Читать книгу The Riddle and the Ring; or, Won by Nerve - Gordon MacLaren - Страница 11

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In the absorption of the greater trouble, Lawrence had quite forgotten one of his lesser worries—his landlady. That argus-eyed female was on the watch, however, and darted up from the basement just in time to catch him in the hall.

"I s'pose you're comin' to pay me the three weeks' rent you're owin'?" she said, with sarcasm.

Lawrence winced at her tone. He was not yet hardened to that sort of a thing.

"I hope to have it for you this afternoon, Mrs. Kerr," he returned quietly.

"You hope, do you?" shrilled the woman caustically. "Well, let me tell you right here, I ain't livin' on hopes. If that money ain't paid down by three o'clock, out you go. I don't care if it is below zero. I've stood your triflin' long enough, an' if you can't pay you can beat it an' find another lodging place. I hear they're letting loafers sleep in the churches these nights. That might suit you, bein' it's free."

Barry's face flushed, and his hand strayed toward the wallet in his pocket. For a second he was sorely tempted to hand her one of those crisp twenties, and tell her to keep the change. She would never find out its worthlessness until he was safe away. He stifled the impulse, however, and, repeating briefly that she should have her money that afternoon, passed on up the stairs.

The instant his door was shut and the key turned, he jerked the wallet out and opened it with trembling fingers. As he shook out the mass of yellowbacks on the bed, the sight of them was like a stab of a knife. They looked so real it seemed impossible that they could be counterfeit.

He took up a fifty, and, carrying it to the light, examined it closely, feeling the texture and scrutinizing every little detail with care. He could see nothing wrong about it. Four months before, had such a bill been offered him at the bank, he would have accepted it without hesitation.

He took up another, which seemed equally good. He examined half a dozen without finding a single flaw, and then decided that the trouble was in himself. His judgment was no longer what it had been, and he dared not trust it.

"They look good, but they can't be," he muttered, frowning down at the beautiful bits of yellow paper strewn so carelessly over the bed. "What the mischief can I do?"

For fully ten minutes he stood there, his eyes thoughtful and his forehead wrinkled. Then, gathering the bills up, he put them all back in the wallet save one, a ten; after which he lifted the mattress, and shoved the wallet well underneath it.

"There!" he said, straightening up; "now, if I'm pinched, they won't find but one on me. I hate to take this over to the bank, but that's the only way I can be sure."

Ten minutes later he entered the big Twenty-third Street National Bank, and walked directly to one of the tellers.

"Will you kindly tell me if this is all right?" he said quietly, thrusting the ten-dollar bill through the window.

The teller picked it up, and examined it intently. Then he glanced keenly and with some suspicion at Lawrence.

The latter bore the scrutiny well, however, and the official looked the bill over carefully again, drew it through his fingers, and finally tossed it back.

"Certainly it's good," he said, rather brusquely. "What made you think it wasn't?"

For a second Barry was silent. He could not have spoken to save his life. Then he stammered something about "just wanting to make sure," and turned away, quite heedless of the impatient exclamation of the teller at having his time wasted in that manner.

Lawrence had no distinct recollection of how he got back to his room. His brain was in a whirl, and the only thing which stood out vivid and clean-cut was the realization that the money was real.

Real! Ye gods! The thought intoxicated him like champagne. He forgot the cold and wind, his thin clothes, his ravenous hunger. He gave no thought to who the donor might be, or how he had acquired those crisp yellow bills. They were his, every one of them. All he had to do was to buy clothes, to take an apartment at the St. Albans, to dine for a week at the Waldorf! He laughed aloud, and a shivering, frosty-nosed citizen turned and stared after him suspiciously as he hurried down the street.

Lawrence did not see this; nor, seeing, would he have cared. He flew through the snowy streets, and on the doorstep of his lodging house was smitten with a sudden fear for the safety of his treasure. Racing up the two flights of stairs, he darted into his room and tore up the mattress.

The wallet was safe, but what might have been made him tingle all over with a sickening sensation, for he had gone out without even locking his door.

Having turned the key, he sat down on the bed, and opened the wallet. Slowly, deliberately, and with a delicious thrill, he counted the bills. There were fifteen one hundreds, eight fifties, and an odd hundred dollars in twenties and tens.

Evidently the little man in black had been prepared for his acceptance of the extraordinary offer, and the realization brought into Lawrence's mind a swift wonder as to what it could all be about. What reason—what possible reason—could the stranger have for making those astonishing, seemingly absurd, conditions? What purpose would be accomplished by Barry's appearing at the places mentioned for the short space of a week?

Urged on by a fresh curiosity, Lawrence took up the wallet again, to examine it for some mark of identification.

It was of heavy pigskin, finely made, and bearing the stamp of a well-known English firm. That much told nothing; but, in turning it over, Barry noticed something which had escaped his attention before. One corner was bulkier than the rest. His inquiring fingers told him that there was undoubtedly a hard object in one of the numerous compartments of the case.

Eagerly he searched, and at last, slipping his fingers into a slit in the back of the wallet, drew forth a ring.

For a moment he sat staring at it in wonder and admiration, for it was one of the strangest jewels he had ever seen.

A great, square-cut emerald was in the center, and twined about it were two serpents in dull, exquisitely chiseled gold, with tiny flecks of emerald for their eyes. Their heads were slightly raised, and the unknown craftsman had wrought them in amazing similitude to life. With patient cunning he had carved each tiny line of flat, broad head and sinuous, undulating body, until it seemed to Barry as if the things must actually wriggle presently, and dart out forked tongues.

"By Jove!" Lawrence exclaimed aloud. "I never saw anything like it in all my life. That emerald's a perfect whopper, and must be worth a fortune. He forgot to take it out, of course; and, hang it all, I don't see how the mischief I can get it back to him. I don't even know his name."

He slipped it on his finger, and found that it fitted well. Then, as he sat admiring its perfect, almost uncanny, beauty, the thought flashed into his mind that, by its means, he might solve the mystery of the man in black.

"Of course he'll come for it," he thought. "I have only to keep it, and he'll show up before long to claim it. Then perhaps I'll find out something."

He began to gather up the bills and stow them carefully away, his fingers trembling with excitement. There was much to be done if he were to carry out the stranger's conditions.