Part 17 (2/2)

”Excuse me,” interrupted Burke, ”I'd like to speak to the president of this company.”

The girl looked at him scornfully.

”Just a minute, girlie, I'm interrupted.” She turned to look at Bob again, and with a haughty toss of her rather startling yellow curls raised her eyebrows in a supercilious glance of interrogation.

”What's your business?”

”That's _my_ business. I want to see Mr. Trubus and not _you_.”

”Well, nix on the sarcasm. He's too busy to be disturbed by every book agent and insurance peddler in town. Tell me what you want and I'll see if it's important enough. That's what I'm paid for.”

”You tell him that a policeman from the ---- precinct wants to see him, and tell him mighty quick!” snapped Burke with a sharp look.

He expected a change of att.i.tude. But the curious, s.h.i.+fty look in the girl's face--almost a pallor which overspread its artificial carnadine, was inexplicable to him at this time. He had cause to remember it later.

”Why, why,” she half stammered, ”what's the matter?”

”You give him my message.”

The girl did not telephone as Burke had expected her to do, according to the general custom where switchboard girls send in announcement of callers to private offices.

Instead she removed the headgear of the receiver and rose. She went inside the door at her back and closed it after her.

”Well, that's some service,” thought Burke. ”I wonder why she's so active after indifference?”

She returned before he had a chance to ruminate further.

”You can go right in, sir,” she said.

As she sat down she watched him from the corner of her eye. Burke could not help but wonder at the tense interest in his presence, but dismissed the thought as he entered the room, and beheld the president of the Purity League.

William Trubus was seated at a broad mahogany desk, while before him was spread a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned family Bible. He held in his left hand a cracker, which he was munching daintily, as he read in an abstracted manner from the page before him. In his right hand was a gla.s.s containing a red liquid, which Burke at first sight supposed was wine. He was soon to be undeceived.

He stood a full minute while the president of the League mumbled to himself as he perused the Sacred Writ. Bobbie was thus enabled to get a clear view of the philanthropist's profile, and to study the great man from a good point of vantage.

Trubus was rotund. His cheeks were rosy evidences of good health, good meals and freedom from anxiety as to where those good meals were to come from. His forehead was round, and being partially bald, gave an appearance of exaggerated intellectuality.

His nose was that of a Roman centurion--bold, cruel as a hawk's beak, strong-nostriled as a wolf's muzzle. His firm white teeth, as they crunched on the cracker suggested, even stronger, the semblance to a carnivorous animal of prey. A benevolent-looking pair of gold-rimmed gla.s.ses sat astride that nose, but Burke noticed that, oddly enough, Trubus did not need them for his reading, nor later when he turned to look at the young officer.

The plump face was adorned with the conventional ”mutton-chop” whiskers which are so generally a.s.sociated in one's mental picture of bankers, bishops and reformers. The whiskers were so resolutely black, that Burke felt sure they must have been dyed, for Trubus' plump hands, with their wrinkles and yellow blotches, evidenced that the philanthropist must have pa.s.sed the three-score milestone of time.

The white gaiters, the somber black of his well-fitting broadcloth coat of ministerial cut, the sanctified, studied manner of the man's pose gave Burke an almost indefinable feeling that before him sat a cleverly ”made-up” actor, not a sincere, natural man of benevolent activities.

The room was furnished elaborately; some rare j.a.panese ivories adorned the desk top. A Chinese vase, close by, was filled with fresh-cut flowers. Around the walls were handsome oil paintings. Beautiful Oriental rugs covered the floor. There hung a tapestry from some old French convent; yonder stood an exquisite marble statue whose value must have been enormous.

As Trubus raised the gla.s.s to drink the red liquid Bobbie caught the glint of an enormous diamond ring which must have cost thousands.

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