Although the escaping thief was brushed back into the room rather rudely and Travers Gladwin cried out as he caught sight of the uniformed officer and his men, “By Jove, captain, I’m glad you’ve come,” the consummate bluffer did not bat an eyelash or manifest the merest symptom of fear, stepping easily to one side and watching for the coming of his cue with feline alertness.

For a moment Captain Stone devoted himself only to the distribution of his men, posting them at all the windows and doors. When he was satisfied that every avenue of escape was covered he turned to Phelan with the sharp query:

“What’s all this, Phelan?”

“I caught them trying to get away with Mr. Gladwin’s”–––

“Yes, it was by the luckiest chance,” broke in Travers Gladwin.

“Is this Mr. Gladwin?” the captain stopped him, curtly.

“No, the other one, captain,” replied Phelan, indicating the thief; whereupon that gentleman bowed.

“Why, captain, I’m––” the real Gladwin started again.

“You’ve done well here, Phelan,” the captain complimented him, ignoring the young millionaire.

“Thank ye, sorr,” blushed Phelan.

“I should say he has done well.” The thief came forward, with an approving nod toward the now ecstatic Officer 666.

“If it hadn’t been for him,” pursued the thief, “these thieves would have carried off my pictures. I would suggest, captain, that he be properly rewarded.”

“Thank ye, sorr.” Phelan’s voice shook with gratitude.

“I’ll see that he gets full credit in my report,” said Captain Stone stiffly. “Now, Phelan, you go to the station for the patrol wagon. I sent it back, as one of the horses threw a shoe and got a bad fall. Tell the driver to get another horse at Murphy’s stable and hurry back.”

“Yes sorr.”

Phelan went out, walking on air and humming to himself, “Sergt. Michael Phelan, no less,” utterly forgetful of the sorry plight he was in not a half hour before.

Travers Gladwin was almost beside himself with chagrin. Again he made an impassioned plea to be heard.

“Now see here, Captain, I am Travers Gladwin”–––

“Oh, you are, eh?” sneered the captain, scarcely deigning to look at him. “Well, we’ll see about that. Where is the little Jap who notified me of this?”

Bateato had concealed himself behind a heavy piece of furniture and was yanked out into the open by a burly policeman.

“Here you,” growled the captain, shaking his hand at the Jap, “you’re Mr. Gladwin’s servant, you said––which one of these men is your master?”

Bateato locked his teeth together and refused even to smile.

“Which is your master? Answer me!” demanded Captain Stone.

“The poor little devil is frightened to death,” interposed the thief with a commiserating nod toward the Jap. He was playing his bluff to the limit.

“What scared him like that?” asked the captain.

“Oh, this gang here––some of the others got away––threatened to kill him.”

“Now look here, Captain––” broke in Gladwin, making furious, yet vain, gestures at Bateato.

“Silence!” Captain Stone cut him off again.

“I admire this chap’s nerve, Captain,” laughed the thief. “It’s monumental. He very nearly succeeded in bluffing Officer Phelan, but I guess you can take care of him all right––I must hurry off and get an expert to repair the damage done to these valuable paintings. Of course, you’ll leave a man or two on guard.”

Once more he gathered up his stick and overcoat and once more his exit was blocked––this time by Whitney Barnes.

It was only natural for that young man to misread the situation and conceive that Mrs. Elvira Burton had succeeded in her object of arresting his friend. So he blurted breathlessly:

“By Jove, Travers, I see I’m too late. I’ve been all over the city trying to warn you––I knew the police were on your track.”

“Who the devil are you?” Captain Stone cut in on him.

“Another of the gang,” responded the thief promptly. “He’s got some story trumped up that he thinks will get him off.”

“Well, we’ll let him tell it then, and you”––indicating the thief––“had better wait and hear it.”

There was something in the thief’s manner that had fired a spark of suspicion in the officer’s mind.

“Not a word about the girl,” Travers managed to whisper to Barnes in the moment Captain Stone had turned to address the thief.

“I won’t”––Barnes was replying when the Captain flung round on him.

“Stop that whispering, and come over here where I can get a good look at you. Which one of these men is the real Gladwin?”

“He is, of course!” Barnes nodded toward his friend. The truth of the situation had at last dawned upon him.

The thief smiled at Captain Stone and shook his head as if in compliment of the nerve of some criminals.

“H’m,” said the captain, turning to Barnes again. “And when did you find out that there was some one else who claimed to be Travers Gladwin?”

“Why,” replied Barnes briskly, “when Gladwin and I were here together this afternoon. The doorbell rang and two”–––

His friend shook a vigorous warning. Barnes stopped.

“Yes, and two what?”

“Well, you see, the doorbell rang”–––

“Yes, you said that!” snapped Captain Stone. “The doorbell rang and two”–––

“Yes, and two minutes after that it rang again––rang in an extraordinary kind of way, you know, as if whoever was ringing it––was ringing it because––because they wanted to come in––come in in a hurry, you see. Well, I went to the door”–––

“Why did you go to the door?” demanded Captain Stone.

“Well, you see, the bell rang”–––

“Don’t go back to that again! Why did you go to the door?”

“Well, I can’t at this minute remember exactly, but I’m under the impression I went to––to find out who was ringing the bell, just like that, as it were.”

“That’s enough of you,” snorted Captain Stone. 241 “Ryan (to one of his men) take this one and slip the nippers on him.”

“See here, Captain, I can explain this.”––Travers Gladwin essayed again, as he saw his friend struggling in the grip of a blue-coated giant and spluttering his protests against being handcuffed.

“You can’t explain anything to me,” was the best he got from Captain Stone.

During this spirited dialogue the thief had gone to the side of Helen Burton, who had remained motionless where she had risen from her chair, playing the part of a helpless victim in the seemingly hopeless tangle.

“Now then, Helen,” he said to her in his old tone of endearment, “we can go. You see where this impostor stands.”

“With you––no!”

There was no mistaking the uncompromising emphasis of her denial.

Captain Stone set out to distribute his prisoners, motioning to one policeman to take care of Gladwin and to another to look after the Jap, who would be needed as a witness.

He came last to Helen just as she had repulsed the man she was to have eloped with that night. Captain Stone had had experience enough with women to be able to distinguish between types. He was on the point of ordering another of his men to take charge of Helen when he paused and studied her 242 more closely. His men were starting for the door with their prisoners when he signalled them to stop.

“Wait,” he said, “I wish to question this lady.”

He turned to Helen, when there came swiftly into the room Lieutenant Detective Kearney of the Central Office.

Kearney was every inch a Central Office man, and had been long enough at Headquarters to lose the heavy bovine set of the man who pounds the pavement. A strapping big fellow, with graying hair and a pair of round bullet eyes that searched you with needle points, his very appearance was sufficient corroboration of all the thrilling stories the newspapers printed of his skill and courage.

“Hello, Kearney! What do you want?” Captain Stone addressed him as he stopped in the doorway and surveyed the remarkable scene before him.

“I’m looking for Travers Gladwin,” replied the detective shortly.

“I’m Travers Gladwin,” spoke up the thief, easily, but holding his head so that Kearney could see only the profile.

“That’s my name!” exclaimed Travers Gladwin in the same breath with the impostor.

Kearney looked from one to the other, fairly pistolling his scrutiny.

“Oh, both of you named Travers Gladwin?” he asked with a puzzled expression.

“That one’s a fake,” interposed Captain Stone, 243 pointing to the real Gladwin. “This”––nodding toward the impostor––“is the real Travers Gladwin.”

Kearney’s face showed no more expression than if it had been cut for a cameo, but when the thief asked him with perfect self-command: “What can I do for you?” he came on into the room and stopped directly in front of him.

“I have a warrant for your arrest,” he said, abruptly, and stuck his hand in his pocket for the document.

“My arrest! For what?” said the thief with a beautifully feigned amazement and a little laugh of incredulity.

“Cradle snatching––abduction,” jerked out Kearney, unfolding the paper.

“That is rich!” laughed the thief.

“I got the warrant from”––Kearney stopped and his little bullet eyes went to work on the thief from the ground up. He was measuring every inch of the man with an eye that had been trained for years to keep tabs on a multitude of marked and measured men.

“Would you mind coming over here––a step or two closer, Mr.––Gladwin?” he said tensely.

The thief stepped toward him and directly under the electrolier, while the others in the room stood like statues, looking on.

As Kearney continued his searching examination of the unflinching and still smiling man, whose head was 244 on a level with his and whose body was every inch as big and well set up, Captain Stone broke in nervously:

“What is it, Kearney?”

“I think there’s some mistake, sir,” said the detective, grimly. “Are you sure this man is Travers Gladwin?”

“You seem to be in some doubt about it,” said the thief, dropping his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat and raising his chin a little. Whatever was going on inside him, his eyes were twinkling with amusement.

“I am,” Kearney retorted; then to Captain Stone, “What is this case Captain?”

“Picture robbery.”

“Picture robbery! I was sure of it! You’ve made a mistake, Captain. I know this man!”

The sentences came out like a succession of pistol shots, while his eyes never left the face of the thief.

“I know you,” he attacked the smile again. It was a bullet-proof smile and never wavered.

“Well, who is he?” interrupted the real Travers Gladwin, eagerly.

“He’s the greatest picture expert in––the world!”

“You flatter me,” said the thief with a bow, and a side glance at Helen Burton, who was gazing at him as if both fascinated and repelled.

“You admit it then,” said Kearney roughly, unable to disguise the triumph he felt at this identification of a man he had never seen before.

“I am not so egotistical,” the other bowed, “but I will go along with you with pleasure and see what you are able to prove.”

“Are you sure about this, Kearney?” asked Captain Stone, still doubting and hating to admit he had been led into an egregious blunder.

“Certain,” retorted the detective. “He’s been fooling them on the other side for several years, but they nearly got him in Scotland Yard two months ago. I got a full report on him from his straight eyebrows and gray eyes down to the cut of his vest, with picture and measurement attached. His real name is Alf Wilson––there were a hundred men on his trail, but he made a getaway.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any use trying to deny all this now,” said Wilson, without the slightest change of tone, shoving his hands into his trousers pockets and lifting his head in contemplation of the pictures on the wall.

“Not the slightest,” returned the detective, snatching a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket.

“Wait just a moment, officer,” interrupted Travers Gladwin. “I’d like to ask this man one question.”

“Delighted,” cried the picture expert, turning and showing all his teeth in a mocking smile.

Travers Gladwin pointed to the portrait of “The Blue Boy.”

“How did you know I bought that picture in London upon certain misrepresentations?”

“I was the man behind the gun––think it over.”

He swung round to face the spurious Gainsborough. As he did so something caught his eye and he moved toward the portrait. Gladwin followed and inquired:

“But you not only knew it was a fake, but when I bought it and what I paid for it.”

“I knew about it,” came the jaunty reply, “because I painted it.”

He moved another step nearer the painting as Gladwin gasped.

“Yes,” he went on lightly, running his hand along the bottom of the frame, “according to this gentleman,” and he nodded over his shoulder to Kearney, who had kept pace with him, backing to cover the doorway, “your ‘Blue Boy’ was painted by the greatest picture expert in the world!”

As the last word came laughingly from his lips the room was plunged in darkness.