CHAPTER XV
THE BARON LENDS A HAND
"Hip, hip, 'ooray!" said the Baron again, and sank back into bibulousslumber. By his side on a tray was a half-emptied bottle of liqueurcognac and an open bottle of champagne. He had evidently been consumingover-many champagne and brandy highballs. Anthony Trent considered himfor a few moments in silence. He saw a way out of his difficulties and acertain ironical method of fooling investigation which pleased him morethan a little.
In a tall tumbler he mixed brandy and champagne--half and half--andpoked the little Baron in the ribs. The familiar sight of being offeredhis favorite tipple made the trembling hand seize the glass. Thecontents was absorbed greedily, and the Baron fell back on the _chaiselongue_.
The well-worn phrase "dead to the world" alone describes the conditionof the Baron, who had married a brewery. Trent raised the man--he couldhave weighed no more than a hundred pounds--in his strong arms andcarried him across to the dressing table. And with the Baron's limphands he opened the jewel case. Therefrom he extracted a necklace ofdiamonds set in platinum. What else was there he did not touch. He had adefinitely planned course of action in view. The Baron's recordingfingers closed the box. It would be as pretty a case of finger-printsas ever gladdened the heart of a central-office detective. The Baron wasnext carried to the _chaise longue_. He would not wake for severalhours. It would have been quite easy for Trent to make his escapeundetected. But there was something else to be done first. He locked thedoor of the Venetian bedroom and then took up the telephone receiver.His carefully trained memory recorded the accent and voice of the Baronvon Eckstein as he had heard it during an evening at the theater.
He called a telephone number. Fortunately it was a private wireconnecting with the central.
"I wish to speak to Mrs. Adrien Beekman," he said when at length therewas an answer to his call.
"She is in bed," a sleepy voice returned. "She can't be disturbed."
"She must be," said Trent, mimicking the Baron. "It is a matter of vastimportance. Tell her a gentleman wishes to present her ambulance fundwith a large sum of money. To-morrow will be too late."
"I'll see what can be done," said the voice. "That's about the onlymatter I dare disturb her on. Hold the wire."
"Madam," said Trent a minute later, "it is the Baron von Eckstein whohas the honor to speak with you."
"An odd hour to choose," returned Mrs. Adrien Beekman with nocordiality.
"I wish to make reparation, Madam," the pseudo Baron flung back. "Thisafternoon you talked to my wife, the Baroness, about your ambulances."
"And found her not interested in the least," Mrs. Beekman said, alittle crossly. So eminent a leader of society as she was not accustomedto refusal of a donation when asked of rich women striving for socialrecognition.
"We have decided that your cause is one which should have met a moregenerous response. I have been accused of being disloyal. That is false,Madam. My wife has been attacked as pro-German. That is also false. Toprove our loyalty we have decided to send you a diamond necklace.Convert this into money and buy what ambulances you can."
"Do you mean this?" said the astonished Mrs. Adrien Beekman.
"I am never more serious," retorted the Baron.
"What value has it?" she asked next.
"You will get fifty thousand dollars at least," he said.
"Ten ambulances!" she cried. "Oh, Baron, how very generous! I'm afraidI've cherished hard feelings about you both that have not beenjustified. How perfectly splendid of you!"
"One other thing," said the Baron, "I am sending this by a trustedmessenger at once. Please see that some one reliable is there to receiveit."
* * * * *
It was safer, Trent thought, to gain the Square over the roofs and downthe stairways of the apartment house. It was now raining and hardly asoul was in view. The Adrien Beekman house was only a block distant.They were of the few who retained family mansions on the lower end ofFifth Avenue.
He knocked at the Beekman door and a man-servant opened it. In theshadows the man could only see the dark outline of the messenger.
"I am the Baron von Eckstein," he said, still with his carefullymimicked accent. "This is the package of which I spoke to yourmistress."
* * * * *
It seemed, when he got back to Webster Hall, that none had missed him.The first to speak was the Baroness.
"We are just going over to the house," she said cordially.
"I don't want to share you," he said, smiling, "with all these others.I'd rather come to-morrow at four. May I?"
At four on the next day Anthony Trent, dressed in the best of taste as aman of fashion and leisure, ascended the steps to the Burton Trent homeand wondered, as others had done before him, at the amazing fowl whichguarded its approach.
He was kept waiting several minutes. From the distant reception rooms heheard acrimonious voices. One was the Baron's and it pleased him to notethat he had caught its inflections so well the night before. The othervoice was that of his new friend, the Baroness. Unfortunately theconversation was in German and its meaning incomprehensible.
When at last he was shown into a drawing room he found the Baronesshighly excited and not a little indignant. She was too much overwroughtto take much interest in her new acquaintance. Almost she looked asthough she wished he had not come. Things rarely looked so rosy to theBaroness as they did after a good dinner and it was but four o'clock.
"What has disturbed you?" he asked.
"Everything," she retorted. "Mainly my husband. Tell me, if you were awoman and your husband, in a drunken fit, gave away a diamond necklaceto an enemy would you be calm about it?"
"Has that happened?" he demanded.
"It has," she snapped. "You remember I told you at the dance I had leftthe original necklace at home for safety?"
"I believe you did mention it," he said, meditating.
"I'd much better have worn it, Mr. Trent. Everybody knows the Baron'spassion is for cognac and champagne. No man since time began has everdrunk so much of them. When we got back here last night we had a gay andfestive time. It was almost light when I went to my room and found thenecklace gone. I sobered the Baron and he could give absolutely noexplanation. He said he had slept in the dressing room to guard thejewels. That was nonsense. He came there to worry my maid. She went tobed and left him drinking. The police came in and took all the servants'finger-prints and tried to fasten the thing on them. There were marks onthe jewel case where some one's hands had been put. I offered a rewardof five thousand dollars for any one who could point out the man orwoman who had taken the necklace."
Trent kept his countenance to the proper pitch of interest and sympathy.It was not easy.
"What have the police found?"
"Wait," the Baroness commanded, "you shall hear everything. This morningI received a letter from Mrs. Adrien Beekman. You know who she is, ofcourse. She thanked me, rather patronizingly, for giving my diamondnecklace to her Ambulance Fund. She said she had sold it to a Mexicanmillionaire for fifty thousand dollars, enough to buy ten ambulances."
"How did she get the necklace?" Trent asked seriously.
"That husband of mine," she returned. "The Baron did it. I can onlythink that in his maudlin condition he remembered what I had told him atdinner about being bothered by the Beekman woman for a cause I'm notvery much in sympathy with. There is no other explanation. It all fitsin. Actually he took the diamonds to the Beekman place himself. I can'tdo anything. I dare not tell the facts or I should be laughed out of NewYork."
"Mrs. Adrien Beekman is very influential," he reminded her, choking backhis glee, "it may prove worth your while."
"She hates me," the Baroness said vindictively. "I've never been soupset in my life. You haven't heard all. There's worse. One of myservants is trying to get into the Army and Navy Finger-printing Bureau.She's made finger-prints of every one in the house--me included--fromglasses or any
thing we've touched. It was the Baron's finger-prints onthe jewel case, as the police found out, too, and I've got to pay herfive thousand dollars reward!"