Officer 666 Part 15

CHAPTER XVII.

TRAVERS GLADWIN IS CONSIDERABLY JARRED.

Taking time out to sense the bruised condition of your heart isn't a whole lot different from taking time out to recover from a jolt received in the prize ring. Having released that impa.s.sioned sentence, "I hope you are going to like his best friend just a little!" young Mr. Gladwin felt a trifle groggy.

Until he had spoken he hadn't realized just how badly his cardiac equipment was being shot to pieces by the naked G.o.d's ruthless archery.

The fact that the case should have appeared hopeless only fanned the flame of his ardor. He had looked into the depths of two vividly blue eyes and there read his destiny. So he told himself fiercely; whereupon, in the Rooseveltian phrase, he cast his hat into the ring.

He cared no more for obstacles than a runaway horse. His very boredom of the past few years had stored up vast reserves of energy within him, waiting only for that psychological thrill to light the fuse.

As Helen Burton turned from him with the uncomfortable feeling of one who has received a vague danger signal he paused only a moment before he again strode to her side. He was about to speak when she took the lead from him and, looking up at one of the masterpieces on the wall, said:

"Oh, this is his wonderful collection of paintings! He told me all about them."

It was what the gentlemen pugilists would call a cross-counter impinging upon the supersensitive maxillary muscles. It certainly jarred the owner of that wonderful collection and caused him to turn with an expression of astonishment to Whitney Barnes.

But that young man was intensely occupied in a vain endeavor to draw more than a monosyllable from the shrinking Sadie Burton. He missed the look and went doggedly ahead with his own task. Helen Burton repeated her remark that he had told her all about his paintings.

"Oh, has he?" responded Gladwin, dully.

"Yes, and they are worth a fortune!" cried the girl. "He simply adores pictures."

"Yes, doesn't he, though?" a.s.sented the young man in the same vacuous tones.

"And we are going to take the most valuable away with us to-night!"

Here was information to jar Jove on high Olympus. Travers Gladwin came stark awake with a new and vital interest. There was glowing life in his voice as he said:

"So you are going to take the pictures with you on your honeymoon?"

"Yes, indeed, we are."

"Won't that be nice?" was the best Gladwin could do, for he was trying to think along a dozen different lines at the same time.

"We will be gone for ever so long, you know," volunteered Helen.

"Are you going to take his collection of miniatures?" the young man asked in unconscious admiration of the colossal nerve of the gentleman who had so nonchalantly appropriated his name.

"Miniatures?" asked Helen, wonderingly.

"Yes, of course," ran on Gladwin; "and the china and the family plate--nearly two hundred years old."

"Why, I don't think he ever mentioned the miniatures, or, or"----

"That is singular," broke in Gladwin, striving to conceal the sarcasm that crept into his voice. "Strange he overlooked the china, plate and miniatures. I don't understand it, do you?" and he turned to Barnes, who had caught the last of the dialogue and shifted his immediate mental interest from the shy Sadie.

"No, I really don't, old man," said Barnes.

"Do let me show you the miniatures," Gladwin addressed Helen upon a sudden inspiration.

"That will be splendid," cried Helen. "I adore miniatures."

"They are just in the next room," said Gladwin, leading the way to a door to the left of the great onyx fireplace.

As she followed, Helen called to her cousin:

"Come along, Sadie, this will be a treat!"

But the next moment she was alone with Travers Gladwin in the long, narrow room, two windows of which, protected by steel lattice work on the inside, looked out on a side street.

The girl did not notice that as the young man preceded her he reached his hand under the screening portiere and touched a spring that noiselessly swung open the heavy mahogany door and switched on half a dozen cl.u.s.ters of lights. Neither did she notice that Sadie had failed to follow her as her eyes fairly popped with wonder at the treasures presented to her gaze.

On one side of the room there was a long row of tables and cabinets, and almost at every step there was an antique chest. On the tables there were huddled in artistic disorder scores upon scores of gold and silver vessels and utensils of every conceivable design and workmanship. Each cabinet contained a collection of exquisite china or rare ceramics. On the walls above was the most notable collection of miniatures in America.

Travers Gladwin waited for the young girl to have finished her first outburst of admiration. Then he said softly:

"I suppose you know that five generations of Gladwins have been collecting these few trinkets?"

"He never even mentioned them!" gasped the girl. "Why the paintings are nothing to these!"

"I wouldn't say that," chuckled Gladwin. "It would take a deal of this gold and silver junk to buy a Rembrandt or a Corot. There are a couple of Cellini medallions, though, just below that miniature of Madame de Pompadour that a good many collectors would sell their souls to possess."

"Perhaps he was preserving all this as a surprise for me," whispered the awed Miss Burton. "It is just like him. I am afraid he will be awfully disappointed now that you have shown them to me."

"Or mayhap he has forgotten all about them," said Gladwin, in a tone that caused his companion to start and color with quick anger.

"You know that is not true," she said warmly. "You know that Travers Gladwin is just mad about art. How can you say such a thing, and in such a sarcastic tone of voice?"

"Well," the young man defended himself, inwardly chuckling, "you know how his memory lapsed in regard to that heroic affair at Narragansett."

Helen Burton turned and faced him with flashing eyes.

"That was entirely different. It simply showed that he was not a braggart; that he was different from other men!"

The words were meant to lash and sting, but the pa.s.sion with which they were said served so to vivify the loveliness of the young girl that Travers Gladwin could only gaze at her in speechless admiration.

When her glance fell before the homage of his regard he took hold of himself and apologized on the ground that he had been joking.

Then he made the rounds of the treasure room, pointing out and giving the history of each precious family heirloom or art object with an encyclopedic knowledge that should have caused his companion to wonder how he knew so much. Several times he slipped in the p.r.o.noun I, hoping that this might have some effect in waking Helen from the obsession that any other than he could be the real Travers Gladwin.

But alas! for his subtle efforts, the hints and innuendoes fell on deaf ears. She accepted his fund of information as a second-hand version, exclaiming once:

"What a splendid memory you have!"