CHECKMATE!

Henry Blaine was allowed scant opportunity for reflection, in the hour which intervened between his telephone message to Anita and the time of his appointment with her. Scarcely had he hung up the receiver once more when his secretary announced the arrival of Fifine Dechaussee.

Had not Blaine been already aware of her success with Paddington, as the scene in the park an evening or two previously denoted, he would have been instantly apprised by her manner that something of vital import had occurred. There was an indefinable change, a subtle metamorphosis, which was conveyed even in her appearance. Her delicate, Madonna-like face had lost its wax-like pallor and was flushed with a faint, exquisite rose; the wooden, slightly vacant expression was gone; she walked with a lissome, conscious grace which he had not before observed, and the slow, enigmatic smile with which she greeted him held much that was significant behind it.

“You did not keep your appointment with me yesterday why, mademoiselle?” asked Blaine, quietly.

“Because it was impossible, m’sieu,” she returned. “I could not get away. Madame the wife of M’sieu Franklin would not allow me to leave the children. This is the first opportunity I have had to come.”

“And what have you to report?” he asked, watching her narrowly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Very little, M’sieu Blaine. Yesterday the president of the Street Railways, M’sieu Mallowe, called on the minister, and remained for more than an hour. I could not hear their conversation they were in the library; but just as M’sieu Mallowe was taking his departure I passed through the hall, and heard him say:

“’You must try to persuade her, Mr. Franklin; you have more influence over her than anyone else, even I. Miss Lawton must really go away for a time. It is the only thing that will save her health, her reason! She can do nothing here to aid in the search for young Hamilton, and the suspense is killing her. Try to get her to take our advice and go away, if only for a few days.’”

“What did Dr. Franklin reply?”

“I did not hear it all. I could not linger in the hall without arousing suspicion. Dr. Franklin agreed that Miss Lawton was ill and should go away, and he said he would try to induce her to go that M’sieu Mallowe was undoubtedly right, and he was delighted that he took such an interest in Miss Lawton.”

She paused, and after a moment Blaine asked:

“And that is all?”

“Yes, m’sieu.” The French girl half turned as if to take her departure, but he stayed her by a gesture.

“You have nothing else to report? How about Paddington?” He shot the question at her tersely, his eyes never leaving her face, but she did not flinch.

“M’sieu Paddington?” she repeated demurely. “I have nothing to tell you of him.”

“You didn’t try, then, to lead him on, as I suggested to get him to talk about Miss Lawton, or the people who were employing him? You have not seen him?”

“M’sieu Blaine, I could not do that!” she cried, ignoring his last question. “I would do much, anything that I could for Miss Lawton, but she would be the last to ask of me that I should lead a man on to to make love to me, in order to betray him! I will do anything that is possible to find out for Miss Lawton and for you, m’sieu, all that I can by keeping my ears open in the house of the minister, but as to M’sieu Paddington I will not play such a rôle with any man, even to please Miss Lawton.”

“Yet you have been meeting him in the park.” The detective leaned forward in his chair and spoke gently, as if merely reminding the girl of some insignificant fact which she had presumably forgotten, yet there was that in his tone which made her stiffen, and she replied impulsively, with a warning flash of her eyes:

“What do you mean, m’sieu? How do you know? I I told you I had nothing to report concerning M’sieu Paddington, nothing which could be of service to Miss Lawton, and it is quite true. I I did meet M’sieu Paddington in the park, but it was simply an accident.”

“And was the locket and chain an accident, too? That locket which you are wearing at the present moment, mademoiselle?”

“The locket ” Her hand strayed to her neck and convulsively clasped the bauble of cheap, bright gold hanging there. “What do you know of my locket, M’sieu Blaine?”

“I know that Paddington purchased it for you two or three days ago that he gave it to you that night in the park, and you allowed him to take you in his arms and kiss you!”

“Stop! How can you know that!” she stormed at him, stepping forward slightly, a deep flush dyeing her face. “He did not tell you! You have had me watched, followed, spied upon! It is intolerable! To think that I should be treated as if I were unworthy of trust. I have been faithful, loyal to Miss Lawton, but this is too much! I have not questioned M’sieu Paddington; I know nothing of his affairs, but I like him, I I admire him very much, and if I desire to meet him, to receive his attentions, I shall do so. I am not harming Miss Lawton, who has been my patronne, my one friend in this strange, big country. M’sieu Paddington does not know that I am working at Dr. Franklin’s under your instructions, and I shall never betray to him the confidence Miss Lawton has reposed in me. But I shall do no more; it is finished. That I should be suspected

“But you are not, my dear young woman!” interposed Blaine, mildly. “It was not you who was followed, spied upon, as you call it. For Miss Lawton’s sake, because she is in trouble, we are interested just now in Paddington’s movements, and naturally my operative was not aware that it was to meet you he went to the park.”

“N’importe!” Fifine exclaimed. The color had receded from her face, and a deathly white pallor had superseded it. She retreated a step or two, and continued defiantly: “This afternoon I resign from the service of Dr. Franklin! I do not believe that M’sieu Paddington is an enemy of Miss Lawton; nothing shall make me believe that he, who is the soul of honor, of chivalry, would harm her, or cause her any trouble, and I do not like this work, this spying and treachery and deceit! That is your profession, m’sieu, not mine; I only consented because Miss Lawton had been kind to me, and I desired to aid her in her trouble, if I could. But that he that I should be suspected and watched, and treated like criminals, oh, it is insufferable. To-day, also, I leave the Anita Lawton Club. You shall find some one else to play detective for you you and Miss Lawton!”

With an indignant swirl of her skirts, she turned and made for the door, in a tempest of rage; but on the threshold his voice stayed her.

“Wait! Miss Lawton has befriended you, and now, because of a man of whom you know nothing, you desert her cause. Is that loyalty, mademoiselle? We shall not ask you to remain at Dr. Franklin’s any longer; Miss Lawton does not wish unwilling service from anyone. But for your own sake, go back to the club, and remain there until a position is open to you which is to your liking. You are a young girl in a strange country, as you say, and at least you know the club to be a safe place for you. Do not trust this man Paddington, or anyone else; it is not wise.”

“I shall not listen to you!” she cried, her voice rising shrill and high-pitched in her excitement. “You shall not say such things of M’sieu Paddington! He is brave and good, while you you are a spy, an eavesdropper, a delver into the private affairs of others. I do not know what this trouble may be, which Miss Lawton is in, and I am sorry for her, that she should suffer, but I shall have nothing more to do with the case, nor with you, m’sieu! Au revoir!”

“Whew!” breathed Blaine to himself, as the door closed after her with a slam. “What a firebrand! She may not have actually betrayed us to Paddington in so many words, but it isn’t necessary to look far for the one who warned him that he was being watched, and put him on his guard, all unknowingly, that the whole scheme in which he is so deeply involved, was in jeopardy. Oh, these women! Let them once lose their heads over a man, and they upset all one’s plans!”

Blaine arrived promptly within the hour at the house on Belleair Avenue. Anita Lawton received him as before in the library. He observed with deep concern that she was a mere shadow of her former self. The slenderness which had been one of her girlish charms had become almost emaciation; her eyes were glassily bright, and in the waxen pallor of her cheeks a feverish red spot burned.

She smiled wanly as he pressed her hand, and her pale lips trembled, but no words came.

“My poor child!” the great detective found himself saying from the depths of his fatherly heart. “You are positively ill! This will never do. You are not keeping your promise to me.”

“I am trying hard to, Mr. Blaine.” Anita motioned toward a chair and sank into another with a little gasp of sheer exhaustion. “You have never failed yet, and you have given me your word that you would bring Ramon back to me. I try to have faith, but with every hour that passes, hope dies within me, and I can feel that my strength, my will to believe, is dying, too. I know that you must be doing your utmost, exerting every effort, and yet I cannot resist the longing to urge you on, to try to express to you the torture of uncertainty and dread which consumes me unceasingly. That my father’s fortune is gone means nothing to me now. Only give me back Ramon alive and well, and I shall ask no more!”

“I hope to be able to do that speedily,” Blaine returned. “As I told you over the telephone, I have positive proof that he is alive, and a definite clue as to his whereabouts. You must ask me nothing further now only try to find faith in your heart for just a few days, perhaps hours, longer. You ’phoned to Mrs. Hamilton, as I suggested?”

“Yes. She demurred at first, dreading the notoriety, and not not appearing to believe in your ability as I do, but I simply refused to listen to her objections. Mr. Carlis called me up shortly afterward, and wanted to know if I would be able to receive him this afternoon, on a matter connected with my finances, but I told him I had retained you to search for Ramon, and was expecting you at any moment. He seemed greatly astonished, and warned me of the he called it ’useless’ expense. He begged me not to be impatient, to wait until I had time to think the matter over and consult himself and Mr. Mallowe, saying that they were both doing all that could be done to locate Ramon, and Mr. Rockamore was, also, but I told him it was too late, that you were on your way here.”

“That was right. I am glad you told him. The fact that you have retained me to search for Mr. Hamilton will appear as a scoop in every evening paper which he controls, now, and the more publicity given to it, the better. You told me over the ’phone that Mr. Rockamore calls upon you every day?”

“Yes. I try to be cordial to him, but for some reason which I can’t explain I dislike him more than either of the others. I don’t know why he comes so often, for he says very little, only sits and stares at that chair the chair in which my father died until I feel that I should like to scream. It seems to exert the same strange, uncanny influence over him as it does over me that chair. More than once, when he has been announced, I have entered to find him standing close beside it, looking down at it as if my father were seated there once more and he was talking to him, I don’t in the least know why, but the thought seems to prey on my mind perhaps because the chair fascinates me, too, in a queer way that is half repulsion.”

“You are morbid, Miss Lawton you must not allow such fancies to grow, or they will soon take possession of you, in your weakened state, and become an obsession. Tell me, have you heard anything from the club girls we established in your guardian’s offices?”

“Oh, yes! I had forgotten completely in my excitement and joy over your news of Ramon, vague though it is, that there was something important which I wanted to tell you. Since Margaret Hefferman’s dismissal, all my girls have been sent away from the positions I obtained for them all except Fifine Dechaussee.”

“And she resigned not an hour ago,” remarked the detective rather grimly, supplementing the fact, with as many details as he thought necessary.

Anita listened in silence until he had finished.

“Poor girl! Poor Fifine! What a pity that she should fancy herself in love with such a man as you describe this Paddington to be! She must be persuaded to remain in the club, of course; we cannot allow her to leave us now. I feel responsible for her, and especially so since it was indirectly because of me, or while she was in my service, at any rate, that she met this man. If she is all that you say, she could never be happy if she married him.”

“There’s small chance of that. He has a wife already. She left him years ago, and runs a boarding-house somewhere on Hill Street, I believe,” Blaine replied. “I don’t fancy he’ll add bigamy to the rest of his nefarious acts. But tell me of the other girls. They did not report to me.”

“Poor little Agnes Olson was dismissed yesterday. She is a spineless sort of creature, you know, without much self-assurance, or initiative, and I believe she had quite a scene with Mr. Carlis before she left. She was on the switchboard, if you remember, and as well as I was able to understand from her, he caught her listening in on his private connection. She reached the club in an hysterical condition, and I told them to put her to bed and care for her. I ought to be there myself now, at work, for I have lost my best helper, but I am too distraught over Ramon to think of anything else. My secretary the girl you saw there at the club and asked me about, do you remember? did not appear yesterday, but telephoned her resignation, saying she was leaving town. I cannot understand it, for I would have counted on her faithfulness before any of the rest, but so many things have happened lately which I can’t comprehend, so many mysteries and disappointments and anxieties, that I can scarcely think or feel any more. It seems as if I were really dead, as if my emotions were all used up. I can’t cry, even when I think of Ramon I can only suffer.”

“I know. I can imagine what you must be trying to endure just now, Miss Lawton, but please believe that it will not last much longer. And don’t worry about your secretary; Emily Brunell will be with you again soon, I think.”

“Emily Brunell!” repeated Anita, in surprise. “You know, then?”

“Yes. And, strange as it may seem, she is indirectly concerned in the conspiracy against you, but innocently so. You will understand everything some day. What about the Irish girl, Loretta Murfree?”

“President Mallowe’s filing clerk? He dismissed her only this morning, on a trumped-up charge of incompetence. He has been systematically finding fault with her for several days, as if trying to discover a pretext for discharging her, so she wasn’t unprepared. She’s here now, having some lunch, up in my dressing-room. Would you like to talk with her?”

“I would, indeed,” he assented, nodding as Anita pressed the bell. “She seemed the brightest and most wide-awake young woman of the lot. If anyone could have obtained information of value to us, I fancy she could. Did she have anything to say to you about Mr. Mallowe?”

“I would rather she told you herself,” Anita replied, hesitatingly, with the ghost of a smile. “Whatever she said about him was strictly personal, and of a distinctly uncomplimentary nature. There is nothing spineless about Loretta!”

When the young Irish girl appeared in response to Anita’s summons, her eyes and mouth opened wide in amazement at sight of the detective.

“Oh, sir, it’s you!” she exclaimed. “I was going down to your office this afternoon, to tell you that I had been discharged. Mr. Mallowe himself turned me off this morning. I’m not saying this to excuse myself, but it was honestly through no fault of mine. The old man gentleman has been trying for days to get rid of me. I knew it, so I’ve been especially careful in my work, and cheerful and smiling whenever he appeared on the scene like this!”

She favored them with a grimace which was more like the impishly derisive grin of a street urchin than a respectful smile, and continued:

“This morning I caught him mixing up the letters in the files with his own hands, and when he blamed me for it later, I saw that it was no use. He was bound to get rid of me in some way or another, so I didn’t tell him what I thought of him, but came away peaceably which is a lot to ask of anybody with a drop of Irish blood in their veins, in a case like that! However, I learned enough while I was in that office, of his manipulations of the street railway stock, to make me glad I’ve got a profession and am not sitting around waiting for dividends to be paid. If the people ever wake up, and the District Attorney indicts him, I hope to goodness they put me on the stand, that’s all.”

“Why has he tried to get rid of you? Do you think he suspected the motive for your being in his employ?” asked Blaine, when she paused for breath.

“No, he couldn’t, for I never gave him a chance,” she responded. “He’s a sly one, too, padding around the offices like a cat, in his soft slippers; and he looks for all the world like a cat, with the sleek white whiskers of him! Excuse me, Miss Lawton, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but he’s trying, the old gentleman is! I think he got suspicious of me when Margaret Hefferman made such a botch of her job with Mr. Rockamore, and yesterday afternoon when Mr. Carlis caught Agnes Olson listening in oh, I know all about that, too! he got desperate. That’s why he mixed up the files this morning, for an excuse to discharge me.”

“How did you know about Agnes Olson?” asked Blaine quickly. “Did she tell you?”

“No, I heard it from Mr. Carlis himself!” returned Loretta, with a reminiscent grin. “He came right straight around to Mr. Mallowe and told him all about it, and a towering rage he was in, too! ’Do you think the little devil’s sold us?’ he asked. Meaning no disrespect to you, Miss Lawton, it was you he was talking about, for he added: ’She gets her girls into our offices on a whining plea of charity, and they all turn out crooked, spying and listening in, and taking notes. Remember Rockamore’s experience with the one he took? Do you suppose that innocent, big-eyed, mealy-mouthed brat of Pennington Lawton’s suspects us?’

“‘Hold your tongue, for God’s sake!’ old Mr. Mallowe growled at him. ‘I’ve got one of them in there, a filing clerk.’”

“‘Then you’d better get rid of her before she tries any tricks,’ Mr. Carlis said. ’I believe that girl is deeper than she looks, for all her trusting way. I always did think she took the news of her father’s bankruptcy too d n’ calmly to be natural, even under the circumstances. Kick her protegee out, Mallowe, unless you’re looking for more trouble. I’m not.’”

“What did Mr. Mallowe reply?” Blaine asked.

“I don’t know. His private secretary came into the office where I was just then, and I had to pretend to be busy to head off any suspicion from him. Mr. Carlis left soon after, and I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my neck as he passed through the room. Mr. Mallowe sent for me almost immediately, to find an old letter for him, from one of the files of two years ago, and it was funny, the suspicious, worried way he kept watching me!”

“There is nothing else you can tell us?” the detective inquired. “Nothing out of the usual run happened while you were there?”

“Nothing, except that a couple of days ago, he had an awful row with a man who called on him. It was about money matters, I think, and the old gentleman got very much excited. ‘Not a cent!’ he kept repeating, louder and louder, until he fairly shouted. ’Not one more cent will you get from me. This systematic extortion of yours must come to an end here and now! I’ve done all I’m going to, and you’d better understand that clearly.’ Then the other man, the visitor, got angry, too, and they went at it hammer and tongs. At last, Mr. Mallowe must have lost his head completely, for he accused the other man of robbing his safe. At that, the visitor got calm and cool as a cucumber, all of a sudden, and began to question Mr. Mallowe. It seems from what I heard I can’t recall the exact words that not very long ago, the night watchman in the offices was chloroformed and the safe ransacked, but nothing was taken except a letter.

“‘You’re mad!’ the strange man said. ’Why in h l should anybody take a letter, and leave packets of gilt-edged bonds and other securities lying about untouched?’

“’Because the letter happens to be one you would very much like to have in your possession, Paddington,’ the old gentleman said. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the visitor’s name was Paddington, but that doesn’t matter, does it? ‘Do you know what it was?’ Mr. Mallowe went on. ’It was a certain letter which Pennington Lawton wrote to me from Long Bay two years ago. Now do you understand?’”

“‘You fool!’ said Paddington. ’You fool, to keep it! You gave your word that you would destroy it! Why didn’t you?’

“’Because, I thought it might come in useful some day, just as it has now,’ the old gentleman fairly whined. ’It was good circumstantial evidence.’

“‘Yes fine!’ Paddington said, with a bitter kind of a laugh. ’Fine evidence, for whoever’s got it now!’

“‘You know very well who’s got it!’ cried Mr. Mallowe. ’You don’t pull the wool over my eyes! And I don’t mean to buy it back from you, either, if that’s your game. You can keep it, for all I care; it’s served its purpose now, and you won’t get another penny from me!’

“Well, I wish you could have heard them, then!” Loretta continued, with gusto. “They carried on terribly; the whole office could hear them. It was as good as a play the strange man, Paddington denying right up to the last that he knew anything about the robbery, and Mr. Mallowe accusing him, and threatening and bluffing it out for all he was worth! But in the end, he paid the man some money, for I remember he insisted on having the check certified, and the secretary himself took it over to the bank. I don’t know for what amount it was drawn.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before, Loretta?” asked Anita, reproachfully. “I mean, about the the names Mr. Carlis called me, and his suspicions. I wish I’d known it half an hour ago, when he telephoned to me!”

“That’s just why I didn’t tell you, Miss Lawton!” responded Loretta, with a flash of her white teeth.

“Mr. Blaine told me to report to him this afternoon, and I meant to, but he didn’t tell me to talk to anyone else, even you. When you asked me to undertake this for you, you said I was to do just what Mr. Blaine directed, and I’ve tried to. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell you, but I thought I’d better not, at least until I had seen Mr. Blaine. I was sure that if I said anything to you about it, you would let Mr. Carlis see your resentment the next time he called, and then he and Old Mr. Mallowe would get their heads together, and find out that their suspicions of all of us girls were correct. You wouldn’t want that.”

“Miss Murfree is quite right,” Blaine interposed. “You must be very careful, Miss Lawton, not to allow Mr. Carlis to discover that you know anything whatever of that conversation at least just yet.”

“I’ll try, but it will be difficult, I am afraid,” Anita murmured. “I am not accustomed to to accepting insults. Ah! if Ramon were only here!”

Wilkes, the butler, appeared at the door just then, with a card, and Anita read it aloud.

“Mr. Mallowe.”

“Oh, gracious, let me go, Miss Lawton!” exclaimed Loretta. “I’ve told you everything that I can think of, and if he sees me, it will spoil Mr. Blaine’s plans, maybe?”

“Yes, he must not find you here!” the detective agreed hurriedly. “I’ll communicate with you at the club if I need you again, Miss Murfree. You have been of great service to both Miss Lawton and myself.”

When they were alone for the moment before the street-railway president appeared, Blaine turned to Anita.

“You will try to be very courageous, and follow whatever lead I give you?” he asked. “This interview may prove trying for you.”

Anita had only time to nod before Mr. Mallowe stood before them. He paused for a moment, glanced inquiringly at Blaine and then advanced to Anita with outstretched hand. If he had ever seen the detective before, he gave no sign.

“My dear child!” he murmured, unctuously. “I trust you are feeling a little stronger this afternoon a little brighter and more hopeful?”

“Very much more hopeful, thank you, Mr. Mallowe,” returned the young girl, steadily. “I have enlisted in my cause the greatest of all investigators. Allow me to present Mr. Henry Blaine.”

“Mr. Blaine,” Mallowe repeated, bowing with supercilious urbanity. “Do I understand that this is the private detective of whom I have heard so much?”

Blaine returned his salutation coolly, but did not speak, and Anita replied for him.

“Yes, Mr. Mallowe, Mr. Blaine is going to find Ramon for me!”

Mallowe shook his head slowly, with a mournful smile.

“Ah! my dear!” he sighed. “I do not want to dampen your hopes, heaven knows, but I very much fear that that will be an impossible task, even for one of Mr. Blaine’s unquestioned renown.”

“Still, it is always possible to try,” the detective returned, looking levelly into Mallowe’s eyes. “Personally, I am very sanguine of success.”

“Everything is being done that can be of any use now,” the other man observed hurriedly. “Do I understand, Mr. Blaine, that Miss Lawton has definitely retained you on this case?”

Blaine nodded, and Mallowe turned to Anita.

“Really, my dear, you should have consulted me, or some other of your father’s old friends, before taking such a step!” he expostulated. “It will only bring added notoriety and trouble to you. I do not mean to underestimate Mr. Blaine’s marvelous ability, which is recognized everywhere, but even he can scarcely succeed in locating Mr. Hamilton where we, with all the resources at our command, have failed. Mark my words, my dear Anita; if Ramon Hamilton returns, it will be voluntarily, of his own free will. Until unless he so decides, you will never see him. It is too bad to have summoned Mr. Blaine here on a useless errand, but I am sure he quite understands the situation now.”

“I do,” responded the detective quietly. “I have accepted the case.”

“But surely you will withdraw?” The older man’s voice rose cholerically. “Miss Lawton is a mere girl, a minor, in fact

“I am over eighteen, Mr. Mallowe,” interposed Anita quietly.

“Until your proper guardian is appointed by the courts,” Mallowe cried, “you are nominally under my care, mine and others of your father’s closest associates. This is a delicate matter to discuss now, Mr. Blaine,” he added, in calmer tones, turning to the detective, “but since this seems to be a business interview, we must touch upon the question of finances. I know that the fee you naturally require must be a large one, and I am in duty bound to tell you that Miss Lawton has absolutely no funds at her disposal to reimburse you for your time and trouble. Whatever fortune she may be possessed of, she cannot touch now.”

“Miss Lawton has already fully reimbursed me in advance,” returned Henry Blaine calmly. “That question need cause you no further concern, Mr. Mallowe, nor need you have any doubt as to my position in this matter. I’m on this case, and I’m on it to stay! I’m going to find Ramon Hamilton!”