Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

What interested Anthony Trent most of all was a collection of letters signed “N.G.” and written on the stationery of a very exclusive club. It was a club to which Drummond did not belong.

The first letter was merely a request that Drummond meet the writer in the library of the athletic club where Anthony Trent had seen him.

The second was longer and spelled a deeper distress.

“It’s impossible in a case like this,” wrote “N.G.,” “to get any man I know well to endorse my note. If I could afford to let all the world into my secret, I should not have come to you. You know very well that as I am the only son your money is safe enough. I must pay this girl fifty thousand dollars or let my father know all about it. He would be angry enough to send me to some god-forsaken ranch to cut wild oats.”

The third letter was still more insistent. The writer was obviously afraid that he would have to beg the money from his father.

“I have always understood,” he wrote, “that you would lend any amount on reasonable security. I want only fifty thousand dollars but I’ve got to have it at once. It’s quite beyond my mother’s power to get it for me this time. I’ve been to that source too often and the old man is on to it. E.G. insists that the money in cash must be paid to her on the morning of the 18th when she will call at the house with her lawyer. I am to receive my letters back and she will leave New York. Let me know instantly.”

The next letter indicated that William Drummond had decided to lend “N.G.” the amount but that his offer came too late.

“I wish you had made up your mind sooner,” said “N.G.” “It would have saved me the devil of a lot of worry and you could have made money out of it. As it is my father learned of it somehow. He talked about the family honor as usual. But the result is that when she and her lawyer call at ten on Thursday morning the money will be there. No check for her; she’s far too clever, but fifty thousand in crisp new notes. As for me, I’m to reform. That means I have to go down town every morning at nine and work in my father’s brokerage business. Can you imagine me doing that? I blame you for it, Drummond. You are too cautious by a damn sight to please me.”

Anthony Trent was thus put into possession of the following facts. That a rich man’s son, initials only known, had got into some sort of a scrape with a girl, initials were E.G., who demanded fifty thousand dollars in cash which was to be paid at the residence of the young man’s father. The date set was Thursday the eighteenth. It was now the early morning of Tuesday the sixteenth.

Trent had lists of the members of all the best clubs. He went through the one on whose paper N.G. had written. There were several members with those initials. Careful elimination left him with only one likely name, that of Norton Guestwick. Norton Guestwick was the only son and heir of a very rich broker. The elder Guestwick posed as a musical critic, had a box in the Golden Horseshoe and patronized such opera singers as permitted it. Many a time Anthony Trent had gazed on the Guestwick family seated in their compelling box from the modest seat that was his. Guestwick had even written a book, “Operas I Have Seen,” which might be found in most public libraries. It was an elaborately illustrated tome which reflected his shortcomings as a critic no less than his vanity as an author. A collector of musical books, Trent remembered buying it with high hopes and being disgusted at its smug ineffectiveness.

He had seldom seen Norton in the family box but the girls were seldom absent. They, too, upheld the Arts. Long ago he had conceived a dislike for Guestwick. He hated men who beat what they thought was time to music whose composers had other ideas of it.

Turning up a recent file of Gotham Gossip he came upon a reference to the Guestwick heir. “We understand,” said this waspish, but usually veracious weekly, “that Norton Guestwick’s attention to pretty Estelle Grandcourt (née Sadie Cort) has much perturbed his aristocratic parents who wish him to marry a snug fortune and a girl suited to be their daughter-in-law. It is not violating a confidence to say that the lady in question occupies a mansion on Commonwealth avenue and is one of the most popular girls in Boston’s smart set.”

While many commentators will puzzle themselves over the identity of the dark lady of the immortal sonnets, few could have failed to perceive that E.G. was almost certain to be Estelle Grandcourt. Sundry tests of a confirmatory nature proved it without doubt. He had thus two days in which to make his preparations to annex the fifty thousand dollars. There were difficulties. In these early days of his adventuring Anthony Trent made no use of disguises. He had so far been but himself. Vaguely he admitted that he must sooner or later come to veiling his identity. For the present exploit it was necessary that he should find out the name of the Guestwick butler.

He might have to get particulars from Clarke. But even Clarke’s help could not now be called in and it was upon this seemingly unimportant thing that his plan hinged. In a disguise such as many celebrated cracksmen had used, he might have gained a kitchen door and learned by what name Guestwick’s man called himself. Or he might have found it out from a tradesman’s lad. But to ask, as Anthony Trent, what might link him with a robbery was too risky.

Unfortunately for Charles Newman Guestwick his book, which had cost Trent two dollars and was thrown aside as worthless, supplied the key to what was needed.

It was the wordy, garrulous book that only a multi-millionaire author might write and have published. The first chapter, “My Childhood,” was succeeded by a lofty disquisition on music. Later there came revelations of the Guestwick family life with portraits of their various homes. The music room had a chapter to itself. Reading on, Anthony Trent came to the chapter headed, rather cryptically, “After the Opera.”

“It is my custom,” wrote the excellent Guestwick, “to hold in my box an informal reception after the performance is ended. My wide knowledge of music, of singers and their several abilities lends me, I venture to say, a unique position among amateurs.

“We rarely sup at hotel or restaurant after the performance. In my library where there is also a grand piano – we have three such instruments in our New York home and two more at Lenox – Mrs. Guestwick and my daughters talk over what we have heard, criticizing here, lauding there, until a simple repast is served by the butler who always waits up for us. The rest of the servants have long since retired. My library consists of perhaps the most valuable collection of musical literature in the world.

“I have mentioned in another chapter the refining influence of music on persons of little education. John Briggs, my butler, is a case in point. He came to me from Lord Fitzhosken’s place in Northamptonshire, England. The Fitzhoskens are immemoriably associated with fox-hunting and the steeple-chase and all Briggs heard there in the way of music were the cheerful rollicking songs of the hunt breakfast. I sent him to see Götterdämmerung. He told me simply that it was a revelation to him. He doubted in his uneducated way whether Wagner himself comprehended what he had written.”

There were thirty other chapters in Mr. Guestwick’s book. In all he revealed himself as a pompous ass assured only of tolerance among a people where money consciousness had succeeded that of caste. But Anthony Trent felt kindly toward him and the money he had spent was likely to earn him big dividends if things went well.

Caruso sang on the night preceding the morning on which Estelle Grandcourt was to appear and claim her heart balm. This meant a large attendance; for tenors may come and go, press agents may announce other golden voiced singers, but Caruso holds his pride of place honestly won and generously maintained. It had been Trent’s experience that the Guestwicks rarely missed a big night.

It was at half past nine Anthony Trent groaned that a professional engagement compelled him to leave the Metropolitan. He had spent money on a seat not this time for an evening of enjoyment, but to make certain that the Guestwicks were in their box.

There was Charles Newman Guestwick beating false time with a pudgy hand. His lady, weighted with Guestwick jewels, tried to create the impression that, after all, Caruso owed much of his success to her amiable patronage. The two daughters upheld the Guestwick tradition by being exceedingly affable to those greater than they and using lorgnettes to those who strove to know the Guestwicks.

Mr. John Briggs, drinking a mug of ale and wondering who was winning a light weight contest at the National Sporting Club, was resting in his sitting-room. He liked these long opera evenings, which gave him the opportunity to rest, as much as he despised his employer for his inordinate attendance at these meaningless entertainments. He shuddered as he remembered “The Twilight of the Gods.”

At ten o’clock when Mr. Briggs was nodding in his chair the telephone bell rang. Over the wire came his employer’s voice. It was not without purpose that Anthony Trent’s unusual skill in mimicry had been employed. As a youth he had acquired a reputation in his home town for imitations of Henry Irving, Bryan, Otis Skinner and their like.

“Is this you, Briggs?” demanded the supposed Mr. Guestwick.

“Yes, sir,” returned Briggs.

“I wish you to listen carefully to my instructions,” he was commanded. “They are very important.”

“Certainly, sir,” the man returned. He sensed a something, almost agitation in the usually placid voice. “I hope there’s nothing serious, sir.”

“There may be,” the other said, “that I can’t say yet. See that every one goes to bed but you. Send them off at once. You must remain up until a man in evening dress comes to the front door and demands admittance. It will be a detective. Show him at once to the library and leave him absolutely undisturbed. Absolutely undisturbed, Briggs, do you understand?”

“I’ll do as you say, sir,” Briggs answered, troubled. He was sure now that serious sinister things were afoot and wished the Guestwicks had been as well disposed to dogs in the house as had been that hard drinking, reckless Lord Fitzhosken. Suddenly an important thought came to him. “Is there any way of making sure that the man who comes is the detective?”

“I am glad you are so shrewd, Briggs,” said the millionaire. “It had not occurred to me that an impostor might come. Say to the man, ‘What is your errand?’ I shall instruct him to answer, ‘I have come to look at Mr. Guestwick’s rare editions.’”

“Very good, sir,” said Briggs.

“Unless he answers that, do not admit him. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” the butler made answer.

At half past ten a man in evening dress rang the door of the Guestwick mansion. He was a tall man with a hard look and a biting, gruff voice.

Briggs interposed his sturdy body between the stranger and the entrance.

“What is your errand?” said Briggs suavely.

“I have come to look at Mr. Guestwick’s rare editions,” he was told.

“Step inside,” urged Briggs with cordiality.

“Everybody in bed?” the man snapped.

“Except me,” said the butler.

“Any one here except the servants?”

“We have no house guests,” said Briggs. “We don’t keep a deal of company.”

“Show me to the library,” the stranger commanded.

Briggs, now stately and offended, led the way. Briggs resented the tone the detective used. In his youth the butler had been handy with the gloves. It was for this reason he was taken into service by the fox-hunting nobleman so that he might box with his lordship every day before breakfast. Briggs would have liked the opportunity to put on the gloves with this frowning, overbearing, hawknosed detective.

“You’ve got your orders?” cried the stranger.

“I have,” Briggs answered, a trace of insolence perceptible.

“Then get out and don’t worry me. Remember this, answer no phone messages or door bells. My men outside will attend to the people who want to get into this house.”

Briggs tried new tactics. He was feverishly anxious to find out what was suspected.

“As man to man,” Briggs began with a fine affability.

Imperiously he was ordered from the room.

Anthony Trent sank into a chair and laughed gently. It had all been so absurdly easy. Two good hours were before him. None would interrupt. It was known that young Norton had been bundled out of town until his charmer had disappeared. Gotham Gossip had told him so much. It was almost certain that the Guestwicks would not return to their home until half past twelve. That would give him a sufficient time to examine every likely looking place in the house. The old time crook would no doubt have hit Mr. Briggs over the head with a black jack and run a risk in the doing of it. The representative of the newer school had simply sent all the servants to bed.

Looking quickly about the great apartment, book-lined and imposing, Trent’s eyes fell on an edition in twenty fat volumes of Penroy’s Encyclopædia of Music and Art. Scrutiny told the observer that behind these steel-bound fake books there was a safe. It was an old dodge, this. If the money for Miss Grandcourt was not here there were, no doubt, negotiable papers and jewels. This was just the sort of sacro-sanct spot where valuables might be laid away.

To pry open the glass door of the book case, roll back the works of the unknown Penroy and come face to face with the old fashioned safe took less than two minutes. It was amazing that so shrewd a man as Guestwick must be in business matters should rely on this. It was rather that he relied on the integrity of his servants and an efficient system of burglar alarm.

From the cane that Anthony Trent had carelessly thrown on a chair, he took some finely tempered steel drills and presently assembled the tools necessary to his task. As a boy he had been the rare kind who could take a watch apart and put it together again and have no parts left over. It was largely owing to an inborn mechanical skill that he had persuaded himself he could make good at his calling.

It was striking eleven by the ship’s clock – six bells – when he rolled the doors open. He rose to his feet and stretched. Kneeling before the safe had cramped his muscles. Sinking into a big black leathern chair he contemplated the strong box that was now at his mercy. He allowed himself the luxury of a cigarette. There passed before his mind’s eye a vista of pleasant shaded pools wherein big trout were lying. Weems did not own the only desirable camp on Kennebago.

He was suddenly called back from this dreaming, this castle-building, to a realization that such prospects might never be his. It was the low, pleasant, tones of a cultivated woman’s voice which wrought the amazing change.

“I suppose you’re a burglar,” the voice said. There was no trace of nervousness in her tone.

He sprang to his feet and looked around. Not twenty feet distant he saw her. She was a tall, graceful girl about twenty-two or three, clad in a charming evening gown. Over her white arm trailed a fur cloak costly and elegant. And, although the moment was hardly one for thinking of female charms, he was struck by her unusual beauty. She possessed an air of extreme sophistication and stood looking at him as if the man before her were some unusual and bizarre specimen of his kind.

CHAPTER VIII

WHEN A WOMAN SMILED

ANTHONY TRENT apparently was in no way confused at this interruption. The woman was not to guess that his nonchalant manner and the careless lighting of a cigarette, cloaked in reality a feeling of despair at the untoward ending of his adventure. Calmly she walked past him and looked at the assemblage of finely tempered steel instruments of his profession.

“So you’re a burglar!” she said with an air of decision.

“That is a term I dislike,” said Anthony Trent genially. “Call me rather a professional collector, an abstractor, a connoisseur – anything but that.”

“It amounts to the same thing,” she returned severely, “you came here to steal my father’s money.”

“Your father’s money,” he returned slowly. “Then – then you are Miss Guestwick?”

“Naturally,” she retorted eyeing him keenly, “and if you offer any violence I shall have you arrested.”

She was amazed to see a pleasant smile break over the intruder’s face. He was exceedingly attractive when he smiled.

“What a hard heart you have!”

“You ought to realize this is no time to jest,” she said stiffly.

“I am not so sure,” he made answer.

She looked at him haughtily. He realized that he had rarely seen so beautiful a girl. There was a look of high courage about her that particularly appealed to him. She had long Oriental eyes of jade green. He amended his guess as to her age. She must be seven and twenty he told himself.

“It is my duty to call the police and have you arrested,” she exclaimed.

“That is the usual procedure,” he agreed.

She stood there irresolute.

“I wonder what makes you steal!”

“Abstract,” he corrected, “collect, borrow, annex – but not steal.”

She took no notice of his interruption.

“It isn’t as though you were ill or starving – that might be some sort of excuse – but you are well dressed. I’ve done a great deal of social work among the poor and often I’ve met the wives of thieves and have actually found myself pitying men who have stolen for bread.”

“Jean Valjean stuff,” he smiled, “it has elements of pathos. Jean got nineteen years for it if you remember.”

She paid no heed to his flippancy.

“You talk like an educated man. Economic determination did not bring you to this. You have absolutely no excuse.”

“I have offered none,” he said drily.

She spoke with a sudden air of candor.

“Do you know this situation interests me very much. One reads about burglars, of course, but that sort of thing seems rather remote. We’ve never had any robberies here before, and now to come face to face with a real burglar, cracking – isn’t that the word you use? – a safe, is rather disconcerting.”

“You bear up remarkably well,” he assured her.

It was her turn to smile.

“I’m just wondering,” she said slowly. “My father detests notoriety.”

The intruder permitted himself to laugh gently. He thought of that pretentious tome “Operas I Have Seen.”

“How well Mr. Guestwick conceals it!”

Apparently she had not heard him. It was plain she was in the throes of making up her mind.

“I wonder if I ought to do it,” she mused.

“Do what?” he demanded.

“Let you get away. You have so far stolen nothing so I should not be aiding or abetting a crime.”

“Indeed you would,” he said promptly. “My very presence here is illegal and as you see I have opened that absurd safe.”

“What an amazing burglar!” she cried, “he does not want his freedom.”

“It is your duty as Mr. Guestwick’s daughter to send me to jail and I shan’t respect you if you don’t.”

She was again the haughty young society woman gazing at a curious specimen of man.

“It is very evident,” she snapped, “that you don’t appreciate your position. Instead of sending you to prison I am willing to give you another chance. Will you promise me never to do this sort of thing again if I let you go?”

Trent looked up.

“I have enjoyed your conversation very much,” he observed genially, “but I have work to do. Inside that safe I expect to find fifty thousand dollars and possibly some odd trinkets. I am in particular need of the money and I propose to get it.”

Swiftly she crossed the room to a telephone.

“I don’t think you’ll succeed,” she said, her hand on the instrument.

“Put it to the test,” he suggested. “The wires are not cut.”

“Why aren’t you afraid?” she demanded; “don’t you realize your position?”

“Fully,” he retorted, “but remember you’ll have just the same difficulty as I in explaining your presence here. Now go ahead and get the police.”

“What do you mean?” she cried. He noticed that she paled at what he said and her hands had been for a moment not quite steady.

“First that you are not a Miss Guestwick. There are only two of them and I have just left them at the Opera. Next you are neither servant nor guest. The servants are all abed and there are no house guests. I am not accustomed to making mistakes in matters of this sort. Now, I’m not inviting confidences and I’m not making threats, but the doors are locked and I intend to get what I came for. Ring all you like and see if a servant answers you. By the way how is it I overlooked you when I came in?”

“I hid behind those portières.”

“It was excusable,” he commented, “not to have looked there.”

She sank into a chair her whole face suffused with gloom. He steeled his heart against feeling sympathy for her. He would liked to have learned all about her but there was not much time. The Guestwicks might return earlier than usual or Briggs might be lurking the other side of the door.

“You’ve found me out,” she said quietly, “I’m not one of the Guestwick girls.”

“I told you so,” he said a little impatiently.

“Don’t you want to know anything about me?” she demanded.

“Some other time,” he returned, “I’m busy now.”

“But what are you going to do?” she asked.

“I thought I told you. I’m going to see what Mr. Guestwick has which interests me. Then I shall get a bite to eat somewhere and go home to bed.”

“Are you going to take that fifty thousand dollars?” she demanded. Her tone was a tragic one.

“That’s what I came for,” he told her.

“You mustn’t, you mustn’t,” she declared and then fell to weeping bitterly.

Beauty in distress moved Anthony Trent even when his business most engrossed his attention. It was his nature to be considerate of women. When he had garnered enough money to buy himself a home he intended to marry and settle down to domestic joys. As to this weeping woman, there was little doubt in his mind as to the reason she was in the Guestwick home. Perhaps she noticed the harder look that came to his face.

“Whom do you think I am?” she asked.

“I have not forgotten,” he answered, “that women also are abstractors at times.”

She gazed at him wide open eyes, a look of horror on her face.

“You think I’m here to steal?”

“I wish I didn’t,” he answered. “It’s bad enough for a man, but for a woman like you. What am I to think when I find you hiding in a house where you have no right to be?”

“That’s the whole tragedy of it,” she exclaimed, “that I’ve no right to be here. I suppose I shall have to tell you everything. Can’t you guess who I am?”

Anthony Trent looked at the clock. Precious seconds were chasing one another into minutes and he had wasted too much time already.

“I don’t see that it matters at all to me,” he pointed to the safe, “I’m here on business.”

It annoyed him to feel he was not quite living up to the debonair heroes he had created once upon a time. They would not have permitted themselves to be so brusque with a lovely girl upon whose exquisite cheeks tears were still wet.

“You must listen to me,” she implored, “I’m Estelle Grandcourt. Now do you understand why I’ve come?”

“For the money that you think is already yours,” he said, a trifle sulkily. Matters were becoming complicated.

“Money!” cried the amazing chorus girl, “I hate it!”

His face cleared.

“If that’s the case,” he said genially, “we shall not quarrel. Frankly, Miss Grandcourt, I love it.”

She glanced at him through tear-beaded lashes.

“I suppose you’ve always thought of a show girl as a scheming adventuress always on the lookout for some foolish, rich old man or else some silly boy with millions to spend.”

“Not at all!” he protested.

“But you have,” she contradicted, “I can tell by your manner. For my part I have always thought of burglars as brutal, low-browed men without chivalry or courtesy. I’ve been wrong too. I imagined the gentleman-crook was only a fiction and now I find him a fact. Will you please tell me what you’ve heard about me. I’m not fishing for compliments. I want, really and truly, to know.”

Trent hesitated a moment. He thought, as he looked at her, that never had he seen a sweeter face. She was wholly in earnest.

“Please, please,” she entreated.