Loot

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Lady Gwendolyn Pouts — and Smiles 1 II Hildreth is Perverse; And Receives a

III Hildreth Visits an Actress; And

Chapter I Lady Gwendolyn Pouts — And Smiles

"THE necklace will be finished next week Gwen. Arabin cabled me to-day."

Lady Gwendolyn Brathwaite, only daughter of the Marquis of Mori ton, permitted herself to become impulsive. Under pretense of patting the cloth into place she allowed her slim fingers to rest a moment on the wrist of the speaker. Also, she flashed him a brilliant smile.

"You're a dear, Brenner ! And when will it get here — the week after?"

Brenner Carlow colored with pleasure at the touch and the smile. There were times — rare, of course, but they did happen — • when he wondered if any one that really

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loved could be so cold, so aloof, so unemotional as Lady Gwendolyn. Her tendernesses, whether of eye, voice or hand, seemed reserved for her father, her dogs, her horses. The multi-millionaire American she was to marry received mighty few of them.

Still, she was going to marry him. That was something. From the heights of the station to which she had been born the Lady Gwendolyn had stooped to lift him to her side. That she was also lifting to her side some scores of millions of good American dollars was beside the question. What was money as compared with caste ?

And the caste of the Brathwaites was, royalty alone excepted, the highest in England. Lady Gwendolyn was the daughter of the eighteenth Marquis of Moriton. Her husband would, of right, enter the hitherto most impregnable strongholds of British society. And it was at this prospect that the mean little heart of Brenner Carlow, glowed.

Mean— that is— from the standpoint of

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snobbishness. As far as money was concerned, Carlow was open-handed enough. Proof a plenty of that was given in his reference to the necklace, concerning which Arabin's, one of the most fashionable jewelry concerns in America, had cabled him to-day. Two million dollars is more than a trifle, even to a man who possesses fifty-odd millions. Yet that was the price of the bauble which was to adorn the throat of Lady Gwendolyn Carlow.

Lady Gwendolyn Carlow! That name meant a great deal. It would be a great match. Unfortunately the last half dozen [Marquises of Moriton had been extravagant. [Beyond the entailed properties, with rent rolls that were pitiful in comparison with the income of even a moderately successful tradesman, the present wearer of the title possessed nothing save the suave manners and fearlessness of debt for which his ancestors had been famous. The millions of Brenner Carlow were more than welcome. Some of them might possibly be diverted to g LOOT

the heir presumptive, Lord Moriton's nephew. At any rate, Carlow had agreed to settle enough on Lady Gwen to enable her to help out her dear old father. Society was a unit in declaring that the match was eminently suitable, all things considered. Of course Gwen was a beautiful girl, and it was too bad that some one of her own rank had not the money to compete with Carlow. But one can't expect everything in this world. Gwen could have done worse.

Carlow and Lady Gwendolyn were lunching at a restaurant, accompanied onl^ by Lady Agatha Brathwaite, aunt of Gcwen. It was the first time in six months that Ccwen had appeared in public with Carlow, The death of her mother, a week after the announcement of the engagement, had made her cancel all social engagements. To-day was her first emerging from the semi-obscurity demanded by mourning. And Carlow, elated at being seen with her, at being recognized by the fashionable throng^ was in no mood to deny her any request.

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"The week after?" he echoed. "Why, I'd thought of running across in a couple of months to wind up some affairs and of bringing it back then. We aren't to be married for six months yet, you know, Gwen. You could hardly wear it before we are married."

"But I can see it, can't I?" demanded Gwen. "Why can't you send for it? If you love me," and she lowered her voice, "you'd do that."

"Why — why, I suppose I could. I imagine it would be just as safe over here as in Arabin's vaults."

"After we're married," said Gwendolyn softly — Lady Agatha was extremely busy with her luncheon — "it won't be in vaults all the time."

"Why, of course it would be safe enough," said Carlow.

"then cable Arabin to send it over at once," demanded Gwen.

"I'd like to see it myself before I closed with them," he objected half-heartedly.

"Aren't they reliable?"

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"Oh, my, yes I If Arabin's say they've complied with my specifications, why, they've done it — that's all. Still, two million, Owen!"

"Four hundred thousand pounds!" Gwendolyn's face flushed faintly. Then she pouted. "And can't you go — now?" Then, as his eyes darkened, she leaned impulsively across the table. "Isn't there some one you know who knows diamonds? That you could trust to examine the necklace — » see if it's up to specifications and everything ? That would make it so much quicker. Of course I don't want you running over to New York until you have to."

"Eight in the middle of my coaching season, too," he said. Then, as he read the disappointment in her eyes: "There's my, London counsel, you know. One of them's going across for me to-morrow. Matter of a stockholders' meeting. Some outsiders trying to get control. My friends have begged me to have some one there if I couldn't come myself. Of course I could have had

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American attorneys attend to it, but there might have been some slip. And it would have got out — somehow. Sort of surprise. My man from here walks in and surprises the outsiders with my proxies. They don't expect him — better that way. Now he — if he knew anything about jewels — "

" Brenner! You dear! And he'd be back— "

"Oh, in a fortnight," said Carlow.

"And he sails to-morrow? Brenner, you must see him at once."

"And if I do?"

"I'm going to be at home this evening. No other callers."

"It's very unusual, Mr. Carlow," said Mr. Moggrage, senior member of the firm of Moggrage, Jones, Eoberts & Crossgrove, solicitors, The Middle Temple.

"But you've just said the beggar knows j ewels, haven 't you ? ' ' inquired Carlow. ' ' He has only to compare the necklace with this drawing. And, as I've said, we can trust

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Arabin's to have made it only of the most perfectly matched and graduated stones. It 's the design. I 'm very fussy about that. ' '

"It's a heavy responsibility, Mr. Carlo w. Four hundred thousand pounds! Suppose he's robbed ?"

"Impossible!" ejaculated Carlow. "Arabin's will give him an escort to the boat. Once aboard, it will be locked in the purser's safe. When the vessel reaches this side we '11 have an escort meet him. All he has to do is to examine the design and setting. If it's satisfactory he turns over my check to Arabin 's. That 's all there is to it. ' '

"I'll call Mr. Hildreth in," said Moggrage.

He did so ; and a moment later, after introductions had been effected, the senior broached the matter to the younger man.

"Why, I don't see why I shouldn't," said Hildreth. He smiled at Carlow — a frank ingenuous smile that was attractive. "But, as I understand this proxy matter, Mr. Carlow, no one — not even your friends — knows

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just what to expect. You have assured your friends you would aid them, but have left them in the dark as to how. Isn't that it?"

"Yes," said Carlow. "I have promised them that my stock should be voted with theirs. Perhaps they think one of my American attorneys will vote it ; but the instructions which I have given Mr. Moggrage, and which doubtless he has given you, will come as a surprise."

Hildreth nodded.

"Of course, Mr. Carlow. Your American attorneys would naturally tell your friends just where they stood. Jf it became known that your American attorneys possessed your proxies, and refused to tell just how long they'd vote a certain way, your friends would suspect something and combine against you."

"All these details you've mastered or Moggrage wouldn't be sending you," said Carlow. "About the necklace: Will you attend to that ? I '11 cable Arabin 's to-day that you are coming."

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"That's exactly it," said Hildreth. "Even though I hold credentials from you, and your check, Arabin's will naturally be a little averse to handing over two million dollars in diamonds — the check might be a forgery and I might be a rascal, you know."

"But if I cable them in my code, which only they and my attorneys know 1"

"And then won't it get out to the railroad people that you're sending a man over? Won't they suspect that I'm coming on the railroad matter, too? Won't they, unable to get any definite promises from me, combine against me in some way?"

Carlow laughed.

"You needn't be alarmed, Hildreth. It's a very simple matter to tell Arabin's to keep your coming secret, isn't it? I doubt that you would be suspected; but — well, Arabin's won't leak. . . . And you'll do it?"

"Why, of course," said Hildreth.

A little later Carlow departed; but he left behind him a check for two million dollars, payable to Arabia's, credentials for HU-

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dreth to present to Arabin, the original design of the necklace, to be studied on shipboard by Hildreth, and an atmosphere of gratitude.

"I'm sorry," said Moggrage; "but I didn't like to suggest to him that he should send some one else. He's a valuable client. But — it robs you of the tour you'd planned. It's a shame to have to hurry back a day or two after you land. I'd hoped you'd have a real vacation. It was promised you. And it isn't a solicitor's business — acting as retriever for necklaces."

"But Mr. Carlow is our richest client," smiled Hildreth. "No doubt I shall be jolly glad to turn right round and come hpme. America is all very well, I suppose; but it isn't England."

"Crude place, I've always understood," said Mr. Moggrage. "As you say, you'll doubtless be glad to return after all. . . . Still — four hundred thousand pounds' worth of diamonds — I shall be uneasy, my boy."

'CHAPTER II

HILDRETH IS PERVERSE ; AND BECEIVES A NOTE

[WADE HILDRETH was by no means an ignorant or narrow young man. A publicschool product and an Oxford man, the death of his father had given him opportunity to give up the jewelry business, which he did not like, and to prepare himself for the bar, to which he felt he was genuinely called. His father had long been a client of Moggrage, Jones, Roberts & Crossgrove, and with that firm he had been reading law for several years and was now on the verge of a partnership. Inheritor of a comfortable fortune, he could easily have lived on his income had he chosen to do sos Instead, he slaved like the veriest clerk. He had only two hobbies — a passion for collecting odd designs for jewelry — inherited no doubt — •

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and for playing tennis ; and but one idiosyncrasy— a hatred of lifts, or elevators, which was almost a horror, and for which he could only account by the fact that his mother had been seriously injured in one a long time before.

He had done the usual Continental traveling of young men of means. He had read rather widely. Yet, when from the deck of his steamer he first glimpsed Manhattan's wonderful sky-line, it came to him, as it does to most foreigners, that, whatever had been his previous conceptions of America, he must prepare to revise them.

Leaning on the rail, drinking in that jagged profile, Hildreth felt a dismayed sensation. To think that he must turn round and leave this new country before he had done more than pass through the gates ! Oh, well; he could see something of New York anyway, even though a glimpse of the rest of the country was denied him. He had to-night, Tuesday, and what of Wednesday he should not spend at the stockholders' meet-

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ing. He read again the wireless message he had received earlier in the day :

"WADE HILDRETH, S. S. Lucantia: If unable to meet you at dock will call at Hotel Battenberg to-night. Boom engaged there for you. (Signed) JAMES F. AEABLN"."

"Devilish kind of him," said Hildreth. "Still, he ought to be polite to a man who has it in his power to reject a two-milliondollar necklace. I suppose, though, Carlow asked him to be civil. Oh, well ; it saves me trouble. I don't have to bother about my accommodations. So much more time to see the town."

He took a last look at the enthralling, staggering, amazing city that lay before him. Then he went below to look after his bags. A. little later, attended by a well-tipped steward, he was on deck again. Later he was on the dock, standing with the others whose last names began with the letter H, waiting for the customs officials to get through with him.

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He was free at last and a porter carried his bags — he had no steamer trunk, not having thought it necessary for a short stay — • to where a row of taxis stood. Arabin, then, had been unable to meet him. There was no question of Arabin 's having been unable to identify him. He had stood with the other, H's long enough for the jeweler to have found him. And he did not linger, for the reason that he was anxious to enter the city as soon as possible.

He did not notice that a gentlemanly appearing young man had kept him under observation from the moment he had entered the huge customs shed. He did not notice that this person followed him from the shed to the row of taxis ; that he signaled a chauffeur, who promptly approached him. He did not notice that his porter rebuffed several other chauffeurs and followed the man who had been signaled, and that the gentleman who had done the signaling, smiling relievedly, immediately climbed into a limousine, which shot down a side street.

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Observing none of these things — if he had he might have thought that the well-dressed man was merely a tout for some hotel assuring himself that the disembarked passenger would patronize the one he represented ; indeed, the porter who had been bribed to deliver the bags to a certain chauffeur had some such idea — Hildreth tipped his porter, gave the name of the hotel mentioned in Arabin's wireless and started to step into the taxi. He drew back suddenly.

"I say," he said to the chauffeur, "the Battenberg is in which direction from here?"

"North," and the chauffeur pointed.

"It's not easy to get lost in this town, is it? IVe understood that the streets all mn north and south, and east and west."

"Well, they do mostly, except way down-town," said the chauffeur. "From here up-town they all run that way."

"Then I'll walk," said Hildreth decidedly. "I want to see your charming city.

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Take my bags to the Battenberg and — what will the charge be?"

The chauffeur colored.

"Say, you might get lost at that. You'd better let me take you to your hotel first."

"Thank you ; but I rather think I can look after myself," smiled Hildreth. "A dollar and a half? Six and three-pence, eh? Jove, but things are steep here now, aren't they ? Here you are, my man, with a shilling — a quarter — for yourself. And what 's your number ? Seven-nought-three-four. No harm done, my man. You needn't be angry. You don't know me and I don't know you, and I'm trusting my bags to you. I say, if you don't care to take the bags up there I don't doubt but that I can find somebody who will. What do you say?"

"Why— why— that's all right, sir. Of course I'll take them up. But you'd better ride, sir."

He said this last so anxiously that the [Englishman stared.

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"Oh, I say now, I'm not an infant. I'll come to no harm. Mind — the Battenberg." • A rather amazing thing to do; but Hildreth had been born and bred in London, where a cabby would think twice — oh, two hundred times — before he would run off with a gentleman's baggage. Having procured the man's number, Hildreth imagined that he had been the very essence of precaution. He did not bother to cast a glance behind him as, delighted with the thought of really stretching his legs after the confinement on shipboard, as ready to absorb impressions as a child at a circus, he dashed across Wall Street and plunged into the city.

If he had looked behind him he would have been amazed at the expression on the chauffeur 's face. If he had been able to hear the man's words he would have been still further amazed; for in a very ecstasy of passion the man made as though to throw away the money Hildreth had given him. He caught himself, however, as though

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afraid his action would be noticed; but he could not control the pallor, the extreme pallor, of his face, and his lips trembled as he whispered :

"[What '11 he say? [What'll he say?"

It took him, so nervous was he, nearly two minutes to crank his car. And Hildreth did not look backward as he proceeded along the cross-town street.

Nothing he had seen in Europe was like New York, Hildreth decided. He had made his way to Broadway, thence down-town to the skyscraper district, and from there up-town to Madison Square and along Fifth Avenue to Central Park". A. long walk, and It had taken three hours ; but, like the average Englishman, Hildreth was a great pedea- Irian.

The more he walked, the more his preconceived notions, which had begun to fall from him when first he glimpsed the city from the Lucantia's deck, left him, to be replaced by; wonderment and regret. The Italian colony he had passed through on his way from West

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Street to Broadway, the amazing buildings down-town, the mammoth hotels up-town, the throngs afoot, in carriage, in auto, of the Avenue — all these were but the prelude, he felt bitterly, to a greater show that he was not to see. And New York itself — New York was but a prelude itself.

He stood a moment on the corner of Fiftyninth Street, staring across the busy plaza, flanked by great hostelries and the green of the Park. His watch told him it was almost six o'clock — time for him to make his way to his hotel to await the arrival of Arabin.

A policeman directed him how to get to the Battenberg. It was not far and he reached it in ten minutes.

"Ah, yes; Mr. Hildreth," said a clerk as he registered. "Your things have arrived and are already in the room engaged for you by Mr. Arabin." He summoned a bell boy. "Show Mr. Hildreth to six-forty-one."

"This way, sir," said the boy.

He led th§ way; to an elevator and stood

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aside for the Englishman to enter. Hildreth hesitated.

".What floor is my; room on?" he demanded of the boy.

"Six-forty-one, sir — sixth floor.''

One moment Hildreth hesitated. There is a shamefaced pride that bids us do the thing we do not wish to do lest people think ill of us. There is a greater pride that bids us do as we wish, regardless of wagging tongues or contemptuous thoughts. If it were necessary, for Hildreth to ride in an elevator — if a matter of importance depended on such riding—he would do so; but where it was not necessary he would refuse, regardless of sneers. As great heights torture some persons, so a ride in an elevator tortured Hildreth. It was his one idiosyncrasy, as has been told ; and, being perfectly normal in all other ways, he felt no great shame in indulging himself in this one matter.

"Come back to the desk," he said.

He spoke to the clerk.

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"I say. I don't care about being situated on the sixth floor. Too many; flights of stairs."

" Plenty of elevators," suggested the clerk, with a lift of the eyebrows.

"And I don't use 'em," said Hildreth shortly. "I walk. Have you a room on the second floor?"

Hotel clerks are used to idiosyncrasies; this one, beyond the lifted eyebrows, gave no further sign that Hildreth 's dislike for eleyators was at all remarkable.

"Certainly, Mr. Hildreth," he said. "Boy, show Mr. Hildreth to two hundred and four. I'll have a porter transfer your things immediately, Mr. Hildreth."

And a few moments later it was done. Hilidreth dismissed the porter and turned on the water in his bath. Half an hour later he was dressed for the evening. Undoubtedly Arabin would offer him some form of entertainment to-night and he wished to be properly, attired for it; but shortly after seven the pangs of hunger assailed him. His long

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walk had given a fillip to an appetite tliat was always healthy. He decided to wait no longer on the off chance that Arabin would wish him to dine with him. He transferred the design Carlow had given him from the business suit he had worn to his evening clothes. He could not forbear glancing appreciatively at the drawing as he did so.

A wonderfully beautiful and original design! He would not have thought Carlow possessed such taste. But then, he guessed • — and rightly, too — Carlow had probably had some able artist design it for him.

Of course there was no chance of his seeing the necklace to-night. That would not come until to-morrow, anyway. Indeed, he would have postponed seeing it until Thurs- 'day just before sailing time, had it been the right thing to do. He begrudged every moment taken from sight-seeing ; but, of course, lie should have to examine the thing to-morrow and see whether any minor alterations were necessary to make it conform exactly to the design. He could not trust himself to

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give a proper decision on the very day lie sailed, rushed as he would be then.

But, though he knew he could not see the jewels to-night, he carried the design in his pocket. It was such a beautiful thing, so wonderfully conceived, that he liked to have it with him.

The Battenberg is not the gayest of New York's hotels, nor is it the dullest. It aims at the happy medium between the two. The dining-room was thronged with wellgroomed men and women, and among the latter were a few faces that made Hildreth smile with impersonal appreciation. He was rather glad he was able to dine alone; it gave him opportunity to observe, to drink in the atmosphere of the place.

A perfect dinner, served well, was finished at last. He lighted a cigar and strolled out into the lobby. There he sat down to await the arrival of Arabin. He hoped Arabin was a young man and that he would propose seeing or doing something worth while. The electric atmosphere of Manhattan did not

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incline Hildreth to a quiet chatty evening. He wanted to see things, to do things. And he hoped Arabin would hurry up and not make him waste a perfectly good evening. He had finished his cigar and was just becoming impatient when a bell boy called his name.

" You 're wanted at the telephone, 'Mr. Hildreth."

He led Hildreth to a booth.

"This Mr. Hildreth?" asked a cordial voice. "This is Arabin. Awfully sorry not to have been able to meet you at the dock or get down to the hotel before this, Mr. Hildreth ; but a very important business matter, which couldn't be postponed, has delayed me."

"That's all right," said Hildreth. "Don't let me interfere with you in any way. [Very good of you to think of me at all."

He hoped Arabin would continue and tell him that he could not see him to-night. He wanted to wander out into the city. But he was doomed to disappointment.

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"I'd planned on having you go to the theater with me — The Sunlight Girl. Bully show ! And a little supper party afterward. But I find I can't get away for an hour or so. Suppose you run over to the theater and I'll join you later. It's the Yandergelt. I called up this afternoon and had them reserve seats. I've just phoned the box office and had them put one of the seats in your name. If you'll go over there now you'll not miss any of the show and I'll join you as soon as possible."

There was nothing for Hildreth to do but accept. He would have preferred to walk about the city, but Arabin had been extremely decent, looking up a hotel for him, and all that. It would be positively churlish to refuse. And, after all, one learned more about a country by talking with its inhabitants than by merely looking at them. The supper party would be most delightful, as he hardly imagined that Arabin meant that only they two should compose it.

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So, with a pleasant word of thanks, lie hung up the receiver. From the clerk he inquired the location of the Yandergelt Theater, and learned that he had only to walk west to Broadway, a street that he was told he could not mistake, and then a few blocks to the south.

He went to his room, got his hat, stick and coat, and a few minutes later had turned into Broadway. He was reluctant to leave it and enter the theater, but he did so ; and the box-office clerk promptly handed him a ticket on mention of his name.

The overture was being played as he reached his seat, the second from the aisle, well down front in the center. In a moment the curtain rose. It was the usual thing, Hildreth guessed, the sort of thing that runs a year if it runs at all — tuneful music, clever dancing, and quantities of girls of various grades of pulchritude. He was young enough not to have entirely outgrown this sort of thing. He leaned back in his seat, his

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coat and hat resting on the vacant seat that jirabin would claim later, prepared to enjoy; himself.

Twenty minutes passed — twenty minutes of antics on the part of the comedians, of dancing, of singing by lesser principals. Then there came the attitude of expectance on the part of the audience that heralded the entrance of the star. Hildreth had seen her name in the electric lights outside the theater and had been struck with its oddity, thinking it, of course, an assumed name. Morn Light did not sound like a real name. He supposed, of course, she was extremely blonde. So the fact that she was a brunette surprised him.

And such a brunette! Hair as black as night, yet with a brilliance that reflected the footlights. Eyes that were large, limpid, soft, yet glowing with a light of merriment, as though she enjoyed her work. Supple, slim, graceful as only expert dancers can be, graceful without the underlying effect of muscular effort, she whirled on to the stage,

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and dropped into a graceful curtsy before the comedian, supposed to be a reigning monarch of some mythical land, come to visit the star's country. She rose, retreated slightly and began a silly song — Welcome to Our City — that yet had in it opportunity for the display of a sweet, charming, though not extremely powerful voice.

Hildreth leaned forward now. He was not the type to lose his heart to a vision across the footlights. He knew that such a vision's charms often lose their glamour in the searching sun of noonday. But this girl — she was different somehow. There was blood in her — good blood. That was evident in every move of her lithe body, every note of her pure voice. A lady, without doubt. And So lovely ! He drew in his breath gaspingly, as scores of other impressionable young men were doing at sight of her. Yet Hildreth differed from these in that he was not impressionable— at least, never before to-night.

Somehow it seemed that she was singing the song to him ; that she was welcoming him

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to the city. He wished that it was so. For the hundredth time, and more bitterly than heretofore, he cursed the commission of the necklace, which had robbed him of his vacation. Had he time, it might not be impossible for him to obtain an introduction to Miss Morn Light. Morn Light ! The name possessed a quaint charm, more fascinating by reason of the midnight coloring of the girl's eyes and hair. Suddenly he hoped that it was her real name. And then he felt himself blushing to the very roots of his hair; for it seemed to him that the star was looking right at him, singing directly to him. He tried to meet her eyes. He was only twenty feet or so away from her as she came close to the footlights. Did she really see him ? Was she really looking at him ? There was nothing cheap, nothing flirtatious in her look ; it was rather as though she recognized him. Absurd, of course, but — so it seemed.