CHAPTER XXVII.

MISADVENTURES OF WHITNEY BARNES.

Just as it had not occurred to Travers Gladwin to ask Michael Phelan

to define the limits of his beat along Fifth avenue so it happened

that Whitney Barnes went forth in search of his friend without even

the vaguest notion of where he might be found.

It is doubtful if young Mr. Barnes knew what a policeman's beat was.

Certainly he did not conceive of it as a restricted territory.

He had gone about six blocks at his best stride, eagerly scanning both

sides of the avenue before the thought came into his mind that he

might be going in the wrong direction and that he might keep on

indefinitely to the Staten Island ferry and obtain never a glimpse of

the borrowed uniform of Officer 666.

"But I must warn the chap," he thought fiercely, "or there will be the

very deuce and all to pay."

Whitney slowed down, came to a full stop and was meditatively chewing

the head of his cane when an automobile halted at the curb. A head

thrust itself out of a window of the limousine and a musical voice

asked:

"Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?"

Whitney Barnes guiltily jumped and barely missed swallowing his cane.

Volplaning to earth, he looked for the source of this dismaying

interruption. He recognized with a start one of the past season's

débutantes whose mamma had spread a maze of traps and labyrinths for

him--Miss Sybil Hawker-Sponge of New York, Newport, Tuxedo and Lenox.

Before he could even stutter a reply a motor footman had leaped down

from the box and opened the door of the limousine. Miss Hawker-Sponge

fluttered out, contrived her most winning smile and repeated:

"Why, Mr. Barnes, what are you doing here?"

Her big doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off

with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge

mansion, one of the most aristocratically mortgaged dwellings in

America.

"It is rather late for a call," she gushed suddenly, "but I know

mamma"----

"Impossible!" cried Barnes. "That is--I beg your pardon--I should be

charmed, but the fact is I was looking for a friend--I mean a

policeman. Er--you haven't seen a good looking policeman going by,

have you, Miss Sybil?"

All the coquetry in Miss Hawker-Sponge's eyes went into stony

eclipse.

"You are looking for a policeman friend, Mr. Barnes?" she said icily,

gathering up her skirts and beginning to back away. "I hope you find

him."

She gave him her back with the abruptness of a slap in the face.

In another moment he was again a lone wayfarer in the bleak night

wilderness of out-of-doors Fifth avenue.

Indubitably he had committed a hideous breach of good manners and

could never expect forgiveness from Miss Hawker-Sponge. She had really

invited him into her home and he had preferred to hunt for a

"policeman friend." Yet the tragedy of it was so grotesquely funny

that Whitney Barnes laughed, and in laughing dismissed Miss

Hawker-Sponge from his mind.

He must find Travers Gladwin, and off he went at another burst of

speed.

He covered about three blocks without pause.

A second and far more sensational interruption came from a side

street, and again of the feminine gender.

It was a tall, weird looking figure wound in a black shawl and it

bumped squarely into Whitney Barnes and brought him up sharply,

spinning on one foot.

Before he stopped spinning he felt himself seized by the arm.

Without warning a bundle was thrust into his arms and he had to clutch

it. In another instant the weird figure had fled up the avenue, turned

a corner and vanished.

Instantly the bundle that Whitney Barnes held awkwardly and painfully,

as if it were a firebrand, emitted an anguished wail.

If that wasn't a pretty pickle for Whitney Barnes! His cane had

clattered to the pavement and he did not dare stoop to pick it up. The

anguish from the bundle he held increased terrifically in volume. He

could feel beads of perspiration running down his face.

What in desperation was he going to do with that awful bundle? He knew

intuitively that the tall, shawled figure would never return.

"My God!" he cried, "I'll be arrested as the father of it, and what

will Sadie say to that?"

It was no wonder that the son and heir of Old Grim Barnes sweated. It

wasn't perspiration. One doesn't perspire in such awful straits--one

sweats, like a navvy.

It seemed ages before he could form the impulse to move in any

direction for any definite purpose. He was on the point of making up

his mind to lay the bundle on the doorstep when he sensed a heavy step

from behind and was paralyzed by the gruff ejaculation:

"Well, I'll be damned!"

Barnes twisted his head and beheld a big, deep-chested policeman--a

haughty domineering policeman--who showed in every inch of him that

the gods had anointed him above the mere ranks of mortal patrolmen.

"Take it! take it!" cried Barnes, extending the bundle toward the

uniformed presence. "It's not mine," he almost shrieked. "A woman gave

it to me--and I have a very important engagement and must hurry."

Sergeant McGinnis--for 'twas none other--drew back and waved the

bundle from him.

"Just a minute, my young friend," he spoke through one side of his

large mouth. "You'll hold that infant till its mother comes or you'll

go with me to the police station and tell your story to the captain."

"But I can't wait," wailed Barnes. "I've got to find a policeman."

"A policeman, eh? Well, here's one for you, and a sergeant at that."

"I mean a friend. It's horribly important. I'll give you anything you

ask if you'll only take this howling bundle."

"None o' that, young feller," McGinnis snapped him up. "You'll give me

nothing and you'll come sharp and straight to the station. Now I know

there's something back o' this."

"But I haven't time," Barnes objected. "It's most horribly important

that I should find"----

"Chop it! Chop it! You'll come with me, and you'll lug that infant. If

you won't come quiet I'll slip the nippers on you."

Barnes realized the hopelessness of the situation and looked about him

wildly.

"Stop that taxicab, officer," he urged, as he saw one of the vehicles

approaching. "I can't walk like this. I'll pay the fare--I'll pay

everything."

McGinnis consented to this arrangement. The taxicab stopped. A few

minutes later it bore the sergeant, his prisoner and the still howling

infant to the threshold of the East Eighty-eighth street police

station.

McGinnis consented to carry the infant as they got out and once inside

the station lost no time in turning it over to the matron.

"Hello, McGinnis," said Lieut. Einstein from the desk; "what's all

this?"

McGinnis explained in a few crisp sentences.

"Is the captain in, Lieutenant?" he asked. "This young fellow is after

trying to bribe me."

Barnes protested that such a thought had never entered his head.

"I simply told him," he declared hotly, "that I had an important

engagement"----

"Looking for a policeman, he says."

"For a friend. I may have said policeman--I may have said anything in

such a beastly situation. I am sure that when the captain hears me he

will understand immediately."

"That may be true, sir," said the lieutenant politely, "but the

captain is out at present and won't be back till after midnight. If

you want to, you can sit in the back room and wait for him."

Further protestations were unavailing. With a sigh of despair Barnes

permitted himself to be led to the back room, where he dropped down on

a chair and looked savagely about him.

The room was empty and there was nothing to gaze at save four blank

walls and a black cat sitting in a corner idly washing its paws. Now

and then a door opened, a face peered in and the door shut again.

Somewhere a clock ticked dolefully.

An hour passed while the young man sought in vain to enchain his

incoherent thoughts. He could think of nothing vividly. He could

recall nothing at all.

Whenever the wail of that infant the matron was caring for reached him

he writhed and ground his teeth.

In this sad plight he remained until a door near him opened and a man

in plain clothes came stealthily in. He walked straight to Barnes,

bent down and whispered:

"If you've got a hundred-dollar bill about you drop it onto the floor

and walk out. The lieutenant won't see you."

The individual turned on his heel and went out the way he had come.

He did not shut the door tightly behind him. Barnes felt that an eye

was watching through the slit, so he lost no time in jumping to

his feet, getting his money out of his wallet and dropping two

one-hundred-dollar bills on the floor.

This done, he jammed the wallet back in his pocket, picked up his cane

and gloves and opened the door through which he had entered the room.

He started warily forward with his eyes straight ahead. He could feel

that the lieutenant who sat behind the high-railed-off desk was the

only person in the room and he could hear the scratch of his busy

pen.

Gaining the street entrance, he drew an immense sigh of relief, opened

it eagerly and fairly leaped outside to the steps. As the door shut

behind him he thought he heard a sudden explosive laugh, but it meant

nothing to him as he hurried along blindly, increasing his pace at

every stride.

At the corner of Third avenue he stopped and consulted his watch. It

was midnight!