The Treasure-Train by Reeve, Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin), 1880-1936

Far off, now, we could hear a whistle as a train finally approached slowly into our block, creeping up to see what was wrong. But that made no difference now. It was not any help they could give us that we wanted. A greater problem, the saving of one man's name and the re-establishment of another, confronted us.

Unexpectedly the little wired wireless instrument before us began to buzz. Quickly Kennedy seized a pencil and wrote as the message that no hand of man could interfere with was flashed back to us.

"It is for you, Walter, from the Star," he said, simply handing me what he had written on the back of an old envelope.

I read, almost afraid to read:

Robbery story killed. Black type across page-head last edition, "Treasure-train safe!" McGRATH.

"Show it to Miss Euston," Craig added, simply, gathering up his wired wireless set, just as the crew from the train behind us ran up. "She may like to know that she has saved her father from himself through misunderstanding her lover."

I thought Maude Euston would faint as she clutched the message. Lane caught her as she reeled backward.

"Rodman--can you--forgive me?" she murmured, simply, yielding to him and looking up into his face.

II

THE TRUTH DETECTOR

"You haven't heard--no one outside has heard--of the strange illness and the robbery of my employer, Mr. Mansfield--'Diamond Jack' Mansfield, you know."

Our visitor was a slight, very pretty, but extremely nervous girl, who had given us a card bearing the name Miss Helen Grey.

"Illness--robbery?" repeated Kennedy, at once interested and turning a quick glance at me.

I shrugged my shoulders in the negative. Neither the Star nor any of the other papers had had a word about it.

"Why, what's the trouble?" he continued to Miss Grey.

"You see," she explained, hurrying on, "I'm Mr. Mansfield's private secretary, and--oh, Professor Kennedy, I don't know, but I'm afraid it is a case for a detective rather than a doctor." She paused a moment and leaned forward nearer to us. "I think he has been poisoned!"

The words themselves were startling enough without the evident perturbation of the girl. Whatever one might think, there was no doubt that she firmly believed what she professed to fear. More than that, I fancied I detected a deeper feeling in her tone than merely loyalty to her employer.

"Diamond Jack" Mansfield was known in Wall Street as a successful promoter, on the White Way as an assiduous first-nighter, in the sporting fraternity as a keen plunger. But of all his hobbies, none had gained him more notoriety than his veritable passion for collecting diamonds.

He came by his sobriquet honestly. I remembered once having seen him, and he was, in fact, a walking De Beers mine. For his personal adornment, more than a million dollars' worth of gems did relay duty. He had scores of sets, every one of them fit for a king of diamonds. It was a curious hobby for a great, strong man, yet he was not alone in his love of and sheer affection for things beautiful. Not love of display or desire to attract notice to himself had prompted him to collect diamonds, but the mere pleasure of owning them, of associating with them. It was a hobby.