Seven Keys to Baldpate

A young woman was crying bitterly in the waiting-room of the railway station at Upper Asquewan Falls, New York.

A beautiful young woman? That is exactly what Billy Magee wanted to know as, closing the waiting-room door behind him, he stood staring just inside. Were the features against which that frail bit of cambric was agonizingly pressed of a pleasing contour? The girl's neatly tailored corduroy suit and her flippant but charming millinery augured well. Should he step gallantly forward and inquire in sympathetic tones as to the cause of her woe? Should he carry chivalry even to the lengths of Upper Asquewan Falls?

No, Mr. Magee decided he would not. The train that had just roared away into the dusk had not brought him from the region of skyscrapers and derby hats for deeds of knight errantry up state. Anyhow, the girl's tears were none of his business. A railway station was a natural place for grief—a field of many partings, upon whose floor fell often in torrents the tears of those left behind. A friend, mayhap a lover, had been whisked off into the night by the relentless five thirty-four local. Why not a lover? Surely about such a dainty trim figure as this courtiers hovered as moths about a flame. Upon a tender intimate sorrow it was not the place of an unknown Magee to intrude. He put his hand gently upon the latch of the door.

And yet—dim and heartless and cold was the interior of that waiting-room. No place, surely, for a gentleman to leave a lady sorrowful, particularly when the lady was so alluring.

Absolute solitude! Only the crackle of the fire, the roar of the wind, and the ticking of his watch bore him company. He strode to the window and looked down at the few dim lights that proclaimed the existence of Upper Asquewan Falls. Somewhere, down there, was the Commercial House. Somewhere the girl who had wept so bitterly in that gloomy little waiting-room. She was only three miles away, and the thought cheered Mr. Magee. After all, he was not on a desert island.

And yet—he was alone, intensely, almost painfully, alone. Alone in a vast moaning house that must be his only home until he could go back to the gay city with his masterpiece. What a masterpiece! As though with a surgeon's knife it would lay bare the hearts of men. No tricks of plot, no—

Mr. Magee paused. For sharply in the silence the bell of his room telephone rang out.

He stood for a moment gazing in wonder, his heart beating swiftly, his eyes upon the instrument on the wall. It was a house phone; he knew that it could only be rung from the switchboard in the hall below. "I'm going mad already," he remarked, and took down the receiver.

He entered number seven, and paused in amazement. Outside one of his windows Miss Norton stood, rapping on the glass for him to open. When he stood facing her at last, the window no longer between, he saw that her face was very pale and that her chin trembled as it had in the station.

"What is it?" cried Magee.

"I mustn't come in," she answered. "Listen. You said you wanted to help me. You can do so now. I'll explain everything later—this is all I need tell you just at present. Down-stairs in the safe there's a package containing two hundred thousand dollars. Do you hear—two hundred thousand. I must have that package. Don't ask me why. I came here to get it—I must have it. The combination was to have been phoned to Cargan at eight o'clock. I was hiding outside the window. Something went wrong—they didn't phone it. He's going to open the safe by force. I heard him say so. I couldn't wait to hear more—I saw him."

"Who?" asked Mr. Magee.

"I don't know—a tall black figure—hiding outside a window like myself. The man with one of the other keys, I suppose. The man Mr. Bland heard walking about to-night. I saw him and I was terribly frightened. It's all right when you know who the other fellow is, but when—it's all so creepy—I was afraid. So I ran—here."

"The thing to do," approved Mr. Magee. "Don't worry. I'll get the money for you. I'll get it if I have to slay the city administration of Reuton in its tracks."

For fully five seconds Mr. Magee and the man with whom he had collided stood facing each other on the balcony. The identical moon of the summer romances now hung in the sky, and in its white glare Baldpate Mountain glittered like a Christmas-card. Suddenly the wind broke a small branch from one of the near-by trees and tossed it lightly on the snow beside the two men—as though it were a signal for battle.

"A lucky chance," said Mr. Magee. "You're a man I've been longing to meet. Especially since the professor left his window open this afternoon."

"Indeed," replied the other calmly. "May I ask what you want of me?"

"Certainly." Mr. Magee laughed. "A little package. I think it's in your pocket at this minute. A package no bigger than a man's hand."

The stranger made no reply, but looked quickly about, over his shoulder at the path along which he had come, and then past Mr. Magee at the road that led to freedom.

"I think it's in your pocket," repeated Mr. Magee, "and I'm going to find out."

"I haven't time to argue with you," said the holder of the seventh key. His voice was cold, calculating, harsh. "Get out of my way and let me pass. Or—"

"Or what?" asked Billy Magee.

He watched the man lunge toward him in the moonlight. He saw the fist that had the night before been the Waterloo of Mr. Max and the mayor start on a swift true course for his head.