Dangerous Ground Part 22

"Oh, good Lord!" mutters Papa under his breath, "those fools upstairs will hear too much!"

But Leslie's indignation has swallowed up all thought of caution, and her words pour out torrent-like.

"Oh, if I had but denounced you at the first!" she cries; "or forced you to prove your claim! Oh, if you had shown yourselves _then_ in all your greed and heartlessness! But while I was Leslie Uliman, with only a moderate fortune, you were content to take what I could give, and not press what you are pleased to term your _claim_ upon my affections.

Affections! The word is mockery from your lips! In consideration of the large sums I paid you, you promised never to approach me in the future, and I, fool that I was, believing myself free from you, married David Warburton, only to find myself again your victim, to know you at last in all your baseness."

Papa Francoise, unable to stem the tide of her eloquence, shows signs of anger, but she never heeds him.

"Since I became the wife of a rich man, you have been my constant torment and terror. Threatening and wheedling by turns, black-mailing constantly, you have drained my purse, you have made my life a burden.

And I came here to-night to say, I will have no more of your persecution! All of _my_ money has been paid into your hands, but not one dollar of my _husband's_ wealth shall ever come to you from me. I swear it!"

The old man again moves nearer.

"Ah, ungrateful girl!" he cries, feigning the utmost grief; "ah, unkind girl!"

And his affectation of sorrow causes two unseen observers to grin with delight, and brings to Leslie's countenance an expression of intense disgust.

Moving back as he approaches, she throws up her head with an impatient gesture, and the veil which has covered it falls to her shoulders, revealing even by that dim light, the glisten of jewels in her ears--great, gleaming diamonds, which she, in her haste and agitation, has forgotten to remove before setting out upon this unsafe errand.

It is a most unfortunate movement, for two pair of eyes are peering down from directly above her, and two pair of avaricious hands itch to clutch the s.h.i.+ning treasures.

Obeying Papa's instructions, Josef Siebel and the girl Nance, had mounted the rickety stairway which they reached through a closet-like ante-room opening from the large one occupied by Papa and Leslie. And having stationed themselves near the top of the stairs they awaited there the coming of the lady who, surprised by their presence, was to proffer them hush-money with a liberal hand; but--

"The best-laid plans of men and mice gang aft agleg."

And Papa Francoise has not antic.i.p.ated the spirited outbreak with which Leslie has astonished him. Startled by this, and fearful that; by a false move, he should entirely lose his power over her, he has made feeble efforts to stay the flow of her speech and neglected to give the signal for which the concealed sneak thieves have waited, until it was too late.

Crouched on the floor near the stairway, the two thieves have heard the entrance of Leslie, heard the hum of conversation, low and indistinct at first, until the voice of Leslie, rising high and clear, startled Siebel into a listening att.i.tude. Touching Nance on the arm, he begins slowly to drag himself along the floor to where a faint ray of light tells him there is a place of observation.

The floor is exceedingly dilapidated, and the ceiling below warped and sieve-like; and, having reached the c.h.i.n.k in the floor, Siebel finds himself able to look directly down upon Leslie as she stands near the table.

In another moment Nance is beside him, and then the two faces are glued to the floor, their eyes taking in the scene below, their ears listening greedily.

At first they listen with simple curiosity; then with astonished interest; then with intense satisfaction at Papa's evident discomfiture, for they hate him as the slave ever hates his tyrant.

When the veil falls from Leslie's head, Siebel's quick eye is the first to catch the s.h.i.+ne of the diamonds in her ears. He stifles an exclamation, looks again, and then grasps the arm of his confederate:

"Nance," he whispers eagerly, "Nance, look--in her ears."

The girl peers down, and fairly gasps.

"s.h.i.+ners!" she whispers; "ah, they make my eyes water!"

"They make my fingers itch," he returns; "d'ye twig, gal?"

"Eh?"

Drawing her away from the aperture, he says, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:

"Gal, I've got a plan that'll lay over old Beelzebub's down there, if we kin only git the chance ter play it. See here, Nance, are ye willin' to make a bold stroke fer them s.h.i.+ners?"

"How?"

"By surprisin' 'em. If I'll floor the old man, can't you tackle the gal?"

Nance takes a moment for consideration; they exchange a few more whispered words and then begin to creep stealthily toward the stairway.

CHAPTER XVI.

A DETECTIVE TRAPPED.

While the thieves are gazing upon her from above, Leslie Warburton, unconscious of this new danger that threatens her, replaces her veil and continues to address the old man.

"Once more, and for the last time," she pleads, "I ask you to tell me the truth. Give up this claim of kins.h.i.+p. If you were my father, something in my heart would tell me so; G.o.d has not created me lower than the brutes. What do you know of my parentage? You must possess some knowledge. Man, I would go upon my knees to you to learn the truth!"

Papa is silent a moment, then he begins to cough violently. It is the signal for the two thieves to enter, but they do not respond as promptly as Papa could wish.

"My child," he begins feebly, but leaves the sentence unfinished at the sound of a double knock upon the door.

"Ah-h-h!" he cries with evident relief, "here comes your mother; she can tell you how wrong you are."

And he hastens to admit an old woman, literally lost in an ample old-fas.h.i.+oned cloak, and bearing in her arms a long and apparently heavy bundle.

"Ah," says the old hypocrite, "here you are at last, after being at the toil of the poor. Come in, old woman, here is our proud girl come to see us." Then as his eyes rest upon the bundle, he grasps her wrist and hisses in her ear: "You old fool! to bring _that_ here."

"I had to do it," she retorts in a whisper; "there are cops in the alleys."

With a fierce gesture toward the rear door, Papa seizes the bundle, saying:

"Why, it is very heavy; old iron, I suppose; and how horrid those old rags smell. We must take them away, old woman."

And with a jerk of the head which, evidently, she understands, he turns toward the aforementioned door, and they bear the big bundle out between them.

Perhaps it is the flickering light, perhaps it is her disordered fancy, but as they bear their burden through the doorway, Leslie Warburton half believes that she sees it move. A moment later she starts forward, her face blanched, her eyes distended.

"Oh, am I losing my senses?" she cries, "or _did_ I hear a child's voice, a voice like my little Daisy's, calling 'mamma?'"

A moment she listens, but no child's voice breaks the stillness; even Papa and Mamma Francoise are silent in the room without.

A sudden feeling of terror possesses Leslie.

"Oh, these wicked people are driving me mad!" she murmurs brokenly.

"_Anything_ is better than this. I will go home and confess all to my husband. I will brave the worst, rather than be so tortured!"