinia and pump it out of the neighbors that he started business on borrowed money, and that his father drank more than was good for him. They didn't run ill.u.s.trated articles about the diamonds he wore, and moving pictures of him eating soup.”

”No, I guess not,” replied Magee abstractedly.

”I reckon there was a lot in _his_ record wasn't meant for the newspapers,” continued Cargan reflectively. ”And it didn't get there.

Nap was lucky. He had it on the reformers there. They couldn't squash him with the power of the press.”

Mr. Magee broke away from the mayor's rehashed history, and hurried to Miss Norton.

”You promised yesterday,” he reminded her, ”to show me the pictures of the admiral.”