Part 9 (1/2)

After a time, with sudden determination, the young man dropped into a chair at his desk, and wrote in duplicate, on a narrow strip of tough tissue-paper, just one line:

Are you safe? Is all well? Answer quick.

W.

Then he mounted to the roof. As he flung open the trap a man on the top of the house next door darted behind a chimney. Mr. Wynne saw him clearly--it was Frank Claflin--but he seemed to consider the matter of no consequence, for he paid not the slightest attention.

Instead he went straight to a cage beside the pigeon-cote, wherein a dozen or more birds were imprisoned, removed one of them, attached a strip of the tissue-paper to its leg, and allowed it to rise from his out-stretched hand.

The pigeon darted away at an angle, up, up, until it grew indistinct against the void, then swung widely in a semicircle, hovered uncertainly for an instant, and flashed off to the west, straight as an arrow flies. Mr. Wynne watched it thoughtfully until it had disappeared; and Claflin's interest was so intense that he forgot the necessity of screening himself, the result being that when he turned again toward Mr. Wynne he found that young man gazing at him.

Mr. Wynne even nodded in a friendly sort of way as he attached the second strip of tissue to the leg of another bird. This rose, as the other had done, and sped away toward the west.

”It may be worth your while to know, Mr. Claflin,” Mr. Wynne remarked easily to the detective on the other house, ”that if you ever put your foot on this roof to intercept any message which may come to me I shall shoot you.”

Then he turned and went down the stairs again, closing and locking the trap in the roof behind him. He should get an answer to those questions in two hours, three hours at the most. If there was no answer within that time he would despatch more birds, and _then_, if no answer came, then--_then_--Mr. Wynne sat down and carefully perused the newspaper story again.

At just about that moment the attention of one John Sutton, another of the watchful Mr. Birnes' men, on duty in Thirty-seventh Street, was attracted to a woman who had turned in from Park Avenue, and was coming rapidly toward him, on the opposite side of the street. She was young, with the elasticity of perfect health in her step; and closely veiled. She wore a blue tailor-made gown, with hat to match; and recalcitrant strands of hair gleamed a golden brown.

”By George!” exclaimed the detective. ”It's her!”

By which he meant that the mysterious young woman of the cab, whose description had been drilled into him by Mr. Birnes, had at last reappeared. He lounged along the street, watching her with keen interest, fixing her every detail in his mind. She did not hesitate, she glanced neither to right nor left, but went straight to the house occupied by Mr. Wynne, and rang the bell. A moment later the door was opened, and she disappeared inside. The detective mopped his face with tremulous joy.

”Doris!” exclaimed Mr. Wynne, as the veiled girl entered the room where he sat. ”Doris, my dear girl, what _are_ you doing here?”

He arose and went toward her. She tore off the heavy veil impatiently, and lifted her moist eyes to his. There was suffering in them, uneasiness--and more than that.

”Have you heard from him--out there?” she demanded.

”Not to-day, no,” he responded. ”_Why_ did you come here?”

”Gene, I can't stand it,” she burst out pa.s.sionately. ”I'm worried to death. I can't hear a word, and--I'm worried to death.”

Mr. Wynne wondered if she, too, had seen the morning papers. He stared at her gravely for an instant, then turned, crumpled up the section of newspaper with its glaring head-lines and dropped it into a waste-basket.

”I'm sorry,” he said gently.

”I telephoned twice yesterday,” she rushed on quickly, pleadingly, ”and once last night and again this morning. There was no--no answer.

Gene, I couldn't stand it. I had to come.”

”It's only that he didn't happen to be within hearing of the telephone bell,” he a.s.sured her. But her steadfast, accusing eyes read more than that in his face, and her hands trembled on his arm.

”I'm afraid, Gene, I'm afraid,” she declared desperately. ”Suppose-- suppose something _has_ happened?”

”It's absurd,” and he attempted to laugh off her uneasiness. ”Why, nothing could have happened.”

”All those millions of dollars' worth of diamonds, Gene,” she reminded him, ”and he is--I shouldn't have left him alone.”

”Why, my dear Doris,” and Mr. Wynne gathered the slender, trembling figure in his arms protectingly, ”not one living soul, except you and I, knows that they are there. There's no incentive to robbery, my dear--a poor, shabby little cottage like that. There is not the slightest danger.”

”There is always danger, Gene,” she contradicted. ”It makes me shudder just to think of it. He is so old and so feeble, simple as a child, and utterly helpless if anything should happen. Then, when I didn't hear from him after trying so many times over the telephone --I'm afraid, Gene, I'm afraid,” she concluded desperately.