The Girl and The Bill Part 7

"Yes--and two j.a.panese."

"Oh!" Her exclamation was apprehensive.

"The j.a.panese got it," added Orme, ruefully. That she had the right to this information it never occurred to him to question.

The girl stood rigidly. "Whatever shall I do now?" she whispered. "My poor father!"

She looked helplessly at Orme. His self-possession had returned, and as he urged her to a chair, he condemned himself for not guessing how serious the loss of the bill must be to her. "Sit down," he said.

"Perhaps I can help. But you see, I know so little of what it all means.

Tell me everything you can."

With a sigh, she sank into the chair. Orme stood before her, waiting.

"That bill tells, if I am not mistaken," she said, wearily, "where certain papers have been hidden. My father is ill at our place in the country. He must have those papers before midnight to-morrow, or----"

Tears came into her eyes. Orme would have given much for the right to comfort her. "So much depends upon finding them," she added--"more even than I can begin to tell you."

"Let me help," said Orme, eager to follow those papers all over Chicago, if only it would serve her. "Hear my story first." Rapidly he recounted the adventures of the evening. She listened, eyes intent, nodding in recognition of his description of Poritol and Alcatrante. When he came to the account of the fight in the porter's office and spoke of the j.a.panese with the scar on his forehead, she interrupted.

"Oh! That was Maku," she exclaimed.

"Maku?"

"Our butler. He must have overheard my father and me."

"Then he knew the value of the papers."

"He must have. I am sorry, Mr. Orme, that you have been so roughly used."

"That doesn't matter," he said. "They didn't hurt me in the least. And now, what is your story? How did you get on the trail of the bill?"

"We came back from the East a few days ago," she began. "My father had to undergo a slight operation, and he wished to have it performed by his friend, Dr. Allison, who lives here, so we went to our home in--one of the northern suburbs.

"Father could not go back East as soon as he had expected to, and he had the papers sent to him, by special arrangement with the--with the other parties to the contract. Mr. Poritol followed us from the East. I--we had known him there. He was always amusing company; we never took him seriously. He had business here, he said; but on the first day of his arrival he came out to call on us. The next night our house was entered by a burglar. Besides the papers, only a few things were taken."

"Poritol?" exclaimed Orme, incredulously.

"It happened that a Chicago detective had been in our village on business during the day," she went on. "He had recognized on the streets a well-known thief, named Walsh. When we reported the burglary the detective remembered seeing Walsh, and hunted him out and arrested him.

In his pockets was some jewelry belonging to me, and in his room the other stolen articles were found--everything except the papers."

"Did you tell the police about the papers?"

"No, it seemed wiser not to. They were in a sealed envelope with--with my father's name on it, and would surely have been returned, if found with the other things. There are reasons why they would have--would try to please my father. We did let them know that an envelope containing something of value had not been recovered, and told them to make a thorough search.

"The afternoon after the burglary the news of Walsh's arrest was telephoned out to us from Chicago. I talked with my father, who was not well enough to leave the house, and it seemed best that someone should go to the county jail and see Walsh and try to get the papers. My father had reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng the loss to become known. Only he and I were acquainted with the contents of the envelope; so I insisted on going to Chicago and interviewing the burglar."

She laughed, intercepting Orme's admiring look. "Oh, it was easy enough.

I planned to take our lawyer as an escort."

"Did you?"

"No, and that is where my troubles really began. Just as I was preparing to go, Mr. Poritol called. I had forgotten that we had asked him out for an afternoon of golf. He _is_ such a funny player.

"As soon as I told him I was going to the Chicago jail to interview a burglar about some stolen goods, he insisted on acting as escort. He was so amusingly persistent that I finally agreed. We set out for the city in my car, not waiting to take a train.

"When we reached the jail I presented a letter which my father had written, and the officials agreed to let me have a private interview with Walsh."

Orme opened his eyes. This girl's father must have considerable influence.

"It is a horrid place, the jail. They took us through a corridor to Walsh's cell, and called him to the grating. I made Mr. Poritol stand back at the other side of the corridor so that he couldn't hear us talk.

"I asked the man what he had done with the papers. He insisted that he had seen none. Then I promised to have him freed, if he would only return them. He looked meditatively over my shoulders and after a moment declined the offer, again insisting that he didn't understand what I was talking about. 'I took the other things, miss,' he said, 'and I suppose I'll get time for it. But so help me, I didn't see no papers.'"

The girl paused and looked at Orme. "This seems like wasting minutes when we might be searching."

Orme was pleased to hear the "we."

"Well," she went on, "I knew that the man was not telling the truth. He was too hesitant to be convincing. So I began to promise him money. At every offer he looked past my shoulder and then repeated his denials. The last time he raised his eyes I had an intuition that something was going on behind me. I turned quickly. There stood Mr. Poritol, extending his fingers in the air and forming his mouth silently into words. He was raising my bids!

"It flashed upon me that the papers would be of immense value to Mr.

Poritol--for certain reasons. If only I had thought of it before! I spoke to him sharply and told him to go outside. It always seemed natural to order him about, like a little dog."

"However, little dogs have the sharpest teeth," remarked Orme.

"That is true. He replied that he couldn't think of leaving me alone in such a place. So there was nothing for me to do except to go. I would have to return later without Mr. Poritol. 'Come along,' I said. 'My errand is done.'

"Mr. Poritol smiled at me in a way I didn't like. The burglar, meantime, had gone to a little table at the back of his cell. There was an ink-bottle there and he seemed to be writing. Looking into the cell, Mr.

Poritol said: 'The poor fellow has very unpleasant quarters.' Then he said to Walsh: 'Can't we do something to make your enforced stay here more comfortable, my very dear sir?'"

Orme smiled at the unconscious mimicry of her accent.

"Walsh came back to the grating. He held in his hand a five-dollar bill--the one that has made so much trouble. It had been smuggled in to him in some way. 'You might get me some "baccy,"' he said, thrusting the bill through the bars and grinning.

"Now I understood what was going on. I reached for the bill, as though it were intended for me, but Mr. Poritol was quicker. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the bill and put it in his pocket.

"I didn't know what to do. But suddenly Mr. Poritol seemed to be frightened. Perhaps he thought that I would have him arrested, though he might have known that there were reasons why I couldn't. He gave me a panicky look and rushed out of the corridor. Afterward I learned that he told the guard I had sent him on an errand.

"Well"--she sighed--"of course, I followed, after a last glance at Walsh, who was peering through the grating with a look of evil amus.e.m.e.nt. He must have been well paid, that burglar. But then," she mused, "they could afford it--yes, they could well afford it.

"When I got to the street, Poritol was just disappearing in my car! I can only think that he had lost his head very completely, for he didn't need to take the car. He could have mixed with the street-crowd and gone afoot to the hotel where----"

"Alcatrante?"

"Yes, Mr. Alcatrante--where he was stopping, and have waited there. But Mr. Alcatrante was playing golf at Wheaton, and Mr. Poritol seems to have thought that he must go straight to him. He cannot escape from being spectacular, you see.

"He ran out through the western suburbs, putting on more and more speed.

Meantime I set a detective on the track of the car. That is how I learned what I am now telling you. As for the car, Mr. Poritol sent it back to me this morning with a hired chauffeur. He wrote a note of abject apology, saying that he had been beside himself and had not realized what he was doing.

"After setting the detective at work, I went out to our place by train. I dreaded confessing my failure to father, but he took it very well. We had dinner together in his study. Maku was in the room while we were talking.

Now I can see why Maku disappeared after dinner and did not return."