The Closing Net. Henry Cottrell Rowland

show off than anything else, and as a demonstration of American methods for Chu-Chu le Tondeur and Ivan, the head of the mob. When I told them how Léontine had insisted on coming with me for the sheer excitement of the thing, although not a professional thief herself, Miss Dalghren's blue eyes sparkled.

      "I can understand that," she said. "Is she very beautiful, this woman?"

      "Yes," I answered; "she's a big, gorgeous sort of tigress."

      "She rather fancied you, eh?" said John.

      "Such women have fierce, sudden fancies," I answered. "No doubt hers may have rested on me for the hour. I never saw her until that night. It was her gun that I had when you fired. I never carry a loaded gun myself when doing a piece of work."

      "Why not?" asked Miss Dalghren.

      "It's not sportsmanlike. Besides, I wouldn't take the life of people defending their property. I always felt that if I failed to pull off the job by skill I'd take the consequences. That makes the game all the more interesting."

      "Then you burgled less for the goods than for the game?"

      I was out for both," I answered. "Mind you, I don't pose for a kid-glove burglar. Once or twice when I've been interrupted I've bluffed out the householder by the roughest sort of treatment. ​But I must say the game has always appealed to me as much as the loot. I might be compared to a big-game hunter: I liked the stalk and I liked the bag. Most men have got a plundering instinct—and some women, too. Soldiers loot when they get the chance."

      "From an enemy," said Miss Dalghren.

      "Society and I were enemies," I answered. "Society declared war on me when I was a helpless little kiddy. I felt, when I grew up, that it owed me a lot. So I sailed in to collect."

      Edith looked at me with a little smile.

      "But the war is over now, Frank?" she asked.

      "Yes," said I. "The war is over and peace is signed, and you may be sure that I shall never break it. You and your husband have paid Society's war debt to me in full and we are square. From now on I live within the law."

      "Bravo!" said John. His hand went out to the decanter in a careless sort of way, but I noticed again that worried, furtive look in his eyes. Edith saw it, too, though she pretended not to, and a shadow rested on her lovely face. It passed quickly, but it struck me suddenly that here, perhaps, was the explanation for the note of sadness that showed in all of her work.

      We were to go to the Opera that night and at dinner Edith wore her magnificent pearl necklace, the one that Ivan had told me about. They were uncommon pearls, but it struck me that Miss Dalghren's were even finer. The girl noticed my eyes resting on them and asked, with a smile:

      "Aren't they beauties?"

      ​"Superb," I answered. "I doubt if I ever saw finer ones."

      "Do they arouse your cupidity?"

      "Not one bit," I answered. "No more than a stag in a man's park would arouse the cupidity of a sportsman."

      "I suppose," said John, in his easy voice, "that even when in active business there is a good deal of honour amongst thieves?"

      "A good deal," I answered, "but you can't always bank on it; any more than you can on honour amongst politicians or high financiers. Still, there's a certain amount. There is a man in this city who arranges for the theft of such jewels as these. He supplies the cracksman with the necessary information and details one of his mob to do the job. Very often the chief is not dead sure himself as to what other jewels there may be, and which are real and which are imitations. Yet when the burglar has made his haul he takes the lot straight to headquarters, where they are assayed in the laboratory and then turned over to a third party to dispose of. There's little doubt but that these transactions are practically always carried on strictly on the level. Moreover, there's a sinking fund for protecting members of the gang that get nabbed and tiding over others that are in a run of bad luck. Paris is a great town for organised crime."

      John nodded and beckoned to the maître d'hôtel to fill his champagne glass, and again I saw that faint shadow cross Edith's face.

      When we reached the Opera the house was already filled. Edith and Miss Dalghren sat in ​the front of the box, of course, John behind his wife and I behind the girl, and you may believe it or not, but those two magnificent pearl necklaces within the reach of my hand never gave me so much as a quiver. Tristan was being sung and my eyes and ears were all for the stage, for I love music.

      About the middle of the first act there was a stir in the box beside us, and Edith half-turned and brushed my sleeve with her fan.

      "Prince Kharkoff," she whispered, "and his beautiful Polish Princess."

      I swung about in my seat and looked straight into the wonderful, amber eyes of Léontine.

      ​

CHAPTER III

      LÉONTINE DIGS IN THE SAND

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      It was this same Prince Kharkoff, you remember, who got me shipped off to Cayenne. But that was three years before, and when I had been fool enough to get caught in his bear-trap grip, that day at the races, I was wearing a Vandyk beard and moustache. But now I was smooth shaven, and, considering my surroundings and resemblance to John, there was no danger of his recognising me, especially as he and the Cuttynges had frequently met at dinner and receptions. Being with Léontine he did not bow.

      Léontine had not seen us, and as she swung slowly in her chair to see who her neighbors were, I turned as if to speak to John. There were a good many people looking, and I was not sure that the girl would be able to hide her feelings. You see, my play in getting myself collared to save the rest of the crowd had hit her pretty hard, especially as she knew that I would have pulled the job off all right except for her wilfulness. As she saw it she had cost me my liberty for life, so that when I tackled the agent, and held him while the others got away in the car, she was horribly broken up. You see, we were already pretty well started on one of those swift, savage affairs that sometimes happen in the Under-World, where people don't know at what moment they may find iron bars ​between them. Every day that I was in the Santé I had got a love message from her.

      John was taking her in through his monocle.

      "Gad—she is a beauty," he whispered to me, then added: "What's the matter with her?"

      I glanced carelessly about. Kharkoff and the girl had seated themselves. The Prince was staring around the house, but Léontine was straight in her chair, her face pale and her eyes fixed on the stage, while her bosom was heaving like that of a runner at the end of a race. Suddenly Kharkoff turned to say something and noticed the rigid expression of her face. His bushy brows came down and he leaned over so that his beard brushed her gleaming shoulder.

      "Qu'est ce que tu as … dis … ?" I heard him ask in the thick voice that I remembered so well.

      Léontine pulled herself together and managed a smile.

      "Un vertige … ce n'est rien …" she answered, and raised her fan.

      When I glanced at her again a few minutes later she was looking at the stage. Her cheeks were still pale, but there was a crimson spot in each. She felt my eyes on her and flashed me a quick look, which passed to Edith, then Miss Dalghren. I was watching her closely and saw her gaze fasten on both sets of pearls and there was an unholy gleam in her tawny eyes. She took a deep breath, then turned to the Prince and whispered a few words.

      John leaned over and said, with his lips so close ​to my ear that I caught the strong reek of liquor:

      "Ain't she a wonder! All Paris is mad to find out who she really is—and what. Somebody asked Kharkoff about her at the Automobile Club the other night,, just before they