Chapter 24

The most indomitable spirits have their dark hours, and this was Jack's. He returned to the Madagascar feeling that he had come to the end of his resources. It was hard to bear with the commiseration of the hotel detective and clerk on his failure; and he was in no mood to put up with Bobo's selfish complaints.

Bobo's reasoning powers, as has been seen, were of a primitive simplicity. Like a child or a savage he was always under the complete sway of the feeling of the moment. Just now he was, or thought he was, broken-hearted over the loss of Miriam. Forgetting that he had given her up of his own free will, and for good cause, he blamed Jack for all his present misery.

"Did you get him?" he asked when Jack came in.

"No."

To say that Bobo was pleased at the escape of "Mr. B." would be putting it too strongly, but he was certainly not sorry to see Jack's discomfiture.

"Huh! You're too sure of yourself!" he said.

Jack flashed an angry look at him, but said nothing.

"You always think you know more than anybody else!" Bobo unwisely went on. "You're always making up your mind what people are, and telling them what, to do, and all. You want to regulate the universe."

"Still thinking about that girl!" said Jack. "Will you please tell me what Mr. B.'s giving me the slip has got to do with her?"

"I'm just telling you you don't know everything," said Bobo with a superior air.

It was too much. Jack's patience snapped suddenly. "You fool! Your talk has as much sense as barnyard cackle! Is it my fault that you lost your head over an adventuress? This is the thanks I get for trying to save you! For Heaven's sake, go and marry her and be damned to you! But stop grousing about it to me!"

He went out slamming the door, and leaving a much-scared Bobo behind him. Passing through the suite, he crossed to Gyde's old rooms, and let himself through the vault into his room in Kate's house. There was a great change in this room. Under the present régime it was a model of neatness and comfort.

Here Jack lit his pipe and flung himself down, and a measure of peace returned to him. There was comfort in the silence, and in the thought of the locks that secured him from the chatter of fools.

"The old boy wasn't so far wrong when he built himself a refuge like this," he thought.

But by and by when the fragrant smoke had steadied his nerves, he began to tire of solitude. To particularize, he desired the society of a certain person, to wit: the mistress of the house.

In order to see her it was necessary for him to assume the Pitman make-up. Much against his will—he was thinking of putting Mr. Pitman out of the way now, he arrayed himself in that character, and sallied forth in search of Kate.

He found her in her own sunny sitting-room on the floor above. The old-fashioned mother was there too. Mrs. Storer was not in the secret of Jack's disguise. She considered Mr. Pitman rather a common fellow, but was always polite. Now after a few minutes' small conversation, she recollected an errand in her well-trained way, and left the room.

Kate was sewing. The needle became her better than the typewriter. As mistress of a house she seemed to have discovered her true vocation. It may be mentioned in passing that this establishment was a success, and was already paying its way.

"We don't see much of you now," said Kate.

"It's not from not wanting to on my part," he said, watching her dreamily. "But a twenty-four hour day scarcely gives you time enough to play one part, let alone two or three." The sunlight behind her was making a little halo in the edges of her dark hair, and he scarcely knew what his tongue was saying.

"How are things going?" she asked.

The consciousness of defeat still rankled in Jack's breast; he felt a very natural desire to shine in somebody's eyes, so he said carelessly:

"My net is closing around the old man. He can't escape me now. I'll gather him in, when my case is complete."

"Fine!" said Kate.

But Jack could not be sure there was not a faint ring of irony in her voice. He never could be sure of Kate.

"All my lines are working well," he went on. "I had a glimpse of the old man to-day, but I thought it was better to let him go for awhile. I'm not sure of being able to convict him."

"This morning when you left this house I believe you were followed," said Kate.

Jack was not going to admit just then that there was anything he had overlooked. "Oh, I think not."

"Well, I noticed a man standing at the corner looking at this house. His hat was pulled down over his eyes. As soon as you went out he disappeared."

"I take precautions against being trailed," said Jack.

"And I believe somebody has been tampering with the servants," Kate went on. "Yesterday I found Bessie, the upstairs girl, exhibiting entirely too much curiosity as to the arrangements of your room. I shall let her go at the end of the week."

"It isn't possible they could have discovered the secret of this house," said Jack. Something told him he was talking fatuously, but a little devil of perversity held sway over him for the time being.

"You know best of course," said Kate.

This time he was almost sure he heard the ironical note, and he glanced at her uneasily. But the dark head was bent too low over her work for him to read her face. He felt a mighty desire to humble this cool and scornful maid, and changed his tack.

"You're looking very charming to-day."

"Thank you."

He got up, and sat as close to her as he could pull a chair.

"Go back where you were," she said calmly.

"I won't!" he said masterfully.

"Then I will." And she changed to the chair he had left.

Jack glowered at her. "One would think I spread a contagion."

"Well, you know I don't care particularly for Mr. Pitman."

"That's only an excuse. It's me you don't care for."

She laughed tantalizingly. Jack saw now that he had started wrong but didn't quite see how to repair the original mistake. He got up to go. He knew that if he lost his temper, he would be completely at her mercy.

"I'd better go if we're only going to quarrel," he muttered.

"Who's quarreling? Can't you take a joke?"

"It's like a flick of the whip on the raw."

He had sounded the right note at last. She heard the real pain in his voice, and jumped up, careless of where the sewing went.

"Jack, wait a minute! What's the matter?"

He paused with his hand on the door-knob. "Nothing."

"What's the matter?" she repeated. "I insist on knowing!"

"Oh, well, things have gone a bit wrong. What do you care?"

She actually stamped her foot. "How dare you speak to me that way! You came in here like the Lord Hereditary Marshal of England. How was I to know?"

"Well, I didn't want to let on that I had balled things up," he said sheepishly.

"You idiot! Will you ever learn the first rudiments of sense? Sit down here!" She pulled him down beside her Pitman make-up and all. "Now tell me all about it!"

Jack looked at her a little dazed by this sudden change of front. "Why—I thought you were just having a little fun with me."

"Certainly I was. You asked for it. Whenever you take that 'my poor little woman' tone with me, you simply give me a pain. But if you are really up against it—Ah!"

Her voice caught on a deep low note of tenderness. Jack gave up all thoughts of mastery; he would have been quite content to kiss her hand.

"Well, I am up against it," he said quite humbly and naturally—and told her all about it.

She said nothing until he was through; then: "There's no occasion to be cast down that I can see. You and the old man are playing a close game, and he's turned a trick on you. But the game's not over yet."

"He's so darn sure of himself!" grumbled Jack. "He knows what I have on him, but he goes around quite openly in his old black hearse! Shows himself everywhere. Goes on making his blackguardly collections right under my nose. He seems to enjoy playing with me."

"That's a kind of vanity," said Kate. "I have read that criminals often display it. It is that very thing that will surely deliver him into your hands in the end if you bide your time. Some day he is bound to take a chance too many."

Jack began to feel comforted. "I believe I could have him arrested to-morrow if I gave his description to the police," he said.

"Then why don't you?"

He shook his head obstinately. "I've got to do this myself. I've sworn it.—But how does he know I'm not going to turn over my case to the police? He seems to be able to read my mind!"

"Oh, there's no magic in that. He watches you of course, and anybody who knew anything about you must know that you would feel that way."

There was subtle flattery in this, and Jack began to feel warm about the heart once more.

"Well, he hasn't put me out of the game yet, though on this deal he has certainly called all my tricks. The minute I tried to use Mrs. Cleaver he trumped her. He has called the Pitman disguise, and he must know about my connection with Anderson. If he has spotted me coming out of this house, he must have guessed that there is a way through from the hotel. I'll have to think up an entirely new combination."

"How does the situation stand with the anarchists?" asked Kate.

"Nothing new down there since I told you. I am now a full member of the circle that Emil Jansen belonged to, but so far I have not succeeded in establishing 'Mr. B's' connection with it. I know there is a connection, because the murderers of both Ames Benton and Silas Gyde graduated from that circle. I have to move slowly there."

"Then there is the girl Miriam," suggested Kate. "I believe you could do something with her. Do you know where she is now?"

"Bobo told me she was at the Hotel Bienvenu. But she hates me like poison."

Kate smiled a little. "From what you've told me about her I gathered that she had a weakness of vanity, too. She was piqued because you resisted her charms. Why don't you look her up and well—not resist them quite so hard?"

"Kate!" he said scandalized.

"What?" she said with an innocent air.

"You recommend me to do that!"

"Why not? We don't owe her any consideration, I suppose."

"Oh, it's not that. But if you cared about me the least little bit, you wouldn't be handing me over to another woman."

"That's up to you. I couldn't be jealous of one like Miriam. If you are in any danger from that source, Mercy! I don't want you."

"In other words you know you've got me thrown and hog-tied!" he said scowling.

"Don't be vulgar. This is simply business. You really have a chance of getting somewhere through her. The old man will be sending her remittances now. If you could trace one of those back to its source——"

"Good! That's an idea! I think I see my way, too." His lassitude was gone. A fresh determination filled him. "Kate, you are my good fairy!" he cried. "You have put new life into me! I am going to start to work again this very minute!"

She said nothing, but her eyes were bright.

At the door of the room he paused, holding her hand. "You might let me kiss you before I go," he said diffidently. "Just as a kind of encouragement to go in and win."

Kate smiled. "That's the first time you ever asked me with becoming modesty.—Once. Right here." She put her finger on the dimple in her right cheek.

He did.