The Red Book Magazine/Volume 36/Number 2/The Medium's Miniature

by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

 

[Illustration: “I came here to consult you on a matter of great importance.”]

THE MEDIUM'S MINIATURE

By MRS. WILSON WOODROW

THE second day out from Southampton, Heywood Achison, taking his morning constitutional along the deck of the Albertic, encountered an acquaintance.

“Hello, Danby,” he said cordially, stopping and holding out his hand. “I saw your name on the passenger list and looked for you in the smoking-room last night, but in vain.”

“Busy,” explained Danby. He turned and fell into step, and the two walked on together. “I was closeted—or cabined, I suppose you'd call it in this case—all evening with the captain.”

“Must be something important on?” Achison's deductions were accompanied by a swift, interested glance.

“There is,” replied Danby in-his colorless, drawling voice.

He was a thin, gray man with about as much personality as an unobtrusive cloud on the horizon, and this prevailing impression of grayness was carried out in his clothes, his drab hair with the touches of white at the temples, his mournful and reserved expression—all of which was for his purposes as conveniently deceptive as a mouse-trap successfully camouflaged as a piece of cheese, for he was in fact one of the keenest-witted agents of the United States Revenue Service—as Achison, his companion, was one of the most astute and probably the best known of America's criminal lawyers.

But the terms which could be used in describing the one would never adequately characterize the other. Achison not only attracted notice; he seemed. to compel it. Of a more mature figure than Danby, he was tall, but with a quick, light tread and a grace of movement that many a younger man might have envied. His iron-gray hair was thrown back from his brow; his eyes were authoritative, his mouth benevolent and humorous; and some subtle emanation of individuality pronounced him a person of charm and distinction.

“I'm glad you're on board, Mr. Achison,” said Danby; “you may be of help to me. Have you been in England or France?”

“Paris for the last six weeks.”

“Good. Then of course you know of the theft of the Kreminoff jewels?”

Achison knitted his brows a moment before recollection came.

“Oh, yes. I read something of it in the papers. A Russian prince-—Kreminoff? Is that right? The jewels were mysteriously taken from his house, weren't they, and no clue left? Are you on the job?”

Danby nodded.

“It was the work of an organized gang, the police at the Sûreté say,” he went on: “and they've got a tip from somewhere that the stuff is on board here to be smuggled into the States. It may be straight,"—he shook his head skeptically—”but I'm far from convinced. Naturally. though, it got our people busy. I had to break off my vacation and catch this old tub on only twenty minutes' notice,” he added grumblingly.

ACHISON laughed at his lugubrious tone.

“Oh, cheer up.” he rallied. “You may be about to make the catch of your career. At any rate, let me hope for a bit of excitement on the way over; the voyage bids fair to prove monotonous. An arrest with proper melodramatic trimmings would liven things up wonderfully.”

“I'll leave that to the customs men,” Danby shrugged his shoulders. “There'll be no collar on board. I'm here merely to find out who has the jewels, if it's anybody.”

“And you have not so far succeeded in locating your needle in this human haystack, I gather?”

“I have not,” Danby replied concisely; “but I've sifted them down.” He halted, and drew the lawyer over to the rail. “Stand here with me, and watch them go by. We'll appear to be carelessly talking, and I'll pick out the likely ones for you as they come along. Everybody's on deck this fine, calm morning.”

Achison lifted his heavy eyebrows.

“It's a de luxe mob, then? You're gunning among the first-cabin passengers?”

“Just so. I've satisfied myself that there's nothing doing below decks, either in the second cabin or steerage. There's class to this deal all the way through; undoubtedly it was engineered by some of the big fellows. See, now, if you can spot any of my suspects,” Danby suggested. “I'd like to check myself up with your powers of observation and ability to read human nature.”

The deck before them resounded to the thud of footfalls, the click of heels. The variegated stream flowed by in groups in two's, in units.

Achison regarded the spectacle with jaded eyes. These were the usual passengers of the usual fast ocean liner.

“Given a certain environment,” he murmured, “the types which animate it remain constant; costumes and customs may alter, people never.” He yawned slightly. “Nothing distinctive yet that I can see. The same old bacon-and-eggs crowd.”

“Well, here comes a touch of caviar for you.” There was a faint thrill of triumph in Danby's apathetic drawl. “Joe Snaith. Know him?”

“I've heard of him, but never saw him before.” Achison was nonchalantly lighting a cigarette, but no detail of the man approaching was lost upon him. “And why look further?” he asked under his breath. “A famous international crook on board; what more do you want?”

The fellow who swung by them appeared to be a well-bred, well-dressed Englishman of medium size and with a ruddy, tanned face under the visor of his cap. He might have been about thirty-five years old.

“That's the trouble. It's so obvious that it's sure to be wrong.” Danby shook his head pessimistically. “Besides, he'd never try to get by with the stuff himself; he knows jolly well that everything he's got, himself included, will be systematically X-rayed before he's allowed to leave the dock. No; he may fit into the thing somewhere. Nothing I'd like better than to connect him up with it. But blamed if I can get onto the combination. I just can't see it.”

“Why not?” asked Achison curiously.

“Well, in the first place, look at the layout.” Danby spoke with a sort of weary patience. “Those jewels were in a safe in this Kreminoff's house in Paris, about all the poor refugee had left, I imagine, that was capable of being turned into cash. He was deep in negotiations to dispose of part of them, but the collection was so far intact. He entertained a good deal,—Lord knows how: on credit, I suppose,—and all sorts could be seen among his guests. A duchess or a dancer, a crown or a crook; he didn't care so long as they amused him and added to the luster of his parties.

“Then one day he opened the safe, and—blooie!—the jewels were gone. When it happened, he couldn't tell; he hadn't looked into it before for about a fortnight, it seems. No one else knew the combination, and it showed not the slightest sign of having been tampered with. There were no finger-prints, no suspicious circumstances, no clues of any kind. All he could tell was that he went to his li'l old Mother Hubbard's cupboard and found it bare. One slick job all around, I call it.”

“But how does all this tend to prove that Snaith had nothing to do with the affair?” inquired Achison.

“I don't say that,” disclaimed Danby. “I'm only telling you that if he did do it, he's covered his tracks mighty well. He hadn't been in Paris for months, and so far as can be learned he had no close associates among the crowd that went to Kreminoff's. He's been laying off in England, very little in London, just pottering around in the country for the most part, fishing and playing golf. He's out of my calculations, because even if he is in on it, he'd never mix up in the smuggling end of the transaction. In that case, this journey of his simply means that he is going to New York to receive and dispose of the plunder after it's been yet gotten into the country. At least, that's the way I figure it, and—”

He broke off with a muttered exclamation, and touched Achison significantly on the arm.

“Here comes some one who will bear watching. Take her in?”

A woman noticeable for the grossness of her person and the brilliance of her plumage was approaching them on the arm of a young girl. Her bulk was so vast that it seemed as if the very high heels she wore must collapse under such weight. Her skin was dark, her features flat and almost indistinguishable in the expanse of her face, but her eyes were piercing and far from unintelligent. She was talking volubly in French to the young woman beside her, her conversation punctuated with wheezy bursts of laughter. A turban in all the colors of a bandana handkerchief fitted closely over her head, and she wore a long cape of glaring plaids which, as it fell apart when she walked, disclosed a bright purple skirt and an equally vivid pink blouse. A massive gold chain seemed to be embedded in the fat folds of her neck, and from it swung an old miniature in a quaint and time-stained frame.

Her companion offered a refreshing contrast in appearance. She was slender, with a trim, attractive figure gowned in blacks her face was pensive, her dark eyes a little sad.

“The fat lady,” said Danby in response to Achison's unspoken question after the two had passed, “is probably the most celebrated of European mediums, Madame Adelbron. She is said to be some seeress—predicted the sinking of the Lusitania, the exact date of the fall of Jerusalem and of the Armistice—oh, a host of things. She is making her first visit to the United States to sit for a little group of earnest-thinking scientific guys with more learning and whiskers and rubber-tired spectacles than they know what to do with. But the important point, mind you, is that she gave a séance at Kreminoff's house just two nights before the robbery was discovered.”

Achison smiled broadly.

“Danby, you are insatiable; even the spooks are not free from your suspicion. As for the lady, she may be, as you say, a great medium, but she is evidently not in communication with the best dressmakers in the Great Beyond; and if she has the jewels, she must have been openly wearing all of them last night. She was laden with a ton or more of Oriental stuff; I wasn't near enough to see whether it was genuine or not.”

“Junk,” Danby sniffed disgustedly. “I went over it all as well as through every inch of her suite, while she and her companion were snoozing in their steamer chairs.”

“What about the girl?” asked Achison.

“Nothing much,” The revenue man shook his head. “A little typist, I imagine, that Madame got cheap. No criminal record. None of them have, worse luck. Not even a detention against Snaith, and yet it's pretty well agreed that he's been in most of the big deals of the last few years.”

“You hearten me greatly, Danby. As I say, I was looking forward to a tedious voyage, but now there is relief in sight. I must meet both Snaith and Madame Adelbron.”

Danby grinned. “Not through me. I'm more intimately acquainted with their belongings than I am with them.”

“Oh, well, I shall manage it some way,” said Achison easily, “even if I have to seek a message from the world beyond.”

HE was not one to waste time over the accomplishment of his whims, and that evening saw him included in a little group in the smoking-room of which Snaith was a member.

One man was expressing his dissatisfaction with the time they were making.

[Illustration: “Monsieur, I am here in a strange country, among thieves; for it is the Kreminoff jewels they have.”]

“The boat barely crawls,” he grumbled. “I'm impatient to get in. The words, 'Land in sight!' will sound like music in my ears.”

“Speaking of words,” Achison remarked thoughtfully, “what would you say is the most impelling phrase in the world, the one to which all hearts vibrate.”

“Have one on me,” chuckled a fat man at his right.

Other guesses were: “I've just come into a fortune,” “Make it a jack pot,” “Dinner is served.”

Achison shook his head.

“All good, but not just the right note yet.”

The men paused and considered. This new game amused and interested them.

“I've got it!” cried a bald; elderly 'bachelor with sentimental enthusiasm: “'I love you!'”

“No,” protested another. “It's, 'I want my mother!'”

But Achison still shook his head. “Close,” he said, “all of them, but they don't quite hit the bull's-eye. Wait; it's swimming around somewhere in the back of my brain. There!” He made a little clutch at the air, closing his fingers as over some precious and fragile object, and then slowly released his invisible prize.

“Here it is, gentlemen. Now tell me if it does not stir your blood as nothing else could, and send your fancy roaming? It is: 'How would you like an adventure, with a bit of money on the side?'”

His glance roved swiftly around the group and rested for a moment on Snaith. Caught off guard, the latter had not time to repress the avid, answering gleam in his eyes.

“The prize goes to you, Mr. Achison,” the fat man announced, as he caught the confirmatory nods about the circle. “We're all game, I guess; and if you know where that adventure is, just lead us to it.”

“Ah!” replied Achison with a wise smile. “Who can produce an adventure at will? They are not factory-turned or trade-marked. If you try to manufacture them, you will never succeed, and if you go in search of them you will never find them. The faculty for adventure is a gift, like a talent for music or art or letters. Adventure is a sort of a sixth sense in certain natures.”

Some tall tales followed this statement, each man present apparently anxious to prove that he was of the adventurous elect, and then they drifted to the card-tables, Achison declining to join them and Snaith also. Thus the two men were left alone.

Achison, seemingly rooted in his chair and absorbed in lazily watching the smoke-wreaths drifting above his head, was yet aware that Snaith was bestowing on him a covert but concentrated scrutiny.

“Do you know, your theory of a sense of adventure interests me very much,” he said at last in a courteous and slightly deferential tone. “If I am not mistaken, you are one of the fortunate or unfortunate possessors of it.”

Achison turned to him with delightful bonhomie, a twinkle in his eye.

“I don't believe either of us has ever had to hunt very hard for that sort of game,” he countered. “They come to us, 'like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought.' And—er—it is a pity that the good, red-blooded word adventurer is invested with a stigma which makes one hesitate to apply it to a gentleman; so let me say, instead, a traveler. A traveler like yourself must have encountered scores of adventures.”

“Why do you conclude that I am a traveler?” Snaith's voice was smooth, his expression agreeable, but there was a sudden reserve in his eyes.

“The stamp is indefinable, but unmistakable.”

“You're right,” said Snaith briefly. “I've been in most places.”

“The English are a wandering race,” commented Achison. “They like to behold the world so wide, for to enjoy and for to see.”

Snaith nodded. “I am in a way of speaking English, but more strictly colonial. My grandfather went to Australia and made a fortune. My father doubled it, and I dissipated it.” There was bitterness in his smile. “Still,”—indifferently—there's enough left to see me through, I fancy, and even permit me to indulge my few hobbies.” He paused a moment, meditating.

“My latest one,” he went on with a glimmer of a smile, “is not expensive, and it leads me into an unknown country.”

“An unknown country?” repeated Achison. “Where will you find one today?”

Snaith drew a book from the depths of the leather chair in which he was sitting

“I have become very much interested in spiritism,” he said

“Odd!” Achison moved his chair a little nearer, as if involuntarily drawn to his companion by the tie of a common bent. “It is a subject that has absorbed much of my own thought lately.”

He used the word lately advisedly. If he had said, “during the last two minutes,” the statement would have been more literally correct.

“They tell me,” he went on, “that there is a celebrated medium on board, Madame Adelbron. I am very anxious to meet her, Do you know her?”

Snaith shook his head. “I'm like yourself, very eager to meet her, but haven't had the opportunity.”

“Perhaps, then, I can manage it for both of us.” Achison's tone was both decisive and confident. “I am going to make the opportunity.”

The next day he made good his word. He effected an introduction to Madame Adelbron, established himself easily in her good graces, and generously took the first suitable occasion to present Snaith.

But even with two potential disciples who made no attempt to. conceal their enthusiasm, Madame showed herself slow in undertaking their psychic education. Neither could she be induced to talk of her profession, her peculiar powers or her past achievements. This, she averred, was one of her brief and rare periods of rest, and she meant to enjoy it.

Apparently the verb to enjoy was, with her, an exclusive synonym for the words, to eat. She had the appetite of an anaconda, and the subject of food was of perpetual and engrossing interest. Achison, himself a gourmet, would discuss with her by the hour the proper composition of a sauce, a pâté or a salad. To do her justice, though, she had other if less dominant proclivities, and showed herself at times shrewdly conversant with the world, especially in the field of Continental politics and scandal.

Achison found her diverting enough to recompense him for the time he spent with her; and his mature worldliness, sophistication and polished address won her sincere interest.

But at the same time he was careful not to neglect Snaith. With the skill of the great actor that he was, he presented himself to that confirmed gamester with fate as a sort of intellectual juggler unweighted with superfluous scruples. The world was his oyster, and he opened it with consummate aplomb, pocketed the pearl, ate the bivalve, and sold the shells. He was lenient, even sympathetic to all human frailties; and in the evenings when they sipped a last whisky and soda together, he told amusing and breath-taking tales of ingenious and daring ways in which he had extricated members of the brotherhood that lives by its wits from the closing trap of the law. And here too he had his reward, for he saw that he was gradually winning more and more of Snaith's reluctant confidence.

But the most carefully laid plans are subject to deflection and sometimes to defeat by circumstances trifling in themselves, and even the seeress had no ghostly intimation of the events in which they were all to participate through so inconsequential a thing as the mere breaking of the clasp of her gold chain.

The incident took place one morning when she and Achison were in conversation, seated side by side in their steamer-chairs. Under the stress of one of her mountainous shrugs, the weakened clasp parted, and aided by her further gesticulations, the chain and miniature tobogganed gently down the billowy expanse of her chest, unnoticed by her until it reached the jumping-off place. Then with a startled imprecation she made a futile grab to catch it; but too late. It evaded her clutch, and struck with a little tinkle on the deck.

Her secretary, who had been sitting on the other side of Madame with her head bent over a piece of embroidery, rose quickly to her feet; but Achison had already reached over the arm of his low chair and retrieved the ornament.

“The clasp is broken,” he said, examining it. And then his scrutiny became more concentrated.

[Illustration: “In luck? I'm afraid I don't know just what you mean. It strikes me that you are the one in luck.” ]

The secretary, Marie Trevelle, had quietly resumed her seat; but although she had again taken up her work, she was watching him covertly but anxiously. Her expression was that of a mother bird who sees a cat prowling too near her nest.

Madame Adelbron alone was indifferent. “Tiens, that is soon mended,” she said comfortably. “The chain is good, but the miniature is of no value; I picked it up in a pawnshop for a few francs. It is a pretty face, but I am tired of it.” She gave a pettish gesture.

Achison seemed hardly to hear her. In spite of his admirable muscular and emotional control, he could not repress a slight start as he continued to examine the necklace, and its attached miniature.

“As you say, this is quite a pretty face,” he murmured. He drew a small magnifying glass from his pocket, and through it studied the portrait long and minutely. Then he turned the miniature over in his palm, holding his hand so that Marie Trevelle, watching him from under her lowered lids, could not see his rapid manipulations. But she gave a faint, quickly repressed exclamation as, his examination finished, he turned his eyes seaward, as if unwilling to let his companions see the glow of triumph in them.

“I think, Madame Adelbron, that you are both right and wrong in your estimate of this piece,” he said. “The miniature, although it depicts a charming woman, is badly executed; but the setting is rather unique—old parcel-gilt silver. I must confess that it tempts me. I am a collector in a small way, you see, with a fancy for the odd and curious. My scarabs are said to be unmatched, and I also have somewhat of a collection of miniatures. This would supplement it excellently. Since you are tired of it, suppose you sell it to me?”

“Dear man,”—she laid her pudgy, ringed hand upon his arm,—“I would give it to you. But only yesterday I promised to bestow it on Marie here. You will have to bargain with her.”

ACHISON beamed at Marie. He was sure of success now; this girl, probably underpaid, would welcome the chance to pick up a little extra money.

“What do you say, mademoiselle?” he asked in his most persuasive voice. “Will you gratify my whim? I shall accept your valuation.”

She flushed crimson, her eyelids fluttering nervously. There was a frightened look on her face, but there was also resolution behind her dismayed glance.

“I thank you, monsieur,” she said in her slow, imperfect English, “but I cannot part with the miniature. It is the gift of Madame, and as such I prize it.”

“Perhaps you will be willing to make an exchange when you see some of the really lovely things I have picked up on my recent journey?” Achison was suavely persistent. “If not, remember that I said I would accept your own price.”

“I am sorry, monsieur; I can not give it up.”

Madame broke into wheezy laughter. “She is fond of me, you see, m'sieur. She cherishes my gift. Is it not so, little one?”

The girl's head was again bent low over her embroidery frame.

“But certainly, madame,” she answered.

Achison was not discomfited by this rebuff. On the succeeding days of the voyage he took occasion more than once to approach Marie on the subject, finally offering her a sum of money which he felt sure she would never find it in her thrifty French soul to refuse. But she was deaf to all negotiations.

This put him in a bad humor which it required all his savoir faire to conceal. He was still moody when Danby visited him in his stateroom the last night out.

“I'm afraid I've been of very little help to you,” Achison admitted. “If Snaith and Adelbron are working together, I've caught no hint of it, and I've given them every opportunity to show their hand. The girl, though, will bear watching.” He spoke with a touch of asperity. “For all her demure manner, she's considerably more canny than you think. I am anxious to learn how they all fare at the hands of the customs officials. Take dinner with me tomorrow night at my club, Danby, and let me know the results.”

“Glad to,” Danby acquiesced with his usual lack of enthusiasm. “I've already wirelessed the boss to let Snaith and Adelbron have the full program, and on your tip I'll send a further message regarding the girl. Have no fear; old Eagle-eye Cameron will be on hand, and they've got to be wizards if they get anything through under his eye.

“But at that,” he added with a cynical twist of the lips, “I'm gambling that it's all lost motion. All the bulls in Paris can't make me believe the Kreminoff jewels were ever on the Albertic.”

So, when they met as appointed the next evening, Danby's mousy furtiveness was faintly illumined by that glow which comes to all prophets whose predictions, good or bad, have achieved fulfillment.

“Just as I told you,” he said, “—nothing doing. You'd have laughed at the seeress, though. That old black bag of hers was choked up with her tin breastplates and tiaras, but she couldn't have made more fuss about handling them if they'd been the crown jewels. Two of us turned the stuff out in a pile—I'd been over her junk until I knew it all by heart—and then we went into the lining of the bag, looking for padded inner compartments. But as I say, it was all time wasted. My theory's the right one. If the Kreminoff jewels are coming over here at all, they'll be brought on some small boat to another port.

“Of course,” he added prudently, “that don't let Snaith or Madame Adelbron completely out of it. As I told you before, they may be over here simply to dispose of the stuff after it's been brought through. I've got a hunch that there's some sort of a connection between the pair of 'em; but it might easily be on some other scheme. Anyhow, it'd be a favor to me if you keep in touch with them, Mr. Achison, and let me know of anything that strikes you as suspicious.”

“Assuredly,” Achison promised. “You've got my curiosity aroused, Danby. I wouldn't dream of dropping out at this stage.”

And he spoke in perfect good faith; for although he did not say so to his companion he knew that there was small chance of his losing sight of Madame Adelbron and Marie Trevelle at least, until he had secured that miniature.

Under spell of this incentive, he called a day or two later at the hotel where the two were stopping, but without finding either of them in. His disappointment over this mischance was palliated, however, by learning on his return to his office that a man named Snaith had been in, and evidently very anxious to consult him, had said he would be back within an hour.

“Show him in as soon as he comes,” directed Achison

A GRATIFIED smile was on his lips as he passed on into his inner sanctum. He had been a little puzzled at Snaith's previous failure to appear, in view of the seed of encouragement he had so sedulously sown during the voyage. He was beginning to wonder if possibly his calculations were awry. But now he was fully reassured. Perhaps, he reflected, it was just as well that he had missed Madame Adelbron and her companion. There is a distinct advantage in being the mountain rather than Mahomet, the person sought rather than the seeker.

His meditations were interrupted by the entrance of a clerk.

“Mr. Snaith, sir.” And almost upon the heels of the announcement, Snaith himself appeared. His smile and expressions of pleasure at seeing Achison again were properly cordial; but his mask of assurance, although nicely adjusted, could not wholly conceal an underlying disquietude. In his manner, too, was something dogged and reluctant, and Achison recognized at once the man who, against his will and judgment, is forced by circumstances to take counsel, the unwilling and unrepentant penitent at a confessional he dares not evade.

For a few moments the conversation ran to commonplaces, and then Snaith broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence.

“But I am wasting your time, Mr. Achison. I came here today to consult you on a matter of great importance, and one which will require the utmost secrecy. I know, of course, that the fees a man of your standing receives are very large, but if you can give us any idea or assistance that will aid us in the present difficulty, I assure you that you can ask double, treble the ordinary amount, and it will be gladly paid. When I say, 'us,'” he added, “I am speaking also for Madame Adelbron.”

“It sounds interesting.” Achison leaned back in his chair and joined his fingertips together. He became at once the bland, inviolable repository of secrets, lending a listening. and sympathetic ear as he pushed a box of cigarettes toward his new client.

Snaith lighted one, and for a moment or two smoked in silence.

“I may as well tell you,” he said at last, “that a year or so ago I was unfortunate enough to incur the suspicion of the London and Continental police. No grounds for it, of course—a case of mistaken identity, I fancy,—and nothing ever came of it except a bit of personal annoyance at the time. This was all months ago, you understand, and I supposed that they had fully realized the absurdity of shadowing me around and had dropped it; but evidently I was mistaken.” He frowned darkly.

“Yesterday,” he went on to air his grievance, “I called on Madame Adelbron, surely only a natural courtesy to show a shipboard acquaintance; but will you believe me, I found that I was being shadowed to her hotel, and not only that but actually to her apartment. While there, I don't know how many ears were glued to the keyhole. And the poor woman tells me that she too has been having a similar experience. When I reached home, I changed and went to dinner at the Ritz. Again I was followed; and on my return I discovered that my room and all my belongings had been thoroughly gone over.”

Achison murmured an expression of surprise and appropriate commiseration.

“Now, it happens, Mr. Achison, that I am in this country to arrange some business matters which require delicate handling. Madame Adelbron is interested in the transaction. She has in her possession some valuable documents which I have agreed to convey to the right parties.”

HE paused, and fixed Achison with his hard, blank eyes. They were icily sinister that they might have chilled the blood of the hardiest.

“If a whisper of this should leak out, the life of the whisperer wouldn't be worth a tinker's dam,” he muttered significantly.

Steel-colored eyes as cold as his own looked back at him, an amused smile curling the corners of the lawyer's wide mouth.

“Pray proceed with the details,” he murmured politely. “I read myself to sleep every night with detective novels, so you see I don't object to melodrama. But let us refrain from it in a business discussion, my dear fellow. It's out of place.”

Snaith reddened at the unmistakable mockery of the admonition; but unable to think of any satisfactory retort, complied.

“Under the existing circumstances,” he went on gruffly, “it is impossible for Madame to turn documents over to me. A change of plans is necessary. Some one must act as an intermediary.”

“Ah, Snaith, Snaith!” Achison shook a playful finger at him. “You are willfully playing on my weakness.” He raised his eyes accusingly heavenward. “One would think at my age that I would be immune. But trail even the anise-seed bag of an adventure across my path, and I'm off on the scent of it. You remember that phrase we both decided was the one best calculated to stir a man's blood, 'How would you like an adventure with a bit of money on the side?' Here am I, my holiday over, a staid lawyer back at his desk; but,”—he shook his head, humorously deprecating his failing,—“the lure still holds.”

Snaith's stolid face lighted up with relief. He drew a long breath and relaxed in his chair.

“We're all aboard the lugger, then, and the girl is ours!” He laughed a little surprisedly at his own wit. “Not that there's any real girl, you understand.” He checked his mirth. “That's only by way of speaking.”

“Snaith, you delight my soul. You not only offer me an adventure, but you explain a joke. You really must try some of my old Scotch on the strength of it.” He unlocked a little cabinet, and produced a squat bottle and glasses. “Now, what's the plan?”

“The intermediary,” said Snaith, “must be some one above suspicion.”

“Alas!” cried Achison, still chuckling. “The lot falls to Cæsar's wife, and not to me.”

Whether Snaith failed to hear correctly, or really misunderstood the allusion, he entered an emphatic protest.

“Not at all,” he said earnestly. “No women in this, but Madame. The person I meant is you.”

“Another drink!” Achison beamed. “You warm the cockles of my heart. And have no fear; I would not resign even for the lady I mentioned. Now, the plan?”

“Professor Hammersley,” said Snaith slowly, leaning closer and involuntarily dropping his voice, “is giving another séance tomorrow night to which he has invited a number of his scientific friends. Madame is prepared to show the full extent of her great psychic powers, and in order to create a sympathetic atmosphere, she has asked permission to include one or two believers. Sometime during the séance, when the room is dark, a small package will be handed to the intermediary.”

“Excellent!” Achison nodded approval. Then he leaned his arms on the table, and regarded Snaith unwaveringly.

“You spoke of my fee a few moments ago. I prefer to waive the question of money in dealing with friends. My fee for this service will be Madame Adelbron's old miniature. I have been unable to secure it from Miss Trevelle.”

“Madame will get it from the girl.” Snaith drained his glass with great good humor. “You collectors!” He shook his head as if their ways were past understanding.

“I haven't finished,” Achison announced. “My fee; I say, will be the miniature and—a third of the unset Kreminoff jewels which the package contains.”

Snaith's face was purple, his eyes bulging. He rapped his hand smartly on the table.

“God! What a holdup! You can't do it, Achison!”

“I can and I will. One third of the jewels—an equal division between the three of us—and the miniature, or I lay the whole matter before the authorities.”

SNAITH glared murderously across the narrow space between them, but in the unruffled gaze which met his own he saw no shadow of fear or weakening. After a few seconds his eyes dropped.

“You win,” he said sullenly. “There's no other way out. But—” He broke off as if he were choking.

“I wont see you at the séance of course?” Achison inquired placidly.

“No; we'll have to arrange a meeting later. Maybe, though, it would look better if you took some one to Professor Hammersley's with you, some one that couldn't even be questioned.” Snaith was still resentful, furious, but he had his wits about him.

“A good suggestion.” A quizzical twinkle slid into Achison's eye. “I'll take Danby.”

“That revenue agent!” Snaith's face was black with suspicion; he looked ready to spring.

“It's an inspiration,” chuckled Achison. “Nothing could be more disarming. Who would expect the loot to be carried off right under the watchdog's nose? Besides, it may relieve you from the too-solicitous attentions you complain of. I'll tell Danby you have consulted me about being shadowed, and that after sounding you thoroughly, I am persuaded neither you nor Madame Adelbron are engaged in any nefarious undertakings at the present time? The reason you hang around her, I'll explain, is that you really have become a convert to spiritism.”

As he listened, Snaith assumed a somewhat mollified attitude; there was even a hint of admiration in his glance.

“I dare say, you are right,” he admitted, “now that you explain it. But, my word, man,” he reverted sulkily, “those terms of yours are steep!”

Achison merely shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate that that was a settled matter, and turned to a discussion of minor details, such as the appointment of a safe meeting-place after the séance for a division of the spoils; a method of communicating with Snaith during the interim if necessity should arise, and provision for various other contingencies.

When these were all arranged, Achison once more pushed forward the bottle of Scotch.

“Take a stirrup-cup before you go,” he urged, “to the success of the enterprise.”

“Might as well,” growled Snaith. “It's costing me just about a thousand dollars a drop.” He filled his glass and held it up to the light, gazing ruefully at its amber contents. “You collectors!” he sighed, and his tone was one of deep respect.

THE next afternoon, Marie Trevelle, who was out attending to some shopping for Madame, was strolling slowly up Fifth Avenue in the direction of her hotel, when glancing up from her mournful meditations, she saw a dark, good-looking young man walking toward her. Involuntarily she stopped, and then ran to him, her pale little face irradiated with joy.

“Monsieur Ramsey! she gasped. “Oh, Monsieur Ramsey!”

“Marie Trevelle!” he exclaimed, taking both her hands. “Why, what are you doing in this part of the world?”

“Oh, Monsieur Ramsey!” She was looking at him as Andromeda, chained to the rock, must have looked at the shining Perseus. “The good God has sent you. To think, when I was so lonely and at my wits' end, I should have met you!” She smiled up at him, her lips trembling, her eyes full of tears.

“Come, Marie,” he said kindly; “you are all upset! We will go into the hotel over there, and have a cup of tea.”

She was like a child, as they turned into the hotel restaurant and he found a remote little table. A burden seemed to have dropped from her shoulders.

“Now,” he said, when he had ordered, “tell me all about it.”

“You remember my father,” she began, “when you were billeted in our house at Tours, how broken down he was, his business gone? He died.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I went to Paris with my mother, thinking I could get work. There was no finer goldsmith in the world than my father, and he had trained me well; but I could find nothing to do, and my mother was taken ill. Ah, it was despair then, monsieur, when one day a jeweler to whom I had applied—a mean little man in a mean little place—gave me the address of a lady who wished some stones reset.

“I went to her. It was Madame Adelbron, the famous medium. I put some bits of glass back in their washed gold settings,”—she made a gesture of supreme contempt,—“and the lady examined them with great care and asked me many questions about myself. Then she praised me for my work, and said that she wished to engage me as a companion on her professional tour to the United States. She dreaded being alone, she said, in a strange country, and she offered me a fine salary. It was a great temptation; it meant that my mother could have the best of care and medical attention for several months, anyway, and at the end of that time things might be better and I could find work.

“Monsieur, I accepted, as you see; and now,”—her face paled; her eyes dilated with horror—“I do not know if I can ever go back again.”

“Of course, you shall go back.” Ramsey leaned over and patted her hand reassuringly. “I'll see to that. Don't hold anything back, Marie. Tell me everything.”

She shivered, and looked nervously about her.

“I trust you, monsieur. Three days before we landed, Madame came to me and said: 'Marie, I have some work for you to do, and it must be done at night only.' Of course I was surprised, but she explained that she had many handsome jewels on which she did not want to pay the duty, and that I must reset these in her washed gold ornaments in place of those colored bits of glass. Then she showed the jewels to me. Oh!” Her face glowed. “I know stones, monsieur, but I had never seen any so gorgeous, so beautiful as those. Well, I did as I was bid; and although I should not say it, it was well done; and then I covered them with a preparation which made them look dull and lusterless. They were not detected by the customs officers, and here in America I began to get my spirits back, when this morning—this morning—” The girl's voice broke, she trembled violently.

“Don't be frightened. It's all right; go on,” urged Ramsey soothingly.

“On the boat,”—Marie's voice still quavered—“Madame had given me a miniature she sometimes wore, and which she had picked up in a pawnshop for nothing at all. She said she was tired of it; so I asked for it, and I got her to give me a slip in writing saying that it was mine. She had been drinking champagne for dinner and was in a good humor. But the next day she was angry about it because Monsieur Achison wanted to buy it, and she said that she could get real money for it.”

“What is that?” cried Ramsey sharply. “Achison, did you say? What was he like?”

“A tall man, monsieur, with gray hair back off his brow, and a grand manner. I understand that he is a great lawyer here in New York. But, oh,”—with a wail,—“I saw him when he examined the miniature and he knew, he knew..... Why, though, do you look so strangely?”

RAMSEY ignored the question. “He knew? Knew what?”

“About the miniature. Oh, monsieur, I am trusting you as I would the priest. And now I must give it back, and it meant so much to me—my mother's old age, my own future.”

“Marie! How could a mere old miniature mean all that to you? What is behind this?”

“That,” she sighed, “is the greatest secret of all. But I will tell you. One day when I was putting Madame's things away, I looked at that miniature closely. I had suspected that it was of more value than she thought, but I had never had the chance really to examine it. But,” she broke off, “to tell you what I discovered and what that discovery meant to me, I must go back a little.”

“Yes; tell me the whole story,” he urged.

“Before the war, then, my father had assisted a wealthy South American, Señor Sevrilla, in adding to his already large collections, and seeing my enthusiasm he had allowed me to work with him. Señor Sevrilla was and is still, for I heard from him not long ago, especially interested in enamel miniature portraits of the seventeenth century, particularly those painted by the great master of that art Jean Petitot. He has secured a large number of genuine Petitots, but there are a few which cannot be bought, and also others which the artist is known to have painted, but which have simply disappeared. Among these latter is a miniature of Elizabeth Hamilton, a famous beauty of the court of Charles II of England, who later married the Duc de Grammont, a French noble of the most adventurous and picturesque career.”

“Surely,” Ramsey interjected; “De Grammont of the classic memoirs!”

“Perhaps?” She arched her brows. “I know more of art than literature. However, on the day that I had a chance to study this miniature of Madame's, I discovered that I was not mistaken in my conjecture. The Petitot signature was there, but hidden under the frame, which had been clumsily repaired.

“But, oh, monsieur!” Her eyes widened and darkened with excitement. “That was not all. The miniature was painted on gold, but it seemed to me its gold back was not merely the reverse of the portrait. I pried aside the frame a little and ran my fingernail under it; and so I found a tiny spring. Pressing this, the case opened, and inside was engraved in old script the letters, 'E. H. to P. de G.' Of course that could only mean, Elizabeth Hamilton to Philibert de Grammont.”

“Seems conclusive,” Ramsey agreed. “But even so,”—with a puzzled expression—“I don't quite see why you wouldn't sell to Achison when you had the chance. He offered to take the thing at your own valuation, you say.”

“Ah! But that was when he thought I knew nothing of its value,” she returned shrewdly. “And even suppose he would have paid as much as Señor Sevrilla, monsieur, there is still the matter of sentiment. My father and I had supplied the Señor with other Petitot portraits, and I wished to have the pleasure of adding this great prize to them. Besides,” she added naïvely, “Sevrilla would be so pleased with me for finding it, that he would almost certainly commission me to buy for him.

“And the miniature was mine, mine!” she cried despairingly.

“It is still yours, with that paper you hold.”

“No,” she returned hopelessly. “It is this way. I have had to take all of those beautiful jewels out of their cheap settings again. Tonight, while the room is dark at Professor Hammersley's séance, I am to give them to Monsieur Achison. For some service he is doing Madame, he has demanded the Petitot miniature. Madame told me this morning that I would have to give it back, and when I refused, she became terribly angry. She struck me, and worse still,”—her voice broke in sobs,—“she got the paper from me and tore it up. Then she threatened that if I ever told anyone about the jewels I had reset, she would have me arrested as a thief. So there was nothing else to do; I gave her back the miniature.

“Monsieur,”—she stretched out her hands to him imploringly,—“I have lost my fortune. I am here in a strange country among thieves; for,”—her voice dropped to a frightened whisper,—“it is the Kreminoff jewels they have. I overheard a conversation between Madame and Monsieur Snaith, and I know, it is so. Now I am even afraid of my life.”

THERE was a white excitement on Wallace Ramsey's face as he stared back at her. He looked cautiously about him, Their table was against a wall, and there was no one near them.

“Marie! Marie!” he said in a low, exultant voice. “You don't realize what you have done. You have given me the opportunity that I have been waiting for, that I've been living for. There's an old score to settle between this man Achison and myself. He's the greatest crook in the world, but I've never been able to prove it; he's always been too clever for me. But tonight!” He stopped in his pæan of triumph. “Wait a minute; let me think.”

He sat, hand cupping his chin, gazing before him, while she watched him, a new hope struggling with anxiety in her eyes.

“I've got it,” he said at last. “Listen, now, and follow my directions exactly. Go home and do not mention that you have seen me. Be very submissive and humble. Tonight at the séance give the jewels to Achison, just as has been arranged. Then leave the rest to me.”

“But monsieur,” she protested in quick terror, “if their plans are thwarted, they will know that I have done it. They will kill me.”

“Don't be afraid,” he encouraged her “I myself will look out for you and guard you. But if by any chance you should miss seeing me, go at once to this house.” He penciled an address upon a card and handed it to her. “You will find there a lady who is expecting you, and all arrangements made for your comfort and safety. Now, remember,” he enjoined as they rose, “do nothing to arouse their suspicions. Carry on, just as I have told you.”

“Yes, monsieur. But how can I thank you? I—” Again her tears started.

“Never mind that now,” he said sharply. “You can cry, and thank me afterward, although it is really I who should thank you. Oh, Marie, if I was ever able to do any small services for your family when I was at your house in the old war days, you have paid them back ten times over.”

THE group assembled in Professor Hammersley's home that evening was small but carefully selected. It was composed of men of more or less scientific attainment, whose attitude toward the whole affair was speculative, open-minded and yet, either passively or actively critical The only “outsiders,” as they might be called, were Achison and Danby, who came in rather late and together.

The room into which they were all ushered was large and denuded of most of its furnishings and ornaments. It had been subjected, Professor Hammersley explained, to the most rigorous test conditions. The only feature which offered the slightest chance for trickery or concealment was the curtaining off of one corner with dark, heavy velvet draperies, and before the séance commenced this was thoroughly inspected and examined.

Madame Adelbron, whom the Professor introduced, was completely at her ease. She was used to such gatherings, and for the first half-hour or so she kept the little company baffled and amazed by the display of her unusual powers.

She submitted without question to every test. Clean slates were tied together with cords and placed at a distance from her. When opened, these were covered with written messages to persons in the room in the handwriting of departed friends. She wrote automatically with both hands at the same same, carrying on a conversation with one or two persons the while. She permitted herself to be bound hand and foot and tied to her chair, and then at her word of command, a table rose apparently of its own volition and remained suspended a few moments in the air. A vase of flowers on the mantelpiece was removed by some force other than recognized human agency and carefully deposited on a cabinet at the other side of the room. All this was accomplished in a flood of electric light.

Then the room was darkened, and Madame, bound as before, passed into a trance. For a few seconds all was silence, but presently there became audible the strains of faint music, succeeded by a distant chiming as of fairy bells.

Again in the darkness Madame began to speak. The voice which issued from her lips was supposed to be that of her favorite “control,” and was a shrill, childish treble. Then out from the curtained alcove there floated frail, ethereal forms. The cheeks of those watching were touched lightly by soft, cold hands.

SUDDENLY, however, the atmosphere of twilight and mystery was invaded by sounds of too material and violent a nature to be attributed to the denizens of another plane.

There was the noise of a brief altercation in the hall without; then a door was hastily burst open, and the lights were flashed on full, revealing two men standing side by side. One was a police inspector in plain clothes; the other was Wallace Ramsey.

While the group within the circle gasped and stared in surprise at this unexpected intrusion, Professor Hammersley came forward and indignantly demanded the reason for it.

The inspector cut him short. “Sorry to break up your party, Professor,” he said, “but we have reason to suspect that something is being pulled off here that you don't know about.”

He turned to the startled and somewhat alarmed members of the circle.

“Gentlemen, we understand that a valuable package has been passed under cover of the darkness to some person in this room tonight. No one”—he turned back his coat and showed his badge—“will be permitted to leave, and I will ask all of you to stand up. Whoever has that package will hand it over at once. Otherwise it will be necessary to search every one of you.”

They rose at his demand, and involuntarily each man looked down at the chair in which he had been sitting and on the floor at his feet. Then with a common impulse each thrust his hands into his pockets.

With a startled exclamation Danby drew forth a carefully wrapped parcel, and stood staring at it, his mouth dropping open.

“I've got it, Inspector!” His dry voice was cracked with excitement. “There was nothing in this pocket when I came here. I don't understand. I'm pretty quick, but I haven't an idea when it was put there.”

A focus for the astonished glances of the others, he came forward and laid the package on the table.

The inspector ripped it open, and a glory of jewels poured out, rubies, diamonds, emeralds; and among them, incongruously out of place, was the miniature in its dingy frame.

“The Kreminoff jewels!” Danby shouted. “I've got a description of each one of them in my pocket. Wait a minute.” With trembling fingers he drew a slip of paper from his bill-fold, and he and the inspector began to check off from it the stones in the collection.

“Beat me to it, didn't you?” muttered the inspector ruefully as they bent over their task. “You old fox, pretending you didn't know how it got into your pocket. You've made a deal with the gang, and you know it. Suppose there's no use trying to round up any of them now. You've let 'em make a clean get-away, of course?”

Danby gave no hint of his abysmal ignorance as to whom the “gang” might comprise. He assumed immediately the omniscience he was credited with possessing.

“I guess I can lay my hands on them, if either Kreminoff or the Government wants to prosecute,” he said with all of his old confidence-inspiring assurance “But it's my own idea that nobody wants to stir up much of a muss. You understand, of course?”

The inspector didn't, but he likewise veiled his true state of mind, and nodded with an air of profound comprehension. He was the more content to do so because Danby craftily added:

“We'll split the reward fifty-fifty.”

Meanwhile, as they talked, they had completed going over the list.

“How about this picture?” asked the inspector, holding up the miniature. “It don't seem to be down on the list.”

“Why, that,” drawled Danby, “if I am not mistaken, belongs to Madame Adelbron.”

“No—no!” protested the seeress, apparently on the verge of asthmatic hysterics. “I gave it to my companion Marie Trevelle over a fortnight ago. She told me that it had been stolen from our rooms in the hotel the first day we were in New York. It is of no value, and so I did not report it to the police.”

“Hold it, Inspector, until Miss Trevelle calls for it,” spoke up Ramsey authoritatively. “By the way, where is she?” He looked about him with a touch of anxiety.

But at his question she came forward tremblingly, and pressed close to his side.

“How did you come to make such a mistake?” he whispered, frowning. “I thought you told me it was into Achison's pocket you were to slip the package.”

“It was, monsieur; but at the last moment my heart failed me. He is so clever that I was afraid I would never see my miniature again. So I gave it to the other man.”

DANBY and the inspector were carefully closing up the box of jewels and making such explanations as they thought wise to the excited guests. Professor Hammersley was escorting the agitated seeress from the room. Ramsey, on an impulse, left his companion and stepped across to where Achison stood leaning against the mantelpiece.

“Well, once more you play in luck,” he said with bitter significance.

“In luck?” Achison lifted his eyebrows. “I'm afraid I don't know just what you mean. It strikes me that you are the one in luck, if it be lucky to perform a very meritorious and praiseworthy action.

“I,” he went on courteously, “have been trying to assist my friend Danby in the recovery of these jewels in what small way I could, but my poor services appear trifling beside your dashing coup. I confess with some humiliation that I have hitherto underrated your abilities; but trust me, I shall not make that mistake again. Indeed, I shall devote my time and my energies from now on to seeing that you get your prompt and appropriate reward.”

Ramsey's glance swept him carelessly, ironically. He was young enough to be reckless, and his triumph was great.

“I'm sure of it, Mr. Achison,” he replied; “and you may be equally sure I'll be waiting for it, hoping and expecting to return your attentions in kind. I know, too, how glad you are that Mademoiselle Trevelle will have her miniature again. It will make her very happy. I must look after her now, though. Good-by, Mr. Achison.”

“Oh, no,” murmured Achison with his courtly bow, “let us say rather, “Au revoir.”

The next story in this series recording the conflict of wits between the suave Achison and the clever Ramsey will appear in an early number.