CHAPTER TWO

ALTHOUGH the carriages and automobiles of the wealthy were no longer three deep in the Rue de la Paix, as they had been earlier in the season, this ravishing thoroughfare was crowded with foot-passengers as Monty and his friend made their way under the red and white awnings of the shops into Cartier’s.

The transaction took very little time. The manager of the place seemed to be expecting his client, to whom he accorded the respect that even a Rue de la Paix jeweler may pay to a million-franc customer. Bank of France notes of high denominations were passed to him and Steven Denby received a small, flat package and walked out into the sunshine with it.

“Now,” said the owner of the pearls, “guard me as you would your honor, Monty; the sport begins, and I am now probably pursued by a half dozen of the super-crooks of high class fiction.”

“I wish you’d be serious,” Monty said plaintively.

“I am,” Denby assured him. “But I rely on your protection, so feel more light-hearted than I should otherwise.”

“You are laughing at me,” Monty protested.

“I want you to look a little less like a detected criminal,” Denby returned.

“If I happened to be a detective after a criminal I should arrest you on sight. You keep looking furtively about as though you’d done murder and bloodhounds were on your track.”

“Well, they are on our track,” Monty said excitedly, and then whispered thrillingly: “Have a cigarette, Dick.” There was trembling triumph in his voice. He felt he had justified himself in his friend’s eyes.

“What is it?” Denby asked with no show of excitement.

“There was a man in Cartier’s who watched us all the time,” Monty confided. “He is on our trail now. We’re being shadowed, Steve. It’s all up!”

“Nonsense!” his companion cried. “There’s nothing compromising in buying a pearl necklace. I didn’t steal it.”

Suddenly he turned around and looked at the man Monty indicated. His face cleared. “That’s Harlow. He’s one of Cartier’s clerks, who looks after American women’s wants. Don’t worry about him.”

By this time the two had come to the Tuileries, that paradise for the better class Parisian children. Denby pointed to a seat. “Sit down there,” he commanded, “while I see what Harlow wants.”

Obediently Monty took a seat and watched the man he had mistaken for a detective from the corner of his eye. Denby chatted confidentially with him for fully five minutes and then, it seemed to the watcher, passed a small packet into his hand. The man nodded a friendly adieu and walked rapidly out of sight. For a few seconds Denby stood watching and then rejoined his friend.

“Anything the matter?” the timorous one demanded eagerly.

“Why should there be?” Denby returned. “Don’t worry, Monty, there’s nothing to get nervous about yet.”

Monty remembered the confidential conversation between the two.

“He seemed to have a lot to tell you,” he insisted.

Denby smiled. “He did; but he came as a friend. Harlow wanted to warn me that while I was buying the necklace a stranger was mightily interested and asked Harlow what he knew about me.”

“There you are,” Monty gasped excitedly, “I told you it was all up. Did Harlow know who the man was?”

“He suspected him of being a customs spy. Our customs service takes the civilized world as its hunting ground and Paris is specially beloved of it.”

“What are you going to do?” Monty asked when he had looked suspiciously at an amiable old priest who went ambling by. “They’ll get you.”

“They may,” Denby said, “but the interested gentleman at Cartier’s won’t.”

“But he knows all about you,” Monty persisted. “It will be dead easy.”

“He doesn’t,” the other returned. “Harlow took the liberty of transforming me into an Argentine ranch owner of unbounded wealth about to purchase a mansion in the Parc Monceau.”

“That was mighty good of him,” Monty cried in relief. “That fellow Harlow is certainly all right.”

Denby smiled a trifle oddly, Monty thought. “His kind ways have won him a thousand dollars,” he returned. “Did you see me pass him something?”

Monty nodded.

“Well, that was five thousand francs. I passed it to him, not in the least because I believe in the mythical stranger – ”

“What do you mean?” the amazed Monty exclaimed. It seemed to him he was getting lost in a world of whose existence he had been unaware.

“Simply this,” Denby told him, “that I disbelieve Harlow’s story and am not as easily impressed by kind faces as you are. I think Harlow’s inquisitive stranger was a fake.”

Monty looked at him with a superior air. “And you mean to say,” he said with the air of one who has studied financial systems, “that you handed over a thousand dollars without verifying it? I call that being easy.”

“It’s this way,” Denby explained patiently. “Harlow knows I have the necklace and he’s in a position to know on what boat I sail. If I had not remembered that I owed him five thousand francs just now he might have informed the customs that I had bought a million-franc necklace and I should have been marked down as one to whom a special search must be made if I didn’t declare it.”

“But if he’s a clerk in Cartier’s what has he to do with the customs?” Monty asked.

“Perhaps he is underpaid,” the other returned. “Perhaps he is extravagant – I’ve seen him at the races and noticed that he patronized the pari mutuel– perhaps he has a wife and twelve children. I’ll leave it to you to decide, but I dare not take a risk.”

Monty shivered. “It looks to me as if we were going to have a hell of a time.”

“A little excitement possibly,” Denby said airily, “but nothing to justify language like that, though. You ought to have been with me last year at Buenos Ayres, Monty, and I could have shown you some sport.”

“I don’t think I’m built for a life like that,” Monty admitted, and then reflected that this friend of his was an exceedingly mysterious being of whose adult life and adventures he knew nothing. For an uneasy moment he hoped his father would never discover this association, but there soon prevailed the old boyish spirit of hero-worship. Steven Denby might not conform to some people’s standards, but he felt certain he would do nothing criminal. One had to live, Monty reflected, and his father complained constantly of hard times.

“What sort of sport was it?” he hazarded.

“It had to do with the secret of a torpedo controlled by wireless,” Denby said. “A number of governments were after it and there collected in Buenos Ayres the choicest collection of high-grade adventurers that I have ever seen. Some day when I’m through with this pearl trouble I’ll tell you about it.”

But what Denby had carelessly termed “pearl trouble” was quite sufficient for the less experienced man. He had a vivid imagination, more vivid now than at any period of his career. Paris was full of Apaches, he knew, and not all spent their days lying in the sun outside the barriers. Supposing one sprang from behind a tree and fell upon Denby and seized the precious package whose outline was discernible through the breast pocket of his coat. Monty suddenly took upon himself the rôle of an adviser.

“It’s no use taking unnecessary risks,” he said. “I saw you put those pearls in your breast pocket, and there were at least six people who had the same opportunity as I. It’s just putting temptation in the way of a thief.”

“I welcome this outbreak of caution on your part,” said Denby, laughing at his expression of anxiety, “but you’ll need it on board ship most. The greatest danger is that a couple of crooks may rob me and then pitch me overboard. Monty, for the sake of our boyhood recollections, don’t let them throw me overboard.”

“Now you are laughing at me,” Monty said a trifle sulkily.

“What do you want me to do?” Denby demanded.

“Put those pearls in some other place,” he returned stubbornly.

Denby made a pass or two in the air as conjurers do when they perform their marvels.

“It’s done,” he cried. “From what part of my anatomy or yours shall I produce them?”

“There you go,” Monty exclaimed helplessly, “you won’t be serious. I’m getting all on the jump.”

“A cigarette will soothe you,” Denby told him, taking a flat leathern pouch from his pocket and offering it to the other.

“I can’t roll ’em,” Monty protested.

“Then a look at my tobacco has a soothing effect,” the elder man insisted. “I grow it in my private vineyard in Ruritania.”

Monty turned back the leather flap to look at his friend’s private brand and saw nestling in a place where once tobacco might have reposed a necklace of pearls for which a million of francs had been paid.

“Good Lord!” Monty gasped. “How did you do it?”

“A correspondence school course in legerdemain,” Steven explained. “It comes in handy at times.”

“But I didn’t see you do it and I was watching.”

“An unconscious tribute to my art,” Denby replied. “Monty, I thank you.”

Monty grew less anxious. If Steven had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve there was no reason to suppose he must fail.

“I don’t think you need my advice,” he admitted. “It doesn’t seem I can help you.”

“You may be able to help a great deal,” Denby said more seriously, “but I don’t want you to act as if you were a criminal. Pass it off easily. Of course,” – he hesitated, – “I’ve had more experience in this sort of thing than you, and am more used to being up against it, but it will never do if you look as anxiously at everybody on the Mauretania as you do at the passers-by here. You can help me particularly by observing if I am the subject of special scrutiny.”

“That will be a cinch,” Monty asserted.

“Then start right away,” his mentor commanded. “We have been under observation for the last five minutes by someone I’ve never laid eyes on before.”

“Good Lord!” Monty cried. “It was that old priest who stared at us. I knew he was a fake. That was a wig he had on!”

“Try again,” Denby suggested. “It happens to be a woman and a very handsome one. As we went into Cartier’s she passed in a taxi. I only thought then that she was a particularly charming American or English woman out on a shopping expedition. When we came out she was in one of those expensive couturier’s opposite, standing at an upper window which commands a view of Cartier’s door. They may have been coincidences, but at the present moment, although we are sauntering along the Champs Elysées, she is pursuing us in another taxi. She has passed us once. When she went by she told the chauffeur to turn, but he was going at such a pace that he couldn’t pull up in time. He has just turned and is now bearing down on us. Take a look at the lady, Monty, so you will know her again.”