"One thing," said she, smiling a smile that could have cut gla.s.s, "you are going to do. I know that you won't fail this time, because I shall personally see you through with it. You're going to stop making a fool of me."

"Tell me," pleaded Billy Magee. "Tell me who you are--what this is all about. Can't you see I'm working in the dark? You must--"

She threw open the card-room door.

"An English officer," she remarked loudly, stepping out into the other room, "taught the admiral the game. At least, so he said. It added so much romance to it in the eyes of the rocking-chair fleet. Can't you see--India--the hot sun--the Kipling local color--a silent, tanned, handsome man eternally playing solitaire on the porch of the barracks?

Has the barracks a porch?"

Roused, humiliated, baffled, Mr. Magee felt his cheeks burn.

"We shall see what we shall see," he muttered.

"Why coin the inevitable into a bromide," she asked.

Mr. Magee joined the group by the fire. Never before in his life had he been so determined on anything as he was now that the package of money should return to his keeping. But how? How trace through this maze of humans the present holder of that precious bundle of collateral? He looked at Mr. Max, sneering his lemon-colored sneer at the mayor's side; at the mayor himself, nonchalant as the admiral being photographed; at Bland, author of the Arabella fiction, sprawling at ease before the fire; at the tawdry Mrs. Norton, and at Myra Thornhill, who had by her pleading the night before made him ridiculous. Who of these had the money now? Who but Cargan and Max, their faces serene, their eyes eagerly on the preparations for lunch, their plans for leaving Baldpate Inn no doubt already made?

And then Mr. Magee saw coming down the stairs another figure--one he had forgot--Professor Thaddeus Bolton, he of the mysterious dialogue by the annex door. On the professor's forehead was a surprising red scratch, and his eyes, no longer hidden by the double convex lenses, stood revealed a washed-out gray in the light of noon.

"A most unfortunate accident," explained the old man. "Most distressing.

I have broken my gla.s.ses. I am almost blind without them."

"How'd it happen, Doc?" asked Mr. Cargan easily.

"I came into unexpected juxtaposition with an open door," returned Professor Bolton. "Stupid of me, but I'm always doing it. Really, the agility displayed by doors in getting in my path is surprising."

"You and Mr. Max can sympathize with each other," said Magee, "I thought for a moment your injuries might have been received in the same cause."

"Don't worry, Doc," Mr. Bland soothed him, "we'll all keep a weather eye out for reporters that want to connect you up with the peroxide blondes."

The professor turned his ineffectual gaze on the haberdasher, and there was a startlingly ironic smile on his face.

"I know, Mr. Bland," he said, "that my safety is your dearest wish."

The Hermit of Baldpate announced that lunch was ready, and with the others Mr. Magee took his place at the table. Food for thought was also his. The spectacles of Professor Thaddeus Bolton were broken. Somewhere in the scheme of things those smashed lenses must fit. But where?

CHAPTER XIII

THE EXQUISITE MR. HAYDEN

It was past three o'clock. The early twilight crept up the mountain, and the shadows began to lengthen in the great bare office of Baldpate Inn.

In the red flicker of firelight Mr. Magee sat and pondered; the interval since luncheon had pa.s.sed lazily; he was no nearer to guessing which of Baldpate Inn's winter guests hugged close the precious package.

Exasperated, angry, he waited for he knew not what, restless all the while to act, but having not the glimmer of an inspiration as to what his course ought to be.

He heard the rustle of skirts on the stair landing, and looked up. Down the broad stairway, so well designed to serve as a show-window for the sartorial triumphs of Baldpate's gay summer people, came the tall handsome girl who had the night before set all his plans awry. In the swift-moving atmosphere of the inn she had hitherto been to Mr. Magee but a puppet of the shadows, a figure more fict.i.tious than real. Now for the first time he looked upon her as a flesh-and-blood girl, noted the red in her olive cheeks, the fire in her dark eyes, and realized that her interest in that package of money might be something more than another queer quirk in the tangle of events.

She smiled a friendly smile at Magee, and took the chair he offered. One small slipper beat a discreet tattoo on the polished floor of Baldpate's office. Again she suggested to Billy Magee a house of wealth and warmth and luxury, a house where Arnold Bennett and the post-impressionists are often discussed, a house the head of which becomes purple and apoplectic at the mention of Colonel Roosevelt's name.

"Last night, Mr. Magee," she said, "I told you frankly why I had come to Baldpate Inn. You were good enough to say that you would help me if you could. The time has come when you can, I think."

"Yes?" answered Magee. His heart sank. What now?

"I must confess that I spied this morning," she went on. "It was rude of me, perhaps. But I think almost anything is excusable under the circ.u.mstances, don't you? I witnessed a scene in the hall above--Mr.

Magee, I know who has the two hundred thousand dollars!"

"You know?" cried Magee. His heart gave a great bound. At last! And then--he stopped. "I'm afraid I must ask you not to tell me," he added sadly.

The girl looked at him in wonder. She was of a type common in Magee's world--delicate, finely-reared, sensitive. True, in her pride and haughtiness she suggested the snow-capped heights of the eternal hills.

But at sight of those feminine heights Billy Magee had always been one to seize his alpenstock in a more determined grip, and climb. Witness his attentions to the supurb Helen Faulkner. He had a moment of faltering. Here was a girl who at least did not doubt him, who ascribed to him the virtues of a gentleman, who was glad to trust in him. Should he transfer his allegiance? No, he could hardly do that now.

"You ask me not to tell you," repeated the girl slowly.

"That demands an explanation," replied Billy Magee. "I want you to understand--to be certain that I would delight to help you if I could.

But the fact is that before you came I gave my word to secure the package you speak of for--another woman. I can not break my promise to her."

"I see," she answered. Her tone was cool.

"I'm very sorry," Magee went on. "But as a matter of fact, I seem to be of very little service to any one. Just now I would give a great deal to have the information you were about to give me. But since I could not use it helping you, you will readily see that I must not listen. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," replied the girl. "Thank you very much--for telling me. Now I must--go forward--alone." She smiled unhappily.

"I'm afraid you must," answered Billy Magee.

On the stairs appeared the slim figure of the other girl. Her great eyes were wistful, her face was pale. She came toward them through the red firelight. Mr. Magee saw what a fool he had been to waver in his allegiance even for a moment. For he loved her, wanted her, surely. The snow-capped heights are inspiring, but far more companionable is the brook that sparkles in the valley.

"It's rather dull, isn't it?" asked Miss Norton of the Thornhill girl.

By the side of the taller woman she seemed slight, almost childish.

"Have you seen the pictures of the admiral, Miss Thornhill? Looking at them is our one diversion."

"I do not care to see them, thank you," Myra Thornhill replied, moving toward the stairs. "He is a very dear friend of my father." She pa.s.sed up and out of sight.

Miss Norton turned away from the fire, and Mr. Magee rose hastily to follow. He stood close behind her, gazing down at her golden hair shimmering in the dark.

"I've just been thinking," he said lightly, "what an absolutely ridiculous figure I must be in your eyes, buzzing round and round like a bee in a bottle, and getting nowhere at all. Listen--no one has left the inn. While they stay, there's hope. Am I not to have one more chance--a chance to prove to you how much I care?"

She turned, and even in the dusk he saw that her eyes were wet.

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know," she whispered. "I'm not angry any more. I'm just--at sea. I don't know what to think--what to do. Why try any longer? I think I'll go away--and give up."

"You mustn't do that," urged Magee. They came back into the firelight.

"Miss Thornhill has just informed me that she knows who has the package!"

"Indeed," said the girl calmly, but her face had flushed.

"I didn't let her tell me, of course."