fer everybody what’s in this here graft game, so jest kinda got together and decided we’d tell the commissioner we was going to give evidence ‘gainst him he didn’t do somepin about it. So we went together, a gang of us, an’ we give him a line of talk, and wddaya think? He give us money back! Sorry to keep ya waitin’, miss, but you see how ‘twas. I jest had to have that money. I got a sick kid, and she has to go to the hospital fer an operation, an’ I needed that money."
Romayne was all sympathy now. She asked questions about the child and promised to send her a doll and a picture book. How much trouble there was in the world, and she had been fretting for years just because she had to make over her dresses and they couldn’t ride in taxis. And now money had come to the Ransoms, but here were the Judsons, and the taxi drivers, and a lot of other poor people who were still in trouble. It really spoiled much of her own pleasure in her good fortune to know that there were so many people in such deep trouble. And it all seemed to be the fault of a few rich politicians who were trying to get richer than anybody else without doing anything. At least that was the way it looked. Or, perhaps, it was the fault of the people who voted to put men who would do such things into these offices of trust. Fancy a commissioner trying to live off a poor taxi driver whose little girl was waiting to have a much-needed operation until her father could scrape the money together to pay the doctor and the hospital! Something ought to be done about it. She meant to ask Lawrence and Father to start at once organizing some kind of a society to look into these things. They could do it. Now that they were going to have a little money, they would have a real chance to do good in the world.
She gave the driver a generous tip, took down his address, and promised not to forget the doll. Then the car drew up in front of the old respectable brownstone house into which they had moved but the month before.
She glanced up at the house with a thrill of pride and pleasure. To think that was their home after all these years in a little cramped apartment! And she was presently to have a good sum of money put into her hands with which to furnish it with fine old furniture such as belonged in a respectable old family mansion. Of course, it wasn’t one of the newer houses. But it had an air of ancient grandeur about it that pleased her. She liked the high ceilings and the big rooms.
As she looked toward the front windows where now her father had his office, she saw the curtain stir and a hand draw back. It must be her father had come home and he would be coming to the door to meet her!
She paid the taxi fare and hurried up the steps, wondering what Father would say when he heard her story, and wouldn’t he be glad after all that she had come back? She knew he had been going to be lonesome without her in spite of all his joy in her holiday.
Inside that stately old front parlor thick rough silk curtained the windows in a deep amber shade. A great walnut roll-top desk occupied the center of the room. In the wall opposite the hall archway was set an old mantel with cupboards on each side, and two tall graceful urns of alabaster stood upon the mantel. A large old Kerminshah rug, worn but still beautiful, in rose and amber covered the floor. A few walnut chairs and a desk chair completed the furnishings. On the desk were several specimens of ore and some tubes of oil in various stages of refinement.
"Oh gee!" said a thick-set youth in knickerbockers and golf stockings, peering from between the curtains. "That girl’s come back! I thought you said she was safe in Jersey for a week! Now what are we going to do? She’ll be in here in a minute."
"We’re going to do just what we planned to do, Chris," said a quiet, grave young man in a plain business suit with a face that had a rugged look of determined strength about it.
"But—why say—Sherwood—she’s a peach of a girl! I went to school with her."
"Sorry for the girl, Chris, but it can’t be helped! This is the only time this could be done, and the stage is set. We can’t afford to let the opportunity slip. We may never get it again. We’re not fighting for one person’s feelings, kid! This is righteousness! You get into your corner, Chris, and let me manage this thing."
"But, Sherrey, you can’t——"
There was the sound of a key turning in the lock, and a lifted hand of caution silenced the youth at the window.
The other three men, two of them in policeman’s garb, and one a plainclothes man, showed no interest in the incident save by quick, alert gleams of the eye. They maintained a grave aloof bearing and seemed to study to obliterate themselves as far as possible from the scene. Their time of action was not yet come.
The man they called Sherwood was seated just inside the arch from the hallway.
Romayne flung open the door and stepped inside, closing it after her before she saw him. Then she took a step forward, and all the others were visible to her view, not excepting her old schoolmate, who had turned his back to the room in the hope of not being recognized.
The girl stood still for a moment, eyeing each of the five men questioningly, then turned toward the young man who obviously dominated the scene.
"Where is my father?" she asked coldly, as if she felt he were somehow to blame for the presence of these uniformed men.
"That is what we hoped you might be able to tell us, Miss Ransom," said Sherwood courteously. He had risen as she entered the doorway.
She looked around at them intently once more.
"Then if my father has not been here," she asked crisply, "how did you get in here?"
For just an instant she stood facing the five men, and then she stepped quickly over to the desk and laid her hand on the telephone.
Just as quickly another hand, firm and strong and determined, was laid upon hers, and the man called Sherwood looked sternly down at her.
"I’m sorry, Miss Ransom, but we can’t let you do that—not now."
CHAPTER II
Romanye cast a frightened glance from one stern face to the other, her eyes lingering with sudden recognition on the broad shoulders of the boy.
"Chris Hollister!" she said sharply. "What are you doing here? Why don’t you tell these men that they have no right to come in here and tell me what I can do and what I cannot do?"
The boy turned shamefacedly.
"I’m sorry, Romayne, I didn’t know you would be here—I understood you were to be away——"
"Oh!" said Romayne haughtily. "So you knew what my movements were, did you? And you were in some plot against my father in his absence, it seems. Well, I thought better of you than that. I’ve always supposed you were a very nice boy—that is, in the days when we used to go to school together."
Her tone was as if she had finished with him forever. Then she turned toward Sherwood.
"I don’t know who you are, but I’m sure you look as if you might have been a gentleman once. Will you please let go of my hand?"
"Not until you give me your word of honor that you will go over and sit down in that chair and not go near this telephone again," said Sherwood gently but firmly. "I’m in command here, and I can’t run the risk of your messing things."
"You’re
