In the evening papers Anthony Trent was gratified to learn that the highly-born, thin, haughty person was none other than the Baron von Reisende who had received his congé with Bernstorff and was thought to be in the Wilmhelmstrasse. He had probably returned by way of Mexico.
And certain politicians of the baser sort were sternly warned against plotting the downfall of America’s allies. Altogether Trent had done a good night’s work for his country. As for himself twenty thousand dollars went far toward making the total he desired.
Consistent success in such enterprises as his was leading him into a feeling that he would not be run to earth as had been those lesser practitioners of crime who lacked his subtlety and shared their secrets with others.
But there was always the chance that he had been observed when he thought he was alone in some great house. Austin, the Conington Warren butler, looked him full in the face on his first adventure. And that other butler who served the millionaire whose piano he had wrecked might, some day, place a hand on his shoulder and denounce him to the world. Yet butlers were beings whose duties took them little abroad. They did not greatly perturb him.
CHAPTER XIII
ANTHONY TRENT INTERESTS HIMSELF IN POLICE GOSSIP
SO far as he knew, none suspected him. His face had been seen on one or two occasions, but he was of a type common among young Americans of the educated classes. Above middle height, slenderly fashioned but wire-strong, he had a shrewd, humorous face with strongly marked features. It might be that the nose was a trifle large and the mouth a trifle tight, but none looking at him would say, “There goes a criminal.” They would say, rather, “There goes a resourceful young business man who can rise to any emergency.”
Since Trent had calculated everything to a nicety, he knew he must, during these harvesting years, deny himself the privilege of friendship with other men or women. Too many of his gild had lost their liberty through some errant desire to be confidential. This habit of solitude was trying to a man naturally of a sociable nature, but he determined that it could be cast from him as one throws away an old coat when he was a burglar emeritus.
That blessed moment had arrived. He even looked up an old editor friend, the man who had first put into his mind that he could make more money at burglary than in writing fiction.
“It’s good to see you again!” cried the editor. “I often wish you hadn’t been left money by that Australian uncle of yours, so that you could still write those corking crook yarns for us. There was never any one like you. I was talking about you at the Scribblers’ Club dinner the other night.”
Trent frowned. Publicity was a thing to avoid and this particular editor had always been ready to sound his praise. The editor had once before asked him to join this little club made up of professional writers. They were men he would have delighted to know under other conditions.