THE RIDDLE AND THE RING (continued 3)

He flung himself at the door, one hand instinctively touched the spring lock, while the other yanked it open. He had the wit to remember a second antiquated catch, seldom used, and ponderous to undo, and promptly snapped it down before slamming the door behind him.

Without an instant's hesitation, he ran straight toward Tenth Avenue. Fortunately the street was dark and deserted, and he reached the corner without encountering any one.

As he whirled around into the avenue, he looked swiftly backward, and saw the door of Mrs. Kerr's house burst open, throwing a shaft of light out across the icy sidewalk. Into that path of light two figures hurried—one tall, thin, and wearing a slouch hat; the other chunky and shapeless.

"My dear landlady and Jim, whoever he may be," Lawrence murmured, as he started briskly south on the avenue. "I wish 'em the joy of their hunt for me. What an old harridan that woman is! She positively made my flesh creep when she was coming at me in the hall. Wonder what she was after?"

He did not waste much thought on the matter, however. Very likely the woman was drunk, and it was rather startling for her to encounter a man who did not belong in the house. At all events, it was immaterial. He had managed to get out of the scrape successfully, so he devoted himself to brushing off his coat and hat, and putting on his gloves, while hastening toward the car line on Twenty-third Street.

He was more than thankful for the whim which had caused him to wear a soft hat of black velour. It had stayed with him through all the excitement of the evening, and now needed only a deft touch or two to make it quite presentable.

As the car bowled eastward at a good clip, Barry chuckled one or twice at the thought of Joyce's discomfiture when driven back to the roof by those piercing shrieks from Mrs. Kerr.

"He'll be mad as a wet hen," he thought amusedly. "Serves him right, though, for trying such a game."

Altogether, Barry was very much pleased with the way things had turned out. While he had come no nearer to solving the mystery which seemed to surround him, he had at least learned the lesson of caution, and it would be an extremely difficult matter to catch him unawares as he had been caught to-night.

He was very much annoyed, of course, at having been forced to break his engagement with Jock and the others, but that had not been his fault, and his explanation must appease them. It was only half past ten now, and perhaps he could get hold of the Yale man that night. Hamersley would certainly be entertained by a recital of the evening's experiences.

Entering the lobby of the St. Albans a little later, he was hurrying toward the telephones with that idea in mind, when one of the clerks stopped him.

"Just a moment, Mr. Lawrence," he called. "Here's a letter for you, which should have been delivered yesterday. It was sent to the St. Athol by mistake, and reached us after you went out this evening."

Barry took the letter, and stared at the unfamiliar writing in a puzzled way. Then he tore open the envelope, and hastily took out the several sheets of closely written note paper it contained. The next instant, as he caught sight of the inclosure, his heart began to beat loudly and irregularly, flooding his face with flaming crimson.

It was a crisp, new ten-dollar bill, and, though he turned the pages with slightly trembling fingers to find the signature, it really was not necessary. Deep down in his heart he knew that it was from Shirley Rives.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE LETTER.

For a moment or two Lawrence stood there staring at the name. Then, pulling himself together, he turned on his heel, and made for the elevator. Whatever the letter contained, it was impossible to read it down there.

Once in his sitting room, he switched on the lights, and, flinging himself into a chair without even taking time to remove his coat, plunged into a perusal of the letter:

MY DEAR MR. LAWRENCE: As I sit here in a perfectly charming boudoir, done in blue, with lovely old mahogany furniture, the things you said last night about the strangeness of chance come irresistibly back to me. I could not help but feel then that fate or destiny, or what you will, must have had something to do with bringing us together, and perhaps that was why I let myself drift with the current in a manner which was, to say the least, decidedly unconventional. Really, you know, I'm not in the habit of taking supper and favors from men I've never seen before!

The story you told of what had happened to you was unreal enough in all conscience, but never for an instant did I imagine when I left you that something infinitely more extraordinary, something a thousand times more impossible, was coming to me.

Lawrence started and frowned with perplexity; but he reflected that scarcely anything could be unbelievable after what had already transpired. He went on reading eagerly:

It is much too long to put into writing. Besides, I have a notion that I'd like to tell it to you, so I'll only give you enough to whet your appetite and stir your curiosity.

I went into that house on Forty-eighth Street despairing, hopeless—perhaps not quite so hopeless as I had been two hours before; but, still, I had little enough to hope for. I tried my best to keep you from seeing how utterly miserable I was and how completely at my wits' end, but I think you guessed something of it in spite of my efforts.

I was there for less than ten minutes, then I came away in a private brougham with a woman I had never seen before. There were two men on the box. Inside there were furs—soft, luxurious furs—into which one could snuggle down and be warm at last. There was some sort of electric heating apparatus, and I could smell the perfume of roses clustered in a hanging vase. Do you wonder that I thought of Cinderella and the pumpkin coach, and was afraid it would all vanish into nothing?

We drove to a splendid house on the avenue, and there I was made to go to bed at once in a wonderful, carved, four-poster, with silk hangings. This morning it was still there; it had not vanished in the night. I had not dreamed it, or, if I had, I am dreaming still.

Lawrence laughed aloud; but he wondered if he himself were not dreaming. But he finished the letter with no lessening of interest:

At first I went about in a sort of daze, but, little by little, I'm becoming convinced that it is real. We have been shopping all morning, and somehow the quantities of lovely clothes which are constantly arriving are not like dream clothes. There is a dance, to-night, too. Fancy going to a dance again! That's almost the most impossible thing of all. It isn't really so long since the last one, but I feel as if I had lived a thousand years since then.

Isn't it stranger than any fairy tale? Do you wonder that I feel as if this wasn't Shirley Rives at all, but some one else? And, stranger than anything else is the fact that I owe it all to you and your helping me through the "Gates of Chance" last night. If I had come straight to Sally's, as I meant to, nothing would have happened. If we had not met in the square, if we had not lingered at the restaurant, even, nothing would have happened. If one single thing had occurred to vary the time of my reaching the house by five short minutes, there would be nothing to tell you now.

I know I'm perfectly hateful not to give away the secret—you see, I'm taking it for granted that you are a little curious about it—but I have a selfish desire to tell it to you; to try and show you something of how strange and wonderful and utterly staggering it has all been to me. I'm sure you'll let me, won't you—soon? Sincerely yours, SHIRLEY RIVES.

Below the girl's signature was written the address of a house in the most exclusive section of Fifth Avenue, a section where dwelt only people of great wealth, and usually of equally great social position.

Lawrence stared at it, his face dazed and bewildered. Then he turned back to the first sheet, and read the letter slowly through to the very end again. It was utterly baffling and incomprehensible, yet through it all there ran a strain of perfect truth and high-minded sweetness which was unmistakable. The realization of this, coupled with a remembrance of what he had once tried to make himself believe about Shirley Rives, brought a rush of color to his cheeks, and an expression of shame into his pleasant face.

"She's true-blue to the very core," he murmured at length. "I can't imagine what sort of luck it is that's come to her; the whole business sounds like a tale from the 'Arabian Nights.' But I know one thing—I was the biggest fool in all creation ever to have doubted her for a second."

He glanced again at the end of the letter, and a swift smile curved his sensitive lips.

"Will I come and let her tell me all about it?" he said aloud. "Will I? And soon? Well, I guess yes!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE HOUSE ON THE AVENUE.

Though he tried his house and one or two other places where Jock Hamersley was likely to be at this hour, Lawrence was unable to get his friend on the phone. Somehow, he was not altogether sorry. He certainly owed an apology and some sort of reparation to the men he had been forced to leave in the lurch in this abrupt, seemingly ill-mannered fashion, but he was just as well pleased to have it all put off until to-morrow. With a mind full of Shirley Rives and her extraordinary letter, he did not particularly fancy the idea of doing anything but just sit there in his room and think it all over.

Having taken off his things, and made himself comfortable, he read her letter over for the third time, gaining nothing from this perusal save an intense desire to see the girl as soon as he could, and hear from her own lips the details of the amazing good fortune which had come so opportunely.

Of course, it could not be stranger than his own experiences during the past three days; but the manner in which it had followed so close upon the heels of that, brought again to Barry that odd feeling of being in the grip of circumstance, the conviction that fate was molding her life as well as his, without consulting either of them even in the smallest detail.

"I suppose it wouldn't be at all the thing to call there in the morning," he thought impatiently, as he was getting into bed, long after midnight. "Hang it all! I don't see how I'm going to restrain myself until the conventional hour."

While he was breakfasting the next morning, however, he resolved to set convention at defiance for this once, at least. Almost as fervent as his desire to hear Miss Rives' story was his eagerness to set himself right with her. He did not wish her to labor an hour longer than was absolutely necessary under the impression that his failure to call in answer to her letter was due to any possible lack of interest on his part. He must see her this morning, and so he determined to send up some flowers with his card, and the intimation that he would follow himself in an hour or so.

On his way out he stopped at the desk to obtain some more money from the wallet he had left in the safe. He had done this every morning, but now, as he opened it, the realization came to him for the first time that his supply was growing low. The thousand dollars had been placed in one compartment, leaving his expense money in another, and, as he took out about a hundred dollars, he was astonished to find how comparatively little was left. He was not conscious of having been especially extravagant, but he had obeyed the unknown donor's injunctions to the letter, and had not spared expense.

"By Jove!" he muttered, as he left the hotel and walked toward Fifth Avenue. "I'll have to go slow, or I'll be dipping into my capital. It's astonishing how money melts away on comparatively little things. I must begin to economize."

Evidently he did not mean to begin quite at once, however. He made his way directly to an expensive flower shop on the avenue, where he selected a huge box of very costly roses, wrote a line on his card, and ordered them sent at once to Miss Rives. As he left the shop he consoled himself for the flatness of his bill case by the reflection that this was a private matter, which could be paid out of his own money.

The hour and a half which followed seemed to pass on leaden wings. Barry had never known a period of time to drag so boringly. He could not enjoy his morning walk, and, though he had several errands to do, which ordinarily would have consumed the better part of an hour, it seemed as if the salesmen were conspiring to attend to his wants with positively supernatural briskness.

"If I were in a hurry," he thought crossly, "I'd cool my heels in each store for fifteen or twenty minutes. That's always the way when you want to kill time."

At length, when the hands of his watch had crept around to eleven, Barry squared his shoulders with a determined gesture, and, making his way swiftly through from Broadway to the Waldorf cab stand, procured a taxi which deposited him less than ten minutes later before a very imposing residence up in the seventies, facing the park.

And, now that he was actually here, and the taxi dismissed, a sudden, curious timidity began to besiege Lawrence. The marble front, with its heavy, ornamental carvings, was almost oppressive in its atmosphere of wealth and exclusiveness. The wonderfully wrought bronze grille which guarded the imposing approach, even though one of the doors was flung back, revealing the elaborate mosaic of the square entrance, seemed fashioned for the sole purpose of excluding the presumptuous stranger who sought admission.

The amazing contrast between this palatial residence and the desperate, homeless girl he had encountered in Madison Square little more than forty-eight hours before, struck Barry anew with startling force, and made him hesitate at the foot of the broad, shallow sweep of marble steps.

A dozen doubts and questions flashed through his mind in that brief pause. Then, with a swift, characteristic flinging back of his head, he thrust them from him in a flash.

"What a fool I am!" he muttered angrily. "I swore I'd never doubt her again, and I won't."

A second later he reached the entrance, and firmly pressed the electric button.

CHAPTER XXIX.

LAWRENCE PLEADS.

Almost on the instant of Lawrence's ringing the bell, the door was swung open by a footman in rich, quiet livery, who stood aside while Barry entered, and, having closed the door, led the way down the paneled hall.

"Is Miss Rives at home?" Lawrence asked briefly.

"This way, if you please," said the footman noncommittally, indicating a tiny elevator hidden behind hangings of rich damask.

The car ascended noiselessly, and Lawrence stepped out into a wide hall, the walls of which were lined with tapestries, while underfoot were heavy Persian rugs, laid upon some sort of matting which made them thick and soft as velvet. The footman took Barry's card, and, crossing noiselessly to a doorway, drew aside the hangings.

"Will you wait in the drawing-room, sir?" he murmured.

The room which Barry entered was long and lofty, and almost oppressive in its wealth of furnishings. The richly carved mantel of mellow Caen marble looked as if it might have been transported entire from some French chateau. The walls were hung with tapestries, while here and there a wonderful painting gave relief with its gorgeous coloring and the richness of its carved frame. The chairs, tables, cabinets, and other pieces of furniture which filled the great room were antiques of rare beauty and value; while scattered everywhere were carved ivories, miniatures, exquisite old silver, and wonderful porcelain in such bewildering array that Barry decided it would take weeks properly to examine and appreciate each separate piece.

The room was filled with flowers in great bowls and vases, and the air was heavy with their fragrance. Lawrence was wondering whether his roses were among the masses of lilies and violets, when the soft swish of trailing garments brought him hurriedly to his feet just as the velvet hangings were parted and Shirley Rives stood on the threshold.

"It was very nice of you to come, Mr. Lawrence," she said as he sprang forward to greet her; "and your roses are charming."

"It's you who are nice to receive me at such an hour," Barry returned quickly. "I know I should have restrained my impatience until this afternoon, but your letter only came last night—it was sent first to the St. Athol—and I simply couldn't wait." He hesitated, looking down into her eyes, and a slow flush crept into his face. "You see," he went on bravely, "I was at Sherry's myself on Tuesday night."

For a second she stared at him in astonishment. "At the dance?" she exclaimed. "Why, I never——"

"Of course you didn't," Lawrence returned swiftly. "I came away very soon."

"But you saw me?"

Her tone was perplexed, and a tiny, puzzled wrinkle had leaped into her smooth, low forehead. Then, as Barry nodded, a sudden gleam of comprehension flashed into her dark eyes.

"You saw me!" she exclaimed, in an odd voice. "And my letter never reached you until last night! What must you have thought? But come; let's sit down and talk comfortably."

She moved gracefully across the room to a great carved chair near one of the windows. Lawrence drew up another chair and sat down. For a second or two neither of them spoke; then the girl bent forward a little, her chin resting on one hand.

"Well," she questioned, "tell me what you thought?"

The flush had deepened in his face, and his muscular, well-shaped fingers were lacing and interlacing, an unconscious key to the perturbation of his mind. Now that he had seen her again, his folly at having doubted her seemed more utterly absurd and idiotic than ever. He hated desperately to tell her the truth, yet he knew he must. The sooner it was over the better.

"I was a fool!" he said brusquely. "I thought you had been making sport of me. I thought you had made up that whole story for a lark. I realized long before your letter came that such a thing was impossible; but at the dance I was simply stunned. I had just come from the house on Forty-eighth Street, where they told me you had never been there. Your friend, Miss Barton, said she had not seen you in months, and, after what you——"

The girl started slightly. "Of course!" she murmured. "I forgot all about Sally. But surely Mrs. Weston must have——"

"She was away. I didn't see her. The maid said you weren't there, and certainly hadn't been there overnight. Miss Barton knew nothing whatever about you. It looked as if the earth had opened and swallowed you up, so you can imagine my feelings when I caught sight of you at the dance. When I left you the night before, you hadn't a friend in the city but this stenographer, or a cent——"

"You forget the ten dollars," she murmured demurely, her long lashes sweeping her cheeks as she played with a jeweled chain hanging from her neck.

"That didn't count," he retorted.

"Not in the way you mean, perhaps," she supplemented. "And so you went from Mrs. Weston's to the dance, and saw me there?"

"N-not directly. It was too early, and I was troubled and worried to know what had become of you. I drove around a little, and walked through the square——"

Her lids suddenly lifted, and she looked oddly at him.

"Madison Square?" she questioned swiftly.

He nodded. "Yes. I—er—just wanted to walk a little where it was quiet and I could think. Then I joined my friends, and drove with them to Sherry's. I hadn't been there half an hour before I saw you."

"I suppose it did seem a trifle odd," she remarked, glancing out of the window.

"Odd doesn't quite express it. There you were in a wonderful gown with pearls and things, and talking to three or four men at once as if you'd known them all your life. Of course, I couldn't believe my senses at first; and when at last I was sure, I—well, it was all so bewildering and impossible that I couldn't seem to stay there."

"You mean you couldn't stay because you thought I'd been deceiving you?" she said quietly.

"There didn't seem to be any other explanation," he pleaded. "Next day I came to my senses, and knew that there must be some other reason. Of what it could be I hadn't the most remote conception; but I knew that you weren't the sort to make believe to that extent; and it was a big relief, I can tell you."

He hesitated a second, and bent forward slightly, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes fixed intently on her lovely face.

"Please forgive me," he begged, "and admit that there were extenuating circumstances."

CHAPTER XXX.

THE TANGLED WEB.

The girl's lids had drooped again, hiding the expression in her eyes, while the rest of her face told Barry nothing. He was just beginning to wonder whether she was very angry, when suddenly she threw back her head, and her lips parted in a peal of low laughter.

"Of course there were!" she exclaimed. "How absurd you are to take it so seriously, Mr. Lawrence! If I'd been in your place, I should have hated a girl I thought had played me such a trick. I think you're very nice, indeed, not to have thought worse things about me than you did, and I really haven't anything to forgive."

"You're sure of that?" he asked eagerly, his face glowing.

"Perfectly! And now that's over," she went on briskly, "don't you want to hear my fairy tale?"

"You bet I do!" he asserted, with more force than elegance. "I've been eaten up with curiosity ever since your letter came. It sounded as wildly impossible as an Arabian Night."

She laughed. "It was—it is yet. I'm really not quite certain that it isn't all a wonderfully vivid dream; though, as I wrote you, the clothes do seem awfully convincing. You know, a person never by any chance dreams the sort of dresses one would like to have. They're always utterly impossible."

She clasped one knee with both hands in a boyish way, and fixed her dancing eyes upon his face.

"I was a little frightened when I said good-by that night," she began. "So many horrid things had happened that I wasn't even sure of Mrs. Weston, or Sally, or anything. I rang the bell, and the door was opened so suddenly that I jumped."

"I wondered at the time how any one could get up from the basement so quickly," Lawrence commented interestedly.

"You waited?" she questioned. "That was good of you. Well, Mrs. Weston was already in the hall with a lady who seemed on the point of going out. I didn't pay much attention to her except to notice that she was beautifully gowned and had quantities of wonderful jewels. You see, I wanted to find out whether Sally was still in the house, so I turned directly to Mrs. Weston, and started to ask her. I'd spoken scarcely half a dozen words before the other woman caught me by the arm and drew me over to the light. If she hadn't stared at me so strangely, I suppose I'd have wondered what in the world she was doing in such a place; for her pearls were really extraordinary, and the house—well, you know there was nothing especially high class about it. But she just stared and stared in the oddest way imaginable; then suddenly she cried out: 'Who are you, child?'

"The queer way she snapped out the words—it reminded me of bullets shot out of a gun—almost took my breath away; but I managed to tell her my name. It was fortunate she still held my arm; otherwise I'm sure I should have collapsed in sheer astonishment.

"'I knew it!' she exclaimed, in that extraordinary choppy manner. 'I knew it the minute I set eyes on you. I'm your aunt.'"

"Your aunt!" gasped Barry.

"Yes, my aunt. Fancy! Whenever I think of it now I laugh. It was really screamingly funny, you know, to be told by a perfect stranger, who looks rather like a drum major, that she's an aunt you have never heard of. I didn't laugh then, though. I thought she was crazy, and was wondering how in the world I should get away from her, when all at once I remembered that mother did have a sister very much older than herself who had lived abroad almost all her life. She was eccentric to begin with, and married unhappily; and finally, when mother was engaged, she was terribly opposed to it; and the result was a quarrel which kept them apart all the rest of their lives. All this went through my mind like a flash; and I was so taken back that I could only stammer: 'You're—not—Aunt Beverly?'

"'Of course I am!' she snapped back. 'What other aunts have you got, I'd like to know?'

"And then she began to ask me questions as fast as she could talk. She wanted to know what I was doing in New York, why I was wearing such dreadful clothes, how I dared be out on the streets alone at such an hour, and a dozen other things. I suppose you'll think I'm hateful, Mr. Lawrence, but all at once I felt perfectly furious that she should have all those wonderful diamonds and pearls and lovely clothes, and probably quantities of money, while I hadn't even a coat to wear. And so I told her everything she wanted to know, without mincing matters in the least; and for once she had nothing to say.

"She dropped the gold bag she was carrying; and, though she was quick enough in bending over for it, she was a long time straightening up again; and, when at last she did speak, there was something in her voice which hadn't been there before.

"'Come, my dear,' she said quietly. 'It's time we were starting home.'

"The things which happened after that were much more like a dream than any real dream I ever had. She called Mrs. Weston Janet when she said good night; and, when we went out, there was a private brougham waiting in the street, exactly as if it had been conjured up by a magic wand. There was no carriage in sight when we came through the street, was there?"

Barry shook his head. "No, but one passed me near Eighth Avenue," he answered, struck by a sudden recollection.

"Really? That must have been it, then. Well, we came here, and I've been in this miraculous walking dream ever since. At breakfast next morning, Aunt Beverly announced, in that gruff way of hers, that she intended to adopt me. She said she was a sour old woman who for years had tried to be happy by spending her money on herself alone. She hadn't been happy, so now she was going to see if making other people happy would be any different. It seems that Mrs. Weston was an old friend whose husband died leaving her nothing but debts; and Aunt Beverly's visit there last night was to do something for her. That's all, I think. Of course, there are surprises every minute, for Aunt Beverly is incredibly wealthy, and seems to delight in making my eyes pop out. There doesn't seem to be anything one can wish for that she doesn't conjure up in a minute or two."

She paused, her deep, wonderful eyes fixed intently on Barry's face.

"Isn't it amazing?" she queried. "Have you ever known anything quite so strange in all your life?"

"Never!" agreed Lawrence. "It's simply corking! And I can't tell you, Miss Rives, how glad I am. Beside your experiences, my little strike of luck shrinks into nothingness."

"But yours was the first," the girl replied, with an odd earnestness. "Yours was the turn of destiny's wheel which started all the other mechanism into motion. But for you, I should be—well, I don't know where." She made an expressive gesture with her hands. "I shudder whenever I think of it."

"You mustn't think of it, then," said Barry. "The future holds too many pleasant things for you to waste time upon the past."

"Controlling one's thoughts is not so easy as you seem to imagine," Shirley retorted, glancing out of the window toward the snowy stretch of park across the avenue. "Besides, I am not at all sure that I wish to forget the past—at least, all of it."

Barry felt the blood rising into his face. What did she mean by that, or did she mean anything? His hands closed tightly over the arms of the carved chair, and, by a great effort, he restrained the impulse to speak.

"Aunt Beverly is really splendid, and I'm becoming fonder of her every day," the girl went on, turning back. "At first I was a little afraid of her, until I found out that her brusque, snappy manner was only an affectation to hide what she really thinks and feels. I want you to know her, for I'm sure you'll like each other. You'll stay to luncheon, won't you?"

"I should be delighted," Barry returned impulsively, then bit his lips as he remembered. "But, unfortunately, I've an engagement," he went on after that momentary pause. "I hope you'll let me call soon again, though, when she is at home. I haven't heard what the rest of her name is yet."

"How stupid of me! She's Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding. Her husband has been dead about ten years, I believe, and this house and——"

But Lawrence heard no more. At the mention of that name, the smile seemed to freeze upon his lips, and something like a red-hot iron seared through his brain.

Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding! The eccentric widow of the traction magnate, who was said to be one of the five wealthiest women in New York! This accounted for the imposing house crammed with priceless works of art. This accounted for that sudden taking home of her niece and loading the girl with costly clothes and more costly jewels. It was more than likely that she would carry out her plan of adopting Shirley; it was just the sort of thing she would delight in doing. But stranger than anything else was the incredible fact that the girl should be ignorant of a name which was famous in New York.

With a tremendous effort Lawrence managed to pull himself together and nod understandingly as Miss Rives finished.

"That's very interesting," he said inanely. "But—er—had you never heard anything about this aunt before you saw her?"

"Almost nothing," she confessed. "She quarreled with father, you know, and he wouldn't allow her name to be mentioned in his presence. I suppose it got to be a sort of habit about the place; and, by the time I was old enough to take notice, the others had stopped talking about her, even when they were alone."

With a brain which seemed heavy and dead, Barry tried to carry on his part of the conversation naturally and lightly; but presently the effort became more than flesh and blood could stand, and he rose to take his leave.

"You'll come soon when Aunt Beverly is here?" Shirley questioned as she held out her hand. "I want very much to have you meet her."

Barry's fingers closed around hers, and he smiled naturally, heroically.

"Of course," he returned quickly. "I should be delighted to come any time you want me. You can call me at the St. Albans, and, if I'm not there, leave your number with the clerk, and I'll get your message when I come in."

"That's splendid," she said. "I'll call very soon. Good-by, and thank you for the flowers."

With head high, Lawrence stepped through the doorway and let the velvet hangings fall into place behind him. But in the tapestry-lined hall he stumbled blindly, then, spurred by the presence of the footman, pulled himself together, and entered the elevator.

When at last he had donned his things and issued forth into the street, he turned instinctively southward without the slightest idea where he was going, and without a single backward glance at the upper window where a graceful, girlish form stood half revealed against a background of old rose damask.

His face was set and rather pale; his gray eyes showed dumbly a little of the despair which filled his soul at the presence of this tremendous, insurmountable barrier which had suddenly reared itself between him and the girl—he loved.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DESPAIR.

As Barry walked down the avenue, aimless and unseeing, he thought of many things; but the one which loomed up biggest was the colossal fortune controlled by Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding. It seemed to hang over him like some awful monster, hovering in the air ready to fall and crush him. It filled Lawrence with despair. He disliked the woman he had never seen because of her money, because she was Shirley's aunt, and, lastly and most intensely, because she had taken it upon herself to cast the mantle of her wealth and position around the girl she had neglected and ignored for so many years.

Barry realized perfectly the selfishness of this point of view; but he could not help it. If only Mrs. Wilmerding had kept out of it things would have come right somehow. At least, there would have been left him the feeling that he and Shirley Rives were on equal terms. He would still have had the delight of knowing that there were many things he could do to help the girl, instead of having her transported to a plane so infinitely above him, and so inaccessible.

Bitterly he contrasted the untold millions belonging to this new-found relative of hers with his own miserable pittance. His very name was tarnished, though through no fault of his; and it would be utterly impossible for him ever to harbor again the thoughts and hopes which had possessed him during the early part of his call.

Barry's abstraction was so great that he quite failed to notice the taxi which moved slowly out of a side street and trailed along the avenue about half a block behind. He walked straight on until, at length, happening to glance up, the looming front of the St. Regis reminded him of the terms of his bargain; and he promptly entered, though he did not feel at all like eating.

He had scarcely disappeared before the taxi drew up beside the curb, and a slim, dark fellow, immaculately dressed, stepped out. He paused by the open door, talking in an undertone with a man who remained inside; a man with broad, thick shoulders, a round, full face, and a Vandyke beard slightly tinged with gray.

For perhaps a minute they conversed in low tones. Then the door was slammed, and the taxi whirled on down the avenue, while the slim, dapper individual made his way promptly into the St. Regis, languidly surveyed the dining room from the doorway, and presently took his seat at a table just back of Lawrence.

The latter finished a very simple luncheon without so much as turning round, then made his way to the telephone operator. There was some delay in getting Hamersley's office; but, when the connection was made at last, he stepped into the booth, quite oblivious to the fact that the tall, dark fellow occupied the next one.

As Barry had half expected, Jock was out, so he left word for the Yale man to meet him at the Knickerbocker at five if he possibly could, and sauntered out of the hotel.

Listlessly he turned downtown, wondering what under the sun men of leisure did with their time. Somehow, the glamour which had enveloped him for the past few days was beginning to wear away. Once more he was desperately tired of doing nothing but lunch and dine and evade detectives. He wondered pettishly whether the man in black had been captured yet and taken back to his asylum, for it seemed impossible that any sane person could have acted in such an extraordinary manner. There were the detectives, to be sure; but perhaps they were all of a piece with the rest of the bewildering jumble. There seemed to be no reason or sense to what anybody did. They were probably all mad.

Lawrence was, in short, at odds with himself and the world. He would have given a lot to come face to face with some one he could sail into and pummel with all his might. It would be such a relief now to run into that smart Alec who had decoyed him to the house on Twenty-fourth Street last night.

Happily the mood did not long continue. An hour's brisk, almost feverish, walking brought with it a more sane outlook on life. When Barry strayed into a café on Times Square about half past three, more for lack of any other method of passing the time than from any real desire for refreshment, he had quite recovered his poise.

He was making for a little table in the corner, when suddenly a hand clutched his coat and a vaguely familiar voice sounded in his ear.

"I say, Oscar, sit down here, unless you're too bally proud to be seen with me."

It was the Englishman who had puzzled him so at the dance at Sherry's, and for an instant Barry frowned. Then, struck by a sudden impulse, he smiled and dropped down in a chair opposite the other. The fellow didn't look like a bad sort, and he was sorely enough in need of diversion.

"Why should I be ashamed to be seen with you?" he asked lightly. "Where did you ever get that idea?"

The tall man's blue eyes widened. "Where'd I get it?" he echoed, in surprise. "Why, at that blooming dance, to be sure. You wouldn't speak to me then, old chap."

Lawrence tapped the bell.

"I beg your pardon, then," he said. "I was worried, and not really myself. What'll you have?"

When the waiter had taken their orders and departed, the Englishman screwed his monocle into his eye and sat regarding his companion for a minute in silence.

"Jolly glad of that," he said solemnly, at length. "Didn't seem like you to throw an old friend down. I couldn't understand it. Sure you weren't thinking of the bally rotten way I was forced to leave Cambridge, old chap?"

"Positive," Lawrence returned promptly. "I'd forgotten all about it." He hesitated an instant, and then went on at random: "Of course, that wasn't your fault, you know."

"Should say not!" The Englishman's tone was indignant; and Barry suddenly had a suspicion that, if the fellow had not taken too much already, the limit was not far off. While his enunciation was perfect, there was an expression about his eyes which was unmistakable.

"Should say not!" the other repeated. "You know jolly well John Brandon would never disgrace the old name. A plot against me—a beastly plot; that's what it was!"

He took a long drink, and sat staring oddly at Lawrence.

"Say, Oscar," he burst out abruptly, "you must have been in the States a bally while, by Jove!"

"I have," Barry smiled. "How did you guess it?"

"You talk just like these blooming Yankees; 'pon my soul, you do! I've been listening for that bit of an accent you used to have, old chap; and I give you my word, it's gone—you've lost it. Funny thing; eh, what?"

For a second Barry sat silent, his interest thoroughly aroused. Was it possible that he was on the point of finding the key to the enigma which had so puzzled him.

"Accent!" he repeated the next moment. "Did my accent used to be so bad?"

Brandon laughed.

"Not bad," he chuckled. "Just enough to notice now and then. By Jove! Have you forgotten how we always said you'd be taken for a foreigner sooner or later? You wouldn't now, old chap. Give you my word, I'd think you were a blooming Yankee if I didn't know you so well."

CHAPTER XXXII.

AN EXTRAORDINARY INTERVIEW.

It was at least three-quarters of an hour later when Lawrence left the hotel and walked slowly toward Forty-second Street. He was puzzled, perplexed, and rather piqued; for, in spite of all his efforts, he had been unable to extract from the Englishman a single additional fact which would help him solve the problem which vexed him.

Brandon evidently took him for some one else, and the resemblance must have been astonishingly great; for it was evident that the Briton had spent a year, if not more, with Barry's double at Cambridge.

It was the famous English university, of course, and not the equally well-known Massachusetts college. Lawrence had realized that very early in the talk; but, in spite of his repeated efforts, he had been unable to elicit a single additional particular concerning his double, save the fact that Oscar Nordstrom had evidently spent some years as a student in England. While Brandon had plainly been on the most friendly terms with Nordstrom, he seemed curiously ignorant regarding the man's antecedents.

"It's a queer thing from beginning to end," he murmured as he pushed through the whirling doors of the Knickerbocker. "I wish I could find out who I'm supposed to be. I'll wager anything that this would solve the whole mystery."

For a moment he stood in the lobby glancing mechanically around. It was much too early to expect Jock, and he had just made up his mind to pass the time comfortably in the smoking room, when suddenly his eyes strayed to the face of a woman moving slowly and gracefully toward him from the elevator. She was tall and slim and very blond; and there was something about her attractive face which touched a chord in Barry's memory. Somehow the sight of her seemed to bring with it visions of a smooth, sandy beach, with the ocean stretching out beyond it, of merry sailing parties and clambakes, of drives and automobile excursions, and a host of other summer pleasures.

"Southampton, of course," he muttered. "But what the mischief is her name?"

The next instant their eyes met, and he saw that the recognition was mutual. She gave a sudden start, and stood for a second staring incredulously at him, a wave of color flaming into her face. Then, as he moved forward, she seemed to recover herself, and came slowly to meet him.

"How do you do?" she said, in a low, soft voice, which had in it an odd note which Barry could not quite fathom. "This is a very, very great surprise."

Hat in hand, Lawrence clasped the slender fingers she extended to him, and smiled. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered her.

"Isn't it?" he agreed pleasantly. "But here in New York one is constantly having surprises like this."

She raised her eyebrows a trifle. "Surely not quite—like this," she murmured.

He laughed, racking his brain desperately for the forgotten name. "No, of course I didn't mean just that," he returned. "This is an exception."

He hesitated a second, wondering if she would help him out; but she made no effort to speak. Leaning against the back of one of the crimson velvet chairs, she seemed content simply to look at him.

"Do you know," Lawrence exclaimed, forced to say something, "that when I saw you, my mind went back instantly to that wonderful, smooth beach, with the cloudless blue sky above and the waves dashing up almost to where we sat on the sand."

She smiled faintly. "I thought of that, too," she murmured; "but I saw it all in the moonlight. With that flood of silver dancing on the water, making everything almost as bright as day, except where the shadows of the trees behind were denser than ever."

Lawrence did not remember any trees near the Southampton beach; but, supposing this to be a sort of poetic license, he nodded agreement.

"It was a wonderful summer," he added. "Somehow it doesn't seem possible that three years have passed since then."

A low, silvery laugh issued from her lips, and she tapped him lightly on the arm.

"Always the same flatterer," she said softly. Suddenly her face grew pensive. "Does it really seem that long to you? I've often wondered. Men have so many things to occupy them—especially such men as you. A woman has only her remembrances to treasure zealously, and bring out now and then to gloat over. And memories are rather barren things sometimes."

For an instant Lawrence stood aghast. What did she mean? Certainly he could recall nothing of a tender nature having passed between them, and her words were decidedly significant. He pulled himself together with an effort; but, before he could speak, she broke the silence.

"Your voice puzzles me," she said abruptly. "It doesn't seem possible that you can have been long enough in America to have lost every trace of accent. Of course, it was never very noticeable; but one who knew you well could always tell."

Barry's jaw dropped, and his face took on an expression of utter astonishment. His accent—again! What in the world did it mean? Was it possible that she was taking him for——

"You were talking about that summer at Southampton, of course?" he managed to ask in an odd voice.

"Southampton?" she exclaimed, her eyes fixed intently on his face. "I don't understand. You don't mean that you've forgotten—Cannes?"

Lawrence stood as one in a trance. "Cannes!" he muttered hoarsely, wondering whether his brain was giving way. "I have never been in Cannes in all my life." Then, as the belated memory came to him at last, he gasped out: "Aren't you Miss Vera Pell?"

The woman's face turned white, and one slim, gloved hand stole upward to her lips. Her eyes, wide, almost black with the emotion which was rending her, were fixed on his face with a look of absolute bewilderment.

"Are you jesting?" she managed to gasp at last. "You know that I am Mrs. Walbridge Gordon. You could never forget—it is impossible."

As Barry did not answer, a look of utter horror flashed into her face. She swayed a little, and put out one hand to steady herself.

"Who—are—you?" she asked, in a low, trembling voice. Then swiftly she laughed an uneven, hysterical sort of laugh. "You are jesting with me. It is impossible that there should be two men so absolutely alike on earth. You must be——"

She broke off abruptly, and her eyes flashed past Barry's shoulder to the door. The next instant a spasm of fear ripped swiftly across her face, and her white teeth came together over her lips with a cruel force which brought forth a tiny fleck of blood to glisten there.

"Go!" she whispered in a harsh voice. "My husband is coming. He must not see you here."

"But—who?" Lawrence managed to mutter.

"Go, I tell you—quickly!" she repeated. She was trembling violently; and that look of fear had come back into her face to stay. "You must—for my sake."

Without a moment's hesitation Barry obeyed, slipping around a big pillar. With his back squarely toward the entrance, he passed quietly and easily through the crowd toward the telephones in the narrow passage behind the desk.

His brain was in a seething turmoil; but overtopping every other emotion was anger at the man who had arrived so inopportunely. If he could only have delayed a single, brief minute longer, the name trembling on the woman's lips would have been uttered, and Lawrence would have possessed at last the key to the mystery which was driving him almost frantic.

Who was he supposed to be? Who was the man he so resembled? Why had he been given a thousand dollars to pass himself off for this unknown for a single week?

These and a dozen other questions passed swiftly through Barry's brain as he perfunctorily fumbled the leaves of the telephone book to give some excuse for lingering there.

What did it all mean? Was he ever to know?

CHAPTER XXXIII.

GONE!

Lawrence presently closed the book and ventured back into the lobby. A swift survey of the place told him that Mrs. Walbridge Gordon was no longer there; so he made his way to the café and settled down in one corner to wait for Hamersley.

He rather wished he did not have to talk to Jock just then. It would be a difficult matter at any time to explain what had happened to him the night before without breaking the pledge of secrecy he had made to the little man in black. Besides, at the present moment his mind was so full of the extraordinary experience he had just been through, and its probable relation to the mystery which surrounded him, that there was little room for anything else.

Nevertheless, when the big bulk of the Yale man loomed up before him, and that booming voice resounded in his ears, Barry was glad, after all, that he had come. When one is perplexed and muddled and utterly at sea, there is nothing like a good friend whose discretion can be trusted and whose interest and sympathy is assured, even if he lacks the cleverness to suggest a solution of the difficulty.

The result was that Lawrence hailed Hamersley with pleasure, silenced the upbraiding tirade Jock started, and began to pour into his ears an account of the extraordinary things which had been happening for the past few days. He made no mention of Shirley Rives, and he refrained from saying anything about the man in black, the conditions the latter had imposed, or the money which had changed hands. He simply told his friend that he had undertaken certain trivial matters concerning which he was sworn to secrecy. What had occurred after that strange interview in the Pennsylvania Station, including mention of the Englishman and an account of his interview with Mrs. Walbridge Gordon, he had no hesitation in narrating; and, when the story was finished, the big fellow's eyes were starting out of his head.

"Whew!" he exclaimed, leaning back in his chair and staring at Lawrence. "If I didn't know you better, old boy, I'd say you'd been hitting the pipe. Shadowed, kidnaped, mistaken for another man, and—— Say! Did you find out what that woman's name was?"

"I did; but it wouldn't be quite right to mention it, would it? I only brought her in because it bore on the case."

"Hum! I suppose you're right. Awkward fix for a woman to be in, ain't it? I reckon she and this double of yours must have known each other pretty well."

"I judged so," Barry returned grimly. "Do you know, Jock, I made the mistake of my life in giving that detective the slip. If I'd only stayed quietly there in that empty house until his employers showed up, there isn't a doubt in my mind that by this time I'd be wise to the whole shooting match."

Hamersley nodded. "No doubt," he agreed. "Still, a fellow can't always plan so far ahead. When a thug holds you up with a gun and carries you off that way, the natural thing is to go him one better, and make a sneak. Jove! I wish I'd been along. That chase over the roofs must have been some time, all right."

"It wasn't quite so entertaining while it was happening," Barry said. "You could have taken my place, and welcome, if you'd been around."

"Why don't you turn the tables on this gang of snoopers?" inquired Hamersley suddenly.

Barry started slightly. "You mean that——"

"Turn around and follow them. Get after that duck with the beard. Strikes me he's the head one of the push. Get him in a corner and make him come over with the information. Two can play at the game, can't they?"

"By Jove!" Lawrence exclaimed jubilantly. "I believe you're right, Jock. That's a whopping good idea of yours, old fellow!"

"Didn't expect anything but good ones from me, I hope?" Hamersley returned. "That's my specialty, you know."

Filled with enthusiasm over the notion, they made haste to leave the hotel. There seemed no time like the present for starting in, so they leisurely paused on the sidewalk to give any spies who were about ample opportunity to get on the job; then, turning eastward, sauntered along the south side of Forty-second Street.

Unfortunately, the scheme did not seem to pan out as they expected. Though they kept the sharpest sort of a lookout around them, suddenly turning to glance into shop windows, whirling about as if to retrace their steps, and taking the most roundabout route possible to the Yale Club, not a suspicious pedestrian or taxi did they see.

"Too big a crowd, I reckon," Hamersley sighed as they paused before the building on Forty-fourth Street. "We'd better take dinner here and start out afterward when the streets aren't so full."

"I can't dine with you, Jock," Barry said regretfully. "I've got a date."

"Part of the game you couldn't tell me about, I'll bet," the Yale man returned shrewdly. "Well, meet me here at eight, then."

Having left his friend, Lawrence returned at once to the St. Albans. As he took his key, the clerk handed him a letter, the precise, old-fashioned handwriting of which he recognized with a quick thrill.

"Wonder what the old geezer has to say now," he said to himself as he sailed up in the elevator. "If he's thought up any more conditions, I'll balk, hanged if I won't."

There were none, however. The letter contained five one-hundred-dollar bills and a few lines of symmetrical writing on a single sheet of note paper:

You are doing admirably. Keep on as you have begun, and use the inclosed in case your expense money does not hold out.

Barry scratched his head, and sat staring at the note.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" he exclaimed. "Don't want me to do anything but spend money. It's the weirdest thing I ever ran across, sure. What in creation does it mean? What does he get out of it? If I only——"

The room telephone tinkled imperatively; and, cramming money and letter into his pocket, Lawrence sprang up and took down the receiver.

"Hello!" came in a woman's voice. "Is this Mr. Lawrence—Mr. Barry Lawrence?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"Hold the wire, please. Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding wishes to speak to you."

In the brief pause which followed, Barry stood there the picture of amazement. What in the world could Mrs. Wilmerding want with him? He did not know her—had never seen her. She was not the sort of woman to give her personal attention to such trivial matters as an invitation to call or to take dinner, anyway. Was it possible that anything had happened to——

"Mr. Lawrence!"

The name came snapping over the wires with the force of a pistol shot, and made Barry jump.

"Yes!" he gasped. "This is Mr. Lawrence."

"Get a taxi and come to my house at once. Do you understand?"

Barry flushed a little at the peremptory tone, coming as it did from a woman he fancied he disliked so greatly.

"But I am just dressing for dinner," he expostulated, trying with not much success to make his tone cool and dignified.

"Dinner!" snapped the voice. "What's that to me? Go without your dinner, as I shall. My niece is gone!"

Lawrence felt an odd pounding in his head which made him certain that he could not have caught her meaning.

"Gone?" he repeated dazedly. "Where?"

"Don't be a fool! Should I be doing this if I knew? She went out after lunch and hasn't returned. A letter was just delivered which—— But we're wasting time. Are you coming?"

"Yes. At once. I'll be there in five minutes."

There was no response save a sharp click, and Barry turned from the instrument, his face ghastly. Shirley gone—disappeared! For a second he stood there, his lips moving. Then, with an exclamation of fury, he snatched hat and coat, tore open the door, and ran down the hall toward the elevator.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PUZZLE GROWS.

It seemed an eternity to Barry Lawrence before the taxi finally swerved in toward the curb and stopped with a grinding jar before the marble-fronted house facing the park. He was on the sidewalk in an instant, and, telling the man to wait, ran up the curving steps to the ornate doorway.

Evidently the footman was on the watch, for the door swung open before Barry had even time to press the bell, and, without a word, the servant took the visitor's coat and hat and led the way at once toward the elevator.

The long drawing-room was filled with a soft radiance from shaded lamps and ornate electric globes cunningly hidden in the heavy, carved cornice; and the amazing richness of its furnishing showed now to even better advantage than it had that morning.

But Lawrence was not thinking of furnishings. As he stepped through the wide doorway his eyes sought at once the single figure the great room contained—the figure of a woman of middle age, richly dressed and wearing many jewels, who had been pacing back and forth the length of the apartment, but who stopped abruptly as the man entered, and turned swiftly toward him. She was tall, a bit angular, sharp in her movements, and the wildest stretching of the imagination could not have conceived her handsome. But there was something about the way she carried her head, and an expression in the rather rugged face, which gave one an impression of bigness, mental and moral. Such a woman might be brusque and sharp and domineering; she could never be unjust or petty.

Barry took a few quick steps forward, and paused, a little embarrassed by the way those keen, dark eyes were fixed upon his face, as if searching the very depths of his soul. A faint touch of color came into his cheeks; but his eyes never wavered, and he held his head high. Presently, as the odd silence began to seem intolerable, his lips parted, as if he meant to speak, only to close again without a sound issuing. When at last the silence was broken, it was the woman who spoke.

"So you are Barry Lawrence," she said abruptly, with an oddly puzzled undercurrent in her voice.

He bowed.

"Humph!" she commented. "Read that!"

As she thrust her hand toward him, Barry saw that a letter was crumpled between her fingers. Without a word, he took it eagerly and twitched it open. It was written in a simple, running hand without any special characteristics, and was unsigned:

DEAR MADAM: This is to let you know that your niece is all right as long as you keep quiet and don't interfere. Very likely you think that money and position can do everything, but in this case you're wrong.

Nothing is going to happen to the girl unless you go running to the police; but if you do, you won't be a bit better off, and there'll only be a big scandal raised which will do irreparable harm to her and her husband.

This is just a tip to keep quiet and let things run their natural course unless you want to do a lot of harm to all concerned.

Lawrence scarcely took in the meaning of the second paragraph. His brain was reeling. Her husband! He could not believe that he had read aright, and dazedly his eyes sought the paragraph and tried to focus themselves upon the amazing, impossible, dastardly words.

Before he could do so, however, an impatient movement came from the woman beside him, and her voice broke the stillness.

"Well?" she snapped. "Are you her husband?"

Barry flung back his head and stared at her with blazing eyes.

"No!" he replied sharply. "No, I'm not! I'd give anything under heaven if there could ever be a chance for me to be."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he realized, with a pang of dismay, that he had been stung into saying something he never meant to say. All day he had been telling himself over and over again that no word concerning his feelings for Shirley Rives should ever pass his lips, yet now he had blurted it out like a blundering fool. The color flamed into his face, and his lids drooped before the curious expression in Mrs. Wilmerding's eyes.

"Indeed!" she said tersely. "And may I ask why you think there isn't?"

Lawrence stared at her in astonishment. Then he pulled himself together and glanced again at the crumpled letter.

"If this is true——" he began.

But Mrs. Wilmerding cut him short with a most emphatic snort.

"Fiddlesticks!" she snapped. "You don't believe that, I hope? Haven't you any faith at all in Shirley? It's all a lie from beginning to end."

"But what——"

"I don't know," she broke in, frowning. "I don't understand it yet, but I know it's a lie."

Barry's spirits began to rise. There was something about her tone of positiveness which heartened him instinctively. He had not really doubted Shirley; but the statement of the unknown writer was so nonchalant and matter-of-fact that it bewildered him.

"Still," he remarked more calmly, "you asked me——"

"I had my reasons; but it wasn't because I thought it true." She stood leaning against the side of a heavy, carved table, both hands resting lightly on the dull, waxed surface, her shrewd, bright eyes holding his in thrall. "What stands between you and Shirley?" she questioned quietly.

Lawrence threw out his hands in an impatient gesture. "Everything!" he exclaimed. "Her money and my lack of it are enough, without wasting time to go into any others."

"Her money!" Mrs. Wilmerding repeated. Then, with a sudden frown, she went on swiftly: "You're right. We are wasting time. Let us get down to business at once. Shirley must be found to-night, and yet I don't feel like putting the matter into the hands of the police."

"You don't believe there can be a particle of truth in this letter?" Barry questioned.

"Of course not. I told you it was a lie. At the same time, you must see that if the matter became public it might do my niece an irreparable amount of harm. No. We must work it out ourselves. To be strictly accurate, you must find her. Being a woman, I can't very well traipse around town without causing all sorts of talk. You won't fail me, I know."

"Fail you!" Lawrence cried. "I should say not! I won't rest or sleep until Miss Rives is found. I'll rake the city with a fine-tooth comb, and if any harm has come to her——"

He broke off abruptly, his face hard, almost cruel, his eyes narrowed. The momentary silence which followed was more expressive than many words.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE ASTONISHING MRS. WILMERDING.

Mrs. Wilmerding looked at him with an odd touch of wistfulness in her gaze. Then she sighed a little. "Youth is a very wonderful thing," she murmured. "I shouldn't make such a vow as that, though. You might have to break it. Have you thought of any plan?"

"Not yet. I only know I'll find her in some way. You must tell me everything you know quickly. We haven't any time to lose. When did she go out?"

"A little after three. She said she was going to call on a girl friend she met at the dance—a Miss Jennings."

"And did she?"

"Yes. When I reached home, about half past five, and did not find her here, my secretary called up the Jennings house on Fifty-seventh Street, and found that Shirley had left there an hour before. Even then there was nothing to worry about. She might easily have gone shopping. But when another hour had passed I began to be troubled. At twenty minutes to seven this letter was delivered at the door."

"Delivered!" Barry exclaimed. "Did the man notice by whom?"

"An ordinary messenger boy in uniform."

Barry's eyes sparkled. "By Jove!" he burst out. "You're sure there isn't any mistake about that?"

"Perfectly. Naturally, I asked Pagdon about it instantly. Unfortunately, he did not notice the boy's number; but there was no mistaking the uniform."

"May I have a telephone book?" Lawrence asked abruptly. "It may take a little time, but there won't be any real difficulty in running the boy down."

Mrs. Wilmerding stepped over to the fireplace and pressed a button concealed in the carving. Almost instantly the velvet hangings were parted, and the footman stood in the doorway.

"Bring a New York telephone directory, Pagdon," Mrs. Wilmerding directed tersely; "and then tell Miss Winters I wish to see her at once. My secretary can do the telephoning as well as you," she went on, turning to Lawrence. "It will give you time for a bite of dinner, which you might not otherwise have."

Barry protested that he wanted nothing to eat; but his hostess insisted, and, to avoid actual rudeness, he was finally obliged to give in. The instant the directory was brought, he turned hastily to the list of American District Telegraph offices, and discovered that there were almost fifty in Manhattan and the Bronx alone. A number of them could be eliminated, however, and that he proceeded to do, jotting down the phone numbers of the most likely ones on a sheet of note paper. He had just finished the list, when the secretary, a trim, capable-looking girl of twenty-six or so, entered the room.

Having acknowledged the introduction, Lawrence explained what he wanted.

"We must find out which of these offices handled the letter that was delivered to Mrs. Wilmerding about half past six," he said hurriedly. "Will you please call them up, Miss Winters, beginning with the numbers I've jotted down here? If you fail to locate the right one, take the rest of the numbers from the book. The instant you succeed, tell the manager to hold the boy until I can get down, and kindly let me know at once."

The secretary nodded, and, gathering up list and book, was leaving the room when Barry had a sudden idea.

"Before you do anything else," he said quickly, "will you please call the Yale Club and get Mr. Jacob Hamersley, junior? Tell him that I'm delayed, but that it's most important he should wait at the club until I can get down there."

The girl nodded understandingly, and disappeared into the hall; while Lawrence followed his hostess through some wide doors at the farther end of the drawing-room into a library lined with books and as bewilderingly rich in its furnishings as the rest of the house.

At one end was a fireplace with a carved oak mantel and paneling black with age, which looked as if it had been transported from some old English country house—as it probably had. A fire of logs blazed and twinkled there; and drawn up before it was a small round table, set for two. Evidently Mrs. Wilmerding had not been idle while Barry was busy with the telephone book.

"I had it brought here because it is nearer the telephone," she explained as Lawrence drew out her chair. "It is only the simplest sort of a supper."

It proved to be extremely satisfactory, for all that. The butler and a footman who served the dishes seemed to realize the necessity for haste, and there was not a second's delay. Consequently, in an incredibly short space of time the meal was over, and they returned to the drawing-room a moment or two before Miss Winters reappeared.

"The office is on Broadway, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth," she said quietly. "The boy had not been sent out again, and the manager will hold him there until you get down."

Lawrence sprang to his feet. "Good!" he exclaimed. "And Hamersley?"

"He had left the club a moment or two before I called. He left word, however, that he would be back within half an hour."

Barry turned to Mrs. Wilmerding. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I thought my friend might help, but I can pick him up afterward if it's necessary."

"You might call the club again, Miss Winters," the older woman suggested, "and have them request Mr. Hamersley not to leave until he hears from Mr. Lawrence."

When the secretary had departed, she glanced swiftly back to Barry.

"You have enough money?" she asked.

"Plenty."

"Then hurry. Be sure and keep me informed of what you are doing when it's possible. I trust you to find her to-night."

She held out her hand, and Lawrence took it quickly. For an instant they stood looking into one another's eyes; then the woman threw back her head.

"You love my niece," she said rapidly. "You think there are insurmountable barriers between you. I tell you this, Barry Lawrence: The moment you bring Shirley back to me those barriers shall cease to exist. You understand? It shall be as if they had never been."

A flood of bright crimson leaped into Barry's face, and he stared at her, unable to credit his senses.

"But that will be—impossible!" he gasped. "I'm almost a—pauper! I have no position; my very name is—tarnished."

"Humph!" she exclaimed incredulously. "Tarnished through some fault of yours?"

"N-o; but everybody thinks——"

Her teeth came together with a click; her eyes were flashing. "Bah!" she retorted impatiently. "Do you suppose for a minute that I care what everybody thinks? I trust my own judgment, and it has never failed. If a man is clean and straight and decent, money isn't worth that!" She snapped her fingers. "I have more of it than I know what to do with. You understand? Well, go, then—and remember what I've said."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

TAKING UP THE TRAIL.

Dazed, bewildered, his mind in a turmoil of mingled joy and acute anxiety, Lawrence hastened down the steps of Mrs. Wilmerding's house and across the sidewalk to the waiting taxi.

"No. 854 Broadway, and go like the deuce!" he cried out as he leaped inside.

The door slammed behind him and the machine leaped forward like a thing alive. Straight down the wide avenue it flew, past marble palaces gleaming with lights, past the park entrance with its guarding statue of golden bronze, past great hotels whose tiers of twinkling windows seemed almost to touch the stars, past shadowy churches, glittering shop windows, and looming skyscrapers stealing slowly northward in that inexorable march of progress.

Sitting stiffly upright on the seat within, Lawrence saw nothing save those twin lines of opalescent globes which seemed to converge with such intolerable slowness until at last they came together miles and miles beyond. He knew that they would have to go almost to that point before nearing their destination, and he chafed impatiently at the slightest delay made necessary by traffic regulations.

Now that he had commenced the quest, he seemed to feel, even more strongly than before, the necessity for haste. While he was searching blindly for a clew, Shirley might be suffering all sorts of annoyances, humiliations, and fears. He ground his teeth and swore softly under his breath at the thought of his helplessness. He had started out with the quixotic belief that earnest effort, coupled with money, could accomplish anything; but slowly, as the car flew southward, a doubt began to creep into his mind.

What was he going to do if the messenger boy could tell him nothing? He had talked bravely enough about raking the city with a fine-tooth comb, but he knew that was an impossibility. The vastness of New York defied him, and made him feel suddenly as small and insignificant as a tiny insect. Without a clew, what possible chance had he to find a trace of the girl, whose captors would naturally be doing their best to baffle pursuit?

By the time the taxi had whirled through Thirteenth Street, and halfway up the block, Barry was well-nigh despairing. He pulled himself together with an effort, however, and hurried into the telegraph office.

There were telephone booths in the front, but he passed them with unseeing eyes and made straight for the desk beyond a railing, above which was painted, on a tin sign, the word, "Manager." A young fellow of about his own age occupied the revolving chair, and glanced up inquiringly as Barry stopped in front of him.

"My name is Lawrence," the latter explained swiftly. "I phoned down some twenty minutes ago asking you to hold the boy who delivered a letter to Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding about half past six this evening. He hasn't been sent out, I hope."

"Nope! I only came on ten minutes ago, but the boss told me to keep Jimmy till you showed up. He's over there."

Lawrence followed the direction of his thumb, and saw a very diminutive youngster, with a pert, freckled face and fiery red hair, sitting nonchalantly on the end of the bench and eying the newcomer with undisguised curiosity.

"Want me to call him over?" continued the temporary manager. "Maybe I can help you get what you want out of him."

Barry shook his head. "If you don't mind, I'll just talk to him over there." He hesitated an instant and then went on, in an attempt to assuage the other's very evident curiosity: "The letter was unsigned, and Mrs. Wilmerding is very anxious to have a description of the person who sent it."

"Well, go ahead and see what you can do," replied the man at the desk. "Jimmy's a sharp little cuss, though, and if he's been paid to hold his tongue, you'll have a job getting anything out of him."

"I can try, anyhow," smiled Lawrence. "By the way, you have a record of where the call came from, I suppose?"

"Sure!" The young man reached across the littered desk and drew a slip of paper toward him. "I thought you might want to know, so I looked it up when I first came in. It was phoned in from the Merton House at six-five. Party by the name of Brown."

"Much obliged," Barry remarked thoughtfully. "I'll see what I can get out of the boy."

As he turned toward the youngster, he saw the latter's eyes drop and his heels begin to kick automatically against the rungs of the wooden bench.

"Just a little too careless to be natural," Barry reflected. "Looks to me as if you'd been well coached, my son."

The boy did not look at him squarely as Lawrence took his seat on the bench beside him; but the man caught a flashing glint from the blue eyes which told him that his young neighbor was on the alert.

For a second Barry sat silent. Then, turning suddenly toward the youngster, he said quietly:

"I'm in trouble, Jimmy, and I want you to help me."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

TWO SHEETS OF PAPER.

There was no reply in words, but the boy moved uneasily and twisted one foot around the bench leg.

"You went to the Merton House a little after six to-night," Lawrence went on, in the same low, even voice, "and got a letter there, which you took to Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding on Fifth Avenue. Do you remember anything about the man who gave it to you?"

The boy squirmed a little, and seemed intent on poking a minute pebble into a crack in the floor.

"Nothin' special," he mumbled at last.

Barry laughed. "Oh, come now!" he returned. "You must remember what he looked like."

The youngster thrust both chapped and freckled hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, and scowled.

"Well," he muttered slowly, his eyes still on the floor, "he was sort o' short, an' fat, an'—an' had a—a squint in one eye. His hair was—light. That's all I know about him."

For a moment Barry sat regarding the small face screwed up into a fearsome scowl, noted the twitching eyebrows, and the clenched fists visible through the cloth of the blue trousers. Then he shook his head.

"I'm afraid, Jimmy," he murmured, "that your bump of observation isn't very well developed. Are you sure the man wasn't tall and slim and dark, and rather good looking?"

The red-headed youngster gasped, and, flinging back his head, met Lawrence's eyes squarely for the first time.

"How in blazes did you——" he stammered; and then broke off abruptly, a vivid flush staining his freckled face.

"I guessed," Barry returned quietly. "Look here, Jimmy," he went on, in a low, vibrant tone. "I'm going to tell you something which I haven't spoken of to a soul to-night. I'm doing this because I need your help—badly. A young girl is in trouble. She's been carried off by some men whom she's never harmed in any way, and I've got to get her back—I've simply got to! That fellow who gave you the letter at the Merton House is one of the gang. That's why I want to know what he looks like. That's why I'm sure you're going to tell me everything you can, for he's a scoundrel, Jimmy, nothing less; and no decent man would try to shield him once he knew how bad he was."

For the second time the boy looked straight into Barry's eyes. His face was still flushed, but there was upon it an expression of intense, overpowering interest.

"Is that straight, mister?" he demanded excitedly. Jimmy had always pined to be mixed up in some really big crime, but this was the nearest he had come to realizing his dream. "You ain't stringin' me?"

"I'm telling you the solemn truth," Lawrence returned seriously. "If the reporters got on to it, there'd be the biggest kind of excitement in the newspapers. She's the niece of Mrs. Wilmerding; one of the richest women in New York, you know."

The youngster's eyes were popping out by this time, but he still seemed to hesitate.

"He gimme a dollar," he explained doubtfully, "an' I promised——"

"I wouldn't worry about that," Lawrence interposed. "He had no right to make you promise to keep still about a crime."

"Then I'll tell you," the boy burst out impulsively; and, with a long breath, he plunged into a recital which Barry had no doubt was the truth this time.

He had been called to the desk at six-five, and told to report to Mr. George Brown in the lobby of the Merton House. On arriving, he had not even had to inquire at the desk for that person. A man had hurried up to him as he entered the door, and, drawing him to one side, handed him a sealed letter addressed to Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding on Fifth Avenue. It must be delivered at once, the stranger said; then, when he had paid the boy and Jimmy was turning to leave, he produced a dollar bill, and told the messenger that, if any inquiries were made, he was not to tell anything. The man was tall and slim, with dark hair and eyes, and wore a silk hat. Jimmy pronounced him altogether a decided swell.

"He told me it was a joke, an' he didn't want the parties to get wise to him," the boy concluded; "but I kinda thought it was something different from that."

"It was—very different," Barry said thoughtfully. He was searching his memory for any possible recollection of such an individual, but in vain. "You're all to the good, Jimmy, and I can't tell you how much obliged I am. I'd like to give you——"

"I don't want nothin'," the youngster broke in decidedly. "You jest give my name right to the reporters, that's all."

"I will," Lawrence returned seriously, "if they get on to the case. What is it?"

"Donovan—James F. Donovan."

Barry noted it on a bit of paper with the inward determination to reward the boy in some way; then, after another word of thanks and a quick handshake, he sprang to his feet and made his way hastily to the door.

Three minutes later he was interviewing the telephone girl at the Merton House concerning the tall, slim man with the top hat who had called a certain number earlier in the evening.

The young woman remembered the incident perfectly, and was able to add one or two particulars which had escaped the messenger boy, but which only made certain Barry's impression that he had never set eyes on the unknown.

On his way out he scrutinized the hotel stationery, but without any real hope that it would prove identical with that on which the letter, was written.

In the doorway he paused undecided. The fact that the man had sent his message from the Merton House showed absolutely nothing. He might have come from a totally different part of town in order to divert suspicion and throw possible pursuers off the track. That would be a natural move, anyway, and Lawrence hesitated a long time before an idea came to him.

Then suddenly his eyes brightened and he glanced swiftly up Fourth Avenue. He knew the neighborhood very well, and could recall no stationery shop near it. Nevertheless, he told the chauffeur to drive slowly around the square, and to stop if he rapped on the glass.

The circuit was of no avail. The taxi reached the southwest corner without the signal having been made, and Barry told the man to proceed on down University Place at the same slow speed. A block passed, then another; but before the third corner had been reached Lawrence struck the glass with such force as nearly to shatter it, and, leaping out of the still-moving machine, darted into a narrow little shop bearing a sign above the door to the effect that stationery and cigars could be had within.

As the girl came forward, he fumbled in his pocket and produced the letter.

"Have you any writing paper like this?" he asked, extending it to her, but still retaining a hold upon one corner.

She bent forward to glance at the texture, and at that instant Barry realized with a start that he had handed her the letter which had come from the little man in black, inclosing the five one-hundred-dollar bills.

"I beg pardon," he said hastily. "I've made a mistake. This is the kind I want."

He drew forth the other letter; then, with a swift catching of the breath, stood staring stupidly from one to the other. For a second he did not move. He could not believe this odd coincidence. He held the two sheets to the light. The watermarks were identical. He lowered the sheets and examined them intently. In size, color, texture, quality they could not have been more alike had they come from the same box.

What did it mean?

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

IN CAPITALS OF RED.

In a moment Barry had recovered himself. After all, the sheets being identical did not prove that they had come from the same shop. No doubt there were hundreds of stores in New York which kept that kind of paper in stock. It was an odd coincidence, that was all.

"This is the sort I want," he said quietly, meeting the girl's curious glance with indifference. "About two quires will be enough—with one package of envelopes."

His perfect ease of manner seemed to reassure her, and she glanced at the paper he held out, then shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm afraid I can't give you even a quire," she said, reaching up to a shelf behind her and taking down a box. "I noticed when I sold a sheet and envelope this afternoon that there were only a few left."

"This afternoon!" Lawrence exclaimed, with well-simulated surprise. "I wonder if it could have been my friend Davis, who wrote this letter? Was he tall and slim and dark?"

"That's him," the girl answered. "He was dressed swell, too, and wore a high hat."

"Funny, isn't it?" Barry commented. "Well, give me what you have. I suppose you'll be getting in some more of the same kind soon."

"I'm afraid not," she returned, wrapping the few sheets with accustomed deftness. "The firm that supplied us with this has gone out of business. This box is three or four years old. It got lost in the stock, and I only ran across it about a week ago, and put it on sale. You'd have a hard job locating a bit of it anywhere in town. We've got some which is just as good, though."

It was with difficulty that Lawrence made an easy, casual answer, paid for the paper, and left the shop. The girl's explanation had left no doubt in his mind that the thing which had seemed so impossible was true. The man in black and the agent of those who had kidnaped Shirley Rives had both come to this obscure little shop to purchase writing paper.

It was incredible that there could be any connection between the two, yet Barry had seen so many apparently impossible things transpire within the past week that he began to doubt everything.

Out of the whole intricate medley of events, however, one fact stood clear and distinct: The men who had sent both letters must be living somewhere within a comparatively short distance of the little shop. University Place is not a main artery, like Broadway or Sixth Avenue; people do not pass through it, as a rule, unless they have business there or live in the neighborhood. There are no car lines on it—it is a sort of back eddy, away from the rush and turmoil and passing of great throngs.

But, now that he was sure Shirley's place of captivity was not so very far away, Barry could not make up his mind what to do. He could traverse the streets one by one, to be sure, but what would that accomplish? It was scarcely likely that chance would again direct his footsteps as it had done in sending him here from Union Square.

Puzzled and undecided, he told the chauffeur to follow him, then set out slowly toward Fourteenth Street. If he only had some one with whom to talk things over it would be much easier. Two heads are always better than one; and even Jock Hamersley might be able to suggest some feasible plan.

"I suppose there's nothing to prevent my hustling up and getting the old chap," he murmured as he reached the corner of the busy cross street. "It'll only take a few minutes. Hang it all! I believe I'll do it."

He turned toward the taxi, which had come to a stop beside the curb, and had almost reached the door when a newsboy darted toward him, waving a sheet with gaudy scareheads.

"Wuxtry!" he shrilled, thrusting the paper under Barry's nose. "All about banker's suicide! All about turrible shootin'! Wuxtry! Paper, mister?"

Lawrence shook his head impatiently, and was about to step into the taxi when his eyes fell upon the flaming headlines of the paper, and for a second his heart almost ceased to beat:

Trust Company Official Shoots Himself! Julian Farr, of the Beekman Trust, Blows His Brains Out. Defaulter in Many Thousands, He Leaves Behind a Confession Exonerating Former Employee.

Without a word, Barry snatched the sheet and thrust a coin into the boy's hand.

"Never mind the change," he said hoarsely.

Eagerly, feverishly, his eyes raced over the lines of large print. It was the old, old story, sordid in detail, inevitable as to conclusion. Julian Farr, cashier of the Beekman Trust, had started in by living beyond his means, and, getting in a hole, used the funds of the bank to speculate with. Once, when exposure threatened, he had saved himself by the despicable device of throwing the blame upon another man. The second time such a thing was impossible, and so, penniless, desperate, with a bank examiner due the following day, he had solved the whole problem, after the fashion of many cowards, with a little piece of lead.

The one graceful, decent action, which stood out in vivid contrast to all the rest, was the full and complete confession he had left behind, taking the responsibility of that first defalcation and explaining in detail how entirely blameless Barry Lawrence was. And, as the latter read the last word of this printed document, his eyes sparkled and a great joy surged through him.

He was free again—free from the shackles of suspicion and accusation which had been fastened upon him so unjustly! His name was no longer tarnished. It had been cleared in a manner which could leave no doubt in the mind of a single soul concerning his absolute honesty.

Then, like a flash, he came back to the present. What did this matter—what did anything matter when Shirley Rives was still in the hands of this unknown gang? He was wasting precious time, and, thrusting the paper into his overcoat pocket, he jerked open the door of the taxi.

"The Yale Club—and hustle!" he said tersely as he stepped hastily into the car.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

HAMERSLEY TAKES A HAND.

Jock Hamersley, after leaving his friend, entered the club briskly, and, having freshened up a little, took the elevator to the dining room. It was early, but his appetite had been making itself felt for some time, so he did not wait for a congenial companion to sit at his table.

The result was that he finished the meal and descended again to the lower floor before seven. Here he strolled about a little, chatting briefly with one or two friends, but with his mind altogether on the problem which faced Barry Lawrence.

When Jock once got something well fixed in his mind it was extremely difficult to find room for anything else. The more he considered the scheme of tripping up the mysterious persons who had been following Lawrence, the more he liked it, and the more anxious he was to put it into operation. He knew that Barry would not be likely to show up much before eight, and consequently, after fretting and fuming impatiently for some ten or fifteen minutes, he decided to take a stroll to use up the intervening time, with the added hope that something more might occur to him.

Leaving word with the hall man that he would be back shortly, he slipped into his coat and sallied forth into the street. For a moment he hesitated; then, turning to the right, he walked briskly toward Fifth Avenue.

He had scarcely reached the corner, and had not even decided which way to turn, when suddenly a man, coming up behind, touched him lightly on the arm.

"Beg pardon, sir," said a voice in his ear, "but have you any idea where I can find Mr. Barry Lawrence?"

Whirling about in surprise, Hamersley saw, standing beside him, a slim, slight individual of medium height, smooth-shaven and dressed in an inconspicuous manner. He was holding an envelope in one hand; and Jock first sized him up as a clerk from some banking or brokerage house. He was about to answer freely, when he suddenly recalled the varied assortment of men who had been trailing Barry of late, and paused.

"What do you want him for?" he asked abruptly, at length.

"The chief wanted me to give him this," the stranger explained promptly, holding up the letter. "Said it was most important he should have it at once. He isn't at his hotel, and they don't know where he's gone."

"Humph!" grunted the big chap. "Who's your chief?"

"Mr. Marvin, of Kane & Marvin," was the swift response.

Hamersley knew the Wall Street firm very well, and, having no notion of Barry's affairs, it seemed quite possible that the latter might be doing business in that quarter. Nevertheless, a vague, intangible suspicion made him hesitate, and in that fortunate pause a conviction suddenly flashed into his mind which almost took his breath away.

The fellow beside him was none other than the detective who had inveigled Lawrence into the empty house on Twenty-fourth Street the very night before.

Jock remembered his friend's description perfectly, and, moreover, recalled Barry's having said that he was the identical man who had sat next to them at the Belmont café. There could be no mistake. This was, indeed, the man, and Hamersley's first feeling was one of infinite regret that the chance they had been seeking should come when Lawrence was not on hand to take advantage of it.

On the heels of that, however, came a swift determination to work the trick alone. He could do it if only he kept his head and handled the situation cleverly. He would do it, and give Barry the surprise of his life. With a tremendous effort to keep his voice casual and careless, he plunged into the game.

"I see," he said. "But what gave you the idea that I could tell you anything about him?"

"Mr. Marvin said he belonged to a college club on Forty-fourth Street," the unknown returned glibly. "When I asked for him back there, they said he wasn't a member, but that he sometimes came in with you. That's what made me hustle out after you. I want to get rid of the thing and beat it home to supper."

His easy tone was most convincing, and, had he not been perfectly sure of his identification, Jock would never have dreamed that anything was out of the way. For a second he hesitated, digging into his brain for some plausible means of finding out more. Unfortunately Jock's brain was of the slow-moving variety which so often accompanies big, brawny bodies, and nothing occurred to him.

"Sorry I can't help you," he said at last; "but I haven't an idea where he is now. He's going to meet me at the Yale Club at half past eight or so. Why don't you come around then and see him?"