CHAPTER XXXI.

A VISIT TO THE EXILED PHELAN.

But where, oh, where was the exiled Phelan when the bogus Gladwin went

on his backstairs investigation? Puzzled as he was by the fast moving

events of the night, stripped of the uniform of his authority, still

his police instincts should have warned him of this new character in

his dream.

Michael Phelan, however, was busy--busy in a way one little would

suppose.

As the gentlemanly outlaw entered the kitchen, Phelan was standing on

the tubs of the adjoining laundry, his face almost glued to the

window-pane and his eyes uplifted to the fourth story rear window of a

house diagonally opposite, through which he could observe a pantomime

that thrilled him.

It was late, well past bedtime even for the aristocratic precincts of

New York. Yet there was going on behind that brilliantly lighted

window a one-man drama strangely and grotesquely wide-awake.

A first casual glance had conveyed the impression to Phelan that a

tragedy was being enacted before his eyes--that murder was being done

with fiendish brutality, and he--Phelan--powerless to intervene.

The seeming murderer was a man of amazing obesity, a red-faced man

with a bull neck and enormous shoulders, clad in pink striped pajamas

and a tasselled nightcap of flaming red.

Back and forth the rotund giant swayed with something in his arms,

something which he crushed in his fists and brutally shook, something

which he held off at arm's length and hammered with ruthless blows.

"The murtherin' baste!" ejaculated Phelan as he switched off the one

light he had been reading by and darted into the next room to get a

better view from the summit of the kitchen tubs.

Suddenly the mountain of flesh and the debile victim that he was

ruthlessly manhandling disappeared from view. For several long

thundering seconds the petrified Phelan could see nothing save a

dancing crimson tassel, the tassel attached to the nightcap. Surely a

mighty struggle was going on on the floor!

Phelan did not hear the light step upon the kitchen stair or the

stealthy tread of the big man in evening dress as he pussy-footed his

way to the kitchen door leading out into the back yard and found that

it was easily opened.

Every sentient nerve in Michael Phelan's being was concentrated in his

eyes at that moment and it is highly doubtful if he would have heard a

fife and drum corps in full blare enter the kitchen. He heard nothing

and saw nothing below that upward focal angle.

The man Phelan should have heard flashed the light in his cane only at

infrequent intervals. He did not aim its bright revealing beam into

the half open door of the adjoining laundry and he was as unconscious

of the proximity of Phelan as that unfrocked or de-uniformed officer

was of the invader. He returned to Miss Helen Burton in complete

ignorance of the fact that the lower regions of the dwelling were

otherwise than empty.

But the second he re-entered the room he saw the girl was strangely

agitated and that she feared to look at him. Laying down his cane he

crossed the room to her side and said in his softest tones:

"Well, you haven't got on very fast in your packing, have you, dear?"

Helen was leaning against the back of a chair, feeling she was surely

going to topple over in a swoon. Summoning all her reserve of nerve

power, she strove to reply naturally:

"No. I--I didn't quite understand how to pack."

He was at her side now and seized both her hands.

"Why, Helen, what's the matter? Your hands are cold as ice."

He spoke warmly and tenderly, while at the same time his eyes were

everywhere about the room and he was listening with the wary alertness

of a rodent.

There was more than a little of the rat in the soul inclosed in this

splendid envelope.

"It's nothing--only I'm faint," she said tremulously.

"That policeman has been talking to you--hasn't he?" he said quietly.

"Yes, he has," she blurted, with a catch in her throat.

"Did he tell you who he was?"

He measured out each word and conveyed the sense. "Did he tell you who

he pretended to be?"

"Yes," the girl responded, scarcely above a whisper.

He took her by the shoulders and turned her squarely toward him,

looking down into her face with frowning eyes.

"Now, Helen, I want you to tell me the truth--the truth, you

understand? I shall know it even if you don't. Who did he say he

was?"

A feeling of repugnance took possession of the girl and she shook

herself free and stood back. Her body had warmed into life again and

she looked steadily into his eyes as she answered:

"Travers Gladwin!"

He needed all his great bulk of flesh and steel-fibred nerve to fend

off this shock. Not the remotest fancy had crossed his mind that

Travers Gladwin might be in New York. It was with a palpably forced

laugh that he ejaculated:

"Travers Gladwin! Oh, he did, eh?"

The girl had read more than he imagined the sudden contraction of his

features and dilation of his eyes had revealed.

"I want you to tell me the truth--you must!" she said passionately.

"_Who are you?_"

"A man who loves you," he let go impulsively. The desire to possess

her had sprung uppermost in his mind again.

"But are you the man you pretended to be--are you Travers Gladwin?"

she insisted, compelled against her convictions to grope for a forlorn

hope.

"And if I were not?" he cried, with all the dramatic intensity he

could bring to voice. "If instead of being the son of a millionaire, a

pampered molly-coddle who never earned a dollar in his life--suppose I

were a man who had to fight every inch of the way"----

He stopped. His alert ear had caught a sound in the hallway. He sped

noiselessly to the folding door and forced one back, revealing Officer

Murphy.

"Come in," he said threateningly, and Gladwin came in a little way.

"Where's that bag?" said the thief, with a glare and a suggestive

movement with his hands.

"What bag, sorr?" said Gladwin, feeling that for the moment discretion

was the better part of valor.

"The one you brought in here."

"You told me to unpack it, sorr. It's upstairs, sorr."

"Go and get it. Go now--and don't waste time."

Gladwin went, determined this time that he must arm himself with some

weapon, even if it were one of the rusted old bowie knives of his

grandfather that ornamented the wall of his den. He estimated

accurately that he would prove a poor weak reed in the hands of that

Hercules in evening dress, and while the thought of a knife sickened

him, he was impelled to seek one.

As he mounted the stairs the thief strode to the table near the window

and gathered up Helen's opera cloak and handed it to her.

"Now, go quickly," he urged; "my car is just across the street. There

is no time to argue your absurd suspicions."

"No, I shan't go," retorted Helen, accepting the cloak and backing

away.

"So you believe that man?" he asked reproachfully.

"I am afraid I do," she said firmly.

"Then I'll show you mighty quick you're wrong," he cried, as a

crowning bluff. "He's probably some spy sent by your aunt. I'll get my

man in here and will have him arrested after you and I have gone. Wait

here--I shan't be a moment."

As the door slammed after him Helen ran to the window and then back

to the door. She was now terribly alarmed on another score. She

feared to go out and she feared to remain in the house. She feared

physically--feared violence.

Travers Gladwin had found the bowie knife and slipped it into his

trousers pocket. Then he had gone down the stairs on the run. As he

entered the room and saw that the man had gone he said:

"Is he running away--and without his pictures or his hat and coat.

What's his game, I wonder."

"He's coming back--he says my aunt sent you here," said Helen, but

less afraid at his return to the room.

"Never mind what he says," Gladwin returned, gesturing excitedly. "You

must go home--now. To-morrow you can learn the truth."

"But if I go out he'll be sure to see me," she protested.

Gladwin looked about him and thought a moment.

"Do you see that little alcove back of the stairs," he said quickly,

pointing. Helen crossed the room and nodded.

"Well, hide in there," he commanded. "The curtains will conceal you.

If he and his man come back I'll get them in this room--then I'll

press this button, see?"

He indicated a button and added: "That rings a buzzer; you can hear it

from the alcove, and then slip out the front door."

The girl paused but an instant, then fled to the place of shelter.