Lazily I read through the paper because there was nothing else to do, and then, in the society columns, I caught an announcement in prominent, black headlines:
Mrs. Kemper wasn’t the type to go in for any great amount of advertising in the society columns. She didn’t need to. That dame was of the inner circle of the inner circle, the upper crust of the top story.
I read on, through the maudlin gush, until there was a list of the guests, and noticed that Edward Gordon Jenkins would be among those present.
Here was a fortunate coincidence. The Kempers were necessary in the plans I had formulated, and I was expecting to get in touch with them soon. Now this meant that Helen wished to see me. Undoubtedly she was feeling the pressure of the net closing around her. She needed me, and this was Mrs. Kemper’s clever way of letting me know.
I went to the telephone and rang her up.
“Understand I’m to be a guest at your party,” I told her.
She was bubbling with enthusiasm, although I could tell that there was someone within hearing at her end of the wire by the care with which she chose her words.
“You are to be the guest of honor. The party is really being given for you.”
“I gathered as much from the newspaper,” I told her. “Now, listen. Put out another notice that the real guest of honor is a Mr. Alexandrovitch, who is to spend a day or two at the house and who has an important business matter pending with your husband.”
“That will be entirely satisfactory,” she cooed, using commonplace words, as though she were merely conversing with a friend about the weather or the length of the skirts. “But be sure and keep the engagement. There is much to discuss.”
I knew that, and if she had known what I knew she would have been just that much more anxious; but there was no use spreading a general alarm so I thanked her with my best social grace and hung up.
Good girl that. She didn’t waste a lot of time asking me where I was, where she could reach me if she needed me and all that rot. I was a lone wolf and she knew it. She had enough confidence in me to figure I’d be on the job. And she was one of those wise, matchmaking women. Hang it! She couldn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t marry Helen and settle down. If Helen wanted me and I wanted Helen that was all there was to it in the eyes of that dame. I knew the world better than that, knew that if I should ever speak, should ever allow myself to slip, there would be a lifetime of misery ahead of Helen Chadwick. Not that I was conceited or thought that the girl was crazy about me; but there had been a time when we had been forced to pretend we were engaged, and from that time on I knew that the girl looked on me differently from the rest of the society namby-pambies who buzzed around her.
However, there was work to be done, and I couldn’t allow myself to waste time building air castles. I had had many experiences with desperate crooks, but this was the first time I had ever run into an organization that was so baffling, so powerful. I had my back to the wall, fighting for life and for the happiness of the one woman I cared greatly for.
I sent out for a kit of tools and fitted up a little workshop in my room in the hotel. Also I had myself measured for dress clothes, called for the crown and the phoney jewelry and was all set.
In the meantime there had been quite a splurge in the papers concerning the mysterious Alexis Alexandrovitch. The reporters had found Mrs. Kemper to be quite mysterious, and she particularly took pains to assure the reporters that Mr. Alexandrovitch desired to remain quite incognito. His business was with her husband, but she did not know the details of that business nor would she divulge them if she did; it merely happened that he was to be present over the weekend and she had determined to entertain him at the informal gathering, etc., etc., etc.
That woman had a knack of handing out the blah-blah which made the reporters gush all over the society columns of the paper. Of course anything the Kempers did was duck soup for the social columns anyway. They were the leaders, and the smaller fry followed and imitated.
The stage was all set, everything ready for the ringing up of the curtain. I had completed my little work with the tools, and folded my tents like the Arabs and silently slipped out of the back door, leaving sufficient money on the dresser to pay my bill, so there wouldn’t be a howl.
I went a hundred miles out of town by machine, and when I came back, I came in style, none other than Mr. Alexis Alexandrovitch, himself. The telegrams I had sent Mrs. Kemper had insured a respectable sprinkling of reporters who met the train.
It was working fine. Loring Kemper was a noted jewel collector. It was well known that he had the means to purchase almost any collection of gems, and the fact that Mrs. Kemper had emphasized that the Russian gentleman who insisted on remaining incognito under the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch had business with her husband was all that one could ask for in the line of advertising. She might as well have stated that I would have the Russian crown jewels with me and be negotiating for a sale with the well-known collector.
This was the game I had determined upon to bring the battle into my own hands, and if that bait didn’t attract the gang of Icy-Eyes, then I didn’t know what would.
I was disguised, of course, and it was a good disguise. I had taken more time with that disguise than I had taken with any other part I had ever assumed. There was either an uncanny ability on the part of that gang to penetrate disguises, or there had been a leak somewhere.
There were special police at the station, and there was Loring Kemper. I saw him at once and tipped him the high sign, and he came over to me with just the right shade of respectful deference in his voice.
“Ah, you are… er… Mr. Alexandrovitch? This is indeed a pleasure!”
His right hand clasped mine cordially, and his shrewd eyes twinkled into mine.
“You have the—?” he asked, lowering his eyes significantly to the strapped, locked bag which I held determinedly in my left hand, and which I allowed no porter to touch.
I glanced guardedly about and then nodded.
In such a manner did we leave the crowded station, and that evening photographs of my arrival were published in the papers, and each and every photograph showed me holding that double-locked bag firmly in my left hand.
The trap was baited. It remained to be seen what would come to it.
During the drive to the Kemper mansion, Loring Kemper said but little. He was a man of strong silences, and one could almost feel his emotions from the very quality of his silence. Now he was honestly glad to see me, and there was a perpetual twinkle in his eyes as he swung the steering wheel of the big car.
The magnificent residence seemed almost homelike to me as we rolled up the graveled driveway and came to a stop before the side door. Servants were there, waiting for my bags, a chauffeur took the car to the garage, and, arm in arm, Loring Kemper and myself came upon Helen Chadwick and Mrs. Kemper.
I have forgotten the casual remark with which Mrs. Kemper prefaced our greeting. She was too shrewd a diplomat, too much a woman of the world, to have jarred the occasion by saying anything which would have demanded my entire attention by way of reply. Her welcome was cordial and sincere, the mere fact that I was there was proof enough of that. But she greeted me casually enough, swung just enough so that her arm engaged that of her husband, and Helen gravitated to me as the older people strolled off down the corridor without so much as a backward glance, taking it for granted that we were following.