The Perils of Pauline Part 23

"You forget those are your wires. They don't know they're working for me. Hicks, are you out of your head? Have you told Bemis that you and I are working together?"

"Sure not; but that butler is no fool, Mr. Owen."

"Was it from him you found out that Harry had the lawyers after us?"

"No--queer thing that, that--it wasn't."

"Who, then?"

"The little Espinosa."

"Espinosa--in New York?"

"Yes--met her at the Trocadero a week ago. She'd seen old Calderwood already. I guess she blackmails him--the old reprobate, and him the n.o.ble counselor at law for Mr. Harry Marvin!"

"So you put her on the scent--for us?"

"Why not? The young fellow's been acting suspicious for a long time."

"You did very well."

"How about some money--I haven't seen the color of a roll since you put that fool Baskinelli into the game. Ain't you coming across?"

"Certainly; here," said Owen, handing over enough to sate even the predatory greed of Hicks. "Now, what I want you to do is to find me some one among your horse racing friends who is down and out enough to take a little cash job--at certain slight risks?"

"Yes--what?"

"I want a good rider on a wild horse. He could make a thousand dollars in an afternoon if the horse should happen to get wild at the right time and do the right thing."

"Hm'm," mused Hicks. "I wonder if Eddie Kaboff has still got his livery stable down on Tenth avenue. We might go see."

After ten minutes' walk Hicks brought up in front of a bill-plastered door in a fence. He held it open for Owen and they pa.s.sed across a vacant lot to a large dilapidated-looking stable at the further end.

The short, dark man who sat in a tilted chair against the doorway and puffed lazily at a pipe, seemed to embody the spirit of the building and the business done there.

He was a man who had once--in the days of racing--been called a "sport." He might still be called "horsey" and would consider the term a compliment. But Eddie Kaboff's fame and fortune had both dwindled since the good old betting days when little swindling games larded the solid profits of crooked races. One by one his thoroughbreds had given up their stalls to truck horses, just as Eddie's diamond studs had given place to plain b.u.t.tons.

His beady black eyes watched the two newcomers on their way across the lot, but he gave no sign of recognition until Hicks and Owen reached the door.

"h.e.l.lo, Eddie," said Hicks.

Kaboff got up slowly and extended a flabby hand to his acquaintance.

He was introduced to Owen, who let Hicks do the talking.

"What's new, Eddie?"

"Nuthin'."

"Still got that wild horse you never was able to sell?"

"Yep."

"Can you still manage him yourself?"

"I guess I could, but he ain't safe to take among traffic."

Hicks stepped close to Kaboff, talking in rapid whispers. The little man turned white.

"No, no; I'm too old for that kind of game," he said.

Owen drew from his pocket a roll of yellowbacks--the biggest roll Eddie Kaboff had seen since the days of "easy money."

"This much to try it," said Owen, "and as much again if you make good."

Kaboff's glance wavered a moment between the penetrating eyes of Owen and the money in his hand.

"Take it; it's yours."

The flabby hand closed almost caressingly around the roll. "We'll go in and have a look at the brute," he said.

They followed him through a line of stalls to a large padded box at the far end of the barn. A beautiful bay saddle horse occupied the box.

Kaboff entered and called the animal, which answered by flying into a seeming fury, plunging about the box, kicking, rearing and snapping.

"Same old devil," muttered Hicks. "He'll do."

The sight of an apple in Kaboff's hand calmed the animal. It came to him and ate docilely while he slipped a bridle over its head. Once outside the stall, however, it began another rampage.

Hicks held a last whispered conversation with Kaboff, giving him minute instructions.

"I can just try it, you know," said Kaboff. "I can't guarantee to get away with it."

"As much again if you do, you know," said Owen as he started briskly away with Hicks.

The place that Panatella had chosen for the start of his balloon ascension was a field upon the crest of the Palisades above the amus.e.m.e.nt park.

Panatella had brought with him from abroad a reputation for dare-devil adventures in the air. And he had proved his reckless courage in the several brief ascensions that he had already made on this side.

Today, with his promise of the longest parachute drop on record, people flocked to the field from New York and all adjacent New Jersey.

"I wish you wouldn't always invite that velvet-pawed servant on our trips," grumbled Harry to Pauline, as Owen went for his dustcoat.

"Owen is my trustee and guardian. You have no right to speak of him as a servant. Besides, when he's along he keeps you from being silly."

Harry stamped out to the garage, swung a new touring car around to the door, and soon, with Owen and Pauline, was speeding for the ferry.

Signor Panatella was superintending the filling of the great gas bag.

He was a tall, lithe man in pink tights beneath which his muscles bulged angularly like the gas filling the balloon bag.

A Latin rapidity of speech and motion added to the pink tights made him comically frog-like, and even the abattis of medals on his breast could not save his dignity.