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Anthony Trent, Master Criminal

<h2>CHAPTER XVII TRENT TAKES A HOLIDAY</h2> AT a sporting goods store that afternoon he ran into Jerome Dangerfield again. He had just bought a dozen balls when he saw the millionaire and his two attendants. He was not minded to be observed of them, so slipped into the little room where putters may be tried and drives be made into nets. From where he was he could hear Dangerfield’s disagreeable, rasping voice. His grievance, it seemed, was that other golfers were able to get better balls than he. He badgered the clerk until the man found spirit to observe: “If there was a ball that would make a dub play good golf it would be worth a fortune to any one.” Trent was able to see the look of anger the capitalist threw at him. And this anger he saw reflected on the faces of the two attendants. Decidedly any lone man pitting his courage and wit against the Dangerfield entourage would need sympathy. “Send me a half-gross up to Sunset Park Hotel,” he heard Dangerfield say as he walked away, still frowning. “I hope you don’t have many of that kind to wait on,” Trent said sympathetically. He was always courteous to those with whom he had dealings. “He’s the limit,” said the clerk; “and from the way he looked at me I guess the boss will hear of it. Seemed to think there was a ball that would make him drive two hundred and fifty and hole a twenty-foot putt and I was trying to hide it from him. You wouldn’t think it, but he’s one of the richest men living. Gee, it makes me feel like a Socialist when I think of it!” The clerk wondered why it was a superb golfer, as he knew Trent to be, was modest and courteous, while a man like Dangerfield was so overbearing. Before he went home Trent looked up Sunset Park in a golfer’s guide. It was a little-known course among the Berkshires, with only nine holes to its credit. The rates of the hotel were sufficiently high to make it clear only the rich could play. It was probably one of these dreary courses where a scratch player would be a rara avis, a course to which elderly men, playing for their health, gravitated and made the lives of caddies miserable. It was a curious thing, Trent thought, that while this morning he knew nothing of Dangerfield, by night he knew a great deal. An evening paper told him why the millionaire was going to the Berkshires. There was to be a wedding in high society and the bride was a niece of Mrs. Jerome Dangerfield. The ceremony would take place at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, and a bishop would unite the contracting parties. The fancy dress ball to be held would be the most elaborate ever held outside New York. A great pavilion was to be erected for the occasion in the grounds of the bride’s magnificent home, and Newport would be for the moment deserted. It was rumored that the jewels to be worn would exceed in value anything that had ever been gathered together this side the Atlantic, and so on, two columns long. It explained very clearly why the Jerome Dangerfields were going to Sunset Park. The collective value of the jewels appealed particularly to Trent. He wondered if the Mount Aubyn ruby would shine out on that festal night. And if so how would it be guarded? It would be less difficult to disguise the detectives in fancy costume than in evening dress. Of course the owner of such a world-famous gem might wear an imitation as the Baroness von Eckstein had done. But if Clarke had painted her aright this was an occasion when an ambitious woman would be willing to take risks.   The proprietors of the Sunset Park Hotel were glad to accommodate Mr. Anthony Trent with a bed and bathroom for a little over a hundred dollars a week. It was a very select resort, they explained, attracting such people as the Jerome Dangerfields and their friends. The golf course was owned by the hotel and the first tee was on the lawn a few yards from the front piazza. On the morning following his arrival, Trent, golf clubs already allotted to a caddy, waited to see what kind of golf was played. They were indifferently good but he betrayed little attention until he saw Dangerfield coming. Immediately he went to the tee but did not make his first shot until the millionaire was near enough to see. Playing alone as was the capitalist—for few were yet on the links—he had not to wait as he must have done had the other been playing with a partner. The first green was distant one hundred and sixty yards from the tee. A brook with sedgy reeds was a fine natural hazard, and as the green was on an elevated plateau with deep grass beyond, it was not an easy one to reach. Dangerfield dreaded it. Dangerfield saw a tall, slim young man correctly clad in breeches and stockings, using a mashie, drop his ball neatly on the green within putting distance of the hole. Later he saw the hole done in two which was one under par. “Who is that man?” Dangerfield demanded of his caddie. “Never seen him before,” the lad answered. Dangerfield took his brassey and went straightway into the brook. He saw, however, as he was ball hunting, this stranger make a wonderful drive to the second—two hundred and fifty yards, the enthusiastic caddie swore. Meanwhile the millionaire continued to press and slice and pull and top his ball to such effect as to do the double round in one hundred and forty-two. Nothing exasperated him so much as to find the game mock his strength and desire. A power wherever money marts were, he was here openly laughed at by caddies. He was discovering that rank on the links is determined by skill at the game alone. What mattered it that he was the great Jerome Dangerfield. What had he done the round in? What was his handicap? He particularly wanted to humble Stephen Goswell, president of the First Agricultural Bank of New York City. Goswell was a year ahead of him at the game and had the edge on him so far. Goswell could manage short approaches occasionally, strokes that were beyond his own inflexible wrists. Now this tall, dark stranger had such strokes to perfection. The ball driven up into the air skimmed tree, wall or bunker and rolled up to the pin sweetly. Dangerfield quickly made up his mind. He would invite the stranger to play with him and then get hints which would improve his game fifty per cent. “Morning,” he said later at the “Nineteenth Hole” where the stranger was taking a drink. “Good morning,” said the stranger rather stiffly. “It is evident,” thought Dangerfield, “he does not know who I am.” “Going ’round again after lunch?” Dangerfield demanded. “I think so,” the stranger responded. “We might play together,” said Dangerfield. “I haven’t a partner.” “I’m afraid that won’t make a good match,” Trent told him. “Surely there is some one more your strength who would make a better match of it?” “Huh!” grunted the other, “think I don’t play well enough, eh?” “I know it,” said Trent composedly. Dangerfield regarded him sourly. “You’re not overburdened with modesty, young man.” “I hope not,” the other retorted, “nothing handicaps a man more in life. I happen to know golf, though, and my experience is that if I play with a much inferior player I get careless and that’s bad for my game. I’m perfectly frank about it. You know next to nothing about the game. In your own line of work you could no doubt give me a big beating because you know it and I don’t.” “And what do you suppose my line of work is?” snapped the annoyed mill-owner. “I don’t know,” Trent commented. “Either a dentist or a theatrical producer.” As he spoke up sauntered one of the two men with whom he had seen Dangerfield in the subway. “I’d like to hire some one to take the starch out of you,” Dangerfield said as he rose to his feet. “Quite easy,” Trent returned, “almost any professional could.” He watched the two walk away and chuckled. He had attracted the millionaire’s attention and he had rebuffed him. So far his programme was being carried out on scheduled time. The attendant had not looked at him with any special interest. It was unlikely in different clothes, under other conditions and in a strange place he would recognize him. He did not play again that day. Instead he paid attention to some elderly ladies who knitted feverishly and were inclined to talk. He learned a great deal of useful news. For example, that the Dangerfields always had meals in their big private suite and rarely without guests from nearby homes. That they quarreled constantly. That Mr. Dangerfield never went to bed wholly sober. That he was given to sudden gusts of temper and only last year had beaten a caddie and had been compelled to settle the assault with a large money payment. That he was not above pocketing a golf ball if he could do so without being observed. That he had several times been seen to lift his ball out of an unfavorable lie into one from which he could play with greater chance of making a good stroke. These petty meannesses Trent had already surmised. Dangerfield seemed to him that sort of a man. He was more interested in the dinner parties. But a man in such a position as he was had to be careful as to what questions he asked. People had a knack of remembering them at inopportune moments. Fortunately one of the ladies, who was a Miss Northend of Lynn, came back to it. She was a furious knitter and knitted best when her tongue wagged. “Of course this hotel belongs to Mr. Dangerfield,” she babbled, “and that explains why they have a palatial suite here and can entertain even more readily than if they had a summer home, as their friends have. This is a very fashionable section. The women dress here as if they were in Newport. Every night Mr. Dangerfield goes down to the hotel safe and brings something gorgeous in the jewelry way for his wife to wear. There’s a private stairway he uses. I wandered into it once by mistake.” “And sister was so flustered,” the other Miss Northend of Lynn told him, “that when he accused her of spying on him she couldn’t say a word. It really did look suspicious until he knew we were Northends and our father was his counsel once when he controlled the Boston and Rangely road.” When these estimable maidens had finished, Anthony Trent knew all those particulars he desired. It was not the first time amiable gossips had aided him. But he played his part so well that Miss Fannie chided her sister. “He wasn’t a bit interested in the Dangerfield wealth,” she said. “All a young man like that thinks of is golf.” “Well,” said her sister, “I am interested and I’m frightened, too. When I think of all that amount of precious stones in the hotel safe, I’m positively alarmed. Every night she wears something new, her maid told the girl who looks after our rooms.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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