“Did you think our hour an unusually long one?” laughed Gaines, adding, before his friend had time to reply:
“I have now another commission on my hands which is far more important than writing up the grand ball. Shortly after leaving you I received a lengthy telegram from our editor, ordering me to wait over instead of taking the midnight train back to New York, as was first arranged, to meet one of Pinkerton’s men, who ought to arrive here at any hour now.
“It seems that he is in search of a young fellow who is giving the police here, there and everywhere no end of trouble. He is a high-flyer with expectations, and taking advantage of future prospects, has gone in heavy—borrowing money, gambling, and even forging for big amounts. He appeared suddenly in Saratoga one day last week, at the races, and was one of the most desperate plungers at the track. The climax to his rapid career is he had a furious encounter with a man that night, who had won large sums on the track, and the upshot of the affair was the man was found murdered in the early dawn of the following morning, and the only clew which could lead to the identity of the perpetrator of the deed is the imprint of a ring of most peculiar design upon the temple of the victim—a triangle, set with stones, diamonds presumably, with a large stone in the center. This is the only clew Pinkerton’s man is following, since the descriptions differ so radically.”
“This gives an added zest to our trip,” laughed Ballou, who was always ready for anything which promised excitement. “Will you walk over to meet the incoming train with us?” addressing Dinsmore.
“No,” replied John, almost wearily, “I will sit here and smoke my cigar, as a sort of nerve steadier.”
“I advise you strongly to think not twice but a score of times ere you make up your mind to throw up a handsome fortune simply because there is a string tied to it in the shape of a pretty young girl, for no doubt she is pretty. Young girls cannot well help being sweet and comely, I have discovered.”
John Dinsmore watched his friends walk away, and as they vanished into the thick, dark gloom he gave himself up to his own dreary thoughts. The story he had just heard, thrilling though it was, quickly vanished from his mind, as did also the fortune that might be his for the claiming. All he could think of was the lovely young girl upon whom he had set his heart and soul—his very life, as it were—who had spurned him so contemptuously and for one whom he could not think worthy of such a treasure, as he still blindly believed Queenie Trevalyn to be.
He had not been thrown into Raymond Challoner’s society much, and from what little John Dinsmore did see of him he had not formed a very favorable impression. He had heard that his wine bills were quite a little fortune in themselves, and on several occasions, when in the midst of a crowd of young men in the office, who were as fast and gay as himself, John Dinsmore had heard him boast of his conquests with fair women, and of episodes so rollicking in their nature that John Dinsmore, man of honor as he was, reverencing all womankind, would arise abruptly from his seat, throw down the paper he had been vainly endeavoring to read, and walk away with a frown and unmistakable contempt in his face as he turned away from Challoner’s direction, going beyond the hearing of his voice and hilarious tales. If any other man had won the treasure that cruel fate denied to him he could have endured the blow better; but Challoner!
“Ah! Heaven grant that she shall never have cause to rue her choice,” he ruminated.
In the midst of his musing he was interrupted by the voice of the very man upon whom his thoughts were bent—Raymond Challoner.