The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet Part 22

"Hardly so bad as that. But we won't smash it yet awhile. I'm going to look up the subject of secret drawers--perhaps I'll stumble upon something that will help me."

"And then, of course," I said, disconsolately, "it is quite possible that there isn't any such drawer at all."

But G.o.dfrey shook his head decidedly.

"I don't agree with you there, Lester. I'll wager that fellow who was looking in at us could find it in a minute."

"He seemed mighty frightened lest you should."

"He had reason to be," G.o.dfrey rejoined grimly. "I'll have another try at it to-morrow. One thing we've got to take care of, and that is that our friend of the burning eyes doesn't get a chance at it first."

"Those shutters are pretty strong," I pointed out. "And Parks is no fool."

"Yes," agreed G.o.dfrey, "the shutters are pretty strong--they might keep him out for ten minutes--scarcely longer than that. As for Parks, he wouldn't last ten seconds. You don't seem to understand the extraordinary character of this fellow."

"During your period of exaltation last night," I reminded him, "you referred to him as the greatest criminal of modern times."

"Well," smiled G.o.dfrey, "perhaps that _was_ a little exaggerated.

Suppose we say one of the greatest--great enough, surely, to walk all around us, if we aren't on guard. I think I would better drop a word to Simmonds and get him to send down a couple of men to watch the house. With them outside, and Parks on the inside, it ought to be fairly safe."

"I should think so!" I said. "One would imagine you were getting ready to repel an army. Who is this fellow, anyway, G.o.dfrey? You seem to be half afraid of him!"

"I'm wholly afraid of him, if he's who I think he is--but it's a mere guess as yet, Lester. Wait a day or two. I'll call up Simmonds."

He went to the 'phone, while I sat down again and looked at the cabinet in a kind of stupefaction. What was the intrigue, of which it seemed to be the centre? Who was this man, that G.o.dfrey should consider him so formidable? Why should he have chosen Philip Vantine for a victim?

G.o.dfrey came back while I was still groping blindly amid this maze of mystery.

"It's all right," he said. "Simmonds is sending two of his best men to watch the house." He stood for a moment gazing down at the cabinet. "I'm coming back to-morrow to have another try at it," he added. "I have left the gauntlet there on the chair, so if you feel like having a try yourself, Lester...."

"Heaven forbid!" I protested. "But perhaps I would better tell Parks to let you in. I hope I won't find you a corpse here, G.o.dfrey!"

"So do I! But I don't believe you will. Yes, tell Parks to let me in whenever I come around. And now about Rogers."

"What about him?"

"I rather thought I might want to grill him to-night. But perhaps I would better wait till I get a little more to go on." He paused for a moment's thought. "Yes; I'll wait," he said, finally. "I don't want to run any risk of failing."

We went out into the hall together, and I told Parks to admit G.o.dfrey, whenever he wished to enter. Rogers was still sitting on the cot, looking so crushed and sorrowful that I could not help pitying him. I began to think that, if he were left to himself a day or two longer, he would tell all we wished to know without any grilling.

I confided this idea to G.o.dfrey as we went down the front steps.

"Perhaps you're right," he agreed. "I don't believe the fellow is really crooked. Something has happened to him--something in connection with that woman--and he has never got over it. Well, we shall have to find out what it was. h.e.l.lo, here are Simmonds's men,"

he added, as two policemen stopped before the house.

"Is this Mr. G.o.dfrey?" one of them asked.

"Yes," said G.o.dfrey.

"Mr. Simmonds told us to report to you, sir, if you were here."

"What we want you to do," said G.o.dfrey, "is to watch the house--watch it from all sides--patrol clear around it, and see that no one approaches it."

"Very well, sir," and the men touched their helmets, and one of them went around to the back of the house, while the other remained in front.

"Perhaps if they concealed themselves," I suggested, "the fellow might venture back and be nabbed."

But G.o.dfrey shook his head.

"I don't want him to venture back," he said. "I want to scare him off. I want him to see we're thoroughly on guard." He hailed a pa.s.sing cab, and paused with one foot on the step. "I've already told you, Lester," he added, over his shoulder, "that I'm afraid of him.

Perhaps you thought I was joking, but I wasn't. I was never more serious in my life. The _Record_ office," he added to the cabby, and jingled away, leaving me staring after him.

As I turned homeward, I could not but ponder over this remarkable and mysterious being with whom G.o.dfrey was so impressed. Never before had I known him to hesitate to match himself with any adversary; but now, it seemed to me, he shunned the contest, or at least feared it --feared that he might be outwitted and outplayed! How great a compliment that was to the mysterious unknown only I could guess!

And then I shivered a little as I recalled that mocking and ironic laughter. And I quickened my step, with a glance over my shoulder; for if G.o.dfrey was afraid, how much more reason had I to be! It was with a sense of relief, of which I was a little ashamed, that I reached my apartment at the Marathon and locked the door.

Just before I turned in for the night, I heard from G.o.dfrey again, for my telephone rang, and it was his voice that answered.

"I just wanted to tell you, Lester," he said, "that your guess was right. The mysterious Frenchman came over on _La Touraine_, landing at noon yesterday. He came in the steerage, and the stewards know nothing about him. What time was it he got to Vantine's?"

"About two, I should say."

"So he probably went directly there from the boat, as you thought.

That accounts for n.o.body knowing him. The steamship company is holding a bag belonging to him. I'll get them to open it to-morrow, and perhaps we shall find out who he was."

"But, G.o.dfrey," I broke in, "how about this other fellow--the man with the burning eyes? He's getting on my nerves!"

"Don't let him do that, Lester!" he laughed. "We're in no danger so long as we are not around that cabinet! That's the storm centre! I can't tell you more than that. Good-night!" and he hung up without waiting for me to answer.

CHAPTER XIII

A DISTINGUISHED CALLER

It was shortly after I reached the office, next morning, that the office-boy came in and handed me a card with an awed and reverent air so at variance with his usual demeanour that I glanced at the square of pasteboard in some astonishment. Then, I confess, an awed and reverent feeling crept over me, also, for the card bore the name of Sereno Hornblower.

That name is quite unknown outside the legal profession of the three great cities of the east, New York, Boston and Philadelphia; for Sereno Hornblower has never held a public office, has never made a public speech, has never responded to a toast, has never served on a public committee, has never, so far as I know, conducted a case in court or addressed a jury--has never, in a word, figured in the newspapers in any way; and yet his income would make that of any other lawyer in the country look like thirty cents.

For Sereno Hornblower is the confidential attorney of most of our "best families." He has held that position for years, and it is said that no case placed unreservedly in his hands ever resulted in a public scandal. He accepts clients with great care; he has steadfastly refused the business of Pittsburgh millionaires, remunerative as it was certain to be; but he seems to take a sort of personal pride in keeping intact the reputations of the old families, even when their scions embark in the most outrageous escapades. If you are descended from the Pilgrims or the Patroons, Mr. Hornblower will ask no further recommendation.

His reputation for tact and delicacy is tremendous; and yet those who have found themselves opposed to him have never been long in realising that there was a most redoubtable mailed fist under the velvet glove. Altogether a remarkable man, whose memoirs would make absorbing reading, could he be persuaded to write them--which is quite beyond the bounds of possibility. I had never met him either professionally or personally, and it was with some eagerness that I told the office-boy to show him in at once.

Sereno Hornblower did not look the part. His reputation led one to expect a sort of cross between Uriah Heep and Sherlock Holmes, but there was nothing secretive or insinuating about his appearance. He was a bluff and hearty man of middle age, rather heavy-set, fresh-faced and clean-shaven, and with very bright blue eyes--evidently a man with a good digestion and a comfortable conscience. Had I met him on Broadway, I should have taken him for a ripe and finished comedian. There was about him an air which somehow reminded me of Joseph Jefferson--perhaps it was his bright blue eyes. It may have been this very appearance of bluff sincerity and honest downrightness which accounted for his success.

We shook hands, and he sat down and plunged at once, without an instant's hesitation, into the business which had brought him.

Looking back at it, understanding as I do now the delicate nature of that business, I admire more and more that bluff readiness; though the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that he had thought out definitely beforehand precisely what he was going to say. The man who can carry through a carefully premeditated scene with an air of complete unpremeditation has an immense advantage.