Through his drooping eyelids he notes the approach of the Celestial, sees him fling aside his fan to bend above him, and realizes the fact that he is about to be unmasked.
The Celestial bends nearer still. His hands touch the draped head, searching for the secret that releases the tightly secured mask. It is a sentimental picture, but suddenly the scene changes. Sentiment is put to rout, and absurdity reigns.
With indescribable swiftness, the body of the Goddess darts forward, and the head comes in sudden contact with the stomach of the too-devoted Celestial, who goes down upon the floor in a state of collapse, while Stanhope, bounding to his feet and gathering up his trailing draperies, springs through the open window!
When Millie returns with water and other restoratives, she finds only a disarranged masker sitting dolefully upon the floor, with one hand pressed against his stomach and the other supporting his head; still too much dazed and bewildered to know just how he came there.
When he has finally recovered sufficiently to be able to give a shrewd guess as to the nature of the calamity that so suddenly overcame him, he is wise enough to see that the victory sits perched on the banner of the vanished Goddess, and to retire from the field permanently silent upon the subject of “spicy flirtations” and mysterious ladies.
Meantime, Stanhope having alighted, with no particular damage to himself or his drapery, upon a balcony which runs half the length of the house, is creeping silently along that convenient causeway toward the gentlemen’s dressing-room, situated at its extreme end.
Foreseeing some possible difficulty in leaving the house unnoticed while attired in so conspicuous a costume, the Goddess had come prepared with a long black domino, which had been confided to Mr. Follingsbee, who, at the proper moment, was to fetch it from the gentlemen’s dressing-room, array Stanhope in its sombre folds, and then see him from the house, and safely established in the carriage which the detective had arranged to have in waiting to convey him to the scene of the Raid.
Owing to his little encounter with the Celestial, Stanhope knows himself cut off from communication with Mr. Follingsbee, and he now creeps toward the dressing-room wholly intent upon securing the domino and quitting the house in the quickest manner possible.
As he approaches the window, however, he realizes that there is another lion in his path.
The room is already occupied; he hears two voices speaking in guarded tones.
“Be quick, Harvey; some one may come in a moment.”
“I have locked the door.”
“But it must be opened at the first knock. There must be no appearance of mystery, no room for suspicion, Harvey.”
At the sound of a most familiar voice, Richard Stanhope starts, and flushes with excitement underneath his mask. Then he presses close against the window and peers in.
Two men are rapidly exchanging garments there; the one doffing a uniform such as is worn by an officer of Her Majesty’s troops, the other passing over, in exchange for said uniform, the suit of a common policeman.
With astonished eyes and bated breath, Stanhope recognizes the two. Van Vernet, his friend, and Harvey, a member of the police force, who is Vernet’s staunch admirer and chosen assistant when such assistance can be of use.
How came Vernet at this masquerade, of all others? And what are they about to do?
He is soon enlightened, for Van Vernet, flushed with his success, present and prospective, utters a low triumphant laugh as he dons the policeman’s coat, and turns to readjust his mask.
“Ah! Harvey,” he says gayly; “if you ever live to execute as fine a bit of strategy as I did to-night, you may yet be Captain of police. Ha! ha! this most recent battle between America and England has turned out badly for America – all because she will wear petticoats!”
America! England! petticoats! Stanhope can scarcely suppress an exclamation as suddenly light flashes upon his mental horizon.
“I’ve done a good thing to-night, Harvey,” continues Vernet with unusual animation, “and I’ve got the lead on a sharp man. If I can hold my own to-night, you’ll never again hear of Van Vernet as only ‘one of our best detectives.’ Is your mask adjusted? All right, then. Now, Harvey, time presses; there’s a big night’s work before me. You are sure you understand everything?”
“Oh, perfectly; my work’s easy enough.”
“And mine begins to be difficult. Unlock the door, Harvey, I must be off.” Then turning sharply he adds, as if it were an after-thought: “By the way, if you happen to set your eye on a Goddess of Liberty, just note her movements; I would give something to know when she contrives to leave the house and,” with a dry laugh, “and how.”
In another moment the dressing-room is deserted.
And then Richard Stanhope steps lightly through the window. With rapid movements he singles out his own dark domino, gathers his colored draperies close about him, and flings it over them, drawing the hood down about his head, and the long folds around his person. Then he goes out from the dressing-rooms, hurries down the great stairway, and passing boldly out by the main entrance, glances up and down the street.
Only a few paces away, a dark form is hurrying toward a group of carriages standing opposite the mansion, and Stanhope, in an instant, is gliding in the same direction. As the man places a foot upon the step of a carriage that has evidently awaited his coming, Stanhope glides so near that he distinctly hears the order, given in Vernet’s low voice:
“To the X – street police station. Drive fast.”
A trifle farther away another carriage, its driver very alert and expectant, stands waiting.
Having heard Vernet’s order, Stanhope hurries to this carriage, springs within, and whispers to the driver:
“The old place, Jim; and your quickest time!”
Then, as the wheels rattle over the pavement, the horses speeding away from this fashionable quarter of the city, a strange transformation scene goes on within the carriage, which, evidently, has been prepared for this purpose. The Goddess of Liberty is casting her robes, and long before the carriage has reached its destination, she has disappeared, there remaining, in her stead, a personage of fantastic appearance. He is literally clothed in rags, and plentifully smeared with dirt; his tattered garments are decorated with bits of tinsel, and scraps of bright color flutter from his ragged hat, and flaunt upon his breast; there is a monstrous patch over his left eye and a mass of disfiguring blotches covers his left cheek; a shock of unkempt tow-colored hair bristles upon his head, and his forehead and eyes are half hidden by thick dangling elf-locks.
If this absurd apparition bears not the slightest resemblance to the Goddess of Liberty, it resembles still less our friend, Richard Stanhope.
Suddenly, and in an obscure street, the carriage comes to a halt, and as its fantastically-attired occupant descends to the ground, the first stroke of midnight sounds out upon the air.
CHAPTER XIII.
A CRY IN THE DARK
One more scene in this night’s fateful masquerade remains to be described, and then the seemingly separate threads of our plot unite, and twine about our central figures a chain of Fate.
While Van Vernet is setting snares for the feet of his rival, and while that young man of many resources is actively engaged in disentangling himself therefrom, – while Leslie Warburton, tortured by a secret which she cannot reveal, and dominated by a power she dare not disobey, steals away from her stately home – and while Alan Warburton, soured by suspicion, made unjust by his own false pride, follows like a shadow behind her – a cloud is descending upon the house of Warburton.
Sitting apart from the mirthful crowd, quite unobserved and seemingly wholly engrossed in themselves, are little Daisy Warburton and the quaintly-attired Mother Goose, before mentioned.
It is long past the child’s latest