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Officer 666, a novel by Barton W. Currie |
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Chapter 37. Handcuffs And Love |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVII. HANDCUFFS AND LOVE Helen Burton could not have found a cozier place to faint in than that ultra-luxurious den of Travers Gladwin. Every chair and divan in the place invited one to swoon within its folds. The young man had ordered his decorator to provide him with a chamber wherein stiffness and formality would be impossible unless one stood erect. The decorator had spent money with a lavish hand upon Spanish leathers and silken stuffs from the near East and the Orient and he had laid these trappings over the softest of swan's down. Once you sank upon them you could not help a sensation of utter peace and relaxation. That final and irrevocable blasting of her ideal was a shock upon many shocks that the young girl had experienced within the course of a few hours and that she reached the den on her feet was due more to Bateato's strength and agility than to any nervous or physical force within her slender body. The little Jap had fairly flown up the stairs with her in such fashion that she had no distinct recollection of her feet touching any stable surface. Then he had turned a sharp corner while she seemed to stream behind him like a fluttering pennant, and next she had felt herself sink into a soft, delicious embrace, when her senses left her and she seemed to drop pleasantly through fathomless space. It was a great crimson chair embroidered with yellow poppies into which Bateato had dropped his burden, then switched on a myriad of tiny lamps suspended from the ceiling by slim chains of different lengths or gleaming from dark niches and embrasures in the tapestry-hung walls. All these subdued and colored lights mingled to produce a wonderfully soft and reposeful effect, and when at last Helen opened her eyes--and her swoon had been of only a few minutes' duration--she was sure that the setting was a dream and half expected some impossible creature of phantasmagoria to rise from the floor and address her. Then she felt an intermittent draught upon her cheek and looked up to see Whitney Barnes fanning her with an elaborate contrivance of peacock feathers that was alleged to have once done duty in the harem of Abdul Hamid, one-time Sultan of Turkey. She was not sure at first that this strange looking being who fanned her in such an amazing fashion was the young friend of the real Travers Gladwin who had appeared on the scene from time to time during that fateful afternoon, for his features were far from being in repose. Positive torture was written on his clean-cut boyish face as he wielded that fast fan in his handcuffed hands as if it were a task imposed upon him by some evil spirit. Certainly there was no grace in the savage gestures of his arms as his wrists twisted and writhed in their shackles, but he stuck to his task desperately, now and then hissing over his shoulder at Bateato to learn why in thunder he didn't find smelling salts or whiskey or brandy or something with which to restore the young lady to consciousness. And on his part, Bateato was racing about like a scared mouse, diving into mysterious chests and cabinets or under divans or climbing up the walls to explore recessed shelves. His activities were confined to that one chamber, for a big, implacable policeman stood at the entrance, with orders to keep his eye on the young woman and the Jap and see that they did not escape or attempt to assist the vanished picture expert in concealing himself or getting away. As Helen's dazed faculties gradually resumed their normal activities and she realized that Whitney Barnes was a reality, the humor of the situation suddenly struck her fancy and she smiled. She was smiling with eyes and lips when young Barnes turned back his head from another reproach of Bateato and looked to see how she was coming on. "Thank heaven!" he exclaimed. "I thought you were dead. I wanted to go out for a doctor, but these confounded policemen wouldn't let me--yes, and they wouldn't unlock me. Have I fanned enough? I'm pretty well tuckered out, and these feathers get in one's nose so. Then this is an extraordinary kind of a fan--they use them in harems or something of the sort, and I've never fanned in harems." "Please stop, then," laughed Helen, "and I'm a thousand times obliged to you. If I could only have a glass of water I think I would be myself again." Bateato had at last pried into a cabinet that contained a decanter of brandy and strange looking Moorish goblets, and from some curtained enclosure he obtained cold water from a faucet. A sip of the potent brandy and draught of water brought the color back to the girl's cheeks and the light to her eyes. The change was so reassuring that Whitney Barnes actually beamed and for a few moments dropped all thought of his handcuffs. "My, but you are beautiful!" he said impulsively. "I don't blame Travers for going daffy in the Ritz, and do you know your eyes are exactly like your cousin's!" Helen laughed in spite of herself at the young man's headlong gush of words, then became suddenly serious. "We haven't time to talk about eyes now," she said soberly. "You must assist me in telling these policemen how I brought this terrible embarrassment upon Mr. Gladwin." "Nothing of the sort," retorted Barnes. "He wouldn't hear of it. He'd cut off both his arms before he'd allow your name to be dragged into such a sensation. And I'd add mine, too, willingly, with these bracelets on them." "But that detective said he had a warrant for Mr. Gladwin for eloping with me," cried Helen, blushing scarlet. "And, you know"---- "Yes, I know you're going to weep or faint or something else. Tell me about your cousin--she's not m-m-married?" "Sadie married!" ejaculated Helen. "Why, she's deathly afraid of men. She's the most timid little thing in the world." "Good!" cried Barnes, enthusiastically. "These handcuffs are not half bad, now you tell me that." "Why, what do you mean?" asked Helen, her eyes twinkling. "Oh, nothing," said Barnes, trying to look unconcerned. "She's very young?" he added quickly. "A year younger than I am," said Helen, mischievously. There was something positively fascinating about the intense seriousness that had fallen upon the nervous features of Whitney Barnes. "She's not too young to marry?" was his next query. "N-no," Helen hesitated, "though I suppose you'd have to ask Auntie." "Well, you didn't have to do that," he said in alarm. "Oh, I beg your pardon," he added quickly, "please forgive me." "You are forgiven," said Helen, with a catch in her breath; then resolutely, "but that is all over with. It wasn't really real--only a bad dream." "Of course, it wasn't real," sympathized Barnes. "That fellow just hypnotized you--and my eye, but he's a wonderful looking chap--sort of a Hercules and Adonis all thrown into one. But to get back to Sadie--I'm going to marry her." "You are!" Helen half started from her chair. "Be calm; be calm," and he waved her down with his shackled hands. "When I say I'm going to marry her I merely state a fond belief I have been cherishing since, m'm--well since a very long time ago to-day or yesterday, for to-day is to-morrow by this time, you know. Now don't stop me--I say I am going to marry your cousin because I believe in Destiny with a big D. Do you?" "I did," said Helen grimly, "but now I don't." "Oh, yes, you do," Barnes breezed on. "You may not think that you believe you do, but you really do, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the destiny you thought out--as far as the name goes--Travers Gladwin, I mean--comes true after all. But to come back to Sadie and my Destiny. I have really got to marry her--orders from headquarters!" "Orders from headquarters!" gasped Helen. "Exactly! My governor--that is, my dad--that is, the pater--wrung a promise from me, issued a command, a ukase, an ultimatum--said: 'Whitney Barnes, you go right out and get married and bring home a lot of grand-children.' No; that wasn't it exactly--now let me think a moment. Yes, I've got it--he said: 'You've simply got to marry and settle down or I'll turn you out into the street.'" "Wasn't that enough to take the wind out of you, when you'd never given the idea of marriage a thought. Simply bowled me over. At first I refused point blank, but when I saw how cut up the poor old dad was about it I shook his hand and said: 'Pater, done--I'll go right out and find a wife.' And I did." "What!" said Helen faintly. "You went right out and got married?" "No, no, no, my dear cousin. I simply found Sadie." "And have you asked her? Not surely while we were here this afternoon." "Oh, I saw her later--when she came to-night with your aunt, while your aunt was searching all over the place for you. Not that I really asked her then, but we looked at each other, you know, and I think we liked each other--and that's a big start. I just know we'll get married--we're soul-mates! There isn't any doubt of it." "Well, it strikes me," said Helen severely, "that you're a trifle conceited." "Indeed I am," was his startling response. "You've got to be, in love. If you don't think you're pretty fine how are you going to convince anybody else that you are? But you'll have to excuse me for a moment--these bracelets are cutting my wrists to pieces. I must find that man who locked me up. You must stay here till I come back--I won't be a minute," and the young man darted out of the room with a ludicrous diving motion of his arms as he parted the heavy crimson silk hangings at the doorway and caromed against the big policeman on guard. _ |
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