The Closing Net. Henry Cottrell Rowland

daylight outside.

      ​"We'd better go. It's daylight now, and there's something here I don't like," I whispered to Léontine.

      For answer she clasped my hand tight in hers and pushed her face forward until her lips were against my ear and I could feel her breath on my cheek.

      "You promised," she whispered, almost pleadingly. "Surely you are not afraid! And there may be another kiss for you when it's all done!"

      I didn't answer, but started ahead. We reached the top of the stairs and passed softly down the hall, for I judged that madame's room would be in the front of the house and probably on the southeast corner. As we reached the end I could see that the dawn was coming, for there was a pale-grey light through the window. Then all at once I had the same nasty sensation of danger close at hand, this time even stronger, and I cursed myself for a fool to have listened to the girl. We stopped again, and I whispered:

      "I don't like this. There's somebody around—"

      That was as far as I got, for there came a sharp click from behind us, then a blaze of light, and there we were standing in the full glare of the electric lamps at the far end of the hall, while not ten feet away, between us and the stairs, stood a tall man in pajamas, with a big black revolver at half-arm, ready to cut down and shoot.

      Léontine gave a choked little scream and lurched back against me. She was between the man and myself. But the girl was game, and suddenly she reached behind her and shoved a gun into my hand. I saw my chance, because the man balked at firing on ​a woman, and for the sake of Léontine I might have dropped him. But as I glanced at his face my heart seemed to stop beating. For there in front of me was my own living, breathing image! There were the same clean-cut features inherited from generations of aristocrats; the same flat cheeks and straight brows, with the same blue eyes shining out beneath; the same light, close-cropped moustache and short crisp hair and the ears set trim and close, high on the side of the narrow head. By George, if I'd stepped in front of a mirror the likeness couldn't have been cleaner! And I knew in that moment that the man was my closest blood kinsman, my half-brother. I knew that he had married a rich woman and lived in Paris, but I had never known where.

      "Shoot! Shoot!" Léontine was hissing in my ear.

      But the man had got himself together. I saw his face set and stiffen and knew that something was going to happen quick, so I shoved Léontine behind me and faced him, the gun in my hand. His keen eye caught the flash of it, then bang! and I felt a bullet tearing through my upper arm. Bang! and he fired again. But at the same moment I leaped forward, and though the powder scorched my face the bullet only creased the scalp. The next second I had both arms around him, and down the stairs we fell, over and over, to the landing. His head struck something, and he went limp in my grip.

      "Run!" I yelled at Léontine. "Now's your chance! Run!"

      She swept down and past me like a black ​leopardess, but at the foot of the stairs she stopped and looked back.

      "Come!" she cried, her heart in her voice. "Come!"

      I scrambled to my feet, and together we rushed through the drawing-room, through the dining-room, and across the garden to the gate. The car was on the other side of the street, the motor running. Léontine darted for it, but at the same moment a policeman came running around the corner of the wall.

      "Here's a sacrifice play," said I to myself. You see, the cop could have caught the car before it got under way, and it seemed better for one to get nabbed than for all. So as he came I tackled him, football fashion, and down we went in a heap. As we were struggling there in the street I saw Jeff jump out and haul Léontine into the limousine; then the car shot ahead and disappeared in the grey dawn across the Place Vauban.

      Well, I lay there in the middle of the street hugging my French cop as if I loved him until I was sure that the car was well clear. One arm was out of action but even then I could have wrenched loose and handed him a jolt on the side of the jaw that would have kept him quiet while I did my getaway if it hadn't been for a bunch of soldier boys who had been out on leave from the garrison at the Invalides and happened to come along at just that moment. Seeing the agent struggling with a man in the street, they hopped in to help and a moment later I was stretched out with a big dragoon sitting on my chest and the horse's tail in his helmet tickling my face ​while the agent whistled for help. It doesn't take long to draw a crowd at any moment of the day or night in Paris and while I was waiting there in the hands of four or five cops in the middle of a gang that wanted to lynch me, the iron door opened and out came the master of the house. He pushed through the crowd and took a look at my face under the glare of the street lamp.

      My mask had been torn off in the scuffle and as his eyes rested on me I saw that he was struck by the same likeness which had saved his life a few minutes before.

      "I'm glad you're not hurt," said I.

      "Who the devil are you?" he asked, staring at me.

      "A captured burglar," I answered.

      "But who are you?" he insisted. "You don't look like a burglar."

      "Come around to the station in the morning and I'll tell you," I answered. "We don't want to make a family scandal here in the street."

      "What the deuce are you talking about?" he demanded.

      "Oh, come around in the morning if you're so interested," I answered, and not very steadily for my arm was giving me the devil, particularly as one of the cops was swinging to it. Besides, I had lost a good bit of blood. Then, things began to spin and I heard him asking questions of the agents and that's the last that I knew until I came around a little later and found myself in a cell with a young chap who seemed to be a surgeon bending over me.

      ​

CHAPTER II

      THE TIDE TURNS

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      The police surgeon had just finished dressing my arm and sent me back to the cell when the door was unlocked and who should come in but the man whom I'd gone to rob the night before.

      The jailer closed the door behind him and for a moment we stood looking at each other without a word said. Seen in the light of day I wondered why it had seemed like looking into a mirror when I had first sighted him at the head of the stairs. Perhaps it was the nervous tension that he had been under at that moment which had made the resemblance between us so strong, for as I saw him now he was a big, good-natured looking fellow, twenty pounds heavier than I and his face showed signs of high living.

      His eyes fell on my bandaged arm.

      "Are you badly hurt?" he asked.

      "It's nothing much," I answered. "The doctor says your bullet gouged the bone but it's not broken. Wounds heal quickly with me."

      He stared at me for an instant, then asked:—

      "Who are you?"

      "Can't you guess?" I answered.

      He nodded. "Yes," said he, "you are my half brother."

      "Not quite that," I answered. "We may have had the same father, but that doesn't mean much."

      ​"It means a good deal to me," he answered. "What is your name?"

      "I've got several," said I, "'Tide-water Clam,' 'The Swell,' 'Gentleman Frank' … "

      "Oh, chuck all that," said he, "and don't be so confounded bitter. Can't you guess that I'm here to try to get you out of this scrape?"

      I stared at him for a moment without speaking. I'd thought that he'd come out of curiosity, and maybe to rub it in a little.

      "Why do you want to get me out of it?" I asked. "I'm a burglar and I've got what was coming to me … what's coming to any other burglar. Let it go at that."

      He studied me for a second, then asked: