«Out we go,» breathed Este, impelling the party toward the side entrance. «There’s going to be some kind of riot here.» He swore—two more bluecoats barred the exit there. They paused uncertainly. The plain-clothes man was beginning a careful inspection of the people at the tables.
Este looked sharply at Rags and then at John, who shrank back behind the palms.
«Is that one of your revenue fellas out there?» demanded Este.
«No,» whispered Rags. «There’s going to be trouble. Can’t we get out this entrance?»
The prince with rising impatience sat down again in his chair.
«Let me know when you chaps are ready to go.» He smiled at Rags. «Now just suppose we all get in trouble just for that jolly face of yours.»
Then suddenly the lights went up. The plain-clothes man whirled around quickly and sprang to the middle of the cabaret floor.
«Nobody try to leave this room!» he shouted. «Sit down, that party behind the palms! Is John M. Chestnut in this room?»
Rags gave a short involuntary cry.
«Here!» cried the detective to the policeman behind him. «Take a look at that funny bunch across over there. Hands up, you men!»
«My God!» whispered Este, «we’ve got to get out of here!» He turned to the prince. «This won’t do, Ted. You can’t be seen here. I’ll stall them off while you get down to the car.»
He took a step toward the side entrance.
«Hands up, there!» shouted the plain-clothes man. «And when I say hands up I mean it! Which one of you’s Chestnut?»
«You’re mad!» cried Este. «We’re British subjects. We’re not involved in this affair in any way!»
A woman screamed somewhere, and there was a general movement toward the elevator, a movement which stopped short before the muzzles of two automatic pistols. A girl next to Rags collapsed in a dead faint to the floor, and at the same moment the music on the other roof began to play.
«Stop that music!» bellowed the plain-clothes man. «And get some earrings on that whole bunch—quick!»
Two policemen advanced toward the party, and simultaneously Este and the other aides drew their revolvers, and, shielding the prince as they best could, began to edge toward the side. A shot rang out and then another, followed by a crash of silver and china as half a dozen diners overturned their tables and dropped quickly behind.
The panic became general. There were three shots in quick succession, and then a fusillade. Rags saw Este firing coolly at the eight amber lights above, and a thick fume of gray smoke began to fill the air. As a strange undertone to the shouting and screaming came the incessant clamor of the distant jazz band.
Then in a moment it was all over. A shrill whistle rang out over the roof, and through the smoke Rags saw John Chestnut advancing toward the plain-clothes man, his hands held out in a gesture of surrender. There was a last nervous cry, a chill clatter as some one inadvertently stepped into a pile of dishes, and then a heavy silence fell on the roof—even the band seemed to have died away.
«It’s all over!» John Chestnut’s voice rang out wildly on the night air. «The party’s over. Everybody who wants to can go home!»
Still there was silence—Rags knew it was the silence of awe—the strain of guilt had driven John Chestnut insane.
«It was a great performance,» he was shouting. «I want to thank you one and all. If you can find any tables still standing, champagne will be served as long as you care to stay.»
It seemed to Rags that the roof and the high stars suddenly began to swim round and round. She saw John take the detective’s hand and shake it heartily, and she watched the detective grin and pocket his gun. The music had recommenced, and the girl who had fainted was suddenly dancing with Lord Charles Este in the corner. John was running here and there patting people on the back, and laughing and shaking hands. Then he was coming toward her, fresh and innocent as a child.
«Wasn’t it wonderful?» he cried.
Rags felt a faintness stealing over her. She groped backward with her hand toward a chair.
«What was it?» she cried dazedly. «Am I dreaming?»
«Of course not! You’re wide awake. I made it up, Rags, don’t you see? I made up the whole thing for you. I had it invented! The only thing real about it was my name!»
She collapsed suddenly against his coat, clung to his lapels, and would have wilted to the floor if he had not caught her quickly in his arms.
«Some champagne—quick!» he called, and then he shouted at the Prince of Wales, who stood near by. «Order my car quick, you! Miss Martin-Jones has fainted from excitement.»
V
The skyscraper rose bulkily through thirty tiers of windows before it attenuated itself to a graceful sugar-loaf of shining white. Then it darted up again another hundred feet, thinned to a mere oblong tower in its last fragile aspiration toward the sky. At the highest of its high windows Rags Martin-Jones stood full in the stiff breeze, gazing down at the city.
«Mr. Chestnut wants to know if you’ll come right in to his private office.»
Obediently her slim feet moved along the carpet into a high, cool chamber overlooking the harbor and the wide sea.
John Chestnut sat at his desk, waiting, and Rags walked to him and put her arms around his shoulder.
«Are you sure you’re real?» she asked anxiously. «Are you absolutely sure?»
«You only wrote me a week before you came,» he protested modestly, «or I could have arranged a revolution.»
«Was the whole thing just mine?» she demanded. «Was it a perfectly useless, gorgeous thing, just for me?»
«Useless?» He considered. «Well, it started out to be. At the last minute I invited a big restaurant man to be there, and while you were at the other table I sold him the whole idea of the night-club.»
He looked at his watch.
«I’ve got one more thing to do—and then we’ve got just time to be married before lunch.» He picked up his telephone. «Jackson? … Send a triplicated cable to Paris, Berlin, and Budapest and have those two bogus dukes who tossed up for Schwartzberg-Rhineminster chased over the Polish border. If the Dutchy won’t act, lower the rate of exchange to point triple zero naught two. Also, that idiot Blutchdak is in the Balkans again, trying to start a new war. Put him on the first boat for New York or else throw him in a Greek jail.»
He rang off, turned to the startled cosmopolite with a laugh.
«The next stop is the City Hall. Then, if you like, we’ll run over to Paris.»
«John,» she asked him intently, «who was the Prince of Wales?»
He waited till they were in the elevator, dropping twenty floors at a swoop. Then he leaned forward and tapped the lift-boy on the shoulder.
«Not so fast, Cedric. This lady isn’t used to falls from high places.»
The elevator-boy turned around, smiled. His face was pale, oval, framed in yellow hair. Rags blushed like fire.
«Cedric’s from Wessex,» explained John. «The resemblance is, to say the least, amazing. Princes are not particularly discreet, and I suspect Cedric of being a Guelph in some left-handed way.»
Rags took the monocle from around her neck and threw the ribbon over Cedric’s head.
«Thank you,» she said simply, «for the second greatest thrill of my life.»
John Chestnut began rubbing his hands together in a commercial gesture.
«Patronize this place, lady,» he besought her. «Best bazaar in the city!»
«What have you got for sale?»
«Well, m’selle, to-day we have some perfectly bee-oo-tiful love.»
«Wrap it up, Mr. Merchant,» cried Rags Martin-Jones. «It looks like a bargain to me.»
