The Perils of Pauline

by Lawrence Fletcher

  CHAPTER IV

  OWEN WINS THE FIRST GAME

  Harry Marvin entered the little private garage back of the Marvinmansion, locked the door and drew the shades of the small windows.There were only two automobiles in the garage. One was the big sixcylinder touring car in which Pauline and Owen had made their trip theday before to the aviation field. The other was the two-seatedrunabout that Harry had driven over the same ground just behind them.

  Having made sure that nobody was about, Harry lifted up the hood of thetouring car and without the slightest provocation attacked it with awrench. He removed the carburetor, took it to pieces, lifted out thehollow metal float and deliberately made two punctures in it. Then hetossed the dismembered parts upon a work bench and was about to operateon the runabout when he heard voices outside.

  He was barely in time to unlock the door and be found busily working onthe car when Pauline entered. She had just learned of the chauffeur'sabsence. Harry volunteered the additional bad news that the big carwas out of order. Like every disappointed woman, she insisted onknowing exactly what was wrong. Harry told her, with many longtechnical details, and, not knowing at all what he was talking about,she had to be satisfied.

  Could he fix it in time to get her to the aviation field before therace?

  Well, that depended partly on whether she would go away and not botherhim until breakfast.

  Pauline could, and she certainly would refrain from bothering him.Never before had Harry found her a bother, nor, for that matter, hadany other man in her recollection. Out she went, with more color thanusual in her pink cheeks and the light of battle in her eyes.

  "By George, I've got to play my cards carefully," thought Harry, as hecontemplated the runabout. It was evident that he had designs on thehealth of the two-seater also. But he felt the necessity of subtletyin this case. He could not assassinate it boldly by tearing out avital organ as he had done to the bigger car. This runabout must die aslow, lingering death. How was he to do it? His first idea was toweaken the tires and invite "blowouts" on the road. But this could notbe done with certainty, and some kind friend might supply him with newtires.

  A more promising idea was to drain the engine of its oil, knowing thatsooner or later the pistons would run dry and stick. Such a proceedingwould ruin the engine, and Harry was too good a mechanic to spoil afirst rate engine, especially one built by his father. He would assoon think of hamstringing a faithful horse. A better plan soon cameto him and put him into action. It soon had him flat on his back underthe car, boring a hole in the bottom of the gasoline tank. When thelife-blood of the car began to trickle out in a stream he stopped thehole with a small wooden peg.

  The young man now frowned at the only remaining vehicle which had, notreceived his attention, Owen's motorcycle.

  Harry went to the hose used for washing down the cards and collected alittle water in the palm of his hand. With the other hand he removedthe cap from the motorcycle's tank and allowed two or three drops ofwater to mingle with the gasoline.

  This done, Harry let down his sleeves, washed his hands, and saunteredin to breakfast, with the unwelcome announcement that the big car was,for the day at least, beyond human aid.

  There was a flicker of suspicion in Owen's sallow face at the news. Hewondered if Harry had disabled the touring car that he might ride alonewith Pauline.

  "I am afraid," said Harry, quietly, "that you will have to ride in therunabout alone with me, Polly. It's rather hard on Raymond, but Iguess he must go on his motorcycle or by train."

  "Oh, I think you wrecked it on purpose," said Pauline, without theslightest suspicion that she was stating the truth.

  Owen, worried by vague misgivings about Harry, looked into the tank ofthe runabout to make sure that it was full, and then scurried away onhis two wheeled mount. He considered waiting until the runabout wasready to start and keeping the machine in sight, but it seemed wiser tobe on the field where he could make sure the Frenchman would not forgethis bargain nor start before Pauline arrived.

  Pauline was ready with such record-breaking suddenness that it gave herthe novel experience of waiting for Harry.

  She bad not forgotten that her lover had asked her not to bother himwhile he worked on the car. After that slight to her pride the younglady would rather die than go near the garage while he was in it.During the next five minutes unpleasant doubts entered her mind. Whatcould this indifference and neglect mean? She had looked upon Harryever since his return from college as a personal possession. Ofcourse, technically he wasn't hers until she married him. But if hewere not her property, at least she had an option on the handsome youthuntil such time as she saw fit to either take his name or relinquishhim to some one else. In that case she wondered to whom she would liketo turn him over. There was her schoolmate and chum, Miss Hamlin. Howlucky any man would be to get her, and Harry--how would he feel aboutit? Then, like a cold draught in her brain came the recollection thatLucille and Harry had corresponded all the four years he was atcollege.

  Could it be that she, Pauline, had been too willful and headstrong withHarry? If so, was it possible that the keen edge of his adoration waswearing dull? Pauline had just succeeded in stamping these unpleasantquestions deep down into the subconscious parts of her mind when theyoung man whisked up in the runabout.

  Pauline's wrath melted rapidly. Harry drove, as he did everything outin the open air, magnificently. His judgment of distances and openingswas precise, and his skill in weaving his way through heavy traffic wasstartling. A good looking young man is seldom seen to betteradvantage, especially by a girl, than when driving a powerful car.Pauline loved to drive with Harry. Besides his spectacular tricks hehad a guileless manner of getting the better of arguments with crossingpolicemen.

  Harry was not driving as fast as usual. This fact was impressed on herby shouts and waving of hands from a car which passed them frombehind.

  "That's Lucille," cried Pauline, waving.

  "Yes, and, confound it, that's Billy Madison taking her to the races."

  "Well, why shouldn't he?" asked Pauline. "Isn't it all right?"

  "Yes but it seems to me he is paying deal of attention to Lucille and--say, Polly, you don't suppose she'd be silly enough to care for him,do, you?"

  That sensation of a cold wave in the back of her brain came again.

  "I'm sure I don't know," she replied, a little coldly. "Why--does itmatter very much to you?"

  Harry hesitated, even stammered a little, in denying that it did. Hestammered, as Pauline well understood, because he was not telling herhis true thoughts. It did matter, and she knew it. In reality itmattered because Harry knew too much about young Madison to want him towin the affection of any friend of his, but Harry did not wish toexplain.

  "So Harry does care for Lucille and always has cared," thoughtPauline. The sense of possession of the youth beside her faded and heseemed far away. If a man fears he is losing his grip on a girl heredoubles his attentions and racks his brains to be more interestingand attractive to her. A girl in the same situation reverses thetactics.

  Just as Harry felt the absolute zero which scientists talk aboutsettling upon him, he remembered a very important duty.

  "Seems to me we don't drift the way we ought to," said Harry, pressingon his clutch pedal and trying to took concerned.

  "I think we have been a long time getting to the aviation field," wasPauline's chilly answer.

  Harry stopped the car, went back and pulled out the little wooden plugin the gasoline tank. Then away they went again, leaving a little wetline in the dust of the road. Pauline stared straight ahead. Harry'sattempts at conversation fell on the stony ground of silence, or atbest brought forth only the briefest and most colorless answers. SoonHarry's practiced ear caught the preliminary warning of waninggasoline, and a moment later, half way up a gentle hill, with a sobfrom all its six cylinders the car gave up the ghost.

  A few miles ahead Owen also was in difficul
ties. He had been sailingalong merrily until he stopped at a little roadhouse for a drink. Themachine had been all right when he got off and he knew nobody hadtouched it, yet now it acted as if possessed by the evil one. Withgreat difficulty he was able to start it, and once started it coughed,bucked and showed all the symptoms of bronchitis and pneumonia. Bydint of strenuous pedaling Owen helped the asthmatic motor to the topof the next hill. It ran as smoothly as a watch all the way down theother side and then imitated a bunch of cannon crackers on thefollowing rise.

  Owen was a good motorcycle rider, but a very poor mechanic. Hismachine had been adjusted, cleaned and kept in repair by the Marvinchauffeur, and the secretary had seldom, cause to investigate it on theroad. He had always used the carefully filtered gasoline from thegarage, so that he neither understood the present alarming symptoms norknew their simple cure. His motor was protesting at a drop of waterwhich had entered the needle valve of his carburetor and, being heavierthan gasoline, had lodged there and stopped its flow. It would havebeen an easy, matter to drain the carburetor, but instead Owen withnervous fingers adjusted everything he could get his hands on, andafter two hours' work trundled it into a farmhouse and hired the farmerto drive him the short remaining distance to the aviation field.

  Several machines were in the air, but not the Frenchman's, when thefarmer drove up. The roads and the edges of the field were alive withcars and spectators as the secretary hastened to the "hangars." TheFrench aviator welcomed Owen and inquired for the mademoiselle. Thisconfirmed Owen's fears that something had happened to her on the way.It had troubled him a little that the runabout had not passed him onthe road, but Harry might have made a detour to avoid some section ofbad road.

  Owen lost another hour in watching and worrying before he made up hismind to go to the rescue. There were plenty of idle cars, but it wasnot easy to hire one, as they were mostly guarded by chauffeurs with noright to rent or lend them. At last a man was found who was willing topick up $10 and take a chance that his master would not know about it.

  The rescue car found them just where they had stopped, half way up thehill. Pauline had run the scale of feminine annoyance, from silence tosarcasm, to tears. The tears produced almost the same effect onHarry's determination to keep Pauline from flying that the drops ofwater had in Owen's carburetor. The spectacle of the girl he lovedweeping had almost broken up his resolve when Owen dashed by, shouted,turned around and drew up alongside.

  Harry asked for help, and the chauffeur who had never had the pleasureof tinkering with a "Marvin Six," was inclined to dismount and aid atleast in diagnosing the car's ailment. While he was thinking about itand surveying the parts which Harry had taken out and strewn about therunning board in his pretended trouble hunt Pauline had dashed away hertears and transferred her pretty self to the new car. Pauline and Owenboth knew there was barely time to reach the field before theFrenchman's ascent. So with scanty farewells Harry was left toreassemble his car. When he had set up the last nut he replaced thelittle plug in the tank, produced a can of gasoline from the lockerbehind the seats, emptied it into his tank and drove at reckless speedfor the aviation grounds.

  He was just in time to see a tiny speck on the edge of the horizon.This, he learned, was the Frenchman's machine. He was told that itcarried a passenger. The speck grew rapidly in size, developed theinsect shape of a biplane and soon seemed to be over the other end ofthe aviation field. The young man's joy at seeing the aeroplanereturning in safety was dampened by a little feeling of shame that bysuch devious means he had almost spoiled Pauline's pleasure.

  "I act like an old woman worrying Polly this way," he decided. "Nowonder she is cross to me lately. She must think I would be a tyrantof a--"

  Harry's last words were choked by a spasm of the throat.

  There were shouts and gestures from the spectators.

  A light gust of wind had struck the aeroplane on the right wing. Itwavered an instant, like a dragon fly about to alight, and then insteadof responding to the aviator's levers turned on its left side andplunged to the ground. A cloud of dust arose, half hiding the wreck,and then the crash of impact came to his ears.

  There was a second of silence, broken by a groan. Harry heard thegroan and didn't even know it came from his own throat. He was inmotion now, forcing people to the right and left and running down thefield. It seemed miles to the other end, and he was gratefullyconscious that others nearer were hurrying to the rescue, if rescue itmight be called.

  The aeroplane had dropped like a stone from a height that forbade hopeof escape. Would she be conscious and would he be in time to give andreceive a last message of love before her splendid young life wasquenched in the black blot of death? Besides grief there was fury inthe runner's heart, wrath against Owen for encouraging this foolish anddangerous caprice, against the unfortunate driver who had failed topreserve his precious freight, and against nature who condemns everyliving thing by one means or another to that same final failure andwreck death.

  Gasping for breath from his exertions, he was at last within a hundredfeet of the ruin, and saw people lifting up the engine and removing alimp figure. Just then two people stepped in his way. He did not turnout but rushed straight at them, rather glad to have something to burlaside in his blind anger, nor did he notice that one was a woman.Harry's plunge carried him between them and knocked both down, just ashe had often bowled over the "interference" in his football games. Onhe lurched, wondering vaguely at hearing his name called. He heard itagain and it sounded like Pauline's voice.

  He turned, and it was Pauline.

  After all Pauline had arrived too late--had missed that fataladventure.

  Owen watched Harry lift Pauline up and wrap her in his arms with asqueeze that hurt. But it was a hurt she loved and though she sobbedas if her heart would break they were sobs of relief and happiness.

  Owen watched a moment and then slunk away; his schemes had been fornothing. Pauline was alive and happy in her lover's arms, and thesecretary was no nearer his goal of permanent control of her estatethan before. He walked to the entrance of' the tent and tried to learnfrom the nurses and doctors who were hurrying in and out whether theFrench aviator would live or die. Nobody would stop to give him asatisfactory answer. There was a flap in the back of the tent, andthrough this Owen cautiously peered. He saw a nurse with somethingthat looked like wet absorbent cotton dabbing at a round black object.

  Presently he saw that the round object was the head of a man blackenedby fire. Just then the nurse looked up, saw Owen's guilty face andgave a little exclamation of dismay. At the same instant Owen felt ahand grasp his elbow. Withdrawing his head from the tent, he turnedquickly and was confronted by the red face of Hicks, the blackmailer,counselor and dream messenger.

  The secretary backed away from Hicks with a face of terror.

  "Don't be scared," said Hicks in a hoarse whisper. "I feel as if Iwere in this thing as deep as you are."

  "In what thing?" asked Owen.

  "Don't bluff, old man," said Hicks. "Didn't you dream about me lastnight?"

  "Well, what have my dreams to do with you?"

  "Stop bluffing," replied Hicks. "Didn't you see me in a dream lastnight? And didn't I leave a black, shining stone on the table when Ileft?"

  Owen did not deny these questions, and the red-visaged man went on:

  "I see you took my advice--that is, his advice, whoever he is, andyou fixed the wire."

  "Look here, Hicks, in heaven's name, tell me what this means. I diddream about you; you told me to do the thing, and it's your fault. Youadmit you are in it. Now, what is it?"

  "Owen," said Hicks, "you and I are a couple of pikers in a big game--bigger than we understand. We hold the cards, but somebody else isplaying the hand for us. He is an old guy and a wise one, fourthousand years old, he tells me, and, though it scares me out of myboots to think who I am trailing along with, I'm going to stick andyou'd better stick, too, and let him play our han
d to the end."

  "Who is it?" asked Owen, wondering if the morphine had gotten thebetter of him again or if Hicks were playing some uncanny deceit onhim.

  "I don't know," replied Hicks. "He's somebody who has been dead 4,000years, and he wants to have this girl Pauline killed so he can get herback. I suppose he's some kind of ghostly white slaver. It isn't ourbusiness what he is as long as he takes care of us. If we'll help himhe'll help us."

  "Well, he didn't manage very well today," objected Owen.

  "He planned all right," rejoined Hicks. "The machine fell, and ifshe'd been in it she'd have been killed. But the other side played acard. I don't know what the card was, but it took the trick and shedidn't go up in the machine. That's all. But don't worry, we'll havebetter luck some other time."

  Owen shook his head. He could make nothing of this battle of unseenforces. It was clear to him that he had grasped at the one big chanceto get Pauline's estate and had missed it. He told Hicks so frankly.

  "That's where you're wrong again," insisted Hicks. "If that girl hadbeen killed today it would have been a big blunder."

  "A blunder?" queried Owen. "Didn't you say that Pauline must be putout of the way before we can get hold of her fortune?"

  "Listen," said Hicks glancing cautiously about, "come over here awayfrom these people."

  "What do you mean by saying that it would have been a big blunder ifPauline had been killed in that flying machine?" demanded Owen.

  "Yes, an almighty big blunder--that's what I said, and I can tell youwhy. We were pretty stupid not to think of it before. Now here'swhat's got to happen to Miss Pauline--"

  Hicks placed his mouth close to Owen's car and whispered.