



Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
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[The chapters in the original book pass from CHAPTER FIVE to CHAPTER
SEVEN; there is no chapter numbered SIX. A list of typographical errors
corrected follows the etext. (note of etext transcriber)]




UNDER COVER

[Illustration: HE FOUND DENBY'S GUN UNDER HIS NOSE.

Frontispiece. _See page 266_.]




UNDER COVER

BY

ROI COOPER MEGRUE

NOVELIZED BY WYNDHAM MARTYN

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WILLIAM KIRKPATRICK

[Illustration]

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1914

_Copyright_, _1914_,
BY ROI COOPER MEGRUE AND
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_

Published August, 1914

THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


HE FOUND DENBY'S GUN UNDER HIS NOSE _Frontispiece_

HE TURNED TO AMY. "YOUNG WOMAN, YOU'RE UNDER ARREST" PAGE 105

"DO MAKE ANOTHER BREAK SOMETIME, WON'T YOU--DICK?" 186

"NOW WE UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER," HE SAID. "HERE'S YOUR MONEY" 288




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CHAPTER ONE


Paris wears her greenest livery and puts on her most gracious airs in
early summer. When the National Fete commemorative of the Bastille's
fall has gone, there are few Parisians of wealth or leisure who remain
in their city. Trouville, Deauville, Etretat and other pleasure cities
claim them and even the bourgeoisie hie them to their summer villas.

The city is given up to those tourists from America and England whom
Paris still persists in calling _Les Cooks_ in memory of that
enterprising blazer of cheap trails for the masses. Your true Parisian
and the stranger who has stayed within the city's gates to know her
well, find themselves wholly out of sympathy with the eager crowds who
follow beaten tracks and absorb topographical knowledge from
guide-books.

Monty Vaughan was an American who knew his Paris in all months but those
two which are sacred to foreign travelers, and it irritated him one
blazing afternoon in late July to be persistently mistaken for a tourist
and offered silly useless toys and plans of the Louvre. The _camelots_,
those shrewd itinerant merchants of the Boulevards, pestered him
continually. These excellent judges of human nature saw in him one who
lacked the necessary harshness to drive them away and made capital of
his good nature.

He was a slim, pleasant-looking man of five and twenty, to whom the good
things of this world had been vouchsafed, with no effort on his part to
obtain them; and in spite of this he preserved a certain frank and
boyish charm which had made him popular all his life.

Presently on his somewhat aimless wanderings he came down the Avenue de
l'Opera and took a seat under the awning and ordered an innocuous drink.
He was in a city where he had innumerable friends, but they had all left
for the seashore and this loneliness was unpleasant to his friendly
spirit. But even in the Cafe de Paris he was not to be left alone and he
was regarded as fair game by alert hawkers. One would steal up to his
table and deposit a little measure of olives and plead for two sous in
exchange. Another would place some nuts by his side and demand a like
amount. And when they had been driven forth and he had lighted a
cigarette, he observed watching him with professional eagerness a
_ramasseur de megot_, one of those men who make a livelihood of picking
up the butts of cigars and cigarettes and selling them.

When Monty flung down the half-smoked cigarette in hope that the man
would go away he was annoyed to find that the fellow was congratulating
himself that here was a tourist worth following, who smoked not the
wispy attenuated cigarettes of the native but one worth harvesting. He
probed for it with his long stick under the table and stood waiting for
another.

The heat, the absence of his friends and the knowledge that he must
presently dine alone had brought the usually placid Monty into a wholly
foreign frame of mind and he rose abruptly and stalked down the Avenue.

A depressed-looking sandwich-man, bearing a device which read, "One can
laugh uproariously at the Champs Elysees every night during the summer
months," blocked his way, and permitted a woman selling fans of the kind
known to the _camelots_ as _les petits vents du nord_ to thrust one upon
him. "Monsieur does not comprehend our heat in Paris," she said. "Buy a
little north wind. Two sous for a little north wind."

Monty thrust a franc in her hand and turned quickly from her to carom
against a tall well-dressed man who was passing. As Monty began to utter
his apology the look of gloom dropped from his face and he seized the
stranger's hand and shook it heartily.

"Steve, old man!" he cried, "what luck to find you amid this mob! I've
been feeling like a poor shipwrecked orphan, and here you come to my
rescue again."

The man he addressed as Steve seemed just as pleased to behold Monty
Vaughan. The two were old comrades from the days at their preparatory
school and had met little during the past five years. Monty's ecstatic
welcome was a pleasant reminder of happy days that were gone.

"I might ask what you are doing here," Steven Denby returned. "I
imagined you to be sunning yourself in Newport or Bar Harbor, not doing
Paris in July."

"I've been living here for two years," Monty explained, when they were
sheltered from interruption at the cafe Monty had just left.

"Doing what?"

Monty looked at him with a diffident smile. "I suppose you'll grin just
like everybody else. I'm here to learn foreign banking systems. My
father says it will do me good."

Denby laughed. "I'll bet you know less about it than I do." The idea of
Monty Vaughan, heir to the Vaughan millions, working like a clerk in the
Credit Lyonnais was amusing.

"Does your father make you work all summer?" he demanded.

"I'm not working now," Monty explained. "I never do unless I feel like
it. I'm waiting for a friend who is sailing with me on the Mauretania
next week and I've just had a wire to say she'll be here to-morrow."

"She!" echoed Denby. "Have you married without my knowledge or consent?
Or is this a honey-moon trip you are taking?"

A look of sadness came into the younger man's face.

"I shall never marry," he returned.

But Steven Denby knew him too well to take such expressions of gloom as
final. "Nonsense," he cried. "You are just the sort they like. You're
inclined to believe in people too much if you like them, and a husband
who believes in his wife as you will in yours is a treasure. They'll
fight for you, Monty, when you get home again. For all you know the trap
is already baited."

"Trap!" Monty cried reproachfully. "I've been trying to make a girl
catch me for three years now and she won't."

"Do you mean you've been finally turned down?" Steven Denby asked
curiously. It was difficult to suppose that a man of his friend's wealth
and standing would experience much trouble in offering heart and
fortune.

"I haven't asked yet," Monty admitted. "I've been on the verge of it
hundreds of times, but she always laughs as I'm coming around to it, and
someone comes in or something happens and I've never done it." He sighed
with the deprecating manner of the devout lover. "If you'd only seen
her, Steve, you'd see what mighty little chance I stood. I feel it's a
bit of impertinence to ask a girl like that to marry me."

Steven patted him on the arm. "You're just the same," he said, "exactly
the silly old Monty I used to know. Next time you see your charmer, risk
being impertinent and ask her to marry you. Women hate modesty nowadays.
It's just a confession of failure and we're all hitched up to success. I
don't know the girl you are speaking of but when you get home again
instead of declaring your great unworthiness, tell her you've left Paris
and its pleasures simply to marry her. Say that the Bourse begged you to
remain and guide the nation through a financial panic, but you left
them weeping and flew back on a fast Cunarder."

"I believe you are right," Monty said. "I'll do it. I ought to have done
it years ago. Alice is frightfully disappointed with me."

"Who is Alice?" the other demanded. "The lady you're crossing with on
the Mauretania?"

"Yes," said Monty. "A good pal of mine; one of those up-to-date women of
the world who know what to do and say at the right moment. She's a sort
of elder sister to me. You'll like her, Steve."

Denby doubted it but pursued the subject no further. He conceived Alice
to be one of those capable managing women who do so much good in the
world and give so little pleasure.

"What are you doing in Paris now?" Monty presently demanded. It occurred
to him that it was odd that Denby, too, should be in the city now.

"Writing a book on the Race Courses of the World," he said, smiling. "I
am now in the midst of Longchamps."

Monty looked at him doubtfully. He had never known that his friend had
any literary aspirations, but he did remember him as one who, if he did
not choose to tell, would invent airy fairy fancies to deceive.

"I don't believe it," he said.

"You are quite right," Denby admitted. "You've got the key to the
mystery. I'll confess that I have been engaged to guard Mona Lisa.
Suspicious looking tourists such as you engage my special attention.
Don't get offended, Monty," he added, "I'm just wandering through the
city on my way to England and that's the truth, simple as it may seem. I
was desolate and your pleasing countenance as you bought a franc's worth
of north wind was good to see. I wondered if you'd remember me."

"Remember you!" Monty snorted. "Am I the kind to forget a man who saved
my life?"

"Who did that?" Denby inquired.

"Why, you did," he returned, "You pulled me out of the Nashua river at
school!"

The other man laughed. "Why, it wasn't five feet deep there."

"I can drown anywhere," Monty returned firmly. "You saved my life and
I've never had the opportunity to do anything in return."

"The time will come," Denby said lightly. "You'll get a mysterious
message sometime and it will be up to you to rescue me from dreadful
danger."

"I'd like to," the other retorted, "but I'm not sure I'm cut out for
that rescue business."

"Have you ever been--" Denby hesitated. "Have you ever been in any sort
of danger?"

"Yes," Monty replied promptly, "but you pulled me out."

"Please don't go about repeating it," Denby entreated, "I have enemies
enough without being blamed for pulling you out of the Nashua river."

Monty looked at him in astonishment. Here was the most popular boy in
Groton School complaining of enemies. Monty felt a thrill that had
something of enjoyment in it. His own upbringing had been so free from
any danger and his parents had safeguarded him from so much trouble that
he had found life insipid at times. Yet here was a man talking of
enemies. It was fascinating.

"Do you mean it?" he demanded.

"Why not?" said Denby, rolling himself a cigarette.

"You hadn't any at school," Monty insisted.

"That was a dozen years ago nearly," Denby insisted. "Since then--" He
paused. "My career wouldn't interest you, my financial expert, but I am
safe in saying I have accumulated a number of persons who do not wish me
well."

"You must certainly meet Alice," Monty asserted. "She's like you. She
often says I'm the only really uninteresting person she's fond of."

Denby assured himself that Alice would not interest him in the slightest
degree and made haste to change the subject, but Monty held on to his
chosen course.

"We'll all dine together to-morrow night," he cried.

"I'm afraid I'm too busy."

"Too busy to dine with Alice Harrington when you've the opportunity?"
Monty exclaimed. "Are you a woman-hater?"

A more observant man might have noted the sudden change in expression
that the name Harrington produced in Steven Denby. He had previously
been bored at the idea of meeting a woman who he concluded would be
eager to impart her guide-book knowledge. Alice evidently had meant
nothing to him, but Alice Harrington roused a sudden interest.

"Not by any chance Mrs. Michael Harrington?" he queried.

Monty nodded. "The same. She and Michael are two of the best friends I
have. He's a great old sport and she's hurrying back because he has to
stay on and can't get over this year." Monty flushed becomingly. "I'm
going back with her because Nora is going to stay down in Long Island
with them."

"Introduce me to Nora," Denby insisted. "She is a new motif in your
jocund song. Who is Nora, what is she, that Monty doth commend her?"

"She's the girl," Monty explained. He sighed. "If you only knew how
pretty she was, you wouldn't talk about a trap being baited. I don't
think women are the good judges they pretend to be!"

"Why not?" Denby demanded.

"Because Alice says she'd accept me and I don't believe I stand a ghost
of a chance."

"Women are the only judges," Denby assured him seriously. "If I were you
I'd bank on your friend Alice every time."

"Then you'll dine with me to-morrow?" Monty asked.

"Of course. You don't suppose I am going to lose sight of you, do you?"

And Monty, grateful that this admired old school friend was so ready to
join him, forgot the previous excuse about inability to spare the time.

"That's fine," he exclaimed. "But what are we going to do to-night?"

"You are going to dine with me," Denby told him. "I haven't seen you,
let me see," he reflected, "I haven't seen you for about ten years and I
want to talk over the old days. What do you say to trying some of
Marguery's _sole a la Normandie?_"

During the course of the dinner Monty talked frankly and freely about
his past, present and future. Denby learned that in view of the great
wealth which would devolve upon him, his father had determined that he
should become grounded in finance. When he had finished, he reflected
that while he had opened his soul to his old friend, his old friend had
offered no explanation of what in truth brought him to Europe, or why he
had for almost a decade dropped out of his old set.

"But what have you been doing?" Monty gathered courage to ask. "I've
told you all about me and mine, Steve."

"There isn't much to tell," Denby responded slowly. "I left Groton
because my father died. I'm afraid he wasn't a shrewd man like your
father, Monty. He was one of the last relics of New York's brown-stone
age and he tried to keep the pace when the marble age came in. He
couldn't do it."

"You were going into the diplomatic service," Monty reminded him. "You
used to specialize in modern languages, I remember. I suppose you had to
give that up."

"I had to try to earn my own living," Denby explained, "and diplomacy
doesn't pay much at first even if you have the luck to get an
appointment."

Monty looked at him shrewdly. He saw a tall, well set up man who had
every appearance of affluence.

"You've done pretty well for yourself."

Denby smiled, "The age demands that a man put up a good appearance. A
financier like you ought not to be deceived."

Monty leaned over the table. "Steve, old man," he said, a trifle
nervously, "I don't want to butt in on your private affairs, but if you
ever want any money you'll offend me if you don't let me know. I've too
much and that's a fact. Except for putting a bit on Michael's horses
when they run and a bit of a flutter occasionally at Monte Carlo I don't
get rid of much of it. I've got heaps. Do you want any?"

"Monty," the other man said quietly, "you haven't altered. You are still
the same generous boy I remember and it's good for a man like me to know
that. I don't need any money, but if ever I do I'll come to you."

Monty sighed with relief. His old idol was not hard up and he had not
been offended at the suggestion. It was a good world and he was happy.

"Steve," he asked presently, "what did you mean about having enemies and
being in danger? That was a joke, wasn't it?"

"We most of us have enemies," Steven said lightly, "and we are all in
danger. For all you know ptomaines are gathering their forces inside you
even now."

"You didn't mean that," Monty said positively. "You were serious. What
enemies?"

"Enemies I have made in the course of my work," the other returned.

"Well, what work is it?" Monty queried. It was odd, he thought, that
Denby would not let him into so harmless a secret as the nature of his
work. He felt an unusual spirit of persistence rising within him. "What
work?" he repeated.

Denby shrugged his shoulders. "You might call it a little irregular," he
said in a lowered voice. "You represent high finance. Your father is one
of the big men in American affairs. You probably have his set views on
things. I don't want to shock you, Monty."

"Shock be damned!" cried Monty in an aggrieved voice. "I'm tired of
having to accommodate myself to other people's views."

Denby looked at him with mock wonder.

"Monty in revolt at the established order of things is a most remarkable
phenomenon. Have you a pirate in your family tree that you sigh for
sudden change and a life on the ocean wave?"

Monty laughed. "I don't want to do anything like that but I'm tired of
a life that is always the same. You've enemies. I don't believe I've
one. I'd like to have an enemy, Steve. I'd like to feel I was in danger;
it would be a change after being wrapped in wool all my life. You've
probably seen the world in a way I never shall. I've been on a
personally conducted tour, which isn't the same thing."

"Not by a long shot," Steven Denby agreed. "But," he added, "why should
you want to take the sort of risks that I have had to take, when there's
no need? I have been in danger pretty often, Monty, and I shall again.
Why? Because I have my living to make and that way suits me best. You
notice I am sitting with my back to the wall so that none can come
behind me. I do that because two revengeful gentlemen have sworn
bloodthirsty oaths to relieve my soul of its body."

Monty tingled with a certain pleasurable apprehension which had never
before visited him. He was experiencing in real life what had only
revealed itself before in novels or on the stage.

"What are they like?" he demanded in a low voice, looking around.

"Disappointing, I'm afraid," Steven answered. "You are looking for a
tall man with a livid scar running from temple to chin and a look before
which even a waiter would blanch. Both my men have mild expressions and
wouldn't attract a second glance, but they'll either get me or I'll get
them."

"Steve!" Monty cried. "What did they do?"

Denby made a careless gesture. "It was over a money matter," he
explained.

Monty thought for a moment in silence. Never had his conventional lot
seemed less attractive to him. He approached the subject again as do
timid men who fearfully hang on the outskirts of a street fight,
unwilling to miss what they have not the heart to enjoy.

"I wish some excitement like that would come my way," he sighed.

"Excitement? Go to Monte and break the bank. Become the Jaggers of your
country."

"There's no danger in that," Monty answered almost peevishly.

"Nor of it," laughed his friend.

"That's just the way it always is," Monty complained. "Other fellows
have all the fun and I just hear about it."

Denby looked at him shrewdly and then leaned across the table.

"So you want some fun?" he queried.

"I do," the other said firmly.

"Do you think you've got the nerve?" Steven demanded.

Monty hesitated. "I don't want to be killed," he admitted. "What is it?"

"I didn't tell you how I made a living, but I hinted my ways were a bit
irregular. What I have to propose is also a trifle out of the usual. The
law and the equator are both imaginary lines, Monty, and I'm afraid my
little expedition may get off the line. I suppose you don't want to hear
any more, do you?"

Monty's eyes were shining with excitement. "I'm going to hear everything
you've got to say," he asserted.

"It means I've got to put myself in your power in a way," Denby said
hesitatingly, "but I'll take a chance because you're the kind of man who
can keep things secret."

"I am," Monty said fervently. "Just you try me out, Steve!"

"It has to do with a string of pearls," Denby explained, "and I'm afraid
I shall disappoint you when I tell you I'm proposing to pay