Under Cover

CHAPTER SEVEN

MRS. HARRINGTON admitted freely that she had been very far-seeing in asking Denby to travel on the Mauretania with her and Monty. She was one of those modern women who count days damaging to their looks if there comes an hour of boredom in them, and her new acquaintance was always amusing.

One day when they were all three sitting on deck she asked him: “What are you going to do when you get home?”

“Nothing particular,” he replied, “except that I want to run down to Washington some time during the month.”

“You see,” Monty explained, “Steve is a great authority on the tariff. The Secretary of the Treasury does nothing without consulting him. He has to go down and help the cabinet out.”

“That’s hardly true,” Denby said mildly, “but I have friends in Washington nevertheless.” It was obvious Monty was not taken in by this. He only regarded his friend as a superb actor who refused to be frightened by the hourly alarms his faithful assistant took to him with fast-beating heart. Young Vaughan told himself a dozen times a day that this excitement, this suspicion of the motives of all strangers, was undermining his health. He had complained of the dull evenness of his existence before meeting Denby in Paris, but he felt such a lament could never again be justified. He found himself unable to sit still for long. He marvelled to see that Denby could sit for hours in a deck-chair talking to Alice without seeming to care whether mysterious strangers were eyeing him or not.

“I asked you,” Mrs. Harrington went on, “because, if you’ve nothing better to do, will you spend a week with us at Westbury? Michael will like you, and if you don’t like Michael, there’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“I’d love to come,” he said eagerly. “Thank you very much.”

“Hooray,” said Monty. “Alice, you’re a sweet soul to ask him. Of course he’ll like Michael. Who doesn’t?”

“Everybody ought to,” she said happily. “Do you know, Mr. Denby, I’m one of the only three women in our set who still love their husbands. I wouldn’t tell you that except for the reason you’ll find out. He’s the most generous soul in the world and when I go to him with a bank-book that won’t balance, he adds it up and says I’ve made a mistake and that I’m on the right side. How many husbands would do that?”

“I might,” Monty asserted, “because I can’t add up long columns, but Michael’s a demon at statistics, or used to be.”

“He’s such an old dear,” Mrs. Harrington went on. “His one peculiar talent is the invention of new and strange drinks. I never come back from any long absence but he shows me something violently colored which is built in my honor. And Monty will tell you,” she added laughing, “that I have never been seen to shudder while he was looking. Have I, Monty?”

“You’re a good sport,” said Monty, “and if ever I kill a man, it will be Michael, and my motive will be jealousy.”

“Well, you needn’t look so unhappy about it,” she cried, as a frown passed over his face and he sank back in his chair, all his good-humor gone.

Monty had in that careless phrase, “If ever I kill a man,” reminded himself vividly of the dangers that he felt beset him and his friend Steven Denby. He had been trying to forget it and now it was with him to stay. And another and a dreadful thought occurred. Would Denby take those accursed pearls with him to the Harrington mansion on Long Island? It was so disquieting that he rose abruptly and went into a secluded corner of the upper smoking-room and called for a cigar and a pony of brandy.

His attention was presently attracted to a stout comfortable-looking man who was staring at him as though to encourage a bow of recognition. He had noticed the stout and affable gentleman before and always in the same seat, but never before had he sought acquaintance in this manner. There was no doubt in Monty’s mind that the man was one of those suave gamblers who reap their richest harvests on the big fast liners. No doubt he knew that Monty was a Vaughan and had occasionally fallen for such professionals and inveigled into a quiet little game. But Monty felt himself of a different sort now.

There was no doubt that the affable gentleman had fully made up his mind as to his plan of action. He rose from his comfortable chair and made his way to the younger man with his hand held out in welcome.

“I thought it was you,” he said, and wrung Monty’s reluctant hand, “but you are not quite the same as when I saw you last.”

“No doubt,” Monty said coldly; “I am older and I am not the fool I used to be.”

“That’s good,” said the affable gentleman pressing the button that was to summon a steward. “Your father will be glad to hear that.”

“Have the kindness to leave my father alone,” the younger commanded. Never in his life had Monty found himself able to be so unpleasant. There was, he discovered, a certain joy in it.

“Why, certainly,” said the other a trifle startled, “if you wish it. Only as he and I were old friends, I saw no harm in it.”

“Old friends?” sneered Monty. “Let me see, you were the same year at Yale, weren’t you?”

“Of course,” the affable stranger said, and turned to see the advancing steward. “What will you have?” he asked.

“I don’t drink with strangers,” Monty said rising.

“Strangers!” cried the other with the rising intonation of indignation. “Well, I like that!”

“Then I shall leave you with a pleasant memory,” Monty said. “Good day.”

“Stop a moment,” the stranger asked after a pause in which rage and astonishment chased themselves across his well-nourished countenance. “Who do you think I am, anyway?”

“Your name and number don’t interest me,” Monty said loftily. He noted that the steward was enjoying it after the quiet inexpressive manner of the English servant. “But I’ve no doubt at some time or another I lost money to you – your old college friend’s money of course – in some quiet game with your confederates.”

“Now, what do you think of that!” the red-faced man exclaimed as he watched Monty’s retreating figure. But the steward was non-committal. He was not paid to give up his inner thoughts but to bring drinks on a tray.

The stout and affable gentleman was a member of the Stock Exchanges of London and New York and made frequent journeys between these cities. He held the ocean record of having crossed more times and seen the waves less than any stock-broker living. He had passed more hours in a favorite chair in the Mauretania’s smoking-room than any man had done since time began. He was raconteur of ability and had been a close friend of the elder Vaughan’s years before at Yale. And he burned with fierce indignation when he remembered that he had held the infant Monty years ago and prophesied to a proud mother that he would be her joy and pride. Joy and pride! He snorted and fell away from his true form so far as to seek the deck and suck in fresh air.

There he happened upon Mrs. Harrington talking to Denby. She knew Godfrey Hazen. He had often been to Westbury, and Michael esteemed him for his great knowledge of the proper beverage to take for every emergency that may arise upon an ocean voyage.

“What makes you look so angry?” she exclaimed.

He calmed down when he saw her. “I’ve just been taken for a professional gambler,” he cried.

“I thought all stock-brokers were that,” she said smiling.

“I mean a different sort,” he explained, “the kind that work the big liners. I just asked him to have a drink when he said he didn’t drink with strangers and hinted I had my picture in the rogues’ gallery.”

“Who was it?” she inquired.

“That ne’er-do-well, Monty Vaughan,” he answered.

“Monty?” she said. “Impossible!”

“Is it?” he said grimly. “We’ll see. Here comes the young gentleman.”

Monty sauntered up without noticing him at first. When he did, he stopped short and was in no whit abashed. “Trying a new game?” he inquired.

“Monty, don’t you remember Mr. Hazen?” Alice said reproachfully.

“Have I made an ass of myself?” he asked miserably.

“I wouldn’t label any four-footed beast by the name I’d call you,” said Mr. Hazen firmly.

“Why didn’t you tell me your name?” Monty asked.

“You ought to have remembered me,” the implacable Hazen retorted. “Why, I held you in my arms when you were only three months old.”

“Then I wish you had dropped me and broken me,” Monty exclaimed, “and I should have been spared a lot of worry.” Things were piling up to make him more than ever nervous. He had overheard two passengers saying they understood the Mauretania’s voyagers were to have a special examination at the Customs on account of diamond smuggling. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hazen,” he said more graciously, “but I’ve things on my mind and you must accept that as the reason.”

When he had gone Mr. Hazen was introduced to Denby and prevailed upon to occupy Monty’s seat.

“I don’t like the look of it,” Mr. Hazen said, shaking his head. “At his age he oughtn’t to have any worries. I didn’t.”

“If you can keep a secret,” Mrs. Harrington confided, “I think I can tell you exactly what is the matter with Monty and I’m sure you’ll make excuses for him, Mr. Hazen.”

“Maybe,” he returned dubiously, “but you should have heard how he called me down before a steward!”

“Monty’s in love,” Mrs. Harrington declared, “and after almost two years’ absence he is going to meet her again; and the dread of not daring to propose is sapping his brain. You’re not the first. He’s been out of sorts the whole time and I’ve had to smooth things over with other people. Come, now,” she said coaxingly, “when you were young I’m sure you had some episodes of that sort yourself, now didn’t you?”

Mr. Hazen tried not to let her see the proud memories that came surging back through a quarter of a century. “Well,” he admitted, “if you put it that way, Mrs. Harrington, I’ve got to forgive the boy.”

“I knew you would,” she said, and talked nicely to him for reward.

Then the romance which he had resurrected faded; and the sight of so much salt in the waves – the unaccustomed waves – induced a provoking thirst and he rose and after a conventional lie retired to the smoking-room.

“All the same,” Mrs. Harrington remarked to Denby, “I am worried about the boy.”

“He’ll get over it,” said Steven.

“I hope so,” she returned. “His nerves are all wrong. I thought he had the absinthe habit at first, but he’s really quite temperate, and it’s mental, I suspect. It may be Nora; I hope it is. She’s a dear girl and Monty’s really a big catch.”

“Didn’t you say you had bought her a present, some valuable piece of jewelry?”

“Which I have sworn to smuggle,” she returned brightly, “despite your warning.”

“For your sake I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, “but if your mind’s made up, what will my words avail?”

“I’m not stubborn,” she cried, “even Michael admits that. I am always open to conviction.”

“If you smuggle, you are,” he said meaningly. “Really, Mrs. Harrington, you’ve no idea how strict these examinations are becoming, and this vessel seems specially marked out for extra strict inspections. The popular journals have harped on the fact that the rich, influential women who use this and boats of this class, are exempt, while the woman who saves up for a few weeks’ jaunt and brings little inexpensive presents back, is caught.”

“Are you sure of that?” she demanded.

“Why, yes,” he returned. “It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” he demanded, looking at her keenly. “It doesn’t seem playing the game for the first cabin on the Mauretania to get in free while the second cabin gets caught.”

“Have you ever smuggled?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said, “but if I have, it has not been a habit with me as with some rich people I know, who could so easily afford to pay.”

“Suppose I do smuggle and get caught, I can pay without any further trouble, can’t I?” she queried.

“You’re just as likely to be detained,” he told her. “To all intents and purposes, it’s like being under arrest.”

“Oh, Lord!” she cried. “And I shouldn’t be able to get back to Michael?”

“Probably not,” he said. “You see, Mrs. Harrington, you’d be a splendid tribute to the impartiality of the service. The publicity the Customs people would get from your case would be worth a lot to them. Indirectly, you’d possibly promote hard-working inspectors.”

“But I don’t want to be a case,” she exclaimed, “I’m not anxious to be put in a cell and promote hard-working inspectors. And think of poor Michael all ready with a crimson newly-devised drink pacing the floor while I’m undergoing the third degree! Mr. Denby, I still think the laws are absurd, but I shall declare everything I’ve got. I wonder if they would let Michael hand me his crimson drink through the bars.”

Just then Monty made for them and dropped into his deck-chair.

“I’m going to be an honest woman,” she declared, “and smuggle no more. Mr. Denby is the miracle-worker. I shall probably have to borrow money to pay the duty, so be at hand, Monty.”

He looked across at Denby and sighed. His friend’s serene countenance and absence of nerves was always a source of wonderment to him. Hereafter, he swore, a life in consonance with his country’s laws. And if the first few days of the voyage had made him nervous, it was small comfort to think that the really risky part had yet to be gone through. In eliminating Alice Harrington as a fellow smuggler Monty saw extraordinary cunning. “Well,” he thought, “if anyone can carry it through it will be old Steve,” and rose obediently at Alice’s behest and brought back a wireless form on which he indited a message to the absent Michael.

Monty Vaughan had crossed the ocean often, and each time had been cheered to see in the distance the long flat coast-line of his native land. There had always been a sense of pleasurable excitement in the halt at Quarantine and the taking on board the harbor and other officials.

But this time they clambered aboard – the most vindictive set of mortals he had ever laid eyes on – and each one of them seemed to look at Monty as though he recognized a law breaker and a desperado. Incontinently he fled to the smoking-room and ran into the arms of Godfrey Hazen.

“Never mind, my boy,” said that genial broker, “you’ll soon be out of your misery. Brace up and have a drink. I know how you feel. I’ve felt like that myself.”

“Did you get caught?” Monty gasped.

“No,” he said, for he was a bachelor, “but I’ve had some mighty narrow squeaks and once I thought I was gone.”

He watched Monty gulp down his drink with unaccustomed rapidity. “That’s right,” he said commendingly. “Have another?”

“It would choke me,” the younger answered, and fled.

Hazen shook his head pityingly. He had never been as afflicted as the heir to his old friend Vaughan. Poets might understand love and its symptoms but such manifestations were beyond him.

When Steven Denby opened his trunks to a somewhat uninterested inspector and answered his casual questions without hesitation, Monty stood at his side. It cost him something to do so but underneath his apparent timorous nature was a strength and loyalty which would not fail at need.

And when the jaded Customs official made chalk hieroglyphics and stamped the trunks as free from further examination Monty felt a relief such as he had never known. As a poet has happily phrased it, “he chortled in his joy.”

“What’s the matter?” he demanded of Denby when he observed that his own hilarity was not shared by his companion in danger. “Why not celebrate?”

“We’re not off the dock yet,” Denby said in a low voice. “They’ve been too easy for my liking.”

“A lot we care,” Monty returned, “so long as they’re finished with us.”

“That’s just it,” he was warned, “I don’t believe they have. It’s a bit suspicious to me. Better attend to your own things now, old man.”

Monty opened his trunks in a lordly manner. So elaborate was his gesture that an inspector was distrustful and explored every crevice of his baggage with pertinacity. He unearthed with glee a pair of military hair-brushes with backs of sterling silver that Monty had bought in Bond street for Michael Harrington as he passed through London and forgotten in his alarm for bigger things.

“It pays to be honest,” said Mrs. Harrington, who had declared her dutiable importations and felt more than ordinarily virtuous. “Monty, you bring suspicion on us all. I’m surprised at you. Just a pair of brushes, too. If you had smuggled in a diamond necklace for Nora there would be some excuse!”

The word necklace made him tremble and he did not trust himself to say a word.

“He’s too ashamed for utterance,” Denby commented, helping him to repack his trunk.

There were two Harrington motors waiting, both big cars that would carry a lot of baggage. When they were ready it was plain that only two passengers could be carried in one and the third in the second car.

“How shall we manage it?” Mrs. Harrington asked.

“If you don’t mind I’ll let you two go on,” Denby suggested, “and when I’ve sent off a telegram to my mother, I’ll follow.”

“I see,” she laughed, “you want the stage set for your entrance. Very well. Au revoir.”

Monty surprised her by shaking his friend’s hand. “Good-by, old man,” said Monty sorrowfully. He was not sure that he would ever see Steven again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

MICHAEL HARRINGTON walked up and down the big hall of his Long Island home looking at the clock and his own watch as if to detect them in the act of refusing to register the correct time of day. Although it was probable his wife, Monty and the guest of whose coming a wireless message had apprised him, would not be home for another hour, he was always anxious at such a moment.

He was a man of fifty-eight, exceedingly good-tempered, and very much in love with his wife. When Alice had married a man twenty-four years her senior there had been prophecies that it would not last long. But the two Harringtons had confounded such dismal predictions and lived – to their own vast amusement – to be held up as exemplars of matrimonial felicity in a set where such a state was not too frequent.

His perambulations were interrupted by the entrance of Lambart, a butler with a genius for his service, who bore on a silver tray a siphon of seltzer water, a decanter of Scotch whiskey and a pint bottle of fine champagne.

Lambart had, previously to his importation, valeted the late lamented Marquis of St. Mervyn, an eccentric peer who had broken his noble neck in a steeplechase. Like most English house-servants he was profoundly conservative; and after two positions which he had left because his employers treated him almost as an equal, he had come to the Harringtons and taken a warm but perfectly respectful liking to his millionaire employer. Lambart was a remarkably useful person and it was his proud boast that none had ever beheld him slumbering. Certain it was that a bell summoned him at any hour of the day or night, and he had never grumbled at such calls.

Harrington looked at the refreshment inquiringly. “Did I order this?” he demanded.

“No, sir,” Lambart answered, “but my late employer Lord St. Mervyn always said that when he was waiting like you are, sir, it steadied his nerves to have a little refreshment.”

“I should have liked the Marquis if I’d known him,” Michael Harrington observed when his thirst was quenched. “I think I could have paid him no prettier compliment than to have named a Rocksand colt after him, Lambart. The colt won at Deauville last week, by the way.”

“Yes, sir,” Lambart returned, “I took the liberty of putting a bit on him; I won, too.”

“Good,” said his employer, “I’m glad. He ought to have a good season in France. I like France for two things – racing and what they call the heure de l’aperitif. When I go to Rome I do as the Romans do, and I have the pleasantest recollections of my afternoons in France.”

He noticed that Lambart, bringing over to him a box of cigars, turned his head as though to listen. “I believe, sir,” said the butler, “that the car is coming up the drive.”

He hurried to the open French window and looked out. “Yes, sir,” he cried, “it is one of our cars and Mrs. Harrington is in it.”

Michael Harrington rose hastily to his feet. “Great Scott, my wife! The boat must have docked early.” He pointed to the whiskey and champagne. “Get rid of these; and not a word, Lambart, not a word.”

“Certainly not, sir,” Lambart answered; “I couldn’t make a mistake of that sort after being with the Marquis of St. Mervyn for seven years.”

He took up the tray quickly and carried it off as Nora Rutledge – the girl for whose sake poor Monty had passed hours of alternate misery and hope – came in to tell her host the news.

“Alice is here,” she cried, “and Monty Vaughan with her.”

Nora was a pretty, clever girl of two and twenty with the up-to-date habit of slangy smartness fully developed and the customary lack of reticence over her love-affairs or those of anyone else in whom she was interested. But for all her pert sayings few girls were more generally liked than she, for the reason that she was genuine and wholesome.

“Fine,” Michael said heartily. “Where are they? How is she? Was it a good voyage?”

A moment later his wife had rushed into his arms.

“You dear old thing,” she exclaimed affectionately.

“By George! I’m glad to see you,” he said, “you’ve been away for ages.”

“You seem to have survived it well enough,” she laughed.

“Tell me everything you’ve done,” he insisted.

While she tried to satisfy this comprehensive order, Monty was assuring Nora how delighted he was to see her.

“It’s bully to find you here,” he said, shaking her hand. “I nearly hugged you.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” she retorted.

“I’ve half a mind to,” he said, stretching out his arms; but she drew back.

“No. Not now. It’s cold. Hugs must be spontaneous.”

“Where’s Ethel?” Mrs. Harrington called to her.

“Upstairs, changing. You see we didn’t think you could get in so early and you weren’t expected for another half-hour. She ought to be down in a minute or so.”

“Why didn’t you come down and meet us, old man?” Monty asked of his host.

“Wife’s orders,” Harrington responded promptly.

“It’s such a nuisance to have people meet one at the pier,” Alice explained. “I’m sure Monty was glad you weren’t there to witness his humiliation. He was held up for smuggling and narrowly escaped deportation.”

“Oh, Monty,” Nora cried, “how lovely! Was it something for me? Don’t scowl when I ask a perfectly reasonable question.”

“It wasn’t,” Monty said wretchedly. He had in his joy at meeting her forgotten all about smuggling and now the whole thing loomed up again. “I’ve got half Long Island in my eyes, and if you don’t mind, Alice, I’ll go and wash up.”

“And you won’t tell me anything about your crime?” Nora pouted.

“Meet me in the Pagoda in five minutes,” he whispered, “and I will. It’s mighty nice to see a pretty girl again who can talk American.”

“As if men cared what girls say,” she observed sagely. “It’s the way they look that counts.”

When Monty was gone she strolled back to where Alice was sitting.

“Did you have a good trip?” she demanded.

“Bully,” Alice answered her. “Steven Denby’s most attractive and mysterious.”

“Denby!” Harrington repeated. “Why, I’d clean forgotten about Denby. Where is he?”

“The limousine was so full of Monty and me and my hand-baggage that we sent him on in the other car. He had to send some telegrams, so he didn’t overtake us till we were this side of Jamaica, where they promptly had a blow-out. He won’t be long.”

“What Mr. Denby is he?” Nora asked with interest.

“Yes,” Michael asked, “do I know him? I don’t think I ever heard of him.”

“Nor did I,” his wife told him. “Perhaps that’s what makes him so mysterious.”

“Then why on earth have him down here?” her husband asked mildly.

“Because Monty’s devoted to him. They were at school together. And also, Michael dear, because I like him and you’ll like him. Even if I am married, love has not made me blind to other charming men.”

“But, shall I like him?” Nora wanted to know.

“I did the minute I met him,” Alice confessed. “He has a sort of ’come hither’ in his eyes and the kind of hair I always want to run my hand through. You will, too, Nora.”