_ CHAPTER X. KABOFF'S WILD HORSE
For several months after old Mr. Marvin's death, Owen had kept to his cubby-hole room adjoining the financier's small, plain-furnished, workaday office. But recently he had got the habit of doing his work in the library, where the tall, pure statues looked down upon his skulking head and the grand old books that had borne their messages of good from generation to generation, held their high thoughts in stately contrast to his skilled and cruel plots.
Above the bowed bald head that was planning the death of a young girl to gain her fortune stood a figure of Persephone-child of innocence and sunlight shadowed by black robes of Dis. Upon the coward who feared all but the darkest and most devious passages of crime shone high, clear brows of Caesar and Aurelius. Gray folios of Shakespeare held up to the ambitious ingrate the warning titles of "Lear" and "Hamlet" and "Macbeth." And by his side brooded ever that mystic relic of the farther past--the Mummy, from whose case had stepped a daughter of the Pharaohs in the likeness of Pauline.
But Owen thought little of contrasts.
He was opening his mail on a morning in early May when he came across an envelope addressed in the awkward scrawl of Hicks. He tore it apart nervously, for if Hicks could be moved to write, it must be a matter of concern.
"Dear Owen, No doubt he suspects you of foul play. He has seen his attorneys and is about to take steps to have you removed from the trustee-ship."
The paper crackled in Owen's trembling hand. So the Baskinelli incident had gone a little too far. Harry Marvin had sense enough to know that he would not have to fight three murderous Italians and a rabble of Chinese unless there had been a plot behind Pauline's peril. It might be best to go directly after Harry--to put him out of the way first. And yet, Owen pondered, there was no proof of anything wrong. Pauline was admittedly plunging into these adventures of her own free will. Nothing could be proved against him or Hicks.
He resumed his work. Among the letters lay an advertising dodger which had been dropped through the door. Owen glanced at it carelessly at first, then with keen interest. He read it over:
"BALLOON ASCENSION FROM PALISADES
"Signor Panatella, the famous Italian Aeronaut, will make parachute drop from height never before attempted."
The ascension was to be made that afternoon from one of the amusement parks on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson.
"This is Providence," he muttered to himself, catching up the dodger. Slipping through the door and up the stairs, he tapped at the door of Pauline's room. When there came no answer he entered swiftly, laid a paper on the table and glided back to the hall, back to the library.
From there he called up Hicks.
Hicks' domiciles were so many and suddenly changeable that he claimed nothing so dignified as a regular telephone number. But he had scribbled on the bottom of his note the number of a saloon on the lower West Side.
He was there when Owen rang.
"Hello, Hello, . . . Is that you, Hicks? . . . I want to see you. . . . What? . . . No, right away. . . . Broke? . . . you always are .... you'll get the cash all right. . . . What's that? .... Come here? .... Not on your life. I'll come to you .... Not half that time .... I'll take the motorcycle. All right .... Good-by."
He hung up the receiver, went up to his room and got into cycling kit. As he came down stairs he met Pauline, who was returning from a shopping trip.
"Good morning, Owen," she said brightly. "Do you know, I believe there is more peril in a dry goods store than on a pirate yacht. What parts of my new hat are left?"
"Only the becoming ones."
She sped on up the stairs. After her first imperative inquiries of the mirror concerning what she considered her wild appearance, she picked up the letters on her dressing table and began to run through them.
The large black type of an advertising dodger loomed among the letters.
Pauline tripped down the stairs. To Harry, seated on the steps enjoying the Spring sunshine and puffing a leisurely cigarette, appeared a mysterious vision.
He knew by the elaborate way in which she took her seat beside him and hid the piece of paper in her hand that she had some new whim in fermentation--something to ask him that she knew he wouldn't want to do.
"Yes," he said, moving along the step away from her. "I know you've just bought me the loveliest cravat, that I'm the nicest brother in the world, that I look so handsome in Springy things and--well, what it is?"
Pauline pouted at the other end of the step.
"I'm going up in a balloon and jump down," she announced, "from a height never before attempted."
"Polly I You are going to do nothing of the--"
"No, I wasn't going to, until you grew so great and grand. I just wanted to go over and see him fly."
She tossed the dodger over to him. He glanced at it.
"Well, if you promise you aren't plotting any more pranks, I'll take you."
"That's a worth-while brother. It's a pink one."
"Pink one?"
"Cravat, of course."
Harry groaned. "Give it to the cook," he pleaded. "He wears 'em alive. If that fellow goes up at 2:30, you'd better hurry."
"I'll be ready before you are."
She rose quickly, but Owen, looking, listening, had time to close the door unseen, unheard.
At the rear of a little West Side saloon, he signaled with his horn, and Hicks came out. He was a bit shabbier than usual, and he had been drinking, but he was not intoxicated.
Owen locked his machine and taking his arm walked him rapidly up the avenue.
"What do you mean by writing to me?" demanded Owen. "Haven't I told you never to put words on paper?"
"Oh, I guess you got that house wired so nobody'll catch you," grunted Hicks. "Live wires, too-clever butlers, footmen, maids, chauffeurs, cooks; you're safe enough."
"You forget those are your wires. They don't know they're working for me. Hicks, are you out of your head? Have you told Bemis that you and I are working together?"
"Sure not; but that butler is no fool, Mr. Owen."
"Was it from him you found out that Harry had the lawyers after us?"
"No--queer thing that, that--it wasn't."
"Who, then?"
"The little Espinosa."
"Espinosa--in New York?"
"Yes--met her at the Trocadero a week ago. She'd seen old Calderwood already. I guess she blackmails him--the old reprobate, and him the noble counselor at law for Mr. Harry Marvin!"
"So you put her on the scent--for us?"
"Why not? The young fellow's been acting suspicious for a long time."
"You did very well."
"How about some money--I haven't seen the color of a roll since you put that fool Baskinelli into the game. Ain't you coming across?"
"Certainly; here," said Owen, handing over enough to sate even the predatory greed of Hicks. "Now, what I want you to do is to find me some one among your horse racing friends who is down and out enough to take a little cash job--at certain slight risks?"
"Yes--what?"
"I want a good rider on a wild horse. He could make a thousand dollars in an afternoon if the horse should happen to get wild at the right time and do the right thing."
"Hm'm," mused Hicks. "I wonder if Eddie Kaboff has still got his livery stable down on Tenth avenue. We might go see."
After ten minutes' walk Hicks brought up in front of a bill-plastered door in a fence. He held it open for Owen and they passed across a vacant lot to a large dilapidated-looking stable at the further end.
The short, dark man who sat in a tilted chair against the doorway and puffed lazily at a pipe, seemed to embody the spirit of the building and the business done there.
He was a man who had once--in the days of racing--been called a "sport." He might still be called "horsey" and would consider the term a compliment. But Eddie Kaboff's fame and fortune had both dwindled since the good old betting days when little swindling games larded the solid profits of crooked races. One by one his thoroughbreds had given up their stalls to truck horses, just as Eddie's diamond studs had given place to plain buttons.
His beady black eyes watched the two newcomers on their way across the lot, but he gave no sign of recognition until Hicks and Owen reached the door.
"Hello, Eddie," said Hicks.
Kaboff got up slowly and extended a flabby hand to his acquaintance. He was introduced to Owen, who let Hicks do the talking.
"What's new, Eddie?"
"Nuthin'."
"Still got that wild horse you never was able to sell?"
"Yep."
"Can you still manage him yourself?"
"I guess I could, but he ain't safe to take among traffic."
Hicks stepped close to Kaboff, talking in rapid whispers. The little man turned white.
"No, no; I'm too old for that kind of game," he said.
Owen drew from his pocket a roll of yellowbacks--the biggest roll Eddie Kaboff had seen since the days of "easy money."
"This much to try it," said Owen, "and as much again if you make good."
Kaboff's glance wavered a moment between the penetrating eyes of Owen and the money in his hand.
"Take it; it's yours."
The flabby hand closed almost caressingly around the roll. "We'll go in and have a look at the brute," he said.
They followed him through a line of stalls to a large padded box at the far end of the barn. A beautiful bay saddle horse occupied the box. Kaboff entered and called the animal, which answered by flying into a seeming fury, plunging about the box, kicking, rearing and snapping.
"Same old devil," muttered Hicks. "He'll do."
The sight of an apple in Kaboff's hand calmed the animal. It came to him and ate docilely while he slipped a bridle over its head. Once outside the stall, however, it began another rampage.
Hicks held a last whispered conversation with Kaboff, giving him minute instructions.
"I can just try it, you know," said Kaboff. "I can't guarantee to get away with it."
"As much again if you do, you know," said Owen as he started briskly away with Hicks.
The place that Panatella had chosen for the start of his balloon ascension was a field upon the crest of the Palisades above the amusement park.
Panatella had brought with him from abroad a reputation for dare-devil adventures in the air. And he had proved his reckless courage in the several brief ascensions that he had already made on this side.
Today, with his promise of the longest parachute drop on record, people flocked to the field from New York and all adjacent New Jersey.
"I wish you wouldn't always invite that velvet-pawed servant on our trips," grumbled Harry to Pauline, as Owen went for his dustcoat.
"Owen is my trustee and guardian. You have no right to speak of him as a servant. Besides, when he's along he keeps you from being silly."
Harry stamped out to the garage, swung a new touring car around to the door, and soon, with Owen and Pauline, was speeding for the ferry.
Signor Panatella was superintending the filling of the great gas bag. He was a tall, lithe man in pink tights beneath which his muscles bulged angularly like the gas filling the balloon bag.
A Latin rapidity of speech and motion added to the pink tights made him comically frog-like, and even the abattis of medals on his breast could not save his dignity.
He bustled about giving orders to the workmen who were preparing to cut the ropes, then flitting back to the crowd to answer the questions of impromptu admirers.
Pauline had left the car and was standing between Owen and Harry near the rapidly filling bag.
"I wish I could talk to him, too--he's so cute and hippety-hoppy," she said.
Owen stepped to Panatella's side.
"Would you permit the young lady to see the balloon basket?" he asked.
"With pleasure," said the airman after a glance at Pauline. He led the way to the basket, and helped Pauline up so that she could look at the equipment, the anchor with its long coil of rope, the sand bags and water bottles.
She was plainly fascinated as Panatella explained the manner of his flight and his drop through the air. As she saw them attach the basket to the tugging bag she was thrilled.
At this moment there was a flurry of excitement on the outskirts of the crowd. A horseman on a beautiful bay mount, that was evidently unmanageable, came plunging and swerving down the field.
The crowd broke and scattered in front of the menacing hoofs that flew in the air as the vicious animal reared.
The horseman, clad in a somewhat threadbare riding suit, was a small man with beady black eyes that turned from side to side as he swayed in his saddle. He seemed to be afraid of his mount and to be looking for help. But it was remarkable that apparently so poor a rider held his seat and actually managed to bring the beast to a nervous stand some fifty yards from the balloon.
The little man looked around over the heads of the crowd. He caught sight of Owen beside Pauline near the balloon basket. The lifting of his riding cap might or might not have been a salute and signal.
"Oh, I wish I hadn't promised Harry not to go up. I know Signor Panatella would take me," sighed Pauline.
Harry had turned away to watch the actions of the strange horseman.
"You might scare him a little," Owen suggested.
Those words were the greatest risk he had taken in all his deeply laid plots.
Pauline caught at the suggestion eagerly. She sprang lightly from the little platform into the balloon car.
A murmur of mingled astonishment, applause and alarm rose from the crowd. Two of the workmen were cutting the last ropes that held the basket to earth. Ten others were holding it with their hands awaiting the airman.
Panatella purposely delayed the moment of mounting the basket. The tugging of the huge balloon against the strength of a dozen men gave impress to his feat, and he liked the state of suspense.
But the sound from the surprised throng called his attention now to a scene that made him forget affectation and effect. He started to run toward the basket, shouting peremptory orders:
"Out of the car; out of the car instantly, madame! You are risking your life."
His excitement infected the crowd. Surging, it seemed to sweep with it the rider on the restive horse. For, as a hand was suddenly lifted in the midst of the crowd the horse apparently overcame the legs braced to spring, it shot forward directly at the balloon basket.
The hand that had been raised was the hand of Raymond Owen.
All was happening so swiftly that neither Harry nor Panatella reached the basket before the maddened animal.
The crowd had given way in panic before it. Cries of fright were mingled with cries of pain as the beast charged straight upon the men holding the basket, felling and crushing them with shoulder and hoof.
For an instant a few desperate hands held to the wrenching car. Panatella had all but reached the platform; Harry was within arm's length of it, when, with a writhing twist the bag jerked the basket sideways and upward, knocking to the ground the last two men who had held it and whirling forth into the deathly emptiness of space a cowering, stunned girl, whose white face peered and white hands pleaded over the basket rim--peered down upon the upturned faces of thousands who would have risked their lives to aid, but who stood helpless in their pity, hushed in fear.
For a moment Harry had stood dazed. It was as if the twanging taut of the ropes, as the bag tore almost from his grasp the most precious being in the world, had snapped the fibers of action in him.
The daze passed quickly, but in the moment of its passing. The balloon, risen now five hundred feet in the air, had swept its way westward over a mile of ground.
Harry turned to look for his motor car. Standing as he was at the spot from which the balloon had ascended, he now faced a human barricade. With a shout of warning he charged at what seemed to be a vulnerable point in the files of wedged shoulders. The wall resisted. The throng was lost to all but the dimming view of the balloon. Harry swung right and left with his broad shoulders. He tore his way through.
The car was standing where he had left it on the outskirts of the field. As he approached it he saw Owen emerge from the crowd and hurry toward a runabout that had just been driven upon the field.
"What's the matter?" yelled a man in the machine, and Harry recognized the voice of Hicks.
"Miss Marvin--carried away in the balloon!" cried Owen in a tone of excitement that was not all feigned. He joined Hicks beside the runabout.
Harry sprang to the seat of his touring car. It seemed to leap forward. He shot past the two conspirators and heard Owen's voice calling after him:
"Wait! Where are you going? I'll go with you."
"You're too late," shouted Harry bitterly, over his shoulder. An envelope of dust sealed itself around the spinning wheels of the big machine as he took the road after the balloon.
Steadfast but hopeless he fixed his eyes upon the unconquerable thing in its unassailable element--a thing that seemed to be fleeing from him as if inspired by a human will. Death rode beside him at his breakneck speed, but he did not know it. He knew only that he must follow that black beacon in the sky--that he must be there when its flight was over--when the end came.
He did not know that Owen and Hicks, in the runabout, were also following--that they, too, watched with an interest as deep as his, with a hope as poignant as his hopelessness, the dizzy voyage of Pauline. _