CHAPTER XXXIV.

PHELAN LOSES HIS BRIBE.

It was merely a coincidence that Bateato should drag Helen back into

the room just as Gladwin had gone on record with the declaration,

"There are no women here," but it was a sufficiently dramatic

coincidence to jar from Officer No. 666 the exclamation:

"Where the divil are they all springin' from?"

Bateato had come up with Helen as she was descending the stoop, had

seized her by the wrist and almost swung her off her feet as he swept

her back into the house and rounded her up before the three men, dumb

with fright and barely able to stand. Still gripping her wrist,

Bateato let go the Maxim volley:

"You tief! She try get away, but Bateato catch fast--she tief--I see

steal all pictures--she"----

"Bateato, you idiot!" his master hurled at him with a menacing gesture

that caused the little Jap to drop the girl's hand and jump back.

"Didn't I tell you to stay at the hotel?" continued Gladwin, fiercely,

for the moment ignoring both Phelan and the thief.

"Yes, but I 'fraid--much late you no come. Bateato come back see girl

steal all pictures!"

The little Jap had fallen into Phelan's state of blind bewilderment.

"Shut up!" his master snapped him up, walking up to him with an

eat-'em-alive expression. "And now listen--I don't want you to say

anything more, understand? Not a word to anybody about anything. Not a

syllable!"

"I no spick," bleated the Jap.

"See that you don't--not a single word--if you do I'll skin you!"

Never in the three years he had served the young man had Bateato seen

him in anything like this savage state of mind.

"I spick no more for noting not nobody quick!" he promised, and his

hand clasped over his mouth like a vise.

Having corked Bateato in this wise, Gladwin turned to Helen, who stood

as if rooted to the floor, staring straight ahead of her.

"Don't be frightened," he said gently. "Everything is all right." He

took her arm to reassure her and then spoke to Phelan, who had been

making a vain effort to solve the mix-up and didn't feel quite sure

that he wasn't bewitched.

"Now, Phelan," said Gladwin, "I'll explain the thing."

"I wish to God ye would!" said Phelan from the bottom of his heart.

"This lady's being here is all right--and she isn't connected with

this affair in any way. I'll prove that to you readily enough."

"Well, go ahead." And Phelan crossed his eyes in an effort to include

in the focus both Gladwin and the thief de luxe, whose splendidly

groomed appearance impressed him the more.

On his part the thief was leaning carelessly against a cabinet looking

on with the expression of one both amused and bored. What he had

noticed most was that Helen kept her eyes averted from him as if she

feared to look at him and that she had palpably transferred her

allegiance to Gladwin. When she had recovered some of her self-control

she followed that young man's words eagerly and obeyed his slightest

signal.

"I will explain to you, Phelan, as soon as I see this young lady

started for home," Gladwin ran on, and proceeded with Helen toward the

entrance to the hallway.

"Hold on! Yez'll not leave this room," Phelan stopped them, his

suspicions again in a state of conflagration.

"But I only want----"

"I don't care what yez want," Phelan snorted, blocking the way.

"Yez'll stay here."

"Oh, well--just as you say," returned the young man desperately, "but

I will have to ask my man to escort this lady out and put her in a

taxicab. Bateato"----

"Bad Pertaters 'll stay where he is."

Phelan was visibly swelling with the majesty of the law.

"You're very disagreeable," Gladwin charged him; then to Helen, "I'm

awfully sorry I cannot go with you, but I think you can find the way

yourself. Just go out through the hall, and"----

"She'll stay right here with the rest o' yez," was Phelan's ultimatum,

as he squared himself in the doorway with the heroic bearing of a

bridge-defending Horatius.

The only member of that tense little tableau who really had anything

to fear from the spectre of the law embodied in the person of Officer

666 had waited for Gladwin to play his poor hand and, conceiving that

this was the psychological moment, sauntered across the room and said

with easy assurance:

"Officer, if there's anything further you want of me, you'll have to

be quick."

"Yez'll wait here, too, till I can communicate with headquarters,"

Phelan gave him back, not liking the tone of command.

"Then hurry up, because it won't go well with you if I am detained."

"Now, don't yez threaten me!" exploded Phelan. "I'm doin' me duty by

the book."

"Threaten you! Why, I can show you that you have been helping to rob

my house."

This was a new current of thought--a sudden inspiration--but this peer

of bluffers managed to crowd a volume of accusation in the slow

emphasis with which he said it.

"Your house!" gasped Phelan, rocked clear off the firm base he had

scarcely planted himself on. "What do ye mean--who are yez?"

"Who do you suppose I am? Travers Gladwin, of course."

Even the fear-numbed Helen Burton was startled into animation by this

amazingly nervy declaration and half rose from the chair she had been

guided to and forced into by Gladwin when she seemed on the verge of

swooning at Phelan's refusal to permit her to depart.

Phelan expressed wonder and alarm in every feature and his arms

flopped limply at his side as he muttered:

"Travers Gladwin--youse!"

"Don't listen to him, Phelan," cried Gladwin.

"Shut up!" Phelan turned on him.

"When I came home to-night," the thief pressed his advantage, "this

man was here--robbing my house, dressed in your uniform--yes, and you

yourself were helping him."

"But I didn't know," whined the distressed Phelan, yielding himself

utterly to the toils of the master prevaricator.

"I don't think you did it intentionally--but why did you do it?" the

thief let him down with a little less severity of emphasis.

"He said he wanted to play a joke. He--he----"

"Oh, don't be an idiot, Phelan," interposed Gladwin, putting his foot

in it at the wrong time and receiving as his reward from the policeman

a savage, "Close your face!"

"Oh, playing a joke, was he?" said the thief, smiling. "And did he

offer you money. Now, no evasion--you had better tell me."

"Yes, sir," gulped Phelan, with murder in one eye for the real Gladwin

and craven apology in the other for the impostor.

"And you took it?" sharply.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, officer! Shame! Shame!" in tones of shocked reproach. "Let me see

what he gave you--come now, it's your only chance."

Phelan hesitated, gulped some more, and at last produced the bill.

The thief took it from his trembling but unresisting hand, unfurled

it, turned it over, held it up close to his eyes and suddenly

laughed:

"Well, you certainly are easy--_counterfeit_!"

"What!" roared Phelan, and Travers Gladwin joined him in the

exclamation.

"Will you swear that man gave you this bill?" cut in the thief,

sharply, snatching out a pencil and marking the gold certificate

across the corner.

"I will, sorr!" shouted Phelan. "I will, an'----"

"Very well! Now you see this mark in the corner--will you be able to

identify it?"

"Yes, sorr." Phelan was fairly grovelling.

"Good," said the thief, and nonchalantly shoved the bill into his

waistcoat pocket.

"See here, Phelan," protested Gladwin.

"Kape your mouth shut--I'd just like to take wan punch at yez."

Phelan meant it and took a step toward Gladwin when the thief stopped

him and asked:

"Now, officer, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Thank you, Mr. Gladwin--I got to get the patrol wagon here some

way."

If Bateato had entered into an inflexible contract with himself not to

utter another syllable before the break of day at least he might have

eased Phelan's mind on that score and informed him that something

ominously like a patrol wagon was rounding the corner at that moment.

And if the art collector had not been so keenly amused at his facile

conquest of the gullible bluecoat his alert ears might have warned him

to say something entirely different from this:

"I'd call the wagon for you, officer, only I'm afraid these people

might overpower you and get away with that trunk of pictures. You see

what a nice mess they've been making of my picture gallery. Why, if I

hadn't happened in to-night they would have walked off with half a

million dollars' worth of paintings."

"You call the wagon, Mr. Gladwin," returned Phelan, grimly. "I kin

handle the lot of o' them an' ten more like them."

"All right, officer, but be very careful--I shan't be long."

And turning with a mocking bow to Travers Gladwin, he sauntered out

into the hallway and walked into the arms of Police Captain Stone and

ten reserves.