Under Cover Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  Although the carriages and automobiles of the wealthy were no longerthree deep in the Rue de la Paix, as they had been earlier in theseason, this ravishing thoroughfare was crowded with foot-passengers asMonty and his friend made their way under the red and white awnings ofthe shops into Cartier's.

  The transaction took very little time. The manager of the place seemedto be expecting his client, to whom he accorded the respect that even aRue de la Paix jeweler may pay to a million-franc customer. Bank ofFrance notes of high denominations were passed to him and Steven Denbyreceived a small, flat package and walked out into the sunshine with it.

  "Now," said the owner of the pearls, "guard me as you would your honor,Monty; the sport begins, and I am now probably pursued by a half dozenof the super-crooks of high class fiction."

  "I wish you'd be serious," Monty said plaintively.

  "I am," Denby assured him. "But I rely on your protection, so feel morelight-hearted than I should otherwise."

  "You are laughing at me," Monty protested.

  "I want you to look a little less like a detected criminal," Denbyreturned.

  "If I happened to be a detective after a criminal I should arrest you onsight. You keep looking furtively about as though you'd done murder andbloodhounds were on your track."

  "Well, they are on our track," Monty said excitedly, and then whisperedthrillingly: "Have a cigarette, Dick." There was trembling triumph inhis voice. He felt he had justified himself in his friend's eyes.

  "What is it?" Denby asked with no show of excitement.

  "There was a man in Cartier's who watched us all the time," Montyconfided. "He is on our trail now. We're being shadowed, Steve. It's allup!"

  "Nonsense!" his companion cried. "There's nothing compromising in buyinga pearl necklace. I didn't steal it."

  Suddenly he turned around and looked at the man Monty indicated. Hisface cleared. "That's Harlow. He's one of Cartier's clerks, who looksafter American women's wants. Don't worry about him."

  By this time the two had come to the Tuileries, that paradise for thebetter class Parisian children. Denby pointed to a seat. "Sit downthere," he commanded, "while I see what Harlow wants."

  Obediently Monty took a seat and watched the man he had mistaken for adetective from the corner of his eye. Denby chatted confidentially withhim for fully five minutes and then, it seemed to the watcher, passed asmall packet into his hand. The man nodded a friendly adieu and walkedrapidly out of sight. For a few seconds Denby stood watching and thenrejoined his friend.

  "Anything the matter?" the timorous one demanded eagerly.

  "Why should there be?" Denby returned. "Don't worry, Monty, there'snothing to get nervous about yet."

  Monty remembered the confidential conversation between the two.

  "He seemed to have a lot to tell you," he insisted.

  Denby smiled. "He did; but he came as a friend. Harlow wanted to warn methat while I was buying the necklace a stranger was mightily interestedand asked Harlow what he knew about me."

  "There you are," Monty gasped excitedly, "I told you it was all up. DidHarlow know who the man was?"

  "He suspected him of being a customs spy. Our customs service takes thecivilized world as its hunting ground and Paris is specially beloved ofit."

  "What are you going to do?" Monty asked when he had looked suspiciouslyat an amiable old priest who went ambling by. "They'll get you."

  "They may," Denby said, "but the interested gentleman at Cartier'swon't."

  "But he knows all about you," Monty persisted. "It will be dead easy."

  "He doesn't," the other returned. "Harlow took the liberty oftransforming me into an Argentine ranch owner of unbounded wealth aboutto purchase a mansion in the Parc Monceau."

  "That was mighty good of him," Monty cried in relief. "That fellowHarlow is certainly all right."

  Denby smiled a trifle oddly, Monty thought. "His kind ways have won hima thousand dollars," he returned. "Did you see me pass him something?"

  Monty nodded.

  "Well, that was five thousand francs. I passed it to him, not in theleast because I believe in the mythical stranger--"

  "What do you mean?" the amazed Monty exclaimed. It seemed to him he wasgetting lost in a world of whose existence he had been unaware.

  "Simply this," Denby told him, "that I disbelieve Harlow's story and amnot as easily impressed by kind faces as you are. I think Harlow'sinquisitive stranger was a fake."

  Monty looked at him with a superior air. "And you mean to say," he saidwith the air of one who has studied financial systems, "that you handedover a thousand dollars without verifying it? I call that being easy."

  "It's this way," Denby explained patiently. "Harlow knows I have thenecklace and he's in a position to know on what boat I sail. If I hadnot remembered that I owed him five thousand francs just now he mighthave informed the customs that I had bought a million-franc necklace andI should have been marked down as one to whom a special search must bemade if I didn't declare it."

  "But if he's a clerk in Cartier's what has he to do with the customs?"Monty asked.

  "Perhaps he is underpaid," the other returned. "Perhaps he isextravagant--I've seen him at the races and noticed that he patronizedthe _pari mutuel_--perhaps he has a wife and twelve children. I'll leaveit to you to decide, but I dare not take a risk."

  Monty shivered. "It looks to me as if we were going to have a hell of atime."

  "A little excitement possibly," Denby said airily, "but nothing tojustify language like that, though. You ought to have been with me lastyear at Buenos Ayres, Monty, and I could have shown you some sport."

  "I don't think I'm built for a life like that," Monty admitted, and thenreflected that this friend of his was an exceedingly mysterious being ofwhose adult life and adventures he knew nothing. For an uneasy moment hehoped his father would never discover this association, but there soonprevailed the old boyish spirit of hero-worship. Steven Denby might notconform to some people's standards, but he felt certain he would donothing criminal. One had to live, Monty reflected, and his fathercomplained constantly of hard times.

  "What sort of sport was it?" he hazarded.

  "It had to do with the secret of a torpedo controlled by wireless,"Denby said. "A number of governments were after it and there collectedin Buenos Ayres the choicest collection of high-grade adventurers that Ihave ever seen. Some day when I'm through with this pearl trouble I'lltell you about it."

  But what Denby had carelessly termed "pearl trouble" was quitesufficient for the less experienced man. He had a vivid imagination,more vivid now than at any period of his career. Paris was full ofApaches, he knew, and not all spent their days lying in the sun outsidethe barriers. Supposing one sprang from behind a tree and fell uponDenby and seized the precious package whose outline was discerniblethrough the breast pocket of his coat. Monty suddenly took upon himselfthe role of an adviser.

  "It's no use taking unnecessary risks," he said. "I saw you put thosepearls in your breast pocket, and there were at least six people who hadthe same opportunity as I. It's just putting temptation in the way of athief."

  "I welcome this outbreak of caution on your part," said Denby, laughingat his expression of anxiety, "but you'll need it on board ship most.The greatest danger is that a couple of crooks may rob me and then pitchme overboard. Monty, for the sake of our boyhood recollections, don'tlet them throw me overboard."

  "Now you are laughing at me," Monty said a trifle sulkily.

  "What do you want me to do?" Denby demanded.

  "Put those pearls in some other place," he returned stubbornly.

  Denby made a pass or two in the air as conjurers do when they performtheir marvels.

  "It's done," he cried. "From what part of my anatomy or yours shall Iproduce them?"

  "There you go," Monty exclaimed helplessly, "you won't be serious. I'mgetting all on the jump."

  "A cigarette will soothe you," Denby told him, taking a fl
at leathernpouch from his pocket and offering it to the other.

  "I can't roll 'em," Monty protested.

  "Then a look at my tobacco has a soothing effect," the elder maninsisted. "I grow it in my private vineyard in Ruritania."

  Monty turned back the leather flap to look at his friend's private brandand saw nestling in a place where once tobacco might have reposed anecklace of pearls for which a million of francs had been paid.

  "Good Lord!" Monty gasped. "How did you do it?"

  "A correspondence school course in legerdemain," Steven explained. "Itcomes in handy at times."

  "But I didn't see you do it and I was watching."

  "An unconscious tribute to my art," Denby replied. "Monty, I thank you."

  Monty grew less anxious. If Steven had all sorts of tricks up his sleevethere was no reason to suppose he must fail.

  "I don't think you need my advice," he admitted. "It doesn't seem I canhelp you."

  "You may be able to help a great deal," Denby said more seriously, "butI don't want you to act as if you were a criminal. Pass it off easily.Of course,"--he hesitated,--"I've had more experience in this sort ofthing than you, and am more used to being up against it, but it willnever do if you look as anxiously at everybody on the Mauretania as youdo at the passers-by here. You can help me particularly by observing ifI am the subject of special scrutiny."

  "That will be a cinch," Monty asserted.

  "Then start right away," his mentor commanded. "We have been underobservation for the last five minutes by someone I've never laid eyes onbefore."

  "Good Lord!" Monty cried. "It was that old priest who stared at us. Iknew he was a fake. That was a wig he had on!"

  "Try again," Denby suggested. "It happens to be a woman and a veryhandsome one. As we went into Cartier's she passed in a taxi. I onlythought then that she was a particularly charming American or Englishwoman out on a shopping expedition. When we came out she was in one ofthose expensive _couturier's_ opposite, standing at an upper windowwhich commands a view of Cartier's door. They may have beencoincidences, but at the present moment, although we are saunteringalong the Champs Elysees, she is pursuing us in another taxi. She haspassed us once. When she went by she told the chauffeur to turn, but hewas going at such a pace that he couldn't pull up in time. He has justturned and is now bearing down on us. Take a look at the lady, Monty, soyou will know her again."

  A sense of dreadful responsibility settled on Montague Vaughan. He wasnow entering upon his role of Denby's aid and must in a few seconds bebrought face to face with what was unquestionably an adventuress of thehighest class. He knew all about them from fiction. She would have thefaintest foreign accent, be wholly charming and free from vulgarity, andyet like Keats' creation be a _belle dame sans merci_. But, he wondereduneasily, what would be his role if his friend fell victim to hercharms?

  He was startled out of his vain imaginings when Denby exclaimed: "By allthat's wonderful, she seems to know one of us, and it's not I! You'rethe fortunate man, Monty."

  A pretty woman with good features and laughing eyes was certainlylooking out of a taxi and smiling right at him. And when he realizedthis, Monty's depression was lifted and he sprang forward to meet her."It's Alice," he cried.

  Denby, following more leisurely, was introduced to her.

  "I came last night," she explained. "Michael's horse won and there wasno more interest in Deauville or Trouville and as I must buy some thingsI came on here as soon as I could. I thought I saw you in Cartier's,"she explained, "and tried to make you see me when you came out, but onlyMr. Denby looked my way so I dared not make any signs of welcome."

  She seemed exceedingly happy to be in Paris again, and Denby, looking ather with interest, knew he was in the company of one of the most notableand best liked of the smart hostesses among the sporting set on LongIsland. The Harringtons were enormously rich and lived at a great estatenear Westbury, not far from the Meadow Brook Club. The Directory ofDirectors showed the name of Michael Harrington in a number ofinfluential companies, but of recent years his interest in business hadslackened and he was more interested in the development of his estateand the training of his thoroughbreds than in Wall Street activities.

  For her part she took him, although the name was totally unfamiliar, asa friend of Monty's, and was prepared to like him. Whereas anEnglishwoman of her class might have been insistent to discover whetherany of his immediate ancestors had been engaged in retail trade beforeshe accepted him as an equal, Alice Harrington was willing to takepeople on their face value and retain them on their merits.

  She saw a tall, well-bred man with strong features and that air of_savoir faire_ which is not easy of assumption. She felt instantly thathe was the sort of man Michael would like. He talked about racing asthough he knew, and that alone would please her husband.

  "I've spent so much money," she said presently, "that I shall dismissthis taxi-man and walk. One can walk in Paris with two men, whereas onemay be a little pestered alone."

  "Fine," Monty cried. "We'll go and lunch somewhere. What place strikesyour fancy?"

  "Alas," she said, "I'm booked already. I have an elderly relation in theBoulevard Haussmann who stays here all summer this year on account ofalterations in the house which she superintends personally, and I'vepromised."

  "I hope she hasn't sacrificed you at a dinner table, too," Denby said,"because if you are free to-night you'd confer a blessing on a fellowcountryman if you'd come with Monty and me to the Ambassadeurs. Polinis funnier than ever."

  "I'd love to," she cried. "You have probably delivered me from my aunt'sdismal dinner. I hadn't an engagement but now I can swear to onetruthfully. Men are usually so vain that if you say you're dreadfullysorry but you've another engagement they really believe it. The dearthings think no other cause would make a woman refuse. But my aunt wouldinterrogate me till I faltered and contradicted myself."

  They left her later at one of those great mansions in the BoulevardHaussmann. The house was enlaced with scaffolding and workmen swarmedover its roof.

  "It's old Miss Woodwarde's house," Monty explained. "She's worthmillions and will probably leave it to Alice, who doesn't need any,because she's the only one of all her relatives who speaks the truth anddoesn't fawn and flatter."

  "It takes greater strength of mind than poor relations usually have, totell rich relatives the truth," Steven reminded him.

  Monty had evidently recovered his good spirits. "I knew you'd like her,"he said later, "and I knew she'd take to you. We'll have a corkingdinner and a jolly good time."

  "There's one thing I want to ask of you," Denby said gravely. "Don'tgive any particulars about me. If she's the sort I think her she won'task, but you've got a bad habit of wanting people to hear how I fishedyou out of the river. I want to slip into New York without anyadvertisement of the fact. I'm not the son of a plutocrat as you are.I'm the hard-up son of a man who was once rich but is now dead andforgotten."

  "Do hard-up men hand a million francs across for a string of pearls toput in their tobacco-pouches?" Monty demanded shrewdly.

  "You may regard that as an investment if you like," Denby answered. "Itmay be all my capital is tied up in it."

  "You're gambling for a big stake then," Monty said seriously. "Is itworth it, old man?"

  For a moment he had an idea of offering him a position in some of thegreat corporations in which his father was interested, but refrained.Steven Denby was not the kind of man to brook anything that smacked ofpatronage and he feared his offer might do that although otherwisemeant.

  "It means a whole lot more to me than you can think," Denby returned. "Ihave made up my mind to do it and I think I can get away with it in justthe way I have mapped out." Then, with a smile: "Monty, I've a properrespect for your imaginative genius, but I'd bet you the necklace to thetobacco-pouch that you don't understand how much I want to get thatstring of pearls through the customs."

  "The pouch is yours," Monty conceded generously. "How should I guess?Ho
w do I know who's a smuggler or who isn't? Alice says she always getssomething through and for all I know may have a ruby taken from the eyeof a Hindoo god in her back hair!"

  He looked at his friend eagerly, a new thought striking him. He oftensurprised himself in romantic ideas, ideas for which Nora wasresponsible.

  "Perhaps you are taking it for someone, someone you're fond of," hesuggested.

  "Why not?" Denby returned. "If I were really fond of any woman I'd riskmore than that to please her."

  Monty noticed that he banished the subject by speaking of AliceHarrington's _penchant_ for smuggling.

  "I hope Mrs. Harrington won't run any risks," he said. "In her case itis absolutely senseless and unnecessary."

  "Oh, they'd never get after her," Monty declared. "She's too big. Theyget after the little fellows but they'd leave Mrs. Michael Harringtonalone."

  "Don't you believe it," his friend answered. "They're doing thingsdifferently now. They're getting a different class of men in theCollector's office."

  "I suppose you'd like the old style better," Monty observed.

  "Oh, I don't know," said the other. "It's more risky now and so one hasto be cleverer. I've often heard it said the hounds have all the fun andthe fox none.

  "I'm not so sure of that, Monty; I think a fox that can fool thirtycouple of hounds and get back to his earth ought to be a gladsomeanimal."

  "I'll find out when we're in West Street, New York," Monty said grimly."I'll take particular notice of how this fox acts and where the houndsare. If you harp on this any more I shall lose my appetite. What aboutVoisin's?"

  "Eat lightly," Denby counseled him. "I'm going to treat you to aremarkable meal to-night; I know the chef at the Ambassadeurs, and thewine-steward feeds out of my hand."

  "I don't see why you shouldn't buy necklaces like that if you have thoseAmbassadeurs waiters corralled. They soaked me six francs for a singlepeach once," Monty said reminiscently. But he wondered, all the same,how it was Steven should be able to fling money away as he chose.

  His friend looked at him shrewdly. "You're thinking I ought to patronizethe excellent Duval," he observed. "Well, sometimes I do. I think I'vepatronized most places in Paris once."

  "Steve, you're a mystery," Monty asserted.

  "I hope I am," said the other; "I make my living out of being justthat."

  They walked in silence to the Rue St. Honore, Monty still a bit uneasyat being in a crowded place with a friend in whose pocket was a millionfrancs' worth of precious stones. Once or twice as the pocket gaped openhe caught a glimpse of the worn pigskin pouch. Steven was taking whollyunnecessary risks, he thought.

  As they were leaving Voisin's together after their luncheon it happenedthat Monty walked behind his friend through the door. Deftly he insertedhis hand into the gaping pocket and removed the pouch to his own. Hechuckled to think of the object lesson he would presently dilate upon.

  When they were near one of those convenient seats which Paris providesfor her street-living populace Monty suggested a minute's rest.

  With an elaborate gesture he took out the pouch and showed it to Denby.

  "Did you ever see this before?" he demanded.

  "I've got one just like it," his friend returned without undue interest."Useful things, aren't they, and last so much longer than the rubberones?"

  "My pouch," said Monty, beginning to enjoy his own joke, "looks betterinside than outside. I keep in it tobacco I grow in my private orchidhouse. Look!"

  He pulled back the flap and held it out to Denby.

  Denby gazed in it obediently with no change of countenance.

  "You're not a heavy smoker, are you?" he returned.

  Instantly Monty gazed into it. It was empty except for a shred oftobacco.

  "Good God!" he cried. "They've been stolen from me and they put thepouch back!"

  "What has?" the other exclaimed.

  "The pearls," Monty groaned. "I took them for a joke, and now they'regone!"

  He looked apprehensively at Steven, meditating meanwhile how quickly hecould turn certain scrip he held into ready money.

  Steven evinced no surprise. Instead he rose from his seat and placed afoot upon it as though engaged in tying a lace. But he pointed to thecuff on the bottom of the trouser leg that was on the seat by Monty'sside. And Monty, gazing as he was bid, saw his friend's slender fingerspick therefrom a string of pearls.

  "I know no safer place," Denby commented judicially. "Of course thecustoms fellows are on to it, but no pickpocket who ever lived can getanything away from you if you cache it there. On board ship I shallcarry it in my pocket, but this is the best place in Paris when one isin strange company."

  Monty said no word. His relief was too great and he felt weak andhelpless.

  "What's the matter?" Denby demanded.

  "I want a drink," Monty returned, "but it isn't on you."