The Perils of Pauline Part 54

"Shall you go to Philadelphia?" inquired Owen

"Indeed--shall and instantly."

"Is it so urgent as that."

"Of course. They might change their minds any moment and get some one else to write the story. Will you see what train I can take this evening, Owen, while I run and pack a few things?"

"With pleasure--but don't you think some one ought to accompany you?"

"To Philadelphia? Nonsense. It's just like crossing the street.

Please, Owen, don't you begin to worry about every little thing I do."

"Very well," he laughed. As soon as she was gone he selected a time table, and scanned the train list. Then he took up the telephone and called a number.

"h.e.l.lo, Wrentz?"

"This is Owen. It worked. Be at the Pennsylvania station with your men tonight. And, Wrentz, if the plan I gave you fails, I leave it to you to invent a new one. You understand? What? No. I don't want any return this time."

Before Owen had helped Pauline into her car and bidden her goodbye, Wrentz and his men were on watch in the railroad station.

"Goodbye and good luck."

Pauline was standing in the aisle, the porter stowing her baggage into her drawing room, when the men entered the car. She noted them with curiosity. There was nothing very sinister about them, but they seemed obviously out of place, but the next moment she had forgotten about them, and for the twentieth time, was reading her own story in the Cosmopolitan. For now, in the light of the magic it had wrought, she was bent on studying every word--to absorb the power of her own genius, so to speak--in order that "her publishers" should not be disappointed in the forthcoming novel.

When Pauline got off the train at Philadelphia she did not notice that one of the four men who had aroused her curiosity walked behind her as she left, or that he was joined by the three others in the taxicab which followed hers.

When she left the cab at one of the fashionable hotels, Wrentz alone followed her.

He was at Pauline's elbow when she registered. As she followed the bell boy through the lobby, he stepped to the desk, and, noting the number of Pauline's room--NO. 22--he signed his name under hers with a flourish.

"By the way," he said easily to the clerk, "is that pet room of' mine vacant--the one I had last year?"

The clerk smiled. "I'll see," he said. "I had forgotten it was your pet room. I can't remember everybody."

"Oh, I was just here for a few days," said Wrentz.

"I remember you."

"Yes, sir; 24 is yours," said the clerk. "Front."

Wrentz stood at the cigar counter to make a purchase. He did not wish to follow Pauline so closely that she might know he had taken the room next to hers.

In spite of her excitement, Pauline slept soundly that night. The next morning she had breakfast in her own room and at ten o'clock was ready to go to "Carson & Brown's." She was considerably provoked by the ignorance of the hotel clerk, who not only did not know the publishing house of Carson & Brown, but could not even direct her to Weston place. He called the head porter and taxicab manager. The latter had an idea.

"I don't think it's Weston Place, but there's a Weston Street down in --well, it's not a very good section of the city, Miss. I wouldn't want to--"

"Never mind. In New York some of our best publishing houses are perfect barns. You may call a taxicab."

"Yes, Miss."

"Publishing house in Weston Street-whew! But she doesn't look crazy,"

he instructed one of his chauffeurs. "I don't know what the game is, but it's a good job."

Pauline's spirits revived as the cab whisked her through the big business streets, newly a-bustle with their morning life. She had a sense of pity for the workers hastening to their uninspiring toil. How few of them had ever received even a letter from a publisher! How few had known the thrill of successful authorship!

A few moments after Pauline's departure Louis Wrentz and his companions set to work.

Two of the men left the room and sauntered to opposite ends of the hall where they lingered on watch. Wrentz and the other man stepped out briskly and each with a screwdriver in his hand began unfastening the number-plates over the doors of rooms 22 and 24.

A low cough sounded down the corridor and they quickly desisted from their task and retired to their room while a maid pa.s.sed by.

In a moment they were out again. Wrentz pa.s.sed the number plate of 24 to his a.s.sistant, who handed back the plate Of 22. The numbers were refastened on the wrong doors. The watchers were called back.

"Now," said Wrentz, "it is only a matter of waiting."

Pauline's cab pa.s.sed out of the central city into the region of factories.

"This looks like the section where the print shops are in New York,"

she said confidently to herself.

But the driver kept on into streets of dingy, ancient houses--streets crowded with unkempt children and lined with push-carts.

"Are you sure you got the right address of them publishers, Miss?" he asked after awhile. "The next street is Weston and it don't look very promisin'."

She drew the letter from her handbag and showed it to him.

"Well, that's the queerest thing I know," he said, astonished by the letterhead. "I've been drivin' cabs--horse and taxi--for twenty years, and I never heard of no such people or no such place."

"Well, at least go around the corner and see. Perhaps it is a new firm that isn't listed as yet," said Pauline.

The driver swung the cab into a street even more bleak and bedraggled than the one they had just traversed. He stopped and got out. Pauline followed him. A blear-eyed man, slouching on a stoop, looked up in faint curiosity as she addressed him.

"There ain't no No. 9 Weston Street," he answered.

"It usta be over there, but it's burnt down."

Pauline's face fell. "Well, this is certainly stupid," she exclaimed.

"Of course it isn't Weston Street; it's Weston Place, as the letter says."

"But my 'City Guide' ain't got no such place in it, miss," answered the chauffeur.

"Well, I'll go back to, the hotel," she said dejectedly.

She was on the verge of tears as she left the elevator and started for her room. She had looked through all the directories and street guides and knew at last that she had been the victim of a cruel hoax. All her joy and pride of yesterday had turned to humiliation and grief. She wanted to be alone--and have a good cry.

She was puzzled for a moment as she drew her key from her handbag and glanced at the numbers on the doors. She had been almost sure that No.

22 was the left-hand door, but she had been in such excitement that she could not trust any of her impressions. She started to place the key in the lock of the right-hand door.