He picked up the other articles, looked at them, and returned them to the bag. A gold pencil, a gold ring with an opal set in it, a woman’s handkerchief with a gray border and an unrecognizable design in one corner, a powder-box, a small mirror, a lip-stick, some hairpins, and a rumpled sheet of note-paper covered with strange, exotic characters. He smoothed out the paper and examined it closely, but could make nothing out of it. Some Asiatic language, perhaps. He took the ring from the bag again and tried to estimate its value. His knowledge of gems was small, but he decided that the ring could not be worth much—not more than fifty dollars at the most. Still, fifty dollars is fifty dollars. He put the ring with the money, lit a cigarette, and went to bed.
CHAPTER II
The Mysterious Advertisement
Phil awoke at noon. His head was still tender to the touch, but the swelling had gone. He walked downtown, bought early editions of the afternoon papers, and read them while he ate breakfast. He found no mention of the struggle on Washington street, and the Lost and Found columns held nothing pertaining to the bag. That night he played poker until daylight and won two hundred and forty-some dollars. In an all-night lunch-room he read the morning papers. Still nothing of the struggle, but in the classified section of the Chronicle:
LOST—Early Tuesday morning, Lady’s black silk bag trimmed with silver, containing money, ring, gold pencil, letter, etc. Finder may keep money if other articles are returned to this CHRONICLE OFFICE.
He grinned, then frowned, and stared speculatively at the advertisement. It had a queer look to it, this offer! The ring couldn’t be worth three hundred dollars. He took it from his pocket, shielding it with his hand from the chance look of anyone in the lunch-room. No; fifty dollars would be a big price. The pencil, powder-box, and lip-stick case were of gold; but a hundred and fifty dollars, say, would more than replace everything in the bag. The undecipherable letter remained—that must be some important item! A struggle between a woman and some men at four in the morning, nothing about it in the newspapers, a lost bag containing a paper covered with foreign characters, and then this generous offer—it might mean almost anything! Of course, the wisest plan would be either to disregard the advertisement and keep what he had found, or to accept this offer and send everything but the money to the Chronicle. Either way would be playing it safe; but when a man’s luck is running good he should crowd it to the limit. Times come, as every gambler knows, when a man gets into a streak of luck, when everything he touches proves fruitful; and his play then is to push his luck to a fare-you-well—make a killing while the fickle goddess is smiling. He thought of the men he had known who had paid for their timidity in the face of Chance’s favor—men who had won dollars where they might have won thousands, men who were condemned to be pikers all their lives through lack of courage to force their luck when it ran strong, an inability to rise with their stars. “And my luck’s running good,” he whispered to the ring in his hand. “A thousand smacks in two days, after the long dry spell I’ve been through.”
He returned the ring to his pocket and reviewed the chain of incidents leading up to the advertisement. Two facts that had lurked in his subconsciousness came out to face him: the shrieking voice had been musical even in its terror, and the eyes that had burned into his had been very beautiful, though he did not know what their owners other features might be like. Two influencing elements; but the question at hand was whether the monetary reward in keeping with any danger that might ensue could be expected. He made up his mind as he finished his coffee.
“I’ll sit in this racket, whatever it is, for a little while, anyway; and see what I can get myself.”
CHAPTER III
Matching Wits
At ten o’clock that morning Phil telephoned the office of the Chronicle, told the girl to whom he talked that he had found the bag but would return it to no one but its owner, and went back to bed. At two o’clock he got up and dressed. He returned the ring to the bag, with everything except the money, and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. He usually went out for his meals, but today he wanted to be sure that he would not miss whoever might telephone or call. He had scarcely finished his meal then the door-bell rang.
“Mr. Truax?”
Phil nodded and invited the caller in. The man who entered the flat was about forty years old, nearly as tall as Phil, and perhaps twenty-five pounds heavier. He was fastidiously groomed in clothes of a European cut, and a walking-stick was crooked over one arm.
He accepted a chair with a polite smile, and said, “I shall take but a moment of your time. It is about the bag that I have come. The newspaper informed me you had found it.” He betrayed his foreignness more by the precision of his enunciation than by any accent.
“It is your bag?”
The caller’s red lips parted in a smile, baring twin rows of even white teeth.
“It is my niece’s, but I can describe it. A black silk bag of about this size”—indicating with his small, shapely hands—“trimmed with silver, and holding between three and four hundred dollars, a gold pencil, a ring—an opal ring—a letter written in Russian, and the powder and rouge accessories that one would expect to find in a young woman’s bag. Perhaps a handkerchief with her initial in Russian on it. That is the one you found?”
“It might be, Mr.—”
“Pardon me, sir!” The visitor extended a card. “Kapaloff, Boris Kapaloff.”
Phil took the card and pretended to scrutinize it while he marshaled his thoughts. He was far from certain that he cared to force himself into this man’s affairs. The man’s whole appearance—the broad forehead slanting down from the roots of the crisp black hair to bulge a little just above the brows; the narrow, widely spaced eyes of cold hazel; the aquiline nose with a pronounced flare to the nostrils; the firm, too-red lips; the hard line of chin and jaw—evidenced a nature both able and willing to hold its own in any field. And while Phil considered himself second to no man in guile, he knew that his intrigues had heretofore been confined to the world of tin-horn gamblers, ward-heelers, and such small fry. Small schooling for a game with this man whose voice, appearance and poise proclaimed a denizen of a greater, more subtle world. Of course, if some decided advantage could be gained at the very outset . . .
“Where was the bag lost?” Phil asked.
The Russian’s poise remained undisturbed.
“That would be most difficult to say,” he replied in his cultured, musical voice. “My niece had been to a dance, and she carried several friends to their homes before returning to hers. The bag may have dropped from the car anywhere along the way.”
A temptation to speak of the struggle on Washington Street came to Phil but he put it aside. Kapaloff might have been present that morning but it was obvious that he did not recognize Phil. The bag could have been found by someone who passed the spot later. Phil decided to leave Kapaloff in doubt on that point for as long as possible, in hope that some advantage would come out of it; and he was further urged to postpone the clash that might ensure by a faint fear of coming to a show-down with this suave Russian. Nothing would be lost by waiting . . .
Kapaloff allowed a gentle impatience to tinge his manner. “Now about the bag?”
“The three hundred and fifty-five dollars is reward?” Phil asked.
Kapaloff sighed ruefully.
“I am sorry to say it is. Ridiculous, of course, but perhaps you know something of young women. My niece was very fond of the opal ring—a trinket, worth but little. Yet no sooner did she discover her loss than she telephoned the newspaper office and offered the money as reward. Ridiculous! A hundred dollars would be an exaggerated value to place upon everything in the bag. But having made the offer, we shall have to abide by it.”
Phil nodded dumbly. Kapaloff was lying—no doubt of that—but he wasn’t the sort that one baldly denounces. Phil fidgeted and found himself avoiding his visitor’s eyes. Then a wave of self-disgust flooded him. “Here I am,” he thought, “letting this
guy bluff me in my own flat, just because he has a classy front.” He looked into Kapaloff’s hazel eyes and asked with perfect casualness, keeping every sign of what was going on in his brain out of his poker-player’s face: “And how did the scrap in the automobiles come out? I didn’t see the end of it.”
“I am so glad you said that!” Kapaloff cried, his face alight with joyous relief. “So very glad! Now I can offer my apologies for my childish attempts at deception. You see, I wasn’t sure that you had seen the unfortunate occurrence—you could have found the bag later—although I was told that someone had tried to interfere. You were not injured seriously?” His voice was weighted with solicitude.
None of the bewilderment, chagrin, recognition of defeat that raged in Phil’s brain showed in his face. He tried to match the other’s blandness. “Not at all. A slight headache next morning, a sore spot for a few hours. Nothing to speak of!”
“Splendid!” Kapaloff exclaimed. “Splendid! And I want to thank you for your attempt to assist my niece, even though I must assure you it was most fortunate you were unsuccessful. We certainly owe you an explanation—my niece and I—and if you will bear with me I shall try not to take up too much of your time with it. We are Russians—my niece and I—and when the tsar’s government collapsed our place in our native land was gone. Kapaloff was not our name then; but what is a title after the dynasty upon which it depends and the holdings accruing to it are gone? What we endured between the beginning of the revolution and our escape from Russia I pray may never come to another!” A cloud touched his face with anguish, but he brushed it away with a gesture of one delicate hand. “My niece saw her father and her fiancé struck down within ten minutes. For months after that the real world did not exist for her. She lived in a nightmare. We watched her night and day for fear that she would succeed in her constant efforts to destroy herself. Then, gradually, she came back to us. For six months she has been, we thought, well. The alienists assured us that she was permanently cured. And then, late Monday night, she found between the pages of an old book a photograph of Kondra—he was her betrothed—and the poor child’s mind snapped again. She fled from the house, crying that she must go back to Petrograd, to Kondra. I was out, but my valet and my secretary followed her, caught her somewhere in the city, and returned with her. The roughness with which your gallantry was met—for that I must beg your forgiveness. Serge and Mikhail have not yet learned to temper their zeal. To them I am still ‘His Excellency,’ in whose service anything may be done.”
Kapaloff stopped, as if waiting for Phil’s comment, but Phil was silent. His brain was telling him, over and over, “This bird has got you licked! The generosity of the reward isn’t accounted for by this tale, but it will be before he’s through. This bird has got you licked!”
His genial eyes still on Phil’s, Kapaloff fulfilled the prophesy. “After my niece was safely home and I heard what had happened, I had the advertisement put in the paper. It seemed the most promising way of learning the extent of the injury to the man who had tried to aid my niece. If he were unhurt and had found the bag, he would turn it over to the Chronicle, and the three hundred and fifty dollars would be little enough reward for his trouble. On the other hand, if he were seriously injured he would use the advertisement to get in touch with me and I could take further steps to provide for him. If the bag were found by someone else I would remain in ignorance; but you will readily understand that I had no desire to have my niece’s distressing plight paraded before the public in the newspapers.”
He paused, waiting again.
When the pause had become awkward Phil shifted in his chair and asked, “And your niece—-how is she now?”
“Apparently well again. I called a physician as soon as she returned, she was given an opiate and awoke that afternoon as if nothing unusual had happened. It may be that she will never be troubled again.”
Phil started to get up from his chair to get the bag. There seemed to be no tangible reason for doubting the Russian’s story—except that he did not want to believe it. But was the story flawless? He relaxed in the chair again. If the tale were true, would Kapaloff have dictated the advertisement so that the bag would be delivered to the Chronicle? Wouldn’t he have wanted to interview the finder? The Russian was waiting for Phil to speak, and Phil had nothing to say. He wanted time to think this affair over carefully, away from the glances of the hazel eyes that were lancet-keen for all their blandness.
“Mr. Kapaloff,” he said, hesitantly, “here is how all this stands with me: I saw the bag’s owner and found it under—well—funny circumstances. Not,” he interjected quickly, as Kapaloff’s eyebrows rose coldly, “that your explanation is hard to believe; but I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing. So I’ll have to ask you either to let me deliver the bag to your niece, or to go to the police, tell our stories, and let them straighten it out.”
Kapaloff appeared to turn the offers over in his mind. Then he objected: “Neither alternative is inviting. The first would subject my niece to an embarrassing interview, and so soon after her trouble. The second—you should appreciate my distaste for the publicity that would follow the police’s entry into the affair.”
“I’m sorry, but—” Phil began, but Kapaloff cut him short by rising to his feet, smiling genially, with out-stretched hand.
“Not at all, Mr. Truax. You are a man of judgment. In your position I should probably act in like manner. Can you accompany to call upon my niece now?”
Phil stood up and grasped the dainty hand extended to him, and though the Russian’s grip was light enough Phil could feel the swell of powerful muscles under the soft skin.
“I’m sorry,” Phil lied, “but I have an engagement within half an hour. Perhaps you and your niece will be in the neighborhood within a few days and will find it convenient to call for it?” He did not intend dealing with this man on alien ground.
“That will do nicely. Shall we say, at three tomorrow?”
Phil repeated, “At three tomorrow,” and Kapaloff bowed himself out.
Alone, Phil sat down and tried to torture his brain into giving him the solution of this puzzle; but he made little headway. Except in two minor instances the Russian’s story had been impregnable. And those two details—the fact that he did not want the police dragged into the affair, and that he had worded the advertisement so as to retain his anonymity behind the screen of the newspaper—were not, upon close examination, very conclusive. On the other hand, insanity was notorious as a mask for villainy. How many crimes had been committed by use of the pretext that the victim, or the witnesses, were insane! Kapaloff s manner had been candid enough; and his poise had survived every twist of the situation, but . . . It was upon this last that Phil hung his doubts. “If that bird had contradicted me just once I’d believe him, maybe; but he was too damned agreeable!”
CHAPTER IV
Unwelcomed Visitors
Phil returned home early that night. The cards had failed to hold him, now that his mind was occupied with what threatened to be a larger, more intricate game. He puzzled over the letter in Russian, but its characters meant nothing to his eyes. He tried to think of someone who could translate it for him; but the only Russian he knew was not a man to be trusted under any circumstances. He tried to read a magazine, but soon gave it up and crawled into bed, to toss about, smoke numerous cigarettes, and finally drop off to sleep.
The least expert of burglars would have laughed at the difficulty and resultant noise with which the two men opened the door of Phil’s flat; but not the most desperate of criminals would have found anything laughable in their obvious determination. They were bent upon getting into the flat, and the racket incidental to their bungling attacks on the lock disconcerted them not at all. It was evident they would force an entrance even if it were necessary to batter the door down. Finally the lock succumbed, but by that time Phil was flattened behind his bath-room door, with a pistol in his hand and a confident grin on his face. The crudeness of t
he work on the lock precluded whatever doubts of his ability to take care of himself he might ordinarily have had.
The outer door swung open but no light came through. The hall light had been extinguished. The hinges creaked a little, but Phil, peering through the slit between the bathroom door and the jamb, could see nothing. A whisper and an answer told him that there were at least two burglars. However noisy the men had been with the door, they were silent enough now. A slight rustling and then silence. Not knowing where the men were, Phil did not move. A faint click sounded in the bedroom, and a weak, brief reflection from a flash-light showed an empty passage-way. Phil moved soundlessly toward the bedroom. As he reached the door the flash-light went on again and stayed on, its beam fixed upon the empty bed. Phil snapped on the lights.
The two men standing beside the bed, one on either side, wheeled in unison and took a step forward, to halt before the menace of the weapon in Phil’s hand. The men were very similar in appearance; the same bullet heads, the same green eyes under tangled brows, the same sullen mouths and high, broad cheek-bones. But the one who held a blackjack in a still uplifted hand was heavier and broader than the other, and the bridge of his nose was dented by a dark scar that ran from cheek to cheek, just under his eyes. For perhaps two seconds the men stood thus. Then the larger man shrugged his enormous shoulders and grunted a syllable to his companion. The momentary confusion left their faces, to be replaced by mated looks of resolve as they advanced toward Phil.
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