The Man Who Couldn't Sleep

  CHAPTER IX

  A RIALTO RAIN-STORM

  I lifted my face to the sudden pelt of the rain-shower, feeling verymuch like a second edition of King Lear as I did so. Not that I hadlost a kingdom, or that I'd ever been turned out of an ungrateful homecircle! But something quite as disturbing, in its own small way, hadovertaken me.

  I had been snubbed by Mary Lockwood. While I stood watching thatsudden shower empty upper Broadway as quickly as a fusillade of bulletsmight have emptied it, I encountered something which quite as promptlyemptied my own heart. It was the cut direct. For as I crouched backunder my dripping portico, like a toad under a rhubarb-leaf, I caughtsight of the only too familiar wine-colored landaulet as it swung aboutinto Longacre Square. I must have started forward a little, withoutbeing quite conscious of the movement. And through the shelteringplate-glass of the dripping hood I caught sight of Mary Lockwoodherself.

  She saw me, at the same time that I saw her. In fact, she turned andstared at me. I couldn't have escaped her, as I stood there under thestreet-lamp. But no slightest sign of recognition came from thatcoldly inquiring face. She neither smiled nor bowed nor looked back.And the wine-colored landaulet swept on, leaving me standing there withmy sodden hat in my hand and a great ache of desolation in my heart.

  She must have seen me, I repeated as I turned disconsolately back andstood watching men and women still ducking under doorways and dodginginto side-streets and elbowing into theater-lobbies. It seemed duringthe next few moments as though that territory once known as the Rialtowere a gopher-village and some lupine hunger had invaded it. Beforethe searching nuzzles of those rain-guests all pleasure-seekerspromptly vanished. Gaily cloaked and slippered women stampeded away asthough they were made of sugar and they and their gracious curves mightmelt into nothing at the first touch of water. Above the sidewalk,twenty paces from the empty doorway where I loitered, an awningappeared, springing up like a mushroom from a wet meadow. In towardone end of this awning circled a chain of limousines and taxicabs,controlled by an impassive Hercules in dripping oil-skins. And as acarrier-belt empties grain into a mill-bin, so this unbroken chainejected hurrying men and women across the wet curb into thelight-spangled hopper of the theater-foyer. And the thought of thattheater, with its companionable crush of humanity, began to appeal tomy rain-swept spirit.

  Yet I stood there, undecided, watching the last of the scatteringcrowd, watching the street that still seemed an elongated bull-ringwhere a matador or two still dodged the taurine charges of vehicles. Iwatched the electric display-signs that ran like liquid ivy about theshop fronts, and then climbed and fluttered above the roofs, misty andsoftened by rain. I watched the ironic heavens pour their unabatingfloods down on that congested and overripe core of a city that no watercould wash clean.

  Then the desolation of the empty streets seemed to grow unbearable.The spray that blew in across my dampened knees made me think ofshelter. I saw the lights of the theater no more than twenty pacesaway. It was already a warren of crowded life. The thought of evenwhat diluted companionship it might offer me continued to carry anappeal that became more and more clamorous.

  A moment later I stood before its box-office window, no wider than amedieval leper-squint, from which cramped and hungry souls buy accessto their modern temples of wonder.

  "Standing room only," announced the autocrat of the wicket. And Imeekly purchased my admission-ticket, remembering that the head usherof that particular theater had in the past done me more than one slightservice.

  Yet the face of this haughtily obsequious head usher, as his hand metmine in that free-masonry which is perpetuated by certain silk-threadedscraps of oblong paper, was troubled.

  "I haven't a thing left," he whispered.

  I peered disconsolately about that sea of heads seeking life throughthe clumsy lattice of polite melodrama.

  "Unless," added the usher at my elbow, "you'll take a seat in thatsecond lower box?"

  Even through the baize doors behind me I could hear the beat and patterof the rain. It was a case of any port in a storm.

  "That will do nicely," I told him and a moment later he was leading medown a side aisle into the curtained recess of the box entrance.

  Yet it was not ordained that I should occupy that box in lonely andunrivaled splendor. One of its chairs, set close to the brass rail andplush-covered parapet that barred it off from the more protuberantstage box, was already occupied by a man in full evening dress. He,like myself, perhaps, had never before shared a box with other than hisown acquaintances. At any rate, before favoring me with the somewhatlimited breadth of his back, he turned on me one sidelong andunmistakably resentful stare.

  Yet I looked at this neighbor of mine, as I seated myself, with moreinterest than I looked at the play-actors across the foot-lights, for Irather preferred life in the raw to life in the sirups of stageemotionalism.

  It startled me a little to find that the man, at the moment, wasequally oblivious of anything taking place on the stage. His eyes, infact, seemed fixed on the snowy shoulders of the woman who sat at theback of the stage box, directly in front of him. As I followed thedirection of his gaze I was further surprised to discover the object onwhich it was focused. He was staring, not at the woman herself, but ata pigeon-blood ruby set in the clasp of some pendant or necklaceencircling her throat.

  There was, indeed, some excuse for his staring at it. In the firstplace it was an extraordinarily large and vivid stone. But against thebackground where it lay, against the snow-white column of the neck(whitened, perhaps, by a prudent application of rice powder) it stoodout in limpid ruddiness, the most vivid of fire against the purest ofsnow. It was a challenge to attention. It caught and held the eye.It stood there, just below where the hair billowed into its crown ofVenetian gold, as semaphoric as a yard-lamp to a night traveler. And Iwondered, as I sat looking at it, what element beyond curiosity couldcoerce the man at my side into studying it so indolently and yet sointently.

  About the man himself there seemed little that was exceptional. Beyonda certain quick and shrewd alertness in his eye-movements as he lookedabout at me from time to time with muffled resentment which I found notat all to my liking, he seemed medium in everything, in coloring, instature, in apparel. His face was of the neutral sallowness of thesedentary New Yorker. His intelligence seemed that of the preoccupiedoffice-worker who could worm his way into an ill-fitting dress suit andplacidly approve of second-rate melodrama. He seemed so withoutinterest, in fact, that I was not averse to directing my glance oncemore toward the pigeon-blood ruby which glowed like a live coal againstthe marble whiteness of the neck in front of me.

  It may have been mere accident, or it may have been that out of ourunited gaze arose some vague psychic force which disturbed this youngwoman. For as I sat there staring at the shimmering jewel, its wearersuddenly turned her head and glanced back at me. The next moment I wasconscious of her nod and smile, unmistakably in my direction.

  Then I saw who it was. I had been uncouthly staring at theshoulder-blades of Alice Churchill--they were the Park AvenueChurchills--and farther back in the box I caught a glimpse of herbrother Benny, who had come north, I knew, from the Nicaraguan coast torecuperate from an attack of fever.

  Yet I gave little thought to either of them, I must confess. At thesame time that I had seen that momentarily flashing smile I had alsodiscovered that the jeweled clasp on the girl's neck was holding inplace a single string of graduated pearls, of very lovely pearls, thekind about which the frayed-cuff garret-author and the Sunday "yellows"forever love to romance. I was also not unconscious of the quick andcovert glance of the man who sat so close to me.

  Then I let my glance wander back to the ruby, apparently content tostudy its perfect cutting and its unmatchable coloring. And I knewthat the man beside me was also sharing in that spectacle. I was, infact, still staring at it, so unconscious of the movement of the playon the stage that the "dark scene," when every light i
n the house wentout for a second or two, came to me with a distinct sense of shock.

  A murmur of approval went through the house as the returning lightrevealed to them a completely metamorphosed stage-setting. What thissetting was I did not know, nor did I look up to see. For as my idlyinquisitive glance once more focused itself on the columnar white neckthat towered above the chair-back a second and greater shock came tome. Had that neck stood there without a head I could have beenscarcely more startled.

  The pigeon-blood ruby was gone. There was no longer any necklacethere. The column of snow was without its touch of ruddy light. Itwas left as disturbingly bare as a target without its bull's-eye. Itreminded me of a marble grate without its central point of fire.

  My first definite thought was that I was the witness of a crime asaudacious as it was bewildering. Yet, on second thought, it was simpleenough. The problem of proximity had already been solved. With theutter darkness had come the opportunity, the opportunity that obviouslyhad been watched for. With one movement of the hand the necklace hadbeen quietly and cunningly removed.

  My next quick thought was that the thief sat there in my immediateneighborhood. There could be no other. There was no room for doubt.By some mysterious and dextrous movement the man beside me had reachedforward and with that delicacy of touch doubtless born of muchexperience had unclasped the jewels, all the time shrouded by the utterdarkness. The audacity of the thing was astounding, yet thecompleteness with which it had succeeded was even more astounding.

  I sat there compelling myself to a calmness which was not easy toachieve. I struggled to make my scrutiny of this strange companion ofmine as quiet and leisured as possible.

  Yet he seemed to feel that he was still under my eye. He seemed tochafe at that continued survey; for even as I studied him I could see afine sweat of embarrassment come out on his face. He did not turn andlook at me directly, but it was plain that he was only too conscious ofmy presence. And even before I quite realized what he was about, hereached quietly over, and taking up his hat and coat, rose to his feetand slipped out of the box.

  That movement on his part swept away my last shred of hesitation. Thesheer precipitancy of his flight was proof enough of his offense. Hisobvious effort to escape made me more than ever determined to keep onhis trail.

  And keep on his trail I did, from the moment he sidled guiltily out ofthat lighted theater foyer into the still drizzling rain of Broadway.Stronger and ever stronger waves of indignation kept sweeping throughme as I watched him skulk northward, with a furtive glance over hisshoulder as he fled.

  He was a good two hundred feet ahead of me when I saw him suddenly turnand at the risk of a visit to the hospital or the morgue, cross thestreet in the middle of the block, dodge desperately between thesurface cars and automobiles, and beat it straight for the TimesBuilding. I promptly threw decorum away and ran, ran like a rabbit,until I came to the Forty-second Street entrance to the drug storethrough whose revolving doors I had seen my man disappear. I feltreasonably certain he wouldn't stop to drink an ice-cream soda and hedidn't, for as I hurried past the fountain I caught sight of himturning into the stairway that leads to the subway station. I dashedahead but he was through the gate before I could catch up with him. Ihad no time for a ticket as the guards were already slamming shut thedoors of a south-bound "local."

  "Buy me a ticket," I called to the astonished "chopper" as I tossed adollar bill over the arm which he thrust out to stop me. I did notwait to argue it out, for the car door in front of me was alreadybeginning to close. I had just time to catapult my body in betweenthat sliding door and its steel frame. I knew, as I caught my breathagain, that I was on the platform of the car behind the jewel thief.

  And I stood there, carefully scrutinizing the line of car doors as wepulled into the Grand Central Station. I did the same as we passedThirty-third Street, and the same again at Twenty-eighth Street. Theman had given no sign that he actually knew I was on his track. Hemight or might not have seen me. As to that I had no means of beingcertain. But I was certain of the fact that he was making off in apanic of indeterminate fear, that he was doing his utmost to evadepursuit.

  This came doubly home to me as the train stopped at Twenty-third Streetand I saw him step quickly out of the far end of the car, look abouthim, and dart across the station platform and up the stairway two stepsat a time.

  I was after him, even more hurriedly. By the time I reached the streethe was swinging up on the step of a cross-town surface car. To catchthat car was out of the question, but I waited a moment and swungaboard the one that followed it, thirty yards in the rear. Peeringahead, I could plainly see him as he dropped from his car on thenortheast corner of Sixth Avenue. I could see him as he hurried up thesteps of the Elevated, crossed the platform, and without so much asbuying a ticket, hurried down the southeast flight of steps.

  I had closed in on him by this time, so that we were within a biscuittoss of each other. Yet never once did he look about. He was nowdoubling on his tracks, walking rapidly eastward along Twenty-thirdStreet. I was close behind him as he crossed Broadway, turning south,and then suddenly tacking about, entered the hallway of the buildingthat was once the Hotel Bartholdi and promptly directed his stepstoward the side entrance on Twenty-third Street.

  Even as he emerged into the open again he must have seen theantediluvian night-hawk cab waiting there at the curb. What hisdirections to the driver were I had no means of knowing. But as thatdripping and water-proofed individual brought his whip lash down on hissteaming horse a door slammed shut in my face. Once more I so farforgot my dignity as to dodge and run like a rabbit, this time to theother side of the cab as it swung briskly northward. One twist andpull threw the cab door open and I tumbled in--tumbled in to see mywhite-faced and frightened jewel thief determinedly and frenziedlyholding down the handle of the opposite door.

  His face went ashen as I came sprawling and lurching against him. Hewould have leaped bodily from the carriage, which was now swinging upan all but deserted Fifth Avenue, had I not caught and held him therewith a grimness born of repeated exasperation.

  He showed no intention of meekly submitting to that detaining grasp.Seeing that he was finally cornered, he turned on me and fought like arat. His strength, for one of his weight, was surprising. Much moresurprising, however, was his ferocity. And it was a strange struggle,there in the half light of that musty and many-odored night-hawk cab.There seemed something subterranean about it, as though it were abattle at the bottom of a well. And but for one thing, I imagine, itwould not, for me, have been a pleasant encounter. It's a marvelousthing, however, to know that you have Right on your side. The panoplyof Justice is as fortifying as any chain armor ever made.

  And I knew, as we fought like two wharf-rats under a pier-end, that Iwas right. I knew that my cause was the cause of law and order. Thatknowledge gave me both strength and a boldness which carried me througheven when I saw my writhing and desperate thief groping and graspingfor his hip pocket, even when I saw him draw from it amagazine-revolver that looked quite ugly enough to stampede a regiment.And as that sodden-leathered night-hawk went placidly rolling up FifthAvenue we twisted and panted and grunted on its floor as though it werea mail-coach in the Sierras of sixty years ago, fighting for thepossession of that ugly firearm.

  How I got it away from him I never quite knew. But when I came to mysenses I had him on the cab floor and my knee on his chest, with hisbody bent up like a letter U. I held him there while I went throughhis pockets, quietly, deliberately, one by one, with all the care of acustoms inspector going through a suspected smuggler.

  I had no time to look over his wallet (which I remembered as being asbig as a brief-bag) or his papers, nor had I time to make sure how muchof the jewelry he wore might be his own. The one thing I wanted wasthe pearl necklace with the pigeon-blood ruby. And this necklace Ifound, carefully wrapped in a silk handkerchief tucked down in hisright-hand waistcoat pocket--which,
by the way, was provided with abuttoned flap to make it doubly secure.

  I looked over the necklace to make sure there could be no mistake.Then I again wrapped it up in the silk handkerchief and thrust it welldown in my own waistcoat pocket.

  "Get up!" I told the man on the cab floor.

  I noticed, as I removed my knee from his chest, what a sorry conditionhis shirt-front was in and how his tie had been twisted around underhis right ear. He lay back against the musty cushions, breathing hardand staring at me out of eyes that were by no means kindly.

  "You couldn't work it!" I said, as I pocketed the revolver and, havingreadjusted my own tie, buttoned my overcoat across a sadly crumpledshirt-front. Then for the first time the thief spoke.

  "D'you know what this'll cost you?" he cried, white to the lips.

  "That's not worrying me," was my calm retort. "I got what I cameafter."

  He sat forward in his seat with a face that looked foolishlythreatening.

  "Don't imagine you can get away with that," he declared. I couldafford to smile at his impotent fury.

  "Just watch me!" I told him. Then I added more soberly, with my handon the door-knob, "And if you interfere with me after I leave this cab,if you so much as try to come within ten yards of me to-night, I'llgive you what's coming to you."

  I opened the door as I spoke, and dropped easily from the still movingcab to the pavement. I stood there for a moment, watching its placiddriver as he went on up the avenue. The glass-windowed door stillswung open, swaying back and forth like a hand slowly waving me good-by.

  Then I looked at my watch, crossed to the University Club, jumped intoa waiting taxi, and dodged back to the theater, somewhat sore in bodybut rather well satisfied in mind.

  A peculiar feeling of superiority possessed me as I presented mydoor-check and was once more ushered back to my empty box. During thelast hour and a half that pit full of languid-eyed people had beenwitnessing a tawdry imitation of adventure. They had been swallowing acapsule of imitation romance, while I, between the time of leaving andreentering that garishly lighted foyer, had reveled in adventure atfirst hand, had taken chances and faced dangers and righted a greatwrong.

  I felt inarticulately proud of myself as I watched the final curtaincome down. This pride became a feeling of elation as I directed myglance toward Alice Churchill, who had risen in the box in front ofmine, and was again showering on me the warmth of her friendly smile.I knew I was still destined to be the god from the machine. It was asplain that she was still unconscious of her loss.

  I stopped her and her hollow-cheeked brother on their way out,surprising them a little, I suppose, by the unlooked-for cordiality ofmy greeting.

  "Can't you two children take a bite with me at Sherry's?" I amiablysuggested. I could see brother and sister exchange glances.

  "Benny oughtn't to be out late," she demurred.

  "But I've something rather important to talk over," I pleaded.

  "And Benny _would_ like to get a glimpse of Sherry's again," interposedthe thin-cheeked youth just back from the wilds. And without more adoI bundled them into a taxi and carried them off with me, wondering justwhat would be the best way of bringing up the subject in hand.

  I found it much harder, in fact, than I had expected. I was, as timewent on, more and more averse to betraying my position, to descendingmildly from my pinnacle of superiority, to burning my little pin-wheelof power. I was like a puppy with its first buried bone. I knew whatI carried so carefully wrapped up in my waistcoat pocket. I rememberedhow it had come there, and during that quiet supper hour I wasinordinately proud of myself.

  I sat looking at the girl with her towering crown of reddish-gold hair.She, in turn, was gazing at her own foolishly distorted reflection inthe polished bowl of the chafing-dish from which I had just served herwith _capon a la reine_. She sat there gazing at her reflected face,gazing at it with a sort of studious yet impersonal intentness. Then Isaw her suddenly lean forward in her chair, still looking at thegrotesque image of herself in the polished silver. I could not helpnoticing her quickly altering expression, the inarticulate gasp of herparted lips, the hand that went suddenly up to her throat. I saw thefingers feel around the base of the compactly slender neck, and themomentary look of stupor that once more swept over her face.

  She ate a mouthful of capon, studiously, without speaking. Then shelooked up at us again. It was then that her brother Benny for thefirst time noticed her change of color.

  "What's wrong?" he demanded, his thin young face touched suddenly withanxiety.

  The girl, when she finally answered him, spoke very quietly. But Icould see what a struggle it was costing her.

  "Now, Benny, I don't want any fuss," she said, almost under her breath."I don't want either of you to get excited, for it can't do a bit ofgood. But my necklace is gone."

  "Gone?" gasped Benny. "It can't be!"

  "It's gone," she repeated, with her vacant eyes on me as her brotherprodded and felt about her skirt, and then even shook out her crumpledopera cloak.

  "Does this happen to be it?" I asked, with all the nonchalance at mycommand. And as I spoke I unwrapped the string of pearls with thepigeon-blood ruby and let them roll on the white damask that laybetween us.

  She looked at them without moving, her eyes wide with wonder. I couldsee the color come back into her face. It was quite reward enough towitness the relieving warmth return to those widened eyes, to bask inthat lovely and liquid glance of gratitude.

  "How," she asked a little weakly, as she reached over and took them upin her fingers, "how did you get them?"

  "You lost them in the theater-box during the first act," I told her.Her brother Benny wiped his forehead.

  "And it's up to a woman to drop forty thousand dollars and never knowit," he cried.

  I watched her as she turned them over in her hands. Then she suddenlylooked up at me, then down at the pearls, then up at me again.

  "_This is not my necklace_," were the astonishing words that I heardfall from her lips. I knew, of course, that she was mistaken.

  "Oh, yes, it is," I quietly assured her.

  She shook her head in negation, still staring at me.

  "What makes you think so?" she asked.

  "I don't think it, I know it," was my response. "Those aren't the sortof stones that grow on every bush in this town."

  She was once more studying the necklace. And once more she shook herhead.

  "But I am left-handed," she was explaining, as she still looked down atthem, "and I had my clasp, here on the ruby at the back, made to workthat way. This clasp is right-handed. Don't you see, it's on thewrong side."

  "But you've only got the thing upside down," cried her brother. And Imust confess that a disagreeable feeling began to manifest itself inthe pit of my stomach as he moved closer beside her and tried toreverse the necklace so that the clasp would stand a left-handed one.

  He twisted and turned it fruitlessly for several moments.

  "Isn't that the limit?" he finally murmured, sinking back in his chairand regarding me with puzzled eyes. The girl, too, was once morestudying my face, as though my movement represented a form of uncouthjocularity which she could not quite comprehend.

  "What's the answer, anyway?" asked the mystified youth.

  But his bewilderment was as nothing compared to mine. I reached overfor the string of pearls with the ruby clasp. I took them and turnedthem over and over in my hands, weakly, mutely, as though theythemselves might in some way solve an enigma which seemed inscrutable.And I had to confess that the whole thing was too much for me. I wasstill looking down at that lustrous row of pearls, so appealing to theeye in their absolute and perfect graduation, when I heard the youngerman at my side call my name aloud.

  "Kerfoot!" he said, not exactly in alarm and not precisely in anxiety,yet with a newer note that made me look up sharply.

  As I did so I was conscious of the figure so close behind me, so nearmy chair that
even while I had already felt his presence there, I hadfor the moment taken him for my scrupulously attentive waiter. But asI turned about and looked up at this figure I saw that I was mistaken.My glance fell on a wide-shouldered and rather portly man with quietand very deep-set gray eyes. What disturbed me even more than hispresence there at my shoulder was the sense of power, of unparadedsuperiority, on that impassive yet undeniably intelligent face.

  "I want to see you," he said, with an unemotional matter-of-factnessthat in another would have verged on insolence.

  "About what?" I demanded, trying to match his impassivity with my own.

  He nodded toward the necklace in my hand.

  "About that," he replied.

  "What about that?" I languidly inquired.

  The portly man at my shoulder did not answer me. Instead he turned andnodded toward a second man, a man standing half a dozen paces behindhim, in a damp overcoat and a sadly rumpled shirt-front.

  I felt my heart beat faster of a sudden, for it took no second glanceto tell me that this second figure was the jewel thief whom I hadtrailed and cornered in the musty-smelling cab.

  I felt the larger man's sudden grip on my shoulder--and his hand seemedto have the strength of a vise--as the smaller man, still pale anddisheveled, stepped up to the table. His face was not a pleasant one.

  Benny Churchill, whose solicitous eyes bent for a moment on hissister's startled face, suddenly rose to his feet.

  "Look here," he said, with a quiet vigor of which I had not dreamed himcapable, "there's not going to be any scene here." He turned to theman at my shoulder. "I don't know who you are, but I want you toremember there's a lady at this table. Remember that, please, or I'llbe compelled to teach you how to!"

  "Sit down!" I told him. "For heaven's sake, sit down, all of you!There's nothing to be gained by heroics. And if we've anything to say,we may as well say it decently."

  The two men exchanged glances as I ordered two chairs for them.

  "Be so good," I continued, motioning them toward these chairs. "Andsince we have a problem to discuss, there's no reason we can't discussit in a semi-civilized manner."

  "It's not a problem," said the man at my shoulder, with somethingdisagreeably like a sneer.

  "Then by all means don't let's make it one," I protested.

  The man behind me was the first to drop into the empty seat on my left.The other man crossed to the farther side of the table, still watchingme closely. Then he felt for the chair and slowly sank into it; butnot once did he take his eyes from my face. I was glad that our circlehad become a compact one, for the five of us were now rangedsufficiently close about the table to fence off our little white-linenkingdom of dissension from the rest of the room.

  "That man's armed, remember!" the jewel thief suddenly cried to thestranger on my left. He spoke both warningly and indignantly. Hisflash of anger, in fact, seemed an uncontrollable one.

  "Where's your gun?" said the quiet-eyed man at my side. His own handwas in his pocket, I noticed, and there was a certain malignant line ofpurpose about his mouth which I did not at all like.

  Yet I was able to laugh a little as I put the magazine revolver down onthe table; it had memories which were amusing.

  The quick motion with which he removed that gun, however, was even morelaughable. Yet my returning sense of humor in no way impressed him.

  "Where'd you get that gun?" he inquired.

  I nodded my head toward the white-faced man opposite me.

  "I took it away from your friend there," was my answer.

  "And what else did you take?"

  There was something impressive about the man's sheer impersonality. Itso kept things down to cases.

  "This pearl necklace with the ruby clasp," I answered.

  "Why?" demanded my interlocutor.

  "Because he stole it," was my prompt retort. The big man was silentfor a moment.

  "From whom?"

  "From the lady you have the honor of facing," I answered.

  "Where?" was his next question.

  I told him. He was again silent for a second or two.

  "D'you know who this man is?" he said, with a curt head-nod toward hiswhite-faced colleague.

  "Yes," I answered.

  "What is he?"

  "He's a jewel thief."

  The two men stared at each other. Then the man at my side rubbed hischin between a meditative thumb and forefinger. He was plainlypuzzled. He began to take on human attributes, and he promptly becamea less interesting and a less impressive figure. He looked at AliceChurchill and at her brother, and then back at me again.

  Then, having once more absently caressed his chin, he swung about andfaced the wondering and silent girl who sat opposite him.

  "Excuse me, miss, but would you mind answering a question or two?"

  It was her brother who spoke before she had time to answer.

  "Wait," he interposed. "Just who are you, anyway?"

  The man, for answer, lifted the lapel of his coat and exhibited asilver badge.

  "Well, what does that mean?" demanded the quite unimpressed youth.

  "That I'm an officer."

  "What kind--a detective?"

  "Yes."

  "For what? For this place?"

  "No, for the Maiden Lane Protective Association."

  "Well, what's that got to do with us?"

  The large-bodied man looked at him a little impatiently.

  "You'll understand that when the time comes," was his retort. "Now,young lady," he began again, swinging back to the puzzled girl, "do yousay you lost a necklace in that theater-box?"

  The girl nodded.

  "Yes, I must have," she answered, looking a little frightened.

  "And you say it was stolen from you?"

  "No, I didn't say that. I had my necklace on when I was in thebox--both Benny and I know that."

  "And it disappeared?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "I noticed it was gone when I sat down at the table here."

  The dominating gentleman turned round to me.

  "You saw the necklace from the second box?" he demanded.

  "I did," was my answer.

  "And you saw it disappear?" he demanded.

  "I saw _when_ it disappeared," I retorted.

  The jewel thief with the crumpled shirt-front tried to break in at thisjuncture, but the bigger man quickly silenced him with an impatientside swing of the hand.

  "When was that?" he continued.

  "What difference does it make?" I calmly inquired, resenting theperemptoriness of his interrogations.

  He stopped short and looked up at me. Then the first ghost of a smile,a patient and almost sorrowful smile, came to his lips.

  "Well, we'll go at it another way. You witnessed this man across thetable take the necklace from the young lady?"

  "It practically amounts to that."

  "That is, you actually detected him commit this crime?"

  "I don't think I said that."

  "But you assumed he committed this crime?"

  "Rather."

  "Just when was it committed?"

  "During what they call a dark change in the first act."

  "You mean the necklace was on before that change and gone when thelights were turned up again?"

  "Precisely."

  "And the position and actions of this man were suspicious to you?"

  "Extremely so."

  "In what way?"

  "In different ways."

  "He had crowded suspiciously close to the wearer of the necklace?"

  "He had."

  "And his eyes were glued on it during the early part of that act?"

  "They certainly were."

  "And you watched him?"

  "With almost as much interest as he watched the necklace."

  "And after the dark change, as you call it, the lady's neck was bare?"

  "It was."

  "You're sure of this?" r />
  "Positive."

  "And what did this man across the table do?"

  "Having got what he was after, he hurried out of the theater and madehis escape--or tried to make his escape."

  "It embarrassed him, I suppose, to have you studying him so closely?"

  "He certainly looked embarrassed."

  "Of course," admitted my interrogator. Then he sighed deeply, almostcontentedly, after which he sat with contemplative and pursed-up lips.

  "I guess I've got this whole snarl now," he complacently admitted."All but one kink."

  "What one kink?" demanded Benny Churchill.

  The man at my side did not answer him. Instead, he rose to his feet.

  "I want you to come with me," he had the effrontery to remark, with acurt head-nod in my direction.

  "I much prefer staying here," I retorted. And for the second time hesmiled his saddened smile.

  "Oh, it's nothing objectionable," he explained. "Nobody's going tohurt you. And we'll be back here in ten minutes."

  "But, oddly enough, I have rooted objections to deserting my guests."

  "Your guests won't be sorry, I imagine," he replied, as he looked athis silver turnip of a watch. "And we're losing good time."

  "Please go," said Alice Churchill, emboldened, apparently, by someinstinctive conclusion which she could not, or did not care to,explain. And she was backed up, I noticed, by a nod from her brother.

  I also noticed, as I rose to my feet, that I still held the necklace inmy hand. I was a little puzzled as to just what to do with it.

  "That," said the sagacious stranger, "you'd better leave here. Let theyoung lady keep it until we get back. And you, Fessant," he went on,turning to the belligerent-lipped jewel thief, "you stay right here andmake yourself pleasant. And without bein' rude, you might see that theyoung lady and her brother stay right here with you."

  Then he took me companionably by the arm and led me away.

  "What's the exact meaning of all this?" I inquired as we threaded ourcourse out to the cab-stand and went dodging westward along Forty-thirdStreet in a taxi. The rain, I noticed, through the fogged window, wasstill falling.

  "I want you to show me exactly where that man sat in that box," was hisanswer. "And two minutes in the theater will do it."

  "And what good," I inquired, "is that going to do me?"

  "It may do you a lot of good," he retorted, as he flung open the cabdoor.

  "I feel rather sorry for you if it doesn't," was my answer as Ifollowed him out. We had drawn up before a desolate-looking stage doorover which burned an even more desolate-looking electric bulb. The manturned and looked at me with a short ghost of a grunt, more of disgustthan contempt.

  "You're pretty nifty, aren't you, for a New York edition of JesseJames?"

  And without waiting for my answer he began kicking on theshabby-looking stage door with his foot. He was still kicking therewhen the door itself was opened by a man in a gray uniform, obviouslythe night watchman.

  "Hello, Tim!" said the one.

  "Hello, Bud!" said the other.

  "Doorman gone?"

  "'Bout an hour ago!"

  Then ensued a moment of silence.

  "Burnside say anything was turned in?"

  "Didn't hear of it," was the watchman's answer.

  "My friend here thinks he's left something in a box. Could you let usthrough?"

  "Sure," was the easy response. "I'll throw on the house-lights foryouse. Watch your way!"

  He preceded us through a maze of painted canvas and what looked likethe backs of gigantic picture-frames. He stepped aside for a moment toturn on a switch. Then he opened a narrow door covered withsheet-iron, and we found ourselves facing the box entrances.

  My companion motioned me into the second box while he stepped brisklyinto that nearer the foot-lights.

  "Now, the young lady sat there," he said, placing the gilt chair backagainst the brass railing. Then he sat down in it, facing the stage.Having done so, he took off his hat and placed it on the box floor."Now you show me where that man sat."

  I placed the chair against the plush-covered parapet and dropped intoit.

  "Here," I explained, "within two feet of where you are."

  "All right!" was his sudden and quite unexpected rejoinder. "That'senough! That'll do!"

  He reached down and groped about for his hat before rising from thechair. He brushed it with the sleeve of his coat absently, and thenstepped out of the box.

  "We'd better be getting back," he called to me from the sheet-ironcovered doorway.

  "Back to what?" I demanded, as I followed him out through thecanvas-lined maze again, feeling that he was in some way tricking me,resenting the foolish mystery which he was flinging about the wholefoolish maneuver.

  "Back to those guests of yours and some good old-fashioned commonsense," was his retort.

  But during the ride back to Sherry's he had nothing further to say tome. His answers to the questions I put to him were either evasive ormonosyllabic. He even yawned, yawned openly and audibly, as we drew upat the carriage entrance of that munificently lighted hostelry. He nowseemed nothing more than a commonplace man tired out at the completionof a commonplace task. He even seemed a trifle impatient at my delayas I waited to check my hat and coat--a formality in which he did notjoin me.

  "Now, I can give you people just two minutes," he said, as the five ofus were once more seated at the same table and he once more consultedhis turnip of a watch. "And I guess that's more'n we'll need."

  He turned to the wan and tired-eyed girl, who, only too plainly, hadnot altogether enjoyed her wait.

  "You've got the necklace?" he asked.

  She held up a hand from which the string of graduated pearls dangled.The man then turned to me.

  "You took this string of pearls away from this man?" he asked, with aquick nod toward the jewel thief.

  "I assuredly did," was my answer.

  "Knowing he had taken them from this young lady earlier in the evening?"

  "Your assumption bears every mark of genius!" I assured him.

  He turned back to the girl.

  "Is that your necklace?" he curtly demanded.

  The girl looked at me with clouded and troubled eyes. We all felt, insome foolish way, that the moment was a climactic one.

  "No!" she answered, in little more than a whisper.

  "You're positive?"

  She nodded her head without speaking. The man turned to me.

  "Yet you followed this man, assaulted him, and forcibly took thatnecklace away from him?"

  "Hold on!" I cried, angered by that calmly pedagogic manner of his. "Iwant you to un--"

  He stopped me with a sharp move of the hand.

  "Don't go over all that!" he said. "It's a waste of time. The pointis, that necklace is not your friend's. But I'm going to tell you whatit is. It's a duplicate of it, stone for stone. The lady, I think,will agree with me on that. Am I right?"

  The girl nodded.

  "Then what the devil's this man doing with it?" demanded BennyChurchill, before any of us could speak.

  "S'pose you wait and find out who this man is!"

  "Well, who is he?" I inquired, resolved that no hand, however artful,was going to pull the wool over my eyes.

  "This man," said my unperturbed and big-shouldered friend, "is thepearl-matcher for Cohen and Greenhut, the Maiden Lane importers. Wait,don't interrupt me. Miss Churchill's necklace, I understand, was oneof the finest in this town. His house had an order to duplicate it.He took the first chance, when the pearls had been matched and strung,to see that he'd done his job right."

  "And you mean to tell me," I cried, "that he hung over a box-rail andlifted a string of pearls from a lady's neck just to--"

  "Hold on there, my friend," cut in the big-limbed man. "He found thislady was going to be in that box wearin' that necklace."

  "And having reviewed its chaste beauty, he sneaked out of his o
wn boxand ran like a chased cur!"

  "Hold your horses now! Can't you see that he thought you were thecrook? If you had a bunch of stones like that on you and a strangerbutted in and started trailin' you, wouldn't you do your best to meltaway when you had the chance?" demanded the officer. Then he looked atme again with his wearily uplifted eyebrows. "Oh, I guess you were allright as far as you went, but, like most amateurs, you didn't go quitefar enough!"

  It was Benny Churchill who spoke up before I could answer. His voice,as he spoke, was oddly thin and childlike.

  "But why in heaven's name should he want to duplicate my sister'sjewelry?"

  "For another woman, with more money than brains, or the know-how, orwhatever you want to call it," was the impassive response.

  I saw the girl across the table from me push the necklace away fromher, and leave it lying there in a glimmering heap on the white table.I promptly and quietly reached out and took possession of it, for Istill had my own ideas of the situation.

  "That's all very well," I cried, "and very interesting. But what Iwant to know is: _who got the first necklace?_"

  The big-framed man looked once more at his watch. Then he looked alittle wearily at me.

  "I got 'em!"

  "You've got them?" echoed both the girl and her brother. It was plainthat the inconsequentialities of the last hour had been a little toomuch for them.

  The man thrust a huge hand down in the pocket of his damp and somewhatunshapely overcoat.

  "Yes, I got 'em here," he explained as he drew his hand away and heldthe glimmering string up to the light. "I picked 'em up from thecorner of that box where they slipped off the lady's neck."

  He rose placidly and ponderously to his feet.

  "And I guess that's about all," he added as he squinted through anuncurtained strip of plate glass and slowly turned up his coat collar,"except that some of us outdoor guys'll sure get webfooted if this rainkeeps up!"