CHAPTER XXXIX.

PILING ON PHELAN'S AGONY.

Mrs. Burton would have arrived much earlier into the midst of the

maelstrom of events at the Gladwin mansion had not Fate in the shape

of a tire-blowout intervened.

She had set out from Police Headquarters with Detective Kearney as a

passenger and she had urged her red-headed chauffeur to pay not the

slightest heed to speed laws or any other laws. He had obeyed with

such enthusiasm that the blowout had occurred at the intersection of

Fifth avenue and Forty-second street.

Late as the hour was there was a large crowd gathered to hear the

society leader of Omaha deliver a lecture in strange French and

caustic English.

Kearney had transshipped to a taxicab, which accounted for his earlier

arrival.

"Who's in charge here?" cried Mrs. Burton, sweeping into the room with

all sails set and drawing to the storm.

"I am," replied Captain Stone, none too pleasantly as the gold

lorgnettes were waved under his nose.

"Well, I came for my niece--produce her at once," insisted the panting

woman.

"You'll have to wait a few minutes," answered Captain Stone, grimly.

"We're otherwise engaged at present."

"But I have a warrant--I've ordered Mr. Gladwin's arrest!" she

shrilled.

"We'll attend to that later," snapped the captain. "We're looking for

a thief who broke in here to-night."

"A thief!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton. "Well, I saw him."

"What?" asked the amazed officer.

"Yes, when I was here before, and there he is now, only he's got a

policeman's uniform on."

Mrs. Burton pointed an accusing finger at Michael Phelan, who

proceeded to turn livid.

"You saw that man here before?" asked the wondering captain.

"Yes. He was in his shirt sleeves and when he saw me he ran away to

hide."

"Are you sure about this?" asked Captain Stone slowly, turning and

scowling at the condemned Phelan.

"I should say I am," declared the relentless Mrs. Burton. "How could I

ever forget that face?"

"C-c-c-captain, I-I-I w-w-want to explain"--chattered Phelan.

"There'll be time enough for that," the captain checked him. "For the

present you camp right here in this room. Don't you budge an inch from

it. That thief is somewhere in this house and we've got to find him."

"Give me my niece first," cried Mrs. Burton.

Captain Stone ignored the request and shouted to Kearney and the three

men who had followed him into the room:

"Come, we are wasting time. This house must be searched again and

searched thoroughly. I don't believe you have half done it. Lead the

way, Kearney, we'll begin on the next floor."

As they went out Sadie Burton timidly approached Whitney Barnes, who

was still making the rounds of every policeman in the house and

pleading to be unlocked.

"How do you do--what is the matter?" she said timidly, looking up into

Barnes's distressed face.

"I don't do at all," replied Barnes, tragically, folding his arms in

an effort to conceal the handcuffs.

"Why, you seem to have a chill," Sadie sympathized, with real concern

in her voice.

"I should say I have," gasped Barnes, "a most awful chill. But it may

pass off. Excuse me, here's a new policeman I haven't asked yet." The

young man crossed the room to Phelan.

"Have you got a key to these infernal shackles?" he asked, while Sadie

looked wonderingly after him.

"I've got a key to nothin'," growled Phelan. "Don't talk to me--I'd

like to kill some of yez."

Barnes retreated, backing into Mrs. Burton, who turned and seized

him.

"Do you know where my niece is?" she demanded.

"Oh, yes, she's here, only you're breaking my arm."

"Where is she and where is that fiend Gladwin?"

"Oh, _the fiend Gladwin_ just went upstairs to her. She's upstairs

asleep."

"Asleep!"

"Oh, I don't know--go up and find her, that is--I beg your pardon--I'll

lead the way--come, Miss Sadie."

The handcuffed youth led the procession up the stairs, leaving Officer

666 as solitary sentinel in the great drawing room and picture

gallery.

"Well, I guess I'm dished fer fair," groaned Phelan as he mournfully

surveyed the deserted room and allowed his eyes to rest on the

portrait of a woman who looked out at him from mischievous blue eyes.

"An' all fer a pair o' them eyes," he added, wistfully. "'Tis tough."

He might have gone on at some length with this doleful soliloquy had

not a hand suddenly closed over his mouth with the grip of a steel

trap.

Alf Wilson had come out of the chest as noiselessly as he had

originally entered it and good fortune favored him to the extent of

placing Phelan with his back to him while his troubled mind was

steeped in a mixture of love and despair.

As the thief pounced upon the ill-fated Officer 666 he uttered, "Pst!

Pst! Watkins!"

That sinuous individual writhed out of the fireplace and came to his

assistance.

"Get his elbows and put your knee in his back," instructed the thief,

"while I reach for my ether-gun. Thank God! Here it is in my pocket."

Phelan struggled in a fruitless effort to tear himself free, but

Wilson's grip was the grip of unyielding withes of steel and the slim

and wiry Watkins was just as muscular for his weight.

It was the task of a moment for the picture expert to bring round the

little silver device he called his ether-gun. Phelan was gasping for

breath through his nostrils, and Wilson had only to press the bulb

once or twice before the policeman's muscles relaxed and he fell

limply into Watkins's arms.

"That'll hold him for ten minutes at least," breathed Wilson. "That's

right, Watkins, prop him up while I get his belt and coat off--then

into the chest."

Phelan was completely insensible, but his weight and the squareness of

his bulk made it a strenuous task to support him and at the same time

remove his coat. Only a man of Wilson's size and prodigious strength

could have accomplished the feat in anything like the time required,

and both he and Watkins were purple and breathless when they lowered

the again unfrocked Officer 666 into the chest and piled portières and

a small Persian rug on top of him.

While Watkins held up the lid the thief tore off his claw-hammer coat

and stuffed that down into the chest. In another instant he had forced

his shoulders into the uniform coat, donned the cap and buckled on the

belt.

"Now break for it, Watkins," he gasped, fighting the buttons into the

buttonholes. "Take it easy out the front door. I'll go out on the

balcony and call down to the men in the street that it's all right.

Start the engine in the car and keep it going till I can make my

getaway. Now!"

Watkins vanished out the door at the psychological moment. Captain

Stone and Kearney were coming down the stairs engaged in earnest

conversation. So engrossed were they when they entered the room that

they failed to notice the absence of Officer 666, whose uniform was

strutting on the balcony while he himself lay anæsthetized in the

chest.

"How could he have been hiding in those portières, Kearney?" Captain

Stone was saying. "I looked through them before I left the room."

"I don't know how, Captain," replied Kearney, "but he was and Gladwin

knew it."

"You're sure of that?"

"Positive."

"I say, captain, do you know where Mr. Ryan is?" intervened the roving

Barnes, who seemed to have bobbed up from nowhere in particular with

Sadie in his train.

"He may be in the cellar and he may be on the roof," snapped the

captain. "Don't bother me now!"

"But I must bother you, by Jove," persisted the frantic Barnes. "I

demand that you send that man to unlock me. I'm not a prisoner or that

sort of thing."

Captain Stone ignored him, addressing Kearney:

"Well, if he isn't out now--he can't get out without an airship. Still

we had better search some more below stairs. Where's that man Phelan

gone? Look out on the balcony, Kearney."

Kearney stepped to the curtains, pulled them back, dropped them, and

nodded, "He's out there."

"Very well, let's go down into the cellar and work up. There isn't a

room in the house now that isn't guarded."

"But, dammit, Captain," exploded Barnes again, rattling his

handcuffs.

"Don't annoy me--can't you see I'm busy," was all the satisfaction he

got as the captain and the Central Office man left the room.

Sadie came forward shyly as the policemen left.

"Did you find out where he is?" she asked anxiously.

"In the cellar or on the roof. When I get to the roof he is in the

cellar, and when I reach the cellar he is on the roof. He's more

elusive than a ghost."

"Whoever are you talking about?" cried Sadie.

"Mr. Ryan, of course."

"But I don't mean Mr. Ryan--I mean the chauffeur who came for Helen. I

heard Mr. Kearney speaking about him upstairs."

"Oh, there's a chauffeur after her, too?" said Barnes, enigmatically.

"Yes, and wasn't it fortunate that the police arrived just in time to

save her."

"The police!" sniffed Barnes in disgust. "A lot they had to do with

saving her."

"Didn't they really?"

"They did not. They bungled the whole thing up horribly. Why they'd

have brought in a parson to marry them if it hadn't been"--Barnes

managed to blush.

"Then who did prevent the elopement?" asked Sadie, eagerly. "I can't

get a word out of Helen on account of Auntie El."

"Can't you guess?" said Barnes, mysteriously, looking down upon her

with a sudden return of ardor.

"Oh, did you do it?" and Sadie looked up at him from under her

lashes.

"Didn't I tell you I'd do it?" swelled Barnes.

Sadie thanked him with her wonderfully expressive eyes.

"Oh, it was nothing," shrugged Barnes.

"You're the nicest man I ever met," blurted Sadie, with astounding

frankness.

"Do you mean that?" cried Barnes, rapturously.

"Indeed I mean it," admitted Sadie, timidly, backing away from his

burning glances.

"Then you won't mind my saying," said Barnes fervently, "that you're

the nicest ma'--I mean girl--I ever met. Why, would you believe

it--confound it, here's that man Gladwin again. Please come upstairs

and I'll finish, handcuffs or no handcuffs."