Cosmopolitan/'Gentleman Joe' Returns

by Henry C. Rowland

 

“Gentleman Joe” Returns

Cosmopolitan readers have been much interested in that strange little creature, Dominica Meduna, with her strict code of personal morals and her small respect for the property rights of others. In each of her amazing adventures a different aspect of her complex character has been brought out. What is she, and what will become of her? What chance has she to escape the vengeance of her deadly enemy, Legrand, no matter where she may hide? The present story, last of the series, will clear up many puzzling matters in regard to this girl of mystery.

By Henry C. Rowland
Author of “Legrand’s Revenge,” and other Dominica Meduna stories

Illustrated by John Alonzo Williams

AFTER her narrow escape from assassination by Legrand, Dominica gave up her apartment, telling the concierge that she was going to America, then took another, next door to a local bureau de police in Montmartre. She really valued her young life and thought she might keep it longer if she were to disappear for a while. The prefect tried to enlist her services for the Bureau de Sûreté, but Dominica would not consider this.

“No, Monsieur le Préfet,” said she; “the soup is quite hot enough already. I was glad to help you locate Legrand, though I nearly lost my life doing so, and the game is not finished yet. Legrand is a renegade and a bête sauvage. But I do not wish to betray my old associates. As a matter of fact, all that I know at this moment is known to the police. All that I wish, now, is to keep out of sight for a while, in the hope that Legrand may be killed.”

“Or captured,” said the prefect.

“He will never be taken alive,” said Dominica.

The prefect nodded.

“Yes,” he admitted; “that would mean the guillotine. There was Vibert, one of our best men, whom he knifed in the Parc Monceau, and two other murders. He could scarcely escape. Do you think that he is in Paris?”

“I am sure of it, monsieur,” replied Dominica. “He must know that there is a strong cordon drawn around the city. Besides, he will now wish more than ever to settle his account with me.”

The prefect regarded her thoughtfully. He was thinking that the responsibility of protecting this charming young outlaw from as ruthless and cunning a desperado as Legrand was a problem which would tax all of his resources. There were some very complicated features attached to the case. Legrand must be well supplied with money as the result of several big coups which he had recently brought off. Having been for a number of years an agent du Service de Sûreté, he was fully acquainted with the personnel of the brigade and familiar with its methods.

The prefect would have liked to advise Dominica to leave the country—to return to America. But to do so would be an admission of his own lack of confidence in his ability to protect her. And protect her he was bound to do, not only on general principles but because. she had rendered the law a distinct service in establishing the identity of the criminal who had been for some months terrifying Paris. More than this, she had discovered the presence of Legrand at the Baron von Hertzfeld's—and narrowly escaped losing her life as the result.

Suspecting the fearlessness of her character, the prefect doubted that she would remain long under cover, and she was really, he reflected, a most unfortunately conspicuous type. Her superb figure, which combined the grace and lightness of youth with the sweeping curves of maturity, was one difficult to mask. This, with the face of a naughty nymph, richly colored, with vivid blue eyes of startling intensity and her wonderful chevelure of lustrous Venetian red, made Dominica's physical personality one by no means difficult to eliminate.

“You will have to be very careful for the next few weeks, mademoiselle,” said the prefect gravely. “You had better keep pretty close to your apartment until you hear from me. What are your means of support?”

“I am well supplied with money, monsieur,” replied Dominica. “The Barons von Hertzfeld and Rosenthal were very generous. I have quite enough to provide for my modest wants for the next year.”

“Good!” said the prefect. “Well, be careful, my child, and run no unnecessary risks, and we shall hope shortly to remove the source of danger.”

For the next few weeks Dominica acted on this advice and kept close to her little apartment. She bought an alert Airedale terrier, and she had her door fitted with special locks. When she went abroad, it was in the daytime, thickly veiled, and the prevailing style in long capes effectually disguised her exquisite figure. Also, she carried an automatic pistol in her muff.

But alas for Dominica's boasted economy! Also, for her caution. At first, she did not greatly object to her retirement; but at the end of six weeks she began to grow very bored. She would have welcomed even the society of Braga, whom she cordially disliked. But she dared not send for him, because she was afraid that Legrand, knowing of her quasi-partnership with the Argentine “fence,” might be having him shadowed with the idea of discovering her location.

As her courage returned, Dominica's caution began to wane. It was glorious late-autumn weather, and Paris was gay and alluring. Dominica loved the races, not only for the spectacle but because she was a born gambler and liked to place a few hundred francs on some horse which took her fancy. Dominica knew nothing about horses, and in making her bets was influenced by the way in which her choice appealed to her as an individual. On one or two occasions in the past she had gathered in some long odds by picking a horse because of its earnest, eager expression and the promise of high endeavor in its velvety eyes, Dominica preferring such a champion of her fortunes to a sulky-looking favorite or some big fighting devil with the limbs and temper of a Pegasus. She had always met with fair success.

Wherefore, on a bright Sunday in early November, she decided to go to Auteuil, come what might of it. So she put a thousand francs in her bag and departed for the steeplechase. She returned about dusk without enough to pay for her taxi and had to go to her apartment to get the money.

Dominica was nettled. She went again the following Thursday, when the crowd was not so great, and with a similar result. This thing continued for the rest of the racing season, and Christmas found her desperately near the end of her resources. The money which she had counted upon supporting her in comfort for the next year had gone to swell the coffers of the Paris Mutuelles (with five per cent. deducted for public charities).

Dominica found herself face to face with a somewhat serious situation. Since the beginning of her criminal career, when she had made her début under the guidance of that able cracksman, “Gentleman Joe,” she had never found herself in actual financial difficulty, as, even in the interludes of her unlawful activities, she had always been able to provide for herself through certain honest occupations, the technique of which she had quite at her command. She was a trained lady's-maid and expert manicure, a teacher of languages, four of which she had quite at her command, and, when the worst came to the worst, she could always get a singing engagement in some café chantant, her voice being sweet and sympathetic, and her physical beauty quite enough to insure success, even with far less vocal ability than that with which she was endowed.

But the sinister shadow of Legrand looming athwart these possible occupations rendered them out of the question, and, for the first time in her life, Dominica found herself perplexed as to a means of support.

It had been very seldom that she had been led to commit any overt, felonious act. She had usually been able so to contrive that, in the event of success, she might reap her due harvest, and, in failure, nothing more than suspicion. Several times in her criminal career as the domestic inmate of some rich house, she had located the loot and outlined the mode of attack. It had been a job of this sort which had resulted in her leaving America and in the incarceration of her criminal educator, “Gentleman Joe,” whose term of imprisonment, she reflected, should shortly expire. Dominica had several thousand francs deposited to his credit in a French bank, and this sum she would no more have touched than she would have stolen votive offerings to a Madonna.

And when driven to a choice between posing and stealing, Dominica preferred to steal. It cost her less self-respect.

“I've got to turn a trick pretty soon,” said she to herself, “or take a chance on getting croguée by Legrand. Plague take the police! Why can't they do something?”

But as the days passed and the police seemed still unable to do anything, Dominica's money and patience came nearly to an end. She decided that Legrand must have left Paris and was very likely living quietly in Lyons or Marseilles or Nice. At any rate, she did not purpose to starve on the off-chance of his being in Paris, so she went out freely and moved about with one blue eye always alert for a profitable theft. She was like a pretty little vixen, with soft and lovely fur, trotting patiently around a big farm, wary of the dog and waiting to profit by the indiscretion of some silly hen. The chances are that the moral sense of the two was on precisely the same par. The fox had probably never offended its code of vulpine ethics any more than Dominica had ever transgressed the boundaries of her feline ones. Both felt themselves quite justified in plundering a silly hen from a prosperous farmer—on the hen's account, because it was silly, and on the farmer's, because he was prosperous. The fox and Dominica, being neither prosperous nor silly, were mere social levelers.

Dominica's silly hen was sent her in what seemed a providential way. She went out one afternoon with no definite objective, her first idea being to call at Braga's office on the faint chance of collecting a couple of thousand francs which the Argentino had owed her for more than a year. But turning the matter in her mind, she decided that it would be scarcely worth the risk. Braga had always some pretext for postponing such obligations—with Dominica. He never said, “No.” He said: “Of course; certainly, my dear Nica. I haven't got it at this moment, but call to-morrow or the next day.” There is nothing more difficult than this everlasting “mañana,” especially for a person constituted like Dominica. In her scheme of life there were no “to-morrows.” She lived for the present, and to some extent in the past, but never in the future.

Wherefore, dismissing Braga from her mind as a bad bet, she took a taxi to the Etoile. It was too late to walk on the Avenue du Bois, and the Champs Elysées is not very interesting at the tea-hour, so Dominica turned down the Avenue Kléber with the vague idea that there might be some matinée concert at the Trocadéro. There was nothing, however, so she strolled down the hill as far as the Musée Guimet and turned up the Rue Boissière. Glancing at the handsome apartments as she passed she was struck by the number seven.

“Seven, Rue Boissière,” mused Dominica reminiscently. Immediately she remembered that during her service as lady's-maid to a Mrs. Mumford, in New York, she had been given frequently letters to post addressed to a Mrs. Ryan, 7 Rue Boissière, Paris. She knew that Mrs. Mumford had been a schoolmate and intimate friend of Mrs. Ryan. Dominica was thinking of the coincidence when, on turning the corner of the Avenue Kléber, she came upon a house in which there was apparently being held a fashionable reception. There was an awning stretched to the curb; guests were arriving in a steady stream, and big limousines were filling the street.

The gaiety and glitter drew Dominica as a moth is drawn by a flame. Her resolution was quickly taken. She decided to go to the party, knowing, from her experience, that, in such a crush, her chic appearance would give her an unquestioned entrée. If it were a card affair, she had only to regret her negligence.

As she entered, the maître d'hôtel bowed. Dominica, observing that a party of ladies preceding her fumbled in their bags for cards, did the same.

“Oh, madame, don't put yourself to the trouble,” said the nice old maître d'hôtel, and Dominica went in. She knew that the practised eye of the old domestic had assayed her Rue-de-la-Paix costume. Dominica found herself in the midst of a stylish, chattering crowd, and, from fragments of the conversation, gathered that the affair was an illustrated lecture on “The Evolution of Dress,” given for the benefit of Les Enfants Tuberculoses.

The house was a fine old Renaissance building with spacious salons, which were at this moment crowded with the small gilt chairs rented for such occasions. At the far end of the second salon, which communicated with that in front, there had been arranged a small stage, backed by heavy curtains of black velvet, and from the rear an acetylene light was making a buzzing noise and emitting a garlicky odor.

Dominica had arrived rather late. Casting her eyes about, she discovered a vacant place two seats from the side opposite the door. Rather surprised to find it unoccupied, she quickly discovered the reason. She recognized in the person of the beautifully gowned woman beside the empty chair a celebrated actress famed less for her histrionic talent than for her ability to charm. She also observed that this guest was wearing a tight necklace of enormous pearls, and a long rope of the same jewels smaller and matched.

Dominica, in her figured veil and stylish gown, slipped into the vacant seat a good deal as a Persian cat might coil itself on a silken cushion beside the canary-cage. Her neighbor gave her a brief glance and resumed her conversation with some one beside her.

Dominica's mind was working swiftly. She anticipated the probable procedure of the causerie. An attendant offered her a slip which outlined the nature of the conférence. Glancing at it, she saw that the lecturer was a Miss Dorothy Millar.

Dominica was scarcely seated when Miss Millar, exquisitely gowned, appeared on the little stage and proceeded to explain the object of her lecture. She traced through successive cycles the styles which she was to illustrate with living models. Dominica, though fond of clothes, was far less interested in Miss Millar's thesis than in the propinquity of her neighbor's pearls. Before she had listened five minutes to the speaker's dulcet treble, she had the situation quite thoroughly worked out. Thought Dominica to herself: “When this silly woman finishes her introduction, the lights will be turned off for a moment to get the first model under the spot-light. That will be my chance!”

She began to cough. Miss Millar looked politely annoyed. Dominica coughed more violently. Miss Millar's smooth forehead showed a slight vertical line, and she waited for the paroxysm to cease. Dominica kept on coughing. A woman behind her offered her bonbonnière, and Dominica took a cough-lozenge with a word of thanks. She controlled herself, and Miss Millar proceeded. She had not got far when Dominica began to cough again. Also, she reached in her muff for her reticule and secured a pair of sharp little scissors.

The dangers of the attempt were considerable. The pearls were heavy, and it was very possible that their wearer might notice the lacking weight. Those seated behind were in a position to observe Dominica's maneuvers. The string cut, the pearls might fall and scatter.

But Dominica was deft and daring. With her little scissors on her thumb, she bided her time. The lights were suddenly turned off and, in the brief moment of darkness which followed, she leaned against her neighbor as though to see better between the people in front. Then the limelight buzzed and sent a clear beam on the little stage to illuminate a lovely figure in a Grecian tunic. All eyes were directed on this charming tableau, and, in that moment, Dominica's hand slid up behind her neighbor. The rope of pearls slipped over the ample bosom, then into the lap of their wearer, who, intent upon the spectacle, never noticed the mishap. Dominica, stifling her cough, gathered them into her muff. Miss Millar was explaining the subtleties of the tunic, but this did not interest Dominica. She was thinking of the pearls in her muff and how best to get away with them.

She was seized with another violent paroxysm of coughing. Miss Millar hesitated, then waited. Women turned to look resentfully at Dominica, who rose and, drawing down her veil, placed her handkerchief against her mouth and, with a smothered word of apology, slipped out of her seat and toward the door. At the footman's polite inquiry whether he should call her car or a taxi, she merely shook her head and answered chokingly,

“I have only to go two steps.”

Dominica walked rapidly down the street and turned the corner. She did not believe that her theft would be undiscovered for more than a few moments, as the pearls were heavy.

Half-way down the next block she had the consciousness of being followed. In order to look back without appearing to do so, she dropped her handkerchief, and as she turned to pick it up, gave a swift glance behind. The figure she saw was that of Legrand!

“Blest if it ain't Nica!" said Mickey, and his eyes rested on her with a gleam of admiration

Dominica recognized him instantly. He was dressed in the height of fashion and, with his blond, square-cut beard and drooping mustache, might have passed for a Scandinavian nobleman. He wore a monocle, and sauntered along with a leisurely air. Dominica's heart seemed glued against her ribs. A panic seized her. She did not know whether his being there was mere coincidence or whether he had located and followed her. She forgot her pearls, forgot the automatic pistol which she always carried in her muff. Her one frenzied impulse was to escape.

As she cast her frightened eyes about, they rested on the number seven above an imposing portal. Dominica did not hesitate. She pushed the bell and the door swung open. Dominica stepped inside and closed it behind her. The loge of the concierge was open and, with no clear idea of her next move, Dominica asked for Madame Ryan.

“Au troisème, madame,” replied the concierge. “I will send madame up in the lift.”

“Thank you,” said Dominica; “but I prefer to walk up the stairs.”

She started up the broad stairway. All she wanted was to gain time, and she had not the slightest intention of calling on Mrs. Ryan. But, on her way up, she reflected that this would not be a bad thing to do, and she framed a plausible object in her mind.

At that moment, Dominica heartily wished her stolen pearls back on the neck of their owner, as, in that case, she would have gone into the concierge's loge and telephoned to the nearest bureau de police that Legrand was at that moment passing the house and might be captured if prompt measures were taken. But, for obvious reasons, she did not care to have the police know that she herself was in that particular neighborhood. The loss of the pearls might be reported at any moment and Dominica identified as the woman who had left the house of the Countess de Rosoy at the beginning of the lecture. Dominica decided that it would be better to wait until a little later and then to inform the prefect that, while riding through the Bois, she had seen Legrand, describing his appearance. She could give the time as precisely that at which she had left the Countess de Rosoy's, and, in the event of Legrand's being captured, this would go some way toward establishing an alibi in the case of her being associated with the theft of the pearls.

For the moment, however, it was necessary for her to have some pretext for her call on Mrs. Ryan, and Dominica's quick wit immediately supplied one. Arriving before the door of the luxurious apartment, she whipped off her veil (for this black-figured affair was too easy a mark of identification) and rang. Her finger had not left the button when the door was flung open rather violently and Dominica found herself face to face with a red-faced, thick-set young man who appeared to be going out in a considerable hurry.

Dominica recognized him immediately. About a year before when, during an interval of more profitable employment, she had been serving as a manicure in a fashionable hair-dresser's establishment, this man had been one of her regular clients. Dominica had never known just who he was, but now she remembered having heard him addressed by a friend whom he had brought to the place with him one day as “Ryan.” She realized at once that he must be Mrs. Ryan's son, whom she had heard Mrs. Mumford allude to as “Mickey” Ryan—Mickey having apparently been his college nickname.

Mickey recognized Dominica instantly, and his rather bulbous eyes opened very wide at sight of her.

Dominica treated his sudden apparition as a sort of unfortunate accident. She stepped aside to let him pass, then touched the bell again to summon the official door-opener. Mickey, recovering himself, stuck a bulging gill inside the door and told the domestique not to come. He wanted to find out why Dominica was there.

“Blest if it ain't Nica!” said Mickey, and his eyes rested on her with a gleam of admiration.

Had he been a peacock, he would have spread his tail and strutted; as a rooster, he would have flapped his wings, crowed, and looked for invisible particles of some delicacy in the soil; as a wild boar, he would have shorn a piece of bark from the trunk of an oak with his polished tusk, then ripped from the mulch a truffle for Dominica. Being an amorous young man of the period, he lighted a cigarette—and at that moment the telephone-bell began to ring.

Somebody asked for Mickey, who was listening with one ear cocked. “He looks like a French bulldog,” said Dominica to herself. “What a beast!” Mickey excused himself and went to the telephone. The nice little maid, who had overheard some of Mickey's conversations, ushered Dominica into the salon.

“Madame Ryan is reposing herself,” said she. “When dining out, madame sleeps for an hour in the afternoon.”

“Then do not disturb madame,” said Dominica, and paused, for Mickey was talking loudly over the telephone and his conversation was interesting.

“Huh!” (The conversation was in French but translated as follows, due allowance being made for slang.) “Huh—somebody swiped your pearls—huh—full of cocaine again—say, why can't you cut out that dope? What—no—what? What? I can't hear—tell that bunch of hens to shut up a minute—what?” (To the maid, and savagely) “Shut that door—how many times——”

Bang! The maid shut the door, then opened it on the faintest crack. Dominica, seated in the salon, was not supposed to see this play but did. Some of the pearls in her muff were falling off the string. She could feel them all adrift and, realizing that each was worth about two thousand francs, proceeded to plug the ends of the muff. Her handkerchiefs were naturally too small, so she ripped a piece of lingerie from somewhere and stuffed that in. The pretty maid had slipped out of the room, and Dominica knew that she was listening somewhere.

There appeared to be an air of tension about the premises, and Dominica pricked up her pretty ears. She was trying to absorb things when Mickey came in with lines across his forehead. He looked troubled, and Dominica was glad. There had been something in Mickey's scrutiny of herself which had frightened her—and Dominica was no coward.

“Now here's the deuce of a mess!” said he. “A fool of a woman I know, an actress, has just telephoned me that somebody has stolen her pearls at a lecture at my aunt's, the Countess de Rosoy's, just around the corner. She wants me to hustle down to the préfecture and get 'em to put some of their best men on the job. She's having hysterics and raising the deuce around there. Seems to have busted up the whole show. Says there was a woman beside her in a long cape and a figured veil, and that she knows she swiped the pearls when they turned off the lights. Pretended to having a coughing-spell and went out. I've telephoned for my car.”

“Why should she bother you about it?” asked Dominica. “Did you give her the pearls?”

Mickey gave a short laugh.

“Not on your life!” he answered. “She happens to be rather a friend of mine and seems to want to hold me responsible because I got her a card for the bloomin' affair. Old Von Hertzfeld gave her the pearls.” Mickey grinned. “Kind of him, wasn't it?” He cocked his head. “Do I hear my car?”

As he stepped to the bay window, which commanded a view of the street, Dominica rose and looked down from his elbow. She saw a handsome limousine drawing up to the curb—and she saw also something far more interesting.

Directly opposite was a diminutive café for the patronage of servants and chauffeurs which was nestled in between the aristocratic houses as these little vases are located throughout Paris. It was a neat little establishment, with its four dwarf-orange trees in tubs on the sidewalk, four little iron tables behind them, and a strip of awning overhead.

Against one of these tubs, smoking a cigarette and with a half-liter of beer in front of him, sat Legrand. Dominica knew, that instant, that he had recognized her and was waiting for her to reappear with that savage patience peculiar to the wild animal, the aborigine, and the criminal.

“Well,” said Mickey, “I've got to go. Say, Nica, what do you want to see mother about, anyhow?”

“I came to ask if I might count on her patronage tor a manicure parlor which I hope to open in a few weeks,” said Dominica. “I knew that she was an old friend of Mrs. Mumford's, in whose house I was once governess; so I thought she might be willing to recommend me to her friends.”

“Oh, I can fix that all right for you,” said Mickey. “Leave it to me, Nica. I can steer you all the trade you can swing to. Mother's taking a nap. Come on along with me. I'll set you down wherever you like.”

Had she been situated otherwise, Dominica would have declined: this polite offer. She was afraid of Mickey. But, seeing Legrand in the café opposite, she was quick to take advantage of this means of escape.

On the way down, Nica readjusted her veil and noticed, as the door was opened, that the big car shielded her directly from the café. She got into the limousine and Mickey seated himself beside her. As they drew away from the curb, Mickey leaned toward Dominica.

“Say, Nica,” said he, “is this straight goods about the manicure business? If there's anything you need, you know you've only got to say the word.”

Dominica drew back into her corner.

“There's nothing that I need, Mr. Ryan—thank you very much,” said she, “except to get some idea of how large a clientèle I can hope to count on. I went to call on your mother because she is an old friend of Mrs. Mumford's, and I know that Mrs. Mumford will give me references.”

“Who's backing you?” asked Mickey bluntly. “Good Lord, Nica, if you could only get it through your pretty head how much I liked you, and if you could only manage to like me a quarter as much, you'd never have to bother about hunting customers for a manicure business! Listen, dear: Of all the girls I've ever met, you're the only one that I could never get out of my head or find any understudy for. See here, Nica: I've been crazy about you ever since I first laid eyes on you going down the boulevard and followed you back to where you were working. Since you left the shop I've been hunting for you everywhere. Why can't you be reasonable?'”

Dominica flung her arm across her face and shrank back deeper into her corner. She had welcomed Mickey's protection for the moment as a means of escape from Legrand, but she now wondered if, perhaps, she had not got out of the frying-pan into the fire. For Mickey, in the growing ardor with which Dominica's nearness infused him, was most obviously on the point of losing his self-restraint. Aside from his brutal masculinity (a quality which usually made its distinct appeal to Dominica), there was nothing particularly offensive about Mickey. He was a purely primitive type, and, as such, might have appealed to Dominica had he only possessed a little subtlety.

“You're very kind, I'm sure, Mr. Ryan,” said Dominica a little faintly; “but we can talk about that better some other time. Just now I've an awful lot to do. Would you mind telling your chauffeur to stop at the corner of the Rue Royale?”

“All right, if you insist,” said Mickey. “Somehow, when I'm with you I don't seem able to behave. Say, Nica, give me one kiss and tell me where I can look you up and I'll promise to be good.”

“Don't be silly,” said Dominica. “What good is it going to do you if I give you a kiss?”

“I'm the best judge of that,” said Mickey. “Can't you see that I'm just crazy about you? What harm is it going to do you, anyhow?”

He slipped his arm behind her shoulders. Dominica was seized with a sudden panic.

“Let me out here!” she panted. “Stop the car!”

She reached frantically for the speaking-tube. Mickey's grasp tightened and he drew her against him. Dominica struggled, but impotently, for Mickey's grasp was like the hug of a bear. He kissed her devouringly, then loosed her gently, though his arm still encircled her.

“That didn't hurt you, did it?” He gasped.

“Yes; it did—” retorted Dominica breathlessly.

“Oh come, Nica,” purred Mickey; “it didn't anything of the sort. Say, let's turn around and go for a little blow through the Bois, then stop for tea at my garçonnière in Ranelagh. Come on; I'll promise to be good.”

“I can't,” said Dominica. “I've got some errands to do. And how about your friend's pearls?”

“Oh, hang the pearls!” said Mickey. “I don't care three whoops about the pearls—or the girl either, when it's a question of you, Nica. Come on; let's shoot back up the Champs Elysées.”

“No,” said Nica; “I simply can't. I've got to get out. Stop the car!”

“All right,” growled Mickey; “but another kiss first!”

A hot gust of anger swept over Dominica. She leaned forward to tap on the glass. She could not reach the speaking-tube, for Mickey was on the right. The next instant she found herself in the bear's hug again, but this time held more roughly. Her temper burst out with violence, and for a moment she fought like a little fury. She struck him over the eye, and her emerald ring cut through the thin glove and gashed his eyebrow. Her face was seized in his strong hands as one might crush a rose peony to the lips to inhale its perfume. Struggling furiously and fighting like a wild kitten cornered in a loft, Dominica's muff flew from her wrist. The automatic pistol slipped out of it, followed by a shower of pearls.

“Huh!” growled Mickey. “What's all this?”

Still holding her in the grip of his left arm, he leaned down, picked up the pistol, glanced at it stupidly, then dropped it into the side pocket of his coat. He gathered up the string of pearls, only a few of which had slipped from the knotted silk, and weighed them in his hands, then dropped them into his pocket after the pistol, and turned to stare at Dominica with a fast-growing intelligence in his square face. He reached for his handkerchief and touched it to his forehead.

“Huh!” repeated Mickey, and there was a different accent in his growl. “Pearls—big ones—and an automatic pistol! What the deuce have you been up to, my little dear?”

“I—they are some imitation pearls that I am having taken to be restrung.”

“The deuce they are!” said Mickey softly. He looked at her curiously, admiringly. He examined her long cape, her figured veil, her hat trimmed with an aigrette. He gave a short laugh. “You cute little devil! You can have the pearls. I'll never say boo. Gee, Nica, I must say I like your nerve! You're the girl for me.”

He reached for the speaking-tube.

“Turn around and go back through the Bois,” said he to the chauffeur.

“Let me out,” said Dominica feebly.

“All right,” said Mickey, with a short laugh. “Shall I let you out at the préfecture—or at my cosy little garçonnière?”

Dominica glanced at his face and saw no hope of mercy there.

“Where are you going to?” she cried frantically, as the car turned around the fountains in the Place de la Concorde. “Let me out! I want to get out!”

“So do I,” said Mickey. “It won't take long to get to my place. Of course, if you'd rather go to the préfecture——”

Dominica made a motion as if to open the door of the car.

“Let me out this instant!” she cried.

“Oh, very well,” said Mickey, and called to the chauffeur to stop. He held up the string of pearls. “You come for these to-morrow afternoon at two.” And he spoke the address.

II.

Among the first-class passengers to disembark at Cherbourg from the Victoria Luise was a silent man of about thirty-five, whose personality had been the object of some argument aboard the ship. He was broad of shoulder, square of frame, big-boned, with shapely hands, and a face which suggested an allegorical statue entitled “Industry” or “Labor” or “The Iron Age” or something of the sort.

His skin was clear and fresh, though of a peculiar pallor, as of one whose employment keeps him away from the sun. He was quiet, well mannered, and extremely well dressed, and his features held at most times a certain melancholy which the ladies found interesting. Only one of his shipmates, a doctor who had done much prison-work, recognized him as a recently liberated convict, and this man held his peace.

“Gentleman Joe's” sobriquet had its origin in his fastidious care of his body and a certain taciturn politeness of manner not without a hint of mockery. He had been a master mechanic and foreman in a big company which manufactured safes when a life of crime had claimed him, this departure the result of a conviction of being deeply wronged in the matter of an invention of his own which had more than doubled the value and efficiency of the company's world-famed product. Failing to receive the compensation which he felt to be due him. Joe had given up his place and set himself deliberately to work to undermine the reputation for security in the wares which his own brain had rendered nearly perfect. In the end, his own handicraft had betrayed him, and the last five years of his life had been passed inside the gloomy walls of Sing Sing prison.

Dominica had kept Joe informed as to her location, but she had not expected his liberation for at least another eighteen months. Neither, for that matter, had Joe. It had come, suddenly and without warning, as the result of a pardon obtained through the efforts of the very last man who he could have hoped might exert himself in his behalf—the president of the Rosler Safe Company.

He gathered up the string of pearls and weighed them in his hands

On reaching Paris, Joe took a taxi and repaired immediately to the address which Nica had given him in Montmartre. It was then about ten in the morning, and, as he got out in front of the house, two policemen standing just outside what appeared to be a local station favored him with a searching scrutiny. Joe's jaw hardened, for he felt that his measure had been pretty accurately taken. These men knew a prison pallor when they saw it, and also, no doubt, were quick to recognize that indefinable something—a vagueness, a bewilderment, a short focus of the vision peculiar to the recent convict whose motions have been for years automatic and dependent on a curt command, and whose gaze does not get beyond the close confines of prison walls.

The concierge, seeing that Joe understood no French, led him up the stairs to Dominica's door and rapped. A small dog began to bark furiously. Then, a tremulous voice, which Joe recognized at once as Dominica's, asked in French,

“Who is it?”

“It's Joe, Nica!” came the muffled answer.

There was a stifled gasp, the click of a bolt, and the door opened suddenly to disclose Dominica in a kimono, with her profuse ruddy hair tumbled about her ears. The terrier darted out and fastened to Joe's heel, but Joe was oblivious to it. His steely eyes were swimming as he raised his powerful arms and gathered Dominica into them. She lay there, sobbing convulsively. Joe stepped inside and closed the door. “Oh, la-la!” wheezed the fat concierge, and descended. It was the first time that her quiet locataire had received a man in her apartment, and the kindly soul was very glad that the man had come at last.

Dominica clung to Joe in a paroxysm of weeping which amazed while it touched him deeply. He had hoped that Dominica would be glad to see him, but had counted on nothing, lest the disappointment which he felt to be his due portion might await him. The Dominica whom he had first met was a good girl, and he had made of her a criminal. She had become a criminal gladly, for his sake—and then he had been landed in a living tomb and forced to leave her to the mercy of his evil teachings. Nothing, during the five years of his incarceration, had so weighed on Joe's mistaken soul as this consciousness. In the confines of his stifling cell, in the routine of his prison-work, Dominica's image had been always before his eyes, and he had realized too late the volume of his love for her. He had often wondered how it was that the little life of a man could contain so great a misery. And now he felt as though his heart would burst in this hour of possible redemption.

He half carried her to the divan, which was beside a window commanding a wonderful view of Paris, shimmering beneath in the hazy, autumn sunshine. Dominica was fighting her emotion bravely; but her arms clung to him, and she buried her face against his chest like a frightened, grief-stricken child.

“Oh, my dear,” she sobbed, “why didn't you let me know? Why couldn't you have come a day sooner? Why—why—why?” (The age-old protest of erring humanity against the little minute “too late.”)

“What's the trouble, Nica?” asked Joe. “What's a day worth after five years of hell?”

“Everything!” cried Dominica passionately. “It should have been Our Day—the day that we live our lives for and makes everything worth while. I can't explain. Don't ask me to, Joe. Let's start life all over. Let's never steal another thing from anybody, not even from our worst enemy—never—never again! It's not good enough, Joe! We are not real thieves, you and I. We've been just bad children—and we've been awfully punished, and we deserved it.”

Her sobbing broke out afresh and with even greater violence. Joe, holding her close, tried his best to soothe her. He wondered at the intensity of her grief, but yet his face was radiant, and Dominica, turning presently in his arms, caught sight of it and controlled herself.

“Oh, my dear,” she gasped chokingly, “do you think it is too late? Can't we start fresh—start all over and live honestly?”

Joe bent down and kissed her tear-stained face.

“God's in heaven, little girl,” said he huskily; “that's just what brought me over here to get you. Listen, Nica: I'm through with all this crooked business, and I've been wondering every day if you could see it like I do. I'd about made up my mind that when I got out I'd live on the level, when Mr. Rosler came to me with my pardon and told me that I was a free man. He'd been working for it along time. More than that, he told me that my old job was open and the company had decided to pay me a royalty on that invention of mine. It broke me all up, Nica, and I told him that he could count on me to do my part, and I'm going to stick to my word, so help me God! All that bothered me then was the thought of you. I'd dragged you down, and I wondered if I'd be able to get you back again on the level. Listen, Nica: Let's just pretend that all that's passed since we went wrong had never happened. We'll start life from now.”

Dominica hung her head.

“There are some things I ought to tell you first, Joe—” she murmured.

“I don't want to hear 'em, dearie,” Joe interrupted, in a deep but gentle voice. “What wrong you may have done to yourself or anybody else ain't your fault. It's mine. You were a good girl until the devil sent me your way, and I guess I've got a lot to answer for. All you need to tell me is that I'm the man for you and always will be, and that you'll try your best to be the sort of wife that you've got it in you to be. There never was any real bad in you, Nica—and sometimes I almost think that there wasn't such an awful lot in me. We just got going wrong and kept on going. Say, Nica, do you love me enough for that?”

Her bare arms slipped around his neck, and she drew the strong, rugged face to hers.

“You are the only man I ever loved, Joe,” she whispered, “the only man I ever could love.” She caught her breath in a smothered sob. “I've never been untrue to you, Joe,” she faltered.

III

Monsieur le Préfet suppressed a smile beneath his white mustache when it was announced to him that Dominica Meduna and a man who had been recognized at the Gare St. Lazare by one of the secret international police as the recently released American thief who had sailed from New York on the Victoria Luise were in his antichambre and requested an interview. He ordered that they be immediately admitted.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” said he to Dominica, and nodded courteously to Joe. “Bonjour, monsieur.” His keen eyes examined Joe for a brief instant. “I believe I have the pleasure to receive Mr. Joseph Clancy, alias 'Gentleman Joe,' have I not?” he asked in English.

A tinge of color appeared in Joe's lean cheeks, but his steely gray eyes met those of the prefect unwaveringly.

“That's right, Chief,” he said. “I'm the party.”

The prefect nodded and glanced at Dominica.

“Well, mademoiselle,” said he, “I am very glad that you have chosen to come to me of your own accord. I was beginning to fear that I might be under the unpleasant necessity of sending for you.” He glanced at his watch. “The twenty-four hours of espionage which I permitted you have nearly expired.”

Dominica looked at him smilingly.

“That would have been a pity, Monsieur le Préfet,” said she.

“And how is that?”

“Because it would have upset my plans,” said Dominica demurely, “and I might have been obliged to present myself before monsieur very poorly dressed and—without jewelry.”

The prefect's deep-set eyes twinkled. He loved the fascinating game which his high office compelled him to play. A man of subtle wit, he loved to measure blades with good fencers.

“As it is,” said he, “perhaps you may permit me to compliment you on your grande tenue. That toque trimmed with an aigrette becomes you charmingly; one might, however, criticize the long cape which masks so graceful a form—and the figured veil, because it hides such a pretty face.”

“I am sorry that Monsieur le Préfet should find anything to criticize in my simple costume,” replied Dominica, in her most limpid voice. “It passed muster yesterday at the house of Madame de Rosoy— and the assistance was most chic.”

Even the experienced prefect was a bit startled at such impudence. He disguised it, however, and, with a smile, replied:

“My criticism, mademoiselle, was merely an appreciation, less of the dress than of the qualities which it concealed. I rejoice that my people should not have hurried you in the completion of your toilette, but—” He twisted the end of his mustache and regarded her quizzically, while Joe, who could not understand a word of the conversation, which had relapsed into French, wondered what in the name of heaven all of this shilly-shallying was about and made uncomplimentary comparisons between the police methods of the Eastern and Western hemispheres. He wondered, also, what a chief of police wanted of handsome Empire furniture, Oriental rugs, and lace curtains in his business office.

“But what, monsieur?” asked Dominica, dulcetly.

“But did I not understand you to say something about jewelry—or was I——”

“Ah, pardon!” Dominica's violet eyes were dancing. Her warm Latin blood made it possible for her to pass from one emotion to the next as easily as a coryphée glides into a different step, and she was thoroughly enjoying the interview (which Joe was not). “My jewels! Of course. They are here in my muff, monsieur. I put them there for safe-keeping, because there are so many dishonest people abroad in these days.” She placed a parcel on the desk of the prefect. “They are all there, Monsieur le Préfet, and I don't think that they would be there at all if it hadn't been for—for my fiancé,” she ended, in a sudden gust of passion.

The prefect leaned forward, reached for his scissors, cut the string, and examined the contents of the parcel, then looked inquiringly at Dominica.

“Your—fiancé, mademoiselle?” he asked softly.

Dominica turned her face away. The prefect, quite at a loss, looked at Joe, who hunched his square shoulders forward and glared at him.

“Say, Chief,” said he, “s'pose you let me put you right. I got in wrong some years ago because I thought I wasn't getting a square deal. Well, I started this young lady wrong, too, and when I got pinched I sent her over here. I served my time—over five years in Sing Sing—and I came out with a different idea about things. My first move was to come over here to get Nica, to take her back with me and start a new life—an honest life, y'understand, Chief; I mean it!”

“I understand,” said the prefect.

“Well, I found Nica all right, and she told me that she felt just like I did and wanted to go back with me and begin fresh and on the square; honest, y'understand. But it seems I got here a day too late. Nica had got hard up and went to this here lecture and got away with this woman's pearls. Coming away from the house, she saw this guy Legrand——'”

“Legrand!” The prefect leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair.

“Yes; the guy that tried to drown her, and all that. She got frightened and ran into the first house around the corner. But this Legrand had her spotted and was waiting for her to come out. In the house, Nica met up with a man she knew when she was manicuring, named Ryan—Mickey Ryan—and he was a sort of running mate of this actress lady that had lost her pearls and she'd telephoned him about it. He was starting down here to headquarters when he met Nica. Well, he offered her a seat in his car, but on the way he tried to get gay, and Nica dropped her muff and he found the pearls. So what does this mutt do but try to blackmail Nica—y'understand.”

“Perfectly,” said the prefect.

“Well”—Joe's face darkened—“he wanted to take her to a place of his. And when she wouldn't go he took the pearls from her and told her to come for them to-day.” Joe's voice had sunk to an almost inaudible growl. “He kept the pearls——” Joe seemed unable to proceed.

“What then?” asked the prefect presently.

“Yes; he told her to show up there at two o'clock this afternoon unless she wanted to go to prison,” snarled Joe. “I kept the date myself. He ain't dead—but he won't be much use for some time. He was breathing all right when I came away—with the pearls.”

The prefect drummed on the table with his fingers.

“You say this happened at two o'clock?” he asked.

“Yes; about that time.”

“We have heard nothing about it,” said the prefect.

“You won't, Chief. He knows where he stands on that pearl business, and he'll have sense enough to keep his mouth shut. I made that plain before I started with him.”

“Did you hurt him badly?”

“Not so bad as what he had coming to him,” said Joe grimly. “I used only my hands to him. I might have killed him, only he didn't seem worth it, somehow. But I guess he won't ever take any beauty prize. Honest, Chief, that mutt is probably the worst licked man in the world to-day. I didn't take advantage of him. He struck the first blow, and when I'd got him to rights I took his riding-crop to him. He'd just been out ahorseback. I guess he won't want to sit on a horse again for some time.”

“I kept the date myself. He ain't dead—but he won't be much use for some time He was breathing all right”

The prefect leaned back in his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers. Anglo-Saxons, he reflected, had effective if crude methods of adjusting their private difficulties. However, if no complaint were lodged, he felt under no compulsion to take official recognition of the affair. He would be able to return the stolen articles, and that, after all, was the main thing.

“What induced you to bring me these pearls?” he asked. .

“It was like this, Chief,” said Joe: “I just finished doing time for burglary, like I told you. My old employer got me out, and I promised to live honest, and mean to keep my word. But it was me that started Nica wrong and got her into graft and all o' that, and I couldn't rest until I found her and got her back on the right road again. She felt like I did about it, and, as we both want to begin life over again with as clean a slate as we can, we brought you the pearls. We've both paid for what we done in the past, and now we want to go back home and get married and live on the level, see?”

The prefect nodded.

“Strictly speaking,” said he, “this affair should go before the court and pass through the usual official channels. But there is every hope that this can be avoided. Personally, I sympathize with your good resolutions, and this young woman has already rendered the law most distinguished service on two occasions.” He turned to Dominica. “About Legrand?” he asked.

Dominica described her discovery of the man.

“I did not telephone for the police, monsieur,” said she, “because I did not wish to have it known that I was in the neighborhood. Besides, he could not have believed that I had recognized him, as otherwise he would not have dared to linger in the café.”

The prefect frowned.

“You value your liberty more than your life,” he observed. “Well, perhaps it is for the best as it has turned out. It would have grieved me deeply to have been obliged to lodge you in St. Lazare after our sympathetic work together. Besides, I have never believed that you were of the criminal type. You are one of the many young people who find outlawry amusing because of a mistaken sense of its romance. They should be whipped, not sent to prison, and the game would lose all of its glamour. Our young apaches would not return from correction as heroes to their comrades if their backs were well striped. I should like to take a leaf from the book of your fiancé in the treatment of adolescent crime.” He glanced at Joe, and smiled grimly. “Very well; let us hope that you may soon return to America to begin a worthy and useful career. Do not leave Paris, however, until you hear from me. If we succeed in catching Legrand, I shall need your testimony. I hope that it may not be necessary to delay you long.”

He nodded to indicate that the interview was at an end. As they rose to go out, Joe paused and looked at the prefect with a red, embarrassed face.

“Say, Chief,” said he, fumbling with his hat, “would you mind giving us leave to go to England for a couple of days. We'll come right back—honest we will.”

“England?” asked the prefect, “But what do you want to do in England?”

“Get married,” said Joe. “It takes so long over here.”

The prefect's stern face softened. His eyes twinkled.

“Very well, my children,” said he; “you may go.” He rose suddenly from his chair, and stepping to Dominica pinched the lobe of her pink ear. “I shall send you a wedding-present—dear little thief that was and is no more!” said he gruffly.

 

Dominica's first baby is named after the prefect of police. Joe was the strong advocate of conferring this honor on that dignitary.

“Say, Nica,” said he, “a chief like him is what a town needs. He's more like your old dad than a boss cop. Me for him!”