"And I reply that I don't care a hoot how it sounds. The only question of any interest to me, Peter, is whether or not Uncle Elbert has a moral right to a share in his own child. I say that he has such a right, and I say further that this is the only way in the world that he can a.s.sert his right. Oh, hang how it sounds! I'm the nearest thing to a son that he has in this world, and I mean for him to have his rights. So--"

"Very fine," said Peter dryly. "But what's the matter with Carstairs getting his rights for himself? Why doesn't he sneak up there and pull the thing off on his own?"

Varney laughed. "Evidently you don't know Uncle Elbert, after all. He's as temperamentally unfit to carry through a job of this sort as a hysterical old lady. Besides, even though they haven't met for so long, I suppose his own daughter would recognize him, wouldn't she? I never gave that idea a thought. Like his wife, he says he wants to have nothing whatever to do with it. In fact, I made him put that in the form of a promise--he's to give me an absolutely free hand, subject to the conditions, and not interfere in any way. In return I ended by swearing a great iron-clad oath not only to go, but to bring the child back with me. The swear was Uncle Elbert's idea, and I didn't mind. Confound it!--this is getting rather intimate, but here is Mrs. Carstairs's letter giving a partial consent to the thing. It just got in this afternoon; he sent for me the minute he'd read it, I believe, and I never saw a man more excited."

He pulled a scrawled and crossed note-sheet from his pocket, and read in a guarded and slightly embarra.s.sed voice:

HUNSTON, 25th of September.

MY DEAR ELBERT,--I hardly know how to answer you, though I have been over and over the whole subject on my knees. As you know, if I could send Mary to you, I would, sadly as I should miss her, for the wish lies close to my heart to have her know her father. But she will not hear of leaving me and there is an end of that. What you suggest is so new and so _dreadful_ in many ways that it is very hard to consent to it. Of course, I realize that it is not right for me to have her always.

But the utmost I can bring myself to say is that if you can succeed in what you propose I will do nothing to interfere with you, and will see that there is no scandal here afterwards. Of course, I am to have no part in it, and no force is to be used, and everything is to be made as agreeable for her as is possible under the circ.u.mstances. Oh, I am miserable and doubtful about the whole thing, but pray and trust that it is for the best, and that she will find some way to forgive me for it afterwards.

A.E.C.

"H'm. No force is to be used," said Peter. "May I ask just how you expect to get Mary on the choo-choo?"

"Now we are getting to the meat of the matter," said Varney. "We shall not have to get Mary on the choo-choo at all. We are going to use a yacht, which will be far more private and pleasant, and also far easier to get people on. Uncle Elbert's _Cypriani_ lies in the harbor at this moment, ready to start anywhere at half a day's notice. It will start for Hunston to-morrow afternoon, with me on board. I'll need another man to put the thing through right, and I'd rather trust a friend than a servant. So would Uncle Elbert. When I came in here just now, I was at once taken with your looks for the part, and I have been authorized by 'phone to give you first refusal on this great chance."

Peter said nothing. Varney feared that he looked rather bored.

"At first," he went on promptly, "I'll confess that I didn't see so much in the thing. But the more I've thought of it the more its unique charm has appealed to me. It is nothing more nor less than a novel, piquant little adventure. Exactly the sort of thing to attract a man who likes to take a sporting chance. Look at the difficulties of it. Go to a strange town where there are thousands and millions of strange children, locate Mary, isolate her, make friends with her, coax her to the yacht--captivate her, capture her! How are we to do all that, you ask? I reply, the Lord knows. That is where the sport comes in. We are forbidden to use force. We are forbidden to use Mrs. Carstairs or bring her into it in any way. We are forbidden, of course, to let the child know who we are. Everything must be done by almost diabolical craft, while dodging suspicion at every step. Can you beat it for a fascinating little expedition?"

Peter relit his pipe and meditatively dropped the match on the floor.

"How old is Mary?"

"Old?" said Varney, surprised at the question, "Oh, I don't know. The separation took place--h'm--say eight years ago, and my guess is that she was about four at the time. From this and the way Uncle Elbert spoke of her, I daresay twelve would hit it fair and square. A grand age for kidnapping, what?"

"On the contrary," said Peter, "it makes it mere baby-work. Turn it over as you will, it all boils down to spanking a naughty child."

"Never! Think of slipping a cog in our plans--making a false start, having somebody get on to us! Why, man, there may be jail for us both in this!"

He examined Peter's face hopefully, but found unaffected apathy there.

"Suppose," he cried boastfully, "that the a.s.sociated Press got on to it!

Think of the disgrace of it! 'Millionaire Maginnis Caught Kidnapping!'

Think of being fired from the Curzon and having to leave New York a hunted and broken man! Think," he added in an inspired climax, "of having your photograph in the Sunday _Herald_!"

Maginnis perked up visibly at this. "There is no chance of that really, do you think?"

"None in the world," said Varney desperately.

He felt sure that this had cost him Peter, whom he had come to as his oldest and best friend. Having no idea whom he could turn to next, he rose, tentatively, and for the moral effect, to go.

"After all," he said aloud, "I have another man in my mind who would, on second thoughts, suit me better."

"Oh, sit down!" cried Peter, impatiently.

Larry sat down. His face showed, in spite of him, how really anxious he was to have Peter go. There was a brief pause.

"Since you are so crazy to have me," said Peter, "I'll go."

"Thank you," said Varney. He picked up his gla.s.s, which he had hitherto not touched, drained it at a gulp and pushed the bell vigorously. "I knew," he cried, "that you'd see the possibilities when once your brain began to work."

Peter's faint smile was an insult in its way. "Three things have decided me to go with you, old son, and none of them has anything to do with your possibilities. The first is that I'm the one man in a million you really need in case of trouble."

"Peter, your modesty is your curse."

"The second is--did you read the _Sun_ this morning? It seems that this little town of Hunston is having a violent spasm of politics right now.

Rather lucky coincidence, I should say. The dispatch I read was pretty vague, but I gather that there's an interesting fight on between a strong machine and a small but firm reform movement."

"Ha! Occupation for you while I beat the woods for little Mary."

"I'll need it."

"Well, what was your other wonderful reason?"

"Don't you know? It is that sixty horse-power oath your uncle made you swear."

"Because it committed me, you mean?"

The door opened, men entered noisily, and Peter had to draw Varney aside to explain darkly: "Because it committed me to wondering what difficulties foxy old Carstairs made a point of concealing from you."

"Meet me upstairs in ten minutes," said Varney, "and we'll talk about plans."

CHAPTER II

THEY EMBARK UPON A CRIME

Varney was wrong in one thing: Mr. Carstairs's _Cypriani_ was not ready to start anywhere at half a day's notice. For that reason it did not start for Hunston on the following afternoon. As always happens, the preparations for the little expedition took four times as long as anybody would have thought possible.

For these delays no blame could be attached to Peter Maginnis. He had no getting ready to do beyond bidding his father's man to pack him for a week, and obtaining from his hatter's, at an out-of-season cut-price, an immense and peculiar Panama with an offensive plaid band. Possibly it was the only hat of its kind in the world. One might picture the manufacturer as having it made up as an experiment, becoming morose when he looked at it, and ordering his superintendent to make no more like it at the peril of his life.

Peter, however, was delighted with it. Gazing at himself with smirking satisfaction in the hat-shop mirror, he ordered the old one sent home and was all ready to go to Hunston and kidnap Mary Carstairs.

But other preparations could not be completed with such speedy satisfaction. The yacht had to coal, take on supplies, and pick up two or three extra men for the crew. A Sunday came in and threw everything back a day. Lastly the sailing-master's wife, whom Mr. Carstairs was sending along to take charge of Mary on the homeward trip, chanced to be down with an influenza.

As the details of getting ready multiplied about him, Varney's interest in his novel undertaking imperceptibly grew. The thing had come upon him so unexpectedly that it had not yet by any means lost its strangeness.

To the old friend of his mother's girlhood, Elbert Carstairs, he was sincerely devoted, though knowing him for an indulgent man whose indulgences were chiefly of himself. But when, responding to his excited summons that night, he had sat and listened while Mr. Carstairs unfolded his mad little domestic plot, he had been first utterly amazed and then utterly repelled. And it was not until a final sense of the old man's genuine need was borne in upon him, of his loneliness, his helplessness, and his entire dependence upon him, Varney, that he had consented to undertake the extraordinary commission.

In a sense, it was all simply preposterous. Here was he, Laurence Varney, in sane mind, of law-abiding habits and hitherto of tolerable standing in the community, solemnly pledged to go and steal the person of a child, in defiance and contempt of the statutes of all known nations. And the place where this lawless deed was to be done was not Ruritania or the hazy dominions of Prince Otto, but a commonplace, humdrum American town, not an hour and a half from his office chair by the expresses.

In going about this task he was to conduct himself with the frankness and straightforwardness of a sneak-thief. Not a soul in New York was to know where he had gone. Not a soul in Hunston must dimly suspect what he had come for. It must be gum-shoe work from start to finish, and the _Cypriani's_ motto would be the inspiring word, "Sh-h-h." Though he had to find a nondescript child whom he did not know from Eve, he was forbidden to do it in a natural, easy, and dashing way. He could not ring her mother's door-bell, ask for her, throw a meal-sack over her head, and whip his waiting horses to a gallop. No, he must beat the tall gra.s.ses before the old homestead until such time as she chose to walk abroad alone. Really, when you came to think of it, it was an asinine sort of proposition.

But when Mary did come out of that house, he saw that the fun would begin. A well brought-up, moneyed, petted and curled girl of twelve was no easy p.a.w.n in anybody's game. He could not win her love by a mere offer of gum-drops. In fact, getting acquainted was likely to be a difficult matter, taxing his ingenuity to a standstill. But he entertained no doubts of his ability to do it, sooner or later.