CHAPTER I.

A GRAPEFRUIT PRELUDE.

Splash! The grapefruit hit her in the eye!

Splash! His psychic wave was dashed to smithereens!

"Oh! Oh!" the two girls screamed in unison.

"D----!" the young man sitting near ejaculated.

For ten minutes there in the Oak Room of the Ritz-Carlton he had been

hurling across the narrow intervening space this mental command to the

girl facing him:

"Look here! Look at me! Let me see your eyes! Look here!"

For half that time she had been conscious of his insistent gaze and

his message. But with as much will power as he himself displayed she

bent her head over her plate and sent back along his telepathic

transmission this reply:

"I won't! I won't!"

But she was weakening.

"Sadie," she said to her companion, "I do awfully want to look up. I

want to see who is looking at me so fiercely. I can just feel it all

through me. Of course it wouldn't be proper, would it?"

"Well, that all depends on who is looking at you, dear, doesn't it? If

it were some horrid old man"--

"No, it doesn't feel a bit like that, Sadie. I don't know just how to

explain it--really it isn't unpleasant at all."

"Why, Helen! And you engaged and going to elo"----

"Hush, Sadie, you mustn't say that in here. Somebody might--but I

positively cannot keep my eyes down another moment. I'm"----

Then splash!

A vicious little jab of the spoon and there followed a disastrous

geyser--a grapefruit geyser.

With a smothered little cry of pain Helen's eyes shut tight and she

groped for her napkin. And to make a good job of it the Fates dragged

in at that moment Helen's guardian aunt, the tall and statuesque Mrs.

Elvira Burton of Omaha, Neb.

The young man who had failed so signally in what was perhaps his

maiden effort at hypnotism viciously seized all the change the waiter

proffered on the little silver tray, flung it back with a snarl, got

up and stamped out of the room.

He was a mighty good looking chap, smartly attired, and if you care

for details, he wore a heliotrope scarf in which there gleamed a

superb black pearl for which he had paid a superb price.

"Can you beat it!" he muttered as he climbed the stairs to the lobby

and mingled with the throng that stood about in stiff groups, idly

chattering and looking as if they bored one another to the verge of

desperation.

"Can you beat it!" he exclaimed again, fairly biting off the words.

So vehemently occupied was he with his chagrin and annoyance that he

stamped heavily upon the pet corn of a retired rear admiral, rudely

bumped a Roumanian duchess, kicked the pink poodle of a famous prima

donna and brought up with a thud against the heroic brawn and muscle

of the house detective, who stood as solidly in the middle of the

lobby as if he had taken root somewhere down in the foundations.

"Can I beat what?" asked the house detective frigidly.

My, but he was an angry young man, and he fairly snarled at the

magnificent individual he had collided with:

"Beat a drum, beat an egg, beat around the bush--go as far as you

like--beat your grandmother if you prefer!"

The granite faced house detective was not used to that sort of

treatment; furthermore it distinctly galled him to be asked to beat

his grandmother, whom he recalled as an estimable old lady who made an

odd noise when she ate soup, owing to an absence of teeth.

"What's that you said about my grandmother?" he said, bridling.

"Bother your grandmother," shot back the insolent retort, whereat the

lordly house detective plucked the young man by the arm.

"Staggerin' an' loony talk don't go in the Ritz," he said under his

breath. "You've been havin' too much."

"Preposterous!" exclaimed the young man, vainly endeavoring to shake

his arm free.

"Are you a guest of the house?" demanded the immaculately garbed

minion of the Ritz.

"I am, so kindly remove the pair of pincers you are crushing my arm

with."

"What's your name?"

"I don't know--that is, I've forgotten."

"Now I know you need lookin' after. Come over here to the desk."

The house detective had manifested no more outward passion than a

block of ice, and so adroit was he in marching the young man to the

desk that not an eye in the lobby was attracted to the little scene.

The young man was at first inclined to make a fuss about it and demand

an abject apology for this untoward treatment. The absurdity of his

predicament, however, stirred his sense of humor and he was meekly

docile when his captor arraigned him at the desk and addressed one of

the clerks:

"Do you know this young man, Mr. Horton?"

"Why, yes, Reagan--this is Mr. Smith--why"--

"That's it--Smith!" cried the young man. "How could I ever forget that

name? Thomas Smith, isn't it, Mr. Horton, or is it James?"

"Thomas, of course; at least that's the way you registered, Mr.

Smith--Thomas Smith and valet." The clerk's eyebrows started straight

up his head.

"Thomas Smith, exactly. Now are you satisfied, Mr. House Detective, or

do you want to go up and examine my luggage? Having convinced you that

I am a registered guest, how would you like to have me walk a chalk

line and convince you that I am sober?"

The house detective froze up tighter than ever, pivoted on his heel

and walked majestically away.

"What is the trouble, Mr. Smith?" asked the clerk deferentially, for

he was a better student of exteriors than John Reagan, twenty years a

precinct detective and retired to take up the haughtier rôle of

plain-clothes man in this most fastidious of metropolitan hostelries.

"No trouble at all, old chap," laughed the young man. "I lost my

little _capri_, and then by accident I discovered a stray member of

the herd belonging to yonder Ajax. Some day he's going to turn

into solid marble from the dome down, when you will have a most

extraordinary piece of statuary on your hands. By the way, have there

been any telephone messages for me? I am expecting a very important

one."

"I will see, Mr. Smith," said the clerk briskly, and began searching

through the pigeonholes. "Yes, Mr. Whitney Barnes called up--left word

he would call up again at 2 sharp. Will you be in your room, sir?"

"Do you think I'll be safe in my room?" asked the young man solemnly.

"Safe!" exclaimed the clerk. "Why, what do you mean, sir?"

"Oh, nothing, only Sir Ivory Ajax seems suspicious of me and might

take it into his head to come up and see if I hadn't murdered my

valet. That's all. I'm going to my room now to wait for Mr. Barnes's

telephone call. Kindly be sure that he is connected with my room."

"There _is_ something strange about that young fellow," murmured the

clerk as he watched the object of suspicion vanish into the lift.

"Though if he is a friend of Whitney Barnes," the clerk added after a

pause, "he ought to be all right. I think I'll look him up in the

Social Register."

Which he did--without enlightenment.