No. 13 Washington Square Part 37

"G.o.d knows how they've done it," he snapped out. "But it means they've tracked me here!"

"As--as Thomas Preston?"

"As Thomas Preston."

"And if they take you--they--they may find me, and--"

"Nothing more likely," grimly responded Mr. Pyecroft.

"Then escape!" Mrs. De Peyster cried with frantic energy. "Run! For heaven's sake, run! You still have time!"

"Running from the police is the surest way to get caught when they've got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones. "They've got every door watched--sure. Anyhow--Listen! Hear those steps? They haven't trusted you, Matilda; they've followed. Angelica, down with your face to the wall, and be sick! And while you're at it, be d.a.m.ned sick!"

Mrs. De Peyster obeyed. Mr. Pyecroft drew the room's one chair up beside the bed, sat down, picked up "Wormwood," and again, with the most natural manner in the world, he began to read in a loud voice.

The next moment the two policemen of the previous night came in.

Mr. Pyecroft arose.

"I must beg your pardon, officers," he said pleasantly and with a slight tincture of his clerical manner. "My sister Matilda just told me you wished to see me, but I was almost at the end of a very interesting chapter which I was reading aloud to my other sister, who is ill, and so I thought I would conclude the scene before I came down. In what way can I serve you?"

Neither of the officers replied. One closed the doorway with his bulk, and the other thumped heavily down a flight or two of stairs, from whence his shout ascended:--

"We've got him up here, Lieutenant! Come on up!"

Within the tiny room of the second maid no one spoke. Presently heavy footfalls mounted; the second policeman entered, and presently two solid men in civilian dress pushed through the door. The foremost, a dark-visaged man with heavy jaw, and a black derby which he did not remove, fixed on Mr. Pyecroft a triumphant, domineering gaze.

"Well, Preston," he said, "so we've landed you at last."

Mr. Pyecroft, his left forefinger still keeping the place in "Wormwood," stared at the speaker in bewilderment.

"Pardon me, sir, but I completely fail to understand what you are talking about."

"Don't try that con stuff on us; we won't fall for it," advised the lieutenant. He smiled with satiric satisfaction; he was something of a wit in the department. "But if you ain't sure who you are, I'll put you wise: Mr. Thomas Preston, forger of the Jefferson letters, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to yourself. Shake hands, gents."

Mr. Pyecroft continued his puzzled stare. Then a smile began to break through his bewilderment. Then he laughed.

"So that's it, is it! You take me for that Thomas Preston. I've read about him. He must be a clever fellow, in his own way."

He sobered. "But, gentlemen, if I had the clever qualities attributed to Mr. Preston, I am sure I could apply those qualities to some more useful, and even more profitable, occupation."

"You don't do it bad at all, Preston," observed the lieutenant. "Only, you see, it don't go down."

"I trust," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly, "that it isn't going to be necessary to explain to you that I am not Thomas Preston."

"No, that won't be necessary at all," replied the waggish lieutenant.

"Not necessary at all. For you can't."

Mr. Pyecroft raised his eyebrows.

"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter seriously! Why, you two officers in uniform saw me only last night here with my two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood can tell you my sister Matilda has been housekeeper in this house for twenty years."

That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen looked at their superior dubiously.

"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant commented dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."

"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr.

Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"

"Y--yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent pressure of four crowded officers was almost being bisected against the edge of the stationary wash-bowl.

"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"

"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the bedclothes.

Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.

"There, now, you see."

"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're Thomas Preston. Jim, just slip the nippers on him. And there's something queer about these women. Just slip the bracelets on Matilda, too, and carry downstairs the party in bed. We'll call the police ambulance for her, and take the whole bunch over to the station."

The party in bed suddenly stiffened as if from a stroke of some kind, and Matilda fairly wilted away. Mr. Pyecroft alone did not change by so much as a hair.

"One moment, gentlemen," he interposed in his even voice, "before you go to regrettable extremes. I believe that an even better witness to my ident.i.ty can easily be secured."

"And who's that, Tommie?"

"I refer to Judge Harvey."

"Judge Harvey!" The lieutenant was startled out of his ironic exultation. "You mean the guy that was stung by them forged letters--the complainant who's making it so d.a.m.ned hot for Preston?"

"The same," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey is at this moment in this house."

"In this house!"

"I believe he is downstairs some place going over some bills Mrs. De Peyster asked him to examine. Matilda, you doubtless know in what room the Judge is working. Will you kindly knock at his door and ask him to step up here for a moment?"

The lieutenant frowned doubtfully at Mr. Pyecroft, hesitated, then nodded to Matilda. The latter, relieved of the pressure of much policial avoirdupois, slipped from the room. The lieutenant turned and silently held a penetrating gaze upon the empty clothes-hooks. Mr.

Pyecroft continued to look imperturbably and pleasantly upon the four officers. And under the bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster saw wild visions of Mr. Pyecroft being the next moment exposed, and herself dragged forth to shame.

Thus for a minute or two. Then Judge Harvey appeared in the doorway.

"Lieutenant Sullivan! See here, what's the meaning of this?" he demanded sternly.

"'Evening, Judge Harvey," began the lieutenant, for the first time since his entrance removing his derby. "It's like this--"

"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey, these gentlemen here have been upon the point of making a blunder that would be ludicrous did it not have its serious side. That's why I had you called. The fact is, they desire to arrest me."

"Arrest you!" exclaimed the Judge.