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Officer 666, a novel by Barton W. Currie |
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Chapter 39. Piling On Phelan's Agony |
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_ CHAPTER XXXIX. PILING ON PHELAN'S AGONY Mrs. Burton would have arrived much earlier into the midst of the maelstrom of events at the Gladwin mansion had not Fate in the shape of a tire-blowout intervened. She had set out from Police Headquarters with Detective Kearney as a passenger and she had urged her red-headed chauffeur to pay not the slightest heed to speed laws or any other laws. He had obeyed with such enthusiasm that the blowout had occurred at the intersection of Fifth avenue and Forty-second street. Late as the hour was there was a large crowd gathered to hear the society leader of Omaha deliver a lecture in strange French and caustic English. Kearney had transshipped to a taxicab, which accounted for his earlier arrival. "Who's in charge here?" cried Mrs. Burton, sweeping into the room with all sails set and drawing to the storm. "I am," replied Captain Stone, none too pleasantly as the gold lorgnettes were waved under his nose. "Well, I came for my niece--produce her at once," insisted the panting woman. "You'll have to wait a few minutes," answered Captain Stone, grimly. "We're otherwise engaged at present." "But I have a warrant--I've ordered Mr. Gladwin's arrest!" she shrilled. "We'll attend to that later," snapped the captain. "We're looking for a thief who broke in here to-night." "A thief!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton. "Well, I saw him." "What?" asked the amazed officer. "Yes, when I was here before, and there he is now, only he's got a policeman's uniform on." Mrs. Burton pointed an accusing finger at Michael Phelan, who proceeded to turn livid. "You saw that man here before?" asked the wondering captain. "Yes. He was in his shirt sleeves and when he saw me he ran away to hide." "Are you sure about this?" asked Captain Stone slowly, turning and scowling at the condemned Phelan. "I should say I am," declared the relentless Mrs. Burton. "How could I ever forget that face?" "C-c-c-captain, I-I-I w-w-want to explain"--chattered Phelan. "There'll be time enough for that," the captain checked him. "For the present you camp right here in this room. Don't you budge an inch from it. That thief is somewhere in this house and we've got to find him." "Give me my niece first," cried Mrs. Burton. Captain Stone ignored the request and shouted to Kearney and the three men who had followed him into the room: "Come, we are wasting time. This house must be searched again and searched thoroughly. I don't believe you have half done it. Lead the way, Kearney, we'll begin on the next floor." As they went out Sadie Burton timidly approached Whitney Barnes, who was still making the rounds of every policeman in the house and pleading to be unlocked. "How do you do--what is the matter?" she said timidly, looking up into Barnes's distressed face. "I don't do at all," replied Barnes, tragically, folding his arms in an effort to conceal the handcuffs. "Why, you seem to have a chill," Sadie sympathized, with real concern in her voice. "I should say I have," gasped Barnes, "a most awful chill. But it may pass off. Excuse me, here's a new policeman I haven't asked yet." The young man crossed the room to Phelan. "Have you got a key to these infernal shackles?" he asked, while Sadie looked wonderingly after him. "I've got a key to nothin'," growled Phelan. "Don't talk to me--I'd like to kill some of yez." Barnes retreated, backing into Mrs. Burton, who turned and seized him. "Do you know where my niece is?" she demanded. "Oh, yes, she's here, only you're breaking my arm." "Where is she and where is that fiend Gladwin?" "Oh, the fiend Gladwin just went upstairs to her. She's upstairs asleep." "Asleep!" "Oh, I don't know--go up and find her, that is--I beg your pardon--I'll lead the way--come, Miss Sadie." The handcuffed youth led the procession up the stairs, leaving Officer 666 as solitary sentinel in the great drawing room and picture gallery. "Well, I guess I'm dished fer fair," groaned Phelan as he mournfully surveyed the deserted room and allowed his eyes to rest on the portrait of a woman who looked out at him from mischievous blue eyes. "An' all fer a pair o' them eyes," he added, wistfully. "'Tis tough." He might have gone on at some length with this doleful soliloquy had not a hand suddenly closed over his mouth with the grip of a steel trap. Alf Wilson had come out of the chest as noiselessly as he had originally entered it and good fortune favored him to the extent of placing Phelan with his back to him while his troubled mind was steeped in a mixture of love and despair. As the thief pounced upon the ill-fated Officer 666 he uttered, "Pst! Pst! Watkins!" That sinuous individual writhed out of the fireplace and came to his assistance. "Get his elbows and put your knee in his back," instructed the thief, "while I reach for my ether-gun. Thank God! Here it is in my pocket." Phelan struggled in a fruitless effort to tear himself free, but Wilson's grip was the grip of unyielding withes of steel and the slim and wiry Watkins was just as muscular for his weight. It was the task of a moment for the picture expert to bring round the little silver device he called his ether-gun. Phelan was gasping for breath through his nostrils, and Wilson had only to press the bulb once or twice before the policeman's muscles relaxed and he fell limply into Watkins's arms. "That'll hold him for ten minutes at least," breathed Wilson. "That's right, Watkins, prop him up while I get his belt and coat off--then into the chest." Phelan was completely insensible, but his weight and the squareness of his bulk made it a strenuous task to support him and at the same time remove his coat. Only a man of Wilson's size and prodigious strength could have accomplished the feat in anything like the time required, and both he and Watkins were purple and breathless when they lowered the again unfrocked Officer 666 into the chest and piled portieres and a small Persian rug on top of him. While Watkins held up the lid the thief tore off his claw-hammer coat and stuffed that down into the chest. In another instant he had forced his shoulders into the uniform coat, donned the cap and buckled on the belt. "Now break for it, Watkins," he gasped, fighting the buttons into the buttonholes. "Take it easy out the front door. I'll go out on the balcony and call down to the men in the street that it's all right. Start the engine in the car and keep it going till I can make my getaway. Now!" Watkins vanished out the door at the psychological moment. Captain Stone and Kearney were coming down the stairs engaged in earnest conversation. So engrossed were they when they entered the room that they failed to notice the absence of Officer 666, whose uniform was strutting on the balcony while he himself lay anaesthetized in the chest. "How could he have been hiding in those portieres, Kearney?" Captain Stone was saying. "I looked through them before I left the room." "I don't know how, Captain," replied Kearney, "but he was and Gladwin knew it." "You're sure of that?" "Positive." "I say, captain, do you know where Mr. Ryan is?" intervened the roving Barnes, who seemed to have bobbed up from nowhere in particular with Sadie in his train. "He may be in the cellar and he may be on the roof," snapped the captain. "Don't bother me now!" "But I must bother you, by Jove," persisted the frantic Barnes. "I demand that you send that man to unlock me. I'm not a prisoner or that sort of thing." Captain Stone ignored him, addressing Kearney: "Well, if he isn't out now--he can't get out without an airship. Still we had better search some more below stairs. Where's that man Phelan gone? Look out on the balcony, Kearney." Kearney stepped to the curtains, pulled them back, dropped them, and nodded, "He's out there." "Very well, let's go down into the cellar and work up. There isn't a room in the house now that isn't guarded." "But, dammit, Captain," exploded Barnes again, rattling his handcuffs. "Don't annoy me--can't you see I'm busy," was all the satisfaction he got as the captain and the Central Office man left the room. Sadie came forward shyly as the policemen left. "Did you find out where he is?" she asked anxiously. "In the cellar or on the roof. When I get to the roof he is in the cellar, and when I reach the cellar he is on the roof. He's more elusive than a ghost." "Whoever are you talking about?" cried Sadie. "Mr. Ryan, of course." "But I don't mean Mr. Ryan--I mean the chauffeur who came for Helen. I heard Mr. Kearney speaking about him upstairs." "Oh, there's a chauffeur after her, too?" said Barnes, enigmatically. "Yes, and wasn't it fortunate that the police arrived just in time to save her." "The police!" sniffed Barnes in disgust. "A lot they had to do with saving her." "Didn't they really?" "They did not. They bungled the whole thing up horribly. Why they'd have brought in a parson to marry them if it hadn't been"--Barnes managed to blush. "Then who did prevent the elopement?" asked Sadie, eagerly. "I can't get a word out of Helen on account of Auntie El." "Can't you guess?" said Barnes, mysteriously, looking down upon her with a sudden return of ardor. "Oh, did you do it?" and Sadie looked up at him from under her lashes. "Didn't I tell you I'd do it?" swelled Barnes. Sadie thanked him with her wonderfully expressive eyes. "Oh, it was nothing," shrugged Barnes. "You're the nicest man I ever met," blurted Sadie, with astounding frankness. "Do you mean that?" cried Barnes, rapturously. "Indeed I mean it," admitted Sadie, timidly, backing away from his burning glances. "Then you won't mind my saying," said Barnes fervently, "that you're the nicest ma'--I mean girl--I ever met. Why, would you believe it--confound it, here's that man Gladwin again. Please come upstairs and I'll finish, handcuffs or no handcuffs." _ |
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