Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1910 — The Quest of Betty Lancey [ARTICLE]

The Quest of Betty Lancey

By MAGDA F. WEST

CHAPTER V. Everybody but Johnny Johnson followed Betty. Johnson went back to ‘the house where now remained none but Pierre Desterte and several of the older and more courageous bachelors who had lived in the house for years. Betty and her cohort numbered seven. Besides Larry Morris, long and lumbery, there s was the gentle-eyed young Philip Hartley, Hank Smith, tall and tremendously framed, Sothern, fat, blonde and phlegmatic; Frankel, a little Jew, who was autojnobile editor of the “Times,” and Tim Murphy, cartoonist, a great hulk of an Irishman. The Directory Hotel, one of the most exclusive in the town, was only two blocks from Leßoy’s. “Now E 24 is my room?’ whispered Betty. “You let me go up flrsfc Don't let the clerk in on this even, till we find out what’s what.” Five minutes later the sextette were pulled inside the door of room E 24 by such an excited Betty Delaney as the “Inquirer” office bad never seen. “Look! ,N she instructed. “Be careful, but look right across.”^ The span of the court did not exceed eighteen feeV' Betty’s side of the great building was all black and quiet Hot *• light glimpsed in any room. The room directly across the tfcuyt whose windows complimented hers had the shades thrown high, the windows opened wide and was ablaze with light. There were two occupants in the room, a man and a woman, seated side by'slde at a table covered with writing paraphernalia. The man was powerfully built, regular of feature and Very dark, with peculiarly white and nervous hands. The woman wore a tailored suit of dark cloth and even at that distance her remarkable resem- , blance to the woman they had last iegfi lyTngTn the morgue was unmistakable. There was the same soft contour of chin, the same rust-brown hair, and clear ivory pallor of the skin. The slight yet perfect., modelings of 'her figure, the slender pink-palmed hand, the curve of the forehead, were as/like as is. stamped from the same die. As they watched, breathless, Btupefled from surprise, the man drew a wallet from his pocket and pulled from it several papers. He ran rapidly through them and withdrawing two from the packet handed them to his companion. She reached across to receive them when a sudden gust of wind bellied the curtains into sails and sent them fluttering into the room and out again. The. force of the, breezecaught the papers and they werq carried out into the court where they swirled, eddied and ducked, finally ‘alighting on the fire escape that jutted not five feet from Betty’s window. The man who had run to the window, watched With eager eyes to see where the papers fell. Then he clutched his hat from the sofa and rushed from the room. The woman shrugged her shoulders and sat down again at the table. They saw her pull out the pins from her copper hair and let it fall In glory over her shoulders. Then she walked into the adjoining room as if the recovery of the lost documents was a matter of perfect indifference. “Hank,” nudged Sothern, “you’re the longest. Climb out and get those papers.’’ / “Larry isn’t as long and he’s less awkward,” commented Frankel. “And you’re worth less than the rest of us; try it yourself, Frankel,” flashed Hank. “Betty Lancey,” asked Larry, “why areiYt you fragile and willowy Instead of a Juno? Then we’d make a rope of the bed-clothes here for a guide and send you over.” Philip Hartley was already out of the window. While the others held caucus he had pulled the blanket from the bed, torn it in half and {led a slip knot firmly around his left leg. “Go easy, boys,” he suggested. “That’ll make a fair safety.” Clambering out on the-ledge he steadied himself by the top of the sash and worked plowly round to the farther end of the sill. From there he Inched his way along a ridge in the wall till he could Just touch the fire escape. The letters were white against the iron and Just the fraction of an inch out of reach. Betty Lancey saw the difficulty. “Pass him this hat-pin,” aha sAld. “He can fish them over with that.” Slowly, Very slowly. Hartley moved the precious papers over The narrow Iron shelf, Impaling them on the hatpin point. Then with cramped fingers he put them Into his inner pocket and began the return crawl. He was barely within Betty’s room .again when they heard a loud rapping at the next door. After a short wait a woman’s Voice answered shrilly, “What do you want?” The calmly suave totles of a wellordered hotel employe* repfied. “Sorry to disturb you, madam, bat the gentleman Just above you has dropped by accident some very Important papers. They have alighted on the fire escape attached to your window, and we cannot reach them except through this room.” t "Can’t you go from the room above,” argued the woman’s voice. “The idea of getting mg up at this hour because some imbecile hasn’t brains enough to keep his letters from blowing out of the Window. If he’d been asleep as he shdiild hAve been at this time he wouldn’t have lost them. Indeed, {3l not open that door. Go up a flight, or down one.” '• “Oh, madame, I assure you,” broke In the clerk again.

“What’s the row, Mary ?” growled a sleepy masculine voice. The woman on the inside and the clerk on the outside began a simultaneous explanation. In the middle of it all the sleepy voice

gave a return growl and ordered: “Unlock that door, Mary, ’and get back into bed.’'' There was the grating of the bolt, the lifting of a window, and then a cry of horror. t “They are gone! They’re not here! Somebody has stolen, them. I know they lit here. I was so careful to watch.” “Nobody in the hotel got them. Nobody round here’s got a light,” announced the'clerk. “Glad they’re gone,” sounded the voice known only to the watchers as “Mary.” “Who in the name of sense would frolic round on a fire escape at half past three in the morning picking up papers? Now, Mr. Clerk, take your man, and go a Way with him, please. Probably he’ll find what he wants In the court.”

"Frankel, you follow them,” suggested Harry Morris. Frankel, Waiting till he heard the door /close, slipped down the hall .after the two men, Sothern With him. Betty pulled down the shade, closed and locked the window. Then she locked the door, looked under the bed, “tried the handles of the doors to the adjoining rooms and spoke breathlessly. A “Now, Hartley!” - As if to guard him from unseen attack, the bob clustered round him. He drew forth the papers. One was anunmounted photograph that might have been that of Cerisse Wayne or of the woman in the room across the court. The other was a letter-in the identical writing that the envelopes found in Cerisse Wayne’s room had borne, and was dated only a week previous. “My Dear Cerisse—Check goes by to-night’s mail. Hope you will find it sufficient. Be very careful. Think we are being watched. A slight mistake would spell all, and j the struggle of years go for naught. Life for me would be death .Itself. H.” “I’m going to run across, see that woman and chat with her while the man Is gone,” said Betty, rumpling up her soft brown hair, dull and satiny as a pecan shell. She threw off her collar and belt, aqd pulled het shirtwaist from , beneath her Skirt Then, she kicked off her in this simulated negligee ran softly over the velvet-sodded hall and around through the corridor.

"Let me se§/’ she calculated. "I am the one, two, ttjree, yes, I’m the eighth door. That would make those doors eight and nine from the corner on this side." - Betty - told off the doors with care. Sure that she was unobserved, she rapped distinctly several times,. There was no response, so she knocked vigorously. This time the door flew wide with sucli celerity that Betty paled in earnest. X “Oh, pardon me!” she faltered. “But I was alone and sick, and I saw your light and thought maybe you could help me. Have you any ammonia? I am so faint—l might send., downstair#, but I am so Unused to hotels, you know.” The young women rather stiffly motioned to Betty to enter. Her thick hhi* was in two long braids; she "had changed her tailored suit for a clinging negligee of oriental patterned stuff, and a girdle of mammoth diamonds held it close at the wplst,"~ Betty had never seen such grace In a woman before and her eyes were the most wonderful the girl had ever gazed upon. They shone so brightly that their color was Indistinguishable. They were twin wells ’of unfathomable brilliancy, 'softness and power. The woman steppe* into the bedroom beyond, and Betty, from hert seat on the couch, heard her call to the clerk.* “This is E 44,” phoned the double of Mrs. Wayne. “Kindly send your housekeeper here. A young girl, evidently a guest of the house, hag become 111, and appealed to me for aid. I cannot have her In my suite. . She see/ns afraid to stop alone, so will you send a woman to look after her?’ • Betty hurried to the door, stealthily opened It and skulked down the hall. As she rounded the corner something soft was thrown over her head, and fastened'tightly around her neck. She felt the impact of a great furry body close to hers. And then Betty Lancey knew nothing more. She lay in a dead faint CHAPTER VL at the Desterle bouse Johnny Johnson was alternately pulling Us front hair and pinching his palms to keep awake. Johnny, with his usual audacity, had ensconced himself for the night in the death chamber. Two Associated press men were with him; two reporters from others papers and three detectives. The Associated Press Men wanted to smoke, but Johnny rebelled against either illumination or smoking. “If there’s anybody opinin' back here,” he contended. “If he or she smells smoke or sees lights, there’ll be no cornin'.”. , “Considering the ashes and cigarette stubs that we found on the floor,” suggested the first Associated Press Man. “the only pray to invoke the ghost of Cerisse Wayne would be through smoke.’’ “What do we want of her ghost,” sneered Johnny. “This is no seance.

What we want is tl* fellow wft* mad* the ghost” I The bivouac was nerve-racking. The Old apparently had a bounteous rodent population and the little beasts seampered back and forth in the walls with* spooky gambols. Every window In the bouse rattled, and the pall of emptiness tljat always hangs heavily In a deserted human habitation rested —u dead weight—ln the air. - Two i blocks distant- the elevatedtrains rumbled dully by, and the morning parade of the milk wagons had not yet begun—to touch the; visions of the night with the realities of the day. “This is too much for me,” cried one Of the detectives. “Let get out and take a breath.” The little gropp, all except Johnny, -arose with alacrity. He stopped alone in this old house, and tried to keep his eyes. open-- and,, falling, wondered he didn't advertise the newspaper business as a cure for irisoirihia and accrue cash thereby, when'— .mbaYS-jihat?” asked Johnny of himself. He heard with joyous ears a scraping and Sliding In the closet opposite, where he had picked up the gold and amethyst .garter. It sounded as If the baseboard were being forcibly removed, or, tather, as if someone were endeavoring to slide It back, and as if the board were sticking in an unaccustomed and stubborn fashion. Johnny looked for a convenient corner in which to duck. He couldn’t fit into the drawers of the chiffonier or the bureau, and the ted, stripped of all its coverings, even of. the mattress and billows, was flat against the wall. On a chapce Johnny crawled beneath it, with*one eye fixed steadily upon the closet door. He had not long to watt. Stealthily the door opened, and through the crack came a gleam of a pocket electrtfj flashlight The man who was holding the light whirled it hastily around the room, scanning it closely as if to make sure he was unobserved. “Oh,” groaned Johnny, and slunk closer Into the corner, rolling himself still more tightly Into a ball, and pulling his coat up over his fiery head. The intruder walked over to the bureau drawers and began to search hurriedly. They jrere empty, and at this discovery In each successive drawer the man flung them slffit with a gesture of disappointment. The voices of Johnny’s returning companions echoed through the corridors and their footsteps sounded on the stairway. The. intruder* put out his light and started for the closet. The dawn was now so far advanced that as he passed the .window. Johnny , distinguished his features clearly. If® must have been at least fifty years of age, a rather stocklly built mam of good appearance, with a tired face and dark hair, thickly streaked with gray. He hurried into the closet and shut thd'door behind him, and Johnny heard again the struggle to slide the panel into place.

“Who called, son?" asked the fat detective, jocularly, as he entered the room. “Did they leave cards for the hull of us? Say, where is that bricktop, anyway?” Johnny, with considerable wriggling and squirming, came out from beneath the bed. “Funny how thundering mutfh easier it is to get under a bed than out from underneath it,” he commented, rubbing the dust from his knees. “You didn’t get chased there, did you, now?” came the question. “Were you seeing things, or what?” “I saw enough,” retorted Johnny. "Guess I saw more than you did, and it didn’t cost anything for the vision, either. Here, Farley, let’s have a light; whereA that pocket contraption of yours?” Farley brought It out, and Johnny,* glorying In the importance of knowing something that the others did not, and reveling in the curiosity and impatience of his fellows, strode majestically into the closet. When Johnny had anything tucked away In his cranium that he was crazy to tell as other peo-. pie were to hear, he puffed Out to the* dimensions of the fabled frog. That was the time when Johnny was really funny, and more provocative of risibility than any of his ever-rldiculous yarns. Entering the closet he scanned its calclmlned sides closely, running his slender, long-nailed fingers carefully down the walL Then he hit the baseboard. The group around watched m tense silence. . “Oh, John, cut it out and open up,” snarled Gorin. Gorin was one of Johnny’s best friends. * (To be continued.)