The Chinese Jewel/Chapter 7

T exacly [sic] nine o'clock the next morning Alice Blake, dressed to go out, was sitting in the library, her eyes expectantly upon the telephone. At precisely the same moment Billy Steele, in his own rooms, was speaking a number into his own telephone. Some ten seconds thereafter the operator, being unusually alert this morning, had connected the two lines.

“Mr. Steele to speak with Miss Blake,” Steele announced, hoping with all his heart that he would not be told that Miss Blake was out of town.

“Miss Blake speaking to Mr. Steele,” replied Alice.

Steele's ejaculation of pleasure was eloquent of his relief and satisfaction.

“You have decided to stay and take a hand?” he cried warmly. “Say, that is fine of you!”

“I have taken a hand already,” she told him. “And I am going out of town almost immediately.”

His high hope came crashing down.

“I don't understand. I thought”

“Have you breakfasted yet, Mr. Steele?”

“Hours ago. I've just been fidgeting around until I could phone you.”

“Would you care to come right up to see me? Now—early as it is?”

“Coming immediately. I Hello! Hello! Wait just a moment, please, Miss Blake. I” She waited, and he hesitated. Then, quite gravely: “Will you let me know first if you are interested in the matter we spoke of? And if you will do what you can to help?”

“Can't I tell you that when I see you?”

“I'd rather it was now, if you don't mind.”

“Then,” Alice said as gravely as he had spoken, “I am interested. Very, very strongly.”

“In that case,” he told her, “I'd better not come up, after all. Yes, I'll explain. That gentleman whom I happen to be bucking on this issue plays a game always full of risk. But he plays it as safely as may be by taking no unnecessary chance. He knows where I stand; he is making it his business, I imagine, to keep pretty close tab on me. For my part I took a chance last night in coming to see you; but that had to be done. Besides, it was after dark, and I made sure I was not followed. This morning, if I went straight to you, my enemy would know it in no time. And we don't want him to know. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she answered slowly. And then, eagerly: “We must not let him know. But I did want to see you”

“I've got to see you.” When he fell silent she waited, knowing that he was seeking to plan to see her so that Reagan and Reagan's spies would know nothing of it. But before he had hit upon a meeting place which entirely suited the purpose and the early hour, Alice herself spoke again.

“Whatever we have to say can wait a few hours,” she said. “As I have just told you, I am leaving town this morning. I am going up to our country place, Blake's Farm they call it, up in the mountains. I'll leave uncle Abner here; some time after dark you can meet him and he will drive you up to the farm.”

“But,” said Steele, “don't you see I can't leave?”

“Oh, on account of Stephen, you mean?' Well, he is coming up, too, to-morrow.”

“But even though he is out of town I must remain. Our other friends, you know”

“Are coming up with Stephen,” she announced triumphantly. “Your regal friend, the bewitching lady—she is bewitching, Mr. Steele; quite up to your superlative description, in fact—and with them the military gentleman and his wife. They're to spend ten days with me.”

Steele whistled.

“Look here,” he muttered, “maybe you won't need me at all in handling this case!”

“I've done nothing whatever,” said Alice, “except invite them and look the part of a nice little silly-headed fool. You are the only one I have invited who hasn't immediately said yes. Are you coming?”

“With all my heart! If you'll tell uncle Abner to be ready for me at nine o'clock and to have the engine running, I'll jump in with him at that hour. And I want you to know”

“Good-by,” Alice said, “or rather, au revoir,” and rang off.

Steele sat back and regarded the now quiescent telephone instrument regretfully; the impulse was on him to call Alice's number again and complete a conversation which had been altogether too brief. But he realized that there was nothing further to say until he could be with her again.

“There's a girl for you!” he remarked to the stillness of the room about him. And he began to think of her and Stephen Carrington. Too bad for her to throw herself away on a young pup like that. He brought himself up sharply. What was wrong with Carrington, after all? He appeared likable; he was pretty generally liked. He was rich, yes; but he did not seem one spoiled by riches. A queer little twist came to Steele's lips and he forced himself to smile, seeking to jeer at himself, For he knew well enough that all he had against Stephen Carrington lay in the fact that the young fellow had drawn to himself Alice Blake's interest.

“Anyway, I'll see her to-night,” was his consolation, and, bestirring himself, he began to plan for his departure.

Reagan would be leaving town to-morrow morning; Steele, himself, to-night. Hence, since he was going ahead, it would be well to conceal from Reagan that he was leaving town at all or else to make it appear that he had gone in quite another direction. Before deciding this point he had a mind to make sure if Reagan was really having his steps dogged. To determine this matter immediately he left his room and went down to the street, walking briskly toward Broadway. He bought a paper and took the shuttle train at Times Square. Crossing to the Grand Central Station, he appeared interested in the morning news, but casually noted the men and women riding with him. Changing to an express, he continued on downtown.

It was only after he was seated the second time that he saw Tony Waldron. To find that such a man had been delegated by Reagan to be responsible for his actions—were it not merely an odd coincidence that he and Waldron had taken the same express—somewhat startled Steele. For Tony Waldron he held to be not only the most capable man working with the master crook, but one who stood almost on the same plain as Reagan himself, a man forceful, powerful, thoroughly unscrupulous, and yet very wary. Steele had supposed a task like this somewhat beneath Tony Waldron, a responsibility for some lesser lieutenant and some one not known to Steele.

Waldron met his eye and nodded carelessly. Steele stared at him a moment, then back to his paper.

“Coincidence nothing,” he told himself bluntly. “Coincidences don't happen in matters related to Tom Reagan. I've got Tony Waldron on my trail, and Heaven only knows who else.”

For among the strange faces about him he could not tell how many might be faces of Reagan men. No other man did he recognize, but he had already thought that Reagan would set an unknown hound of his on his track, Steele began to observe more carefully the men—and the women as well—occupying seats or strap hanging in his car, determined to recognize any one of them if he saw him again.

“There's one joy in the situation,” he cogitated with an inward chuckle. “I've got a good long day ahead of me and nothing to be done until I meet uncle Abner to-night. I'll give Mr. Tony Waldron a day of it!”

Waldron got off when Steele did, coming on just behind him. Steele did not turn, but hurried up to the street. The first taxi to come along empty was his. He continued downtown. He entered a cigar store, at the rear of which were several telephone booths; passed on and out at an opposite door; crossed the street, dodging across just ahead of a section of threatening traffic; caught a second taxi and drove to a near-by steamship office. Here he spent five minutes asking information concerning the next sailing to Liverpool. From the steamship office he hurried on foot to join once more in the pedestrian crowds. Twice he dropped in to telegraph offices. The remainder of the morning he devoted to swift expeditions hither and yon, and at noon, in a taxi, with the curtains drawn, he was on his way uptown again.

Two or three times during the first hour he thought that he was still followed. After that he was confident that he was not. And yet he continued to spend a restless day, always covering or confusing his trail, until nightfall. When the lights came on he was in Yonkers. From a public booth he phoned Alice Blake's house and called for uncle Abner. Then Steele instructed him briefly, making himself known and suggesting that uncle Abner come on here for him.

“Whatever you say, Mr. Steele,” uncle Abner replied. “Miss Alice said I was to do whatever you said.”

So at a little after nine that night, making sure that he was not followed, Steele had settled back comfortably in the Blake car and was racing upriver toward the distant “farm” in the Adirondacks,

Steele's early impression of uncle Abner was that here was a man for whom driving had no mysteries and who held in utter contempt all statutes relating to speed. He drove a big, powerful car, which responded to all demands made of it, and he gave every evidence of an impatient desire to come to the end of a run of pretty close to two hundred miles. Steele had the hunch that unless something blew up or a speed cop nailed them they'd be at journey's end a little after midnight. At first uncle Abner slowed up a little for the string of hamlets through which they flew; then as the night advanced and village streets grew deserted, he scorned to take stock of them, and shot on his way like a meteor. On the country roads, where they opened up straight ahead and the onrushing gleam of the lights showed no obstructions, the heavy, spinning tires appeared to have little use for the roadbed.

“What's the hurry, uncle Abner?” Steele once shouted at him.

“Eh?” snapped uncle Abner over his shoulder. “Hurry! There ain't any, But I always figger when a man's goin' anywheres he might as well up and go. Nice little car, ain't it?”

Steele leaned back among the cushions, and thereafter made no remark, judging it just as well to let the driver keep his mind on his work. In due time they left the level roads and took to a narrower, more winding way. Steele caught a glimpse of a tiny lake; they crossed a creek in which the stars danced tremulously; they came into a land of hills and shadows and thick groves; the summer air was soft and sweet with the night-shed breath of flowers. Little meadows, sleeping summer cottages, fields where dots were sleepy cows, a tiny hamlet again, an ever more winding road whereon even uncle Abner must drive more slowly. Then at last a great gate before them, gleaming white, to open automatically as the front tires struck the levers controlling the cables. And then, with the gate snapping behind them, they were rolling slowly, softly along a wide gravel driveway under the wide branches of thick-leaved trees—and uncle Abner had shut off both headlights and tail light and progressed cautiously by what small light the stars gave them. Ten minutes more and the car stopped.

“We're there,” uncle Abner said. “We'll move on on foot and quiet, so's we won't wake anybody.”

Not even a dog to bark through the silence to give word of their coming, no slightest sound as, following uncle Abner, Steele's feet fell upon a soft green sward edging the road. Only the faintest of rustlings among the never quiet leaves above their heads, and, from afar, a liquid gurgle of a brook. Only shadows about them and great dark boles of trees with little flowers underfoot, daisies or white violets, peeping up out of the grass. Steele was impressed with his guide's great caution, and wondered just what the explanation might be.

Then the house, standing out suddenly as they came on through the trees, a wide affair of native stone and undressed redwood, sprawling and commodious and comfortable with its chimney stacks and nooks and corners and porches. It, like the world about it, slumbered, There was no light at window, no spark from chimney, no sound of life within. And yet steadily uncle Abner's caution seemed to increase.

In such fashion they came to the back door. Uncle Abner took off his shoes, motioning Steele to follow his example. The door had been left unlocked. In stocking feet they went in. Steele heard the barely audible sound as his companion softly closed the door behind him. Uncle Abner extended a hand for his own, and led the way through the darkness. They came to the foot of a staircase, on whose carpet there was no sound as they began to mount. They came to the second floor. For an instant there fell before them a sudden circle of light; uncle Abner at last was using a flash light. Steele saw a long hallway, a glimpse of a painting, a gleam of a table top, a door here and there, all closed. Then again darkness, and through the dark himself and his guide progressing more swiftly.

The faintest sound again. They had stopped; the sound was of a doorknob turning under uncle Abner's fingers. They went through, the door closed. Again the circle of light from the flash. They were in a small room, a sort of anteroom, scarcely larger than a closet. It had been long used as a sort of catch-all of a place; there were some boxes piled against a wall and the place looked uncared for and dusty. In front of them was a door. Through this, with the light running on ahead of them, they came into a much larger room. It looked as though it had not been much used. But there was furniture here, old-fashioned, having an air of being cast off to make room for more recently acquired articles. A faded rug; a couch in an alcove; a couple of ancient armchairs—and in one of them, waiting and at last dropping asleep, was Alice Blake.