Part 29 (1/2)

”Who is it?”

He was forced to admit, however reluctantly, that the woman had a marvelously fine speaking voice.

”It is Jones, madam.”

”Jones?”

”Mr. Hargreave's butler, madam.”

”Oh! You have news of Florence?”

”Yes.” It will be an embarra.s.sing day for humanity when some one invents a photographic apparatus by which two persons at the two ends of the telephone may observe the facial expressions of each other.

”What is it? Tell me quickly.”

”Florence has been found, and she is on her way back to New York. She was found by Mr. Norton, the reporter.”

”I am so glad! Shall I come up at once and have you tell me the whole amazing story?”

”It would be useless, madam, for I know nothing except what I learned from a telegram I have just received. But no doubt some time this evening you might risk a call.”

”Ring up the instant she returns. Did she say what train?”

”No, madam,” lied Jones, smiling.

He hung up the receiver and stared at the telephone as if he would force his gaze in and through it to the woman at the other end. Flesh and blood! Well, greed was stronger than that. Treacherous cat! Let her play; let her weave her nets, dig her pits. The day would come, and it was not far distant, when she would find that the mild-eyed mongoose was just as deadly as the cobra, and far more cunning.

The heads of the Black Hundred must be destroyed. Those were the orders. What good to denounce them, to send them to a prison from which, with the aid of money and a tremendous secret political pull, they might readily find their way out? They must be exterminated, as one kills off the poisonous plague rats of the Orient. A woman? In the law of reprisal there was no s.e.x.

Shortly after the telephone episode (which rather puzzled the countess) she received a wire from Braine, which announced the fact that Florence and Norton had escaped and were coming to New York on train No. 25, and advising her to meet the train en route. She had to fly about to do it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE HAD PUT FLORENCE AND BRAINE IN THE BOAT AND LANDED THEM]

When Captain Bannock released Braine, he had been in no enviable frame of mind. Tricked, fooled by the girl, whose mind was as unclouded as his own! She had succeeded in bribing a coal stoker, and had taken him unawares. The man had donned the disguise he had laid out for sh.o.r.e approach, and the blockheaded Bannock had never suspected. He had not recognized Norton at all. It was only when Bannock explained the history of the shanghaied stoker that he realized his real danger.

Norton! He must be pushed off the board. After this episode he could no longer keep up the pretense of being friendly. Norton, by a rare stroke of luck, had forced him out into the open. So be it.

Self-preservation is in nowise looked upon as criminal. The law may have its ideas about it, but the individual recognizes no law but its own. It was Braine whom he loved and admired, or Norton whom he hated as a dog with rabies hates water. With Norton free, he would never again dare return to New York openly. This meddling reporter aimed at his ease and elegance.

He left the freighter as soon as a boat could carry him ash.o.r.e. The fugitives would make directly for the railroad, and thither he went at top speed, to arrive ten minutes too late.

”Free!” said Florence, as the train began to increase its speed.

Norton reached over and patted her hand. Then he sat back with a sudden shock of dismay. He dived a hand into a pocket, into another and another. The price of the telegram he had sent to Jones was all he had had in the world; and he had borrowed that from a friendly stoker.

In the excitement he had forgotten all about such a contingency as the absolute need of money.

”Florence, I'm afraid we're going to have trouble with the conductor when he comes.”

”Why?”

He pulled out his pockets suggestively. ”Not a postage stamp. They'll put us off at the next station. And,” with a glance in the little mirror between the two windows, ”I shouldn't blame them a bit.” He was unshaven, he was wearing the suit subst.i.tuted for his own; and Florence, sartorially, was not much better off.

She smiled, blushed, stood up, and turned her back to him. Then she sat down again. In her hand she held a small dilapidated roll of banknotes.