Flynn’s Weekly. Vol. 22, No. 3, March 5, 1927

Bill Lawson, the detective who likes to shine his shoes while he thinks, is back again to do a little of both.

Chapter I Concerning the Ambitious

Mrs. H. Addison Cleves, seated on a low divan at one end of the long, wide room, felt her pulses quicken as she surveyed the animated scene about her. The best jazz orchestra in the city was earning its large fee and the floor was filled with dancers, most of them neighbors and almost all of them with their names in the Blue Book.

To her, it was the fulfillment of a dream — a dream of many years standing, for she had visioned just such a gathering in just such a home when H. Addison Cleves had graduated from the bench and became the proprietor of a small machine shop. But it had taken a World War and many munitions contracts to make it actual.

Mrs. Cleves’s setting was advantageous, the upholstery blending with her evening gown and the mural decorations furnishing the contrast that gave tone to the picture while the wall lamps erased her years, and, though her hair was white, gave her the appearance of youth, since her features still retained a fineness that suggested a cameo, and her skin, especially that of her throat, was yet soft and unwrinkled.

At the same time those lights caused a great gem on her left wrist to scintillate as if it were alive and to flash rays in which was the green of early spring, of mountain lawns and the depths of the sea.

That jewel was even dearer to her than the mansion in the exclusive river section of the city. Others might buy property there or build finer residences, but possession of such a gem as the one she wore set her apart, gave her an advantage in the long uphill climb and made her envied by those who still refused to disassociate her from the days when H. Addison Cleves was known to his associates as “Hank.”

None other could duplicate her adornment since it was the largest square cut emerald ever known.

She had determined to become its possessor when first she learned that it was to be brought from London to America to be sold. Attainment of her desire had been easier than she had anticipated. At the time, she was suffering with neuritis and despite the best medical care, the disease persisted, which worried her husband not a little. Then, too, H. Addison Cleves had been canny.

Sensing a period of deflation at hand, he had closed his business interests and invested the proceeds in tax exempt securities. The expected annoyance over the government’s share in his earnings on those contracts and the profits from the sale of his properties had been much less than anticipated, the final settlement having been something like a quarter of a million dollars below his estimate.

So when Mrs. Cleves suggested that he go to New York and purchase the jewel for her, he agreed without dissension.

The price, however, had made him gasp and had Mrs. Cleves not been ill and if he hadn’t made that advantageous settlement of his income tax, he would have regarded it as extortion, for, despite the change in his name and his circumstances, H. Addison Cleves was a plain man.

But having gone East for that emerald, he acquired it, though he had to part with three hundred thousand dollars. Nor was that a sore point for long. Jim Thompson, who had started at a bench even as Cleves had, had gone into business when Cleves had and who had also successfully fathered a war baby, arriving just after the deal had been closed, had offered him fifty thousand dollars for his bargain, Mrs. Thompson having also set her heart on owning that particular bauble.

Therefore, Cleves, as he told his wife on his return, regarded the bracelet as a good investment. Mrs. Cleves, however, looked on it otherwise. Nor was the publicity attendant on her acquisition unpleasant. On the other hand, her patronage added considerable to the revenues of clipping bureaus.

The emerald had given the high-priced specialists the assistance they needed, and within a fortnight Mrs. Cleves had left her bed. Not that the disease had been conquered entirely.

Though she had had the bracelet for more than six weeks, this was the first opportunity she had had to display it in public. During all of these weeks, except when she took it out in the presence of close friends, it had reposed in an especially constructed wall safe. It seemed a shame to hide away a thing of such beauty, but in her was an element of caution.

Yet as she sat looking at the dancers and sensing new pleasure whenever she detected one of those Blue Book personages, which was frequent, she felt twinges of pain in her wrist Finally, though she hated to spoil the picture she knew she was making, she moved to one side slightly, fearing that she was in a draft.

When she had composed herself once more and was certain that the setting had not been marred, her fingers strayed to the emerald, and contact with the jewel seemed to provide an anondyne, since it assured her that she had broken definitely with the past.

Not entirely, however. So long as H. Addison remained, the past could not be eliminated. Time after time, though often she had warned him as to the danger of such procedure when considered in relation to the future of his daughter, he would refer to the days when he had worn overalls, the allusions occurring no matter what company was present.

At the instant the thought entered her mind, she caught sight of Cleves among the dancers. Being a man of considerable bulk, he was easy to see. But though he was so large he looked down on most other men, there remained nothing in his appearance, especially when he was in evening clothes, to suggest that he had worked with his hands.

That was her influence — her’s and Helena’s — since for his wife and daughter he would do anything save forget that he had once been Hank Cleves.

Helena! Quickly the thoughts of Mrs. Cleves shifted from her husband to her daughter, and with the change her eyes glowed with pride. The spur to all of her ambitions was Helena.

It had been for Helena that she had induced her husband to sell the old comfortable home and move into the mansion, a migration which brought with it the problem of servants; it had been for Helena that she had endured snubs and rebuffs until she had been accepted by society.

Even when dreaming of the time when the square emerald would be hers, she had thought of the day when it would be Helena’s.

Helena was altogether lovely — an opinion shared by many others besides her mother, proof laying in the fact that the stag line that night would have caused any hostess much satisfaction.

Helena’s hair was a shimmering gold frame for the pure oval of her face. From her mother she had inherited that smooth, white skin — skin soft like old velvet — and from her mother she had inherited the clear cut, regular features that suggested the cameo.

In the expression of the daughter, however, there was more softness and warmth than that in the face of the mother, and her eyes, though the same color, deep blue, were different also.

Just a trace of sadness was often visible in the eyes of Mrs. Cleves, but never in the eyes of her daughter.

Helena was dancing with Robert Trent, a fact which caused a. slight feeling of constriction about the heart of Mrs. Cleves. Robert Trent’s family went away back to the beginning of the city; his name stood for everything desirable socially; that he lived in the neighborhood had been the determining factor in Mrs. Cleves’s choice of a home.

And Robert Trent was undoubtedly deeply interested in Helena Cleves, and as Helena flashed a smile at her, Mrs. Cleves could see her daughter as mistress of the somewhat gloomy, old-fashioned manor where Trent lived alone, except for an ancient housekeeper, both his parents being dead.

Mingled with the elation was a sigh. In the stag line was a brown-haired, brown-eyed young man who was watching Helena and Robert intently.

Large he was and rugged in build, his movements suggestive of smooth muscles under excellent control and his mouth, despite the squareness of his jaw, indicating a sense of humor.

In fact, he was a junior edition of Jim Thompson, which he had a perfect right to be as he was Jim Thompson’s only son.

Mrs. Cleves did not favor Jim Thompson; though, except for one or two minor differences, she and Mrs. Thompson got along fairly well, their ambitions being largely similar.

Therefore, when the Thompsons purchased the adjoining property, it was a blow to Mrs. Cleves.

Jim Thompson was a bad influence on her husband. Cleves had become H. Addison, but Thompson still remained Jim and refused to change to even James.

Inasmuch as his son had many of the characteristics of his father, Mrs. Cleves believed she had reason to sigh. When the United States went into the war, Bruce Thompson had enlisted as a private in the infantry instead of going to the officers’ training camp.

Not that there was any disgrace in being a private in the infantry, but Bruce Thompson persisted in maintaining friendships he had made when fighting in France.

That was why Ben Breen was the Cleves’s chauffeur. Thompson and Breen had served in the same outfit overseas and when Mrs. Cleves had decided that a chauffeur was a necessity, Thompson had recommended him. And H. Addison, without waiting for her to give her consent, had employed him.

Breen was a good driver, Mrs. Cleves admitted that, and always kept the car in the best of condition, but it was disconcerting to have a young man who paid court to her daughter treating a mere servant as an equal. And Bruce Thompson always shook hands with Breen whenever he met him, though Breen was in the uniform of his calling!

Nor was that the extent of her grievance against young Thompson. He was the obstacle in the path of Robert Trent, an obstacle which Helena did not help to remove.

Cleves was also displaying his usual lack of sense. Instead of looking to social advancement, his preference was plainly for the son of his old friend. Mrs. Cleves felt as if she were the victim of a conspiracy. But she could wait — and on her wrist was the square emerald!

Turning her attention to her wrist was unfortunate. Without a doubt the pain was worse, and try as she would she could not take her mind from her suffering, though she endeavored resolutely to concentrate on her guests.

And Ben Breen kept intruding, which was not at all soothing. Her suspicion was that Breen intended to take Barbara from her, and Barbara had been with her four years. There was no other servant like her, save Paula, her own personal maid.

Marriage always meant lost maids — she knew that from experience, since Paula had been preceded by Huldah. True, in that instance she had been lucky, but should Barbara leave, there was no assurance that another Paula would appear.

Again that pain! But one tiling could be done about it: She would have to leave her guests, go to her room and have Paula massage her wrist.

In the slim fingers of the young French woman was a mysterious something that no matter how poignant the pain, brought relief. Since the arrival of Paula, Mrs. Cleves had not found it necessary to call her physician.

In the hall, she passed Greening, the butler, who regarded her with a question in his washed out blue eyes, but whose countenance, as usual, was woodenly impassive. Greening was a source of great pride to her. He was so unquestionably English. The Thompson family did not have an English butler — theirs was a Japanese.

Despite her suffering, Mrs. Cleves did not go directly to the second floor. She did not know how long she would be away and there were the refreshments.

Stepping into the kitchen, she found that Hannah, the cook, had completed her preparations, and that Barbara, assisted by Martha, the second girl, was making ready for the service. In so Jar as the food was concerned, she had no worries. Still she lingered a few moments.

As she had entered, some one had gone out of the back door, and the guilty look on Barbara’s face had convinced her that, despite her orders, Breen had been hanging around the kitchen. Finally deciding not to utter the reproof that was in her mind, she departed.

When she reached the second floor, she saw some one passing through the French doors that led to the balcony. She wasn’t certain whether or not the man was Bruce Thompson and she didn’t care. So long as Bruce Thompson was not with Helena it didn’t matter where he roamed.

Mrs. Cleves passed on to her own room and summoned Paula. While the maid stood in the dressing alcove, drawing the hot water, Mrs. Cleves made herself ready for the treatment. As her evening gown was sleeveless, it was necessary for her only to remove her emerald, and with an admiring glance, she placed it on the chifferobe.

Cooing her sympathy in broken English, the pretty Paula made warm applications, then nibbed the arm so skillfully that in what seemed to Mrs. Cleves but a few minutes, the pain departed and she was ready to her guests.

“That’s all for to-night, Paula,” she said. “You may retire now, I won’t need you any more.”

“Merci, madame,” replied the maid. “Bon soir, madame.”

She left the room gracefully, Mrs. Cleves’s eyes following her as she went through the door which she closed behind her carefully.

Satisfied that her experience had not wrought any havoc to her make-up, Mrs. Cleves applied a bit of powder to her nose, then went to the chifferobe, her wrist lonely for its adornment.

A spasm of horror so choked her that she could not cry out.

The square emerald had vanished!

Chapter II Meet Mr. Lawson

William Lawson was polishing his shoes in his room in the Caliph Hotel, the same room into which he had moved the day he was sworn into the police department. He had occupied it very nearly a quarter of a century, for the detective was rapidly reaching the retirement age.

It was a modest room indeed, having but one window, through which he could see a small part of the gray bulk of police headquarters. But it satisfied Bill Lawson. It was his home, the only one he had known since childhood, and was packed with memories — memories which did not altogether concern that career in which he had attained a page of citations and won the reputation of always bringing in his man.

That a veteran detective should be engaged in the occupation of a bootblack — he had fourteen pairs of shoes spread out before him — so far as Bill Lawson was concerned, was nothing to cause comment. The nights when he did not shine at least one pair in addition to his working shoes were few indeed.

Bill Lawson’s shoes, like their wearer, had a reputation in the department. Not only did he wear a seven and a half C, but a neat, well fitting shoe being a work of art to him, he cherished it the same way as a collector prizes an old master.

But Bill Lawson was a copper twenty-four hours a day; always had been, and would be until he died. Hence, the more intricate the police problem under consideration, the more shoes he shined.

With the brush moving over leather, his mind worked faster, and it was while he was so occupied that the solution of many of his hardest cases came to him.

Hence, with one exception, Lawson had never been known to report for duty without his shoes immaculate. When he wore blacks, they were twin pieces of anthracite; when he donned his favorite ox-blood brogues, they looked like matched carbuncles.

The exception had been when he was pursuing the thug who had slain his teammate Brown. Then he had gone about with his shoes unshined, and the detective bureau had thought his mind deranged through his sorrow. But though grief-stricken, Lawson had brought in his man.

It was not a police problem that caused Lawson to give his attention to his whole shoe collection on this particular night. There were no police problems, a fact which had caused Lawson to go up the river on a week’s fishing trip.

He was merely removing the dust that had accumulated during his absence, particular stress being laid on the pair he intended to wear when he reported for duty the next morning.

Before picking up his brushes he had read the evening paper thoroughly, and the fact that there was a dearth of crime news had given him a sensation of pleasure. His chief, Parmer, had practically ordered him to go on that expedition; still, had anything of importance happened while he was away he would have felt that he had been neglecting his duty.

The police department was Bill Lawson’s life, and he and Parmer were close indeed. They had been sworn in on the same day, and for more than two decades one had been the confidant of the other.

Relieved, he turned to his favorite page, “Advice to the Lovelorn.” That he read line by line, and when he had concluded, instead of throwing the section away, he tore it out and filed it with many others on top of the wardrobe.

In the department Bill Lawson was regarded as a woman hater, but just as he shined his shoes every night, so he read that particular page. In the past, buried among the letters, he had encountered leads that had proved valuable.

So when perusing heart outpourings he had actually been working. But there was more than that. In his life there had been one romance, and those printed heart-throbs helped to keep it green just as did a faded photo on which, in a girlish hand, was written “From Nora to Bill,” the date corresponding to the time when, a slim young copper, he had been walking a beat on Trumble Avenue.

But one man in the entire department understood that Lawson’s avoidance of women was not due to dislike. That man was Parmer, and as Parmer never talked, even his associates did not know of the great tenderness in the heart of old Bill Lawson for all women and children.

Being a veteran, he knew of course that the quietness that had obtained for weeks was merely transitory, an armistice which might end at any moment. He had not informed Parmer of his return, but when the police phone rang, just as he was laying aside the last pair of shoes, he was not surprised.

Something of importance had occurred, and Parmer was giving him a chance at it. That, too, was like Parmer, and Lawson was proud of the confidence the chief had in him.

Stopping only long enough to partially cover with a black stiff hat a bald spot that began at his forehead and extended to the back of his neck, and to assure himself that his shoes would pass the most critical inspection, Lawson hurried to Parmer’s office.

The chief had a visitor, a large, nervous man whom Lawson did not know personally, but whom he recognized. Parmer, however, was betraying no agitation — he never did.

He was relaxed in his swivel chair, his lean stogy sending a thin blue spiral toward the ceiling, his gray eyes untroubled.

“Glad you’re back, Bill,” said the chief, removing the stogy. “Mr. Cleves has just reported the loss of a very valuable jewel.”

“The square emerald?” inquired Lawson, who had read of the acquisition of the stone by Cleves.

Parmer nodded.

“It may have been lost, or it may have been stolen, Mr. Cleves isn’t sure which,” the chief continued. “As soon as his wife told him it was gone he drove here — he doesn’t care to have his loss known at present, so he didn’t take a chance with the phone.

“Mrs. Cleves has told no one except her husband. I won’t send the flyer. Get him by the traffic officers and the motorcycle men.”

For Parmer that was a long speech.

Chapter III The Man Upstairs

The party was still in progress when Lawson arrived. The refreshments having been served, the tables were being cleared, and the jazz orchestra was producing rhythm, the floor being filled with dancers.

Lawson, lingering unobtrusively in the concealment of the archway hangings, surveyed the scene for a few moments, recognizing a number of those present, including Robert Trent, standing in the stag line, and Bruce Thompson, who was dancing with Helena Cleves.

He had intended to remain there only a few minutes, but he lingered. He had become aware that he was being watched. Lawson had a gift very valuable to him in his profession.

His eyes were like the lenses of a wide angle camera, and he could keep a person under observation without looking at him. While apparently interested only in the dancers, he saw that the butler was eying him intently. Turning slightly, the stairway came into his line of vision.

His movement was deliberate, but it was quick enough so that he saw a young woman, whom he classified as a French maid, draw back hurriedly from the upper landing.

“Where’s Mrs. Cleves?” he asked, without giving any indication of what he had detected.

“Upstairs,” answered Cleves.

With Cleves he ascended the stairway, the French girl having disappeared; the upper hall was unoccupied. Mrs. Cleves, a bottle of smelling salts in her hand, and her face so pale and bloodless that it had a greenish tinge, was alone.

Ever since informing her husband of her loss, she had been searching. Various articles of furniture had been moved about, and the contents of the top drawer of the chifferobe were on the floor. The cover had been removed also.

She had shaken it thoroughly, she explained, in the last hope that her jewel might have been caught in a fold.

“No possibility of finger-prints,” thought Lawson as he surveyed the crumpled tapestry.

“I’ve looked everywhere, but it’s gone,” quavered Mrs. Cleves, her eyes filling with tears.

The detective was uncomfortable. Despite his reputation as a woman hater, no member of the department was more susceptible to feminine distress.

Through his mind were floating several possibilities, and with them the thought that any slip might result in lost time and perhaps the loss of the emerald itself.

To his relief, when her husband laid his hand on her arm with words of reassurance, she steadied herself and replied intelligently to his questions.

She had been in the alcove with Paula no longer than fifteen minutes, possibly not more than ten, she said. Lawson, judging the time was opportune, interrupted with a question as to the identity of Paula. Mrs. Cleves described her, and the description tallied with that of the young French woman Lawson had seen on the stairway.

“Was the door of your room closed?” he asked, his eyes roving about.

“Certainly,” replied Mrs. Cleves. “Paula always closes the door when she enters or leaves.”

“How were you sitting?”

Mrs. Cleves seated herself in the alcove, her back toward the door.

“And Paula?”

“She stood behind me. I could see her eyes in the mirror. She has pretty eyes — large and gray.”

“How long has Paula been serving you?”

“Not long. My other maid, Huldah, left — she got married — and Paula came about a week later.”

“She came just about two weeks after I bought the emerald,” interposed Cleves. “My check book will show the exact date. I can fix it definitely by my bank also, as I gave the agents a certified check.”

“I remember now,” said Mrs. Cleves. “You are right, Addison. I’d been up just one day when I engaged her.”

“Through an agency?” asked Lawson, flicking a bit of lint from his shoe.

“Yes. I called up Guynon’s, and Paula came out. Her references were so good I employed her immediately.”

“Did you know any of the people she’d worked for?”

“Not personally, but I knew the names. They were all from out of the city — from New York. And then she had come from the Guynon agency, and they wouldn’t send anybody unreliable.”

“Are you sure the Guynons sent her?”

“When I called Guynons, they told roe that no one who would suit me was registered, but if a girl should register they would send her out. I called them up in the morning, and Paula came out in the afternoon. She said Guynons had sent her.”

“Did you talk with the agency again?”

“Paula told me the agency was on the wire the next day, and I told her to tell them the place was filled.”

Lawson went to the windows which were not visible from the alcove, as the curtains shut off the view of those on the side and in the front. He inspected the front windows first.

They were both firmly locked, and had not been opened within a week. Mrs. Cleves said, the condition of the catches showing Lawson that they had not been disturbed in at least that time.

Then he went to the side windows, one of which had been opened a little for ventilation, the aperture, however, too small to admit the body of a man or even a child, and the window held in place by a sash lock which could be operated only from the inside.

Raising it, he looked outside. Below was the driveway, and there were no vines or water pipes, the side of the house rising sheer from the concrete.

Unless the thief, if he had entered that way, had been able to scale the smooth stucco wall, he had used a ladder, and no ladder was visible. Neither was there one about the place.

Through the window came the sound of the machine-gunlike exhaust of a fast motor boat, and the night was just light enough so that Lawson, looking out the front window, could see the white of the wake.

“Probably a rum runner,” said Cleves. “We get a lot of salutes like that, as they are numerous on this part of the river.”

“Do they land the stuff near here?” asked the detective, applying his handkerchief to a shoe which did not glow as brightly as the other.

“Usually somewhere down farther. But they seem to have some kind of signals that tell them where the dry navy is working, so we are not surprised when we hear them up here.

“Both young Trent and young Thompson have fast boats, but they don’t use them much at night. Neither likes to be shot at by some government cutter.”

“Before we go any farther, we’d better look this room over again,” responded Lawson, his ministrations concluded, as both shoes were satisfactory. “There’s a bare chance that emerald’s somewhere around here.”

“I’m afraid not,” replied Mrs. Cleves, her voice again trembling. “I’ve hunted and hunted.”

She and her husband assisted the detective in another search, one that included every nook and corner of the room. No gem with lingering green lights could be found. Nor had Lawson expected that it would be.

“By the way,” said Lawson, swinging the door back and forth and causing the hinges to squeak, “did you notice any one upstairs when you came up?”

Mrs. Cleves’s white forehead knotted in a little frown.

“Yes,” she answered after a brief interval of thought, “I did see some one.”

“Who?” asked Lawson, stopping the protest of the hinges.

“I’m not sure — I didn’t see his face — but I think it was Bruce Thompson.”

Chapter IV A Nose for Crime

To continue his check-up of the servants, Lawson visited the kitchen. Barbara and Martha had not left the room during the evening. Nor had Hannah. All had been busy with the refreshments and they were washing the dishes when Lawson entered.

Breen had been in the kitchen also, Lawson learned from Barbara, who blushed when she gave him the information, the cook and the other maid giggling at her perturbation.

“Didn’t he go out at all?” asked Lawson, fixing on the girl his pale blue eyes which were as mild as spring water, but which carried an inquiring look.

“Only for a few minutes,” answered Barbara.

“Why?”

“Mrs. Cleves came in,” Barbara almost whispered, her face a vivid scarlet and the giggles of the other two servants increasing. “She was looking after the refreshments. Ben heard her coming and stepped out the back door. He stayed there until she went away and then he came back in.”

“Why did he leave when his mistress entered the kitchen?” persisted Lawson.

Barbara would have evaded his eyes, but he refused to allow her to do so.

“He knows Mrs. Cleves doesn’t like to have him hanging around the kitchen,” the girl choked.

“How long did Breen stay here after Mrs. Cleves left?” Lawson continued.

“He went to his room just a few minutes ago.”

“He didn’t go outside again?”

“He did,” answered Hannah, coming to Barbara’s rescue. “We thought Mrs. Cleves was coming back and Ben ducked. But it was only Greening. Barbara had to go out and tell Ben it was all right to come back in.”

“Show me the chauffeur’s room,” said Lawson to Cleves, who had been waiting in the hall. Cleves accompanied the detective to the third floor. Breen was reading. A somewhat stocky but powerfully built young man, he looked up sullenly when Lawson came through the door.

“What the hell do you want?” he asked, his hand moving toward his hip pocket.

“Keep your hands in front of you,” ordered Lawson, “I’m an officer.”

“What business have you with me?”

“Ask your boss.”

Cleves was standing in the doorway.

“I don’t get the idea,” continued the chauffeur, “unless—”

“Unless what?” inquired Lawson, his voice hard.

“Mr. Cleves knows. And he knows that we’re going to be married just the same.”

“Who’s going to be married?” asked Lawson, his tone gentler as his mind went back to “Advice to the Lovelorn.”

“I might say it was none of your business — I’m not strong for gold bricks.”

“You and Bar — Miss Smith?”

“Yes, Barbara and me. I’ll give it to you straight. We’d been married before now only I lacked the jack. Now I’ve got it and Barbara is going to be Mrs. Breen whether Mrs. Cleves likes it or not. I suppose she brought you here, though God knows what she’s trying to hang on me.”

“Nobody’s trying to hang anything on you, son.”

“What do you want then?”

“Just answer a few questions.”

“What about?”

“What you did this evening before coming up here.”

“I didn’t do nothing — that is, nothing I could be put in jail for.”

“I haven’t said anything about jail. What I want to know is how you spent your time this evening.”

Again Breen looked at Cleves.

“All right. I’ll tell you.”

His story checked with that of the girl’s in the kitchen with but one exception. Instead of being on the back porch a few minutes, he averred that it seemed as if he had been out there a couple of hours.

“What did you do while waiting?” asked Lawson, looking at the man’s shoes.

“I walked around a little — but not far enough so I’d miss seeing the back door open and Barbara giving me the high ball the coast was clear.”

Lawson nodded.

“I guess that’s all,” he said slowly. “Good night.”

“Good night,” replied Breen, again turning his attention to the magazine he had been reading.

“Don’t let my wife know, but I’ll admit I’ve been doing a little conniving,” said Cleves on the way down the stairway. “Breen’s a fine young chap and Barbara’s a good clean girl — been with us four years now.”

“How long has Martha been in the house?”

“About two years. She almost caused trouble between Jim Thompson and me. Mrs. Thompson accused Mrs. Cleves of coaxing her away and. of course. I had to side with my wife — when she was in earshot.”

“The cook?”

“Since 1916 or 1917. We had her before we moved.”

“And your butler?”

“My wife’s chief treasure! He came about a week after Paula.”

“Did you get him from an agency, too?”

“No, and I didn’t hire him. The next to the last thing in the world I want is a butler. I can’t get used to him and that drives Mrs. Cleves frantic.

“I let her take him on for fear she’d insist on that last thing in the world I want — a valet.”

“I asked if he came from an agency.”

“Some one she knew all about in the East sent him. He had letters from several well known New Yorkers, and she hired him on the spot. The letters said the New York climate was affecting his health, so he had to leave.”

“Have you any other help?”

“None that need be considered.”

“But is there anybody else?”

“Nobody except Sam, the gardener. But he — well, he never comes into the house.”

“Where does he live?”

“He has a room over the garage and carries his meals there from the kitchen. You don’t need to bother about him. He’s just a bit” — Cleves touched his forehead. “And he has only one interest in life, digging in the ground that things may grow.

“He loves flowers and isn’t happy unless he’s among them. He can make them grow anywhere — that is, almost anywhere. There’s a place down on the river bank, a clay bed, that so far has resisted all his efforts. He’s planted a high hedge which hides it from the house, but that clay is his only failure.”

When they reached the foyer, Lawson looked about for the butler, but Greening was nowhere in sight. The orchestra was still busily engaged in producing popular airs and the utter lack of excitement showed that none on the dance floor knew of the loss of the hostess.

As Lawson and Cleves stopped, a girl who seemed to the detective like a bit of gold flame hurried up to them.

“Where’s mother?” she asked, her voice music.

“Upstairs,” answered her father.

Evidently his tone was not entirely natural as she flashed him a searching glance.

“Is she ill?” she asked, her tone anxious.

“No, she’s—” Cleves began, only to halt.

Helena was not looking at him, but at Lawson, a puzzled expression in her blue eyes. There had been no time to don evening clothes, and Lawson was in his working suit, a dark gray, which, though it was pressed neatly, was not exactly attire for an evening gathering. His shoes gleamed, however.

From the stag line, Bruce Thompson came hurriedly and a little distance behind him was Robert Trent.

“Hello, Lawson,” said Thompson easily. “You don’t remember me?”

“I do,” replied the detective.

“That shows you haven’t lost the old eye. Quite a lot of water has gone over Niagara Falls since the Thompsons lived on Trumble Avenue. But what brings the star detective of the whole department to this party?”

Lawson had no time to answer. From the white, rounded throat of Helena Cleves came a gasp of surprise.

“A detective — the square emerald!” she exclaimed.

Cleves nodded.

“Excuse me,” she said, and with the eyes of both Thompson and Trent following her, she hurried to her mother.

Chapter V What Trent Saw

Though the two young men were evidently very much interested in her, Lawson was not keeping Miss Cleves under observation. He was contrasting the two youths.

Both were of about the same height, but there the resemblance ceased. Trent was very dark, lines of good breeding in his face, but with them an expression that Lawson did not like.

His black eyes were unsteady and the classification into which the detective placed Trent’s mouth was not complimentary. “The old stock has run down,” was his mental comment.

He had not seen the younger Thompson in some time, but he had kept track of him — just as he had of other Trumble Avenue boys and girls he had led across the streets on their way to and from school.

Thompson was of heavier build than Trent and his brown eyes were frank and level. He gave the impression of both capability and dependability. His war record was excellent and on his return home, though the family fortune made it unnecessary, he had gone to work — started at the bottom in an office that he might become an architect.

That, like so many other things, was all catalogued in Lawson’s mental store of facts.

While he would have preferred that his identity and mission in that house be kept under cover for a little longer, he could not hold it against young Thompson for having recognized him.

Instead, he took it as a point in the young man’s favor, since when the Thompsons had lived on Trumble Avenue they had been vastly further removed from association with Robert Trent than mere city blocks.

Lawson’s musings were interrupted by the abrupt departure of Trent, the look on his face, to Lawson’s mind, that of one hurrying away from the contaminating presence of some menial.

“Know everybody here?” Lawson asked Thompson, in his voice no betrayal of any resentment he might have felt.

Thompson said that he did not know all of the guests. But that was nothing unusual, he added. He didn’t get about socially as much as the others because he was too busy in the office.

Then again — and he smiled as he spoke the words — lines were not drawn as tightly as they had been in the past, which was just as well since if they were, the Thompson family’s Trumble Avenue past would have its effect.

Quite often guests brought others who were not invited and the strangers were made welcome if they were good dancing men, it being the ambition of modem hostesses to have long stag lines.

Lawson did not ask more questions. He was intent on watching Trent who was going from group to group. Quite evidently he was retailing the news that there was a detective in the house as rapidly as possible.

“You might as well give them the details,” said Lawson to the young man at his side.

“But I haven’t any details,” replied Thompson. “From Helena’s remark and because you’re here, I’d gather that the square emerald has been stolen.”

“While Mrs. Cleves was upstairs with her maid, her bracelet disappeared from the chifferobe where she had laid it. So far, that’s all any of us know.”

“It might have fallen—”

“It didn’t,” asserted the detective.

Stepping into the foyer, Lawson again saw Paula, still in her cap and apron, peering down at him from the upper landing. He made no effort to speak to her.

When he judged the time was opportune, he would question her, though, according to Mrs. Cleves’s statement, she could have no direct knowledge of the theft.

While ministering to her mistress, her back had been toward the door and the mirror was set at such an angle that it commanded no view of that entrance — a fact established by Lawson as he had stood in the dressing alcove.

His interest was in the butler. Greening was not in the lower part of the house, Hannah, Barbara and Martha not having seen him since he had served the refreshments.

Barbara suggested that possibly he had gone to his room which was on the third floor. Cleves was still with the guests, and Lawson went up the rear stairway alone. On the second floor, he met Helena. The girl’s eyes were bright and unclouded; her loss of poise had been but momentary.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, “tell me which is Greening’s room.”

The butler’s quarters were empty, and as he surveyed them, the look of the man-hunter was on Lawson’s face. Evidences that the occupant had made a quick flight were abundant.

Drawers had been pulled out, emptied of their contents and not replaced. A trunk was standing open and the closet was bare. But despite his haste, the man had been thorough.

Lawson could find nothing that would lead to an identification if the butler were other than he had represented himself to be.

From an upper floor telephone pointed out to him by Miss Cleves, Lawson communicated with headquarters, the girl supplementing his description of the missing man with various details.

In concluding, he asked a question which was apparently a casual inquiry as to affairs at headquarters, but which in reality told Parmer that Lawson wished the Cleves’s residence placed under guard.

“Is there anything further I can do, Mr. Lawson?” asked the girl.

“Nothing — at present,” answered the detective.

“I’ll leave you then. Mother is suffering much pain, but she won’t let me call a doctor. She prefers Paula’s massages to medicine.”

“Stay with your mother and Paula for the next fifteen or twenty minutes,” advised Lawson.

“Our guests—”

“They’ll excuse you, this is—”

“You know best,” she answered with a smile that warmed the year-crusted heart of the man-hunter.

Lawson went down the front stairway slowly, now and then pausing to apply a handkerchief to his shoes, his attention apparently fixed on his footwear, but his wide-angle eyes always watching.

At the bottom, he encountered Robert Trent. The young man’s superciliousness had vanished completely; he was conciliatory, almost oily.

“Meet me outside,” he whispered. “I’ve got something to tell you I think is important, and I don’t want anybody to see us talking. I’ll come out in about five minutes.”

Lawson passed through the kitchen and walked around the house slowly. Underneath the side windows of Mrs. Cleves’s room, he stopped and taking out his flash light, made an inspection of the drive and the grass along the edge.

Neither the concrete nor the close-cropped sod told him anything. Again wiping off his shoes, he loafed toward the porte-cochère in the shadow of which he awaited Trent.

The delay was not long, Trent approaching furtively.

“I’ve been doing a little investigating,” he said, his tone that of addressing an equal. “Thought I’d give you a hand.”

“Yes?” queried Lawson.

“Two young men were here to-night whom nobody knew, except perhaps one person. I happened to notice them.

“Don’t know why unless it was because they were strangers and I rather pride myself on knowing every one worth while in town. They were correctly dressed, but something about them made me suspicious.”

“What was that?” asked Lawson.

“I don’t know — they seemed different.”

“Are they still here?”

“No — that’s why I wanted you to wait; wanted to see if they weren’t still about.”

“What did they look like?”

“One had black hair and the other had hair that was almost blond. They were young — about twenty-five or twenty-six.”

“Tall or short?”

“I should say about medium.”

“What would they weigh?”

“I’m not good at guessing weights.”

“Who was the one person who might know them?”

“Bruce Thompson was talking to them just before Mrs. Cleves went upstairs.”

Chapter VI Find the Man!

Halligan and Harper, two other veterans, were the assistants who came in response to Lawson’s request to Parmer for help, their arrival being within fifteen minutes after he had sent the call.

From them, he learned that at the time of the robbery, two beat men had been in front of the house. After Cleves had purchased the square emerald, at the suggestion of Parmer, the captain of the precinct had kept the residence under as close surveillance as possible without using a special detail for the purpose.

The two uniformed men, Halligan said, had observed nothing out of the ordinary.

That was an additional link in the chain of evidence that the theft was an inside job, a theory toward which Lawson leaned strongly, but not so strongly but that he could revise it without much difficulty.

He was too experienced an officer for that and in addition, there were the two strange young men who had been in the home when the robbery was committed.

Cleves had not been cognizant of the presence of strangers. As a matter of fact, he was acquainted with no more than half of his guests, society not being of great interest to him.

“Jim and I sneaked out whenever we got a chance and smoked and fanned in my den,” he continued. “That’s the only refuge I have in my house — the only place I can call my own.

“Even Helena doesn’t horn in when I close the door. By the way, if you want to do any phoning that’s a good place; no one will disturb you, and it’s a one-party line.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Cleves could—”

“She’s asleep and her maid’s with her. But I’ll wake her if you think it’s necessary.”

“Maybe you’d better.”

“Come along then.”

Cleves stepped to the side of the bed and spoke, but his wife did not respond until Paula touched her arm.

“What is it?” she asked in a drowsy voice. Then, as if unable to arouse herself: “I dreamed — my emerald — stolen.”

“Madame,” said Paula again touching her mistress.

Mrs. Cleves’s eyes snapped open as if she were roused from a trance.

“You have it!” she exclaimed joyously.

“No,” answered Cleves, “Lawson wants to ask you some questions.”

“Oh!”

Lawson caught the mighty disappointment in the word, though he did not see the expression on her face, his eyes being fixed on Paula.

“I only wanted to ask you — to ask you, if you knew all the guests,” stammered the detective absently.

“Certainly. Paula, please rub my arm.”

“All of them?” insisted Lawson.

“Possibly not all of the boys — one doesn’t always, nowadays. But I can’t recall any in particular.”

“How many guests did you invite?”

“Thirty. Won’t you please ask the rest of your questions in the morning? I’m very—”

“Sorry to disturb you,” apologized the detective. “I’m through now unless there are further developments.”

“Of course, if you find my—”

“We’ll let you know right away,” responded Lawson, giving Paula a side glance.

The maids said refreshments had been served to thirty-two guests.

Skirting a bit of shrubbery, Lawson worked himself toward the back porch from which came low-pitched voices. An argument of some kind was in progress and his intent was to eavesdrop.

But when he was close enough to hear, it had evidently ended as all he caught was an order given Ben Breen by Bruce Thompson to return to the house and to stay there until he was told to leave. The opening of the door showed Lawson that the chauffeur was not in uniform and was carrying a bag.

Thompson did not go into the house, but walked back in the direction of the river, Lawson following. The moon had not arisen and the night was so black that Lawson lost him completely.

As he rounded a bush he was stopped suddenly, so suddenly that he leaned backward. His arm had been clutched and the muzzle of a revolver thrust into his stomach.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” snapped the detective.

“Lawson!” gasped Bruce Thompson.

“Yes Lawson. And now young man, what do you mean by interfering with an officer?”

“You didn’t look like an officer to me coming through that darkness. I thought—”

“Take away that gun.”

“Sure.”

The weapon removed from his midriff, Lawson felt easier.

“Thompson, are you in the habit of carrying a revolver when you go to parties?” he asked.

“No.”

“Well, then, why have you got one tonight?”

“I borrowed it.”

“Why?”

“I thought I’d take a little stroll around the Cleves’s estate and with a crook—”

“Whose gun is it?”

“Breen’s.”

“He loaned it to you?”

“I called it a loan, but I took it away from him.”

“Why?”

“For two reasons. Breen was the best pistol shot in our outfit and his temper’s short. Besides he hasn’t any permit to carry a weapon and I have.”

“And you sent him back into the house?”

“Sure. He wanted to quit his job, but Mrs. Cleves will need a chauffeur just as much without her square emerald as she did with it.”

“By the way, Mr. Thompson—”

“My friends generally call me Bruce and so did you when I was a kid on Trumble—”

“It’s a long way from Trumble Avenue to this part of town, Mr. Thompson. There’s a question I want to ask you.”

“Fire away,” answered Thompson, putting the revolver in his pocket.

“Did you go upstairs after Mrs. Cleves left the party?”

As they talked, they had been strolling toward the house and, as Lawson intended, the light from a window shone on Thompson’s face when he put that question to him, and he could note a sudden change of expression.

“Who says I was there?” he asked in turn.

“You were seen on the upper landing going toward the French door that leads to the second floor balcony—”

“Yes. I was up there. I went up there as soon as Mrs. Cleves quit watching me. I didn’t know then that she had gone to her room — I thought that more than likely she had gone into the kitchen.”

“She did stop there, but she went on up to her room, and it was while she was in her room and you were on the same floor that the emerald disappeared.”

If Thompson was agitated by any insinuation that Lawson’s words might have carried, he did not indicate it.

“Why did you go up there?” asked Lawson.

“I had a very good reason,” answered Thompson, “one that just now, I don’t care to discuss.”

They had reached the driveway and with Thompson, Lawson entered. The guests were leaving.

“There’s one other question,” said Lawson detaining his companion. “Who were the two strange young men with whom you talked to-night?”

“You’ve got me there, chief,” answered Thompson. “They spoke to me and I answered. I’d never seen them before.”

Lawson asked no more questions, Thompson leaving him abruptly to speak to Helena. With her father, she was saying good night to the guests.

Standing behind the curtains where he could see without being seen, Lawson’s pulses quickened with the loveliness of the girl, in him a dual hope — one that the solution of the mystery would restore the great jewel to her mother and the other that that solution would cause the girl herself no pain.

Helena’s beauty, however, did not keep him from using his wide angle eyes. Paula had left her mistress as once again she was on that upper landing, still in her cap and apron.

To an experienced observer, though they were well concealed, traces of agitation were visible in her behavior. Deliberately he turned so that she could see that he knew that she was there. For just an instant, she looked at the detective, then fled.

One by one, Lawson inspected those who were departing. He did not know them all, but Cleves and his daughter evidently did, and that satisfied him. The two strangers indeed had left previously.

When all had gone, he sought Helena, not a difficult task as she was coming toward him.

She, too, had noticed the two strange young men and had wondered who they were as she was certain she had never seen them before.

She had thought of making inquiries, but had forgotten to do so. Just why such an admission should bring color to her face, Lawson could not explain to himself. But it was a fact that it did — a glow that made her even more beautiful, so beautiful that in talking to her, the veteran Bill Lawson felt a queer vibration in his heart and with it envy — envy that the fates in weaving the warp and woof of his life had left out of the pattern a daughter such as Helena Cleves.

She was so fresh, so youthful, so attuned to life that she reminded him of spring, of the clean spring when all nature is young.

With it all, she was sensible and observant since, when her duties as hostess were ended, the description she gave him was so detailed as to be almost photographic. Indeed, it was photographic to the sensitive brain of Bill Lawson — a brain in which were many pictures indeed.

Trent’s extremely sketchy portrayal had made no images clear, but hers did, so clear that again his heart was stirred — though for an altogether different reason.

This time the flutter was strictly professional and while associated was a certain disruption of his previous theory, still that theory had been elastic enough to permit of ramifications.

Chapter VII The Vigil

From Cleves’s den, he called headquarters. Parmer was still there despite the lateness of the hour, which was like the chief, since he never left so long as remained that which should demand his attention. Fast work was necessary in this case.

The square emerald was not a jewel that could be disposed of to any ordinary fence, but it could be taken out of the country and Canada was only a half mile away. Or it could be cut up into smaller gems, which would impair its value materially, but would facilitate the sale mightily and so large was it that such a process would be profitable.

Therein, according to Lawson’s thoughts, was the danger since, if his suspicions were correct — that the two guests had been part of a band of jewel thieves for whom the police of the country were searching — the emerald would not be taken to Canada.

Parmer agreed. He also agreed that Harper and Halligan should remain in the vicinity of the Cleves’s residence and that Lawson should continue to watch the case from that end.

Though the net had been spread, there had been no trace of Greening. Canadian officials had been notified and a lookout was being maintained for him throughout the Dominion.

Helena met Lawson when he emerged from the den, a Helena whose color was much higher than it had been when he had entered. She wanted to talk to him alone, she said, indicating that he should return to the room which he was leaving.

Closing the door behind her, she waited, her pose natural, yet nevertheless a bit of unconscious art, as if she desired Lawson to ask her a question. Lawson did not obey. He was still the copper, but for once at least, he was completely at a loss.

“You... you... you,” she stammered, the blood suffusing her face.

“I did what?” asked Lawson.

“You asked Bruce about being upstairs when the bracelet was taken,” she answered.

“Yes, and he said that he was.”

“And so was Bob Trent,” she replied, her face even more scarlet.

“Why?”

The calmly uttered three-letter word used so often by Lawson seemed to confuse her utterly, though only for the space of a watch tick.

“Mr. Lawson, would you believe me if I gave you my word of honor?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“The reason why Bob and Bruce were up there at that time had nothing — had nothing in the world to do with mother’s bracelet. I didn’t want you to waste your time, so as soon as I found you asked Bruce why he was there, I... I... I—”

“Yes,” answered Lawson, “and I believe you.”

Noting that Halligan and Harper were in their places, Lawson worked his way slowly toward the river. Since two officers had been in front of the house, Greening, if he had taken the emerald, had not escaped in that way.

But it would have been comparatively easy for him to have followed the bank of the stream some distance either up or down and then made his way to the street without exciting suspicion.

Or confederates might have been waiting for him in a boat. Greening’s countenance did not fit in the mental picture retained by Lawson, but he might have been an acquisition to the gang and an inside man of much value.

That Greening was still on the grounds was a possibility most remote. But Lawson’s method was building up his case bit by bit until it was dead open or shut.

For the moment he had nothing else to occupy his attention since Halligan and Harper would take care of the house should there be any developments in or about the mansion. Hence, he was free to comb the grounds as thoroughly as he could in the semidarkness.

A movement in the shadows caused him to suddenly secrete himself in a screen of ornamental shrubbery about two hundred feet from the house.

Freezing like a pointer dog that has scented a bird, he tried to pierce the darkness with his keen eyes. Then, his vision becoming accustomed to night, he picked up the outlines of a man who had sought cover even as he had done — a man whose figure blended curiously with the greenery about him.

With vast patience, Lawson kept up the vigil, his nerves taut, for he could see that the person under observation was watching the house. Lawson’s hand slipped back to his service revolver. The presence of the sentry was a mystery and he was taking no chances.

Suddenly, the kitchen door opened and a stream of light made a bright pathway in the night. The skulker became animated. Framed in the open doorway was Barbara. The man who had been hiding was Breen.

Plain it was then to Lawson why he had been so hard to detect and why a background of green blended with his form. Again he was wearing his uniform of olive drab.

Barbara and Breen lingered for a moment on the porch, their lips meeting. Then they went into the house.

Chapter VIII Lawson’s Hunch

As Lawson resumed his progress toward the river, he felt a “hunch.” Such sensations were by no means a rarity to him and almost always they were so accurate that he had about reached the belief that in the long years he had worked at his profession, he had acquired some sort of a sixth sense which warned him of the imminence of danger.

Once he had disregarded the nudge of whatever fates had his destiny in their keeping and his disobedience had so nearly cost him his life that from that time on, his obedience had been absolute.

Himself a trailer of men, he was adept in all the tricks of the trade which, of course, included means of eluding any one who might be trailing him. Hence his course was filled with halts and waits and crouches behind cover, his eyes and ears strained to the utmost, it being his conviction that there was some one behind him.

His expertness brought no results. His vision was unimpaired and his hearing was of the best, but he saw nothing, and to his ears came nothing save the usual night noises.

Nevertheless, instead of being allayed by these physical evidences of error, his hunch grew rapidly stronger. It was an uncanny feeling, indeed, a sensation that had Bill Lawson been nervously organized it would have caused his skin to prickle.

Ahead was a black blob, the hedge of which Cleves had spoken. Rounding it, with all of his senses alert, Lawson found nothing save the clay bank that had resisted the efforts of the gardener, a bald spot in the lawn, still soft from a recent rain. He replaced his flash light and stepped forward.

At that same instant his body was encircled by arms with a grip of such power that he felt as if he were girded by steel hoops.

Bill Lawson was middle aged and his waist line bulged, but he had lived a clean life; his exercise had been constant, and on him was no flabby flesh.

Nor had he been taken completely off his guard, despite the suddenness of the onslaught — his hunch in a measure having caused him to anticipate attack. Nevertheless, his own arms pinioned at his side by arms which might not have been human as he could feel hair against his flesh, he could reach neither his billy nor his revolver.

He could only struggle, using his feet and endeavoring to find some opening through which he could eel.

Strain as he would, he could not force that grip, his efforts handicapped by the slippery footing, the treacherous clay affording him no hold. Inch by inch, he was forced back by a power that overwhelmed him completely until he could feel his spine cracking under the strain and his own strength ebbing.

Over his anhydrous lips, his breath whistled, but his adversary did not even pant.

So intent was he on battling that the thought of crying out had not occurred to him. A shout would have brought either Halligan or Harper. Perhaps both.

And when he finally attempted an outcry he found that he had waited too long — that he could only whimper — whimper like a man who, pursued in a nightmare, is unable to make his terror known.

Bill Lawson had faced death many times; in his body were two bullets which he would carry to his grave; trussed up and helpless, with the mercury below zero, he had been left to freeze.

Death had grinned at him so often that it had lost most of its terrors. But that silent struggle in the shadows, a tragic pantomime without an audience, caused something of the night to enter his being, and a coldness ran in his veins.

It was not the chill of fear, but rather a consciousness of futility, a flash that for once in his life he would not bring in his man! But with it was a minim of warmth; his excuse would be legitimate; he had died trying.

Not even that thought stopped his struggles, for such was his nature that he would continue to struggle as long as his heart kept up its throbbing, though he knew that effort was useless — useless indeed since even at the moment his knees were sagging and he was being borne to the earth.

“Help!”

In a woman’s voice that cry came through the night, and with it Lawson’s attacker loosed his grip with such suddenness that Lawson dropped as a sack of meal.

Yet he was still a copper, since, even as he struck, he reached for his revolver.

His fumbling fingers were inept and he lay there panting, his starved lungs clamoring for oxygen. And as he lay, gaining strength and waiting for a repetition of that cry or the appearance of the one who had uttered it, into his ears came the roar of the exhaust of a fast motor boat.

That was the needed stimulant. Painfully he raised himself to his elbow, and still more painfully — with the feeling that his legs had been disconnected from his body — he got to his feet.

Then, instead of drawing his weapon, he sent the beam of his flash ahead of him and followed it, guided by the voice of Helena Cleves.

She was standing beside a body.

Lawson turned the ray downward.

It played on the pallid and rigid features of Greening, the butler.

Chapter IX The Chase

Snapping out the light, Lawson thrust the girl behind him almost with violence, drawing his revolver with his free hand as he did so.

Some one was approaching on the run, the footsteps dull pads on the grass, but sufficiently loud for Lawson to know that they were those of neither Harper nor Halligan.

“Don’t move, Miss Cleves,” whispered the detective as he endeavored to pierce the opaque wall with his eyes.

She did not answer, though she was unfrighted since there was no tremor in her body, which he was shielding with his own.

“Helena!”

The call caused Lawson to lower his weapon and turn on his light.

“I heard you call,” panted Bruce Thompson, “and I got here as quick as I could.”

“So did I,” added Robert Trent, his well bred voice as carefully modulated as if he were in a drawing-room.

“What’s wrong?” asked Thompson.

Lawson turned his light to the face of the corpse.

“Greening!” exclaimed Thompson.

Trent stood wordless, his countenance a curious white.

With a deft hand, Lawson searched the body.

“I want a boat — a fast one,” he asserted, rising to his feet suddenly and looking down the river.

“Mine’s at the end of the dock,” replied Thompson. “She’s full of gas and ready. Come on — I can get every inch she has.”

Lawson’s recuperative powers were great, but he was still clumsy as he followed Thompson and the girl to the pier. Despite his slowness, however, he easily distanced Robert Trent.

Their haste was useless. No craft was at the pier, and it was unnecessary to look in the boathouse — though Thompson did so — as the mooring lines had been cut. Lawson was not surprised. The surprise would have come had they found the boat.

“We can use Bob’s,” Helena cried. “It’s faster.”

“I don’t believe there any gas,” asserted Trent in what seemed to Lawson an unconvincing tone.

“Why, Bob!” exclaimed the girl. “The tank was full this afternoon, and you haven’t been out since.”

“I forgot that, but I can’t—”

“You must go,” she insisted.

Still he hung back until she jerked at his sleeve.

But he refused to show haste in getting the craft from its shelter until Thompson, seemingly as impatient as Lawson, towed it along the pier.

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

“So will I,” added Helena.

“A speed boat’s not built for passengers,” averred the detective, “and if we’re going to catch those birds we’ll have to step lively. Start her, Mr. Trent.”

Instead of obeying, Trent merely fiddled with the mechanism.

“I know how,” said Helena, deep scorn in her voice and making a move as if she would leap aboard.

“Don’t, don’t, Helena,” begged Trent. “I’m ready now.”

The starter whined and the motor roared, but Lawson delayed casting off the lines for a moment.

“Miss Cleves,” he said.

To catch his words, she bent her head until her soft cheek was close to the stubbly face of old Bill Lawson.

“Call headquarters,” the detective whispered with his habitual caution, though the noise of motors made lowering his voice unnecessary. “Get Chief Parmer — nobody else. Tell him you’re talking for me. Tell him about Greening’s body, and that I’ve gone down the river with Mr. Trent. Don’t let any one overhear you.”

“Is that all?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, letting go the restraining line, “Greening didn’t have the emerald.”

“Give her all there is,” Lawson said to Trent.

Concealment was unnecessary, since it was simply a race. Time had been lost, but he believed he still had a chance to win, as Trent’s boat was the fastest on the river, recollection of his capturing the open championship earlier in the season coming to Lawson as they swung out into the stream.

Even should those whom they were pursuing hear the voice of the great motors the chances were excellent that they would not be alarmed, since it was the time of night when the rum runners, who also used racing boats, would be especially active, if any loads were scheduled to be brought over from Canada.

That the odds were two to one, and that those whom he was chasing had probably taken human life only a short time before and would fight to the finish rather than surrender with their booty, never entered Bill Lawson’s mind.

“Got a night glass?” he asked.

“No,” answered Trent, his voice strained.

“Step on it.”

With the order, the boat seemed to leap through the water, the wake, dimly visible, a huge twin line of billows. So fast was it going that the spray, instead of coming aboard, cascaded into the foam behind.

To Lawson, who never before had ridden in a racing craft at night, the sensation was strange, but not so strange that it took his mind from the matter in hand.

A watery old moon, but one capable of furnishing light, was rising. Light would help him, but it would also help those in the boat ahead.

Below the city was a swamp, a maze of islands and crooked waterways — a haven for those who desired concealment, its area so great that there were hundreds of chances for evasion.

Should the quarry gain that shelter with the square emerald the odds against the law would be heavy.

Residences gave place to warehouses and factories. Far downstream Lawson could see the lights of a ferry crossing over to Canada, but no other craft was in sight, and with the noise of the motors dinning in his ears he could hear nothing.

The warehouses straggled out into crazy buildings, and then the fleet craft rested on an even keel, its nose no longer pointing high.

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Lawson. “Don’t stop — step on it.”

“This is my boat,” answered Trent, sneeringly.

“I’m giving orders. Open her up or I’ll make you,” commanded Lawson, grimly.

“How will you make me?” and the sneer was more evident than ever.

“This way,” answered Lawson, reaching over and jamming his foot on the throttle.

Once more the boat leaped like a frightened thing. Ahead were a cluster of piles, the last remnant of a long dock that had once reached out from a salt factory, but which, after the factory had burned, had been allowed to rot away.

The boat was at full speed.

“Can you swim?” asked Trent insolently.

“Not so good, why?”

“Because we’re going to have an accident.”

And before Lawson could grasp the wheel, he sent the boat squarely into those piles.

Chapter X Sink or Swim?

When Lawson, sputtering and choking, arose to the surface he found that, beyond the shock of having been plunged into the river at a speed of fifty miles an hour, he was unhurt, though his faculties were more than a little fuzzy.

In telling Robert Trent that he was an inexpert swimmer, he had spoken truly, since treading water, as the current carried him downstream, was purely instinctive.

The moon was high enough to afford light, and, peering about him while his brain cleared, he could discern no sign of life, merely the river carrying bits of refuse, parts of lemon crates, disreputable pasteboard boxes, pieces of timbers and brush coming into his line of vision.

Behind him he saw the hull of the speed boat hanging to the piles like an old coat on a fence. But Robert Trent was nowhere in sight.

Between Lawson and shore were several hundred feet of water, deep water, for in the past, when the salt block had been in operation, the great lake freighters had landed there.

Unskilled as he was. he might have made the bank without great distress, but, instead of struggling toward it, he breasted the stiff current and, puffing mightily, fought his way back toward the wreck, about which were shadows that even his keen vision could not penetrate.

It was slow and laborious work, the water gripping at him and taking away his strength. His clothes were a handicap, and soon he realized that though he was putting forth his best efforts, he was scarcely holding his own; that unless he could free himself from some of his encumbrances he would never attain his objective.

Never before, despite the varied nature of his experiences, had he attempted to remove his coat while keeping himself afloat.

Nevertheless, he made the attempt, inhaling much water, which increased the rawness of the lining of his throat and nose. How he succeeded he did not know, but finally, when he thought he would never accomplish the feat, the coat was off.

Then he established another precedent, since, in his years of service, he had never lost or abandoned a single article of police property. In this instance, regardless of his record, he loosened his revolver and allowed it to sink to the bottom, followed by his cuffs and billy.

Thus lightened, he found he was able to defeat the clutch of those invisible fingers that were pulling at him so relentlessly.

It was a stern struggle, such a stern struggle that when he did reach the piles he could do nothing save cling and pant. Doggedly he held on until his breath returned enough to permit him to work himself around to the upstream side.

There he found the man he sought. To all appearances, the wrecker of that boat had already paid for his misdeed. His white face bobbed up and down in the swirl of the water, his black hair, matted with blood, and his clothing held by the pinch of the boat against the water-smoothed logs.

Seemingly there was nothing left for Lawson to do but to swim to shore and make a report.

He tore open Robert Trent’s shirt and his fingers explored his chest. He was not dead — merely unconscious. With that discovery was another that added to the chill working into the being of Bill Lawson.

The efforts he had made had left him so spent that even had he not been burdened with the body of a man incapable of helping himself, he could not have made the shore.

Before embarking on that chase there had been the silent struggle on the river bank. How long he had been in the water he did not know, but his muscles seemed flaccid — flabby like his hands, which were wrinkled, shriveled and faded to a white resembling that of a fish’s belly.

Deeper and deeper the cold of the stream was striking, and it was only by effort of will that he could keep his teeth from chattering.

Desperate though he knew his plight to be, he felt no fear. His heart might be beating more slowly, but the loss of strength was physical solely.

To remain clinging to that pile meant death by drowning, for underneath him were at least twenty feet of water, and below that many feet of soft ooze.

It was not a cheerful thought, but it was a fact, and Lawson was accustomed to facing facts — had faced them all of his life. For the second time that night he was looking death in the eye, but, so far as his soul was concerned, he was unquivering.

He made an attempt to mount those piles, but, try as he would, water-weighted and with only a smooth surface to grasp, he could not raise himself more than a few inches. And each endeavor took a toll from his slender stock of strength.

One hope remained, and that a faint one. On the Canadian shore he could see the headlights of speeding motor cars, a continuous line of them since the hour was early morning, the time when the road houses were closing and merrymakers were hastening to their homes.

But those lights were more than a half mile away.

On the American side were only darkness and silence. No industry having replaced the salt works, the property was an isolated, weed grown waste.

No residences were nearer than a mile and there being nothing to guard, the district was unpatrolled, the only highway on which there was any possibility of travel, being more than three-quarters of a mile back from the river.

Still there was that one chance.

Inhaling a great breath, he exhaled it in a mighty shout, a stentorian roar for help that traveled far out over the water.

Listening with such intensity that he could feel the pound of his heart in his ears, he waited. Not one of those lights stopped or even paused.

Again and again, he cried, his hail growing fainter and fainter, until his abused vocal cords rebelled and only a croak came from his rasped lips.

Not yet was he conquered, however. Loosening his hold, he endeavored to strike out with his stiffened arms, only to find that he could not exert enough effort to keep himself afloat.

Merely by a lucky clutch as he was being carried by under the surface did he grasp the last pile and thus save himself from being swept downstream.

Never had he known such weariness. His arms felt as if they were being pulled from their sockets though his body was strangely light — light and swaying as if it were moss that had grown to those chained, upright logs.

Thankful indeed was he that the face of Robert Trent was above water and that he was held securely, since if it had been otherwise, Robert Trent would long before have been past human aid.

Why had Trent sent his boat to destruction? That was a question that would not be answered definitely unless help came, and no help was in sight. Again Lawson tried to shout.

Slow minutes dragged by and the strain began to play tricks with his brain. No longer were his thoughts coherent. One second he was out there in the night with the current tugging at him; the next, le was a young copper walking over on Trumble, his step firm, his waistline unbulging.

He shook the water out of his eyes. Before him was the river and those lights over in Canada — long lines of lights. But out there on the piles, only blackness.

Between him and those lights water hurrying on and on eager to take him with it. His lips formed the name, “Nora.”

Out of the black she came to him — and she had been dead almost a quarter of a century. He wanted to brush away the vision, but he could not raise his arm — only a little while now, for he was the victim of delusions.

Again he shook his head and once more was sane since Nora vanished. But he was the victim of delusions.

One of those motor car lights had separated itself from the others and was traveling over the water — a gleaming eye that seemed to pierce the very soul of him. He closed his eyes, but it seemed to come through his tight lids.

He turned his head, but it sought him out and such was its intensity that it penetrated the mist that was enveloping his consciousness.

“Help!” he cried. “Hel—”

The word ended in a gurgle, the water closing over his head.

His body was sore and a mighty nausea gripped him. He heard his name repeated over and over. He did not care; nothing mattered.

Then he was wrapped in blankets in the cockpit of a launch. Over him was leaning a familiar face — Quinn, old Sergeant Quinn for years in charge of the river patrol.

“Thought you were a goner, Bill,” panted the sergeant. “I’m about all in from using artificial respiration!”

“Did you get ’em?” gurgled Lawson, his tongue like a piece of flannel, but still he was a copper.

“Shut up,” responded Quinn, “you’re not all the way back yet.”

Lawson felt himself drifting, but he clutched at his faculties and sent the question to his brother officer with his eyes.

“Yes, we got ’em.” Quinn stopped to stow a tremendous amount of fine cut into his cheek. “They’re for’d with the cuffs on. And we got your friend, too — the one with the busted head. He needs a doctor damn bad.”

It was in the downriver station. Trent and Lawson had been given emergency treatment and Lawson was recuperating rapidly, but Trent was still unconscious, his breathing stertorious. Fractured skull the surgeon said. An ambulance had been called.

“We stopped at the booth about four miles down while on regular patrol and got the word to be on the lookout for the Thompson boat,” said Quinn, automatically offering Lawson his paper receptacle of chewing tobacco.

“The operator said you were on the way. They had a big start. They sure was in a hurry, but we headed ’em off and they give up without a battle. On the way back, we kept a lookout for you and wondered why you didn’t show — we did till we found you hung up on them spiles.”

“The square emerald?” asked Lawson, so tired that he wanted the climax at once.

“No square emerald — just boat thieves. Now, Bill, take it easy.”

“Did you fan them?”

“Sure. Didn’t have nothin’ on ’em — not even guns. We know ’em anyhow. They’re Johnny Brill and Willie Deal. Been running booze across the river ever since prohibition.”

“What?” demanded Lawson, endeavoring to raise himself.

“Take it easy, Bill. They’re the birds we went after — they admitted it. Couldn’t help it because they were in Thompson’s boat. Wouldn’t admit bringing anything over, but said hi-jackers had knocked off their boat.

“Wanted to get back and thought Thompson’s boat wouldn’t be missed. Meant only to use it to take them over, then turn it loose. But just as they were getting ready to cast off, they heard some kind of a ruckus on shore and a woman hollered for help.

“Naturally they thought they had been caught, so they cut the lines and hauled out fast. Thought they’d elude pursuit by going down instead of landing at their own dock. Then we loomed up. They’re sore’n hell at the break they got.”

“Bring ’em in and let me see them,” ordered Lawson.

“Bill, you’re in no shape — there’s plenty of time in the mornin’. I’ll guarantee that they’ll keep. Get back in them blankets, Bill! I’ll fetch ’em out.”

He kept his word. The two roughly dressed young men were short and stocky and with barrel-like torsos. In no way did they resemble the youths who had attended the Cleves party.

“Take ’em back and hold—”

Lawson was too weary to complete the sentence. He was still asleep when General Hospital was reached, so made no protest when Dr. Dresser, the superintendent, ordered him entered as a patient.

Chapter XI At the Hospital

As soon as Helena Cleves learned that Robert Trent was in General, she set out for the hospital, driving her own motor car and taking many chances with traffic regulations.

Only once was she stopped, however. Barbour, who had the reputation of being the most hard-boiled member of the traffic squad, motioning her to the curb.

Advancing upon her angrily, he demanded to know why she had attempted to disobey his signal.

“I’m in a hurry,” she answered evenly, though about her lower lip was a suspicion of a tremor.

“A hurry,” repeated Barbour with heavy sarcasm. “You’re in a hurry for a ticket, I suppose.”

“Give it to me quick,” she blazed, the delay rasping her. “I don’t care how many tickets you give me so long as you let me get to General Hospital.”

“You’re in an automobile and not a flying machine,” returned Barbour, his tone strangely gentle after he had looked deeply into those blue eyes. “So be careful four blocks down. That Loucks is a bad guy and likes to hand out summons.”

“Thank you,” she replied, and smiled at him.

During the rest of the morning, Barbour seemed to be in a daze, bawling out no one no matter how much jawbone he was given!

Helena reached the hospital just after Dr. Dresser, who was not only superintendent, but chief surgeon as well, had concluded an operation on Robert Trent’s skull. At the information desk, she was informed that she could not go to his room, but before she could be stopped, she had ascended the stairs and was at his door. There she met the superintendent.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Resting as comfortably as could be expected,” replied the surgeon endeavoring to hide the red that stained the sleeves of his gown.

“May I see him?”

“Not just at present.”

“When may I see him?”

“You are related to him?”

“No, I’m... I’m... I’m Helena Cleves.”

“It may be some time before he can receive visitors, Miss Cleves. He’s—”

Her lip did tremble then and on the instant, Dresser became coldly professional.

“He hasn’t come out from the ether yet,” he stated. “I would suggest that you return later.”

“But may I not wait here?”

Her eyes were directly on him and the man of medicine looked away suddenly.

“Certainly,” he replied, all trace of professionalism gone, “my study is unoccupied.”

He led her there and left her hurriedly. As he told Lawson later, he felt as if her eyes were searching his soul and his fear was that she would learn the true condition of Robert Trent.

“He’s pretty bad then?” asked the detective.

“He has about one chance in ten. But I couldn’t tell her that.”

“No, you couldn’t tell her that,” answered Lawson, his tone dull. “Has she left yet?”

“No — she intends to remain until Trent recovers consciousness — if he does. I suppose they are engaged.”

“She’s a fine girl — a fine girl. I wonder—”

“You’re a bachelor.”

Lawson’s bald spot turned a dull red.

“And old enough to be her father,” he snapped. “Let Parmer know the minute that fellow gets his senses back.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to step in here and inform you?”

“I won’t be here. I’ve got work to do. I don’t care whether you like it or not, but I’m leaving your hospital right now.”

“I’m in favor of that, Bill, if you feel well enough. Not that you aren’t always welcome up here whether it’s bullets or a bath.

“By the way, Bill, this is the first time you’ve been with us for submersion — all the others have been because some one used you for a target or else your record is wrong.”

“My record’s all right.” A groan broke the sentence as Lawson tried to rise and found all the stiffness in the world in his joints. “And you run a first-class hospital, doc, but lying up here isn’t getting me anywhere.”

“Where are you going?”

“After a square emerald.”

“In a night gown split all the way up the back?”

“No. And I won’t need any damned orderly to help me dress or you either.”

“I take that as a dismissal. Just for that I’ll discharge you.”

“That’s kind. Where’s Miss Cleves?”

“In my study.”

“Is she crying?”

“She is not.”

Dresser’s tone was so positive that Lawson donned his clothes as hurriedly as his aches would permit, the pains being so numerous and his haste so great that he was unconscious that his usually immaculate shoes were far from presentable.

When he did reach the study he found that Dr. Dresser had spoken the truth. Helena Cleves was not weeping, and as she greeted Lawson the detective thought that beautiful was indeed an inadequate adjective.

In her eyes a light was burning, and her slight pallor made her resemble a flower — a flower with a soul. But, despite her paleness, the little hand that rested for an instant in the palm of the detective was cool.

She wanted to know all about the accident, the complete details, since she had learned little save that both Trent and Lawson were in the hospital.

“How did you find that out?” asked Lawson, his eyes dropping to his shoes and his heart sinking as he sensed what the river had done to them.

“When you didn’t come back. I called up headquarters — the number you gave me. I talked with Mr. Parmer and he said he would have me notified if any news came. He kept his word.”

“Chief Parmer always keeps his word,” asserted Lawson.

Then he told her of the collision and the wreck — omitting, however, certain salient facts.

Impatient to resume his work, he didn’t talk with her long. Precious hours had flown.

From the hospital he went directly to headquarters, where he conferred with Parmer, the chief.

At the end of the recital his hand rested for a moment on the arm of his subordinate, and thus Lawson knew that had the water claimed him he would not have had a more sincere mourner in all the world than the silent man at his side.

The chief then related tersely what had been accomplished. Halligan and Harper, at the moment relieved by Laub and Stark, would be back at their old posts in the early morning. Every precaution had been taken to keep the square emerald in the city. If it got out officers all over the country would be watching for it.

“And I’ve ordered Quinn to keep an eye on that swamp?” concluded Parmer.

As Lawson picked up his hat, Dr. English, the county medical examiner, came in to make his report on the findings of the autopsy on Greening’s body.

The butler had not been slain. His death had been due to a heart lesion, the result of disease of long standing.

Lawson’s stiff hat dropped from his fingers. But the chief, though equally surprised, merely took his stogy from his mouth and laid it on the desk.

Chapter XII The French Maid

Lawson first attended to his shoes. When assigned to the case he had been wearing a pair of light tans, and the long immersion had caused the leather to assume a mangy appearance.

His suit, which had been dried in the hospital, hung on him in wrinkled bags, but to him the shoes were of chief concern. He changed his wearing apparel, but instead of taking another pair of shoes from the collection in the closet, he prepared to restore those tans.

Not at once did he start the brush to swinging. His shoes removed, he found that, despite the length of time he had been in the water and the efforts of a hospital orderly, a crust of mud still clung to the space between the welt and the soles so firmly that he had to use a knife to remove it — a dull knife since he would not risk injury to the leather by employing a sharp edge.

After more than five minutes of intense application he daubed on the paste and set the brush in motion. Not until the leather was so glossy that he could almost see the reflection of his face did he end his labors.

At the Cleves residence he found that, outwardly at least, Mrs. Cleves had become, in a great measure, reconciled to her loss.

The marks of grief visible so plainly the night before had been replaced by a smile, a somewhat wan effort at cheerfulness, but evidently an honest one.

The detective was not kept long in ignorance of what had brought about the change. The theft of the square emerald had brought Helena and Robert together.

“She’s going to watch by his side until the crisis is passed,” continued the mother, her expression as of one already hearing wedding bells and her enthusiasm unlessened by the refusal of her husband to share it. “With Helena nursing him he surely will get well, and then—”

“In my opinion, which, of course, isn’t worth a dam, the staff of General Hospital is entirely capable of handling Trent’s case,” interrupted Cleves.

“But she wants to be near him.”

“Maybe, and maybe she knows that you want her to be there — she’s a dutiful daughter.”

“I didn’t tell her to go. And I didn’t tell her to stay — she called up and said she was going to. Anyway, in General Hospital that Bruce Thompson won’t—”

“Where is Bruce? I haven’t seen him since last night.”

“I don’t care if I never see him again. He’s—”

“A clean, straight, young fellow with a lot of ambition.”

“Nothing at present, Paula,” said Mrs. Cleves to the maid who had entered unbeknown to her husband, but watched closely by Lawson.

“Merci, madame,” replied the maid, retiring noiselessly.

“Poor Paula!” exclaimed Mrs. Cleves. “She’s so sympathetic! My loss has broken her all up — she cries all the time. She wanted to leave — had everything packed up. I pleaded with her; told her that all of us had confidence in her; that she couldn’t have had any part in that dreadful theft.

“But she felt so badly that such a thing should happen while she was with me that she actually started! But she returned! She couldn’t leave me, she said, I had been too kind. Indeed I was thankful.

“I have troubles enough without losing my maid. What with my bracelet gone, my butler dead, and my chauffeur—”

She stopped to touch her eyelids with her handkerchief.

“What about your chauffeur?” asked Lawson.

“As soon as he heard about that accident to Mr. Trent he disappeared. There’s something queer about that. Why should he go away just at a time when he might be needed at any moment?”

“Can’t I drive?” asked Cleves, somewhat truculently. “Guess I haven’t forgot how to handle a steering wheel. When a flivver was good enough for—”

“Addison!”

“Why don’t you and Mrs. Cleves drive over to General and see how Mr. Trent is getting along?” asked Lawson mildly.

“Helena will keep us posted,” growled Cleves. “But that’s a good idea, Lawson. Mrs. Cleves needs air, and we should show our sympathy,” the change in tone being due to an extremely discreet signal from the detective.

“We can leave some flowers, and that will show the poor young man we are interested in him,” said the unobservant Mrs. Cleves.

“He’s all alone in this world, and sometimes even one’s closest friends are thoughtless. And our asters are beautiful — there’s none like them in town.”

As she was speaking, she was arranging a bouquet of blooms gathered from various vases. So grateful to Lawson was she for his suggestion that she smiled at him as her husband brought up the car.

Lawson did not proceed directly to the business he had in mind — a bit of work which he did not desire to do while the family was in the house. Wandering about the long grounds in the rear, he found them deserted except for a solitary figure well down toward the river.

As he was working with the earth, Lawson knew that the uncouth man was the gardener. Squatted in a heap, with his legs curled up under him so that his feet were hidden, the man looked like a dwarf, his head entirely too large for his short torso.

“What are you doing, Sam?” the detective asked, approaching him.

The shaggy head was lifted, and Lawson looked into vacant blue eyes. The man apparently not comprehending, he repeated his question.

Instead of replying, the gardener pointed an extremely grimy forefinger at a rose bush. It had been broken off, but had been grafted together skillfully, and Sam, when interrupted, had been poulticing it with some kind of a sticky compound.

“How did that happen?” asked Lawson.

“Stepped on,” replied the gardener, in a voice which was a childish treble.

“Who stepped on it?”

“It won’t die. Sam ’ll save it.”

Turning his back on the officer, he caressed the injured plant.

“So long. Sam,” said Lawson, but the gardener paid no attention.

Lawson looked over the clay on the river bank, where he had been attacked. But the record in the soft ground told him little, the footprints were so blurred and indistinct that he could not distinguish his own.

After some study, however, he went to Cleves’s den, where he called the identification bureau, asking that a photographer be sent out.

When he had hung up the receiver so softly that the click was inaudible he tiptoed to the door and flung it open suddenly.

The hall was deserted, and, treading lightly on the deep runner, he crept up the stairway. The open door of Mrs. Cleves’s room showed it was empty.

Proceeding until he reached a room at the extreme end of the hall, he listened intently. No sound coming from within, he rapped smartly.

“Voulez vous, madame?” was the inquiry that followed.

“Open the door,” he ordered curtly.

“One minute, monsieur. Je suis deshabille.”

Lawson waited patiently until the door was opened. Thrusting his foot into the aperture, he faced a young woman in a dressing gown.

Looking on past her, he saw a room trimly neat, the only evidence of disorder, a bureau drawer not quite closed.

“Le deetecteef!” exclaimed the maid, though, to Lawson’s trained eye her face registered no surprise.

Lawson nodded.

“Que voulez vous?”

“I want you to tell me exactly what happened when you and Mrs. Cleves were up here alone last night,” replied Lawson, who understood French not at all, but who at times believed in direct methods.

“La emeraude carre!”

“Yes — about the emerald.”

For ten or fifteen seconds she hesitated as if she did not quite understand.

“Mrs. Cleves’s bracelet,” insisted Lawson, giving her cue.

The girl’s face brightened, and she replied at once. Hut her answer did Lawson no good. It was a torrent of French, her hands moving with her lips and the recital accompanied by many shrugs of her well formed shoulders.

“Give it to me in English,” Lawson ordered when he could break her flow of words. “I’m not getting any of that.”

“Je ne—”

Lawson made a gesture of despair.

“I’ll have to get an interpreter!” he exclaimed in exasperation. “I’m in away over my head.”

“Will I do?”

Whirling, Lawson faced Bruce Thompson.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I’ll explain that later. Just now the years and years I’ve had of French seem to be more important. I speak both French and A.E.F.”

“Try your hand with her then,” answered Lawson dryly.

Before Thompson could frame a preliminary question the girl started again, going faster and faster, though he attempted to cause her to speak more slowly.

“That high speed and her accent make it hard for me, but I guess I’m getting most of it,” the young man said to the detective as the girl paused for a breath. “She—”

Paula had started again, and Thompson did not interrupt. When she had concluded, his translation, though as he explained, was necessarily more than a little free, agreed in all essential details with the statement made by Mrs. Cleves.

Paula, according to her story, had stood with her back to the door; she had seen nothing and heard nothing. Her mistress was still in the room when she left.

“How does it sound to you?” asked Lawson.

“Straight enough as near as I can tell.”

“She talks English; why did she break out in French?”

“Whenever a Frenchman gets into a jam, his English, no matter how good, leaves him tout suite. I found that out over there. The same thing often happens when he gets really interested in what he’s talking about.”

“What part of France did she come from?”

“Paris she says, but her accent—”

Paula interrupted, again speaking in French.

“She says that while she came to America from Paris, she was born and brought up in Cote d’Or. Sounds reasonable. During the war I spent some time at G.H.Q. in Chaumont and I could hardly understand the natives.”

Lawson made no reply. He was busily stowing away a card which, without being observed, he had removed from the open dresser drawer.

Chapter XIII Shadowed

Thompson’s explanation of his presence in the Cleves home, which he gave to Lawson as they descended the stairway, sounded plausible. Having noticed Mr. and Mrs. Cleves drive away from the house, he had dropped in to see Breen and not finding him in the garage, had gone upstairs to the chauffeur’s room.

“Mrs. Cleves looks down on Breen because he drives her car,” he continued, “but Ben and I’ve shared blankets and three or four times we squatted in the same shell hole while Fritz sent over his souvenirs. The war’s done, but Ben and I still like to fight it. You know how it is with old soldiers.”

Lawson nodded.

“But you and Breen didn’t do much gassing this afternoon,” he observed.

“No. He wasn’t up there — he’s run out on me.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Lawson, his gaze apparently elsewhere but with the face of the youth under keen observation.

“Because... well, after all, I guess I don’t know.”

“You do know!”

Thompson’s eyes flashed, but almost instantly he had himself under control.

“I get your viewpoint,” he said, “but just the same, I don’t choose to tell you.”

“Don’t be so positive, young man. You haven’t any choice.”

“How do you get that way, Lawson?”

“It’s my business to get that way. I’m not here to pass away my time. I’m here to investigate a crime. You were on the second floor when Mrs. Cleves’s bracelet disappeared from her room. When I asked you why you were there you pulled the same like as you did a minute ago.”

“More suspicion?”

“I haven’t said that you are under suspicion. I’m going to give you a third chance to refuse to answer a question.”

“Fire away,” returned Thompson nonchalantly.

“When Miss Cleves called for help last night, how did you happen to be so fast in getting there?”

“I’ll answer that one right off,” replied Thompson. “I was looking for Helena. Is she home now?”

“No. She hasn’t been since morning.”

“Where is she?”

Lawson purposely delayed his reply.

“She’s at General Hospital with Robert Trent.”

“Say, Lawson, I’m in a heluva hurry. If you have any more questions, fire fast.”

“What’s your rush?”

“I want to see how bad Trent is hurt.”

“There’s a phone right here in the hall.”

“A telephone’s — aw, the devil, Lawson, be human, can’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll relieve your worry. Trent’s seriously injured — very seriously injured. But Miss Cleves is all right.”

“I’d better get to the hospital right away. Trent and I aren’t exactly buddies, but he might think it was funny if I didn’t call — that is unless you intend to take me to the hoosegow.”

“I think headquarters can get along without you for awhile at least,” replied Lawson.

Not until Thompson was well down the street in his roadster did Lawson reenter the house. Going in through a rear door, he found the kitchen deserted and he met no one as he ascended the back stairway.

He passed Paula’s door noiselessly, but a sound from within caused him to halt and to retrace his steps.

The girl was weeping, her sobs so violent that though she was apparently making an effort to stifle them, they were plainly audible. At that moment, Bill Lawson, his tenderness toward women and children in distress aroused, hated the business in which he was engaged.

His eyes dropped to his shoes and treading even more lightly than when he had first passed, he ascended the stairway that led to the third floor.

The rooms of the cook and the two maids were empty, their doors ajar. That puzzled Lawson for a moment and then he remembered. It was Thursday afternoon. He was a bachelor, but his professional contact with domestic affairs had impressed on him the fact that Thursday was the “day out” the time of freedom for paid household toilers. He did not enter the maids’ rooms, but he did go to Breen’s.

The chauffeur’s belongings were scattered about with the carelessness of a young man. But his uniform had been hung up neatly in his closet and below it were a pair of shoes — the ones he had worn the night before.

Bill Lawson was never mistaken about shoes. Picking them up, he looked them over and then as if a victim of habit, started to clean them. Recalling himself, he replaced the footwear in exactly the same position as found. Nor did he look at anything else in the place.

In the room of the dead butler, he spent much more time, no part of the place escaping his keen eye, a crack in the floor engaging his attention for several minutes. It was wasted effort, however, his prying bringing him no reward.

Rising stiffly, he consulted his watch and hastily brushed off his shoes. Mr. and Mrs. Cleves were liable to return at any minute.

Leaving the house, he went to the river bank, pausing at the hedge in the shadow of which he had been attacked. All traces of the struggle had vanished, the clay having been raked smooth. As he had observed Connolly, of the indentification bureau, enter the grounds with a camera, that clay bank was of no more importance.

At the spot where the body of Greening had lain, though he knew Halligan and Harper had combed it thoroughly, he poked about the grass for a few moments. From that point, he followed the same trail over which Helena. Thompson and Trent had run the night before, his movements brisk.

From the window of the butler’s room, he had seen Trent’s housekeeper depart from the house with a market basket, her age making her footsteps slow, and he had waited to be sure that she was out of sight.

The large and somewhat old-fashioned house stood in the midst of a two-acre plot which, because of land values in that vicinity meant that Robert Trent’s taxes were extremely high. Looking into the garage, he saw that Trent kept two cars, both of expensive make. The wrecked speed boat had been equally expensive and the detective knew that Trent belonged to several costly clubs.

Evidently his inheritance had been sufficient to allow Robert Trent to live according to the Trent traditions.

Lawson did not go to the front of the house; his sole interest seemingly in the rear, especially in the driveway and in the pier which extended a considerable distance out into the river, much farther than other docks in that district.

Sylvester Trent, father of Robert, as Lawson knew, had been interested in boating and had been the owner of a steam yacht which he had sold a short time before his death.

When Lawson left the Trent grounds, his eyes were straight ahead of him and in no way did he reveal his knowledge of the fact that while he had been making his inspection, Ben Breen had been spying on him.

Chapter XIV A Guilty Conscience

For forty-eight hours, Robert Trent hovered between life and death in General Hospital. In all that time, Helena Cleves did not leave the building. While Bill Lawson was combing the underworld, with Halligan, Harper, Laub and Weeks, keeping the Cleves home under constant surveillance, and other members of the detective bureau busy in various ways, Miss Cleves remained in General, hardly tasting the food that was brought to her and sleeping not at all, her pallor so increasing that her face seemed transparent.

Dresser, when next he saw Lawson, told the detective that it had seemed to him as if the girl were sacrificing herself as some sort of atonement; that by keeping a vigil at the bedside of Robert Trent, who could not possibly know of her presence, she was easing her conscience.

That statement was proof of Dresser’s powers of observation and deduction. Helena Cleves was endeavoring to atone. In her mind was a belief that could not be banished, a belief that instead of dimming as the hours passed and Trent failed to rally from his coma, grew stronger and stronger until it became torture, especially in the midwatches of the night when all was silence save hushed footsteps of nurses and now and then moans and groans — evidence that the place was a hall of suffering.

And that belief was that should Robert Trent die, Helena Cleves would be his slayer!

Not for a moment could she free herself from that accusation. She had suggested the use of his boat; when he had hung back she had led him to the pier; she had forced him to go and on her was the responsibility, the full responsibility.

Spreading her little white hands out before her, she imagined their purity was stained with red — the red of human blood!

Then there was another thought with the power to torture, the full import coming to her at the beginning of the third day.

Robert Trent’s reasons for showing reluctance to participate in the pursuit of those supposed to have taken her mother’s jewel were a mystery to her, but why he had overcome that very apparent aversion sufficiently to make the start, was not veiled. The impelling motive had been more than the touch of her hand on his arm or her order.

On the afternoon of that disastrous day, he had invited her to accompany him on the river — a place where Bruce Thompson would not bob up unexpectedly.

But even as Trent had been about to cast off the lines, she had changed her mind about going, the conviction coming to her that should she accompany him, she would give him an opportunity he had been seeking — the opportunity to ask her a question which she did not want him to ask.

The clock on the mantelpiece showed two fifteen. Over her came an overpowering sensation of helplessness, of utter futility.

It was the hour of the morning when, as she had read often, vitality ebbs and harried souls flit. And there was nothing she could do to hold Robert Trent back from the brink. Slipping to her knees, she buried her face in her hands and prayed.

The night nurse passing Trent’s bed stopped, gave him one look and summoned an interne. The young doctor did not delay but roused Dresser at once. The expert eyes of the superintendent told him that what he had feared was at hand. There was but one chance. If he could be saved, it would only be through an immediate operation.

Dresser gave the order and Trent was wheeled into the operating room. The superintendent had been aroused from the slumber of utter weariness, but always he was prepared and as soon as the anesthesia was complete, he was delving into that most delicate and intricate of all machines — the human brain.

Helena Cleves, who had not been informed of the crisis, again had herself in hand. She had reached a decision. Should Robert Trent recover and ask her the question she had evaded by refusing to enter his boat and by giving him no opportunity to be alone with her at the party that evening, her answer would be in the affirmative.

Nevertheless, though making up her mind brought to her a certain peace, the relief was not as great as she had anticipated. Try as she would — and she endeavored to do so faithfully — she could not banish another face that kept coming into her mental vision nor still a voice that sounded in her ears.

Again she looked at the clock. Forty minutes had dragged by since she had glanced at the dial previously and three hours had elapsed since she had visited Trent’s room. That knowledge made her feel guilty and she tiptoed along the corridor hastily.

The room was empty and her breath caught and the palms of her hands became moist — the taker of a life!

But she gripped herself and in a measure, regained her poise. Without a doubt, if he had died, she would have been notified. For some reason, he had merely been moved.

At the end of the corridor, under the green-shaded light, was the desk of the supervisor. She had but to wait her return to be informed. The sound of rubber-shod wheels caused her to turn. They were bringing Robert Trent back.

“Barring complications, he’ll live,” said Dr. Dresser. “And now, Miss Cleves, into bed with you instantly, or I’ll have another patient.”

She did not resist when a nurse, taking her by the hand led her to an empty room, and she even obeyed the order to lie down. But she could not relax and her eyes would not close.

By force of will, she remained reclining and possibly did sleep in brief intervals, as at times there floated before her eyes a great, green jewel which flashed the color of the sea depths. But with it was a face with eyeless sockets.

With a shudder, she arose and went to Trent’s room. And Dresser, pitying her, though the patient was not entirely recovered from the ether, allowed her to enter.

“Bob,” she called softly, bending over the bed, her vision dim because of a tear mist, “Bob, oh, Bob, I’m here, right beside you.”

The man muttered, and she bent still closer, so close that her shimmering gold hair touched the pillow, her cheek close to the bloodless lips that were forming words at first unintelligible, but at last so clear that they burned her very soul.

That understanding complete, she recoiled as if struck and a tremor shook her body—

Lawson, his shoes immaculate — he had spent three-quarters of an hour polishing them and mulling over certain facts he had uncovered — held a short conference with Parmer, then wandered down into the cell block and stopped before the steel crate that held Willie Deal and Johnny Brill.

The captured rum runners did not seem at all pleased with the visit. They were sour and defiant and when he would have conversed with them, they turned broad backs.

They had acknowledged the theft of the boat, but beyond that they would not go, their rancor increased because they had not been taken into court and admitted to bail.

“We’re not talking,” asserted Brill. “You can’t hold us more’n a day longer and we’re heeled; the judge can name any bail he wants and we’ll put it up — in cash or Liberty Bonds.”

“You’re wastin’ your time and our’n if you think you can get a squawk outta us,” added Deal. “Whadda think we are, a coupla damned snitches?”

“I kinda thought you boys would help me out a little,” answered Lawson gently and in low voice.

“How much?” whispered Brill eagerly. “You can have two grand inside of ten minutes if you’ll listen to reason.”

“Two thousand isn’t quite enough,” answered Lawson.

“Five,” remarked Deal, holding up that number of fingers.

Lawson shook his head.

“Talk’s a lot cheaper,” he observed, “and maybe if you don’t, want to talk with me, you’ll talk with the government.”

“The government’s got nothing on us,” snapped Brill, “and we’re not handin’ anything out there. So there’s nothin’ to talk to the government about.”

“No?” asked Lawson. “Seems like dope would interest the government a whole lot. The government seems to take the Harrison law a little more seriously than the Volstead act.”

Brill and Deal exchanged looks full of significance.

“It’s a trade,” announced Brill, and with the announcement the pair become loquacious.

But in their revelations was no mention of the square emerald, and Lawson, unsatisfied with what he had learned, devoted the rest of the day to an investigation of the affairs of Robert Trent.

His findings, though again the square emerald had no visible part in them, were surprising. Trent’s patrimony had vanished; he was heavily in debt; the homestead was mortgaged and there was even a chattel mortgage on the wrecked boat.

When Lawson renewed contact with headquarters, Parmer called him in and gave him some information he had received from New York — information of such importance that Lawson’s shoes went unbrushed that night.

Chapter XV Thompson Talks

Though he had definite evidence in his possession. Lawson evinced no haste in bringing the affair to a culmination. His quarry could not escape and first he desired to clean up several minor angles of the case.

In so doing, he found Bruce Thompson of assistance, though Thompson had lost much of his former spirit and vivacity. He seemed to have aged, his usual directness having given place to apathy.

Helena Cleves was again in her home, but her proximity did not restore his cheerfulness.

Helena, in whose eyes was vastly more trouble than ever appeared in the eyes of her mother, immediately on her return, had shut herself in her room and refused to see any one. Possibly her action might have caused the change in Thompson. Lawson made no effort to ascertain the truth.

From the mind of the detective, romance was eliminated. His every thought was fixed on one thing — the square emerald. He believed he had found a principal in the robbery, but belief and evidence that would convince twelve men in a jury box were two different things.

It was Lawson’s conviction that Bruce Thompson could impart information that might be illuminating and it was his purpose to obtain whatever facts Thompson might possess before making an arrest.

Thompson placed no difficulties in his way, the reticence he had shown in the past having evaporated completely. Right readily he gave his real reason for obtaining a place for Breen as the Cleves’s chauffeur, but not until he had made a gesture with his hands as if he were surrendering.

“That damned emerald!” he exploded. “She would keep it in the house in a flimsy wall safe. And every crook in the country knew who owned it! Breen and I, as you know, had been buddies over there. He’s as game as they come, a dead shot and his eyes are wide open.”

“So you got him the chauffeur’s job so he could guard the emerald?”

“Not exactly.”

“What then?”

“Helena!”

Lawson nodded.

“If there was a jam. I knew Ben could be depended on to look after her. I couldn’t hang around all the time.”

“But why did Breen try to beat it after the emerald was stolen?”

Thompson’s woebegone expression lightened a trifle.

“That’s a comedy angle,” he replied. “Breen never had a love affair in his life till he met Barbara. Then he fell like a busted plane. He believed I’d think that because of Barbara, he’d neglected his job so he tried to sneak out quietly, but I caught him.”

Lawson surveyed the young man keenly.

“Now, if that’s all true — and I’m not saying it isn’t — there’s one thing I’d like to know.”

“What’s that?” asked Thompson, his eyes meeting those of the detective.

“Why he tried to break my back when those fellows were stealing your boat.”

“That’s news to me,” averred Thompson, surprise in his voice. “And I don’t think — no, it couldn’t be possible.”

“Anything is possible.”

“But Breen was in the kitchen at that time.”

“I saw him go in, but he had time to come out.”

“He didn’t leave the kitchen till after Helena called for help. I can swear to that, and so can Barbara. I was just leaving the kitchen when I heard Helena.”

“I know you have the freedom of this house, but isn’t it a bit odd you should be in the kitchen while the chauffeur is courting a maid?”

“It might seem so. But I deliberately hunted up Breen, and I thought the kitchen was the most likely place to find him.”

“What did you want with him?”

“He was supposed to be keeping an eye on Bob Trent.”

“Then that’s why Breen was hiding in the shrubbery?”

“Exactly. Barbara was helping him, and when she gave him the signal Trent was in the house, he came in also.”

“Why were you so interested in Trent?”

Again Thompson made that gesture of surrender.

“You’re a detective,” he began, with a weary note in his voice, “but I’m going to throw myself on your mercy. Trent wants to marry Helena. So do I — worse than anything else in the world.

“I made it my business to keep him from being alone with her. He made it his business to keep her from being alone with me. I had Breen to help me, but he had her mother, so it was about fifty-fifty.

“I wouldn’t tell you why I was upstairs the night Mrs. Cleves lost her bracelet. I’ll tell you now, because it doesn’t make any difference. Helena had promised to meet me on the balcony as soon as she could get away. But instead of Helena. Trent came — he knows about that balcony.

“When I missed her after the party, I supposed she’d gone outside with Trent. That’s why I was so damned anxious to locate him. But she thought I’d seen her leave and would—”

“Sure,” said Lawson.

“But I didn’t and she ran into the body of Greening.”

Thompson stopped.

“Why did you stick a gun in my stomach?” asked Lawson, quickly.

“Because I was damn fool enough to think you were the thief. When I heard you coming, I saw myself as a hero. Hero! I fumbled! Now Trent’s beat me to it.

“I’ve been snooping around here looking for the thief and keeping Breen on the watch: Trent gets himself smashed up on the river and he’s the star and I’m out.

“Lawson, I’m not in the habit of telling my troubles, but I want you to know this much. You may think I’m whining, but I’m not. I want Helena Cleves, but I want her to be happy.

“If she wants Bob Trent more than she does me, I’ll go to the wedding if I’m invited, wish her happiness, and congratulate him.

“I’m going to one wedding anyway, just as soon as this thing is cleared up. The Government has settled Breen’s claim for partial disability, and he’s got money enough to start housekeeping. After he and Barbara are married, I’m going to be a silent partner in a garage.

“Now I’ve come clean. I don’t need to ask you to keep this confidential — I know you will. But there’s just one thing I’d like to do though.”

“What’s that?” asked Lawson, without betraying that he knew the answer to the question in advance.

“Help get that emerald back to Mrs. Cleves.”

Lawson, when they parted, shook hands with the young man. He couldn’t help it, for not only did he like him, but there was also the appeal of romance. And when their hands met, though he spoke not a word, the detective gave the youth an assurance that he would have his full cooperation.

Chapter XVI Keeping a Secret

Halligan was in front of the Cleves house and Harper behind. Roaming about the grounds were Bruce Thompson and Ben Breen. A short distance down the street was a detail of plainclothes men.

Three fast launches, one of which carried a machine gun, under command of Sergeant Quinn were patrolling the river. Lawson was taking no chances — in bringing down one bird, he might possibly flush a covey.

He pressed the button at the front door, and Barbara admitted him. Mr. Cleves had gone out, she said, but she expected him back at any moment. Mrs. Cleves was upstairs with Paula.

Her neuritis had returned, and she had requested that she not be disturbed. Lawson said he would wait in the living room until Mr. Cleves returned.

Through the window he could glimpse the street, and in the shadow of one of the large trees he saw Halligan. That meant that everything was in readiness.

Light footsteps came down the hall, and he tensed himself.

It was Helena Cleves who entered — Helena Cleves, so white of face that she looked frail. Helena Cleves, so agitated that though her lips moved no words came from them.

“What is it?” he asked gently, though he regretted that she had come to him at the moment.

Her hand went to her throat and she swayed. Placing his arm about her slim waist, he led her to a davenport.

As he seated her, her body shook with sobs, silent sobs which fairly tore the tender soul of hard shelled old Bill Lawson.

“Don’t. Miss Cleves,” he begged. “Don’t. Everything is all right; we’ll get the square—”

“I don’t care if I ever see it again,” she whispered. “It’s—”

She could not finish.

Perspiration stood on Lawson’s bald head. It was the one situation which he dreaded, a situation almost certain to arise when women were involved, directly or indirectly, in a case. But his experience never did him any good.

Always he was clumsy, inefficient. Such scenes hurt him, but he could not end them. And Helena Cleves was the most beautiful girl with whom he had ever met professionally.

He tried to stroke the back of her hand as if by contact he would impart some of his own calm to her. Her fingers closed about his, and she clung to him. Then the tears came and with them a cessation of the storm, not of a sudden but with the passing of minutes.

He did not attempt to assist her in any way — he knew better. He had to wait for nature, and nature bided her time. Finally she began to talk so brokenly at first he could scarcely understand, and then, still holding his hand, she became her own sane self again.

She had heard him speak to Barbara in the hall. She was glad he had come, since she had been endeavoring to nerve herself to seek him.

“There’s something — something I must tell you,” she panted, and then stopped.

He didn’t question her, but waited, her hand still in his.

Then, in a sentence, she disclosed the burden of her heart.

“Bob Trent killed Greening!”

Over Bill Lawson surged a mighty feeling of relief.

“No, Helena, he didn’t,” he asserted, almost gladly.

“He told me he did. When I leaned over him he whispered, ‘I killed him.’ ”

“When was that?”

“Just after Dr. Dresser operated.”

“Was it right after the operation!”

“They had just brought him back to his room.”

“Helena, ether sometimes makes people say strange things. Bob Trent didn’t kill your butler. Nobody did.”

Then he told her the result of the autopsy, stopping abruptly, for the recollection had come to him that twice within the space of less than a minute he had called her by her first name!

Whether or not she took note of his blunder he did not know. Nor did he know whether or not Helena Cleves, once more her radiant self, kissed his cheek.

But the thought was a bright spot in the midst of a gloom he felt because he could not tell her all he knew of Robert Trent.

Chapter XVII The Inside Story

Cleves, who returned soon after the happy Helena had gone to her room, called Paula downstairs when Lawson explained the object of his visit to the house this time.

“You’re under arrest,” the detective remarked quietly to the girl who stood before him.

“Surely there is some mistake,” she asserted, equally cool, though Lawson noted a twitching of her hands.

“No mistake at all,” returned Lawson. “I have something here that may interest you.”

Without relaxing his vigilance in the slightest, he took from his pocket the papers that had been received from the East. Included were cards, each bearing two photographs, one profile and one front view, with blanks which had been filled in neatly, while on the reverse sides were black smudges.

Despite the rouge she was wearing, the paling of the girl was apparent. She did not shrink, however, but cast an appealing look to Cleves.

“Monsieur,” she said, “it is unjust, a tragedy—”

“No, just justice,” interrupted Lawson. “Here’s a card I took from your dresser. Your finger-prints agree; the photographs are the same, though you’ve bobbed your hair and plucked your eyebrows. You’re not Paula Renaud, but Ethel Goodall, born in London and not in France.

“When you were fifteen you ran away with Pierre Baptiste, a French thief. You served two terms — five years in all — in French prisons for stealing jewelry. No wonder you can handle the French language!

“You ought to have gone on the stage, Ethel, you’re a good actress. But you overlook little things. When your accent bothered Thompson, I felt sure I was getting nearer.

“And then when you explained about your accent before Thompson translated... well, I don’t know French, but that was out of character. You didn’t come to this country from Paris — you don’t, dare go into Paris. You came here from London.”

“What has that to do with madame’s square emerald?” she demanded, almost insolently.

“Enough for me to send you to prison” — Lawson was clipping his words, a certain sign that he had no doubt as to her guilt. “You followed that emerald over from London. All the papers told of the sale to Mr. Cleves. You had no trouble in keeping track of it.

“Your game is to work as lady’s maid. You were in luck because Mrs. Cleves’s Huldah had given notice. Guynon’s didn’t send you here. You came of your own accord after learning of the opening. That meant they had no record of you — I’ve checked up on that.”

“Madame was with me when her emerald disappeared. How about that, M. Lawson?”

“So was Madame Sabarly when her diamonds disappeared. A French copper with a warrant for you is on his way—”

“You bloody bars—”

“Cut that out. Miss Cleves might hear you. You were Madame Sabarly’s maid. You massaged her. One night while you were rubbing her head her diamonds disappeared. And so did you.

“That French officer is bringing a picture of you — several of them, some in prison uniform.

“Mrs. Cleves thought she was upstairs with you only a few minutes. My check up shows she was there more than half an hour. She napped, just as Mrs. Sabarly napped.

“While Mrs. Cleves’s eyes were closed, you took her bracelet from the chifferobe.”

“If I did, what did I do with it? You have searched my belongings.”

“No. That would have been a waste of time. You dropped that emerald out of the open window. Greening was waiting below and—”

“Mr. Greening! What about him?”

“I’ll supply that information for Mr. Cleves’s benefit. His real name was Harry Jennings. He was a butler all right, but his references, like yours, were forgeries. He couldn’t get any references because he’d served time.”

“But I only knew Mr. Greening as a butler.”

“In this house — yes. Another piece of acting. But he was your husband — the only one you’ve ever had. Do you want to see a copy of the record of your marriage?”

Her gray eyes stood wide open, her stare as fixed as if she were gazing on some apparition. Lawson reached for his cuffs.

He could handle her easily without them, but he intended to shackle her for the same reason that the various details were on duty about the house — he did not know how many might be in the gang, and he wanted to be sure of a principal at least.

“It’s true — all true,” she choked, drawing back from the shiny chain. “I’ve never confessed before. But he was struck down. He was my husband. We’d never worked together before, though we knew all about one another. This was our last job. He had heart disease — and no recommendations.

“The doctors said he was liable to die at any time. With that bracelet we would have been rich. There was a place in Australia — and now he’s dead.”

“Where’s the emerald?” demanded Lawson.

“If I knew I’d be glad to tell you, because nothing makes any difference now. Take me away before Mrs. Cleves sees me with darbies on.”

Chapter XVIII In the Swamp

At headquarters Paula, completely broken, added to her confession. When she had learned of her husband’s death she had endeavored to flee, but Breen had turned her back.

Mrs. Cleves told her the emerald had not been found on the body, which, despite her grief, was a relief, as it encouraged the hope that she would not be connected with the robbery.

“Why did Greening hang around the house after he got the bracelet?” asked Lawson.

“Bobbies in front of the mansion,” choked the girl, “and Chauffeur Breen in the back — he seemed to be always watching. Harry hid the jewel, came back inside, served the refreshments and waited.”

“How did he intend to make his getaway?”

“Mr. Thompson’s boat was always at the quay. The family would think nothing of the noise because of the whisky runners. He planned to cross over to the Dominion, go up a few miles, and there take a train for New York, where I would meet him.

“Then you came. I heard Mr. Thompson say you were an officer. With a bobbie so near I became nervous. It was our biggest job. So I gave Harry the signal that—”

“You might as well keep your nerve.”

The suggestion had the effect Lawson, a keen judge of human nature, intended. She shrugged her shoulders and raised her head.

“Proceed,” she said.

“Who was in on this with you?”

“ ‘In on this?’ Oh, you mean our accomplices! We had none. We knew no one on this side of the Atlantic — we were quite strange in the States.”

“How’d you get those credentials then?”

“Oh, they are quite easy to obtain in London if one knows one’s way about.”

“Take her downstairs,” said the detective to the patrolman at the door.

Lawson was leaving headquarters when he encountered Bruce Thompson. The young man admitted that he had followed him and had been waiting for his reappearance.

“Where are you going now?” he asked.

The question irritated Lawson. It was an intrusion into police affairs. But his attitude changed quickly.

“Why do you ask me that?” demanded the detective.

“Because if you wouldn’t think I was horning in. I’d like to go with you.”

“You’re liable to get into trouble. But if that’s what you are looking for, I’m willing to use your car instead of one of the department’s.”

“Just tell me where to drive,” replied Thompson, earnestly.

Lawson directed him to the great swamp just below the city. Convinced that Paula and Greening had had no accomplices — he believed her statement, in as much as the records of both showed that their activities had been confined entirely to Europe — the exhaust of the motor boat he had heard as he stood in Mrs. Cleve’s room the night of the robbery took on a new importance. So did the presence of those two strange young men at the party.

It was entirely possible that after Greening had obtained possession of the jewel he had been hi-jacked.

Those two guests had not been traced, though Parmer had detailed several men to that duty, and photographs received by the Identification Bureau tallied very closely with their descriptions.

Nor had the Brill-Deal boat been found, so that the premise that the missing ones were sheltered in the great swamp, with its maze of waterways and little islands, was not illogical.

Thompson handled his car as if he were a part of the machinery. Frequently he interrupted Lawson’s reverie with quips about the condition of the road and the satisfaction it gave him to be free of the fear of being given a ticket by a motor cycle officer.

“Got a revolver?” asked Lawson when they reached the edge of the swamp.

“No — something better,” replied Thompson, and in the hard starlight the detective saw a United States service pistol. “I’m more familiar with this.”

“All right,” said Lawson. “We park here.”

Leaving the car, they walked several blocks, then left the highway.

“This is your station,” announced the detective at length.

Thompson, obviously disappointed, expressed a desire to accompany the officer.

“This is your station,” repeated Lawson, without, however, ordering him directly to remain there. He could not take the responsibility of allowing young Thompson to accompany him, but if he should follow—

Lawson knew that swamp as no one else in the department. As a man-hunter, he had covered it many times. The blind pathways were marked so well in his mind that he could travel them in semidarkness as well as daylight.

It had been that knowledge that had enabled him to break up the gang that used the place as headquarters for bringing in booze by airplane.

Confidently, he set out, every sense alert, since he did not know how soon he might encounter those he sought, though he judged that they would be deep within the morass since they had come there by boat.

Back and forth he worked, silently, with frequent pauses to listen. Sound travels far at night and as he listened within him was a sense of disappointment. Bruce Thompson was remaining where he had left him.

Of a sudden, he found that which he sought — a motor boat in a narrow water lane, the bushes a screen. Though the craft was apparently deserted, Lawson took no chances, drawing himself back into the shadows immediately on sighting it.

But experienced as he was, he did not see a dead limb directly in the way of his foot and it broke, snapping in the stillness like the report of a rifle.

Instantly, two figures detached themselves from the blackness near the boat and started to run in the direction of a shack which Lawson knew was in the vicinity.

“Halt or I’ll shoot!” he called, taking aim.

The reply was bullets that slashed the bushes.

Shrinking back hastily, he made sure that his revolver was loaded and that extra ammunition was available. Then he waited, his nerves tense and his vision strained, but the hand that held the weapon was steady as a stone ledge.

Chapter XIX Wanted for Murder

It was a short wait. He had hardly settled himself when his adversaries carried the attack to him. On they came, firing as they ran, the bullets spatting about him wickedly. And instead of two, they were four.

“Halt!” cried Lawson, raising his weapon.

The command was ignored and he fired — low, since his only desire was to stop them.

Then the mighty impact of a large caliber bullet against his right shoulder sent him to the earth, his revolver spinning out of his useless fingers. Even as he fell, he tried to pull himself back within a screen, but he failed and lay fully exposed in the starlight.

“We’ve got him,” yelled one of the four. “Now we’ll finish the dirty John Law.”

Lawson saw the leader take aim. But he did not close his eyes, though the man was so near to him that he could not miss.

Then, out of the darkness behind him came the roar of an army forty-five!

For a second the gang, surprised, hesitated. Then with another yell, advanced again. Five times the army automatic spoke, and Lawson’s heart gave a bound of gratitude. Bruce Thompson had not failed him. But after the fifth shot, silence reigned.

“We’ve got the other guy, too,” cried some one. “Beat it for the boat.”

But they did not reach that boat. On the left, another pistol began to speak and when it ceased, the quartet, disarmed and helpless, was on the ground. Ben Breen had lived up to the reputation given him by Bruce Thompson — had proved himself a pistol expert.

He, in turn, had disobeyed orders and had followed Thompson, using the Cleves car to tag him to the swamp and then trailing him by methods he had learned while crawling about No Man’s Land in the darkness.

The prisoners secured, Lawson and Breen looked for Thompson. He lay unconscious a short distance from the spot where Lawson had taken to cover, blood flowing from a wound in his left temple. Lawson’s heart was indeed heavy.

But Thompson was only stunned — “creased” as the old squirrel hunters used to say — and swamp water revived him promptly.

“Another fumble,” he groaned, “and it was my big chance. No luck.”

“No fumble, son,” answered Lawson with a great tenderness in his voice. “If it hadn’t been for you—”

At headquarters, Dr. Keeler, police surgeon, after sending Thompson home in care of Breen, ordered Lawson to General Hospital immediately.

Thompson’s wound was only minor, but Lawson’s was serious. The detective refused flatly — he had something more important to do. Nor could Keeler force him to obey.

The identification of the four captives, who had also received treatment for flesh wounds, was easy, since their pictures, finger-prints and records were on file in the identification bureau.

It was of that particular four — a jewelry mob — that Lawson had been thinking when he reached the conviction that the square emerald had not been taken to Canada.

Their records were a part of the department’s files because of a crime in Toronto which had involved the taking of the life of a jeweler.

None of the four would make any admissions regarding Canada, as the Dominion has a habit of extracting payment at the end of a rope for the crime of murder.

But their confessions regarding their intent to steal the Cleves jewel were almost eager, which indicated a preference for prison in the States. The plot to steal the bracelet had been hatched as soon as they had read of the Cleves purchase.

They had surveyed the ground, picked out a boat to use in their flight and had decided to hide in the swamp until the chase died down into routine.

“Everything went along all right only we failed to obtain our prize,” continued Dolly Moore, the thief who acted as spokesman.

“What’s that?” demanded Lawson, a throb of pain making his question thick.

“We failed miserably,” replied Moore, who prided himself on his use of English, a fact related in his record. “My friend and I” — he indicated the one with the sweep of a hand, well kept despite his swamp residence — “attended that party to make a further survey of the surroundings and to make absolutely certain that the lady was wearing that beautiful specimen of the art of the lapidary.

“Our plans were somewhat loosely connected, not in the sense of incompleteness, but rather in that they were flexible. It was our intent to obtain the jewel during the party if possible. If not, then Lefty and Joe were to come back after the hostess had retired and do a little second story work, but we failed to return.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Lawson.

“Plans, no matter how well laid, as the eminent Scotch bard remarked, ‘gang aft a-gley!’ It was somewhat startling when engaged on an enterprise involving peculation to see a detective standing in the hallway — the reference is obviously to you.

“Lefty and Joe did not anticipate a precipitous departure, but they, being resourceful young men, obtained a boat for us. Not the one, however, on which we had planned — Mr. Robert Trent’s — but one considerably slower, which under the circumstances, was exasperating.”

“Where did you get the dope on Trent’s boat?”

“The information, if I may correct your diction, was obtained in a comparatively simple manner.

“Just as an excuse for hanging around, we engaged in the highly remunerative enterprise of bringing liquor from a foreign shore to the arid United States. The gentlemen who engaged us, Mr. Brill and Mr. Deal, landed at Mr. Trent’s dock which has been their custom for some time.

“Whoever made the arrangement showed most excellent judgment, since none would respect the remaining scion of a first family of having any connection with the importation of whisky into a dry country.

“For him, it was a profitable business as he received a dollar a case for all of the goods that went over his dock, and he was safe as well as he was never present when it arrived.”

“How much did Trent know of your game with the emerald?”

“Nothing whatsoever. We needed no additions to our little company. It was our intent to borrow his boat without his knowledge.”

“But he saw you at Mrs. Cleves’s?”

“Naturally. But how could he expose those who had been, in a way of speaking, his business associates? Referring to rum running, my hope is that we have not too seriously discommoded the owners of the craft which we so inadvertently removed from their possession.”

“They are downstairs now,” replied Lawson.

“The hell they are!” exclaimed Moore, the veneer of polish vanishing and the expression in his eyes that of a rat.

“And before you join them, you are going to tell me where that bracelet is.”

“Though I regret it exceedingly,” returned Moore, once more in his favorite character, “none of us is able to accede to that request. The last we saw of that wonderful bauble was when it was on the wrist of its rightful owner.”

Chapter XX Where Was the Bracelet?

Handicapped by a useless right arm and a shoulder that pained whenever he moved too suddenly, Lawson picked up the shoe-brush and endeavored to brighten his footwear — an extremely awkward proceeding. Nevertheless, with rutlike corrugations in his usually smooth forehead, he persisted.

Neither the agony of his shoulder nor his clumsiness caused those furrows. At the moment, shining his shoes was a mere gesture, a mechanical operation that assisted his brain processes.

It was the square emerald that was wrinkling his brow. In a cell at headquarters was the confessed thief of the gem. In other well separated cells, were four men who had gone to the Cleves home with the intention of stealing it.

But where was that bracelet?

The lack of satisfactory answer to that question absorbed Lawson so completely that he disregarded the throbbing ache in his shoulder and it was the impelling force that kept the brush moving back and forth at a time when, wounded as he was, he should have been recuperating in General Hospital.

He had “run out” the seeming coincidence of the actual theft and the attempted theft had occurred the same night. Bruce Thompson had called the wall safe repository “flimsy.”

In reality, it was one of the best of its kind, so strong that the maid and the butler had not dared to attempt to force it and had been compelled to bide their time until Paula could use the method she had employed successfully with Mrs. Sabarly.

Their wait had been long since Mrs. Cleves never took her ornament from the safe unless some one was with her. And the Moore gang had availed themselves of the social gathering for purposes of observation.

That which Moore had revealed of Robert Trent’s illegal activities was merely confirmation of that which Deal and Brill had already told Lawson and of his own deduction that the Trent dock had been used for other than the landing place of pleasure craft.

Yet in Moore’s statement was explanation of why Trent had sent his boat into those piles at the risk of his own and Lawson’s life. Evidently he had believed it better to face death than to risk capturing the two men who had it in their power to ruin him by revealing his connection with an outlaw business. But that was leading away from instead of to the square emerald.

Greening might have thrown much light on the mystery, but Greening was dead. He had paid for his dishonesty with his life, since the extra exertion, excitement or fear, had been too much for his disease-weakened heart.

Fear? For an instant, Lawson held the brush in the air, then dropped it as if the handle were hot. Under such circumstances what would be a criminal’s greatest fear? Obviously that some one who knew him well had witnessed his flight and would spread the alarm.

From his pocket, the detective took three small parcels which might have contained jewels, since they were wrapped carefully in tissue. The contents, however, were only particles of dried mud, yet he treated them with as much care as is used in handling diamonds — or emeralds.

Magnifying glass in hand, he studied each one of the samples with minute attention. Minutes of careful scrutiny convinced him without a doubt that each had come from the same place.

Then, with his forehead smooth once more, he searched a photograph made for him by the identification bureau. To the average man, the scene was highly uninteresting, since it merely showed a clay bank. But those three small heaps of clay had all originated in that place.

Lawson had scraped one of those three samples from his own shoes; the second he had taken from the spot where he had been attacked at the edge of the river and the third had come from the shoes of Ben Breen.

He forced himself to retire since he had accomplished all he could until daylight returned. But so eager was he to be about his task and so feverish from the wound in his shoulder that he tossed about until dawn.

Surgeon Keeler rated him severely for not having gone to the hospital the night before. Lawson’s reply was a growled order to hurry in changing the dressing of the wound in his shoulder.

“It would serve you right if infection did develop,” asserted the surgeon. “You couldn’t shine your shoes if you had only one hand.”

“I did last night,” replied Lawson.

“I suppose you’ll die of a broken heart if you don’t shine your shoes, even if that shoulder doesn’t kill you. But, Bill, be careful. We’d miss you just a little bit if you didn’t loaf around headquarters any more.”

“I’ll attend a lot more line-ups if I don’t die of old age while you’re putting on that dressin’.”

Keeler adjusted the sling and Lawson got into a department car, his order to the chauffeur being to drive to the Cleves home as rapidly as possible.

The silence and the drawn shades told him that the family had not yet arisen, but he observed that the gardener was again ministering to that broken rosebush. He was squatting beside it and though the autumn morning was cool, the large feet that projected from under his body, were bare.

That fact seemed to electrify Lawson as he darted into the garage. There he found where Breen had got clay on his shoes, bits still remaining on the concrete floor and the trail leading to the stairway.

Running up the steps, Lawson entered the gardener’s room, his eyes roving about the place. Well under the bed, he found that which he sought, Sam’s shoes.

Picking them up, he looked at them with an expression of disappointment on his face. They were almost new and, except for the dust, were as they had been when they came from the factory.

Diligent search failing to reveal another pair, the corrugations reappeared on Lawson’s forehead. Then his eyes fell to a crumpled-up rug and with a quick motion, he obtained a fifth sample of earth.

Apparently, his haste was at an end and he sauntered down the stairway like a man with an abundance of leisure.

The gardener was still squatting beside the rosebush and Lawson approached him casually.

“Get up, Sam,” he ordered quietly.

The gardener turned uncomprehending eyes on him.

“Get up — I want you,” the detective repeated, placing his hand on the man’s arm.

The response was immediate. Up and up, the gardener rose, his stature increasing like the uncoiling of a spring. It was an uncanny thing — a metamorphosis of a dwarf into a giant.

His torso was short, but his legs were long, inordinately long, so long that when he was at last erect, he towered above the detective. His vacant expression had changed to a snarl, and his rolled sleeves exposed powerful arms covered with a growth of hair so thick it resembled wool.

“Come on,” ordered Lawson, endeavoring to clutch one of those great arms.

With a throaty roar, the gardener was on him and once more Lawson was caught in a grip so mighty that it seemed to turn his spine to liquid so great the torture it inflicted on that wounded shoulder — a torture that drew from Lawson a cry of agony.

Across the trim lawn, the response came — a lovely figure in a pink negligee and little pink mules that seemed to fairly flit over the short grass.

“Sam!” she called. “Stop!”

The arms no longer crushed, but with the world black to his eyes, Lawson fell to the earth and did not arise.

Chapter XXI Feeling Foolish

Lawson was propped up in bed in a room that seemed to overflow with asters. He had been there ten days and this was the first time Dr. Dresser had permitted him to see visitors.

Some one was waiting — some one by no means a stranger to General Hospital. But on this occasion when the superintendent told her she could go upstairs, she did not stop at Robert Trent’s room, though Trent’s convalesence had reached a stage where there were no restrictions on those who wished to see him.

“I suppose you want all the details,” she said, arranging still another bouquet. “Dr. Dresser says you’ve been so ill he hasn’t even allowed Chief Parmer to see you.”

“The chief telephoned after you did today,” replied Lawson admiring the deftness of her slim fingers, “and I told him not to come up till” — the detective’s bald spot pinked suddenly — “well, Miss Cleves, the chief’s awfully busy at this time of the day.”

“Sam saw Greening run toward the river,” she continued apparently without noticing the veteran’s confusion. “Greening was in such a hurry that he stepped on a rosebush and broke it.

“That bush happens to be Sam’s special pet — a variety he has developed himself. Sam is simple-minded, practically an imbecile, but he loves flowers, and he chased Greening.

“Just as he was catching up with him, Greening, who must have heard him coming, though he was barefooted — Sam hates shoes — threw something at him, but Sam was too enraged to stop.

“Just as he got to him. Greening fell. He had thrown mother’s bracelet at Sam and he searched the dead man’s pockets to see if he had taken anything else.

“Then he decided there was only one safe place for the emerald — the place from which the flowers come — the earth. So he buried it beside his rosebush.

“Ordinarily Sam would not harm any one. But he’s loyal and when he saw you on the river bank, he thought you were another thief. When you took hold of him beside the rosebush, he thought you had come after the emerald.”

“If he’s as simple-minded as you say, how did he know that bracelet was your mother’s?” asked Lawson, who despite the pleasure he was experiencing in the company of the girl, was still the copper.

“I can trust you,” she whispered. “Poor Sam is my mother’s brother.”

Then so far as Bill Lawson was concerned, the case was closed.

“I suppose your mother is happy because she has her emerald back again?” he asked.

“She hasn’t it. Mother has changed. When it was returned, she decided she didn’t want it. Father sold it to Jim Thompson to-day. She feels very badly over what Robert Trent did.”

“Who told you that?” demanded Lawson.

“Bob did — all of it. I was wrong when I thought he told me it was he who had killed the butler. It was you he thought he killed.”

Lawson turned his head.

“Mr. Lawson,” said Helena very softly, “I told you mother had changed.”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her again and seeing her blush.

“Bruce and I are going to be married as soon as the mark of that bullet goes away and we want you to be there — but not as a detective.”

And Bill Lawson, feeling foolishly young, promised.