The Challenge of the North Part 4

Fully twenty minutes before time for the curtain Hedin was in his place, tenth row on the middle aisle, eagerly scanning the patrons as they were ushered to their seats. The theatre boasted only two boxes, set just above the stage level, and Elsie Campbell had engaged them both.

As time for the curtain to rise drew near, Hedin found himself fidgeting nervously. Had the theatre party been called off? The house was already well filled; surely there was no block of vacant seats that would accommodate a dinner party. Then, as he had about given up hope, he raised his eyes to a box just as Jean McNabb entered, followed closely by Wentworth. Hedin stared as if petrified, brushed his hand across his eyes as though to clear his vision of distorting film, and stared again. For Wentworth was lifting a coat from Jean's shoulders, but it was not a sable one. Seizing his hat and coat, Hedin rushed from the building, narrowly avoiding collision with an usher.

Without pausing to put on his coat, he dashed for the store and letting himself in, took the stairs three at a time. Upon the second flight, he met the night watchman who, recognizing him, allowed him to pa.s.s, but noting his evident agitation and unaccountable haste, silently and discreetly followed and took up a position where he could watch every move of the excited department head. Hastening to the fur safe, Hedin unlocked and threw it open. He switched on the light, and peered into the interior. The Russian sable coat was not in its accustomed place.

And a hurried search of the safe showed that it was in no other place.

Closing the door, he inspected the case that contained the less valuable furs, and it was but the work of a moment to discover that the baum marten coat was missing. Dumbfounded, he stared at the empty s.p.a.ce where the coat should have been. His brief inspection in the theatre had told him this was the coat Jean McNabb was wearing--but where was the sable? He distinctly remembered replacing the marten with his own hands, and of seeing the girl pa.s.s down the aisle wearing the sable.

He sank into his chair and, leaning forward, buried his face in his arms upon his desk. He tried to think clearly, but found himself entirely incapable of thought. How did it happen? Where was the sable?

Calling the watchman, Hedin questioned him for half an hour, but learned nothing. He even made a personal inspection of every door and window in the store, and sent the watchman to the bas.e.m.e.nt on a tour of similar inspection. When the man returned and reported nothing disturbed, Hedin left the store and proceeded directly to his room, where he spent a sleepless night in trying to solve the mystery.

After breakfast the following morning Jean McNabb sat before the little dressing table in her room when the doorbell rang, and the maid announced Mr. Hedin.

"Tell Mr. Hedin I can't see anyone this morning," she said, without looking up.

Again the maid tapped at the door, and entering, handed the girl a hastily scribbled leaf torn from a notebook. Jean read it at a glance, and her face flushed with swift anger. No salutation, only a few scrawled words: "Must see you at once. Purely matter of business--very important--about the coat."

Crossing to her desk the girl scribbled upon the reverse side of the paper. "Never talk business on Sunday. Coat will be at store as per agreement."

IX

On Monday morning old John McNabb entered his private office to find Hedin awaiting him. He glanced at the younger man inquiringly--"What ails ye, lad? Ye look like ye hadn't slept for a week."

"I haven't slept for two nights," answered Hedin. "There is no use beating around the bush. As a matter of fact, the Russian sable coat is missing, and I am to blame for it."

The old man stared incredulously. "Missin'!" he exclaimed. "An'

you're to blame! What d'ye mean?"

Hastily, in as few words as possible, Hedin recited the facts as he knew them, while an angry flush mounted to the old man's face.

McNabb reached for the telephone and called a number. "h.e.l.lo! Is that you, Jean? Come to the store at once, and bring your new fur coat--to my office. . . . What? No, that won't do, at all. Bring it yourself--I'm waitin'."

"I'll step outside while Jean--while Miss McNabb----"

"Ye'll stay where ye are!" snapped McNabb.

The older man turned to his desk, where for ten minutes he opened and closed drawers and rustled papers viciously. Then the door opened and Jean herself stepped into the room with the fur coat over her arm.

"Well, Dad, here's the coat." She paused abruptly, glanced inquiringly at Hedin, nodded coolly, and continued, "Oskar said it needed a little tailoring, and that I was to bring it down this morning, but I didn't think there was any tearing hurry about it."

Her father took the garment, smoothed the fur with his hand, and asked casually, "Is this the coat ye wore from the store?"

"Why, of course it is."

"An' the one ye wore to the show?"

"Yes, yes," answered the girl impatiently. "I haven't so many fur coats that I would be apt to get them mixed."

McNabb ignored the impatience. "Ye've had no other coat in your possession since you selected this one?"

"No, I haven't. What's all this about?"

"Did Oskar tell you what kind of a coat you were gettin'?"

"Yes, a baum marten. Why, isn't it a baum marten?"

McNabb nodded. "Yes, it's a baum marten. Run along now. I just wanted to see which coat ye'd got. Here, take it along with ye. The tailor can wait."

With a puzzled glance at the two men, Jean took the coat, and with a toss of the head left the office.

McNabb turned to Hedin. "What have ye got to say now? Did the girl tell the truth?"

"Absolutely."

"Then that was the coat she wore from the store?"

"No--but she thinks it was. She doesn't know the difference."

For a long time John McNabb spoke no word but sat staring at his desk, pecking at the blotter with his pencil. He prided himself upon his ability to pick men. He knew men, and in no small measure was this knowledge responsible for his success in dealing with men. He had been certain that Jean and Hedin would eventually marry, and secretly he longed for the day. He had watched Hedin for years and now, despite the improbability of the story, he believed it implicitly. And it was with a heavy heart that he had watched the studied coldness of each toward the other. McNabb was a man of snap decisions. He would teach these young fools a lesson, and at the same time find out which way the wind blew. With a clenching of his fists, he whirled abruptly upon Hedin.

"What did ye do with the coat?" he roared. "It'll go easier with ye if ye tell me!"

"What do you mean?" cried Hedin, white to the lips, meeting McNabb's gaze with a look of mingled surprise, pain, and anger.

"I mean just what I say. Ye've got the coat--where is it?"

Hedin felt suddenly weak and sick. He had expected McNabb's anger at his foolish whim, and knew that he deserved it--but that McNabb should accuse him of theft! Sick at heart, he faltered his answer, and in his own ears his voice sounded strange, and dull, and unconvincing. "You think I--I stole it?"

"What else am I to think? What will the police think? What will the jury think when they hear your flimsy yarn--an' the straightforward evidence of my daughter? They'll think that the coat she wore to the show, an' that she still has, is the coat she wore from the store, an'

that you've got the other. An' when Kranz tells of your midnight visit to the store, what'll they think then?" McNabb finished and, reaching for the telephone, called the police headquarters. A few minutes later the chief himself appeared, accompanied by the night watchman, Kranz, whose story of the nervous and agitated appearance of Hedin on his midnight visit to the store forged the strongest link in the chain of circ.u.mstantial evidence.

After the watchman had been dismissed, Hedin was subjected to a bullying at the hands of the burly officer that stopped just short of personal violence, and through it all he stubbornly maintained his innocence.

After another brief telephone conversation, the three visited the private room of the judge where, waiving a preliminary hearing, the prisoner was bound over to await the action of the grand jury, and his bail fixed at ten thousand dollars.

X

At the mouth of the alley that led from a side street to the rear of the jail, the policeman plucked at Hedin's sleeve, and turned in.

Mechanically Hedin fell in beside him. Someone pa.s.sed upon the street.

"See who that was?" asked the officer maliciously, for he knew all the town gossip. Hedin scarcely heard the question. "It was McNabb's gal.

Her throwin' you over fer this here Wentworth didn't give you no license to steal her old man's fur coat, all right--but maybe you ain't so onlucky, at that. Folks says she's all right--a little gay an' the like of that--but runnin' the streets at midnight, like she was a Sat.u.r.day, with a guy that goes after 'em like Wentworth! Call it gay if they want to, but if it was anyone but old McNabb's daughter, they'd be callin' it somethin' else."

Smas.h.!.+ Hedin's fist drove with terrific force into the flappy jaw, and the big officer reeled, and crashed into the snow between a row of ash barrels, and a dilapidated board fence. The young man stared in surprise as he waited for the other to regain his feet. The officer's words had roused a sudden flash of fury, and with nerves already strained to the breaking point, he had struck. But the man, grotesquely sprawled behind the barrels, made no move.