Felix O'Day Part 31

"I have just left your old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Blobbs," he began gayly, "who have advised me to bring to you rather a rare piece of lace belonging to my wife. Fine, isn't it?" He loosened the bundle and shook out the folds of the mantilla.

Otto put on his gla.s.ses, felt the texture of the piece between his fingers, and spread out the pattern for closer examination. "Yes, dot's a good piece of lace. Vot you vant to do vid it? Dere's a hole in it, you see," and he thrust a pudgy finger into the gash.

"Yes, I know," returned Dalton, who, with his eye still on the dog, had been crushing it together so that the tear might not show; "but that is easily remedied. I want to sell it. Mr. Blobbs tells me it is worth a hundred dollars."

"Is dot so? Vell--vell--a hundred tollars! Dot's a good deal of money."

He had begun to wrap it up, tucking in the ends. "No--dot Fudge dog don't bite--go away, you. T'ank you for lettin' me see it, tell Mr.

Blobbs, but I don't vant it at dot price. And I doan know I vant it at any price. Dey doan buy dem t'ings any more."

Dalton saw that the mantilla had favorably impressed the dealer. He had caught the look of pleasure when the lace was first unrolled, reading the man's brain as he had often read the brains of the men at home who listened to some rose-colored prospectus. These experiences had taught him that there was always a supreme moment when one must stop praising an article for sale, whether it were a rubber concession from an African chief or a pound of tea over a grocer's counter. This moment had arrived with Kling.

"I agree with you," he said smilingly. "The valuation was Mr. Blobbs's, not mine. I told him I should be glad to get half that amount--or even less."

Otto took the bundle and loosened the roll again. "I got a little girl, Beesving--dot was her dog make such foolishness--who likes dese t'ings.

But dot is not business, for I doan sell it again once I gif it to her.

I joost put it around her shoulders for a New Year's gift. Maybe if you--" He re-examined it closely, especially the tear, which had partly yielded to Lady Barbara's deft fingers and tired eyes. "Vell, I tell you vot I do, I gif you tventy tollars."

"That, I am afraid, will not answer my purpose," said Dalton. "Perhaps, however, you will loan me thirty dollars on it and hold the lace for a week or so, and I will pay you back thirty-five when some money that is due me comes in?"

Otto looked at him from under his bushy eyebrows. "Ve don't do dot kind of business. If I buy--I buy. If I sell--I sell. Sometimes I pay more as a t'ing is vorth. Sometimes I pay less. I have a expert vid me who knows vat dis is vorth, but he is busy vid a customer on de next floor, and I doan sent for him. If you vant de tventy tollars you can have it. If you doan, den take avay de lace. I got a lot of t'ings to do more as to talk about it. Ven you see Blobbs, you tell him vat I say."

Dalton's mind worked rapidly. To take the money would clean off his debt and leave him a margin which he might treble before midnight.

"Give me the money," he said. "It is not one-third of its value, but I see that it is all I can do."

Otto smiled--the smile of a man who had hit the thing at which he aimed--felt in his inside pocket, drew out a great flat pocketbook, and counted out the bills.

Dalton swept them up as a winner at baccarat sweeps up his coin, apparently without counting them, stuffed the crumpled bank-notes into his pocket, and started for the door.

Half-way down the long shop he halted opposite a sideboard laden with old silver and gla.s.s and, to show that he was not in a hurry, paused for an instant, picking up a cut-gla.s.s decanter with a silver top, remarking casually, as he laid it back, "Like one I have at home," continuing his inspection by holding aloft a pipe-stem gla.s.s, to see the color the better.

As he resumed his walk to the door, Felix, with Masie and a customer ahead of him, was just descending the rear stairs from the "banquet hall" above. He thus had a full view of the store below. Something in the way with which the bubble-blown gla.s.s was handled attracted O'Day's attention. He had seen a wrist with a movement like that, the poised gla.s.s firmly held in an outstretched hand. Where, he could not tell; at his own table, perhaps, or possibly at a club dinner. He remembered the quick, upward toss, the slender receptacle held high. He leaned far forward, and watched the nervous step and halting gait. Had Masie and the customer not been ahead of him, he would have hurried past them and called to the man to stop--not an unusual thing with him when his suspicions were aroused. Instead, he waited until he was well down the stairs, then strolled carelessly toward the door, intending to make some excuse to accost the man on the sidewalk. Not that he had any definite conviction regarding his likeness to the man he wanted; more to satisfy his conscience that he had permitted no clew to slip past him.

What made him hesitate was the way the slouch-hat shaded the intruder's face, the gas-jets not revealing the features. Only the end of the chin was visible, and the round of the lower cheek showing above the heavy cape-collar of the overcoat.

Dalton by this time had reached the street-door, which he closed gently behind him, holding it for an instant to prevent its making a noise.

Felix lunged forward, reopened it quickly, and gazed out into the night.

Dalton had vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed him.

Another man, who had kept his eyes on O'Day as he peered into the dark, an undersized, gaunt-looking man, sidled toward Felix and pulled at his coat sleeve. "I ain't too early, am I? You said eight o'clock?"

Felix looked at him keenly. "Oh, yes, I remember--no, you are all right.

How long have you been here?"

"About half an hour."

"Did you notice which way that man went who has just shut the door?"

The tramp looked about him in a helpless way. "I wasn't lookin'. I was a-watchin' you--waitin' for you to come out--but I got on to him when he went in awhile ago."

"Then you have seen him before?"

"Of course I've seen him before. He plays pool where I've been a-workin'."

Felix bent closer. "Do you know his name?"

"Sure! His name's Stanton. He's been puttin' sompin' to soak, I guess. I heard last week he was up against it. Do you know him?"

Felix remained silent a moment, checking his own disappointment, and then answered slowly: "I thought I did, but I see I am mistaken. Come inside the store where it is warmer. I have secured you a job, and will take you with me when I have finished here."

Chapter XIX

Had a spark of human feeling been left in Dalton's body, it would have been kindled into a flame of sympathy, could he have seen Lady Barbara when she opened the box early next morning, and stood trembling over the loss of the mantilla.

Her first hope was that she had inadvertently taken it to Rosenthal's with the other pieces of lace, and that Mangan had found it when he checked up her work. Then a cold chill ran through her, her anxiety increasing every moment. Had she dropped it in the street? Had the woman who jostled her on the way up the long staircase to the workroom, picked up her package when she stumbled? Perhaps some one had crept in during the night and, finding the box near the door, had caught up the mantilla and escaped without being detected? Could she herself have dragged it into her bedroom, entangled in the folds of her skirt? Was it not near the window, or in her basket, or behind the door, or--

Martha, with a shake of her head, put all these theories to flight.

"No, it isn't in your room at all, and it isn't anywhere else around here; and n.o.body's been in here from the outside; and they couldn't get in if they tried, for I bolted the door when we went to bed. The only person who has had the run of the place is Mr. Dalton, and he--"

"Martha!"

"Well, I wasn't here when he first came, but when I opened the door he was peeking behind the china."

"But I had not been inside my room a minute before I heard your voice.

How could he have taken it? You don't think--"

"I don't say what I think, because I don't know, but he's mean enough to do anything he could to hurt you. How long had he been talking to you when I came in?"

"Just long enough for me to run past him and lock myself in."

"And how long do you think it would take him to steal it, if he thought n.o.body was looking?"

"But he could not have stolen it, Martha; he was on the other side of the room. The box is by the door where I left it; you can see it for yourself. Oh what shall I do? Where could I have dropped it? It must be at the store in that bundle. Mr. Mangan said I need not wait, and I did not see him open it. He has found it by this time and he is waiting for me. I will go right away and see him. Anybody could make a mistake like that. He must--he WILL understand when I explain it all. Get my cloak and hat, please, Martha. I will take the car up and back, and you can have my coffee ready for me upon my return. I won't be half an hour. Oh!

how awful it is, how awful! If I had only found it out last night! I had meant to work, but I could not after what happened. Mr. Mangan was very much put out yesterday, and I know he will be furious to-day. No, you need not come with me," and she was gone.

Martha closed the door, walked to the window, and stood looking through the panes until the slight figure had reached the street, where she caught up her skirt, to free her steps the better, and started on a run for the car line. When the fragile form was lost in the whirl of the traffic, Martha walked slowly to the table and sank into a chair, her elbows resting on its top, her face in her hand.

The next instant she was on her feet examining Lady Barbara's work-basket, wondering what Dalton had found in it, wondering, too, why he had looked through it. Crossing to the dresser, she moved the plates and cups, as he had done, searching for a possible note, or perhaps for a duplicate key of their former apartment which he might have left for Barbara, and then moved toward the door of the smaller chamber, behind which her mistress had lain shivering. Her eye now fell on the box, the lid awry. She remembered that this lid had been in that same position when she had ordered the intruder from the room, and that, at the time, she had thought it strange that Lady Barbara, always so careful, had not fastened it to keep the dust from its contents. Stooping closer, she examined the various articles. She noted that one sleeve of the lace blouse had been lifted from its place, while the other sleeve remained snug where her mistress had tucked it. In pulling out one of the upper pieces, this sleeve must have been caught in its meshes and dragged clear. This could only have been done by the mantilla which, she distinctly remembered, had been laid neatly on top the afternoon before, so as to be ready for work in the morning.

"He's got it," she exclaimed in an excited tone, replacing the lid.

"I'll stake my life he stole it, the dirty cur! He's done it to get even with her. She'll be back in a little while, half distracted. There is going to be trouble, plenty of it. I'll have Stephen here right away, and we'll talk it over. I can take care of her when she's inside these rooms, but what if that man waylays her on the street and raises a row, and she goes back to him to smooth over things? This has got to stop.

She won't live the month out if he gets to hounding her again, and now he's found out where she is, I shan't have a moment's peace. What a hang-dog face he's got on him! And he's a coward, too, or he wouldn't have slunk out when I ordered him. And he had it on him all the time! I wonder what he'll do with it. Hold it over her, I expect; maybe take it to Rosenthal's with some lie about her, so they will discharge her and she come back to him.