The Perils of Pauline Part 52

Harry and Pauline climbed back to the motorboat and sped up the bay.

"What did you mean another piece of work?" asked Pauline as she clung to his arm.

"My car is at the Navy Yard pier," was his only answer.

She still clung to him in tremulous uncertainty as the motor sped them up through Broadway, into Fifth avenue, and on to the door of Mlle. de Longeon's hotel.

She and the diplomatic grandee who had held the confidential conference with her in the conservatory at the naval ball were together in her suite.

"And you have the plans actually in your possession?" he said.

"Yes. It has been a tedious process. It was easy to make him fall in love, but he is so fearfully scrupulous about his work. It took even his valet three months to locate the secret hiding place of the papers."

"A little more caution mingled with his scruples and he would not now be dead at the bottom of the bay."

"Oh, this is the day, is it?" asked Mlle. de Longeon, wearily. "After all, it is rather cruel to Catin."

"To die for his country?"

"Nonsense! He dies because he knows he would be killed in a crueler way if he refused to obey you."

The diplomat smiled. "Will you give me the plans?"

"Yes--why, Marie, what is it?"

A maid had entered with cards. "I am not at home today."

Mlle. de Longeon moved to her writing desk, removed from it a packet of papers, and, with a little courtesy gave it into the eager hands of the diplomat.

"It has been a splendid achievement, Mademoiselle," he said, enthusiastically. "I shall see that--what? Who is this?" he exclaimed, as Harry and Pauline burst into the room.

"Marie, Marie, I told you that I was at home to no one!" screamed Mlle.

de Longeon.

"How dare you intrude in these apartments?" demanded the diplomat.

"I dare, because I want those papers," declared Harry.

The packet was still in the diplomat's hands. He tried to thrust it into his pocket, but Harry was upon him. They clinched, broke from each other's grasp and struggled furiously.

As the last resource the diplomat drew the packet from his breast and flung it across the room toward Mlle. de Longeon. She pounced upon it. But Pauline was beside her. Stronger both in body and in spirit than the adventuress, she grasped her wrists, and in the luxurious, soft-curtained room there raged two battles.

But the struggles did not last long. Harry hurled his antagonist, an exhausted wreck, to the floor, and sprang to the side of Pauline.

Throwing off Mlle. de Longeon's grasp, he picked up the packet from the floor, and with Pauline ran from the room.

A revenue cutter was landing a group of faint and silent men, at the pier of the Navy Yard when an automobile flashed in.

"Hurrah! They did it! You're safe!" cried Pauline, rus.h.i.+ng past Harry to greet Ensign Summers.

The officer took her extended hands gratefully, but there was no light in his eyes as he answered.

"Safe--and dishonored," he said. "I am only glad for my men."

"Why dishonored?" asked Harry.

"Don't you understand?"

"The man," said Pauline, curiously, "the man who placed the bomb?

Where is he?"

"Dead," said Summers. "He broke the tube after you were released and then attacked me with a knife. I had to kill him."

"Good for you!" broke in Harry. "But what's all the gloom talk for?

This stuff about dishonor? You've proved yourself a hero, man."

"I have lost the most important doc.u.ments of the Navy Department-- through a silly entanglement with a woman."

"No, you haven't. We went and got them for you," said Harry, presenting the packet of plans.

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?"