Seating himself again at his desk, he took the telephone receiver from its hook and called up Anita Lawton at her home--not upon the private wire he had had installed for her, but on the regular house wire.

"Oh, Mr. Blaine, what is it! Have you found him? Have you news for me of Ramon?" Her voice, faint and high-pitched with the hideous suspense of the days just past, came to him tremulous with eagerness and an abiding hope.

"No, Miss Lawton, I am sorry to say that I have not yet found Mr.

Hamilton, but I have definite information that he still lives, at least," he returned. "I hope that in a few days, at most, I may bring him to you."

"Thank heaven for that!" she responded fervently. "I have tried so hard to believe, to have faith that he will be restored to me, and yet the hideous doubt will return again and again. These days and nights have been one long, ceaseless torture!"

"You have taken my advice in regard to receiving your visitors?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Blaine. My three guardians have been unremitting in their attentions, particularly Mr. Rockamore, who calls daily. He has just left me."

"Miss Lawton, I have decided that the time has come for us to declare ourselves openly--not in regard to the mystery of your father's insolvency, but concerning the disappearance of Ramon Hamilton. I want you to call his mother up on the telephone as soon as I ring off, and tell her that you have resolved to retain me, on your account, to find him for you. Should she put forward any objections, over-rule her and refuse to listen. I will be with you in an hour. In the meantime, should anyone call, you may tell them that you have just retained me to investigate the disappearance of your fiance. Tell that to anyone and everyone; the more publicity we give to that fact the better. The moment has arrived for us to carry war into the enemy's camp, and I know that we shall win! Keep up your courage, Miss Lawton! We're done with maneuvering now. You've borne up bravely, but I believe your period of suspense, in regard to many things, is past. Before this day is done, they will know that we are in this to fight to the finish--and to fight to win!"

CHAPTER XV

CHECKMATE!

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

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

"You did not keep your appointment with me yesterday--why, mademoiselle?"

asked Blaine, quietly.

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

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

She shrugged her shoulders.

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

"'You must try to persuade her, Mr. Franklin; you have more influence over her than anyone else, even I. Miss Lawton must really go away for a time. It is the only thing that will save her health, her reason!

She can do nothing here to aid in the search for young Hamilton, and the suspense is killing her. Try to get her to take our advice and go away, if only for a few days.'"

"What did Dr. Franklin reply?"

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

She paused, and after a moment Blaine asked:

"And that is all?"

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

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

"M'sieu Paddington?" she repeated demurely. "I have nothing to tell you of him."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Stop! How can you know that!" she stormed at him, stepping forward slightly, a deep flush dyeing her face. "He did not tell you! You have had me watched, followed, spied upon! It is intolerable! To think that I should be treated as if I were unworthy of trust. I have been faithful, loyal to Miss Lawton, but this is too much! I have not questioned M'sieu Paddington; I know nothing of his affairs, but I like him, I--I admire him very much, and if I desire to meet him, to receive his attentions, I shall do so. I am not harming Miss Lawton, who has been my _patronne_, my one friend in this strange, big country. M'sieu Paddington does not know that I am working at Dr.

Franklin's under your instructions, and I shall never betray to him the confidence Miss Lawton has reposed in me. But I shall do no more; it is finished. That I should be suspected--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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