CHAPTER III
PAULINE TAXES THE FIRST TRICK
"All right, I'll do it," growled Harry Marvin, with the air of a martyrgoing to the stake. "I'll do it for your sake, Polly."
"Well, you'd better begin to get ready," said Pauline blithely.
"I'll climb into a frock coat and endure an hour or two of thisafternoon tea chatter," promised Harry, "but first you must talk sensewith me for a few minutes."
"Oh, Harry," spoke Pauline, softly, "I know what 'talking sense'means. You want to argue about my year of adventure. Now, lets notargue. Let's just be happy. You know I love you and I know you loveme, and that ought to be enough. This year will be gone before youknow it. I'm going to begin it right away just to please you. Thesooner it starts the sooner it will be over."
"Begin it?" said Harry. "Why, a month of it is gone now. But it's allnonsense. Polly, if you love me you are going to give up this crazyidea."
A maid, bringing the card of Miss Lucille Hamlin, interrupted Harry.She was the first of the afternoon tea party. Polly hurried Harry offto dress, and, of course, he had no further chance to "talk sense"until the door had closed on the last guest. Then he pounced uponher. But Pauline, sweetly stubborn, cheerfully unyielding, insisted oncarrying out her father's promise to the letter.
Raymond Owen, the secretary of the late Mr. Marvin, had thought itimportant to overhear this argument, and finally to walk into thelibrary where the debate was going on. If the adventures were to starthe had an idea for a beginning. The words of Hicks, the blackmailer,had been in his mind for some thirty days and were beginning to bearfruit. He had soon reached the point of hoping, almost praying,something would happen to Pauline that he might be left in control ofher, estate. During the last few days Owen had progressed, from merelyhoping to readiness to help his wish to come true.
Harry instantly appealed to the secretary to dissuade Pauline. Therewas no doubt that Owen had some influence over the girl. In years goneby, before Owen had taken to the drug, Pauline had sought him out inmany a time of perplexity and learned to rely on his tactful,well-considered advice.
To the surprise of the young master of the house, Owen made no attemptto dissuade. Very unobtrusively he pointed out that for many years hehad been accustomed to carry out the wishes of Harry's father, and thathe was bound to fulfill his last wish in the same way.
"Raymond, you're a dear," laughed Pauline; "let's think of somethingthrilling to do right off. Have you any idea?"
"No," lied Owen, "I hadn't given the matter any thought. We might lookat a newspaper and see what's happening."
Owen had a paper with him and the three examined it together.
Owen pretended to discover that an aviation meet was about to be held.His idea, for which Harry promptly hated him, was to induce someaviator to take Pauline as a passenger. Many of the races called forcarrying a passenger. Harry made a few objections, but the speed withwhich they were overruled showed that he had no standing in thiscourt. So Harry subsided, but he thought very hard.
Several things were becoming evident to Harry.
One was that this year to see life and have adventures was actuallygoing to take place and no opposition on his part would stop it. Itwas also clear that if he hoped to control Pauline's adventures in anyway it would be by the use of his wits, matching them against Paulineand the secretary.
When Pauline and Owen decided upon the aeroplane ride, Harry contentedhimself with remarking that he would have to see about it. Bothchuckled when he said it, Pauline outwardly and Owen inwardly.
Then they had dinner under the round glassy eye of Aunt Cornelia. AuntCornelia was an elderly maiden relative of Harry, who had arrived withothers for the funeral and made the brilliant discovery that since Mr.Marvin's death the "social situation," as she termed it, at the Marvinhouse had become impossible.
It seemed, according to Aunt Cornelia, that a young man and a youngwoman of impressionable age living in the same house unchaperonedconstituted an "impossible social situation," Either Pauline or Harrymust move out or someone must be installed as chaperon. Of course, thechaperon was the least of the three evils and Aunt Cornelia, being thediscoverer of the job, was elected to fill it.
Harry ordered a bottle of wine with his dinner. Though he actuallydrank very little, this unusual event created no little consternation.
"Harry, I didn't know you drank?" said Pauline.
"I am just beginning. You see, now that I must take over father'saffairs and mix with men of the world I ought to get a littleexperience in things. See life and know what's what."
After dinner Harry casually asked if Pauline thought her adventureswould lead her to Paris. Pauline thought it likely, whereat Harryremarked that he might see her over there.
"I haven't been to Paris since I was a kid, and I really ought to seeit, don't you think?"
"Yes," agreed Pauline, without enthusiasm, "but wait until we aremarried and we'll do Paris together."
"No, Polly, that won't do. I'm sorry, but as you say, you can't seelife after you're married and settled down, so I'll have to do Parisalone."
"Harry, are you sure you love me?" Pauline whispered.
"Polly, I know it, and everybody else knows it except you. Get Owen,he's a notary public, and I'll take an oath before him that you havebeen the only girl in all the world, are now and ever will be, worldwithout end, amen."
"And I love you, Harry," said Pauline, lowering her eyes until he sawonly the silky lashes.
"Why, Polly, that's the first time you ever volunteered thatinformation."
"Yes, Harry, I love you too much to let you go to Paris."
"Paris can't hurt me unless I let it hurt me."
"Harry, you won't be quite the same sort of boy when you come back fromParis. Will you promise not to go until we are married?"
"Will you promise not to go on this trip of adventure?"
"Why should I?" demanded Pauline.
"Because you won't ever be quite the same sort of girl when you comeback."
After breakfast the next morning when the big touring car rolled up tothe front door to got Pauline and Owen, Harry was hurt that he had notbeen consulted. Pauline's belated invitation to go with them to theaviation field in the automobile was declined. Away went the big carto the fine stretch of roads, where it made short work of the distanceto the aviation grounds.
Owen made a complete canvass of the "hangars" and soon accounted forevery machine entered in the race for the next day. From all but oneof the aviators he obtained a flat refusal. Not for money or any otherconsideration would they take a strange woman as a passenger. The onlyexception was a Frenchman, whose hesitation in declining led Owen tofurther argument. At the last moment Pauline, impatient at thesuspense, entered the Frenchman's "hangar" and added her blandishmentsto Owen's financial inducements. The gallant foreigner succumbed and abargain was struck. He exhibited his tame bird of steel and wood andcloth with the utter pride of a mother showing off her only child.
The aviator's fingers touched one of the wires and the easy smile lefthis face. He turned to his mechanics and sharp words followed. Amoment later one of his assistants was at work tightening the wire.Owen's eyes scarcely left the wire, and when the opportunity arose hequestioned the mechanic as, to what would happen if that particularsteel strand should fail during flight. The foreigner explainedfrankly that the aeroplane would capsize and plunge to the earth. Buthe assured Owen that no such thing would happen, as he had justtightened the wire in question and would make another inspection afterthe practice flight that afternoon.
All the way home Owen's thoughts were of that wire and what it wouldmean to him. In the meanwhile Harry, after watching the car departtoward Hempstead, concluded to follow. He went to the picturesqueprivate garage behind the Marvin mansion and soon was, following in thetracks of the bigger car.
Arrived on the field, he recognized Pauline's car and awaited patientlyuntil he saw it drive awa
y. Then he interviewed the aviator andlearned of the proposed trip on the morrow. Harry's French was nothingto boast of, nor was the Frenchman's English. But they managed to havea long and in the end a heated argument. The birdman said he had givenhis word to a beautiful lady, and that settled it. Besides, there was nodanger in his wonderful machine. Had he not flown upside down and doneall the things the great Pegoud himself had done?
"As you Americans say--let's see, what is your idiom?"
One of his mechanics prompted him:
"Ah, yes," he said, with a smile. "I believe the proper expression is,'I should worry.'"
Harry threw up his hands and went home. As he buzzed his horn outsidethe garage the door was opened by the Marvin chauffeur with a telegramin his hand. The chauffeur's wife was sick and he wanted a couple ofdays' leave of absence. Harry granted it instantly. That evening hemade no mention of either the chauffeur's absence or his trip to thefield. Pauline thought she was teasing Harry by saying nothing of herplans. She was sure he was eaten up with curiosity to know the resultof her visit and admired his ability, as she thought, to conceal it.
Owen spent a nervous evening. He walked out soon after dinner and froma drug-store telephone booth called up a friend in the insurancebusiness. To the secretary's surprise and disappointment he learnedthat the percentage of accidents to aviators had become comparativelysmall. Passengers were particularly fortunate. The friend even agreedto obtain accident insurance for any one at a reasonable premium.
If aeroplanes had become reasonably safe the chance of Pauline's beingkilled during the flight on the following day was insignificant. Hemust give up all hope of wealth from the permanent control of herestate. As the evening wore on Owen began to feel how he hadunconsciously relied on this hope. He doubled his evening dose ofmorphine, but it neither soothed his disappointment nor brought himsleep.
Hour after hour, during the night, his sleepless eyes seemed to seethat loose wire which the mechanic had explained to be so vitallyimportant. He could see in imagination the machine flying off into theclouds with Pauline in it. He could see it suddenly waver, dip andplunge to the earth. In his mind's eye he saw himself rushing to, thewreck, lifting out the girl's crushed form, wildly calling for adoctor, and exulting all the time that she was beyond human aid.
About two o'clock Owen fell into a doze, and in that doze came one ofhis vivid opium dreams. He beheld Hicks enter his bedroom. It was notHicks, the blackmailer, but Hicks, the counselor, who had told Owen howhe might become rich. Hicks was speaking to him in a sort of noiselessvoice, very different from his usual tones. He spoke in a sort ofshells or husks of words. The consonants were there, but the vowelswere lacking. Yet he heard as plainly as if the red-faced man hadshouted. Hicks advised him to be a man, to show courage for once, torisk something, and then reap the reward forever afterward. "Take yourmotorcycle, ride to the aviation field before daylight, file that wirehalf through, and fate will take care of the rest."
But Owen lacked the nerve. He feared that he would be seen sneakingonto the field at night or at daybreak. Hicks replied that the fieldwas deserted at this hour. Owen then insisted that the aeroplane wouldbe guarded, and even if it were not locked in its hangar the first raspof a file on the wire would call the attention of some one on guard.No, it was too much, Owen could not do it. Instead, he made a countersuggestion that Hicks should undertake the task, since he was socertain of its success. For his part the secretary agreed to divideall that the estate might be made to yield him.
Owen, like everybody else, had seen many strange things in dreams, butnever had he known of any character in a dream admitting or evensuggesting that he was a dream. Yet this was just what Hicks did.
"I would, Owen. I would do it in a minute if I were talking to you.But this isn't me at all. I'm only a dream, in, reality I'm soundasleep in a hotel on upper Broadway, where I am dreaming that I amtalking to you. Tomorrow morning I'll remember enough of this dream tomake me go down to the aviation field with a sort of premonition thatPauline is going to be killed in an aeroplane."
"How did you know about that wire and that she is going to flytomorrow," asked Owen.
"I don't know that," said the phantom Hicks frankly in his emptyvoice. "There is a third party in this and I don't know who he is ormuch about him, except that he is not a living being. He seems to besomebody from the past, a priest of some old religion I ought to havestudied about when I was at school. I don't know what his motive is,but he is with us. He wants her killed for some reason. He broughtthis dream of me to you so I could explain.
"You needn't worry about the man on guard over the aeroplanes. Thatman won't wake up, no matter how much noise you make."
"How do you know?" Owen asked.
"He knows," replied Hicks, "because he has transferred the effects ofyour morphine from your astral body to his. That's how he knows. Youought to know, too, because you have taken almost enough of the drug tokill you tonight, and yet this is the first time you have even closedyour eyes. You'd better let him help us and file that wire as headvises. I'm going now, you will wake up in a moment. This priest mantold me after I had given you the message to drop this out of my handand the dream would end. So here goes. Goodbye."
Owen saw Hicks hold his hand over a table and drop a small black shinyobject upon it. As it dropped Hicks vanished and Owen awoke. He hearda sharp snap and saw something black and shiny on the table. For amoment the secretary sat quietly in his chair staring at the table andmaking sure that he was no longer dreaming. Then he examined the blackobject. It was the scarab which old Mr. Marvin had removed from thefolds of the mummy. An image of the beetle which Egypt held sacred,carved in black stone. Owen had not noticed the scarab before hisshort nap and he could not account for its presence in his roomanyway.
A little later he donned his motor-cycling suit, tip-toed downstairs,noiselessly went out by a back door and was soon trundling his bigtwo-cylinder motorcycle from the garage. He was careful to push it outof the Marvin premises onto the highway before lighting his lamp andstarting.
Arriving at the field just at dawn Owen found it as deserted as thespectral Hicks had promised. From the tool kit of his motor-cycle hetook two files of different shapes and a pair of pliers and walkedbriskly and fearlessly over the uneven ground to the hangars. All wereclosed except one, and that one contained the French machine in whichPauline was to ascend. The secretary knew that this hangar would beopen. He knew in advance that he would find a mechanic on guard andsound asleep.
Whether real or unreal, awake or asleep, the business of the moment wasthe filing of that wire. Owen recognized it readily and found it notto be a single wire, as he supposed, but a slender cable composed ofmany strands. These strands resisted his file and even the clipperattached to his pliers. After what seemed an hour's work he hadweakened or broken enough of the metal threads so that the cablestretched perceptibly at that point to do more might cause the cable tobreak at once and betray what had been done.
Owen hurriedly, returned to his machine had dashed back through thebeautiful morning air to the Marvin home. Servants were stirring intheir rooms and the gardener was engaged in shaking some sort of powderfrom a can onto a bare spot on the front lawn. He glanced up at Owenwithout surprise, for these early rides were known to be an old habitof the secretary.
Owen took the machine to the garage, satisfied that there was nothingguilty in his appearance or the gardener would have noted it. Steppingout of the garage he met Harry and could not help startingperceptibly. Harry looked him in the eye, and there was nothing forOwen to do but stare steadily back.
"You are up very early, Owen," said Harry, looking at the dust on themotor.
"Yes, I've been for a long ride. I think the morning air does megood."
"You don't look well, Owen. Why don't you go to bed today. I'll takePolly to the meet."
"No, thanks. I wouldn't miss seeing Miss Pauline fly," said Owenfir
mly.