“Any time at all,” Trent returned. He did not for a moment believe he had a chance against Monmouth but he could afford to lose a little money to him. In fact he was anxious for the opportunity.

“You are staying here?” Monmouth demanded.

Trent pushed a visiting card toward him. It was newly done. “Oscar Lindholm, Spartan Athletic Club, Madison, Wisconsin.”

“Yes, I’m staying here,” he admitted. “Are you?”

“My home is in Westbury,” Captain Monmouth replied.

“Then you could get me right in to the set I want?”

“Impossible,” cried the other, rising stiffly to his feet. “One owes too much to one’s friends.”

“Bull!” said Oscar Lindholm rudely. “You only owe yourself anything. If I have a lot of money and you want some of it why consult your friends? What have they done for you?”

“I don’t care to discuss it,” Captain Monmouth exclaimed. “Good night, Mr. Lindholm.” He limped away.

Assuredly he was no simpleton. He was not sure of this blond lover of cross-country sport. If Lindholm were genuine in his desire to break into the sort of society he aimed at he would come back to the attack. If he were not genuine it were wiser to shake him off.

As for Trent, he felt reasonably sure things would come his way. But there was a certain subtlety about these foreign gentlemen of fortune which called for careful treading. Were he once to win his way to the establishment of Madame de Beaulieu he would be in dangerous company. The man who had just left him was dangerous, he sensed. The Countess already commanded his respect. Then there was the so-called secretary and the woman who posed now as a maid. And in the house there might be a treasure trove that would make his wildest expenditures justified. Looked at in a cool and reasonable manner it was a very dangerous experiment for Anthony Trent to make. He would be one against four. One man against a gang of international crooks, all the more deadly because they were suave and polished.

It was while he was breakfasting that Captain Monmouth took a seat near him. Trent commanded his waiter to transport his food to Monmouth’s table.

“What about that horse race?” he demanded.

“Let me see,” the other murmured. “Oh yes, you say you can ride?”

“I can trim you up in good style,” Trent said cheerfully, “any old time.”

“What stakes?” Monmouth asked, without eagerness. “What distance? Over the sticks or on the flat?”

“Stakes?” Trent said as though not understanding.

“I never ride or play cards for love,” Monmouth told him.

“That can be arranged later,” Trent said, “the main thing is where can we pull it off? Out west there’s a million places but here everything is private property.”

Captain Monmouth reflected for a moment.

“I shall be in town again in three days’ time. You’ll be here?”

“Depends what answers I get to my advertisement.”

“Oh yes,” Monmouth returned, “they will be very amusing. Very amusing indeed.”

“Why?” Trent demanded.

“Because the people who will answer will not suit your purpose at all. There may be many who would be glad of help in running a house in these hard times but they dare not answer an advertisement like yours for fear it might be known. And then again think of the risk of taking an unknown into the home?”

“I offer references,” Trent reminded him.

“But my dear sir,” Monmouth protested, “what are athletic clubs in Madison to do with those who have the entrée to Meadowbrook?”

“Supposing,” Trent said presently, “a family such as I want did get into communication with me, how much would they expect?”

Captain Monmouth looked at him appraisingly. Trent felt certain that if a figure were named it would be the one he would have to pay for the privilege of meeting the charming Madame de Beaulieu.

“One couldn’t stay at a decent hotel under two hundred and fifty a week,” the cavalryman returned. “You’d have to pay at least five hundred.”

“That’s a lot,” Trent commented.

“I imagined you’d think that,” Monmouth said drily.

“But I could pay it easy enough,” the pseudo-Scandinavian retorted.

CHAPTER XXVI
ANTHONY TRENT – “PAYING GUEST”

And in the end, he did. When Captain Monmouth suggested that the match between the two be ridden off on his own grounds near Westbury, Anthony Trent felt certain that he was taken there to be inspected by the other members of the household.

Edward Conway was a taciturn, drink-sodden man not inclined to be friendly with the affable Oscar Lindholm. Of the match little need be said. Trent, a good rider, had engaged to beat a professional at his own game. Captain Monmouth was the richer by a thousand dollars.

In the billiard room of Elm Lodge after the race Monmouth offered his guest some excellent Scotch whiskey and grew a little more amiable.

“I presume, Mr. Lindholm,” he said, “that you would have no objection to my man of business looking up your rating in Madison?”

“Go as far as you like. What you will find will be satisfactory.”

“It is,” Monmouth smiled. “I wish I had half the money that you have. I should consider myself rich enough and God knows my tastes are not simple.”

“So you had me investigated?” Trent smiled a little. “When?”

“When we made this match.”

Trent had found that the assumption of a name might be dangerous if investigations were made concerning it. It was with his customary caution that he had taken Lindholm’s name. David Moor, his little detective, often spoke of his cases to his patron. He had spoken at length about the case of Oscar Lindholm of Madison, Wisconsin. A lumber millionaire, Oscar came to New York to have a good time in the traditional manner of wealthy men from far states. A joyride in which a man was run down figured prominently in his first night’s entertainment. Fearing that the notoriety of this would affect his political aspirations in the west he was sentenced to a month on Blackwell’s Island under an assumed name. During this month his name could safely be used. The day that Trent became a member of the household at Elm Lodge the real Lindholm had ten days more to serve.

The wardrobe which Trent had gathered about him was utterly unlike his own perfect outfit. He conceived Oscar Lindholm to be without refinements and he dressed the part. He could see Captain Monmouth shudder as he came into the drawing room on the night of his arrival. Lindholm wore a Prince Albert coat and wore it aggressively.

His patent leather shoes had those hideous knobs on them wherein a dozen toes might hide themselves.

“My dear man,” gasped Monmouth, “we dress for dinner always.”

“What’s the matter with me?” the indignant guest asked.

“Everything,” Monmouth cried. “You look like an undertaker. Fortunately we are very much of a size and I have some dress clothes I’ve never worn. If Madame de Beaulieu had seen you I don’t know what would have happened.”

In ten minutes Trent was back in the drawing room this time arrayed as he himself desired to be. Madame de Beaulieu had not yet come down.

“Madame is particular then?” Trent hazarded.

“She has a right to be,” Monmouth said a little stiffly, “she belongs to one of the great families of France.”

Trent, watching him, saw that he believed it. This was a new angle. She had deceived Monmouth without a doubt. For the first time, and the last, Trent observed a certain confusion about Captain Monmouth.

“In confidence,” he said, “Madame de Beaulieu and I are engaged to be married. Captain de Beaulieu and she were negotiating for divorce when the war broke out and we must wait therefore.”

Trent remembering Moor’s report as to the members of the household pointed to Edward Conway sipping his third cocktail. “That’s the chaperon, eh?”

“Madame de Beaulieu’s aunt, Madame de Berlaymont, is here,” Monmouth said affably. “It is our custom to use French at the table as much to starve the servants of food for gossip as anything else. You speak French of course?”

“Not a word,” Trent lied promptly, “now if you want to talk Danish or Swedish I’m with you.”

Madame de Berlaymont! No doubt the French maid resuming the aunt pose. At the Guestwick affair she had been an English lady of fashion. Had they put themselves to this bother simply for his sake? He doubted it.

“We’ve not been here long,” Captain Monmouth went on, “and we know very few people. Of course we could easily know the wrong sort but that’s dangerous. To-night one of the most popular and influential men in the country is coming.”

Captain Monmouth had no time to mention his name for Madame de Beaulieu came in. It was the first time Trent had met her face to face since that night at the Guestwick’s. He was not without a certain nervousness. Looking at himself in the mirror he seemed so much the product of peroxide that it must easily be recognized. But Madame de Beaulieu gave him the most cursory of glances. There was a certain nervousness about her and Monmouth which had little enough to do with him.

This visit of the influential neighbor plainly was what concerned them. Trent assumed, shrewdly enough, that they were trying, for reasons of their own, to break into the wealthy hunting set and had not found it easy.

Madame de Beaulieu was beautifully gowned. She looked to be a woman of thirty, whereas when he had first seen her she looked no more than two and twenty. She carried herself splendidly. Her French accent was marked. In the police court she spoke as the English do. When the little bent, gray-ringletted but distinguished aunt came in, he could not recognize her at all. Assuredly he had stumbled upon as high class band of crooks as had ever bothered police. He could sense that they regarded him as a necessary nuisance whose five hundred dollars a week helped the household expenses. And he knew, instinctively, that Captain Monmouth and Edward Conway would plan to get some of the millions he was supposed to have.

Trent’s Swedish accent was copied faithfully from his janitor who had been of a superior class in his own country before he had fallen to furnace tending. He did not overdo it. To those listening, he appeared anxious to overcome his accent and lapsed into it only occasionally.

Trent heard Monmouth tell Madame de Beaulieu that Lindholm’s dress was terrible and that by God’s grace their measurements were identical or they would have been disgraced by a guest in a frock coat. He spoke in rapid French and in an undertone but Trent’s ears were sharp and had ere this warned him of danger where another man would have heard nothing.

The guest of honor was no less than Conington Warren. He was ripely affable. He had come to this dinner more to report on the behavior of the strangers occupying Elm Lodge than anything else. A bachelor may sit at a table – or a divorced man – where the married man cannot go. At the Mineola Show Madame de Beaulieu had made a good impression on the women but they were not sure of her. They had found that Captain Monmouth was indeed the second son of Sir John Monmouth, Bart, and formerly an officer of Lancers. He had wasted his money at the race track and the gaming table; but then that was not wholly frowned upon by the young bloods of American society.

Trent could see that Warren was impressed. There was an air of breeding about his hostess and host he had not thought to see. The dinner was good enough to win his distinguished commendation. He unbent so far as to question Mr. Lindholm about political conditions in his native state. He congratulated Madame de Beaulieu on the single string of exquisite pearls that were about her white throat. And well he might. Cartier had charged Peter Chalmers Rosewarne a pretty penny for them not so long ago.

Had he but known it he would have been even more interested in the ring which Oscar Lindholm wore. It was a plain gold band in which a single ruby blazed. He had never worn it till now. He felt Lindholm might easily allow himself the luxuries of which Anthony Trent was denied. The stone had adorned a stick pin which Conington Warren once loved and lost.

Monmouth’s knowledge of horses commended itself to the owner of thoroughbreds. Two men such as these could not play a part where horses were concerned. Conington Warren remembered seeing Monmouth win that greatest of all steeplechases the Grand National. A camaraderie was instantly established. It was a triumphant night. Undoubtedly the household at Elm Lodge would be accepted.

Thinking over the situation in his own room that night Trent admitted he was puzzled. Why this struggle for social recognition? His first theory that it was in order to rob wealthy homes was dismissed as untenable. To begin with it was an old trick and played out. Directly an alien household in a colony of old friends attracts attention it also attracts suspicion. And if this section of Westbury were to suffer an epidemic of burglaries Madame de Beaulieu’s home would come under police supervision.

There was little doubt in Trent’s mind that this Captain Monmouth was a member of the family he claimed as his. Conington Warren and he had common friends in England. What was his game?

And yet Madame de Beaulieu, or “The Countess,” had been notorious as the leading member of a gang of high class crooks. She had even been fingerprinted and had he believed served a sentence. Not a month before she had taken a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewels from St. Michael’s Mount and an amount of currency not specified. As the days went by Trent made other discoveries. He found for one thing that the man whose name he had taken had a reputation for drinking for he found a decanter and siphon ever at his elbow. By degrees he and Edward Conway gravitated together. This Conway, whose part in the game he could not yet guess, was drinking himself steadily to death.

One morning Trent came upon Conway scribbling on a pad of paper. He stared hard at what he wrote and then tossed the crumpled paper into a nearby open fire. The day was chilly and the blazing logs were cheerful. When Conway was gone Trent retrieved the paper and saw the signature he had assumed copied to a nicety. Conway probably had his uses as a forger. The gang of the Countess had accomplished notable successes by these means.

Trent had not been an hour in the house when he discovered that Monmouth and Madame de Beaulieu had eyes only for one another. It was a vulgar intrigue Trent supposed and explained the situation. But as day succeeded day he found he was wrong. Here were two people, a beautiful woman accomplished and fascinating and a man of uncommon good looks and distinction, head over ears in love with one another. Conceivably such people, removed from the conventions of society, would pay small attention to the convenances and yet he saw no gesture or heard no word in French or English that was not proper. Sometimes he felt he must have mistaken the aristocratic Madame de Beaulieu and her Empire aunt for the wrong women. But he could not mistake the Rosewarne pearls which he had viewed in Cartier’s only a week before the mining man bought them as a birthday present for his wife.

The night that Monmouth and the woman he loved were asked to a dinner party at Conington Warren’s home, Oscar Lindholm had two more days to serve on Blackwell’s Island. So far Anthony Trent had accomplished nothing. He had lost a thousand dollars on a horse race, two weekly payments of five hundred dollars for board and another thousand in small amounts at auction and pool. He was most certainly a paying guest.

Conway and Trent were not asked. Madame de Berlaymont was indisposed. It was the opportunity he had wanted. It was Conway’s habit to sleep from about ten in the evening until midnight. Every night since Trent had been at Elm Lodge the so-called secretary had done so. In a large wing chair with an evening paper unopened on his knees he would fall into sleep. He could be counted upon therefore not to interrupt. The servants retired no later than ten to their distant part of the rambling house. Only Madame de Berlaymont might be in the way. In reality this amiable chaperone was a woman in the early twenties Trent believed and could not be counted upon to remain unmoved if she heard strange noises in the night as of burglars moving.

Trent already knew the lay-out of the house. It was just past ten when the servants went to bed and Conway sunk in his two hours’ slumber that Oscar Lindholm went exploring.

Stepping very carefully by Madame de Berlaymont’s room he listened a long while. No sound met his ears. Then with a practiced skill he turned the door knob and entered an unlighted room. Still there was no sound of breathing. And when he switched on the light the apartment was empty. The indisposition which had kept the aged lady two days confined to her chamber was plainly a ruse. Trent could return to it later.

Never before to-night had Trent carried an automatic pistol and been prepared to use it if necessary. He was now in a house whose inmates were, like himself, shrewd, resourceful and strong. For all he knew Conway might long ago have suspected him.

Madame de Beaulieu and her chaperone occupied the bedrooms of one wing of the low rambling house. In the other wing Monmouth, Lindholm and Conway slept. Over this bachelor wing as it was called were some smaller rooms where the four maid servants slept.

The rooms of Madame de Beaulieu were beautifully furnished. It was a suite, with salon, bedroom and a large bathroom. Trent determined to allow himself an hour and a half. Skilled as he was in searching he felt he would discover something in those ninety minutes.

But the time had almost gone by and he was baffled. There was nothing. He probed and sounded and measured as he had seen Dangerfield’s detectives do but nothing rewarded him. What jewels Madame de Beaulieu owned she had probably worn. But how dare she wear at a dinner party where the Rosewarne’s might conceivably be, so well known a string of pearls? And what of those other baubles which were missing from St. Michael’s home?

A carved ivory jewel box on her dressing table revealed only a ball the size of a golf ball made of silver paper. She had begged him to save the tinsel in the boxes of cigarettes he smoked so that she might bind this mass until it became worthy of sending to the Red Cross.

Anthony Trent balanced the silver sphere in his hand. Naturally it was heavy. “If I,” he mused, “wanted to hide my three beauties I couldn’t think of anything safer than this. She’s clever, too. Why shouldn’t she use it for something she’s afraid of anybody seeing?”

A steel hat pin was to his hand. Exerting a deal of wrist strength he thrust it through the mass. In the middle it met with a resistance that the pin could not pierce. It was twelve o’clock as he put it in his pocket and locked the door of his own room. It seemed minutes before his eager fingers could strip off piece after piece of silver paper. And then the palm of his hand cupped one of the most beautiful diamonds he had ever seen.

It was fully a hundred carats in weight and its value he could hardly approximate. No stone of this size had ever been lost in the United States. He remembered however some four years ago the Nizam of Hyderabad – one of the greatest of Indian potentates and owner of an unparalleled collection of diamonds – had bought a famous stone in London. It was never delivered to him. The messenger had been found floating in the Thames off Greenhithe. The reputed price of purchase had been thirty-five thousand pounds. The Nizam’s had been a blue-white diamond and Anthony Trent believed he held it in his hand. He thought of his Benares lamp and chuckled. If he desired to avenge himself on Madame de Beaulieu for the loss of the Guestwick money he was amply rewarded now. The blazing thing in his hand would fetch at least two hundred thousand dollars if he dared dispose of it.

Obviously the correct procedure for the supposed Oscar Lindholm was to make his escape at once. He would have little chance to do so were the abstraction to become known. Of course Madame de Beaulieu would look in her ivory casket directly she came in. Did he himself not always glance anxiously at his lamp whenever he had been away from it for a few hours?

Cautiously he made his way down to the hall where his coat and hat were.

As he passed the door it opened and Madame de Beaulieu entered with Monmouth. She was pale, so pale indeed that Trent stopped to look at her.

“Back early, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Madame has had bad news,” said Monmouth and looked at her anxiously. She sank into a big chair before the open fire. Certainly she was very beautiful. Looking at her it seemed incredible that she could be one of the best known adventuresses in the world. Perhaps, after all, much of the anecdote that was built about her was legendary. Presently she spoke in French to Monmouth.

“Bear with me, my dear one,” she said, “but I must see him alone. I am a creature of premonitions. Let me have my way.”

The look that Captain Monmouth bent upon Anthony Trent was not a friendly one. There was a new quality of suspicion and antagonism in it.

“Madame de Beaulieu,” he said stiffly, “wants to speak with you alone. I see no occasion for it but her wish is law. I shall leave you here.”

When they were alone she did not speak for some minutes. Then she turned to him and looked at him searchingly. He felt the necessity of being on his guard.

“Mr. Lindholm,” she said quietly, “I do not understand you.”

“Why should you bother to?” he asked.

“Because I am afraid of everything I do not trust. You say you are a naturalized Swede. That would explain your hair.” She leaned forward and looked him full in the face, “Mr. Lindholm, you have made one very silly mistake which no woman would make.”

“And that is – what?” he demanded.

“You have let your bleached hair get black at the roots. You are a blackhaired man. Why deny it?”

“I don’t,” he said. “I admit it.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Captain Monmouth knows. A desire to break into society if you like.”

“Will you answer me one question truthfully,” she asked, “on your honor?”

“Yes,” he said. There was no reason why he should not.

“Are you a detective?”

“On my honor, no. Why should Madame de Beaulieu fear detectives?”

There was a faint flush in her cheeks now and a brighter color in her eyes. She was enormously relieved at his answer.

“Why are you here, then?”

“If you must know,” he told her, “it was for revenge.”

“Not to harm Captain Monmouth?” she cried paling.

“I came on your account,” he said quietly. “You don’t remember me?”

She shook her head. “When did we meet? In Europe?”

“No less a place than Fifth avenue.”

“Ah, at some social function? One meets so many that one has no time for recalling names or even faces.”

“Later I saw you at a police court. You were an indignant young English-woman accused of robbing Mr. Guestwick or trying to. You may recall a man who opened the Guestwick safe for you, a man upon whose good nature you imposed.” He looked very somber and stern. She shrank back, and covered her face with her white hands.

“I knew happiness was not for me,” she said brokenly. “I said, when I found the man I loved was the man who loved me. ‘It is too wonderful, too beautiful. It is not for me. I am born under an unlucky star.’ And you see I was right.”

Trent considered her for a moment. Here was no acting. Here was a woman whose soul was in agony.

“You forget,” he said, “that I don’t know what you mean.”

“I had better tell you,” she said with a gesture of despair. “Captain Monmouth and I love each other. It has awakened the good in us that we both thought was buried or had never existed. While my husband, Captain de Beaulieu, lived there was no chance of a divorce. He is Catholic. To-night after dinner one of Mr. Warren’s guests brought a late paper from New York and I saw that my husband was killed. I could stay there no longer. Coming home in the motor I asked myself whether it would be my fate to win happiness. I doubted it even though I repented in ashes. Then it was I began to think of you, the stranger whose money we needed, the stranger who reminded me vaguely of some day when there was danger in the air. Under the light as I came in I saw your hair. Then I knew that in the hour of my greatest hope I was to experience the most bitter despair.”

“You forget, Madame,” he said harshly, “that I have had the benefit of your consummate acting before.”

“And you think I am acting now?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he retorted, “you have everything to gain by it. I can collect the Guestwick reward, and send you back to prison.”

“I can pay you more than the ten thousand dollars he offered,” she cried quickly.

“With the sale of the Rosewarne jewels?”

She shrank back. “Ciel! How could you know?”

“I do,” he said brusquely, “and that’s enough. You see you are trying to fool me again. You say your love has brought out the good in you that you didn’t know you possessed and yet a few weeks back you are at your old tricks again. Is that reasonable?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” she cried wildly. “You must understand. It was I who took the Rosewarne jewels. Why? Because I am fighting for my happiness. Captain Monmouth knows nothing of what my life has been. I have told him that after the war I shall go back to France and sell my property and with it help him to buy a place that was once a seat of his family. There, away from the world, we shall live and die. I want only him and he wants only me. We have known life and its vanities. We want happiness. You hold it in your hands. If you take your revenge by telling him, you break my heart. Is that a vengeance which satisfies you, Monsieur l’Inconnu? If so, it is very easy. He is in the next room. Call him. You have only to say, ‘Captain Monmouth, this woman whom you love is a notorious criminal. All Europe knows her as the Countess. The money that she wants to build her house of love with is stolen money. She will assuredly disgrace your name as she has that of the great family from which she sprang.’”

She looked supplicatingly at Anthony Trent. “You have only to tell him that and there is no happiness left for me in all the world.”

“Do you think I would do that?” he demanded.

“How can I tell? Why should you not? I am in your power.”

There was no doubting the genuineness of her emotion. Formerly she had tricked him but here was her bared soul to see.

“I came here,” he said slowly, “angry because you had played upon my sympathies and outwitted me. I schemed to gain an entrance to this house for no other reason. I shall leave it admiring you and Monmouth and hoping you will be happy.”

It was as though she could scarcely believe him.

“Then you will not tell him?” she exclaimed. “You will go without that for which you came?”

She did not understand his smile.

“I shall not tell him,” Anthony Trent declared. “As for the rest – we are quits, Madame.”

At the hour when the real Oscar Lindholm left Blackwells Island the pretender was lovingly setting the fourth jewel in the Benares lamp. It would have been difficult to find two happier men in all America that morning.