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

due time, and he and Jones were mapping out a plan when Susan's message came.

THEY WERE MAPPING OUT A PLAN WHEN SUSAN'S MESSAGE CAME
THEY WERE MAPPING OUT A PLAN WHEN SUSAN'S MESSAGE CAME

"Good girl!" said Jones. "She's learning. Can you handle this alone, Norton? They want me out of the house again, for I believe they were after me as well as Florence. Half an hour gone!"

"Trust me!" cried Norton.

And he ran out to his auto. It was a wild ride. Several policemen shouted after him, but he went on unmindful. They could take his license number a hundred times for all he cared. So they had got her? They could wait till their enemy's vigilance slacked and then would strike? But Susan! The next time he saw Susan he was going to take her in his arms and kiss her. It might be a new sensation to kiss Susan, always so prim and offish. Corey Street—that had been her direction. They had put Florence in a motor boat at the foot of Corey Street. He was perhaps half an hour behind.

Florence never opened her lips. She stared ahead proudly. She would show these scoundrels that she was her father's daughter. They plied her with questions, but she pretended not to hear.

"Well, pretty bird, we'll make you speak when the time comes. We've got you this trip where we want you. There won't be any jumping overboard this session, believe me. We've wasted enough time. We've got you and we're going to keep you."

"Let her be," said Vroon morosely. "We'll put all the questions we wish when we're at our destination." And he nodded significantly toward the ships riding at anchor.

Florence felt her heart sink in spite of her abundant courage. Were they going to take her to sea again? She had acquired a horror of the sea, so big, so terrible, so strong. She had had an experience with its sullen power. They had gone about four miles down when she looked back longingly toward shore. Something white seemed to be spinning over the water far behind. At first she could not discern what it was. As she watched it it grew and grew. It finally emerged from the illusion of a gigantic bird into the actuality of an every-day hydroplane. Her heart gave a great bound. This flying machine was coming directly toward the launch; it did not deviate a hair's breadth from the line. Fortunately the men were looking toward the huge freighter a quarter of a mile farther on, and from their talk it was evident that the freighter was to be her prison—bound for where? Nearer and nearer came the hydroplane. Was it for her?

It was impossible for the men not to take notice of the barking of the engines at last.

"The thing's headed for us!"

Vroon stared under his palm. It was not credible that pursuit had taken place so quickly. To test yonder man-bird he abruptly changed the course of the launch. The hydroplane veered its course to suit.

Florence heard her name called faintly. One of the men drew his revolver, but Vroon knocked it out of his hand.

"There's the police boat, you fool!"

"Jump!" a voice called to Florence.

She flung herself into the water without the slightest hesitation.

All this came about something after this fashion. When Norton arrived at the foot of Corey Street a boatman informed him that a young woman of his description had got into a fast motor boat and had gone down the river.

"Was there any struggle?"

"Struggle? None that I could see. She didn't make no fuss about going."

"Have you a launch?"

"Yes, but the other boat has half an hour's start, and I'd never catch her in a thousand years. But there's a hydroplane a little above here. You might interest the feller that runs it."

"Thanks!"

But the aviator would not listen.

"A life may hang in the balance, man!" expostulated Norton, longing to pommel the stubborn man.

"What proof have I of that?"

Norton showed his card and badge.

"Oh, I see!" jeered the aviator. "A little newspaper stunt in which I am to be the goat. It can't be done, Mr. Norton; it can't be done."

"A hundred dollars!"

"Not for five hundred," and the aviator callously turned away toward the young woman with whom he had been conversing prior to Norton's approach. The two walked a dozen yards away.

Norton had not served twelve years as a metropolitan newspaper man for nothing. He approached the mechanics who were puttering about the machine.

"How about twenty apiece?" he began.

"For what?" the men asked.

"For sending that paddle around a few times."

"Get into that seat, but don't touch any of those levers," one of them warned. "Twenty is twenty, Jack, and the boss is a sorehead to-day anyhow. Give her a shove for the fun of it."

It was a dumfounded aviator who saw his hydroplane skim the water and a moment later sail into the air. These swift moving days a reporter of the first caliber is supposed to be able to run railroad engines, submarines, flying machines, conduct a war, able to shoot, walk, run, swim, fight, think, go without food like a python, and live without water like a camel. Norton had flown many times in the last four years. At the moment he called out to Florence to jump he dropped to the water with all the skill of an old-timer and took her aboard. And he could not use a line of this exploit for his paper!

Jones heard the bell. It was the agent from the Black Hundred. He smiled jauntily.

"Well, old fox, we've cornered you at last, haven't we? I want that money, or Hargreave's daughter takes another sea voyage, and this time she will not jump overboard. A million; and no more nonsense."

"Give me fifteen minutes to decide," begged Jones, hoping against hope.

"Fifteen seconds!"

"Then we can't do business. What! Give you a million, knowing you all to be a pack of liars? Bring Miss Florence back and the money is yours. We are tired of fighting." As indeed Jones really was. The strain had been terrific for weeks.

"The money first. We don't lie any better than you do. Fork over. You'll have to trust us. We have no use for the girl once we get the cash."

"And you'll never touch a penny of it, you blackguard!" cried Norton from the doorway.

The agent turned to behold the reporter and the girl. He did not stop to ask questions, but bolted. He never got beyond the door, however.

"Always the small fry," sighed Jones. "And if I could have put my hands on the money I'd have given it to him! Ah, girl, it doesn't do any good to talk to you, does it?"

"But they told me he was dying!"

Jones shrugged.

CHAPTER XVI

The maid stole into the house, wondering if she had been seen. She wanted to be loyal to this girl, but she was tired of the life; she wanted to be her own mistress, and the small fortune offered her would put her on the way to realize her ambition. What had she not seen and been of life since she joined the great detective force! Lady's maid, cook, ship stewardess, flash woman, actress, clerk, and a dozen other employments. Her pay, until she secured some fat reward, was but twelve hundred a year; and here was five thousand in advance, with the promise of five thousand more the minute her work was done. And it was simple work, without any real harm toward Florence as far as she was concerned. The whole thing rested upon one difficulty; would Jones permit the girls to leave the house?

One day Florence found Susan sitting in a chair, her head in her hands.

"Why, Susan, what's the matter?" cried Florence.

"I don't know what is the matter, dear, but I haven't felt well for two or three days. I'm dizzy all the time; I can't read or sew or eat or sleep."

"Why didn't you tell me?" said Florence, reproachfully. She rang for the detective-maid. "Ella, I don't know anything about doctors hereabouts."

"I know a good one, Miss Florence. Shall I send for him?"

"Do; Susan is ill."

Jones was not prepared for treachery in his own household; so when he heard that a doctor had been called to attend Susan he was without the least suspicion that he had been betrayed. More than this, there had been no occasion to summon a doctor in the seven years Mr. Hargreave had lived there. So Jones went about his petty household affairs without more thought upon the matter. The maid had been recommended to him as one of the shrewdest young women in the detective business.

The doctor arrived. He was a real doctor; no doubt of that. He investigated Susan's condition—brought about by a subtle though not dangerous poison—and instantly recommended the seashore. Susan was not used to being confined to the house; she was essentially an out-of-doors little body. The seashore would bring her about in no time. The doctor suggested Atlantic City because of its mildness throughout the year and its nearness to New York.

"I'm afraid she'll have to go alone," said Jones gravely.

"I shan't stir!" declared Susan. "I shan't leave my girl even if I am sick." Susan caught Florence's hand and pressed it.

"Would you like to go with her, Florence?" asked Jones, with a shy glance at the strange doctor. The shy glance was wasted. The doctor evinced no sign that it mattered one way or the other to him.

"It is nothing very serious now," he volunteered. "But it may turn out serious if it is not taken care of at once."

"What is the trouble?" inquired Jones, who was growing fond of Susan.

"Weak heart. Sunshine and good sea air will strengthen her up again. No, no!" as Jones drew forth his wallet. "I'll send in my bill the first of the month. Sunshine and sea air; that's all that's necessary. And now, good day."

All very businesslike; not the least cause in the world for any one to suspect that a new trap was being set by the snarers. The maid returned to the sewing-room, while Florence coddled her companion and made much of her.

Jones was suspicious, but dig in his mind as he would he could find no earthly reason for this suspicion save that this attribute was now instinctive, that it was always near the top. If Susan was ill she must be given good care; there was no getting around this fact. Later, he telephoned several prominent physicians. The strange doctor was recommended as a good ordinary practitioner and in good standing; and so Jones dismissed his suspicions as having no hook to hang them on.

His hair would have tingled at the roots, however, had he known that this same physician was one of the two who had signed the document which had accredited Florence with insanity and had all but succeeded in making a supposition a fact. Nor was Jones aware of the fact that the telephone wire had been tapped recently. So when he finally concluded to permit Florence to accompany Susan to Atlantic City he telephoned to the detective agency to send up a trusty man, who was shadowed from the moment he entered the Hargreave home till he started for the railway station. He became lost in the shuffle and was not heard from till weeks later, in Havana. The Black Hundred found a good profit in the shanghaing business.

Susan began to pick up, as they say, the day after the arrival at Atlantic City, due, doubtless, to the cessation of the poison she had been taking unawares. The two young women began to enjoy life for the first time since they had left Miss Farlow's. They were up with the sun every day and went to bed tired but happy. No one bothered them. If some stray reporter encountered their signatures on the hotel register, he saw nothing to excite his reportorial senses. All this, of course, was