Officer 666 Part 22

It was manifest that Officer 666 was sorely tempted. To goad him further Travers Gladwin produced a little roll of yellow-backed bills from his pocket. Fluttering the bills deftly he stripped off one engraved with an "M" in one corner and "500" in the other. He turned it about several ways so that Phelan could study it from all angles.

Then he fluttered it before Whitney Barnes and said:

"Say, Barnes, there's something really handsome about these yellow-backs, isn't there? Notice how that five and those two naughts are engraved? And it's amazing how much a slip of paper like this will buy."

This was too much for Phelan. He reached for the bill and grabbed it, stuffed it into his trousers pocket and began unb.u.t.toning his coat.

Suddenly he stopped.

"Say," he sputtered. "S'pose there should be a robbery on my beat?"

"That would be fine," said Gladwin. "I'd be a credit to you."

"Or a murder?"

"Better still."

"Oh, the risk is awful," groaned Phelan. He started to b.u.t.ton up his coat again when Rose's taunt came back to him. This time the tempter delivered a vital blow and he tore off his uniform coat and pa.s.sed it to the young man. Gladwin slipped it on over his other clothes. It fitted snugly. It just happened that the suit he wore was dark blue and his trousers matched accurately.

"Now the bonnet," he said, reaching for the uniform cap and removing it from Phelan's head.

"And now officer, your sword." He grasped the proffered belt and buckled it on with a flourish, making as natty a figure of a cub policeman as one would want to meet.

Phelan stood looking on dumbly, his face a study in conflicting emotions. Barnes's admiration of his friend's nerve was beyond power of words. When Gladwin started for the doorway, however, he called after him:

"Hey there, Travers, where are you going?"

"On duty," he responded cheerily. "And by the way, Whitney, give Mr.

Phelan that tray and decanter and see that he goes down into the kitchen and stays there until my return. You remain on guard up here.

I'll look after the outside. So long, mates."

"Hold on," Phelan called out feebly. "I'd like to know what the divvil it all means. I'm fair hypnotized."

"It means," said Gladwin, pausing and turning his head, "that I'm going outside to wait for myself--and if I find myself, I'll arrest myself--if both myself and I have to go to jail for it. Now, do you get me?"

"No, I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do!" gurgled Phelan, but the words had scarcely pa.s.sed his lips when the departmental guise of Officer 666 vanished from sight and the front door slammed with a bang.

CHAPTER XXII.

A MILLIONAIRE POLICEMAN ON PATROL.

Travers Gladwin went bounding down the steps of his own pretentious marble dwelling with an airy buoyancy that would have caused Sergt.

McGinnis to turn mental back handsprings had he happened to be going by on his rounds. But, fortunately, McGinnis had pa.s.sed on his inspection tour shortly before Michael Phelan had been summoned by Bateato. For three hours at least Officer 666 would be supreme on his beat.

While the McGinnis contingency had never entered young Gladwin's mind it did suddenly occur to him as he strolled jauntily along that he had neglected to ask Phelan to define the circ.u.mscribed limits of his post. What if he should happen to b.u.t.t into another patrolman? Certain exposure and all his plans would go flui! Then there was the danger of being recognized by some of his neighbors and friends. Ah! it came to him in a twinkling. A disguise!

"Here goes," he said aloud. "I'll jump a taxi and see if I can hunt up a hair store!"

The time was 7 P. M., with the inky darkness of night blanketing the city so far as inky darkness can blanket a metropolis.

The thoroughfare on which the young man stood was a long lane of dazzle, wherefore the nocturnal shadows offered no concealment. He cast his eyes up and down the avenue in search of a tramp motor-hack cruising in search of a fare. He had only a moment or two to wait before one of the bright yellow variety came racketing along. He stuck up his hand and waved his baton at the driver. There was a crunching of brakes and the taxi hove to and warped into the curb. The chauffeur had the countenance of a pirate, but his grin was rather rea.s.suring.

"Say, me friend," began the young man, in an effort to a.s.sume Michael Phelan's brogue, "do you know the way to a hair store?"

"A what?" the chauffeur shot back, while his grin went inside.

"A hair store--I want a bit of a disguise fer my features--whiskers, false hair or the like."

"Did ye stop me to kid me?" snarled the chauffeur. "Ye don't need to think 'cause you got on a bull's uniform ye can hurl the harpoon into me. Or if it's a drink ye're wantin' reach in under the seat an'

there's a flask. If ye meant hair oil why didn't ye say it?"

"Thanks, but 'tis no drink I'm afther," said the young man. "'Tis a ride to a hair store, an' here's a tin-spot fer yer trouble."

It was the way Travers Gladwin handled the skirts of his coat in getting at his money that convinced the wise chauffeur that he had no real policeman to deal with. His grin came back and looped up behind at either ear.

"I getcher, Steve," he broke out, reaching for the bill. "If it's disguises ye're after hop inside an' I'll tool youse over to Mme.

Flynn's on Avenue A."

To demonstrate to his uniformed fare that speed laws in the greater city of New York fail to impose any manner of hamper upon the charioteering of the motor-driven hack, the chauffeur of this canary-colored taxi scampered across town at a forty-mile-an-hour clip, during which Patrolman Gladwin failed to familiarize himself with the quality of the cab's cushions. But it was not a long ride and there was some breath left in him when the cab came to a crashing stop.

The young man was on the point of opening the door when a voice stopped him.

"Kape inside, ye b.o.o.b, an' pull the blinds down. There's coppers on every corner. Now, what is it ye want in the way o' whiskers or hair?

Ye can slip me the change through the crack."

"What's the prevailin' style?" asked Gladwin, with a laugh. "Are they wearin' brown beards?"

"They are not," mumbled the chauffeur. "I guess a wee bit mustache an'

a black wig will do ye, an' if ye want I'll get ye a pair of furry eyebrows."

"Fine," cried the young man, poking a $20 bill out through the crack in the door, "and don't be long." The door slammed and a great stillness clapped down, broken only by the running of the taximeter, which seemed to be equipped with a motor of its own.

The millionaire cop sat back luxuriously and inhaled a deep breath.

"Gad!" he exclaimed to himself, "I'm really beginning to live. Nothing but thrills for four hours and more and larger ones coming."

Presently the chauffeur returned, opened the door a few inches and shoved in a small package.

"Ye'll have to paste 'em on in the dark," he said. "Or ye can light a match. Ye'll find a wee mirror in the bundle. Now where'll I drive yez?"

"Back to me fixed post," said Gladwin, "only take it easy while I put me face on straight."

"If ye don't git it on straighter nor your brogue," chuckled the chauffeur, "it'll not decave a blind man."

In another instant the return journey was under way at reduced speed.

Travers Gladwin first tried on the wig. It was three sizes too large and he had to discard it. Next he had some trouble in deciding which was the mustache and which the eyebrows. He had burned his fingers pretty badly before he made the selection and likewise he had singed one of the eyebrows.