“These are my guests,” she whispered. “I’d forgotten all about them. Doesn’t that make you vain? I shall have to look after them. Later on they are all coming over to the house to have a bite to eat.” She squeezed his hand. “You’d better come, too.”
The Baroness was not usually so reckless in her invitations. She had learned it was not being done in those circles to which she aspired. But to-night she was unusually merry and there was something about Trent’s keen, hawk-like type which appealed to her. Lincoln, she reflected, came of a good Boston family with houses in Beacon Street and Pride’s Crossing, and his friend must be all right.
No sooner had she moved toward her guests than Trent made his way to the street. Over his costume he wore a long black cloak which another than he had hired. Very few people were abroad. There was a slight fog and those who saw him were in no way amazed. Webster Hall dances had prepared the neighborhood for anything.
He was not long in coming to Washington Square. It was in the block of houses on the north side that he was specially interested. From the other side of the road he gazed up at the Burton Trent house. Then going east a little, he came to the door of the only apartment house in the block. It was not difficult for him to manipulate the lock. Quietly he climbed to the top of the house until he came to a ladder leading to the door on the roof.
A few feet below him he could see the roof of the neighboring house. To this he dropped silently and walked along until the square skylight of the Burton Trent mansion was at hand. The bars that held the aperture were rusted. It required merely the exercise of strength to pry one of them loose. Underneath him was darkness. Since Trent had not come out originally on professional business, he was without an electric torch. He had no idea how far the drop would be. Very carefully he crawled in, and, hanging by one hand, struck a match. He dropped on to the floor of an attic used mainly for the storage of trunks.
The door leading from the room was unlocked and he stepped out into a dark corridor. Looking over the balustrade, he could see that the floor below was brilliantly lighted. From an article in a magazine devoted to interior decoration he had learned the complete lay-out of the residence. He knew, for example, that the servants slept in the “el” of the house which abutted on the mews behind. Ordinarily he would have expected them to be in bed by this time. But the Baroness had told him she had guests coming in. There would inevitably be some servants making preparations. They would hardly have business on the second or third floors of the house. The Burton Trents, who had let their superb home as a war-economy measure, would never allow any alteration of the arrangement of their wonderful furniture. And the Baroness would hardly be likely to venture to set her taste against that of a family she admired and indeed envied. It was therefore probable that the Baroness occupied the splendid sleeping chamber on the second floor front, an apartment to which the writer on interior decoration had devoted several pages.
His borrowed cloak enveloping him, he descended the broad stairs until he stood at the entrance of the room he sought. It was indeed a magnificent place. His artistic sense delighted in it. Its furniture had once been in the sleeping room of a Venetian Doge. It had cost a fortune to buy.
The dressing room leading from it was lighted more brilliantly. There was a danger that the Baroness’s maid might be there awaiting the return of her mistress.
Peeping through the half-opened door, he satisfied himself that no maid was there. On the superb dressing table with its rich ornaments he could see a large gold casket, jewel-encrusted, which probably hid the stones he had come to get.
Swiftly he crossed the soft Aubusson carpet and came to the table. He was far too cautious to lay hands on the metal box straightaway. Although he was nameless and numberless so far as the police were concerned, he was not anxious to leave finger-prints behind. He knew that in all robberies such as he intended the police carefully preserve the finger-prints amongst the records of the case and hope eventually to saddle the criminal with indisputable evidence of his theft. Usually Parker wore the white kid gloves that go with full evening dress. To-night he was without them. He was also in the habit of carrying a tube of collodion to coat the finger-tips and defy the finger-printers. This, too, he was without since his adventure was an unpremeditated one.