Hearts and Masks

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.