Dangerous Ground Part 53

"Impossible, Millie," says Alan sharply; "go to Miss French--"

"I did, sir, and she is--"

She pauses abruptly, for there in the doorway is Winnie French, pale and tearful, an open letter in her hand.

"Read that, sir," she says, going straight up to Alan and extending to him the letter. "See what your cruelty has done. Leslie Warburton is gone!"

"Gone!"

This time Grip and Alan both utter the word, both start forward.

For just one moment the hand that clutches the collar of the organ-grinder relaxes its hold, but that moment is enough. With amazing agility, and seemingly by one movement, the prisoner has freed himself and is on his feet. In another second, by a clever wrestler's man[oe]uvre, he has thrown Mr. Grip headlong upon the floor. And then, before the others can realize his intentions, he has bounded to the open window, and flung himself out, as easily and as carelessly as would a cat.

But Mr. Grip, discomfited for the moment, is not wanting in alertness.

He is on his feet before the man has cleared the window. He bounds toward it, and drawing a small revolver, fires after the fugitive--once--twice.

"Stop!" It is Alan Warburton's voice, stern and ringing. He has seized the pistol arm, and holds it in a grasp that Mr. Grip finds difficult to release.

"Hands off!" cries Grip, now hoa.r.s.e with rage. "That man's a _spy_!"

"No matter; we will have no more shooting."

"_We_!" struggling to release his arm from Alan's firm grasp; "who are you that--"

"I am master here, sir."

With an angry hiss, the detective from Scotland Yards throws himself upon Alan, and they engage in a fierce struggle. But Alan Warburton is something more than a ball-room hero; he is an adept in the manly sports, and fully a match for Mr. Grip.

Panting and terrified, Winnie and Millie stand together near the door; and the eyes of the latter damsel wander from the combatants near the window, to something that has fallen close at her feet, and that lies half hidden by the folds of her dress.

But disaster has befallen Mr. Grip. While they wrestle, Alan's quick eye has detected something that looks like a displacement of Mr. Grip's cranium, and with a sudden, dexterous, upward movement, he solves the mystery. There is an exclamation of surprise, another of anger, and the two combatants stand apart, both gazing down at the thing lying on the floor between them.

It is a wig of curling auburn hair, and it leaves the head of Mr. Grip quite a different head in shape, in size, in height of forehead, and in general expression!

"So," sneers Alan, "Mr. Grip, of Scotland Yards, saw fit to visit me in disguise. Is your name as easily altered as your face, sir?"

The discomfited wrestler stoops down, and picking up his wig adjusts it carefully on his head once more; bends again to take up his fallen pistol; lifts his hat from a chair, and returns to the window.

"My name is not Augustus Grip," he says coolly. "Neither will you find me by inquiring at police headquarters. But you and I will meet again, Mr. Warburton."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Drawing a small revolver, he fires after the fugitive--once--twice!" page 283.]

And without unseemly haste, he places his hand upon the window-sill, swings himself over the ledge, resting his feet upon the iron railings, and drops down upon the pavement.

By this time some people have collected outside, attracted by the pistol-shots. Two laggard policemen are hastening down the street. A group of servants are whispering and consulting anxiously in the hall, and cautiously peeping in at the study door.

The coolness of the false Mr. Grip takes him safely past the group of inquiring ones.

"It was a sneak thief," he explains, as he leaps down among them. "Don't detain me, friends; I must report this affair at police headquarters."

A few quick strides take him across the street to where a carriage stands in waiting. He enters it, and in a moment more, Mr. Grip and carriage have whirled out of sight.

"I'd give a hundred dollars to know what that fellow was in hiding for,"

he mused, as the carriage rolled swiftly along. "Could he have been put there by Warburton? But no--Confound that Warburton, I'll humble his pride before we cry quits, or my name is not _Van Vernet_!"

But Vernet little dreamed that he had that day aimed a bullet at the life of a brother detective; that his disguise had been penetrated and his plans frustrated, by _Richard Stanhope_!

CHAPTER XL.

AN ARMISTICE.

If Van Vernet had been thwarted, in a measure, Richard Stanhope had been no less baffled.

Each had succeeded partially, and each had beaten a too hasty and altogether unsatisfactory retreat.

Van Vernet had planned well. By keeping himself informed as to the doings at police headquarters, he had been aware of all the efforts there being made in the search for the missing child. He found it quite easy to possess himself of a sheet and envelope bearing the official stamp; and by writing his spurious letter in a most unreadable scrawl, and ending with a signature positively undecipherable, he had guarded himself against dangerous consequences should a charge of forgery, by any mischance, be preferred against him. The disguise was a mere bit of child's play to Van Vernet, and the rest "went by itself".

His object in thus entering the Warburton house was, first, to see Alan Warburton; study his face and hear his voice; to satisfy himself, as far as possible, as to the feud, or seeming feud, between Alan and his brother's wife--for since the day on which he had discovered, and he had taken pains since to confirm this discovery, that the six-foot masker who had personated Archibald Warburton was not Archibald Warburton, but his brother Alan, Van Vernet had harbored many vague suspicions concerning the family and its mysteries. He had also hoped to see Leslie, and to surprise from one or both of them some word, or look, or tone, that would furnish him with a clue, if ever so slight.

Well, he had surprised several things, so he a.s.sured himself, but he had not seen Leslie. And the _denouement_ of his visit had rendered it impossible for him ever to reenter that house, in the character of Mr.

Augustus Grip.

True, he had learned something. He had heard Winnie's words: "Leslie is not a child; and you must have said bitterly cruel words before you left her in a dead faint on that library floor last night." And he had coupled these with those other words uttered by Winnie as she confronted Alan, with that farewell note in her hand: "Read that; see what your cruelty has done."

Was this girl a plotter, too? If he could have seen that note! And then the organ-grinder--. On the whole, he was not even half satisfied with the result of his expedition, especially when he remembered that organ-grinder, and how he had let his temper escape its leash and rage itself into that cold white heat, his most intense expression of wrath, in which he had openly defied Alan Warburton, and flung his own colors boldly forth.

Another thing puzzled Vernet exceedingly. He had discovered Richard Stanhope at the Warburton masquerade, and had bestowed upon him the character of lover. Was he there in that character? Was he, in any way, mixed up with their family secrets? Where had he spent the remainder of that eventful night? Since the morning when Stanhope had reported to his Chief, after his night of adventure beginning with the masquerade, Vernet had heard no word from that Chief concerning Stanhope's unaccountable conduct, or the abandoned Raid.

The whole affair was to Vernet, vague, unsatisfactory, mysterious. But the more unsatisfactory, the more mysterious it became, the more doggedly determined became he.

He had not forgotten, nor was he neglecting, the Arthur Pearson murder.

He was pursuing that investigation after a manner quite satisfactory--to himself at least.

There are in most cities, and connected with many detective forces, and more individual members of forces, a cla.s.s of men, mongrels, we might say,--a cross between the lawyer and the detective but actually neither, and sometimes fitted for both. They are called, by those initiated, "private enquirers," "trackers," "bloodhounds."

These gentry are often employed by lawyers, as well as by detectives and the police. They trace out t.i.tles, run down witnesses, hunt up pedigrees, unearth long-forgotten family secrets. They are searchers of records, burrowers into the past. Their work is slow, laborious, pains-taking, tedious. But it is not dangerous; the unsafe tracks are left to the detective proper.

Into the careful hands of some of these gentry, Van Vernet had entrusted certain threads from the woof of the "Arthur Pearson murder case," as they styled it. And these tireless searchers were burrowing away while Vernet was busying himself with other matters, waiting for the time when the "tracker" should find his occupation gone, and the detective's efforts be called in play.

Vernet had not been aware of the close proximity of his sometime friend and present rival. He had felt sure, from the first, that the pretended mute was other than he seemed; that he was a spy and marplot. But Richard Stanhope's disguise was perfect, and Vernet had not scrutinized him closely, being in such haste to dispose of him, and expecting to investigate his case later. Then, too, Richard Stanhope was absent; he had not been seen, or heard of, at the Agency for many days.

As for Stanhope, he had not been slow to recognize Van Vernet, and if he had not succeeded in all that he had hoped to accomplish, he had at least discovered Vernet's exact position. And he had left a slip of paper where, he felt very sure, it would fall into the right hands. For the rest, he came and went like a comet, and was seen no more for many weeks.

Meanwhile, quiet had been restored in Alan Warburton's study, and Alan himself now sat with a crumpled bit of paper in his hand.