Traffic In Souls Part 36

Hi wouldn't dare disturb 'im now, sir."

"You had better dare. This is very important to him. But don't mention it to anyone else, for it would worry his wife and daughter."

As Burke was speaking, a big fas.h.i.+onable car drew up behind the one in which Captain Sawyer sat, awaiting developments. A young man, wearing a light overcoat, whose open fold displayed a dinner coat, descended and approached the door.

"What's the trouble here?" he curtly inquired.

"None of your business," snapped Burke, who recognized the fiance, Ralph Gresham.

"Don't you sauce me--I'll find out myself."

The butler bowed as Gresham approached.

"Come in, sir. Miss Trubus is hexpecting you, sir. This person is wyting to see Mr. Trubus, sir."

Gresham, with an angry look at the calm policeman, went inside.

The door shut. Burke for a minute regretted that he had not insisted on admission. It might have been possible for Trubus to have received some sort of warning. The "best-laid plans of mice and men" had one bad habit, as Burke recollected, just at the moment when success was apparently within grasp.

But the door opened again. The smug countenance, the neatly brushed "mutton-chops," the immaculate dinner coat of William Trubus appeared, and Bobbie looked up into the angry glint of the gentleman's black eyes.

"What do you mean by annoying me here? Why didn't you telephone me?"

began the owner of the mansion. "I am just going out to dinner."

He looked sharply at Burke, vaguely remembering the face of the young officer. Bobbie quietly stepped to his side and caught the k.n.o.b of the big door, shutting it softly behind Trubus.

"Why, you...."

Before he could finish Burke had deftly clipped one handcuff on the right wrist of the man and with an unexpected movement pinioned the other, snapping the manacle as he did so.

"Outrageous!" exclaimed the astounded Trubus. But Burke was dragging him rapidly into the car.

"If you don't want your wife to know about this, get in quickly,"

commanded Sawyer sharply.

Trubus began to expostulate, but his thick lips quivered with emotion.

"Down to the station house, quick!" ordered the captain to the chauffeur. "No speed limit."

"I'll have you discharged from the force for this, you scoundrel!"

Trubus finally found words to say. "Where is your warrant for my arrest? What is your charge?"

Sawyer did not answer.

As they reached a subway station he called out to the driver:

"Stop a minute. Now, Burke, you had better go uptown and get the witness; hurry right down, for I want to end this matter to-night."

Bobbie dismounted, while Trubus stormed in vain. As the car sped onward he saw the president of the Purity League indulging in language quite alien to the Scriptural quotations which were his usual stock in discourse. Captain Sawyer was puffing a cigar and watching the throng on the sidewalks as though he were stone deaf.

Burke hurried to the Barton home. There he found a scene of joy which beggared description. Lorna had recovered and was strong enough to run to greet him.

"Oh, Mr. Burke, can you ever forgive me for my silliness and ugly words?" she began, as Mary caught the officer's hand with a welcome clasp.

"There, there, Miss Lorna, I've nothing to forgive. I'm so happy that you have come out safe and sound from the dangers of these men,"

answered Burke. "We have trapped the gang, even up to Trubus, and, if you are strong enough to go down to the station, we will have him sent with the rest of his crew to the Tombs to await trial."

Old Barton reached for Burke's hand.

"My boy, you have been more than a friend to me on this terrible yet wonderful day. You could have done no more if you had been my own son."

The excitement and his own tense nerves drove Bobbie to a speech which he had been pondering and hesitating to make for several weeks. He blurted it out now, intensely surprised at his own temerity.

"Your own son, Mr. Barton.... Oh, how I wish I were.... And I hope that I may be some day, if you and some one else are willing ... some day when I have saved enough to provide the right sort of a home."

He hesitated, and Lorna stepped back. Mary held out her hands, and her eyes glowed with that glorious dilation which only comes once in a life-time to one woman's glance for only one man's answering look.

She held out her hands as she approached him.

"Oh, Bob ... as though you had to ask!" was all she said, as the strong arms caught her in their first embrace. Her face was wet with tears as Bob drew back from their first kiss.

John Barton was wiping his eyes as Burke looked at him in happy bewilderment at this curious turn to his fortune.

"My boy, Bob," began the old man softly, "would you take the responsibility of a wife, earning no more money than a policeman can?"

Bob nodded. "I'd do it and give up everything in the world to make her happy if it were enough to satisfy her," he a.s.serted.

Barton lifted up a letter which had been lying on the table beside him.

He smiled as he read from it:

"DEAR MR. BARTON:

"The patents have gone through in great shape and they are so basic that no one can fight you on them. The Gresham Company has offered me, as your attorney, fifty thousand dollars as an advance royalty, and a contract for your salary as superintendent for their manufacture. We can get even more. It may interest you to know that your friend on the police force won't have to worry about a raise in salary. I have been working on his case with a lawyer in Decatur, Illinois. His uncle is willing to make a payment of twenty-four thousand dollars to prevent being prosecuted for misappropriation of funds on that estate. I will see you...."

Barton dropped the letter to his lap.

"Now, how does that news strike you?"

"I can't believe it real," gasped Burke, rubbing his forehead. "But I am more glad for you than for myself. You will have an immense fortune, won't you?"

Smiling into the faces of the two radiant girls, Old Barton drew Lorna to his side and, reaching forward, tugged at the hand of Mary.

"In my two dear girls, safe and happy, I have a greater wealth for my old age than the National City Bank could pay me, Burke. Lorna has told me of her experience and her escape when all escape seemed hopeless. She has learned that the sensual pleasures of one side of New York's glittering life are dross and death. In the books and silly plays she has read and seen it was pictured as being all song and jollity. Now she knows how sordid and bitter is the draught which can only end, like all poison, in one thing. G.o.d bless you, my boy, and you, my girls!"

Bobbie shook the old man's hand, and then remembered the unpleasant duty still before him.

"We must get down town as soon as possible," syd he. "Come, won't you go with us, Mary?"