Part 36 (2/2)
A feeling of repugnance took possession of the girl and she shook herself free and stood back. Her body had warmed into life again and she looked steadily into his eyes as she answered:
”Travers Gladwin!”
He needed all his great bulk of flesh and steel-fibred nerve to fend off this shock. Not the remotest fancy had crossed his mind that Travers Gladwin might be in New York. It was with a palpably forced laugh that he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:
”Travers Gladwin! Oh, he did, eh?”
The girl had read more than he imagined the sudden contraction of his features and dilation of his eyes had revealed.
”I want you to tell me the truth--you must!” she said pa.s.sionately.
”_Who are you?_”
”A man who loves you,” he let go impulsively. The desire to possess her had sprung uppermost in his mind again.
”But are you the man you pretended to be--are you Travers Gladwin?”
she insisted, compelled against her convictions to grope for a forlorn hope.
”And if I were not?” he cried, with all the dramatic intensity he could bring to voice. ”If instead of being the son of a millionaire, a pampered molly-coddle who never earned a dollar in his life--suppose I were a man who had to fight every inch of the way”----
He stopped. His alert ear had caught a sound in the hallway. He sped noiselessly to the folding door and forced one back, revealing Officer Murphy.
”Come in,” he said threateningly, and Gladwin came in a little way.
”Where's that bag?” said the thief, with a glare and a suggestive movement with his hands.
”What bag, sorr?” said Gladwin, feeling that for the moment discretion was the better part of valor.
”The one you brought in here.”
”You told me to unpack it, sorr. It's upstairs, sorr.”
”Go and get it. Go now--and don't waste time.”
Gladwin went, determined this time that he must arm himself with some weapon, even if it were one of the rusted old bowie knives of his grandfather that ornamented the wall of his den. He estimated accurately that he would prove a poor weak reed in the hands of that Hercules in evening dress, and while the thought of a knife sickened him, he was impelled to seek one.
As he mounted the stairs the thief strode to the table near the window and gathered up Helen's opera cloak and handed it to her.
”Now, go quickly,” he urged; ”my car is just across the street. There is no time to argue your absurd suspicions.”
”No, I shan't go,” retorted Helen, accepting the cloak and backing away.
”So you believe that man?” he asked reproachfully.
”I am afraid I do,” she said firmly.
”Then I'll show you mighty quick you're wrong,” he cried, as a crowning bluff. ”He's probably some spy sent by your aunt. I'll get my man in here and will have him arrested after you and I have gone. Wait here--I shan't be a moment.”
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