The Maker of Opportunities. Gibbs George

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ spirits rose. He did not lack courage, and here was a situation which spurred him to the utmost.

      Instinctively he closed the inside shutters behind him. From the alley the pair would not have presented an appearance which accorded with the quiet splendor of the room. He found himself peering around, his ears straining for the slightest sound.

      A glance revealed the dispatch-box, heavy, squat and phlegmatic, like its owner. Crabb had tiptoed over to the door of the adjoining room. Burnett saw the eyes dilate and the warning finger to his lips.

      From the inner apartment, slowly and regularly, came the sound of heavy breathing. There, in a broad armchair by the foot of the bed, sprawled the baron’s valet, in stertorous sleep. His mouth was wide open, his limbs relaxed. He had heard nothing.

      “Quick,” whispered Crabb; “your bandanna around his legs.”

      Burnett surprised himself by the rapidity and intelligence of his collaboration. A handkerchief was slipped into the man’s mouth, and before his eyes were fairly opened he was gagged and bound hand and foot by the cord from the baron’s own dressing gown.

      From a pocket Crabb had produced a revolver, which he flourished significantly under the nose of the terrified man, who recoiled before the dark look which accompanied it.

      Crabb seemed to have planned exactly what to do. He took a bath towel and tied it over the man’s ears and under his chin. From the bed he took the baron’s sheets and blankets, enswathing the unfortunate servant until nothing but the tip of his nose was visible. A rope of suspenders and cravats completed the job.

      The Baron Arnim’s valet, to all the purposes of usefulness in life, was a bundled mummy.

      “Phew!” said Crabb, when it was done. “Poor devil! But it can’t be helped. He mustn’t see or know. And now for it.”

      Crabb produced a bunch of skeleton keys and an electric bull’s-eye. He tried the keys rapidly. In a moment the dispatch-box was opened and its contents exposed to view.

      “Carefully now,” whispered Crabb. “What should it look like?”

      “A foolscap-shaped thing in silk covers with dangling cords,” said Ross. “There, under your hand.”

      In a moment they had it out and between them on the desk. There it was, in all truth, written in two columns, Chinese on the one side, French on the other.

      “Are you sure?” said Crabb.

      “Sure! Sure as I’m a thief in the night!”

      “Then sit and write, man. Write as you never wrote before. I’ll listen and watch Rameses the Second.”

      In the twenty minutes during which Burnett fearfully wrote, Crabb stood listening at the doors and windows for sounds of servants or approaching carriages. The man swaddled in the sheets made a few futile struggles and then subsided. Burnett’s eyes gleamed. Other eyes than his would gleam at what he saw and wrote. When he finished he closed the document, removed all traces of his work, replaced it in the iron box and shut the lid. He dropped the precious sheets into an inner pocket and was moving toward the window when Crabb seized him by the arm. There was a step in the hallway without, and the door opened. There, stout and grizzled, his walrus mustache bristling with surprise, in all the distinction of gold lace and orders, stood Baron Arnim.

      CHAPTER V

      For a moment there was no sound. The burglars looked at the Baron and the Baron looked at the burglars, mouths and eyes open alike. Then, even before Crabb could display his intimidating revolver, the German had disappeared through the door screaming at the top of his lungs.

      “Quick! Out of the window!” said Crabb, helping Burnett over the sill. “Down you go – I’ll follow. Don’t fall. If you miss your footing, we’re ruined.”

      Burnett scrambled out, over the coping and down the ladder, Crabb almost on his fingers. But they reached the yard in safety and were out in the alley running in the shadow of the fence before a venturesome head stuck forth from the open window and a revolver blazed into the vacant air.

      “The devil!” said Crabb. “They’ll have every copper in the city on us in a minute. This way.” He turned into a narrow alley at right angles to the other. “Off with the coat as you go – now, the mustache and grease paint. Take your time. Into this sewer with the coats. So!”

      Two gentlemen in light topcoats, one in a cap, the other in a hat, walked up N street arm in arm, thickly singing. Their shirt fronts and hair were rumpled, their legs were not too steady, and they clung affectionately to each other for support and sang thickly.

      A window flew up and a tousled head appeared.

      “Hey!” yelled a voice. “Burglars in the alley!”

      “Burglars!” said one of the singers; and then: “Go to bed. You’re drunk.”

      More sounds of windows, the blowing of night whistles and hurrying feet.

      Still the revelers sang on.

      A stout policeman, clamorous and bellicose, broke in.

      “Did you see ’em? Did you see ’em?” he cried, glaring into their faces. Bleary eyes returned his look.

      “W-who?” said the voices in unison.

      “Burglars,” roared the copper. “If I wasn’t busy I’d run ye in.” And he was off at full speed on his vagrant mission.

      “Lucky you’re busy, old chap,” muttered Crabb to the departing figure. “Do sober up a little, Ross, or we’ll never get away. And don’t jostle me so, for I clank like a bellwether.”

      Slowly the pair made their way to Thomas Circle and Vermont Avenue, where the sounds of commotion were lost in the noises of the night.

      At L Street Burnett straightened up. “Lord!” he gasped. “But that was close.”

      “Not as close as it looked,” said Crabb, coolly. “A white shirt-front does wonders with a copper. It was better than a knock on the head and a run for it. In the meanwhile, Ross, for the love of Heaven, help me with some of the bric-à-brac.” And with that he handed Burnett a gold pin tray, a silver box and a watch fob.

      Burnett soberly examined the spoils. “I only wish we could have done without that.”

      “And had Arnim know what we were driving for? Never, Ross. I’ll pawn them in New York for as little as I can and send von Schlichter the tickets. Won’t that do?”

      “I suppose it must,” said Burnett, dubiously.

      By three o’clock they were on the Blue Wing again, Burnett with mingled feelings of doubt and satisfaction, Crabb afire with the achievement.

      “Rasselas was a fool, Ross, a malcontent – a fainéant. Life is amazing, bewitching, consummate.” And then, gayly: “Here’s a health, boy – a long life to the new ambassador to the Court of St. James!”

      But Ross did not go to the Court of St. James. In the following winter, to the surprise of many, the President gave him a special mission to prepare a trade treaty with Peru. Baron Arnim, in due course, recovered his bric-à-brac. Meanwhile Emperor William, mystified at the amazing sagacity of the Secretary of State СКАЧАТЬ