The Tracer of Lost Persons Part 25

But he leaned back in his cab and fell a-thinking of a thin girl with red hair and great gray eyes--a thin, frail creature, scarcely more than a child, who had held him for a week in a strange sorcery only to release him with a frightened smile, leaving her indelible impression upon his life forever.

And, thinking, he looked up, realizing that the cab had stopped in East Eighty-third Street before one of a line of brownstone houses, all externally alike.

Then he leaned out and saw that the house number was thirty-eight. That was the number of the Lees' house; he descended, bade the cabman await him, and, producing his latch key, started up the steps, whistling gayly.

But he didn't require his key, for, as he reached the front door, he found, to his surprise and concern, that it swung partly open--just a mere crack.

"The mischief!" he muttered; "could I have failed to close it? Could anybody have seen it and crept in?"

He entered the hallway hastily and pressed the electric k.n.o.b. No light appeared in the sconces.

"What the deuce!" he murmured; "something wrong with the switch!" And he hurriedly lighted a match and peered into the darkness. By the vague glimmer of the burning match he could distinguish nothing. He listened intently, tried the electric switch again without success. The match burned his fingers and he dropped it, watching the last red spark die out in the darkness.

Something about the shadowy hallway seemed unfamiliar; he went to the door, stepped out on the stoop, and looked up at the number on the transom. It was thirty-eight; no doubt about the house. Hesitating, he glanced around to see that his hansom was still there. It had disappeared.

"What an idiot that cabman is!" he exclaimed, intensely annoyed at the prospect of lugging his heavy suit case to a Madison Avenue car and traveling with it to Harlem.

He looked up and down the dimly lighted street; east, an electric car glided down Madison Avenue; west, the lights of Fifth Avenue glimmered against the dark foliage of the Park. He stood a moment, angry at the desertion of his cabman, then turned and reentered the dark hall, closing the door behind him.

Up the staircase he felt his way to the first landing, and, lighting a match, looked for the electric b.u.t.ton.

"Am I crazy, or was there no electric b.u.t.ton in this hall?" he thought.

The match burned low; he had to drop it. Perplexed, he struck another match and opened the door leading into the front room, and stood on the threshold a moment, looking about him at the linen-shrouded furniture and pictures. This front room, closed for the summer, he had not before entered, but he stepped in now, poking about for any possible intruder, lighting match after match.

"I suppose I ought to go over this confounded house inch by inch," he murmured. "What could have possessed me to leave the front door ajar this morning?"

For an instant he thought that perhaps Mrs. Nolan, the woman who came in the morning to make his bed, might have left the door open, but he knew that couldn't be so, because he always waited for her to finish her work and leave before he went out. So either he must have left the door open, or some marauder had visited the house--was perhaps at that moment in the house! And it was his duty to find out.

"I'd better be about it, too," he thought savagely, "or I'll never make my train."

He struck his last match, looked around, and, seeing gas jets among the cl.u.s.tered electric bulbs of the sconces, tried to light one and succeeded.

He had left his suit case in the pa.s.sageway between the front and rear rooms, and now, cautiously, stick in hand, he turned toward the dim corridor leading to the bedroom. There was his suit case, anyway! He picked it up and started to push open the door of the rear room; but at the same time, and before he could lay his hand on the k.n.o.b, the door before him opened suddenly in a flood of light, and a woman stood there, dark against the gas-lit glare, a pistol waveringly extended in the general direction of his head.

CHAPTER XVI

"Good heavens!" he said, appalled, and dropped his suit case with a crash.

"W-what are you d-doing--" She controlled her voice and the wavering weapon with an effort. "What are you doing in this house?"

"Doing? In _this_ house?" he repeated, his eyes protruding in the direction of the unsteady pistol muzzle. "What are _you_ doing in this house--if you don't mind saying!"

"I--I m-must ask you to put up your hands," she said. "If you move I shall certainly s-shoot off this pistol."

"It will go off, anyway, if you handle it like that!" he said, exasperated. "What do you mean by pointing it at me?"

"I mean to fire it off in a few moments if you don't raise your hands above your head!"

He looked at the pistol; it was new and shiny; he looked at the athletic young figure silhouetted against the brilliant light.

"Well, if you make a point of it, of course." He slowly held up both hands, higher, then higher still. "Upon my word!" he breathed. "Held up by a woman!" And he said aloud, bitterly: "No doubt you have a.s.sistance close at hand."

"No doubt," she said coolly. "What have you been packing into that valise?"

"P-packing into _what_? Oh, into that suit case? That is my suit case."

"Of course it is," she said quietly, "but what have you inside it?"

"Nothing _you_ or your friends would care for," he said meaningly.

"I must be the judge of that," she retorted. "Please open that suit case."

"How can I if my hands are in the air?" he expostulated, now intensely interested in the novelty of being held up by this graceful and vaguely pretty silhouette.

"You may lower your arms to unpack the suit case," she said.

"I--I had rather not if you are going to keep me covered with your pistol."

"Of course I shall keep you covered. Unpack your booty at once!"

"My--_what_?"

"Booty."

"Madam, do you take _me_ for a thief? Have you, by chance, entered the wrong house? I--I cannot reconcile your voice with what I am forced to consider you--a housebreaker--"

"We will discuss that later. Unpack that bag!" she insisted.

"But--but there is nothing in it except samples of marble--"

"What!" she exclaimed nervously. "_What_ did you say? Samples of _marble_?"

"Marble, madam! Georgia marble!"

"Oh! So _you_ are the young man who goes about pretending to peddle Georgia marble from samples! Are you? The famous marble man I have heard of."

"I? Madam, I don't know what you mean!"

"Come!" she said scornfully; "let me see the contents of that suit case.

I--I am not afraid of you; I am not a bit afraid of you. And I shall catch your accomplice, too."

"Madam, you speak like an honest woman! You _must_ have managed to enter the wrong house. This is number thirty-eight, where I live."

"It is number thirty-six; my house!"