Chapter II: Part 2

"Borrow a million and a half on 'em," said Henriette.

"What!" I cried. "A million and a half on a hundred thousand security?"

"Certainly," replied Henriette, "only it will require a little manipulation. For the past six months I have been depositing the moneys I have received in seventeen national banks in Ohio, each account being opened in a different name. The balances in each bank have averaged about three hundred thousand dollars, thanks to a circular system of checks in an endless chain that I have devised. Naturally the size of these accounts has hugely interested the bank officials, and they all regard me as a most desirable customer, and I think I can manage matters so that two or three of them, anyhow, will lend me all the money I want on those bonds and this certificate of trust which I shall ask you to sign."

"Me?" I laughed. "Surely you are joking. What value will my signature have?"

"It will be good as gold after you have deposited that check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in your New York bank," said Henriette. "I shall go to the president of the Ohoolihan National Bank at Oshkosh, Ohio, where I have at present three hundred and sixty-eight thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and eighteen cents on deposit and tell him that the Hon. John Warrington Bunny, of New York, is my trustee for an estate of thirteen million dollars in funds set apart for me by a famous relative of mine who is not proud of the connection. He will communicate with you and ask you if this is true. You will respond by sending him a certified copy of the trust certificate, and refer him as to your own responsibility to the New York bank where our two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is on deposit. I will then swap checks with you for three hundred thousand dollars, mine to you going into your New York account and yours to me as trustee going into my account with the Ohoolihan National. The New York bank will naturally speak well of your balance, and the Ohoolihan people, finding the three-hundred-thousand-dollar check good, will never think of questioning your credit. This arranged, we will start in to wash those steel bonds up to the limit."

"That's a very simple little plan of yours, Henriette," said I, "and the first part of it will work easily I have no doubt; but how the deuce are you going to wash those bonds up to fifteen times their value?"

"Easiest thing in the world, Bunny," laughed Henriette. "There will be two million dollars of the bonds before I get through."

"Heavens--no counterfeiting, I hope?" I cried.

"Nothing so vulgar," said Henriette. "Just a little management--that's all. And, by-the-way, Bunny, when you get a chance, please hire twenty safe-deposit boxes for me in as many different trust companies here and in New York--and don't have 'em too near together. That's all for the present."

Three weeks later, having followed out Henriette's instructions to the letter, I received at my New York office a communication from the president of the Ohoolihan National Bank, of Oshkosh, Ohio, inquiring as to the Van Raffles trust fund. I replied with a certified copy of the original which Henriette had already placed in the president's hands. I incidentally referred the inquirer as to my own standing to the Delancy Trust Company, of New York. The three-hundred-thousand-dollar checks were exchanged by Henriette and myself--hers, by-the-way, was on the Seventy-Sixth National Bank, of Brookline, Massachusetts, and was signed by a fictitious male name, which shows how carefully she had covered her tracks. Both went through without question, and then the steel bonds came into play. Henriette applied for a loan of one million five hundred thousand dollars, offering the trust certificate for security. The president of the Ohoolihan National wished to see some of her other securities, if she had any, to which Henriette cordially replied that if he would come to New York she would gladly show them to him, and intimated that if the loan went through she wouldn't mind paying the bank a bonus of one hundred thousand dollars for the accommodation. The response was immediate. Mr. Bolivar would come on at once, and he did.

"Now, Bunny," said Mrs. Van Raffles on the morning of his arrival, "all you have to do is to put the one hundred bonds first in the vault of the Amalgamated Trust Company, of West Virginia, on Wall Street. Mr. Bolivar and I will go there and I will show them to him. We will then depart. Immediately after our departure you will get the bonds and take them to the vaults of the Trans-Missouri and Continental Trust Company, of New Jersey, on Broadway. You will go on foot, we in a hansom, so that you will get there first. I will take Mr. Bolivar in and show him the bonds again. Then you will take them to the vaults of the Riverside Coal Trust Company, of Pennsylvania, on Broad Street, where five minutes later I will show them for the third time to Mr. Bolivar--and so on. We will repeat this operation eighteen times in New York so that our visitor will fancy he has seen one million eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of bonds in all, after which he will come to Newport, where I will show them to him twice more--making a two-million-dollar show-down. See?"

I toppled back into a chair in sheer amazement.

"By Jingo! but you are a wonder," I cried. "If it only works."

* * * * *

It worked. Mr. Bolivar was duly impressed with the extent of Henriette's fortune in tangible assets, not to mention her evident standing in the community of her residence. He was charmingly entertained and never for an instant guessed when at dinner where Henriette had no less personages than the Rockerbilts, Mrs. Gaster, Mrs. Gushington-Andrews, Tommy Dare, and various other social lights to meet him, that the butler who passed him his soup and helped him liberally to wine was the Hon. John Warrington Bunny, trustee.

"Well," said Henriette, as she gazed delightedly at the president's certified check for one million four hundred thousand dollars--the amount of the loan less the bonus--"that was the best sport yet. Even aside from the size of the check, Bunny, it was great chasing the old man to cover. What do you think he said to me when he left, the poor, dear old innocent?"

"Give it up--what?"

"He said that I ought to be very careful in my dealings with men, who might impose upon my simplicity," laughed Henriette.

"Simplicity?" I roared. "What ever gave him the idea that you were simple?"

"Oh--I don't know," said Henriette, demurely. "I guess it was because I told him I kept those bonds in twenty safe-deposit vaults instead of in one, to protect myself in case of loss by fire--I didn't want to have too many eggs in one basket."

"H'm!" said I. "What did he say to that?"

Henriette laughed long and loud at the recollection of the aged bank president's reply.

"He squeezed my hand and answered, 'What a child it is, indeed!'" said Henriette.

VI

THE ADVENTURE OF THE FRESH-AIR FUND

It was a bright, sunny morning in the early summer when Henriette, gazing out of the dining-room windows across the lawns adjoining the Rockerbilt place, caught sight of a number of ragamuffins at play there.

"Who are those little tatterdemalions, Bunny?" she asked, with a suggestion of a frown upon her brow. "They have been playing on the lawns since seven o'clock this morning, and I've lost quite two hours' sleep because of their chatter."

"They are children from Mrs. Rockerbilt's Fresh-Air Society," I explained, for I, too, had been annoyed by the loud pranks of the youngsters and had made inquiries as to their identity. "Every summer, Digby, Mr. de Pelt's valet, tells me, Mrs. Rockerbilt gives a tea for the benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund, and she always has a dozen of the children from town for a week beforehand so as to get them in shape for the function."

"Get them in shape for the function, Bunny?" asked Henriette.

"Yes; one of the features of the tea is the presence of the youngsters, and they have to be pretty well rehearsed before Mrs. Rockerbilt dares let them loose among her guests," said I, for Digby had explained the scheme in detail to me. "You see, their ideas of fun are rather primitive, and if they were suddenly introduced into polite society without any previous training the results might prove unpleasant."

"Ah!" said Henriette, gazing abstractedly out of the window in the manner of one suddenly seized with an idea.

"Yes," I went on. "You see, the street gamin loves nothing better in the way of diversion than throwing things at somebody, particularly if that somebody is what is known to his vernacular as a Willie-boy. As between eating an over-ripe peach and throwing it at the pot-hat of a Willie-boy, the ragamuffin would deny even the cravings of his stomach for that tender morsel. It is his delight, too, to heave tin cans, wash-boilers, flat-irons, pies--anything he can lay his hands on--at the automobilly-boys, if I may use the term, of all of which, before he is turned loose in the highest social circles of the land, it is desirable that he shall be cured."

"I see," said Henriette. "And so Mrs. Rockerbilt has them here on a ten days' probation during which time they acquire that degree of savoir-faire and veneer of etiquette which alone makes it possible for her to exhibit them at her tea."

"Precisely," said I. "She lets them sleep in the big box-stalls of her stable where the extra coach-horses were kept before the motor-car craze came in. They receive four square meals a day, are rubbed down and curry-combed before each meal, and are bathed night and morning in violet water until the fateful occasion, after which they are returned to New York cleaner if not wiser children."

"It is a great charity," said Henrietta dreamily. "Does Mrs. Rockerbilt make any charge for admission to these teas--you say they are for the benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund?"

"Oh no, indeed," said I. "It is purely a private charity. The youngsters get their ten days in the country, learn good manners, and Newport society has a pleasant afternoon--all at Mrs. Rockerbilt's expense."

"H'm!" said Henriette, pensively. "H'm! I think there is a better method. Ah-- I want you to run down to New York for a few days shortly, Bunny. I have a letter I wish you to mail."

Nothing more was said on the subject until the following Tuesday, when I was despatched to New York with instructions to organize myself into a Winter Fresh-Air Society, to have letter-heads printed, with the names of some of the most prominent ladies in society as patronesses--Henriette had secured permission from Mrs. Gaster, Mrs. Sloyd-Jinks, Mrs. Rockerbilt, Mrs. Gushington-Andrews, Mrs. R. U. Innitt, the duchess of Snarleyow, Mrs. Willie K. Van Pelt, and numerous others to use their names in connection with the new enterprise--and to write her a letter asking if she would not interest herself and her friends in the needs of the new society.

"It is quite as important," the letter ran, "that there should be a fund to take the little sufferers of our dreadful winters away from the sleet and snow-burdened streets of the freezing city as it is to give them their summer outing. This society is in great need of twenty-five thousand dollars properly to prosecute its work during the coming winter, and we appeal to you for aid."

Henriette's personal response to this request was a check for ten thousand dollars, which as secretary and treasurer of the fund I acknowledged, and then, of course, returned to her, whereupon her campaign began in earnest. Her own enthusiasm for the project, backed up by her most generous contribution, proved contagious, and inside of two weeks, not counting Henriette's check, we were in possession of over seventeen thousand dollars, one lady going so far as to give us all her bridge winnings for a week.

"And now for the grand coup, Bunny," said Mrs. Van Raffles, when I had returned with the spoil.

"Great Scot!" I cried. "Haven't you got enough?"

"No, Bunny. Not a quarter enough," she replied. "These winter resorts are very expensive places, and while seventeen thousand dollars would do very nicely for running a farm in summer, we shall need quite a hundred thousand to send our beneficiaries to Palm Beach in proper style."

"Phe-e-w!" I whistled, in amazement. "Palm Beach, eh?"

"Yes," said Henriette. "Palm Beach. I have always wanted to go there."

"And the one hundred thousand dollars--how do you propose to get that?" I demanded.

"I shall give a lawn-fete and bazaar for the benefit of the fund. It will differ from Mrs. Rockerbilt's tea in that I shall charge ten dollars admission, ten dollars to get out, and we shall sell things besides. I have already spoken to Mrs. Gaster about it and she is delighted with the idea. She has promised to stock the flower table with the cream of her conservatories. Mrs. Rockerbilt has volunteered to take charge of the refreshments. The duchess of Snarleyow is dressing a doll that is to be named by Senator Defew and raffled at five dollars a guess. Mrs. Gushington-Andrews is to take entire control of the fancy knick-knack table, where we shall sell gold match-boxes, solid silver automobile head-lights, cigar-cutters, cocktail-shakers, and other necessities of life among the select. I don't see how the thing can fail, do you?"

"Not so far," said I.

"Each of the twelve lady patronesses has promised to be responsible for the sale of a hundred tickets of admission at ten dollars apiece--that makes twelve thousand dollars in admissions. It will cost each person ten dollars more to get out, which, if only half of the tickets are used, will be six thousand dollars--or eighteen thousand dollars in entrance and exit fees alone."

"Henriette!" I cried, enthusiastically, "Madam Humbert was an amateur alongside of you."

Mrs. Van Raffles smiled. "Thank you, Bunny," said she. "If I'd only been a man--"

"Gad!" I ejaculated. "Wall Street would have been an infant in your hands."

Well, the fateful day came. Henriette, to do her justice, had herself spared no pains or expense to make the thing a success. I doubt if the gardens of the Constant-Scrappes ever looked so beautiful. There were flowers everywhere, and hanging from tree to tree from one end of their twenty acres to the other were long and graceful garlands of multicolored electric lights that when night came down upon the fete made the scene appear like a veritable glimpse of fairyland. Everybody that is anybody was there, with a multitude of others who may always be counted upon to pay well to see their names in print or to get a view of society at close range. Of course there was music of an entrancing sort, the numbers being especially designed to touch the flintiest of hearts, and Henriette was everywhere. No one, great or small, in that vast gathering but received one of her gracious smiles, and it is no exaggeration to say that half of the flowers purchased at rates that would make a Fifth Avenue tailor hang his head in shame, were bought by the gallant gentlemen of Newport for presentation to the hostess of the day. These were immediately placed on sale again so that on the flower account the receipts were perceptibly swelled.

A more festal occasion has never been known even in this festal environment. The richest of the land vied with one another in making the affair a vast financial success. The ever gallant Tommy Dare left the scene twenty times for the mere privilege of paying his way in and out that many times over at ten dollars each way. The doll which Senator Defew had named was also the cause of much merriment, since when all was over and some thirteen thousand five hundred dollars had been taken in for guesses, it was found that the senator had forgotten the name he had given it. When the laughter over this incident had subsided, Henriette suggested that it be put up at auction, which plan was immediately followed out, with the result that the handiwork of the duchess of Snarleyow was knocked down for eight thousand six hundred and seventy-five dollars to a Cincinnati brewer who had been trying for eight years to get his name into the Social Register.

* * * * *

"Thank goodness, that's over," said Henriette when the last guest had gone and the lights were out. "It has been a very delightful affair, but towards the end it began to get on my nerves. I am really appalled, Bunny, at the amount of money we have taken in."

"Did you get the full one hundred thousand dollars?" I asked.

"Full hundred thousand?" she cried, hysterically. "Listen to this." And she read the following memorandum of the day's receipts:

Flower Table $36,000.00
Doll 22,175.00
Admissions 19,260.00
Exits 17,500.00
Candy Table 12,350.00
Supper Table 43,060.00
Knick-Knacks 17,380.00
Book Table 123.30
Coat Checks 3,340.00
-----------
Total $171,188.30

"Great Heavens, what a haul!" I cried. "But how much did you spend yourself?"

"Oh--about twenty thousand dollars, Bunny--I really felt I could afford it. We'll net not less than one hundred and fifty thousand."

I was suddenly seized with a chill.

"The thing scares me, Henriette," I murmured. "Suppose these people ask you next winter for a report?"

"Oh," laughed Henriette, "I shall immediately turn the money over to the fund. You can send me a receipt and that will let us out. Later on you can return the money to me."

"Even then--" I began.

"Tush, Bunny," said she. "There isn't going to be any even then. Six months from now these people will have forgotten all about it. It's a little way they have. Their memory for faces and the money they spend is shorter than the purse of a bankrupt. Have no fear."

And, as usual, Henriette was right, for the next February when the beneficiaries of the Winter Fresh-Air Fund spent a month at Palm Beach, enjoying the best that favored spot afforded in the way of entertainment and diversion, not a word of criticism was advanced by anybody, although the party consisted solely of Mrs. Van Raffles, her maid, and Bunny, her butler. In fact, the contrary was the truth. The people we met while there, many of whom had contributed most largely to the fund, welcomed us with open arms, little suspecting how intimately connected they were with our sources of supply.

Mrs. Gaster, it is true, did ask Henriette how the Winter Fresh-Air Fund was doing and was told the truth--that it was doing very well.

"The beneficiaries did very well here," said Henriette.

"I have seen nothing of them," observed Mrs. Gaster.

"Well--no," said Henriette. "The managers thought it was better to send them here before the season was at its height. The moral influences of Palm Beach at the top of the season are--well--a trifle strong for the young--don't you think?" she explained.

The tin-type I hand you will give you some idea of how much one of the beneficiaries enjoyed himself. There is nothing finer in the world than surf bathing in winter.

VII

THE ADVENTURE OF MRS. ROCKERBILT'S TIARA

Henriette had been unwontedly reserved for a whole week, a fact which was beginning to get sadly on my nerves when she broke an almost Sphinxlike silence with the extraordinary remark:

"Bunny, I am sorry, but I don't see any other way out of it. You must get married."

To say that I was shocked by the observation is putting it mildly. As you must by this time have realized yourself, there was only one woman in the world that I could possibly bring myself to think fondly of, and that woman was none other than Henriette herself. I could not believe, however, that this was at all the notion she had in mind, and what little poise I had was completely shattered by the suggestion.

I drew myself up with dignity, however, in a moment and answered her.

"Very well, dear," I said. "Whenever you are ready I am. You must have banked enough by this time to be able to support me in the style to which I am accustomed."

"That is not what I meant, Bunny," she retorted, coldly, frowning at me.

"Well, it's what _I_ mean," said I. "You are the only woman I ever loved--"

"But, Bunny dear, that can come later," said she, with a charming little blush. "What I meant, my dear boy, was not a permanent affair but one of these Newport marriages. Not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith," she explained.

"I don't understand," said I, affecting denseness, for I understood only too well.

"Stupid!" cried Henriette. "I need a confidential maid, Bunny, to help us in our business, and I don't want to take a third party in at random. If you had a wife I could trust her. You could stay married as long as we needed her, and then, following the Newport plan, you could get rid of her and marry me later--that is--er--provided I was willing to marry you at all, and I am not so sure that I shall not be some day, when I am old and toothless."

"I fail to see the necessity for a maid of that kind," said I.

"That's because you are a man, Bunny," said Henriette. "There are splendid opportunities for acquiring the gems these Newport ladies wear by one who may be stationed in the dressing-room. There is Mrs. Rockerbilt's tiara, for instance. It is at present the finest thing of its kind in existence and of priceless value. When she isn't wearing it it is kept in the vaults of the Tiverton Trust Company, and how on earth we are to get it without the assistance of a maid we can trust I don't see--except in the vulgar, commonplace way of sandbagging the lady and brutally stealing it, and Newport society hasn't quite got to the point where you can do a thing like that to a woman without causing talk, unless you are married to her."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Henriette," I returned, with more positiveness than I commonly show, "I will not marry a lady's maid, and that's all there is about it. You forget that I am a gentleman."

"It's only a temporary arrangement, Bunny," she pleaded. "It's done all the time in the smart set."

"Well, the morals of the smart set are not my morals," I retorted. "My father was a clergyman, Henriette, and I'm something of a churchman myself, and I won't stoop to such baseness. Besides, what's to prevent my wife from blabbing when we try to ship her?"

"H'm!" mused Henriette. "I hadn't thought of that--it would be dangerous, wouldn't it?"

"Very," said I. "The only safe way out of it would be to kill the young woman, and my religious scruples are strongly against anything of the sort. You must remember, Henriette, that there are one or two of the commandments that I hold in too high esteem to break them."

"Then what shall we do, Bunny?" demanded Mrs. Van Raffles. "_I must have that tiara._"

"Well, there's the old amateur theatrical method," said I. "Have a little play here, reproduce Mrs. Rockerbilt's tiara in paste for one of the characters to wear, substitute the spurious for the real, and there you are."

"That is a good idea," said Henriette; "only I hate amateur theatricals. I'll think it over."

A few days later my mistress summoned me again.

"Bunny, you used to make fairly good sketches, didn't you?" she asked.

"Pretty good," said I. "Chiefly architectural drawings, however--details of facades and ornamental designs."

"Just the thing!" cried Henriette. "To-night Mrs. Rockerbilt gives a moonlight reception on her lawns. They adjoin ours. She will wear her tiara, and I want you when she is in the gardens to hide behind some convenient bit of shrubbery and make an exact detail sketch of the tiara. Understand?"

"I do," said I.

"Don't you miss a ruby or a diamond or the teeniest bit of filigree, Bunny. Get the whole thing to a carat," she commanded.

"And then?" I asked, excitedly.

"Bring it to me; I'll attend to the rest," said she.

You may be sure that when night came I went at the work in hand with alacrity. It was not always easy to get the right light on the lady's tiara, but in several different quarters of the garden I got her sufficiently well, though unconsciously, posed to accomplish my purpose. Once I nearly yielded to the temptation to reach my hand through the shrubbery and snatch the superb ornament from Mrs. Rockerbilt's head, for she was quite close enough to make this possible, but the vulgarity of such an operation was so very evident that I put it aside almost as soon as thought of. And I have always remembered dear old Raffles's remark, "Take everything in sight, Bunny," he used to say; "but, damn it, do it like a gentleman, not a professional."

The sketch made, I took it to my room and colored it, so that that night, when Henriette returned, I had ready for her a perfect pictorial representation of the much-coveted bauble.

"It is simply perfect, Bunny," she cried, delightedly, as she looked at it. "You have even got the sparkle of that incomparable ruby in the front."

Next morning we went to New York, and Henriette, taking my design to a theatrical property-man we knew on Union Square, left an order for its exact reproduction in gilt and paste.

"I am going to a little fancy-dress dance, Mr. Sikes," she explained, "as Queen Catharine of Russia, and this tiara is a copy of the very famous lost negligee crown of that unhappy queen. Do you think you can let me have it by Tuesday next?"

"Easily, madam," said Sikes. "It is a beautiful thing and it will give me real pleasure to reproduce it. I'll guarantee it will be so like the original that the queen herself couldn't tell 'em apart. It will cost you forty-eight dollars.

"Agreed," said Henriette.

And Sikes was true to his word. The following Tuesday afternoon brought to my New York apartment--for of course Mrs. Raffles did not give Sikes her right name--an absolutely faultless copy of Mrs. Rockerbilt's chiefest glory. It was so like that none but an expert in gems could have told the copy from the original, and when I bore the package back to Newport and displayed its contents to my mistress she flew into an ecstasy of delight.

"We'll have the original in a week if you keep your nerve, Bunny," she cried.

"Theatricals?" said I.

"No, indeed," said Henriette. "If Mrs. Rockerbilt knew this copy was in existence she'd never wear the other in public again as long as she lived without bringing a dozen detectives along with her. No, indeed--a dinner. I want you to connect the electric lights of the dining-room with the push-button at my foot, so that at any moment I can throw the dining-room into darkness. Mrs. Rockerbilt will sit at my left--Tommy Dare to the right. She will wear her famous coiffure surmounted by the tiara. At the moment you are passing the poisson I will throw the room into darkness, and you--"

"I positively decline, Henriette, to substitute one tiara for another in the dark. Why, darn it all, she'd scream the minute I tried it," I protested.

"Of course she would," said she, impatiently. "And that is why I don't propose any such idiotic performance. You will merely stumble in the dark and manage your elbow so awkwardly that Mrs. Rockerbilt's coiffure will be entirely disarranged by it. She will scream, of course, and I will instantly restore the light, after which _I_ will attend to the substitution. Now don't fail me and the tiara will be ours."

I stand ready with affidavits to prove that that dinner was the most exciting affair of my life. At one time it seemed to me that I could not possibly perform my share of the conspiracy without detection, but a glance at Henriette, sitting calmly and coolly, and beautiful too, by gad, at the head of the table, chatting as affably with the duke of Snarleyow and Tommy Dare as though there was nothing in the wind, nerved me to action. The moment came, and instantly as I leaned over Mrs. Rockerbilt's side with the fish platter in my hand out went the light; crash went my elbow into the lady's stunning coiffure; her little, well-modulated scream of surprise rent the air, and, flash, back came the lights again. All was as Henriette had foretold, Mrs. Rockerbilt's lovely blond locks were frightfully demoralized, and the famous tiara with it had slid aslant athwart her cheek.

"Dear me!" cried Henriette, rising hurriedly and full of warm sympathy. "How very awkward!"

"Oh, don't speak of it," laughed Mrs. Rockerbilt, amiably. "It is nothing, dear Mrs. Van Raffles. These electric lights are so very uncertain these days, and I am sure James is not at all to blame for hitting me as he has done; it's the most natural thing in the world, only--may I please run up-stairs and fix my hair again?"

"You most certainly shall," said Henriette. "And I will go with you, my dear Emily. I am so mortified that if you will let me do penance in that way I will myself restore order out of this lovely chaos."

The little speech was received with the usual hilarious appreciation which follows anything out of the usual course of events in high social circles. Tommy Dare gave three cheers for Mrs. Van Raffles, and Mrs. Gramercy Van Pelt, clad in a gorgeous red costume, stood up on a chair and toasted me in a bumper of champagne. Meanwhile Henriette and Mrs. Rockerbilt had gone above.

* * * * *

"Isn't it a beauty, Bunny," said Henriette the next morning, as she held up the tiara to my admiring gaze, a flashing, coruscating bit of the jeweler's art that, I verily believe, would have tempted the soul of honor itself into rascally ways.

"Magnificent!" I asserted. "But--which is this, the forty-eight-dollar one or the original?"

"The original," said Henriette, caressing the bauble. "You see, when we got to my room last night and I had Mrs. Rockerbilt sitting before the mirror, and despite her protestations was fixing her dishevelled locks with my own fair hands, I arranged to have the lights go out again just as the tiara was laid on the dressing-table. The copy was in the table drawer, and while my right hand was apparently engaged in manipulating the refractory light, and my voice was laughingly calling down maledictions upon the electric lighting company for its wretched service, my left hand was occupied with the busiest effort of its career in substituting the spurious tiara for the other."

"And Mrs. Rockerbilt never even suspected?"

"No," said Henriette. "In fact, she placed the bogus affair in her hair herself. As far as her knowledge goes, I never even touched the original."

"Well, you're a wonder, Henriette," said I, with a sigh. "Still, if Mrs. Rockerbilt should ever discover--"

"She won't, Bunny," said Henriette. "She'll never have occasion to test the genuineness of her tiara. These Newport people have other sources of income than the vulgar pawnshops."

But, alas! later on Henriette made a discovery herself that for the time being turned her eyes red with weeping. The Rockerbilt tiara itself was as bogus as our own copy. There wasn't a real stone in the whole outfit, and the worst part of it was that under the circumstances Henriette could not tell anybody over the teacups that Mrs. Rockerbilt was, in vulgar parlance, "putting up a shine" on high society.

VIII

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY

"Merciful Midas, Bunny," said Henriette one morning as I was removing the breakfast-tray from her apartment. "Did you see the extent of Mr. Carnegie's benefactions in the published list this morning?"

"I have not received my paper yet," said I. "Moreover, I doubt if it will contain any reference to such matters when it does come. You know I read only the London _Times_, Mrs. Van Raffles. I haven't been able to go the American newspapers."

"More fool you, then, Bunny," laughed my mistress. "Any man who wants to pursue crime as a polite diversion and does not read the American newspapers fails to avail himself of one of the most potent instruments for the attainment of the highest artistic results. You cannot pick up a newspaper in any part of the land without discovering somewhere in its columns some reference to a new variety of house-breaking, some new and highly artistic method of writing another man's autograph so that when appended to a check and presented at his bank it will bear the closest scrutiny to which the paying-teller will subject it, some truly Napoleonic method of entirely novel design for the sudden parting of the rich from their possessions. Any university which attempted to add a School of Peculation to its curriculum and ignored the daily papers as a positive source of inspiration to the highest artistry in the profession would fail as ignobly as though it should forget to teach the fundamental principles of high finance."

"I was not aware of their proficiency in that direction," said I.

"You never will get on, Bunny," sighed Henriette, "because you are not quick to seize opportunities that lie directly under your nose. How do you suppose I first learned of all this graft at Newport? Why, by reading the newspaper accounts of their jewels in the Sunday and daily newspapers. How do I know that if I want to sand-bag Mr. Rockerbilt and rifle his pockets all I have to do is to station myself outside the Crackerbaker Club any dark opera night after twelve and catch him on his way home with his fortune sticking out all over him? Because the newspapers tell me that he is a regular habitue of the Crackerbaker and plays bridge there every night after the opera. How do I know just how to walk from my hall bedroom in my little East Side tenement up Fifth Avenue into Mrs. Gaster's dining-room, where she has a million in plate on her buffet, with my eyes shut, without fear of stumbling over a step or a chair or even a footstool? Because the newspapers have so repeatedly printed diagrams of the interior of the lady's residence that its halls, passages, doorways, exits, twists, turns, and culs-de-sac are indelibly engraved upon my mind. How did I acquire my wonderful knowledge of the exact number of pearls, rubies, diamonds, opals, tiaras, bracelets, necklaces, stomachers, and other gorgeous jewels now in the possession of the smart set? Only by an assiduous devotion to the contents of the daily newspapers in their reports of the doings of the socially elect. I have a scrap-book, Bunny, that has been two years in the making, and there hasn't been a novel burglary reported in all that time that is not recorded in my book, not a gem that has appeared at the opera, the theatre, the Charity Ball, the Horse Show, or a monkey dinner that has not been duly noted in this vademecum of mine, fully described and in a sense located. If it wasn't for that knowledge I could not hope for success any more than you could if you went hunting mountain-lions in the Desert of Sahara, or tried to lure speckled-trout from the depths of an empty goldfish globe."

"I see," said I, meekly. "I have missed a great opportunity. I will subscribe to the _Tribune_ and _Evening Post_ right away."

I have never understood why Henriette greeted this observation with a peal of silvery laughter that fairly made the welkin ring. All I know is that it so irritated me that I left the room to keep from making a retort that might seriously have disturbed our friendship. Later in the day, Mrs. Van Raffles rang for me and I attended upon her orders.

"Bunny," said she, "I've made up my mind to it--I must have a Carnegie library, that is all there is about it, and you must help. The iron-master has already spent thirty-nine million dollars on that sort of thing, and I don't see why if other people can get 'em we can't."

"Possibly because we are not a city, town, or hamlet," I suggested, for I had been looking over the daily papers since my morning's talk with the lady, and had observed just who had been the beneficiaries of Mr. Carnegie's benefactions. "He don't give 'em to individuals, but to communities."

"Of course not," she responded, quickly. "But what is to prevent our becoming a municipality?"

My answer was an amazed silence, for frankly I could not for the life of me guess how we were to do any such thing.

"It's the easiest thing in the world," she continued. "All you have to do is to buy an abandoned farm on Long Island with a bleak sea-front, divide it up into corner lots, advertise the lots for sale on the instalment plan, elect your mayor, and Raffleshurst-by-the-Sea, swept by ocean breezes, fifteen cents from the Battery, is a living, breathing reality."

"By the jumping Disraeli, Henriette, but you are a marvel!" I cried, with enthusiasm. "But," I added, my ardor cooling a little, "won't it cost money?"

"About fifteen hundred dollars," said Henriette. "I can win that at bridge in an hour."

"Well," said I, "you know you can command my services, Henriette. What shall I do?"

"Organize the city," she replied. "Here is fifty dollars. That will do for a starter. Go down to Long Island, buy the farm, put up a few signs calling on people to own their own homes; advertise the place in big capital letters in the Sunday papers as likely to be the port of the future, consider yourself duly elected mayor, stop in at some photograph shop in New York on your way back and get a few dozen pictures of street scenes in Binghamton, Oberlin, Kalamazoo, and other well-populated cities, and then come back here for further instructions. Meanwhile I will work out the other details of the scheme."

According to my habit I followed Henriette's instructions to the letter. A farm of five hundred acres was secured within a week, the bleakest, coldest spot ever swept by ocean breezes anywhere. It cost six hundred dollars in cash, with immediate possession. Three days later, with the use of a ruler, I had mapped out about twelve thousand corner lots on the thing, and, thanks to my knack at draughtsmanship, had all ready for anybody's inspection as fine a ground-plan of Raffleshurst-by-the-Sea as ever was got up by a land-booming company in this or any other country. I then secured the photographs desired by my mistress, advertised Raffleshurst in three Sunday newspapers to the tune of a half-page each, and returned to Newport. I flattered myself that the thing was well done, for on reading the advertisement nothing would do but that Henriette should visit the place in person. The ads were so phrased, she said, as to be irresistible.

"It's fine, Bunny," she cried, with an enthusiastic laugh as she gazed out over the broad acres of Raffleshurst and noted how well I had fulfilled her orders. "Under proper direction you are a most able workman. Nothing could be better. Nothing--absolutely nothing. And now for Mr. Carnegie."

I still did not see how the thing was coming out, but such was my confidence in my leader that I had no misgivings.

"Here is a letter from Mrs. Gaster introducing the Hon. Henry Higginbotham, mayor of Raffleshurst, to Mr. Carnegie," said Henriette. "You will call at once on the iron-master. Present this letter, keeping in mind of course that you are yourself the Hon. Henry Higginbotham. Show him these photographs of the City Hall at Binghamton, of the public park at Oberlin, the high school at Oswego, the battery walk at Charleston and other public improvements of various other cities, when he asks you what sort of a place Raffleshurst is; then frankly and fearlessly put in your application for a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar library. One picture--this beautiful photograph of the music-hall at the St. Louis Exhibition--you must seem to overlook always, only contrive matters so that he will inquire what it is. You must then modestly remark that it is nothing but a little two-hundred-thousand-dollar art gallery you have yourself presented to the town. See?"

"H'm--yes, I see," said I. "But it is pretty risky business, Henriette. Suppose Mrs. Gaster asks for further information about Mayor Higginbotham? I think it was unwise of you to connect her with the enterprise."

"Don't bother about that, Bunny. _I_ wrote that letter of introduction--I haven't studied penmanship for nothing, you know. Mrs. Gaster will never know. So just put on your boldest front, remember your name, and don't forget to be modest about your own two-hundred-thousand-dollar art gallery. That will inspire him, I think."

It took me a week to get at the iron-master; but finally, thanks to Mrs. Gaster's letter of introduction, I succeeded. Mr. Carnegie was as always in a most amiable frame of mind, and received me cordially, even when he discovered my real business with him.

"I hadn't intended to give any more libraries this year," he said, as he glanced over the pictures. "I am giving away lakes now," he added. "If you wanted a lake, Mr. Higginbotham, I--"

"We have such a large water-front already, Mr. Carnegie," said I, "and most of our residents are young married couples with children not over three and five. I am afraid they would regard a lake as a source of danger."

"That's a pretty playground," he suggested, glancing at the Oberlin Park. "Somehow or other, it reminds me of something."

I thought it quite likely, but, of course, I didn't say so. I may be a fool but I have some tact.

"It's at the far corner of the park that we propose to put the library if you are good enough to let us have it," was all I ventured.

"H'm!" he mused. "Well, do you know, I like to help people who help themselves--that's my system."

I assured him that we of Raffleshurst were accustomed to helping ourselves to everything we could lay our hands on, a jest which even though it was only too true seemed to strike him pleasantly.

"What is that handsome structure you always pass over?" he asked, as I contrived to push the music-hall photograph aside for the fifth time.

I laughed deprecatingly. "Oh, that," I said, modestly--"that's only a little two-hundred-thousand-dollar music-hall and art gallery I have built for the town myself."

Oh, that wonderful Henriette! How did she know that generosity even among the overgenerous was infectious?

"Indeed!" said Mr. Carnegie, his face lighting up with real pleasure. "Well, Mr. Higginbotham, I guess-- I guess I'll do it. I can't be outdone in generosity by you, sir, and--er-- I guess you can count on the library. Do you think one hundred and fifty thousand dollars will be enough?"

"Well, of course--" I began.

"Why not make my contribution equal to yours and call it an even two hundred thousand dollars?" he interrupted.

"You overwhelm me," said I. "Of course, if you wish to--"

"And the Raffleshurst common council will appropriate five per cent. of that amount annually for its maintenance?" he inquired.

"Such a resolution has already been passed," said I, taking a paper from my pocket. "Here is the ordinance, duly signed by myself as mayor and by the secretary of the council."

Again that extraordinary woman, to provide me with so necessary a document!

The millionaire rose with alacrity and with his own hand drew me the required check.

"Mr. Mayor," said he, "I like the quick, business-like way in which you do things. Pray present my compliments to the citizens of Raffleshurst-by-the-Sea, and tell them I am only too glad to help them. If you ever want a lake, sir, don't fail to call upon me." With which gracious words the millionaire bowed me out.

* * * * *

"_Two_ hundred thousand dollars, Bunny?" cried Henriette when I handed her the check.

"Yep," said I.

"Well, that _is_ a good day's sport!" she said, gazing at the slip. "Twice as much as I expected."

"Yes," said I. "But see here, Henrietta, suppose Mr. Carnegie should go down to Raffleshurst to see the new building and find out what a bunco game we have played on him?"

"He's not likely to do that for two reasons, Bunny," she replied. "In the first place he suffers acutely from lumbago in winter and can't travel, and in the second place he'd have to find Raffleshurst-by-the-Sea before he could make the discovery that somebody'd put up a game on him. I think by the time he is ready to start we can arrange matters to have Raffleshurst taken off the map."

"Well, I think this is the cleverest trick you've turned yet, Henriette," said I.

"Nonsense, Bunny, nonsense," she replied. "Any idiot can get a Carnegie library these days. That's why I put _you_ on the job, dear," she added, affectionately.

IX

THE ADVENTURE OF THE HOLD-UP

Now that it is all over, I do not know whether she was really worn-out or by the expert use of powder gave to her cheeks the pallid look which bore out Mrs. Van Raffles's statement to me that she needed a rest. At any rate, one morning in mid-August, when the Newport season was in full feather, Henriette, looking very pale and wan, tearfully confessed to me that business had got on her nerves and that she was going away to a rest-cure on the Hudson for ten days.

"I just can't stand it for another minute, Bunny," she faltered, real tears coursing down her cheeks. "I haven't slept a wink of natural sleep for five days, and yet when night comes it is all I can do to keep my eyes open. At the Rockerbilt ball last night I dozed off four times while talking with the Duchess of Snarleyow, and when the Chinese Ambassador asked me to sit out the gavotte with him I'm told I actually snored in his face. A woman who can't keep awake all night and sleep properly by day is not fit for Newport society, and I've simply got to go away and get my nerve back again."

"You are very wise," I replied, "and I wholly approve of your course. There is no use of trying to do too much and you have begun to show the strain to which you have been subjecting yourself. Your failure last Friday night to land Mrs. Gollet's ruby dog-collar when her French poodle sat in your lap all through the Gaster musicale is evidence to me that your mind is not as alert as usual. By all means, go away and rest up. I'll take care of things around here."

"Thank you, dear," said she, with a grateful smile. "You need a change too, Bunny. What would you say if I sent all the servants away too, so that you could have a week of absolute tranquillity? It must be awful for a man of your refined sensibilities to have to associate so constantly with the housemaids, the under-butlers and the footmen."

"Nothing would please me better," I returned with alacrity; for, to tell the truth, society below stairs was rapidly becoming caviar to my taste. The housemaids were all right, and the under-butlers, being properly subject to my control, I could wither when they grew too familiar, but the footmen were intolerable guyers. On more than one occasion their quick Irish wit had put me to my trumps to maintain my dignity, and I had noticed of late that their alleged fun at my expense had made even the parlormaid giggle in a most irritating fashion. Henriette's suggestion promised at least a week's immunity from this sort of thing, and as far as remaining alone in the beautiful Bolivar Lodge was concerned, to a man of my literary and artistic tastes nothing could be more desirable.

"I can put in a week of solitude here very comfortably," said I. "The Constant-Scrappes have a very excellent library and a line of reading in Abstract Morals in full calf that I should very much like to get at."

"So be it then," said Henriette, with a sigh of relief. "I will take my departure next Saturday after the Innitt's clam-bake on Honk Island. The servants can go Saturday afternoon after the house has been put in order. You can order a fresh supply of champagne and cigars for yourself, and as for your meals--"

"Don't you bother about that," said I, with a laugh. "I lived for months on the chafing-dish before I found you again. And I rather think the change from game birds and pate de foie gras to simple eggs and bread and butter will do me good."

And so the matter was arranged. The servants were notified that, owing to Mrs. Van Raffles's illness, they might take a vacation on full pay for ten days, and Henriette herself prepared society for her departure by fainting twice at the Innit's clam-bake on Honk Island.

No less a person than Mrs. Gaster herself brought her home at four o'clock in the morning and her last words were an exhortation to her "_dear_ Mrs. Van Raffles" to be careful of herself "for all our sakes." Saturday morning Henriette departed. Saturday afternoon the servants followed suit, and I was alone in my glory--and oh, how I revelled in it! The beauties of Bolivar Lodge had never so revealed themselves to me as then; the house as dark as the tomb without, thanks to the closing of the shutters and the drawing to of all the heavy portieres before the windows, but a blaze of light within from cellar to roof. I spent whole hours gloating over the treasures of that Monte-Cristan treasure-house, and all day Sunday and Monday I spent poring over the books in the library, a marvellous collection, though for the most part wholly uncut.

Everything moved along serenely until Wednesday afternoon, when I thought I heard a noise in the cellar, but investigation revealed the presence of no one but a stray cat which miaowed up the cellar steps to me in response to my call of "Who's there." True, I did not go down to see if any one were there, not caring to involve myself in a personal encounter with a chance tramp who might have wandered in, in search of food. The sudden materialization of the cat satisfactorily explained the noises, and I returned to the library to resume my reading of _The Origin of the Decalogue_ where I had left off at the moment of the interruption. That evening I cooked myself a welsh-rabbit and at eight o'clock, arrayed in my pajamas, I returned to the library with a book, a bottle of champagne and a box of Vencedoras, prepared for a quiet evening of absolute luxury. I read in the waning light of the dying midsummer day for a little while, and then, as darkness came on, I turned to the switch-board to light the electric lamp.

_The lamp would not light._

I pressed and pressed every button in the room, but with no better results; and then, going through the house I tried every other button I could find, but everywhere conditions were the same. Apparently there was something the matter with the electrical service, a fact which I cursed, but not deeply, for it was a beautiful moonlight night and while of course I was disappointed in my reading, I realized that after all nothing could be pleasanter than to sit in the moonlight and smoke and quaff bumpers of champagne until the crack of doom. This I immediately proceeded to do, and kept at it pretty steadily until I should say about eleven o'clock, when I heard unmistakable signs of a large automobile coming up the drive. It chugged as far as the front-door and then stood panting like an impatient steam-engine, while the chauffeur, a person of medium height, well muffled in his automobile coat, his features concealed behind his goggles, and his mouth covered by his collar, rapped loudly on the front-door, once, then a second time.

"Who the devil can this be at this hour of the night, I wonder," I muttered, as I responded to the summons.

If I sought the name I was not to be gratified, for the moment I opened the door I found two pistols levelled upon me, and two very determined eyes peering at me from behind the goggles.

"Not a word, or I shoot," said the intruder in a gruff voice, evidently assumed, before I could get a word from my already somewhat champagne-twisted tongue. "Lead me to the dining-room."