Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

It was while Anthony Trent debated as to whether he dare risk the Countess’s recognition of him that a wholly accidental circumstance offered him the opportunity.

Suffering from a slightly inflamed neck he was instructed to apply dioxygen to the area. This he did with such cheerful liberality that his shaving mirror next day showed him a man with black hair at the front and a vivid blond at the back. The dioxygen had helped him to blondness as it had helped a million brunettes of the other sex. For a moment he was chagrined. Then he saw how it might aid. It was his intention to go back to Kennebago for the deer hunting and accordingly he despatched Mrs. Kinney post haste. She was used to these erratic commands and saw nothing out of the ordinary in the fact that he was in a bath robe with a turkish towel wound about his head. He was in dread of becoming bald and was continually fussing with his hair. In a day or so Anthony Trent was a changed being. His eyes had a hazel tint in them which formed not too startling a contrast to his new blondness. He was careful to touch up his eyebrows also.

Shutting up his flat he registered at a newly built hotel as Oscar Lindholm of Wisconsin. He would pass for what we assume the handsome type of Scandinavian to be. It was at this hotel Captain Monmouth stayed when he came to indulge in what he termed a “flutter” with the cards. There were still a few houses in the city where one could be reasonably sure of quiet. Hard drinking youths were barred at these houses. They became quarrelsome. The men who played were in the main big business men who could win without exhuberance or lose without going to the district attorney. They were invariably good players and lost only to the professionals. And their tragedy was that they could not tell a professional until the game was done. Captain Monmouth always excited in players of this type a certain spirit of contempt. He was so languid, so gently spoken, so bored at things. And he consumed so much Scotch whiskey that he seemed primed for sacrifice. But he was never the altar’s victim. He was always so staggered at his unexpected good fortune that he readily offered a revenge. A servant had told David Moor that the household was supported on these earnings.

Captain Monmouth, stepping through the lounge on the way to his taxi, caught sight of Oscar Lindholm. Oscar was leaning against the bar rail talking loudly of the horse. Five hours later Oscar was still standing at the bar and the horse was still his theme. Monmouth was a careful soul for all his gentle languors and sauntered into the tap room and demanded an Alexander cocktail. As became a son of Wisconsin, Oscar was free and friendly. The “Alexander” was a new one on him, he explained, dropping for a moment themes equine.

Monmouth never made the mistake of offering friendship to a bar-room stranger unless he knew exactly what he was and how he might fit into the Monmouth scheme of things. He referred Mr. Lindholm to the guardian of the bottles. It was the size of the Lindholm wad that decided Captain Monmouth to accept an invitation to a golden woodcock in the grill room. There it was that Lindholm opened his heart. He wanted to follow hounds from the back of a horse.

“Well, why don’t you, my good sir?” Monmouth replied languidly. For a moment a light of interest had passed across the dark blue eyes of the ex-cavalryman. Trent knew he was interested.

Trent explained. He said that the following of hounds near New York was only possible to one who passed the social examination demanded by these who controlled the hunting set.

“You’re quite right,” Monmouth admitted, “for the outsider it’s impossible.”

“I’ll show ’em,” Oscar Lindholm returned chuckling. Then he took the proof of an advertisement from the columns of a great New York daily and passed it over to Monmouth.

“Wealthy westerner wants to share home among hunting set of Long Island. Private house and right surroundings essential. References. O. L.”

And that light passed over the Englishman’s eyes, and was succeeded by a look of boredom.

“You don’t suppose, do you,” he asked, “that the kind of people you want to know will admit a stranger from Wisconsin into their family?”

“Why not?” the other cried, indignantly. “Isn’t this a free country and ain’t I as good as any other man?”

“In Wisconsin, undoubtedly: I can’t speak for Westbury. By the way, can you ride?”

“I could ride your head off,” Lindholm bragged.

“Yes?” said Monmouth softly. “Now that’s very interesting. Perhaps we could arrange a little match somewhere?”

“Any time at all,” Trent returned. He did not for a moment believe he had a chance against Monmouth but he could afford to lose a little money to him. In fact he was anxious for the opportunity.

“You are staying here?” Monmouth demanded.

Trent pushed a visiting card toward him. It was newly done. “Oscar Lindholm, Spartan Athletic Club, Madison, Wisconsin.”

“Yes, I’m staying here,” he admitted. “Are you?”

“My home is in Westbury,” Captain Monmouth replied.

“Then you could get me right in to the set I want?”

“Impossible,” cried the other, rising stiffly to his feet. “One owes too much to one’s friends.”

“Bull!” said Oscar Lindholm rudely. “You only owe yourself anything. If I have a lot of money and you want some of it why consult your friends? What have they done for you?”

“I don’t care to discuss it,” Captain Monmouth exclaimed. “Good night, Mr. Lindholm.” He limped away.

Assuredly he was no simpleton. He was not sure of this blond lover of cross-country sport. If Lindholm were genuine in his desire to break into the sort of society he aimed at he would come back to the attack. If he were not genuine it were wiser to shake him off.

As for Trent, he felt reasonably sure things would come his way. But there was a certain subtlety about these foreign gentlemen of fortune which called for careful treading. Were he once to win his way to the establishment of Madame de Beaulieu he would be in dangerous company. The man who had just left him was dangerous, he sensed. The Countess already commanded his respect. Then there was the so-called secretary and the woman who posed now as a maid. And in the house there might be a treasure trove that would make his wildest expenditures justified. Looked at in a cool and reasonable manner it was a very dangerous experiment for Anthony Trent to make. He would be one against four. One man against a gang of international crooks, all the more deadly because they were suave and polished.

It was while he was breakfasting that Captain Monmouth took a seat near him. Trent commanded his waiter to transport his food to Monmouth’s table.

“What about that horse race?” he demanded.

“Let me see,” the other murmured. “Oh yes, you say you can ride?”

“I can trim you up in good style,” Trent said cheerfully, “any old time.”

“What stakes?” Monmouth asked, without eagerness. “What distance? Over the sticks or on the flat?”

“Stakes?” Trent said as though not understanding.

“I never ride or play cards for love,” Monmouth told him.

“That can be arranged later,” Trent said, “the main thing is where can we pull it off? Out west there’s a million places but here everything is private property.”

Captain Monmouth reflected for a moment.

“I shall be in town again in three days’ time. You’ll be here?”

“Depends what answers I get to my advertisement.”

“Oh yes,” Monmouth returned, “they will be very amusing. Very amusing indeed.”

“Why?” Trent demanded.

“Because the people who will answer will not suit your purpose at all. There may be many who would be glad of help in running a house in these hard times but they dare not answer an advertisement like yours for fear it might be known. And then again think of the risk of taking an unknown into the home?”

“I offer references,” Trent reminded him.

“But my dear sir,” Monmouth protested, “what are athletic clubs in Madison to do with those who have the entrée to Meadowbrook?”

“Supposing,” Trent said presently, “a family such as I want did get into communication with me, how much would they expect?”

Captain Monmouth looked at him appraisingly. Trent felt certain that if a figure were named it would be the one he would have to pay for the privilege of meeting the charming Madame de Beaulieu.

“One couldn’t stay at a decent hotel under two hundred and fifty a week,” the cavalryman returned. “You’d have to pay at least five hundred.”

“That’s a lot,” Trent commented.

“I imagined you’d think that,” Monmouth said drily.

“But I could pay it easy enough,” the pseudo-Scandinavian retorted.

CHAPTER XXVI

ANTHONY TRENT – “PAYING GUEST”

And in the end, he did. When Captain Monmouth suggested that the match between the two be ridden off on his own grounds near Westbury, Anthony Trent felt certain that he was taken there to be inspected by the other members of the household.

Edward Conway was a taciturn, drink-sodden man not inclined to be friendly with the affable Oscar Lindholm. Of the match little need be said. Trent, a good rider, had engaged to beat a professional at his own game. Captain Monmouth was the richer by a thousand dollars.

In the billiard room of Elm Lodge after the race Monmouth offered his guest some excellent Scotch whiskey and grew a little more amiable.

“I presume, Mr. Lindholm,” he said, “that you would have no objection to my man of business looking up your rating in Madison?”

“Go as far as you like. What you will find will be satisfactory.”

“It is,” Monmouth smiled. “I wish I had half the money that you have. I should consider myself rich enough and God knows my tastes are not simple.”

“So you had me investigated?” Trent smiled a little. “When?”

“When we made this match.”

Trent had found that the assumption of a name might be dangerous if investigations were made concerning it. It was with his customary caution that he had taken Lindholm’s name. David Moor, his little detective, often spoke of his cases to his patron. He had spoken at length about the case of Oscar Lindholm of Madison, Wisconsin. A lumber millionaire, Oscar came to New York to have a good time in the traditional manner of wealthy men from far states. A joyride in which a man was run down figured prominently in his first night’s entertainment. Fearing that the notoriety of this would affect his political aspirations in the west he was sentenced to a month on Blackwell’s Island under an assumed name. During this month his name could safely be used. The day that Trent became a member of the household at Elm Lodge the real Lindholm had ten days more to serve.

The wardrobe which Trent had gathered about him was utterly unlike his own perfect outfit. He conceived Oscar Lindholm to be without refinements and he dressed the part. He could see Captain Monmouth shudder as he came into the drawing room on the night of his arrival. Lindholm wore a Prince Albert coat and wore it aggressively.

His patent leather shoes had those hideous knobs on them wherein a dozen toes might hide themselves.

“My dear man,” gasped Monmouth, “we dress for dinner always.”

“What’s the matter with me?” the indignant guest asked.

“Everything,” Monmouth cried. “You look like an undertaker. Fortunately we are very much of a size and I have some dress clothes I’ve never worn. If Madame de Beaulieu had seen you I don’t know what would have happened.”

In ten minutes Trent was back in the drawing room this time arrayed as he himself desired to be. Madame de Beaulieu had not yet come down.

“Madame is particular then?” Trent hazarded.

“She has a right to be,” Monmouth said a little stiffly, “she belongs to one of the great families of France.”

Trent, watching him, saw that he believed it. This was a new angle. She had deceived Monmouth without a doubt. For the first time, and the last, Trent observed a certain confusion about Captain Monmouth.

“In confidence,” he said, “Madame de Beaulieu and I are engaged to be married. Captain de Beaulieu and she were negotiating for divorce when the war broke out and we must wait therefore.”

Trent remembering Moor’s report as to the members of the household pointed to Edward Conway sipping his third cocktail. “That’s the chaperon, eh?”

“Madame de Beaulieu’s aunt, Madame de Berlaymont, is here,” Monmouth said affably. “It is our custom to use French at the table as much to starve the servants of food for gossip as anything else. You speak French of course?”

“Not a word,” Trent lied promptly, “now if you want to talk Danish or Swedish I’m with you.”

Madame de Berlaymont! No doubt the French maid resuming the aunt pose. At the Guestwick affair she had been an English lady of fashion. Had they put themselves to this bother simply for his sake? He doubted it.

“We’ve not been here long,” Captain Monmouth went on, “and we know very few people. Of course we could easily know the wrong sort but that’s dangerous. To-night one of the most popular and influential men in the country is coming.”

Captain Monmouth had no time to mention his name for Madame de Beaulieu came in. It was the first time Trent had met her face to face since that night at the Guestwick’s. He was not without a certain nervousness. Looking at himself in the mirror he seemed so much the product of peroxide that it must easily be recognized. But Madame de Beaulieu gave him the most cursory of glances. There was a certain nervousness about her and Monmouth which had little enough to do with him.

This visit of the influential neighbor plainly was what concerned them. Trent assumed, shrewdly enough, that they were trying, for reasons of their own, to break into the wealthy hunting set and had not found it easy.

Madame de Beaulieu was beautifully gowned. She looked to be a woman of thirty, whereas when he had first seen her she looked no more than two and twenty. She carried herself splendidly. Her French accent was marked. In the police court she spoke as the English do. When the little bent, gray-ringletted but distinguished aunt came in, he could not recognize her at all. Assuredly he had stumbled upon as high class band of crooks as had ever bothered police. He could sense that they regarded him as a necessary nuisance whose five hundred dollars a week helped the household expenses. And he knew, instinctively, that Captain Monmouth and Edward Conway would plan to get some of the millions he was supposed to have.

Trent’s Swedish accent was copied faithfully from his janitor who had been of a superior class in his own country before he had fallen to furnace tending. He did not overdo it. To those listening, he appeared anxious to overcome his accent and lapsed into it only occasionally.

Trent heard Monmouth tell Madame de Beaulieu that Lindholm’s dress was terrible and that by God’s grace their measurements were identical or they would have been disgraced by a guest in a frock coat. He spoke in rapid French and in an undertone but Trent’s ears were sharp and had ere this warned him of danger where another man would have heard nothing.

The guest of honor was no less than Conington Warren. He was ripely affable. He had come to this dinner more to report on the behavior of the strangers occupying Elm Lodge than anything else. A bachelor may sit at a table – or a divorced man – where the married man cannot go. At the Mineola Show Madame de Beaulieu had made a good impression on the women but they were not sure of her. They had found that Captain Monmouth was indeed the second son of Sir John Monmouth, Bart, and formerly an officer of Lancers. He had wasted his money at the race track and the gaming table; but then that was not wholly frowned upon by the young bloods of American society.

Trent could see that Warren was impressed. There was an air of breeding about his hostess and host he had not thought to see. The dinner was good enough to win his distinguished commendation. He unbent so far as to question Mr. Lindholm about political conditions in his native state. He congratulated Madame de Beaulieu on the single string of exquisite pearls that were about her white throat. And well he might. Cartier had charged Peter Chalmers Rosewarne a pretty penny for them not so long ago.

Had he but known it he would have been even more interested in the ring which Oscar Lindholm wore. It was a plain gold band in which a single ruby blazed. He had never worn it till now. He felt Lindholm might easily allow himself the luxuries of which Anthony Trent was denied. The stone had adorned a stick pin which Conington Warren once loved and lost.

Monmouth’s knowledge of horses commended itself to the owner of thoroughbreds. Two men such as these could not play a part where horses were concerned. Conington Warren remembered seeing Monmouth win that greatest of all steeplechases the Grand National. A camaraderie was instantly established. It was a triumphant night. Undoubtedly the household at Elm Lodge would be accepted.

Thinking over the situation in his own room that night Trent admitted he was puzzled. Why this struggle for social recognition? His first theory that it was in order to rob wealthy homes was dismissed as untenable. To begin with it was an old trick and played out. Directly an alien household in a colony of old friends attracts attention it also attracts suspicion. And if this section of Westbury were to suffer an epidemic of burglaries Madame de Beaulieu’s home would come under police supervision.

There was little doubt in Trent’s mind that this Captain Monmouth was a member of the family he claimed as his. Conington Warren and he had common friends in England. What was his game?

And yet Madame de Beaulieu, or “The Countess,” had been notorious as the leading member of a gang of high class crooks. She had even been fingerprinted and had he believed served a sentence. Not a month before she had taken a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewels from St. Michael’s Mount and an amount of currency not specified. As the days went by Trent made other discoveries. He found for one thing that the man whose name he had taken had a reputation for drinking for he found a decanter and siphon ever at his elbow. By degrees he and Edward Conway gravitated together. This Conway, whose part in the game he could not yet guess, was drinking himself steadily to death.

One morning Trent came upon Conway scribbling on a pad of paper. He stared hard at what he wrote and then tossed the crumpled paper into a nearby open fire. The day was chilly and the blazing logs were cheerful. When Conway was gone Trent retrieved the paper and saw the signature he had assumed copied to a nicety. Conway probably had his uses as a forger. The gang of the Countess had accomplished notable successes by these means.

Trent had not been an hour in the house when he discovered that Monmouth and Madame de Beaulieu had eyes only for one another. It was a vulgar intrigue Trent supposed and explained the situation. But as day succeeded day he found he was wrong. Here were two people, a beautiful woman accomplished and fascinating and a man of uncommon good looks and distinction, head over ears in love with one another. Conceivably such people, removed from the conventions of society, would pay small attention to the convenances and yet he saw no gesture or heard no word in French or English that was not proper. Sometimes he felt he must have mistaken the aristocratic Madame de Beaulieu and her Empire aunt for the wrong women. But he could not mistake the Rosewarne pearls which he had viewed in Cartier’s only a week before the mining man bought them as a birthday present for his wife.

The night that Monmouth and the woman he loved were asked to a dinner party at Conington Warren’s home, Oscar Lindholm had two more days to serve on Blackwell’s Island. So far Anthony Trent had accomplished nothing. He had lost a thousand dollars on a horse race, two weekly payments of five hundred dollars for board and another thousand in small amounts at auction and pool. He was most certainly a paying guest.

Conway and Trent were not asked. Madame de Berlaymont was indisposed. It was the opportunity he had wanted. It was Conway’s habit to sleep from about ten in the evening until midnight. Every night since Trent had been at Elm Lodge the so-called secretary had done so. In a large wing chair with an evening paper unopened on his knees he would fall into sleep. He could be counted upon therefore not to interrupt. The servants retired no later than ten to their distant part of the rambling house. Only Madame de Berlaymont might be in the way. In reality this amiable chaperone was a woman in the early twenties Trent believed and could not be counted upon to remain unmoved if she heard strange noises in the night as of burglars moving.

Trent already knew the lay-out of the house. It was just past ten when the servants went to bed and Conway sunk in his two hours’ slumber that Oscar Lindholm went exploring.

Stepping very carefully by Madame de Berlaymont’s room he listened a long while. No sound met his ears. Then with a practiced skill he turned the door knob and entered an unlighted room. Still there was no sound of breathing. And when he switched on the light the apartment was empty. The indisposition which had kept the aged lady two days confined to her chamber was plainly a ruse. Trent could return to it later.

Never before to-night had Trent carried an automatic pistol and been prepared to use it if necessary. He was now in a house whose inmates were, like himself, shrewd, resourceful and strong. For all he knew Conway might long ago have suspected him.

Madame de Beaulieu and her chaperone occupied the bedrooms of one wing of the low rambling house. In the other wing Monmouth, Lindholm and Conway slept. Over this bachelor wing as it was called were some smaller rooms where the four maid servants slept.

The rooms of Madame de Beaulieu were beautifully furnished. It was a suite, with salon, bedroom and a large bathroom. Trent determined to allow himself an hour and a half. Skilled as he was in searching he felt he would discover something in those ninety minutes.

But the time had almost gone by and he was baffled. There was nothing. He probed and sounded and measured as he had seen Dangerfield’s detectives do but nothing rewarded him. What jewels Madame de Beaulieu owned she had probably worn. But how dare she wear at a dinner party where the Rosewarne’s might conceivably be, so well known a string of pearls? And what of those other baubles which were missing from St. Michael’s home?

A carved ivory jewel box on her dressing table revealed only a ball the size of a golf ball made of silver paper. She had begged him to save the tinsel in the boxes of cigarettes he smoked so that she might bind this mass until it became worthy of sending to the Red Cross.

Anthony Trent balanced the silver sphere in his hand. Naturally it was heavy. “If I,” he mused, “wanted to hide my three beauties I couldn’t think of anything safer than this. She’s clever, too. Why shouldn’t she use it for something she’s afraid of anybody seeing?”

A steel hat pin was to his hand. Exerting a deal of wrist strength he thrust it through the mass. In the middle it met with a resistance that the pin could not pierce. It was twelve o’clock as he put it in his pocket and locked the door of his own room. It seemed minutes before his eager fingers could strip off piece after piece of silver paper. And then the palm of his hand cupped one of the most beautiful diamonds he had ever seen.

It was fully a hundred carats in weight and its value he could hardly approximate. No stone of this size had ever been lost in the United States. He remembered however some four years ago the Nizam of Hyderabad – one of the greatest of Indian potentates and owner of an unparalleled collection of diamonds – had bought a famous stone in London. It was never delivered to him. The messenger had been found floating in the Thames off Greenhithe. The reputed price of purchase had been thirty-five thousand pounds. The Nizam’s had been a blue-white diamond and Anthony Trent believed he held it in his hand. He thought of his Benares lamp and chuckled. If he desired to avenge himself on Madame de Beaulieu for the loss of the Guestwick money he was amply rewarded now. The blazing thing in his hand would fetch at least two hundred thousand dollars if he dared dispose of it.