The Drums of Jeopardy - Harold MacGrath (open ebook TXT) 📗

and seek with secret agents, friendly and otherwise, had tickled her fancy. For a while it would be an exciting game; then it might become only a means to an end. Well, it should not be.

Was there a girl! Already Hawksley had recorded her beauty. Very well; the first sign of sentimental nonsense, and out he should go, Karlov or no Karlov. Kitty wasn't going to know any hurt in this affair. That much was decided.

Cutty stormed into his study, growling audibly. He filled a pipe and smoked savagely. Another side, Kitty's entrance into the drama promised to spoil his own fun; he would have to play two games instead of one. A fine muddle!

He came to a stand before one of the windows and saw the glory of the morning flashing from the myriad spires and towers and roofs, and wondered why artists bothered about cows in pastures.

Touching his knees was an antique Florentine bridal chest, with exquisite carving and massive lock. He threw back the lid and disclosed a miscellany never seen by any eye save his own. It was all the garret he had. He dug into it and at length resurrected the photograph of a woman whose face was both roguish and beautiful. He sat on the floor a la Turk and studied the face, his own tender and wistful. No resemblance to Kitty except in the eyes. How often he had gone to her with the question burning his lips, only to carry it away unspoken! He turned over the photograph and read: "To the nicest man I know. With love from Molly." With love. And he had stepped aside for Tommy Conover!

By George! He dropped the photograph into the chest, let down the lid, and rose to his feet. Not a bad idea, that. To intrigue Kitty himself, to smother her with attentions and gallantries, to give her out of his wide experience, and to play the game until this intruder was on his way elsewhere.

He could do it; and he based his assurance upon his experiences and observations. Never a squire of dames, he knew the part. He had played the game occasionally in the capitals of Europe when there had been some information he had particularly desired. Clever, scheming women, too. A clever, passably good-looking elderly man could make himself peculiarly attractive to young women and women in the thirties. Dazzlement for the young; the man who knew all about life, the trivial little courtesies a younger man generally forgot; the moving of chairs, the holding of wraps; the gray hairs which served to invite trust and confidence, which lulled the eternal feminine fear of the male. To the older women, no callow youth but a man of discernment, discretion, wit and fancy and daring, who remembered birthdays husbands forgot, who was always round when wanted.

There was no vanity back of these premises. Cutty was merely reaching about for an expedient to thwart what to his anticipatory mind promised to be an inevitability. Of course the glamour would not last; it never did, but he felt he could sustain it until yonder chap was off and away.

That evening at five-thirty Kitty received a box of beautiful roses, with Cutty's card.

"Oh, the lovely things!" she cried.

She kissed them and set them in a big copper jug, arranged and rearranged them for the simple pleasure it afforded her. What a dear man this Cutty was, to have thought of her in this fashion! Her father's friend, her mother's, and now hers; she had inherited him. This thought caused her to smile, but there were tears in her eyes. A garden some day to play in, this mad city far away, a home of her own; would it ever happen?

The bell rang. She wasn't going to like this caller for taking her away from these roses, the first she had received in a long time
- roses she could keep and not toss out the window. For it must not be understood that Kitty was never besieged.

Outside stood a well-dressed gentleman, older than Cutty, with shrewd, inquiring gray eyes and a face with strong salients.

"Pardon me, but I am looking for a man by the name of Stephen Gregory. I was referred by the janitor to you. You are Miss Conover?"

"Yes," answered Kitty. "Will you come in?" She ushered the stranger into the living room and indicated a chair. "Please excuse me for a moment." Kitty went into her bedroom and touched the danger button, which would summon Bernini. She wanted her watchdog to see the visitor. She returned to the living room. "What is it you wish to know?"

"Where I may find this Gregory."

"That nobody seems able to answer. He was carried away from here in an ambulance; but we have been unable to locate the hospital. If you will leave your name - "

"That is not necessary. I am out of bounds, you might say, and I'd rather my name should be left out of the affair, which is rather peculiar."

"In what way?"

"I am only an agent, and am not at liberty to speak. Could you describe Gregory?"

"Then he is a stranger to you?"

"Absolutely."

Kitty described Gregor deliberately and at length. It struck her that the visitor was becoming bored, though he nodded at times. She was glad to hear Bernini's ring. She excused herself to admit the Italian.

"A false alarm," she whispered. "Someone inquiring for Gregor. I thought it might be well for you to see him."

"I'll work the radiator stuff."

"Very well."

Bernini went into the living room and fussed over the steam cock of the radiator.

"Nothing the matter with it, miss. Just stuck."

"Sorry to have troubled you," said the stranger, rising and picking up his hat.

Bernini went down to the basement, obfuscated; for he knew the visitor. He was one of the greatest bankers in New York - that is to say, in America! Asking questions about Stefani Gregor!


CHAPTER XVI


About nine o'clock that same night a certain rich man, having established himself comfortably under the reading lamp, a fine book in his hands and a fine after-dinner cigar between his teeth, was exceedingly resentful when his butler knocked, entered, and presented a card.

"My orders were that I was not at home to any one."

"Yes, sir. But he said you would see him because he came to see you regarding a Mr. Gregory."

"What?"

"Yes, sir."

"Damn these newspapers! ... Wait, wait!" the banker called, for the butler was starting for the door to carry the anathema to the appointed head. "Bring him in. He's a big bug, and I can't afford to affront him."

"Yes, sir" - with the colourless tone of a perfect servant.

When the visitor entered he stopped just beyond the threshold. He remained there even after the butler closed the door. Blue eye and gray clashed; two masters of fence who had executed the same stroke. The banker laughed and Cutty smiled.

"I suppose," said the banker, "you and I ought to sign an armistice, too."

"Agreed."

"And you've always been rather a puzzle to me. A rich man, a gentleman, and yet sticking to the newspaper game."

"And you're a puzzle to me, too. A rich man, a gentleman, and yet sticking to the banking game."

"What the devil was our row about?"

"Can't quite recall."

"Whatever it was it was the way you went at it."

"A reform was never yet accomplished by purring and pussyfooting," said Cutty.

"Come over and sit down. Now, how the devil did you find out about this Gregory affair?" The banker held out his hand, which Cutty grasped with honest pressure. "If you are here in the capacity of a newspaper man, not a word out of me. Have a cigar?"

"I never smoke anything but pipes that ruin curtains. You should have given your name to Miss Conover."

"I was under promise not to explain my business. But before we proceed, an answer. Newspaper?"

"No. I represent the Department of Justice. And we'll get along easier when I add that I possess rather unlimited powers under that head. How did you happen to stumble into this affair?"

"Through Captain Rathbone, my prospective son-in-law, who is in Coblenz. A cable arrived this morning, instructing me to proceed precisely in the manner I did. Rathbone is an intimate friend of the man I was actually seeking. The apartment of this man Gregory was mentioned to Rathbone in a cable as a possible temporary abiding place. What do you want to know?"

"Whether or not he is undesirable."

"Decidedly, I should say, desirable."

"You make that statement as an American citizen?"

"I do. I make it unreservedly because my future son-in-law is rather a difficult man to make friends with. I am acting merely as Rathbone's agent. On the other hand, I should be a cheerful liar if I told you I wasn't interested. What do you know?"

"Everything," answered Cutty, quietly.

"You know where this young man is?"

"At this moment he is in my apartment, rather seriously battered and absolutely penniless."

"Well, I'll be tinker-dammed! You know who he is, of course?"

"Yes. And I want all your information so that I may guide my future actions accordingly. If he is really undesirable he shall be deported the moment he can stand on his two feet."

The banker pyramided his fingers, rather pleased to learn that he could astonish this interesting beggar. "He has on account at my bank half a million dollars. Originally he had eight hundred thousand. The three hundred thousand, under cable orders from Yokohama, was transferred to our branch in San Francisco. This was withdrawn about two weeks ago. How does that strike you?"

"All in a heap," confessed Cutty. "When was this fund established with you?"

"Shortly before Kerensky's government blew up. The funds were in our London bank. There was, of course, a lot of red tape, excessive charges in exchange, and all that. Anyhow, about eight hundred thousand arrived."

"What brought him to America? Why didn't he go to England? That would have been the safest haven."

"I can explain that. He intends to become an American citizen. Some time ago he became the owner of a fine cattle ranch in Montana."

"Well, I'll be tinker-dammed, too!" exploded Cutty.

"A young man with these ideas in his head ought eventually to become a first-rate citizen. What do you say?"

"I am considerably relieved. His forbears, the blood - "

"His mother was a healthy Italian peasant - a famous singer in her time. His fortune, I take it, was his inheritance from her. She made a fortune singing in the capitals of Europe and speculating from time to time. She sent the boy, at the age of ten,