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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Popular Magazine, 7 Apr 1924,
with "The Last Gamble of Robert Henry Blane"
James Francis Dwyer
JAMES FRANCIS DWYER (1874-1952) was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing. —Wikipedia
Home calls insistently. And the Texan Wasp resolves to heed the call. He hurries to the throne of Lady Luck, perched above the blue of the Mediterranean, with a farewell petition. She smiles. She grants his suit, and more. For to the fortune she flings at his feet she adds such happiness as he had never thought to win.
TO Robert Henry Blane, alias The Texan Wasp, had come the home hunger. A tremendous home hunger. It rose up within him and beat down the wanderlust. It whispered of Texas. It brought to his nose the odor of the South that he loved. It brought visions of cotton fields! Of wheat stretches! Of great plains that rolled away to the horizon.
It was a terrible thing. It woke him in the night, filling his mind with strange beliefs. He thought he could hear the whimperings of the Rio Grande. He heard the whistling winds on the Staked Plains, the songs of the negroes in the cotton fields.
It stayed with him through the waking hours. It jeered at foreign customs and manners. It ridiculed foreign food. It broke through all the cosmopolitanism bred of years in strange cities and screamed its wish without pause. It sang continuously a darky melody of the long ago:
"Sing a song o' the city;
Roll dat cotton bale!
Niggah ain't half so happy
As when he's out of jail.
Norfolk foh its oystah shells,
Boston foh its beans;
Texas foh its rice an' cawn,
But foh niggahs New Aw-leans!"
The Wasp swooped down on Marseilles and the chant came with him. It rose above the cries of street hawkers on the Canne-biere. It became an obsession. It garroted all other noises and made his ears oblivious to them. He found himself repeating the chant as he walked along the street, whispering it with all the fervor of a prayer:
"Doan' yuh hyah de niggahs singin'?
Dinah, blow yo' hawn!
Back to Texas I'll be wingin'
In de golden mawn!"
He went down and stared at the ships. Big ships tied up in the Bassin d'Arenc and Bassin National. Great ships! Ships that went out to all the ports of the world! Ships that had rolled in across the Gulf of Mexico with their snouts thrust straight at Galveston. To the Galveston The Wasp knew well. Old sea battlers hunting for cotton and hides, rice and corn.
"When I go back," he growled, staring at a bull-snouted old tramp that had hooted for cargo off all the ports in the world, "I'll go on an old sea cow like her! I'll go to Galveston! Zowie! How she'll buck if she gets a norther in the Gulf! I'll—"
He broke off abruptly and stared out across the breakwater. He was a trifle startled as he reviewed his little soliloquy. What was wrong?
"Why, Robert Henry Blane," he cried, "you're just aching to go home! Get away from the water, man, or you'll start to swim across!"
He walked back to the Vieux Port, coldly reviewing his position as he traversed the Quai de la Joliette. He showed no mercy to himself. Primarily he had shouldered the guilt of another and had been made an outcast. He told himself that he did not regret the action. The guilty one was a mean, small person who took advantage of the chivalry of Blane and remained as quiet as a mouse at a cat concert. Thoughts of the fellow made The Wasp grin.
He reviewed the half hundred or more affairs in which love of adventure and hatred of the commonplace had involved him. The review stirred no sense of shame. He had taken money from an Indian maharajah to square the debts of a man who was a brother, to a girl for whom Robert Henry Blane would have given his life. Was it a crime? No, answered the inner self that was marshal of the review. Eccentric and decidedly unwise, but—well, you could live it down..
Up came other escapades. Half forgotten till this moment. Remembered now because The Texan Wasp was shriving himself. Escapades in a score of capitals. An affair at Venice, another at Brussels, others at Madrid, Paris, and Amsterdam. Each slunk by, fearful of the marshal that was conducting the review. For each there was an excuse. A friend in trouble, a girl in distress, the challenge of a spring day; something, however small. And there were matters that offset other matters. For instance: The Texan Wasp had collected nothing from Colonel Ralph Coltman for the rescue of his niece from the Château of Correze. There were other unpaid debts too; many of them.
At the corner of the Rue de la Republique the inner self of Robert Henry Blane delivered judgment. "I don't see that there is anything to stop you from going back," it said. "Nothing really vital. Yes, yes, you have been in a few scrapes of one kind and another, but then you've helped society here and there. Don't kick yourself too hard. What about the help you gave in the affair at Carcassonne? And the difficulty with the man from Prague at Lake Como? Don't be too sensitive. I'd go back if I really had the longing to go back, and I were you."
The Wasp took a sealskin wallet from his hip pocket and counted the contents. Houston was a long way away and ocean fares are high nowadays.
Hurriedly Robert Henry Blane fingered the contents of the wallet. There were nine bills of one thousand francs, six of five hundred, and eleven of one hundred. A total of thirteen thousand one hundred francs. A ridiculous sum. Something that one might throw into the cap of a beggar on Christmas Eve.
Again, from some melody-making plant in the back of Mr. Blane's head, came the tune! Texas was calling! Big stretches rose up before him and made him dizzy with their grandeur! Wheat fields over which the fat winds rolled like collie dogs at play! Cattle herds, moving majestically across the plains! Big men with honest hearts; women who were as true as steel. He gasped in a queer way, pulled himself together and hailed a horse carriage.
"Gare St.-Charles!" he ordered. "On your way!"
Robert Henry Blane paid off the carriage at the railway station on the rise above the city and thrust himself through the crowd before the ticket window.
"One first-class ticket to Monte Carlo," he said. "One way only."
AS the train swept southward The Texan Wasp dissected
the sudden inspiration that had come to him to visit the
Temple of Chance. He wanted money, of course, and the
tables of Monte Carlo suggested the possibility of getting
coin. But, behind the desire for immediate funds, was a
queer, sentimental longing to see the place where he had
spoken to Betty Allerton on the day before he had taken the
money from the Maharajah of Behan Gudsa to pay the gambling
debts of her brother.
He recalled the words of the girl he loved. He had denied his name to her. Denied that he was Robert Henry Blane, and she, on leaving him, had spoken words that he could never forget.
"1 was wrong to speak to you," she had murmured, "but I thought that you were the man I knew. He was blamed for something that some one else did, and he went away. But—but I always believed in him."
The Texan Wasp whispered the words as the train roared toward Toulon. "'But I always believed in him,'" he said over and over again. "'I always believed in him.'"
The home hunger fed on every little scrap that came its way. It called attention to an American flag flying in a little cemetery. A boy, or perhaps a dozen boys from the U. S., sent south to recuperate, rested there in the good soil of France, the whisper of the olive groves soothing them in their long sleep.
The Wasp was alone in the carriage. He sprang to attention and saluted.
On and on roared the express. On past Toulon to Fréjus, where the Emperor Augustus sent the galleys that he took from Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium! For just a moment The Wasp had a vision of them with their sails of Tyrian blue and purple, their carved figureheads and the rows of chained oarsmen. But the longing for America, for Texas, for home chased the vision from his mind.
"Old stuff!" cried the home hunger. "Dead stuff, boy! A cotton field in August is a greater sight than any that could happen here. A Texan cotton field, boy! Wait till you go back! Wait!"
By St. Raphael and Cannes! By Antibes and Nice. Swinging past The Wasp's train, northward bound, went trains de luxe. The season was dying on the Riviera. The people who do not toil or spin, but, like the lilies of the field, sit in the sunshine, arrayed in garments that rival those of Solomon, were going up to Paris and London. The home hunger used them to its own purpose. It drew the attention of Mr. Blane to their fat paunches, to their pet dogs, to their arrogance and conceit. He stared at them, a little amazed that he had not noted their appearance before. Fat dowagers with lorgnettes, spatted old turkey cocks with monocles driven into their eye sockets. Ridiculous folk. Hanging on to their words in a queer way. All un-American. "What would they say to these in Texas?" asked the home hunger. "Look at this bird with the windowpane in his eye! Think of him ambling into the Bristol at Houston! Why, some one would throw an old shoe at him!"
On to Villefranche! And at Villefranche there occurred a miracle, as far as the home hunger was concerned.
In the anchorage, sitting in all her glory was the United States cruiser Pittsburgh, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Andrews!
The railway station of Villefranche is beside the water, and from the shore to the station were bunches of gobs. Scores of them! Hundreds of them! Sturdy, rolling, easy-going, merry, white-capped gobs! They were going backward and forward like ants. The cruiser had rocked in from Ajaccio and Tunis and it was the sailors' first day ashore.
Gobs! Gobs! Scores and scores o' 'em!
Gobs! Gobs! Half a hundred more o' 'em!
Gobs! Gobs! White caps on all o' 'em!
Mobs of gobs from the U.S.A.!
For just a moment Monte Carlo and the great project of raising immediate funds were forgotten. Robert Henry Blane gripped his suit case, unbolted the door and leaped out. He had a great desire to talk to folk from home.
Blane had a way with men. At the little café at the top of the hill up and down which milled the white-capped gobs he spoke to them. They were delighted to know him. Did he parley-voo? Well, he was just the guy they wanted to help 'em out. A fellow had short-changed them, a fellow right across the street and they wanted some one to help them who could slam him with his own yap.
The Wasp slammed him. Slammed him good and plenty. The fellow gave back nine francs and was told by the indignant gob to whom the refund was made that he was lucky that he didn't have his face turned into something that his mother would mistake for a boiled cauliflower.
"Say, mister," said the aggrieved seaman, addressing The Wasp, "a lot of these Frenchies think we have a printin' press on board the old lugger an' that we run greenbacks off by the thousand when the weather isn't too rough."
"Where do you hail from?" asked the amused Wasp.
"Texas."
"What part?"
"Dallas. Ann Avenue, Dallas."
"I've been in Dallas. Stopped for a week at the Park Hotel."
"Gee," gasped the gob. "You know Texas?"
"Born there," said Robert Henry Blane.
"G'wan!"
"Sure. Born in Houston."
"Say, there's a feller on the lugger from Houston. He's always talkin' of it. Hey, where's 'Skinny?' Tell him to come here. This gem'man's from his home port."
Skinny came. A long, freckled Texan, with blue eyes. Not really the cut of a sailor. The boys pushed him forward.
He stared at Robert Henry Blane for a minute without speaking, then he made a queer sort of noise by puckering his lips, a sound that expressed his amazement. "Why, you're Kenney Blane of Happy Valley!" he cried. "My brother rides range for you!"
The Wasp laughed. "Kenney Blane is my uncle," he said. "People tell me that I am like him."
"Like him?" cried Skinny. "Why, you're more like him than a one-dollar bill is to another. You've only got to go to Happy Valley some day when he's in Houston an' the punchers'll give you the outfit to carry away. But I want to shake your wing. I'm real pleased to see some one from Houston. I've been tellin' these blighters what a burg it is, but they know nothin'."
"Houston über Alles!" shouted a humorist from the outside of the group. "Lissen to Skinny!"
Skinny turned in the direction of the voice, wrath upon his features. "If there's any one wants to set on to Houston he can step out," he growled. "It's my town an' it's the best town I know!"
Robert Henry Blane stepped forward and took the outstretched hand of the gob. "You're my friend," he said. "What's your name?"
"Jack Graye. They call me Skinny on the craft."
"Jack," said The Wasp, "when do you have to go aboard?"
"I'm free till to-morrow mornin'," answered Mr. Graye. "I've got the evening an' the night ashore."
"Would you like to go along with me to Monte Carlo?"
"Sure."
An empty taxi came swinging along the road from the direction of Nice. The Wasp hailed it. He invited Mr. Jack Graye to climb aboard the machine, and he followed on the heels of the sailor.
The mob of jackies had increased. Fourscore of them milled around in the Petite-Corniche. They cheered Robert Henry Blane and they cheered Skinny. The Wasp was delighted. The machine sprang forward to yells of Houston über Alles which again stirred the ire of Mr. Jack Graye.
"Those boobs are quieter 'n stowaways when they're by themselves," he growled. "When they get in clumps they howl like ki-yotes."
The Wasp laughed. "They have got to get fun out of something," he said. "It's a tough life."
"You've guessed it," said the sailor. "I've got another three months of it—then I'm loose."
"What are you going to do?" asked The Wasp.
"Go back to Houston!" snapped Mr. Graye. "I've got a girl there. If we can scrape the coin together we'll open a restaurant. Jest a small restaurant. I'm shy on the coin but I guess we can begin feedin' small lots of folk for a start. Our admiral started with a canoe and now he bosses a battleship."
The Wasp was amused. "I'll come in and get a plate of beans off you when you start," he said.
"Are you goin' back?" asked the sailor.
"I am if I have luck, John," said Robert Henry Blane. "And I have a hunch that I will have luck. I'll tell you. I've got the home longing bad, but Houston is a long way from here so I want money. Good old Uncle Sam will carry you there, but I've got to buy a pill box on a transatlantic boat, and the rates are high."
"They're fierce," agreed the gob.
"I took stock of my funds," went on The Wasp, "and I found I had something over thirteen thousand francs. It seems a lot of francs, but it won't make many dollars. That's why I took a train from Marseilles headed for Monte Carlo. I had a hunch that I wouldn't have contracted the homesickness if I didn't have the means of curing it. So I'm going to match the thirteen thousand against the ivory ball."
"Gee!" The eyes of Mr. Jack Graye grew large as he regarded Robert Henry Blane.
"And," continued The Wasp. "I'm becoming more certain every minute that I'll beat the ivory ball. I've got a hunch that you're a mascot. I hopped off the train because I saw a bunch of you boys, then you strolled along and thought I was Kenney Blane. You're my mascot, John. Stick by me for a few hours, and if I beat the black-coated brigands in the joint we're going to I'll tear off a bit to help the restaurant along. That's what I wanted, a mascot. I feel it in every bone of my body."
The Wasp leaned forward and spoke to the chauffeur. "Let her out!" he ordered. "I'm in a hurry to make some money. Feed her, boy, feed her!"
NOW they are very exact at the Shrine of the Goddess
of Chance, very particular about the worshipers who come
to woo the lady's favors. The smooth and soulless folk
who run the joint are particular about the folk whom they
fleece.
They refused admittance to Mr. John Graye because he was wearing the finest uniform in the world. He could enter the vestibule, but could go no farther.
The Texan Wasp was annoyed. "But I want him in!" he cried indignantly. "I must have him in!"
The suave underpirate who controlled the bureau where passports are examined and admission tickets issued, regretted that this was impossible. "It is not allowed," he murmured, bowing low before The Wasp. "For monsieur, yes. Monsieur, to the eyes of a child, is a distinguished American. For the sailor it is different. No person in uniform is allowed in the gambling rooms."
"So," growled The Wasp.
Robert Henry Blane retired for a moment and talked the matter over with the man from his home town. Mr. Graye showed no hatred toward the controlling forces of the Société Anonyme des Bains de Mer, who operate the gambling joint. The sailor was a philosopher.
"Well, I've had the ride out here an' I'm thankful for that," he said cheerfully. "It's pretty country, too."
"But I want you as a mascot!" cried The Wasp. "I've got a hunch that you'll bring me luck. You're from Houston and you mistook me for Kenney Blane."
The sailor looked at the seats on the Place du Casino, then he addressed Robert Henry Blane. "At times I'm a religious man," he said quietly, "and if any one wants to make war against the heathen and the sinful I'm with 'em. Brother, if you want to go into that place and smite 'em hip an' thigh I'm goin' to camp on one o' those seats an' pray that you'll chase 'em into their holes. Go to it! If you can send me word how the battle goes, do so. But don't worry. I'm prayin' for you, an' I'll be here when the fight is over. Go at 'em, brother, I'm goin' to sit down here an' pray!"
He took the hand of The Wasp, shook it fiercely and turned to the seat. Robert Henry Blane ran swiftly up the steps and entered the Casino. The hunch had grown stronger. Some one from Houston was praying for him, some one who, like himself, wished to go back to the city on Buffalo Bayou that they both loved.
The Wasp checked his hat and cane and made for the holy of holies where the ivory ball sings its song of defiance as it rolls around the torture wheel. The Wasp was eager for battle. He hummed a line or two from the old-time chantey as he passed through the door.
"Texas foh its rice an' cawn,
Dinah blow yo' hawn!"
He bought chips. Five thousand francs' worth of chips. It was to be a big attack. A fight for America, for Houston, for his own home!
The Wasp waited. He closed his eyes for a second and tried to visualize a number to which he could pin his luck. There was to be no combination betting; none of the methods of play that the timid and cautious gambler follows to delay the inevitable end. The Wasp wanted the long odds against the long chances.
And, as the big Texan sat with closed eyes the number that he sought came to him! Came to him in an amazing way! Startling, unreal, a little terrifying! There flashed up before his eyes the picture of the Hudson River on a day in spring. He and Betty Allerton had journeyed up to Nyack, and at Nyack they had hired a boat, bought oranges and soft drinks and had pulled away into the soft, blue mist that covered the stream. They had picnicked beneath a big tree on the opposite bank, and on the tree he, Blane, had cut their initials and the date.
It was the carving of the date that came up before him. It was August 8, 1908, and he had carved it on the tree as 8|8|8.
He tossed one hundred and fifty francs in red-and-white chips on number 8.
The spinner cried out, "Rien ne va plus!" and the ivory ball started in the opposite direction to the wheel in which it spun. The devotees sat with shoulders crouched and waited.
The wheel slowed. The ivory ball wabbled drunkenly, twisting the nerves of the wide-eyed gamblers who waited. There was a queer maliciousness about the thing; a spiteful malignity, a vicious desire to further stretch and strain the tautened nerves of the haggard bettors.
It dropped. Dropped into the little compartment that bore the number 8! Robert Henry Blane thought of the sailor on the seat in the Place du Casino.
The wolf-faced croupier tossed showers of chips across the table. At thirty-five to one it was a tidy killing. Five thousand two hundred and fifty francs were due to Robert Blane.
The big American stacked his chips up and let the original stake lie. Roughly he calculated the distance between Monte Carlo and Houston. Texas. The first lap to Bordeaux was five hundred and eighty miles. From Bordeaux to New York—the idea of going up the Gulf on a tramp being impractical—was three thousand two hundred; and from New York to Houston was another two thousand and odd. Roughly speaking he was.six thousand miles from home!
The Wasp made a quick calculation. Reckoning current train and boat rates he was somewhere off New York as the result of the first wager.
That is, the spiritual Mr. Blane was. The real Blane, face drawn, so that the little scar on the right jaw showed white as he leaned forward, waited for the ball to settle.
It settled into number 29. The rake of the croupier fell upon the American's pile of chips.
Blane staked again. Again the nerves of the gamblers were drawn out as the wheel revolved.
And once again the spirit ship that was carrying the soul of Robert Henry Blane was halted. The ball dropped into 19.
The Wasp clung to his fancy. Again he bet the limit on 8. Around went the wheel and; the chattering ball, and this time the goddess smiled. Chips by the score came flying toward him as the croupier paid. Blane calculated quickly. The spiritual Blane was somewhere close to the city he loved! He had won more than his fare to Houston!
Hurriedly he scribbled a note and called a messenger. The note read:
Good for you. Keep it up! I am over ten thousand francs to the good. Mascots help.
Blane.
"Give this note to an American sailor sitting on a bench in the Place du Casino," he ordered.
The messenger was back as the ball recorded a loss to the big Texan. Breathlessly he handed a reply to The Wasp. "The sailor was walking about, sir," he whispered. "I gave it to him and he gave me this to give to you."
The Wasp opened the note and stared at it in astonishment. The sang-froid that characterized his every action was swept away. He stared at the scrap of paper, a little bewildered. Something that savored of necromancy had happened. The note that the messenger had brought to him ran:
Puzzled. Didn't know you were here. Would be thankful for your help. All hell loose! Your assistance worth anything to me. 37.
The Wasp beckoned to the messenger. "Who did you give my note to?" he breathed. "To a sailor in American naval uniform?"
"Yes, sir. He wasn't sitting on the bench. He was walking around in front of the casino door."
The Wasp sprang to his feet. Something had gone wrong. It was impossible to think that Mr. Jack Graye of Houston had become metamorphosed into the greatest man hunter of Europe during the short absence, yet the note came from the extraordinary sleuth. Furthermore as proof that it was not written by Graye, the writer was at sea as to the meaning of Blane's reference to winnings and mascots.
With long strides The Wasp reached the door of the Salle de Jeu, dashed bareheaded through the vestibule and out onto the Place. Standing in the hot sunlight, head to one side, regarding the carvings above the entrance was an obvious American jacky. A sturdy, muscular jacky whose white cap was cocked jauntily on a bullet-shaped head.
The appearance of The Wasp brought the sailor's gaze from the carvings to the door. Cold, merciless eyes that looked like brown-tinted and hard-frozen hailstones fell upon Robert Henry Blane, then the jacky, evidently possessed of a sudden resolve, stepped forward and saluted.
"Pardon me, sir," he said, speaking in a loud voice. "I'm new to this joint. Could you tell me if I could give 'em a chance to rob me of a dollar or two?"
Blane was alert. He was facing the great detective. No. 37, with the shrewdness that made him the cleverest hunter that Dame Justice had in her employ, had seized upon the presence of the U.S.S. Pittsburgh at Villefranche to deck himself out in a splendid disguise. There were American sailors everywhere, so the man hunter had begged or borrowed a uniform and, as a harmless-looking gob, was out hunting for prey.
"You are not allowed into the gambling rooms," answered The Wasp, taking the cue from the sleuth. "You can enter the vestibule, but you cannot play with the wheel."
Blane smiled, and the imitation sailor smiled back at him. "I am in room No. 61 at the Hotel Hermitage," whispered the sleuth. "Come there, quick!"
"I cannot," murmured The Wasp. "I am backing my luck. It's in to-day." Lifting his voice he said: "I'm sorry that they will not allow sailors into the gambling rooms. Very sorry. Sometimes it is easy money for rovers who wish to get home. To-day it is my day. I am trying to get my fare to Texas and it looks as if I would get it and a bit over."
The low voice of the great detective protected against the decision. "Come to the hotel," he whispered. "It will be worth more than you can win from the wheel."
"I cannot! I've got a hunch!" breathed The Wasp.
"Come for ten minutes till I explain!" cried the man hunter, trying hard to keep his voice to the level of a whisper. "Blane, I want you! I want you!"
Robert Henry Blane looked at the eyes of the man whose capacity for hunting down evildoers was known from Tangier to Kara Bay and from Cap Matapan to Malin Head. Into the cold, merciless eyes had crept a feeling of wrath that was new and strange to them. The lipless line that represented the mouth was softened slightly. No. 37 was, for a moment, strangely human. He was asking help.
"What's wrong?" questioned The Wasp.
"Everything!" gasped the sleuth. "Come and help, Blane! Come and help! Follow me to my room. Forget your luck. I'll promise you four times more than you can win. Come!"
The sleuth turned away. Robert Henry Blane, strangely impressed by the pleading of the man who, up to that moment, had never shown the slightest emotion, stepped back into the vestibule. He recovered his hat and cane from the cloakroom and walked out through the big doors that gape wide for the foolish worshipers of Lady Luck.
Mr. Jack Graye of Houston was sitting on a seat, "actively mascoting" as the sailor expressed it.
"How did you do?" asked the gob.
"I'm over ten thousand to the good," answered The Wasp. "Your cut is a thousand francs."
The sailor whistled to express his astonishment. He started to speak, but Blane interrupted him.
"I knocked off for the present," explained, The Wasp, "because I got a call to help a man. He—well, he's the greatest detective in the world. He wants a little assistance from me, and as I owe him a lot, I'm inclined to give it. But I'm going to give you your share of my winnings. Hold out your hand. There's your thousand for acting as a mascot."
The sailor stood with the money in his hand and looked at Robert Henry Blane. "Was the 'tec the feller you were speaking to at the door a few minutes ago?" he asked.
"Yes, why?"
"Nothing. I knew he wasn't from our craft although he carried the rig. It's his disguise, eh?"
"That's so," said Blane.
Again the sailor looked at the money in his calloused palm. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"I don't know," said The Wasp. "I'd hate to drag you into any trouble, so I suppose we had better part for the moment. I'm sorry I couldn't keep on when you were doing such good work as a mascot. If——"
The sailor thrust the handful of hundred-franc bills back upon The Wasp. His jaw tightened and a fighting glow appeared in his blue eyes. "Look," he said, "I don't want any money. That wouldn't be right. I just thought to have a ramble round with you 'cause you were from my home town, but if you want to beach me now it's not goin' to cost you anything. Not much. Here's the coin. I had a nice ride here an' I'm pleased to know you. Every Blane I ever heard of in Texas was a gentleman, an' I think you're one."
The Texan Wasp looked for a moment at the honest face of the sailor, then he laughed boyishly. "Keep the money," he said. "We're going to stay together. I guess there will be something for you to do before the night is out. Shake, Jack. I didn't want to pull you into trouble."
"I was born in trouble," said the sailor quietly. "Father was a ranger, an' a Mexican crook put a bullet into him the morning I was born. He missed seeing me by about two hours."
MR. JACK GRAYE, of the U.S.S. Pittsburgh, was
introduced to No. 37 in the latter's room at the Hotel
Hermitage. The cold eyes of the great sleuth looked hard
at the sailor as The Wasp told of their meeting. The man
hunter smiled.
"I'm pleased to know you, Mr. Graye," he said. "I think I saw you on the Place du Casino. You were looking me over. What was wrong?"
"Your shoes," said the sailor promptly.
"What is wrong with them?"
"Nothin' is wrong with 'em except that they're not American shoes. That's sayin' a lot, as far as I'm concerned, but it mightn't mean much to you. It'd give you away, though."
The sleuth laughed good-naturedly. "You're right," he said. "They're not American shoes. I bought them in Stockholm. Next time I masquerade as an American sailor I'll see to it."
He turned to Robert Henry Blane and the smile slipped from his face. He was the cold, merciless hunter of men. The nose, bred of battles, the lipless line that denoted the tight-drawn mouth, the chin that had thrust peace to the winds, showed to the gray eyes of The Wasp as they had appeared on the day he had first met the sleuth in that same abode of gilded sin in which, strangely enough, they had again come together after years of wandering.
"Blane," said the sleuth, "you have helped me now and then. Helped me in a way that I can never repay. Starting as an enemy you have become a friend, a friend I admire and respect. I've chalked a lot up to your credit. I don't forget Seville and Carcassonne. I don't forget Como, and a few other places. If——"
"I'll wager," said The Wasp, smiling uneasily under the praise of the detective, "that you're going to decorate me with some foreign order. Make me a Boob of the Balkans or a Check of Czecho-Slovakia. Please don't."
"I want your help," said the detective. "Listen—your friend can hold his tongue, I suppose?"
"I think so," answered The Wasp.
"Well, I'll tell the matter in a few words. There has been on the Riviera for a few days a person who was known as Monsieur Berton. He was traveling incognito. French papers made no allusion as to who he was; the mayors and other officials were instructed to take no notice of his presence in an official way. He was resting. As a matter of fact he walked along the Croisette at Cannes where scores of folk passed who knew his features but, as they were polite folk, they made no gesture to signify that they knew him. That is the wonder of the Continent.
"He came on to Mentone to see an elderly relative who has a villa there, and, this morning, he motored to Monte Carlo. Let me tell you what happened. The person I am speaking of arrived with an aid-de-camp on the Place du Casino about eleven forty-five. The aid-de-camp went into the Casino to fix up the little trivialities concerning admission so that Monsieur Berton would not be annoyed, and, while he was away, something happened."
The detective paused and looked at The Wasp.
"Something happened," he repeated. "A man came from the entrance to the executive offices of the Casino and bowing before Monsieur Berton asked him to kindly follow him. The—I mean Monsieur Berton, thought that the aid-de-camp had arranged it so that he was to enter by the administration building so he left the car without giving the matter a second's thought. That was the last seen of him."
There was a little silence, then Robert Henry Blane spoke. "Pardon me," he said. "I came down from Marseilles to-day, so I am not altogether conversant with the elite of the Riviera. Possibly I would be more interested in Monsieur Berton if I knew who the gentleman was when he was at home."
For a moment the man hunter debated with himself, his keen, cold eyes upon The Wasp.
"Blane," he began, speaking very slowly, "you are useful to me in this because you are, outside myself, the only person that has met face to face the man who is at the bottom of this kidnaping. You spoke to him at Lake Como and I was with you when we captured him at Florence. I wired you that he had escaped."
The Wasp whistled softly. "The Man from Prague?" he said.
"The same. He is here in Monte Carlo at this minute. I know. He cannot escape. We have not made the kidnaping of Monsieur Berton public for the simple reason that it would shake the political foundations of Europe, but we have every road out of this town guarded. If nothing happens this evening we will have to make the matter known broadcast, but I hope something will happen."
"But you haven't answered my question?" protested Robert Henry Blane. "You have told me the assumed name of this person, but—"
"He is the most popular young prince in Europe," interrupted No. 37.
"You mean," began The Wasp, "that the prince——"
"Yes, I mean just what you think," again interrupted the sleuth.
"Suffering bobcats!" cried Robert Henry Blane. Then, after a pause, he said: "And you think that The Man from Prague has got him?"
"I'm certain of it! I intercepted papers that told me The Man from Prague was here. That's what brought me hotfoot. The kidnaping took place ten minutes or so before I arrived. The aid-de-camp had sufficient sense to keep his head, otherwise all Europe would be in an uproar. He couldn't believe it at first, then he told the authorities, pledging them to secrecy. Now we're trusting to some extraordinary happening to pull us through. If the miracle doesn't take place the fat is in the fire. There will be scare headlines in to-morrow's papers that will astonish the world."
The great detective rose. The fierce and rather terrifying look of battle was upon his face. He tramped up and down the room, looked at his watch, wheeled and confronted Robert Henry Blane.
"Listen, Blane," he said hurriedly. "I said a few minutes ago that you and I are the only two persons who have seen the face of this mysterious devil. I was really wrong in saying that. I slipped into a swoon the moment I had handcuffed him, and before I got out of the hospital the authorities had shipped him away. Now you spoke to him face to face, didn't you?"
"I did," answered The Wasp. "I not only spoke to him but I managed to put over a jolt that sent him to the mat."
"You'd know him?" questioned the sleuth.
"Anywhere!"
"Then for the sake of everything that you hold sacred go out and hunt for him. Take your friend and go at once. You are lucky, Blane. At the present moment I'm altogether at sea. I'm dog-goned tired and disgusted. Go to it. Phone here if anything happens. Some one will take your message and find me."
AN extraordinary town is Monte Carlo. The ordinary
population of the little gambling hell is under ten
thousand, but it has two-score hotels, many of which are
palaces of the premier order. It is a city de luxe, where
the only spinning is done by the wheel in the casino.
The visitors eat; they drink; they gamble. They swagger
in fancy raiment on the magnificent terrace with its
incomparable view of the coast line running toward the
Italian frontier, while to the right is the baby port of
Monaco with the palace of the prince on the great rock.
Robert Henry Blane and Mr. John Graye ate an early dinner, then, in the soft evening light, they mingled with the elite. A dozen times The Wasp had suggested to his companion that the evening might bring trouble, but the sailor shook his head each time that Robert Henry Blane hinted at a parting.
"This geek you're huntin' for is a rough-house guy, isn't he?" he asked.
"He's inclined that way," answered the amused Blane.
"Well, I'd like to stay around. I've got the night off an' I like you."
They talked of Texas as they wandered round, the cool, gray eyes of The Wasp searching the faces of passers-by. And the home hunger grew greater as the conversation swept from El Paso to Galveston, and from Brownsville to Chillicothe.
They climbed the hill toward Beausoleil, and from the heights looked down upon the Mad City of Chance. Below them was a sea of lights that attracted the butterflies who buzzed around the wheel. An illuminated Place of Sin.
The sailor was ruminative. He looked at the glittering lights that ran like scattered diamonds on a pall of velvet down toward La Condamine and up over the hill on which stands the palace of the son of that dead prince who, curiously enough, studied the family life of fishes while the croupiers were studying the human fishes that drifted into their net.
"There was a place just across the Rio Grande from Laredo that was something like this," said Mr. Graye. "A lot o' lights an' tinsel an' music. Women with big combs stuck in their hair an' their eyes heliographin' for all they was worth. Wheels spinnin' so fast that the croupiers had to be changed every ten minutes 'cause they were tired out rakin' in the spoil."
"Yes," murmured The Wasp as the sailor paused.
"They cleaned out a feller from Laredo," said the gob. "Cleaned him out so that he couldn't get his shoes shined without pawnin' his socks. He was a babe to those birds. He was what they call a 'minor' 'cause his old man an' old lady still had possession of him 'cordin' to the law. Well, his old man gathered a bunch of the boys together an' they went over there one night. Called themselves the 'Wrath o' God Brigade.' They fell on the wheels an' the chaps that spin the wheels an' the fellers that raked in the spoil, an' when they got through with the joint you couldn't have sold it to a Chinaman. The señoras with the heliographin' eyes took the first train for Mexico City an' never came back."
The two Texans drifted down to the Avenue de la Costa and then through the gardens that are maintained by the society that runs the Casino. Exquisitely kept gardens with strange, exotic trees and shrubs gathered from all the corners of the earth. Lady Luck, as we see her at Monte Carlo, must be approached with politeness. The Casino folk have guarded against any rough stuff. They have built a bower for the dame that takes away the breath of the gambler, and if he as much as raises his voice a uniformed attendant will touch his arm and softly whisper "Hush!"
The Wasp and the sailor circled the Casino and reached the Terrace overlooking the sea. It was crowded. Men and women in evening dress walked slowly to and fro while a band played softly an air from "La Belle Helene." The sea of illuminated jade breathed softly; lost winds from far-off places—winds with the hot smell of the desert—came sniffling landward like little dogs that had lost their masters.
Chatter! Chatter! Chatter! A score of tongues. High-pitched French, snappy Italian, drawling English, throaty tongues from the North—Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch—tongues that told of fogs that thicken throats; musical Spanish, Americanese— "the electrified English" as some one described it; swift-flung Russian. A tremendous gabble. No one listened to the music. They were all busy talking of the great game of profit and loss as played at the Casino—profit for the Casino and loss for the players.
"I was a thousand ahead," came a whining protest, "and when——"
"But listen to me!" cried an interrupter. "Listen to me. I play a system and I——"
He passed out of hearing, but the jabber of the resort rose to the little stars.
"Some one from Naples made a killing! A duke, I think. How did you do? No good? There's a fat man playing at table seven. He——"
In all tongues rose brag and plaint, gossip, lies, and wheedling chatter. Robert Henry Blane and Jack Graye seemed to be the only tongue-tied persons on the pebbled stretch where fatigued gamblers take the air. The ears of the Texan Wasp were gathering in the empty chatter, analyzing, experimenting, rejecting. The hearing organs of Monsieur Blane were extraordinarily acute; his knowledge of tongues was unparalleled.
He gathered up the scraps of talk like a hungry coyote. He had a belief, a strange, unaccountable belief that something would come to him. He thought that some whiplash of sound would rise out of the never-ending jabber and give him a clue to the trail he sought.
Up and down went the two men from Houston. The sailor divined that his companion was listening, and he remained silent. Mr. Graye was not a talkative person at any time.
Backward and forward with the throng. Turn and turn again. The tongues of all the earth chattering on one theme. Of gold!
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold!
And that for which Robert Henry Blane waited suddenly came to him. Came to him out of the sea of chatter. It shot out of the babel and struck his ears, stinging him as if it were a hot wire!
It was the whiplash of sound for which he had curiously waited!
Six words of protest in the slithering Magyar dialect that for all time in the mind of The Texan Wasp would be associated with The Mystery Man from Prague! Up out of the chatter they came, arresting, thrilling, stinging! A little lariat of sound that set the heart of Robert Henry Blane pounding madly!
He didn't pause. He kept right ahead, but his cool gray eyes located the source. On the seaward side of the band stand two men had halted, two tall men in evening dress, and it was from one of these that the exclamation in slithering Magyar had come.
The Wasp and the sailor walked to the end of the Terrace, and Blane spoke to his companion in a whisper. "We have struck a trail," he said. "We passed our man near the band stand."
"Is that so?" asked the sailor. "Well, let's get him."
Blane, taller than any person on the Terrace, was looking over the heads of the promenaders. Dimly he could see the two men who had attracted his attention. They started to move westward along the Terrace, their backs toward him and the sailor.
With a gesture to his friend The Wasp moved after them. The trail was hot. He was not certain which of the two men had uttered the exclamation that had startled him, but on one point he had no doubt whatsoever. The speaker was the mysterious apostle of destruction whose extraordinary capacity for underground engineering was keeping Europe in a ferment. The words had been uttered by The Mystery Man from Prague!
The two walked up the steps leading to the higher level. They paused by the monument to Berlioz, talked excitedly for a few moments, then abruptly parted. One swung on his heel and came back along the Terrace, the other strode forward toward the Avenue de Monte Carlo, leading down to Monaco.
The Wasp whispered a word to Jack Graye. "One of these two is the man we are hunting for," he breathed. "Just for the moment I don't know which. Trail the fellow making for the avenue! Stick to him like grim death. If you hole him get a message to the man at the Hotel Hermitage. Go to it!"
A SLEEK person was the man whom Robert Henry Blane
attempted to shadow. An old hand at doubling on his trail
and throwing impediments in the path of a pursuer.
He reached the end of the Terrace where the big, outdoor elevator drops the tired gamblers down to the platform of the station. Blane was some twenty paces to the rear. The pursued reached the elevator as the attendant was on the point of closing the door. He entered quickly, the car dropped slowly, downward, leaving The Wasp upon the Terrace.
Blane held college records. He called upon the speed that had made him famous. He raced to the stairs, took the two flights in half a dozen reckless strides, landed on the open space beside the station and ran full speed to the entrance. A hurrying fat man met him in the doorway, the two clutched, swayed and stumbled. The fat man cursed; The Wasp tried to disengage himself. At the moment of collision some one had slipped through the outer door, some one whose movements were snakelike and sinister, and, for the first time Blane was confident that the person he was trailing was none other than The Man from Prague!
Blane threw off the fat man. The strange apostle of destruction had slipped into a magnificent car that had swung toward the entrance as he came through. There was a short order, and the auto roared its contempt for the incline.
The Wasp rushed across the open space to a parked car. He woke the snoring driver with a rough push. "Up the hill!" he cried. "Quick! Follow the car ahead!"
"Engaged, monsieur!" yelped the startled chauffeur.
"A thousand francs!" snapped The Wasp. "After him!"
The chauffeur was mercenary. He forgot the expected client and steamed up the rise after the big car. Madmen, and oftentimes very rich madmen, came to Monte Carlo, and if the Almighty brought one of them in his direction it proved that the Almighty knew of the troubles of a chauffeur who had a wife and four children to support, with food and clothing leaping skyward. He leaned over his wheel and laid a heavy foot on the gas.
Luck favored The Wasp. On the steep Avenue de la Madone he sighted the big car ahead of him. It had been blocked by a sight-seeing charabanc immediately before Ciro's. Blane pointed to it.
"Keep it in sight!" he cried.
"If the good Lord wills," said the chauffeur quietly.
The big car swung to the left, hooting madly as it crossed the Boulevard des Moulins. It took the hill without an effort, swung its tail around the bend of the Boulevard du Nord and disappeared. Robert Henry Blane cursed softly as the machine he occupied coughed asthmatically. For the moment the cotton fields of Texas were forgotten. There welled up in him a hate of the destroyer who had, months before, impudently offered to The Wasp the position of high plenipotentiary to the United States with capital unlimited to spread the doctrine of destruction, the doctrine that had already dragged part of Europe back to semibarbarism.
"If I get my hands on him I'll teach him to fiddle with the affairs of the United States!" he growled. "I'd like to hand him over to a bunch of the Pittsburgh's boys after telling them what the assassin wishes to do."
Blane's car struck the straight boulevard. It roared along it. A red light danced far ahead. Blane watched it. The red eye swayed from the center of the road, paused for the fraction of a minute, then sailed away into the darkness. The headlight of a Casino-bound auto illuminated for a second the place where the big machine had paused. The keen eyes of The Wasp made a discovery. Slipping across the circle of light thrown by the oncoming machine was a tall, snaky silhouette! For the moment it looked like a figure cut from black cardboard, the legs jerked by threads held by unseen hands.
Blane took a thousand-franc bill from his pocket. The descending car swept by. He opened the door and climbed onto the running board. He thrust the bill into the hand of the chauffeur and yelled an order. "Keep her going! I'm going to drop off, but you keep right on! Understand? Drive her! Don't bother about me! Good night!"
The Wasp dropped to the ground some twenty yards beyond the spot where he was now certain The Man from Prague had left the big car.
Blane ran for the shadows of the tall houses. He was a wolf now, on the trail of a mean, sneaking cur. There flashed into his mind the sneering words of the apostle of destruction when he, Blane, had spoken of the little heroine of Calico Springs, Arkansas.
A stone stairway ran from the boulevard to the lower level. Blane took it. To him there came the scent of flowering shrubs. He was in the quarter of wealth. Quiet, discreet avenues ran to the right and left; villas sat demurely in the midst of plots where palms, wet nursed from infancy, spread their splendid fronds. Wistaria and bougainvillea crept over the dividing walls and plucked at passers-by.
Blane, hugging the shadows, peered down the avenues. He was certain that The Man from Prague had left the car at the head of the stairs; certain that he had rushed down into the secluded lower levels. He, Blane, slipped into an alcove in a stone wall and waited.
Two minutes passed, five minutes, ten. The Wasp had a belief that he had lost the trail. It chilled him. The long, snaky person from Prague had outwitted him.
He crept from the alcove and moved quickly along an avenue running southward toward the sea. He sought an inspiration, a hunch like that which had come to him in the Casino. At the gambling tables the number 8, connected with the outing of himself and Betty Allerton in the years gone by, had flashed up before him. He had played it and won. He glanced at the names of the villas he passed. Flowery, exotic names: "Villa des Fleurs," "Villa Sans-Souci," "Villa of Dreams," et cetera, et cetera.
He noted a number. It was two. His mind whisked him back to the roulette table. He saw the middle column of the three rows of figures upon which the gamblers stake. That middle row runs two, five, eight, eleven, fourteen, et cetera. Two, five, eight!
Blane watched the doors of the villas. There was no three, no four, but there was a five! Six and seven were missing from the entrances. He held his breath and crept along the wall. A large, newly painted 8 was above the iron gate that led into the inclosed garden!
The Wasp thrust himself against the wall. He pondered over the coincidence. He thought there might be something in it. The Man from Prague had disappeared down one of the avenues and possibly had taken shelter in a villa. Perhaps in the villa marked with the newly painted figure!
Robert Henry Blane glanced upward at the wall that separated the garden from the street. Something white showed in the shadows of the tree. Something stirred, then a voice that The Wasp knew whispered softly: "Come aboard, sir."
Robert Henry Blane uttered a little exclamation of surprise, then the sailor of the Pittsburgh explained his position. "Got here about ten minutes ago," he breathed. "The geek I steamed after ran in here, and two minutes after he berthed another chap followed. Tall, rangy chap plunging along like a destroyer."
ON the top of the wall, hidden by the shadows of the trees, Robert Henry Blane and Jack Graye held a consultation. Four windows of the villa were illuminated, one on the upper floor and three on the lower; the shadows of moving figures showed from time to time on the linen blinds drawn tightly over the latter. The garden was dim and shadowy. A quiet that was extraordinary was upon the place.
The sailor breathed his conclusions softly into the night. "I'm not the boss of the party," he murmured, "but I never saw much in sendin' for help."
Blane grinned. He thrust his two legs over the wall into the garden. The sailor followed his example.
Together they dropped into the garden. They circled a huge palm and, keeping well to the shadows, approached the door of the villa. The Wasp was in the lead, and, according to his time-honored custom, he kept his mind in a fluid state, refusing to let his thoughts harden into any plan of campaign till he had looked over the situation.
The two men from Houston reached the side of the villa immediately beneath the illuminated window of the upper floor. The window attracted The Wasp. It brought to him a strange curiosity. The blinds of the three lower windows showed moving occupants; the upstairs blind was shadowless.
Blane gripped a drain pipe and pointed upward. The sailor nodded. The method of getting into an engagement was nothing to Mr. Graye. In his mind the nephew of Kenney Blane was the leader of the expedition.
The Wasp swarmed up the pipe and found a resting place on a cornice to the left of the lighted window. The sailor followed. Their position was midway between two windows, and Blane chose the darkened one as a means of entering the villa. With great caution he leaned over and dexterously opened the lower sash.
The Wasp crawled through the window; the sailor followed. They moved like two great cats, feeling softly for resting places for feet and hands. Both possessed in a curious degree that quality of vision and deftness that enabled them to move without noise.
Blane reasoned that the passage into which the door of the room opened would lead them to the lighted chamber. He moved to the door, found it open and stepped into the corridor. A few paces beyond there showed the reflection from the fanlight of the occupied room. He tiptoed to it. He dropped upon one knee and peered through the keyhole of the door.
For a long minute the big Texan surveyed the chamber, then he rose and motioned the sailor to take a look. Graye's scrutiny was even more lengthy. It required a tap on the shoulder to drag him away from the spy hole. The faint reflection from the fanlight showed his face indistinctly as he got to his feet. Blane had a belief that the sailor was desirous of whistling to express his astonishment.
Softly Robert Henry Blane tried the handle of the door. It was, as he expected, locked. And the key had been taken away.
The sailor hurriedly brought the key from the door of the room which they had entered first. The Wasp tried it. It gave no results. The door was of oak, the noise made by breaking into the room would bring the persons from the lower floor. Absolute quiet was necessary. The glimpse of the interior that Robert Henry Blane had seen through the keyhole had startled him immensely, but it had made him more cautious. A thousand times more cautious. He realized that he was dealing with a person whose nerve and impudence knew no bounds. A man who understood, more than any one else, that poor old Europe had drifted back into a medieval state and that acts that would have been unthinkable before the war could be carried out with impunity in the new era of crookedness and deception.
He stood to consider the situation, and as he waited there came an interruption. From below a harsh voice called a name, evidently the name of a menial. There came a quick answer. The first speaker shouted instructions in the Magyar dialect, the other repeated the order, then to the ears of The Wasp and the sailor came the sound of heavy feet upon the stairs leading up from below.
The servant, or at least the person who had received the instructions, was ascending.
Blane pushed the sailor into the darkened room through the window of which they had entered the villa. They pushed the door to and waited breathlessly.
The man from below came hurrying along the corridor. There came to the listening ears of the two Texans the jangle of keys, the click of a lock, the whine of the heavy door on its hinges.
The Wasp stepped quickly from his hiding place. Swift and panther-like were his movements. The fellow who had opened the door was standing just inside the room. An arm like steel went round his neck from the rear, there was the crushing upward turn that the wrestler Isuchi taught to the Emperor Hideyoshi when that strong groom fought his way to the throne, then a limp form hung motionless in the arms of the big Texan.
A little chuckle of pleasure came from the bed. Blane held up a warning finger, dropped the servant upon the floor and whispered an order to Jack Graye.
"Undo his feet," he breathed. "Quick! I'll manage his arms!"
The young man, spread-eagled on the bed and tied thoroughly hand and foot, smiled pleasantly as the two Americans fell upon his bonds. He didn't wince as The Wasp cut away the cords that had bitten into his wrists. Blane half lifted him to the floor and tried to set him upon his feet.
The freed young man couldn't stand. The hours that he had spent strung up on the bed had numbed his limbs. He clung to The Wasp as he sagged.
"I'll be O. K. in a minute," he whispered. "Just wait till the blood gets moving. I'll give the blighters something for this. Where are they?"
"Downstairs," answered Blane.
"Have you a gun or anything?" inquired the young man. "A gun for preference, old chappie. Wait a second till I rub my jolly ankles."
The sailor had fallen upon the man on the floor, trussed him with a deftness that was remarkable, and tossed him onto the bed.
Blane stepped to the door. No sounds came from below. He moved swiftly back and took the arm of the young man he had liberated. "Can you walk?" he asked. "Good. We've got to move. Lean on me and——"
"But I'm not going till I settle with these beggars!" growled the liberated one. "They've handled me in a beastly fashion and I'm——"
"Hold your tongue," breathed Robert Henry Blane. "Do you hear me? I know the person who roped you in. He's a tough baby. Let's get out. Afterward we'll settle with him."
"Oh, all right, if you say so," said the young man. "You seem to be a bossy chap."
The Texan Wasp grinned. "Pardon me," he said gently. "I know who you are and all that, but I came from a country where every one is equal and where princes and kings don't cut much of a figure. A friend of mine told me to bring you to his hotel and I'm going to do it. Come on."
The sailor went first. He crawled out of the window and clung to the drain pipe like a leech. Supporting the half-numbed figure of the prince, Blane followed. Noiselessly the three reached the garden, climbed over the wall and hurried down the deserted avenue.
At the corner of the Boulevard Pereira they found a taxi. "Hermitage Hotel!" roared The Wasp. "And burn your tires, boy!"
Five minutes after the rescue, No. 37 had heard the story and was ready to start for the villa. Robert Henry Blane wished to come along, but the great sleuth thrust the big Texan aside. "I'll take the sailor," he said. "You've done enough for one evening. Besides, there's another task for you. There's an envelope on my table addressed to you. Read it and forget about me for the evening. I'll rope in this fellow and all his brood. Good night."
An automobile had whisked the prince away to the home of his elderly relative. The Wasp watched the tail lights of the machines that carried No. 37 and a little army of police up the slope toward the villa that sheltered The Mystery Man from Prague. Then he thought of the letter.
He found it on the dressing table of the sleuth. It was addressed to "Robert Henry Blane," and, wondering a little, he opened it. The single sheet of paper carried the following words:
Dear Blane:
I made a careful overhaul of every foreigner at Monte Carlo this evening. You might be interested to know that the register of the Hôtel Métropole shows an entry reading: "Miss Betty Allerton, Boston, U.S.A." Also, I have spoken to Colonel Ralph Coltman, of Paris, over the long distance. He has empowered me to pay you one hundred thousand dollars as a reward for the rescue of his niece, Dora. You're a lucky fellow, Blane. Sincerely,
No. 37.
Robert Henry Blane found Miss Betty Allerton in the sitting room of the hotel. She was dressed in a soft creamy-colored gown, and the big Texan told himself that no woman in all the world was as wonderful as this girl of his college days. He came toward her haltingly, and the girl rose as if doubting the wonderful eyes that told her of the approach of the only man she ever loved.
"Bob!" she murmured.
"Betty!" he whispered. "I—I just heard that you were here. I—I——"
He paused, holding her little hands in his. For a long, long minute they looked into each other's eyes, then the girl spoke. "We are going home," she said softly. "Home to America. Auntie came here to say good-by to some friends. And you?"
"To-morrow morning I start for Texas," answered The Wasp. "For Houston, Texas. Oh! Betty! A home hunger came upon me at Perpignan. A terrible home hunger. I thought I would have to swim across if I couldn't find the money. Then—then I came down here because I wanted money and—and because it was the spot where I found you again and where you said you still believed in me. And—and money came to me."
He seemed a little less the adventurer and more the college boy as he stood beside her. She smiled up at him as he chattered of the inspiration at the Casino and how he had chosen the figure eight because it was connected with the excursion that they had made from Nyack in the long ago. Her eyes were large and luminous and full of a great love as she looked up at him, hanging intently on his words.
They moved out on the terrace, a joy that was splendid and indescribable upon them both. The Texan Wasp knew that he had come to the end of his wanderings. All the world was his. He felt kin to the little stars that sat high up above the Sea of Romance; the sweet winds that came from the far-away desert way down beyond El Hoggar soothed the fever in his blood.
Hours later the Comtesse de Chambon, the aunt of Miss Betty Allerton, came searching for her niece. The comtesse stepped softly out on the hotel terrace that was in semidarkness, then she paused and clutched her bosom. The voice of Miss Betty came to her ears, and the words appalled her.
"Yes, yes," came the soft whisper of the girl, "I agree. But Bob, dear, are there any people that you—that you would like to ask?"
"A few," came the voice of Robert Henry Blane. "There's old 37, who's not a bad scout. He told me you were here, you know. And there's a sailor on the Pittsburgh who came from Houston. I bet he'd be glad to see a Houston man pulling off a prize like you. And the prince might like to come. He's not a bad chap in his way."
"I don't want the prince." interrupted Miss Betty Allerton. "There's only one prince in all the world, and his name is Robert Henry Blane. Bob, dear, I love you so much!"
The Comtesse de Chambon slipped gently into a chair and felt feebly for her smelling salts.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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