Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Woman Who Dared 55 Bowers, and was well on his way to ronio. "Why?" asked the Count, speculatively, "diil you cry out when I started toward your bedroom . . • and why is the window open?" ••It is summer," answered Beatrix, "and my windows are always open in summer. 1 cried out because no man had ever se1 fool in my bedroom before. Now please :-,r<>." \Ti)]'l. BREN T was in fafworse trouble ^ than Beatriz had feared for herself. IK' had f>>nnd the place, in a sort of thieves' alley— and he had found, in a dark room, the dead body of Tonio. There was no gas, not even a candle, but by the light oi liis own matches Brent divined the cause: Matsura, following Tonio persistent^, had found him here, had fought a knife duel to this evident victory, and again discovering in place oi the jewels only the paper with seals, had dropped it in disgust to rlee. Still, all would have been well with Brent had not Buzzi's secret agent — a coward at heart, and unwilling to risk an encounter with either Tonio or Matsura — witnessed Matsura's departure and Brent's e. determining thereupon to gain his master's ends by calling the police and having all within arrested as thieves. Buzzi would have been enabled to gain a private audience with the prisoners here : in the case of Brent, his royal influence could have him quietly set over the border. Before the Carabinit-ri entered. Brent had barely time to thrust the treaty under a stone in the cold, ash-heaped fireplace. The spy made a spy's characteristic wrong deduction : he believed that the thief Matsura had escaped with the treaty, and that on Tonio not being able to produce it. the American had killed him in a rage. After a night of terrors, in which she sat in her bed too afraid to sleep, Beatriz was chilled by the Prince's silken voice on the telephone not much after dawn. "Your American." drawled Buzzi. "has murdered for your parchment. It's a silly thing after all. I only want you — but do you understand that unless you are willing to marry me. now, I must perforce of my position make everything known?" Beatriz, in desperation, pretended to commence a conversation, and then pretended to be cut off. In realitv she discon nected the line helself. She reinclill M i I d the number she had found in Brent's pocket. Dressing hastily in a cheap dark frock of her maid's, and throwing a veil over her late, she found her way theie without recognition. At the door stood a sleepy policeman. Mumbling an cm use about wishing tO see a friend above Stairs, she passed him unquestioned, and a moment later slipped— shuddering — into the dirty room from which the body of Tonio had been hut recently removed. A dark stain smeared the floor. Beatriz had talked to Buzzi long enough to suspect that no one had the treaty. Therefore, since personal search is the first law of the police station, it must still be in this room ! Slow ly. painstakingly, with fingers determined though trembling, the girl went over every article of furniture, tore the vile bed completely to pieces, went thrice through the bare cupboard. Dirtyhanded, exhausted, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she was about to leave, when amazement struck her that she had not searched beneath, around and above the fire-basket in the chimney ! TWO hours later, pale, but calm and exquisitely gowned, she entered the office of her affianced suitor. Count Gasparro was not yet down. "I am singing at a matinee for crippled soldiers this afternoon," she said sweetly to Mastruc, his chief clerk. "Therefore, my jewels: may I get them?" "Assuredly. Signorina !" exclaimed Mastruc, accompanying her to the vault, of which he and Gasparro alone carried the combination. Had it not been he to whom the Count had given explicit instructions concerning Beatriz' use of it for her personal property? And, as became a Roman gentleman, he did not linger inquisitively while a lady attended to her private affairs. Buzzi, cooly defied by Beatriz, played his last card that afternoon. He went to Gasparro, with the Chief of Police, told him pretty much the truth — and Gasparro, with rather a sense of justice, said that the vault should not be opened except in Beatriz' presence. It was a thrilling moment indeed. The door swung back noiselessly beneath Mastruc's fingers, Gasparro himself entered the vault, Buzzi clenched his hands in anticipation, and the Chief of Police rose, tense.