The Chase of the Golden Plate

Again came the startled gasp.

"What's the matter?" demanded the Burglar sharply, after another silence. "Why don't you say something?"

He was still peering unseeingly into the darkness. The bag of gold plate moved slightly under his hand. He opened his fingers to close them more tightly. It was a mistake. The bag was drawn away; his hand grasped – air.

"Stop that game now!" he commanded angrily. "Where are you?"

He struggled to his feet. His answer was the crackling of a twig to his right. He started in that direction and brought up with a bump against the automobile. He turned, still groping blindly, and embraced a tree with undignified fervour. To his left he heard another slight noise and ran that way. Again he struck an obstacle. Then he began to say things, expressive things, burning things from the depths of an impassioned soul. The treasure had gone – disappeared into the shadows. The Girl was gone. He called, there was no answer. He drew his revolver fiercely, then reconsidered and flung it down angrily.

"And I thought I had nerve!" he declared. It was a compliment.

CHAPTER III

Extravagantly brilliant the sun popped up out of the east – not an unusual occurrence – and stared unblinkingly down upon a country road. There were the usual twittering birds and dew-spangled trees and nodding wild-flowers; also a dust that was shoe-top deep. The dawny air stirred lazily and rustling leaves sent long, sinuous shadows scampering back and forth.

Looking upon it all without enthusiasm or poetic exaltation was a Girl – a pretty Girl – a very pretty Girl. She sat on a stone beside the yellow roadway, a picture of weariness. A rough burlap sack, laden heavily, yet economically as to space, wallowed in the dust beside her. Her hair was tawny gold, and rebellious strands drooped listlessly about her face. A beribboned sombrero lay in her lap, supplementing a certain air of dilapidated bravado, due in part to a short skirt, heavy gloves and boots, a belt with a knife and revolver.

A robin, perched impertinently on a stump across the road, examined her at his leisure. She stared back at Signor Redbreast, and for this recognition he warbled a little song.

"I've a good mind to cry!" exclaimed the Girl suddenly.

Shamed and startled, the robin flew away. A mistiness came into the Girl's blue eyes and lingered there a moment, then her white teeth closed tightly and the glimmer of outraged emotion passed.

"Oh," she sighed again, "I'm so tired and hungry and I just know I'll never get anywhere at all!"

But despite the expressed conviction she arose and straightened up as if to resume her journey, turning to stare down at the bag. It was an unsightly symbol of blasted hopes, man's perfidy, crushed aspirations and – Heaven only knows what besides.

"I've a good mind to leave you right there," she remarked to the bag spitefully. "Perhaps I might hide it." She considered the question. "No, that wouldn't do. I must take it with me – and – and – Oh, Dick! Dick! What in the world was the matter with you, anyway?"

Then she sat down again and wept. The robin crept back to look and modestly hid behind a leaf. From this coign of vantage he watched her as she again arose and plodded off through the dust with the bag swinging over one shoulder. At last – there is an at last to everything – a small house appeared from behind a clump of trees. The Girl looked with incredulous eyes. It was really a house. Really! A tiny curl of smoke hovered over the chimney.

"Well, thank goodness, I'm somewhere, anyhow," she declared with her first show of enthusiasm. "I can get a cup of coffee or something."

She covered the next fifty yards with a new spring in her leaden heels and with a new and firmer grip on the precious bag. Then – she stopped.

"Gracious!" and perplexed lines suddenly wrinkled her brow. "If I should go in there with a pistol and a knife they'd think I was a brigand – or – or a thief, and I suppose I am," she added as she stopped and rested the bag on the ground. "At least I have stolen goods in my possession. Now, what shall I say if they ask questions? What am I? They wouldn't believe me if I told them really. Short skirt, boots and gloves: I know! I'm a bicyclist. My wheel broke down, and – "

Whereupon she gingerly removed the revolver from her belt and flung it into the underbrush – not at all in the direction she had intended – and the knife followed to keep it company. Having relieved herself of these sinister things, she straightened her hat, pushed back the rebellious hair, yanked at her skirt, and walked bravely up to the little house.

An Angel lived there – an Angel in a dizzily beflowered wrapper and a crabbed exterior. She listened to a rapidly constructed and wholly inconsistent story of a bicycle accident, which ended with a plea for a cup of coffee. Silently she proceeded to prepare it. After the pot was bubbling cheerfully and eggs had been put on and biscuits thrust into a stove to be warmed over, the Angel sat down at the table opposite the Girl.

"Book agent?" she asked.

"Oh, no!" replied the Girl.

"Sewing-machines?"

"No."

There was a pause as the Angel settled and poured a cup of coffee.

"Make to order, I s'pose?"

"No," the Girl replied uncertainly.

"What do you sell?"

"Nothing, I – I – " She stopped.

"What you got in the bag?" the Angel persisted.

"Some – some – just some – stuff," stammered the Girl, and her face suddenly flushed crimson.

"What kind of stuff?"

The Girl looked into the frankly inquisitive eyes and was overwhelmed by a sense of her own helplessness. Tears started, and one pearly drop ran down her perfect nose and splashed in the coffee. That was the last straw. She leaned forward suddenly with her head on her arms and wept.

"Please, please don't ask questions!" she pleaded. "I'm a poor, foolish, helpless, misguided, disillusioned woman!"

"Yes'm," said the Angel. She took up the eggs, then came over and put a kindly arm about the Girl's shoulders. "There, there!" she said soothingly. "Don't take on like that! Drink some coffee, and eat a bite, and you'll feel better!"

"I have had no sleep at all and no food since yesterday, and I've walked miles and miles and miles," the Girl rushed on feverishly. "It's all because – because – " She stopped suddenly.

"Eat something," commanded the Angel.

The Girl obeyed. The coffee was weak and muddy and delightful; the biscuits were yellow and lumpy and delicious; the eggs were eggs. The Angel sat opposite and watched the Girl as she ate.

"Husband beat you?" she demanded suddenly.

The Girl blushed and choked.

"No," she hastened to say. "I have no husband."

"Well, there ain't no serious trouble in this world till you marry a man that beats you," said the Angel judicially. It was the final word.

The Girl didn't answer, and, in view of the fact that she had sufficient data at hand to argue the point, this repression required heroism. Perhaps she will never get credit for it. She finished the breakfast in silence and leaned back with some measure of returning content in her soul.

"In a hurry?" asked the Angel.

"No, I have no place to go. What is the nearest village or town?"

"Watertown, but you'd better stay and rest a while. You look all tuckered out."

"Oh, thank you so much," said the Girl gratefully. "But it would be so much trouble for – "

The Angel picked up the burlap bag, shook it inquiringly, then started toward the short stairs leading up.

"Please, please!" exclaimed the Girl suddenly. "I – I – let me have that, please!"

The Angel relinquished the bag without a word. The Girl took it, tremblingly, then, suddenly dropping it, clasped the Angel in her arms and placed upon her unresponsive lips a kiss for which a mere man would have endangered his immortal soul. The Angel wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and went on up the stairs with the Girl following.

For a time the Girl lay, with wet eyes, on a clean little bed, thinking. Humiliation, exhaustion, man's perfidy, disillusionment, and the kindness of an utter stranger all occupied her until she fell asleep. Then she was chased by a policeman with automobile lights for eyes, and there was a parade of hard-boiled eggs and yellow, lumpy biscuits.

When she awoke the room was quite dark. She sat up a little bewildered at first; then she remembered. After a moment she heard the voice of the Angel, below. It rippled on querulously; then she heard the gruff voice of a man.

"Diamond rings?"

The Girl sat up in bed and listened intently. Involuntarily her hands were clasped together. Her rings were still safe. The Angel's voice went on for a moment again.

"Something in a bag?" inquired the man.

Again the Angel spoke.

Terror seized upon the Girl; imagination ran riot, and she rose from the bed, trembling. She groped about the dark room noiselessly. Every shadow lent her new fears. Then from below came the sound of heavy footsteps. She listened fearfully. They came on toward the stairs, then paused. A match was struck and the step sounded on the stairs.

After a moment there was a knock at the door, a pause, then another knock. Finally the door was pushed open and a huge figure – the figure of a man – appeared, sheltering a candle with one hand. He peered about the room as if perplexed.

"Ain't nobody up here," he called gruffly down the stairs.

There was a sound of hurrying feet and the Angel entered, her face distorted by the flickering candlelight.

"For the land's sakes!" she exclaimed.

"Went away without even saying thank you," grumbled the man. He crossed the room and closed a window. "You ain't got no better sense than a chicken," he told the Angel. "Take in anybody that comes."

CHAPTER IV

If Willie's little brother hadn't had a pain in his tummy this story might have gone by other and devious ways to a different conclusion. But fortunately he did have, so it happened that at precisely 8.47 o'clock of a warm evening Willie was racing madly along a side street of Watertown, drug-store-bound, when he came face to face with a Girl – a pretty Girl – a very pretty Girl. She was carrying a bag that clanked a little at each step.

"Oh, little boy!" she called.

"Hunh?" and Willie stopped so suddenly that he endangered his equilibrium, although that isn't how he would have said it.

"Nice little boy," said the Girl soothingly, and she patted his tousled head while he gnawed a thumb in pained embarrassment. "I'm very tired. I have been walking a great distance. Could you tell me, please, where a lady, unattended, might get a night's lodging somewhere near here?"

"Hunh?" gurgled Willie through the thumb.

Wearily the Girl repeated it all and at its end Willie giggled. It was the most exasperating incident of a long series of exasperating incidents, and the Girl's grip on the bag tightened a little. Willie never knew how nearly he came to being hammered to death with fourteen pounds of solid gold.

"Well?" inquired the Girl at last.

"Dunno," said Willie. "Jimmy's got the stomach-ache," he added irrelevantly.

"Can't you think of a hotel or boarding-house near by?" the Girl insisted.

"Dunno," replied Willie. "I'm going to the drug store for a pair o' gorrick."

The Girl bit her lip, and that act probably saved Willie from the dire consequences of his unconscious levity, for after a moment the Girl laughed aloud.

"Where is the drug store?" she asked.

"'Round the corner. I'm going."

"I'll go along, too, if you don't mind," the Girl said, and she turned and walked beside him. Perhaps the drug clerk would be able to illuminate the situation.

"I swallyed a penny oncst," Willie confided suddenly.

"Too bad!" commented the Girl.

"Unh unnh," Willie denied emphatically. "'Cause when I cried, Paw gimme a quarter." He was silent a moment, then: "If I'd 'a' swallyed that, I reckin he'd gimme a dollar. Gee!"

This is the optimism that makes the world go round. The philosophy took possession of the Girl and cheered her. When she entered the drug store she walked with a lighter step and there was a trace of a smile about her pretty mouth. A clerk, the only attendant, came forward.

"I want a pair o' gorrick," Willie announced.

The Girl smiled, and the clerk, paying no attention to the boy, went toward her.

"Better attend to him first," she suggested. "It seems urgent."

The clerk turned to Willie.

"Paregoric?" he inquired. "How much?"

"About a quart, I reckin," replied the boy. "Is that enough?"

"Quite enough," commented the clerk. He disappeared behind the prescription screen and returned after a moment with a small phial. The boy took it, handed over a coin, and went out, whistling. The Girl looked after him with a little longing in her eyes.

"Now, madam?" inquired the clerk suavely.

"I only want some information," she replied. "I was out on my bicycle" – she gulped a little – "when it broke down, and I'll have to remain here in town over night, I'm afraid. Can you direct me to a quiet hotel or boarding-house where I might stay?"

"Certainly," replied the clerk briskly. "The Stratford, just a block up this street. Explain the circumstances, and it will be all right, I'm sure."

The Girl smiled at him again and cheerfully went her way. That small boy had been a leaven to her drooping spirits. She found the Stratford without difficulty and told the usual bicycle lie, with a natural growth of detail and a burning sense of shame. She registered as Elizabeth Carlton and was shown to a modest little room.

Her first act was to hide the gold plate in the closet; her second was to take it out and hide it under the bed. Then she sat down on a couch to think. For an hour or more she considered the situation in all its hideous details, planning her desolate future – women like to plan desolate futures – then her eye chanced to fall upon an afternoon paper, which, with glaring headlines, announced the theft of the Randolph gold plate. She read it. It told, with startling detail, things that had and had not happened in connection therewith.

This comprehended in all its horror, she promptly arose and hid the bag between the mattress and the springs. Soon after she extinguished the light and retired with little shivers running up and down all over her. She snuggled her head down under the cover. She didn't sleep much – she was still thinking – but when she arose next morning her mind was made up.

First she placed the eleven gold plates in a heavy card-board box, then she bound it securely with brown paper and twine and addressed it: "Stuyvesant Randolph, Seven Oaks, via Merton." She had sent express packages before and knew how to proceed, therefore when the necessity of writing a name in the upper left-hand corner appeared – the sender – she wrote in a bold, desperate hand: "John Smith, Watertown."

When this was all done to her satisfaction, she tucked the package under one arm, tried to look as if it weren't heavy, and sauntered downstairs with outward self-possession and inward apprehension. She faced the clerk cordially, while a singularly distracting smile curled her lips.

"My bill, please?" she asked.

"Two dollars, madam," he responded gallantly.

"I don't happen to have any money with me," she explained charmingly. "Of course, I had expected to go back on my wheel, but, since it is broken, perhaps you would be willing to take this until I return to the city and can mail a check?"

She drew a diamond ring from an aristocratic finger and offered it to the clerk. He blushed furiously, and she reproved him for it with a cold stare.

"It's quite irregular," he explained, "but, of course, in the circumstances, it will be all right. It is not necessary for us to keep the ring at all, if you will give us your city address."

"I prefer that you keep it," she insisted firmly, "for, besides, I shall have to ask you to let me have fare back to the city – a couple of dollars? Of course it will be all right?"

It was half an hour before the clerk fully awoke. He had given the Girl two real dollars and held her ring clasped firmly in one hand. She was gone. She might just as well have taken the hotel along with her so far as any objection from that clerk would have been concerned.

Once out of the hotel the Girl hurried on.

"Thank goodness, that's over," she exclaimed.

For several blocks she walked on. Finally her eye was attracted by a "To Let" sign on a small house – it was No. 410 State Street. She walked in through a gate cut in the solid wall of stone and strolled up to the house. Here she wandered about for a time, incidentally tearing off the "To Let" sign. Then she came down the path toward the street again. Just inside the stone fence she left her express package, after scribbling the name of the street on it with a pencil. A dollar bill lay on top. She hurried out and along a block or more to a small grocery.

"Will you please 'phone to the express company and have them send a wagon to No. 410 State Street for a package?" she asked sweetly of a heavy-voiced grocer.

"Certainly, ma'am," he responded with alacrity.

She paused until he had done as she requested, then dropped into a restaurant for a cup of coffee. She lingered there for a long time, and then went out to spend a greater part of the day wandering up and down State Street. At last an express wagon drove up, the driver went in and returned after a little while with the package.

"And, thank goodness, that's off my hands!" sighed the Girl. "Now I'm going home."

Late that evening, Saturday, Miss Dollie Meredith returned to the home of the Greytons and was clasped to the motherly bosom of Mrs. Greyton, where she wept unreservedly.

CHAPTER V

It was late Sunday afternoon. Hutchinson Hatch did not run lightly up the steps of the Greyton home and toss his cigar away as he rang the bell. He did go up the steps, but it was reluctantly, dragging one foot after the other, this being an indication rather of his mental condition than of physical weariness. He did not throw away his cigar as he rang the bell because he wasn't smoking – but he did ring the bell. The maid whom he had seen on his previous visit opened the door.

"Is Mrs. Greyton in?" he asked with a nod of recognition.

"No, sir."

"Mr. Greyton?"

"No, sir."

"Did Mr. Meredith arrive from Baltimore?"

"Yes, sir. Last midnight."

"Ah! Is he in?"

"No, sir."

The reporter's disappointment showed clearly in his face.

"I don't suppose you've heard anything further from Miss Meredith?" he ventured hopelessly.

"She's upstairs, sir."

Anyone who has ever stepped on a tack knows just how Hatch felt. He didn't stand on the order of being invited in – he went in. Being in, he extracted a plain calling-card from his pocketbook with twitching fingers and handed it to the waiting maid.

"When did she return?" he asked.

"Last night, about nine, sir."

"Where has she been?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Kindly hand her my card and explain to her that it is imperative that I see her for a few minutes," the reporter went on. "Impress upon her the absolute necessity of this. By the way, I suppose you know where I came from, eh?"

"Police headquarters, yes, sir."

Hatch tried to look like a detective, but a gleam of intelligence in his face almost betrayed him.

"You might intimate as much to Miss Meredith," he instructed the maid calmly.

The maid disappeared. Hatch went in and sat down in the reception-room, and said "Whew!" several times.

"The gold plate returned to Randolph last night by express," he mused, "and she returned also, last night. Now what does that mean?"

After a minute or so the maid reappeared to state that Miss Meredith would see him. Hatch received the message gravely and beckoned mysteriously as he sought for a bill in his pocketbook.

"Do you have any idea where Miss Meredith was?"

"No, sir. She didn't even tell Mrs. Greyton or her father."

"What was her appearance?"

"She seemed very tired, sir, and hungry. She still wore the masked ball costume."

The bill changed hands and Hatch was left alone again. There was a long wait, then a rustle of skirts, a light step, and Miss Dollie Meredith entered.

She was nervous, it is true, and pallid, but there was a suggestion of defiance as well as determination on her pretty mouth. Hatch stared at her in frank admiration for a moment, then, with an effort, proceeded to business.

"I presume, Miss Meredith," he said solemnly, "that the maid informed you of my identity?"

"Yes," replied Dollie weakly. "She said you were a detective."

"Ah!" exclaimed the reporter meaningly, "then we understand each other. Now, Miss Meredith, will you tell me, please, just where you have been?"

"No."

The answer was so prompt and so emphatic that Hatch was a little disconcerted. He cleared his throat and started over again.

"Will you inform me, then, in the interest of justice, where you were on the evening of the Randolph ball?" An ominous threat lay behind the words, Hatch hoped she believed.

"I will not."

"Why did you disappear?"

"I will not tell you."

Hatch paused to readjust himself. He was going at things backward. When next he spoke his tone had lost the official tang – he talked like a human being.

"May I ask if you happen to know Richard Herbert?"

The pallor of the girl's face was relieved by a delicious sweep of colour.

"I will not tell you," she answered.

"And if I say that Mr. Herbert happens to be a friend of mine?"

"Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Two distracting blue eyes were staring him out of countenance; two scarlet lips were drawn tightly together in reproof of a man who boasted such a friendship; two cheeks flamed with indignation that he should have mentioned the name. Hatch floundered for a moment, then cleared his throat and took a fresh start.

"Will you deny that you saw Richard Herbert on the evening of the masked ball?"

"I will not."

"Will you admit that you saw him?"

"I will not."

"Do you know that he was wounded?"

"Certainly."

Now, Hatch had always held a vague theory that the easiest way to make a secret known was to intrust it to a woman. At this point he revised his draw, threw his hand in the pack, and asked for a new deal.

"Miss Meredith," he said soothingly after a pause, "will you admit or deny that you ever heard of the Randolph robbery?"

"I will not," she began, then: "Certainly I know of it."

"You know that a man and a woman are accused of and sought for the theft?"

"Yes, I know that."

"You will admit that you know the man was in Burglar's garb, and that the woman was dressed in a Western costume?"

"The newspapers say that, yes," she replied sweetly.

"You know, too, that Richard Herbert went to that ball in Burglar's garb and that you went there dressed as a Western girl?" The reporter's tone was strictly professional now.

Dollie stared into the stern face of her interrogator and her courage oozed away. The colour left her face and she wept violently.

"I beg your pardon," Hatch expostulated. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean it just that way, but – "

He stopped helplessly and stared at this wonderful woman with the red hair. Of all things in the world tears were quite the most disconcerting.

"I beg your pardon," he repeated awkwardly.

Dollie looked up with tear-stained, pleading eyes, then arose and placed both her hands on Hatch's arm. It was a pitiful, helpless sort of a gesture; Hatch shuddered with sheer delight.

"I don't know how you found out about it," she said tremulously, "but, if you've come to arrest me, I'm ready to go with you."

"Arrest you?" gasped the reporter.

"Certainly. I'll go and be locked up. That's what they do, isn't it?" she questioned innocently.

The reporter stared.

"I wouldn't arrest you for a million dollars!" he stammered in dire confusion. "It wasn't quite that. It was – "

And five minutes later Hutchinson Hatch found himself wandering aimlessly up and down the sidewalk.

CHAPTER VI