The Million Dollar Mystery - Harold MacGrath (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📗

put the matter to him frankly. I, Florence, Susan, and the rest of us must be arrested. The wretches must believe that the house is empty. They'll rove about fruitlessly and will return to their den to report the success of the coup. All the while you and some detectives will be in hiding up-stairs, dictagraph and all that. When the time comes you will follow. This will not reach the heads, perhaps, but it will demoralize the organization in such a way as to make it helpless for several months to come. There is a tunnel from the stables to this house."

"What, a tunnel?"

"Yes, Mr. Hargreave had it built several years ago. I don't know what his idea was; possibly he anticipated an event like this. You and your men will find entrance by this method. It can be done without exciting the suspicions of the watchers."

"Looks as if my yarn wasn't going to be delayed so long after all. Jones, you ought to have been in the secret service yourself," admiringly.

Jones smiled and shrugged. "I am perfectly satisfied with my lot—or would be if the Black Hundred could be wiped out of existence."

"I'll see the secret service people at once. I stand in well with them all."

"And good luck to you. We'll need good luck."

Norton was welcomed cordially by the chief. The secret service men trusted him and told him lots of tales that never saw light on the printed page. The reporter went directly to the point of his story, without elaboration, and the chief smiled and handed him the original letter.

"Norton, I've been after this gang of counterfeiters for months and they are clever beyond words. I've never been able to get anywhere near their presses. And for a moment I thought this note was from a squealer. I've a dozen men scouring the country. They find the bogus notes, but never the men who pass them. You see, it's new stuff. I know what all of the old-timers are at; none of them has had a hand in this issue. Some foreigners, I take it, under the leadership of a man I'd very much like to know. Now, what's your scheme?"

Jim outlined it briefly.

"It all depends," said the chief, "upon the fact that they will be impatient. If they have the ability to wait, we lose. But we can afford to risk the chance. The man who wrote this letter is not a counterfeiter. He's an old yeggman. We haven't heard anything of him lately. We tried to corner him on a post-office job, but he slipped by. He may be a stool. Anyhow, I'll draw him in somehow."

"There'll be some excitement."

"We're used to that; you too. All we've got to do is to locate this man Beggs. There are signs of spite in this letter. Very well played, if you want my opinion. What's this Black Hundred?"

"I'm not at liberty to tell just yet. It's a strange game; half political, half blackmail. It's a pretty strong organization. But if they're back of this counterfeiting, there's a fine chance of landing them all."

Here the chief's assistant came in. "Got Beggs on the wire. Says he'll conduct you to the home if you'll promise him immunity for some other offenses."

"Tell him he shall have immunity on the word of the chief. But also say that he must come to see me in person."

"All right, sir."

"I don't believe it would be wise for Beggs to see me here. I gave him a good send-off—Sing Sing—five years ago. He may recollect," said Norton.

"Suit yourself about that. Only, keep in communication with me by telephone and I'll tip you off as to when the raid shall take place. Lucky you came in. I should have honestly gone there and arrested innocent people, and they would have had a devil of a time explaining. It would have taken them at least a week to clear themselves. That would leave the house empty all that time."

Norton did not reply, but he put the blotter away carefully. There was no getting away from the fact, but the god of luck was with him.

"Do you know what's back of it all?"

"I can't tell you any more than I have," said Norton.

"Then I pass. I know you well enough. If you've made up your mind not to talk a man couldn't get anything out of you with a can-opener. And that's why we trust you, my boy. Don't forget the telephone."

"I shan't. So long."

That same night Braine paid the Russian woman a brief visit.

"I think that here's where we go forward. The secret service will raid the house to-morrow and then for a few days we'll roam about as we bally please. I'm hanged if I don't have every plank torn up and the walls pulled down. More and more I'm convinced that the money is in that house."

"Don't be too confident," warned Olga. "So many times we have been tripped up when everything seemed in our hands. The house should be guarded but not entered for a day or two; at least not till after the raid is cold. I'm beginning to see traps everywhere."

"Nonsense! Leave it to me. We shan't stick our heads inside the Hargreave house till we are dead certain that it is absolutely empty. Olga, you're a gem. I don't think Russia will bother us for a while. Eh? Paroff will not dare tell how he was flimflammed. The least he can do to save his own skin is to say that we are fully capable of taking care of ourselves."

Olga laughed. "To think of his writing a note like that! Florence would have recognized—and no doubt did—a palpable attempt to play an old game twice."

"How does she act toward you?"

"Cordial as ever; and yet..."

"Yet what?"

"I thought her an ordinary schoolgirl, and yet every once in a while she makes what you billiard players call a professional shot. What matter? So long as they do not shut the door in my face, I ask nothing more. But do you want my opinion? I feel it in my bones that something will go wrong to-morrow."

"Good lord, are you losing your nerve?" cried Braine impatiently. "The secret service has the warning; they find the green stuff, and Jones & Co. will mog off to the police station. And there'll be a week of red tape before they are turned loose again. They'll dig into Hargreave's finances and all that. We'll have all the security in the world to find out if the money is in the house or not. Why worry?"

"It's only the way I feel. There is something uncanny in the regularity of that girl's good luck."

"Ah, but we're not after her this time; it's the whole family."

"The servants too?"

"Everybody in the house will be under suspicion."

"And can you trust Beggs?"

"His life is in the hollow of my hand. You can always trust a man when you hold the rope that's around his neck."

Still the frown did not leave Olga's brow. With all her soul she longed to be out of this tangle. It had all looked so easy at the start; yet here they were, weeks later, no further forward than at the beginning, and added to this they had paid much in lives and money. Well, if she would be fool enough to love this man she must abide with the consequences. She wanted him all by herself, out of danger, in a far country. He might tire, but she knew in her heart that she never would. This was her one great passion, and while her mode of living was not as honest as might be, her love was honest enough and unswerving, though it was not gilded by the pleasant fancies of youth.

"Of what are you thinking?" he asked when he concluded that the pause had been long enough.

"You."

"H'm. Complimentary?"

"No; just ordinary every-day love."

"Ah, Olga, why the deuce must you go and fall in love with a bundle of ashes like myself? Ashes, and bitter ashes, too. Sometimes I regret. But the regretting only seems to make me all the more savage. What opium and dope are to other men, danger and excitement are to me. It is not written that I shall die in bed. I have told you that already. There is no other woman—now. And I do love you after a fashion, as a man loves a comrade. Wait till this dancing bout is over and I may talk otherwise. And now I am going to shake hands and hobnob with the elite—beautiful word! And while I bow and smirk and crack witticisms, I and the devil will be chuckling in our sleeves. But this I'll tell you, while there's a drop of blood in my veins, a breath in my body, I'll stick to this fight if only to prove that I'm not a quitter."

He caught her suddenly in his arms, kissed her, ran lightly to the door, and was gone before she could recover from her astonishment.

The affair went smoothly, without a hitch. Norton and his men gained the house through the tunnel without attracting the least attention. The Black Hundred, watching the front and rear of the house, never dreamed that there existed another mode of entrance or that there was a secret cabinet room.

Half an hour later the head of the secret service, accompanied by his men, together with "Spider" Beggs, who was in high feather over his success, arrived, demanded admittance, and went at the front of the business at once.

"Your name is Jones?" began the chief.

The butler nodded, though his face evinced no little bewilderment at the appearance of these men.

"What is it you wish, sir?"

"I am from the secret service and I have it from a pretty good source that there is counterfeit money hidden in this house. More than that, I can put my hand on the very place it is hidden."

"That is impossible, sir," declared Jones indignantly.

"I am an old hand, Mr. Jones. It will not do you a bit of good to put on that bold front."

Beggs smiled. How was he to know that this was a comedy set especially for his benefit?

"I should like to see that money," said Jones, not quite so bravely.

"Come with me," said the secret service man. "Where's the library?"

"Beyond that door, sir."

The chief beckoning to his men, entered the library, went directly to a certain shelf, extracted three volumes, and there lay the money in three neat packages.

"Good heavens!" gasped Jones.

"I shall have to request you and the family to accompany me to the station."

"But it is all utterly impossible, sir! I know nothing of that money nor how it got there. It's a plot. I declare on my oath, sir, that I am innocent, that Miss Florence and her companion know nothing about it."

"You will have to tell that to the federal judge, sir. My duty is to take you all to the station. It would be just as well not to say anything more, sir."

"Very well; but some one shall smart for this outrage."

"That remains to be seen," was the terse comment of the secret service man.

He led his prisoners away directly.

Norton and his men had to wait far into the night. The Black Hundred did not intend to make any mistake this time by a hasty move. At quarter after ten they descended. Braine was not with them. This was due to the urgent request of Olga, who still had her doubts. The men rioted about the house, searching nooks and corners, examining floors and walls, opening books, pulling out drawers, but they found nothing. They talked freely, and the dictagraph registered every word. The printing plant, which had so long defied discovery, was in the cellar of the house occupied by the Black Hundred. Norton and his men determined to follow and raid the building. And the reporter promised himself a good front-page story without in any way conflicting with his promises to