_ CHAPTER XXIII. A PAPER CHASE
In Balthazar's band, which had failed so often do away with Pauline Marvin, there was, nevertheless, one man who had attracted the particular interest Raymond Owen--Louis Wrentz. Physically and mentally brutal, he had always been one to oppose Balthazar's delays.
Six months before Owen would have shuddered at the thought of employing this ruffian. Then his great aim was to be rid of Pauline by the most indirect and secret means.
But Pauline's hair-breadth escape a few weeks before from Mlle de. Longeon's cleverly planned plot, the almost incredible rescue of the submarine and recovery of Ensign Summers' torpedo boat plans, as well as the fact that the year of adventure was rapidly drawing to a close and that Harry's growing hostility and the increasing danger of exposure at the hands of some one of his aides, made the secretary willing to take every chance, made it imperative that he should have a lieutenant who could be trusted to strike boldly. Owen sent for Wrentz.
The man appeared in the guise of a servant seeking employment, and was brought up to Owen's private sitting-room.
"Wrentz, I want you to take charge of my work hereafter," said the secretary.
"You mean the work of--"
Owen raised his hand in caution. "The work of conducting a certain person to a far country."
"But Balthazar?" questioned Wrentz.
"I am through with Balthazar. He's done nothing but procrastinate. All his plans have failed because it was to his profit that they should fail."
"I'll do the work quickly. What's your present plan?"
"A very simple one, but one that must be very shrewdly handled. It will mean that you and some of your friends will have to make a trip to Philadelphia. Where shall I be able to call you within a day or two?"
"At Stroob's lodging house, in Avenue B."
"Very well. Be prepared to act on short notice."
"I'll stick close to the place, sir."
"And, Wrentz, understand that you are also to act firmly. No Balthazar, tactics. I'm through being tricked."
"I'm sure I never failed you, sir," said Wrentz, with an aggrieved air.
Owen smiled. "True, but temptation occasionally leads even the most honest of men astray," he said, sarcastically.
While this last plot was being hatched Pauline and Harry were playing chess in the library. As she checkmated him for the third time he arose in mock disgust.
"They say chess is a perfect mental test. I wonder who is the brains of this family now?" she taunted.
"There's a difference between brains and hare-brains. You know, I lost because I had that Chicago thing on my mind."
"Oh, isn't that settled yet?"
"No; I'm expecting to be called up any minute with a message that will send me out there."
"Oh, Harry! That's terrible! When you go to Chicago you never get back for a whole week."
"If you like me so much, why don't you marry me and go with me on all my trips?"
"Conceited!" she began, but her face fell again as the telephone bell sounded. Harry answered it, and after a few rapid questions turned to Pauline.
"That's what it is," he said; "I go tomorrow. I must see Owen," and rang the bell.
"Owen," Pauline exclaimed upon his entrance, "Harry must go to Chicago tomorrow. Isn't it dreadful?"
"I am very sorry. But I hope it will not be for long."
"No," said Harry, curtly. "Look over these papers."
An hour later Owen drew from his typewriter this letter:
Miss Pauline Marvin,
Carson & Brown,
Publishers, 9 Weston Place,
Philadelphia.
New York.
Dear Madam:
After reading your marine story, published in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, we have decided you are just the person to write a new serial we have in mind.
Would you be interested to call on us at your earliest opportunity?
Yours very truly,
J. R. Carson."
Owen sealed, addressed and, stamped the letter and enclosed it in a larger envelope, which he addressed to a friend in Philadelphia, with instructions to post the enclosure in that city.
He did not trust the mailing of the double letter to a servant, but, putting on his motor togs, prepared to ride to Westbury.
"Well, he's got a reprieve; he's going to stay with us one more day," Pauline cried, happily, as she met Owen in the hall.
For the flash of an instant something twinged at the cold heart of the secretary. The bright beauty of Pauline, her happiness, her love for her foster brother, struck home the first realization of something missing--and never to be achieved--in his grim existence. Perhaps for the moment Raymond Owen had a dim understanding of the value of innocence.
The next afternoon Pauline stood on the veranda bidding Harry goodbye.
"I hate to go, Polly, but I must," he said. "I hate to leave you with that--secretary."
"Harry, please don't start again on that. You know I don't agree with you, and--and I don't want to quarrel with you when you're going away."
"Very well," he said, embracing her, "but don't get into any of your scrapes while I am away. Remember, it's a long way to Chicago."
"And Tipperary," she laughed. "Goodbye, darling boy, and run home the minute you can."
"I will. Goodbye."
Pauline had turned dejectedly back toward the house when the sound of steps on the walk drew her attention. It was the postman.
"I'll take them," she said, extending her hand.
She ran over the envelopes swiftly until she came to one which bore the corner mark of a publishing concern in Philadelphia. She had never heard of the firm of Carson & Brown, but, to her enthusiasm of young authorship, the very name "publisher" was magical. She opened the letter hastily and read.
For a moment she stood spellbound with happiness. The realization of her dreams was at hand. Publishers were calling for her work instead of sending it back when she sent it to them.
With a glad cry, and waving the treasured letter, she rushed out into the garden to Owen.
"It's happened!" she sang, gaily. "I am discovered."
"You are what, Miss Pauline?"
"Don't you understand? Can't you see?"
"Not exactly, while you slant that letter above your head like a reprieve for a doomed man."
"Well, read it." She leaned breathlessly over his shoulder as he read the familiar lines.
"Miss Pauline, it is splendid!" he exclaimed. "I was always sure you would be successful with your writing."
"Yes, you encouraged me to get new experiences, while Harry always opposed me," she said. "But, oh, I wish Harry was here to see this."
"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.
"Hello, 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 passed by.
In a moment they were out again. Wrentz passed the number plate of 24 to his assistant, 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 passed 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.
Like a flash it opened inward and two pairs of hands gripped her. Her cry was stifled by a hand over her mouth. She was dragged into the room. _