I stood with folded arms, awaiting his approach. Nonchalance is always
respected by the police. I must have presented a likely picture,
however--my face blackened with coal-dust, cobwebs stringing down over
my eyes, my Capuchin gown soiled and rent. The girl quietly took her
place beside me.
"So you took a chance at the cellars, eh?" inquired the detective
urbanely. "Well, you look it. Will you go with us quietly, or shall
we have to use force?"
"In the first place, what do you and your police want of me?" I
returned coolly.
He exhibited his star of authority.
"I am Haggerty of the Central Office. I want you for several things."
Several things? I stared at him stupidly. Several things? Then it
came to me, with a jar like an earthquake. The story in the newspaper
returned to my vision. Oh, this was too much, altogether too much! He
took me to be the fashionable thief for whom half the New York police
force were hunting. My sight swam for a moment in a blur.
"What is it you think I have done?" I demanded.
"You have, or have had, several thousand dollars' worth of gems on your
person to-night."
I shrugged. The accusation was so impossible that my confidence
returned.
"Mr. Haggerty, you are making a stupid mistake. You are losing time,
besides. I am not the man for whom you are hunting. My name is
Richard Comstalk."
"One name or another, it does not matter."
"Plenty of gall," murmured one of the minions of the law, whom I
afterward learned was the chief of the village police.
"The card by which you gained admittance here," demanded the great
Haggerty truculently.
I surrendered it. A crowd had by this time collected curiously about
us. I could see the musicians on the stage peering over the plants.
"The thief you are looking for has gone," said I. "He escaped by the
coal-window." By this statement, my feet sank deeper still.
"What did I tell you?" cried Haggerty, turning to his men. "They had
an accomplice hidden in the cellars."
"I beg to inform you that you are making a mistake that will presently
cost you dear,"--thinking of the political pull my uncle had in New
York. "I am the nephew of Daniel Witherspoon."
"Worse and worse!" said the chief of police.
"We shall discuss the mistake later and at length. Of course you can
easily explain how you came to impose upon these people,"--ironically.
"Bah! the game is up. When you dropped that card in Friard's and said
you were going to a masquerade, I knew your game in a minute, and laid
eyes upon you for the first time since I began the chase. I've been
after you for weeks. Your society dodge has worked out, and I'll land
you behind the bars for some time to come, my gay boy. Come,"--roughly.