CHAPTER XIII

The Black Hundred, not as individuals but as an organization, began to worry. Powerful, and often reckless and daring because it was powerful, it began to look about for some basic cause for all these failures against Hargreave's daughter and Hargreave's ghost. They had tried to put the inquisitive reporter out of the way; they had laid every trap they could think of to catch the mysterious visitor at the Hargreave home; they had thrown out a hundred lures to bring Hargreave out of his lair, and failed; and they had lost a dozen valuable men and several thousand dollars. This must end somewhere, and quickly.

The one ray of hope for the conspirators lay in the fact that Florence had never seen her father and knew not in the least what he looked like. They determined to try again in this direction.

"Give it all up," said the countess to Braine. "I tell you, whatever is back of all this is stronger than we are. He knows the organization, and for all we know he may be a ghost."

"I never go back," smiled Braine. "There's something more than the million. There's the sport of the thing. We've been bested in a dozen bouts, and nearly always by a fluke. They have the breaks, as they say out at the Polo Grounds."

"But the time and expense when we might be getting results elsewhere!

I tell you, Leo, I'm afraid. It's like always hearing some one behind you and never finding anybody when you turn. I have told you my doubts. I have also asked you to trap that butler, but you've always laughed."

"You are seeing ghosts, Olga. A new man from holy Russia," shrugging, "is coming to-night. Evidently the head over there thinks our contributions of late have not been up to the mark, and they are going to stir us up. I am willing to wager my soul, however, that that box is simply a hoax to befuddle us. Either that or it holds the key. But the rest of them insist that the box must be recovered. When I leave this room to-night I am going over to Riverdale and stalk all by myself. I'm going to get a glimpse of that mysterious stranger. He carries a scar of mine somewhere, for I hit him that night."

The door opened and the executive chamber became silent.

"Count Paroff," boomed the voice of Vroon. "He will present his credentials."

This formality was executed as prescribed by the rules; and Count Paroff was given his chair. He spoke for a while, rather pompously.

"The head organization is not satisfied with its offspring in this Hargreave affair," he said in conclusion. "You are slow."

"Then perhaps you have come with some suggestions for the betterment of our business?" asked Braine ironically.

"Sir, this is not the hour for flippancy," said the agent coldly.

Braine made a sign with his hand, a sign not observed by every one.

Instantly Paroff bent lowly. He recognized that the speaker was the actual, not the nominal, head of the American branch.

"What are your suggestions?" inquired the nominal head from his chair, anxious to avoid a clash between the newcomer and the truculent master of them all.

"I have been informed that Hargreave's daughter has never seen her father, not even a photograph of him," said Paroff, more amiably.

"We are absolutely certain that this is the case," said the nominal head, who was known as the president. "But we tried one play in that direction, and it failed miserably."

"I have the story," replied Paroff. "It was clumsily done. The ruse was an old one."

Braine was frank enough to admit the truth of this statement, however much he disliked the admission. He nodded.

"I have authority to take a hand in this affair. We can not waste all summer. Those government plans of the fortifications of the Panama are waiting. There's your millions. But the fact remains that it is the law of the Black Hundred never to step down till absolutely defeated.

The hidden million is but half; we must find and break this renegade Hargreave."

"If he lives," said Braine.

"Who can say one way or the other?" bruskly asked Paroff. "The fact that all your plans and schemes have come to naught should prove to you that you are not fighting a ghost. There is but one way to bring out the truth."

"And that is to make a captive of his daughter," supplemented Braine.

"And we have worked toward that end ceaselessly. We are quite ready to listen to your suggestions, count."

"And so am I," thought the man with his ear to the little hole in the ceiling above. "And some day, my energetic friend, I'm going to pay you back for that bullet."

Count Paroff cleared his voice and laid his plans before his audience.

"To act frankly and in the open, to go boldly to the Hargreave home and proclaim myself Hargreave. I can disguise myself in a manner that will at least temporarily fool the butler."

"Who has been with his master for fourteen years, knows every move, habit, gesture, inflection," interposed Braine. "But proceed, count, proceed. You will remember the old adage; too many cooks."

"Ah," flashed back the count, "but a new cook?"

Olga touched Braine's arm warningly.

"You mean, then, that there has been talk in St. Petersburg of disposing of some one?"

"A good deal of talk, sir," haughtily, forgetting that he had bent humbly enough but a few moments gone.

"Very well; go on."

Thought the man at the peephole above: "There's another adage. When thieves fall out, then honest men get their dues. Yes, yes; proceed, proceed!"

Paroff went on. "I shall, then, go frankly to the Hargreave house and claim my own. Meantime I leave to you the business of luring the butler away. Half an hour is all I need to bring that child here, to break the wall that stands between us and what we seek."

"Is that so?" murmured Braine. "Olga, I want you to play a trick on this handsome delegate-at-large. I'm not very enthusiastic over his talk. I want him humiliated. All you have to do, he says, is to walk into the Hargreave house and walk out again. Well, let's you and I see that he does that and nothing else. I'll have no one meddling with my own game."

Some one sneezed, and everybody looked at his neighbor. The sneeze was repeated, but m.u.f.fled, as if some one was desperately anxious to avoid sneezing.

"It came from above!" whispered Olga. "Don't look up!"

Braine was cool. He walked idly across the room to where Vroon sat.

"Very well, Paroff; we give you free rein." To Vroon he said: "Some one is watching us from the room overhead. I thought that room belonged to us."

"It does," said Vroon stolidly.

"Then how is it that some one is watching from up there? No excitement. I'm going to bid every one good night, then I'm going to investigate. When I leave you will quietly send men to all exits to the building. I want the man who sneezed, and I want him badly."

Olga departed with Braine, only she immediately sought the taxi that brought her and was driven home. It was always understood that when any serious exploit was under way hereabouts she was to make her departure at once.

Vroon stationed his men at the several exits and Braine went up-stairs.

The man who had sneezed, however, had vanished as completely as if he had worn that invisible cloak one reads about in the Persian tales. As a matter of fact, after the second sneeze he had gone up to the roof, got out by the trap, and jumped--rather risky business, too--to the next roof and had clambered down the fire-escape of the second building. He was swearing inaudibly. After all these days of care and planning, after all his cleverness in locating the rendezvous of the Black Hundred, and now to lose his advantage because of an uncontrollable sneeze! He would never dare go back, and just when he was beginning to pick up fine bits of information! So Florence Hargreave was going to have a new father in a day or so? There were some clever rogues among this band of theirs; but their cleverness was well offset by an equal number of fools.

Yes, there were some clever rogues, and to prove this a.s.sertion Braine secured a taxicab and drove furiously away, his destination the home of his ancient enemy. He dropped the cab a block or two away and presently stowed himself away in the summer house at the left of the lawn. It would have been a capital idea--that is, if the other man had not thought of and antic.i.p.ated this very thing. So he used a public pay station telephone; and Braine waited in vain, waited till the lights in the Hargreave house went out one by one and it became wrapped in darkness within and moonshine without.

Braine was a philosopher. He returned to his waiting taxicab, drove home, paid the bill, smiling grimly, and went to bed. It was going to be a wonderful game of blind man's buff, and it was going to be sport to watch this fool Paroff blunder into a pit.

The next afternoon Florence and Norton sat in the summer house talking of the future. Lovers are p.r.o.ne to talk of that. As if anything else in the world ever equals the present! They talked of nice little apartments and vacations in the summer and how much they would save out of his salary, and a thousand and one other things which would not interest you at all if I recounted them in detail. But they did love each other, and they were going to be married; you may be certain of that. They did not care a snap of the finger what Jones thought. They were going to be married, and that was all there was to it. Of course, Florence couldn't touch a penny of her father's money. If he, Norton, couldn't take care of her without help, why, he wouldn't be worth the powder to blow him up with.