The Penalty Part 40

"Get busy, Abe. Can take your own things along in a suit-case. I don't look, see? I'm looking out duds for you. What's that? Razor? Find everything in medicine-closet over wash-basin in bath-room."

Lichtenstein disappeared, and gave forth presently the rasping sounds of a man shaving in a hurry. And in the meanwhile, always swift and sure, Mrs. Popple initiated Bubbles into the ABC's of female attire.

"No trouble about a straight front for you," she chuckled, and gave a sudden strong tug at the laces of Bubbles's corsets. He gasped, and the tears came to his eyes.

"Mind to take little steps," she said, "and don't swing your arms." She clasped a blond wig upon his head, and drew back to see the effect.

"Abe," she called, "she's a pippin!"

A moment later she frowned, almost savagely, laid her finger on her lips, knelt at the fireplace, thrust her head far in and listened intently.

Lichtenstein, one side of his face in lather, appeared at the bath-room door. His eyes on the crouching figure of Mrs. Popple, he continued calmly and methodically to shave himself.

After an interval the woman rose, and shook her head.

"Can't make out who's in there," she whispered. "Have Lizzie watch front window see who goes out."

Lichtenstein nodded, washed the tag ends of lather from his face, and proceeded in dead silence to dress himself as a lady of somewhat doubtful age, looks, and position. But Bubbles would have made a very pretty girl, if Mrs. Popple had not insisted on powdering his face till it was as white as that of a clown.

"Won't do to be conspicuous," she explained.

Lichtenstein packed the things which he and Bubbles had taken off into a suit-case marked "A.P." (Amelia Popple), and led the way downstairs. A little later a taxicab drew up at the curb, and the two disguised secret-service agents sauntered down the high steps of Mrs. Popple's brownstone house, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and got in.

"Where to?" said the driver, with rather a bold leer. The average lady who descended or ascended Mrs. Popple's steps; was not considered respectable even by taxi-drivers.

It had been agreed that Bubbles, having of the two the more feminine adaptabilities of voice, should do the talking.

"Grand Central," he said.

x.x.xIX

Barbara was reading "Smoke" and did not wish to be interrupted by a "young person" (in the footman's words) who refused to give her name.

Nevertheless she was weakly good-natured in such matters, and closing her book said: "Very well--in here, John."

A moment later the young person was shown into the living-room. Barbara was still more annoyed, for young faces covered with powder were odious to her. But suddenly the young person's mouth curled into a captivating grin, and the young person trotted forward in a very un-young-personish way, and cried triumphantly:

"It's me--Bubbles."

And Bubbles followed Barbara's gratifying exclamations of surprise and inquiry with a syncopated outburst of explanation, finis.h.i.+ng with: "And Mr. Lichtenstein said I was to throw us on your mercy, and ask if he could stay to finish his writing, and he's stepped into some bushes off the driveway to put on his own clothes. And please, Miss Barbara, he's just the finest and bravest ever, and don't care what happens to him, only he says they're bound to get him now everything's found out, and he's just got to finish writing down what he carries in his head."

"Of course," said Barbara, "we'll have to tell my father; but all will be well. Mr. Lichtenstein shall stay. Bring him to me when he's finished changing, and then you'd best change, and if you don't want to have a sore face wash all that nasty stuff off it."

Lichtenstein had already changed, and was coming up the driveway carrying a suit-case. Bubbles brought him at once, and with great pride, to Barbara. Mr. Lichtenstein had never seen her before. In his bow there was a trace of Oriental elaboration. And his curiously meagreish, pug-nosed sandy face beamed with pleasure and admiration.

"I thought I knew my New York, Miss Ferris," he said, "but it seems I was mistaken."

Since the compliment was obviously sincere, Barbara took pleasure in it, and the pleasure showed in her charming face. "And Bubbles says," said she, "that you are the 'finest ever.' I'm glad if staying here is going to help the cause. You can be as private as you like--" But a sudden change had come over Lichtenstein's face, the smile had vanished, the eyes grown sharp, even stern. "What is your maid's name?" he asked abruptly.

"My maid? Why, what about her?"

"She pa.s.sed just now--by that door. I saw her in the mirror at the end of the room. What's her name?"

"Marion--" Barbara hesitated.

"O'Brien?"

"Yes, O'Brien."

[Ill.u.s.tration: He caught her by the wrist, drew her to her feet, and into the room]

"I thought so. She's in Blizzard's pay. If she has recognized me--Shut the door into the hall, Bubbles."

The door being shut, Lichtenstein crossed the room and stood near it, his hand on the k.n.o.b. For nearly a minute he neither moved nor changed expression. Then a smile flickered about his mouth, and, sure of his effect, with a sharp gesture he flung the door wide open, and discovered Miss Marion O'Brien kneeling in the opening. He caught her by the wrist, drew her to her feet, and into the room.

"Marion!" exclaimed Miss Ferris.

XL

There was a long silence during which Miss...o...b..ien tried to look defiant, and succeeded only in shedding a few tears. Barbara had always liked the girl, and now felt profoundly sorry for her. Liechtenstein, too, seemed sorry and at a loss for words. The position was difficult.

The O'Brien's eavesdropping warranted her discharge, and nothing more.

She would go straight to Blizzard and disclose Lichtenstein's whereabouts. But this in itself was merely an annoyance, as in the meanwhile the secret service head could go elsewhere. There was nothing for it but to discharge her and let her go. So Lichtenstein said presently, and then wrote with a pencil on a card. This card he handed to the maid.

"Give that to your employer," he said. On the card was written: "If anything happens to me you will be indicted for the Kaparoff business, and there is enough evidence in a safe place to make you pay the penalty. Lichtenstein."

"And now, Miss Ferris," he said, "it will be as well to let this girl first telephone to her master to say that I am here, and second to pack her trunks and go."

Barbara smiled, but not unkindly, at Marion, and nodded her brightly colored head. "I think that will be best, Marion."

The maid turned without a word and started for the hall-door, but was brought to a trembling stop by sudden words from Bubbles.

"Miss Barbara," said he, "ask her where your diamond bow-knot went!"

"Oh," exclaimed Lichtenstein, "an excuse for keeping an eye on her, perhaps. That was what we needed. How about this bow-knot, Marion?"

The guilt in the girl's face must have been obvious to the dullest eye.

"Oh," said Barbara, "is it good enough? She'd communicate with him somehow. This isn't the Middle Ages. Marion, if by any chance any of my things have gotten mixed with yours, please leave them on my dressing-table."

Marion, very red in the face, lurched out of the room.

"I can't very well give her a character," said Barbara.