“Collecting becomes an unmoral science,” he went on. “Knowing your
incredible enthusiasms—”
“Help! Help!” I interposed.
“—Your incredible enthusiasms, you should not take the antiques with you.
Let a collector come out and value them.”
As I had a vision of starting with eight inches of Buddha and returning
with five hundred cash, I demurred, but he held his point, and finally I
capitulated, and for peace at any price agreed to telephone him which
train to meet. In the morning, I covered the two miles to the station
with the elation of the adventuress who casts her last two dollars on the
roulette of the railroad, and draws a possible fare to fortune.
In the exposition building, I went from office to committee rooms, only
to discover that the vice president was away for the day, and not
expected to return until evening, and, having dropped forty degrees
mentally, I sat at the end of a corridor, killing time upon the pretense
of examining a telephone register. Three delegates, obviously wined and
lunched, halted near, talking.
“Yes, yes, smart chap,” said number one, “but keen on the main chance.
Ever hear the story of old Mrs. Mace’s Romney? Old Mrs. Mace, widow of
his friend, owned a great Romney. He was hard on its track and sent an
agent, who valued it, as a good copy, at two hundred. The old lady
indignantly refuses. The collector goes off to Mexico to investigate the
Talahiti excavations, but sends a second agent, who declares it to be
worth all of three hundred. The old lady, finally, at the cud of
everything, sells. The Romney disappears. When her money goes, the old
lady in despair dies. Now, his Romney sells high in the thousands. Not
a nice story, what?”
The chorus admitted that it was not, and I sat petrified, and thankful
that I had a relative among the elect. Number two spoke:
“There is big betting on his wager with Dantrè. He swears to better
Dantrè’s exhibits with a gem that will knock them into cockles. Says he
can produce a genuine original Fierienti.”
“Piffle!” exclaimed number three. “There were two Fierientis, the
Laughing Duchess, destroyed in the great fire of London, and its copy,
made by Fierienti, now in the Metropolitan.”
Arguing this point they passed on and I sat with face bent over the book,
and with thought rushing tumultuously. My picture, at Brookchase, was
the original Fierienti, the copy of which was in the Metropolitan. Of
this there had never been a doubt; the Chevalier de Russy, member of the
French Academy, had vouched for it, when on a visit to grandma. Besides,
I had its records. Who, then, was “he”? And where could “he” find
another original Fierienti?
I was on my feet to follow and find out, when Prince’s words swung back
to me: “Knowing your incredible enthusiasms—” I sank back, crushing down
impulse, and then, under a desperate desire for action, gave his number
to the local exchange, and entered booth number four.
Inside the booth, through the blurred reflection of my own image upon the
glass, I discerned the outline of a man, in the adjoining booth: a
smooth, dark head bent upon a slender hand, above which was visible an
odd cufflink, two swastikas in red Roman gold. My call was answered by
Prince’s old housekeeper.
“This is Miss Legree,” I said. Then came Prince’s voice: “What luck,
Enid?”
“None,” I replied. “Penwick is away for the day, and I am glad that I
left the Fierienti at home, although I am eager to solve a mystery. I
overheard something about another Fierienti, whereas I know that there is
no other. I will be at Brookchase by the four o’clock express, but can
walk to the gate at the crossroads.”
Prince laughed, and as I rang off I clearly heard the voice of the man in
the adjoining booth, repeating his number. He, in turn then, must have
overheard me. Dismissing this as irrelevant, I went to the station and
waited morosely until the afternoon express bore me back to the
realization of being the poorer by one railroad fare.
Driving between bare fields, Prince said: “Don’t worry.”
“If a woman loses an eye or has a toothache it is quite intelligible,” I
resented. “But if she collapses from nerves, or stares nothingness in
the face, men tell her not to worry. I shall write to Cary Penwick
tomorrow, and hand the Laughing Duchess over to him. He may sell it for
what he can get.”
Prince flicked the colt to a trot, and said: “Better go slow. I’ve heard
some queer things about collectors.”
“Things like old Mrs. Mace’s Romney, I suppose,” I said.
He jerked the reins abruptly: “What of it? There was an old Mrs. Mace in
our home town who owned a Romney. Jove! I’d forgotten all about that.
Why—” he stopped short, his brows drawn sharply into a frown. I related
the story I had heard, but added that all collectors were not
pickpockets. Prince, however, drove in thoughtful silence. “I wish
you’d let me do more for you,” he began at the gate. But I ran up the
path, laughing back at him.
At seven o’clock the unexpected again rang the telephone, and thought
instantly visualized the voice as fat, florid and fed. The revolution
was therefore complete when it said: “Cousin Enid, this is Cary Penwick.
I hope you remember me. . . . Yes, my dear girl, twenty-five years! You
would not recognize me.”
“Oh, but I should!” I cried, happily. “A dark-eyed boy with his hair in
his eyes, and a brain set on adventure. . . . But your voice does not in
the least sound like you. Do come out and let me see you.”
He assured me that such had been his intention, but an official banquet
and a directors’ meeting intervened. Finally, it was decided that he
should motor out after the banquet, and remain at Brookchase for the
night. “Do not wait up for me. Your man can meet me. I shall be there
by twelve,” he said.
Having recovered from the natural effects of hearing that there was no
man, he added: “By the way, Enid, I seem to remember that your
grandmother had some quaint old things. Were there not several paintings
and a carving or two? Trifles probably, but I might help you do
something with them.”
“Trifles! Why, Cary, surely you remember the Laughing Duchess? It has
been the family treasure for generations, that and the Mercury. It is
about these things that I want particularly to consult you,” I replied.
“Well, well,” he said, tolerantly, “I vaguely recall the piece. A very
nice copy, no doubt, of Fierienti’s Duchess.”
“Copy!” I cried. “Indeed, it is the original from which Fierienti made
his copy. I can prove it from grandma’s records. It is the Fierienti
thought to have been destroyed in the London fire.”
He laughed softly.
“I will have a look at it, Enid. I hate to disillusion you, but old
ladies attach exaggerated value to their treasures. No doubt your
grandmother believed in it.”
“She was your grandmother, too,” I found myself murmuring.
“Surely, surely,” he continued cheerfully, “but the things are yours, my
dear girl, and it occurred to me as an opportunity now for you to raise a
little something on them.”
He rang off, and I sat with my head in my hands. The Fierienti a copy!
I could not credit it. In spite of the disappointment which the mirage
of a fortune almost invariably disguises, this alluring, laughing little
figure’s identity had been family history. Three centuries had staked
their faiths upon it. Yet, Cary Penwick was an expert. . . . I paced
the floor, assuring myself that even experts were not infallible; the
Chevalier de Russy was an authority, whereas Cary had been but a careless
boy when he saw the Fierienti. My mercurial spirit soared upward again;
I refused to believe the worst until confronted by it; then I would
surrender gracefully. I ran to tell Martha of the guest’s coming, and
found her poised, Mahomet-like, between the ether of joy and the mundane
condition of the larder.
“There’s enough coffee for one, with corn muffins, rice fritters and
broiled ham—”
“If he asks for truffles, serve the Buddha; if for partridge, bring on
the Mercury!”
“Eight sticks and two barrels,” chanted Martha, “and I say it’s the Lord
who sent him here at this time. Maybe he’ll buy that there Duchess at
your price, miss. But, I can’t heat up the library: it would take the
whole woodshed. Many’s the time, when Mr. Cary wasn’t but ten year old,
he would climb up on them shelves and pitch the books down on me. And
eat! Anything this side of a tin can that boy could eat.”
The living room at Brookchase was early Victorian. Its threadbare,
flowered carpet, high cornices, brass fender and firedogs, with long
mirror over them, its harpbacked chairs, and Dickens at Gadshill, were
free of more modern innovation than a brass lamp and the crashing
contrast of a telephone.
By nine o’clock three of the precious logs crackled on the andirons, and
grandma’s armchair was drawn before them. On various pretenses Martha
peered in the door, like the prompter in the wings, at every few
revolutions of the minute hand, and latterly found the house owner before
the mirror, adjusting a stray lock of hair.
“That gray does become you, Miss Enid, if ’tis your grandma’s made down,
you being so straight and slim. But you didn’t put her pin on. That
weepin’ willer is a grand piece!”
This worshipful object was the cameo of a lachrymose female playing the
harp over a mortuary urn. “Yet, I don’t know but them amber beads has
more style!” added Martha. I assured her that unless Mr. Cary had
changed beyond belief, he would be as impervious to beads as to
sackcloth; and at the moment a motor horn sounded in the lane.
“He has come out early!” I cried, catching up a candle and lighting it,
while Martha opened the outer door, like the warden of a castle, sending
a beam of light straight into the eyes of a tall, slender man on the
threshold.
“Cary! Cary Penwick!” I cried, drawing him into the firelight’s glow,
where he stood, smiling a little behind a dark, Van Dyke beard, and
blinking a little behind horn-rimmed glasses. Martha hovered with: “Are
your feet dry, Mr. Cary? I’d best be bringin’ your grandma’s cordial!”
She hurried off, and I proffered the armchair.
“How good of you to leave the banquet early,” I said, conscious now that
an intent, but veiled, gaze was studying me.
“I left it as the lesser attraction,” he said, in a reserved voice that
gave me a sense of baffled surprise.
“Why, you do not in the least resemble your voice over the telephone!” I
told him. “Telephones are so misleading.”
“What was it like?” he asked.
“Rather fat and—clubby,” I confessed; “but you are really like my
childhood’s vague dream-knight,” I laughed, as Martha reappeared with
cordial, in infinitesimal glasses. Inside the door she lingered.
“What of the old Deacon, Mr. Cary? He died, of course, poor creature! A
body couldn’t help bein’ fond of him, for all his ways.”
“The Deacon, of course”—he looked absently in his glass. “Well, his
habits killed him, after a while. He drank too much, you know.”
“Then it wasn’t hydrophobia, sir? That was a blessing! I never seen a
dog more devoted than the Deacon was to you, Mr. Cary!” Martha closed
the door, and my guest stood on the hearth rug, smiling gravely, but with
an expression best described as a listening face. Glancing from ivory
Buddha to winged Mercury, his look returned to me, and lingered, as in
indecision.
“You are looking for the Fierienti,” I smiled back; “I am immune to the
wiles of collectors.”
“Guilty!” he said, with the same shy aloofness.
“But you must see grandma’s last portrait first. Brookchase remains
primitive enough for candles.” I held one under the picture above the
mirror. “The Chevalier de Russy sketched her in oils, to preserve what
he called the expression ‘angelique,’ and afterwards sent me this from
France. The eyes always follow one with understanding. See how they
smile upon you, Cary! As though she knew that you had fulfilled her
pride and faith, and had become the honorable man she had aimed to make
you in spite—” I stopped. His eyes were upon mine, in the glass, with
profound questioning. “In spite of all,” I ended.
“In spite of all!” he repeated, drawn to grandma’s look, and although
aware that when a skeleton is safely locked in its closet, it is wise to
lose the key, I felt the moment to be surcharged with unspoken
confidence.
“You remember that she would not admit inheritance to be a menace to you,
and held that a man’s character lay in his own hands.”
“You mean that because my father happened to be—a rascal, I could
successfully live over the effects?” he asked, impersonally; but the
question in his eyes caused me to motion him to the easy chair, and I sat
beside him.
Prince calls me half irrepressible pagan, and Prince has an aggravating
way of winning out; but there are moments when nothing more romantic than
the protective hen seems uppermost. Therefore, I attribute the hour
which followed to the subconsciousness, groping to assert its right of
divination. Back of his impersonality lay an expression of profound
solitariness, an appeal as impassioned as it was naïve: quickly masked,
but revealing some dumb tragedy of soul. The source mattered nothing to
me. Words from a modern philosopher swam through my thoughts: “All
tormented souls are not in Inferno. They sit beside us, smile in our
faces, devoured by the flame of present torture. Reach to them the drop
of cold water.”
Imagination’s shuttle began to spin its swift, silent threads around this
aloof personality, and I spoke without restraint of grandma’s enduring,
pervasive spirituality, and of his boyhood’s promise. Gradually, then
eagerly, response came, his restraint unveiling boyishly under the luxury
of sympathy. He talked glowingly of Italy, of unconfessed adventure in
Egypt, of wandering and wonder in Sahara, of unexplained mystery in
India. Conversationally, his proved to be a sentient comprehension,
finely imaginative and suggestive, and momentarily revealing an
unsuspected, dual side, alien to the wild boy that I had known in
childhood. At last, I said:
“Forgive me, but experiencing and appreciating life as you do, is it not
remarkable that you have not married?”
“No. Some are born to be units,” he paused, “and the women I have known
have not been like you.”
“Ah, now you shall see the Laughing Duchess!” I returned, rising for the
candle.
He smiled down gravely upon me.
“It has been an unusual hour for me. You have caused me to forget time
and errand. But, now I must look at your things and go.”
I reminded him of his promise to remain for the night at Brookchase, and
he cast a wistful look around the room, but repeated:
“It is better that I should go.”
Feeling baffled, yet mentally exhilarated, I went into the adjoining
library, but the cold draft blew out my candle. Groping my way back,
with the little picture, I was arrested by the scene in the room beyond.
My guest stood with arms folded and face lifted to grandma’s portrait, as
though, in a tense moment, he were asking an impassioned question and
receiving a benedictory answer. When I entered, he turned to examine the
Mercury through his glass, and presently said:
“This is undoubtedly a genuine Benvenuto, Miss Legree. I believe your
fortune lies here!”
“Miss Legree!” I chided, and be flushed slightly, adding: “Enid.”
I reminded him that grandma owned only originals, and related the history
of the Fierienti; how it had been painted by the great Italian for the
queen, who was godmother to the little Laughing Duchess; how it came into
England with the eldest son of the duchess, and thence into France with a
grandson, an _émigré_ from the Revolution, who was grandma’s father.
“It was her treasure, but you, yourself, prevented us from making a fatal
mistake,” I smiled back to the luring laughter of the picture. “She
needed money once, almost as badly as—” I stopped. In his bladelike
glance of comprehension, quickly sheathed, lay the perception of a
forlorn hope in the shape of half a ham and eight sticks of wood. “As
many do,” I added, tritely. “The mortgage was due and I suggested
selling this picture, but the sons of the family had owned it, and she
wished to wait for your coming, that yours might be the decision. You
may call it an old lady’s over-scrupulous sense of loyalty, but I think
it very sweet. She sold, instead, the companion to the Buddha, and left
the Duchess to me. Now, I can, in a measure, fulfill her wish. Sell the
bronze and ivory, Cary, but do as you will about the Laughing Duchess.”
I put the picture in his hands, and he sat under the lamp examining it
with an expert’s eagerness. At last he said:
“I believe this to be the original Fierienti. Will you trust me with it,
irrespective of relationship?”
I said that I would trust him with anything, and he smiled, gravely, and
took out pen and check-book. “I must feel that you believe me to be
acting for your best interest. I confess that I came with the intention
of buying the picture. Its records were hazy where the London fire was
concerned, and it is a gem, but the Cellini Mercury must be valued by the
committee. I will leave you a deposit to secure both as my property, and
you will receive the maximum value after the final estimate is made. But
you may withdraw the sale at any time during the coming month, by wiring
to the bank upon which this check is drawn.”
“You are not—” I tried to say.
“Acting merely upon a personal basis? Not in the least. I am eager to
own the things, but will hold them at your disposal for a time.”
“Then they are yours,” I said. “For I confess having intended to sell
them to the first collector tomorrow. And probably rue it ever
afterwards, like old Mrs. Mace and her Romney.”
He rose, frowning darkly.
“So! You have heard of that nefarious transaction? Well,” he added,
cryptically, “you may have cause to thank old Mrs. Mace’s Romney.
Justice has a strange, inexplicable way of working out her problems in
spite of us.”
It was here that the clock struck eleven-thirty.
“I feel like Cinderella,” I said, my hand in a strong clasp which was
folding a check in it. “I do not want you to go, Cary!” For something
told me that I should see this brave, elusive personality no more.
“And I astonish myself by not wanting to go,” he said. “This room, this
hour, will linger like the perfume of a dream. Adieu, Cinderella!”
His lips touched my hand. A motor horn sounded sharply. He caught up
the antiques and his overcoat; there came a rush of cold air, a door
slammed and the motor rolled off. Then a blinding wave swept over
consciousness, and for a second I saw two lamp flames instead of one. I
caught at the table, and stood helpless with fact hammering the thing
upon unwilling reason, for, on the cuff, lifted to thrust into his coat
sleeve, I had seen two swastikas, in red Roman gold.
Then, I knew.
The smooth, dark head, the slender hand, the swastikas, belonged to the
man in the adjoining booth who had overheard my conversation with Prince,
even to the Brookchase address. Thought, like the wireless, was humming
electrically, putting together the sinister puzzle, insisting upon me
that I had been robbed. My fortune was gone; and at the same time
perverse subconsciousness was whispering: “No! No! No!”
Like the heroine of a movie melodrama, Martha advanced from the door,
with face set to tragedy. She held out a newspaper, uttering hoarsely:
“Look! ’Tain’t him!”
The front page was lavishly decorated with the heads of officers of the
International Exposition, the center one in large headlines: “Cary
Penwick, vice president.” Martha pointed dramatically to the
heavy-jowled, baggy-eyed visage, fully illustrating the voice over the
wire. She looked over her shoulder fearfully, and around the room,
before whispering:
“That’s him! Then who’s the other one?”
“Oh, he has gone,” I said, hysterically; “quite gone, and everything with
him!”
Martha sank on the nearest chair, and the paper fell fluttering to the
floor.
“I said we’d wake up some mornin’ and find ourselves murdered in our beds
on account of that there Duchess!” she wailed. I laughed helplessly; so
after all, I was juggled by fate into old Mrs. Mace’s successor! I
smoothed out the bit of crumpled paper, under the light, and read it
mechanically.
“To Enid Legree. . . . Forty thousand dollars. . . . Signed Ettère
Dantrè.”
Dantrè! . . . And Dantrè had a wager on with Penwick. . . . And
somebody had vowed to exhibit a Fierienti! And Dantrè had cried out
about old Mrs. Mace’s Romney! What did it mean? . . . And that heavy,
shifty-eyed countenance in the paper. . . . I sprang up, as the
telephone again rang, with hope surging upward. It was the voice of the
vice president of the Exposition:
“I could not get out tonight, my dear girl. . . . ’Fraid you’d wait up.
I’ll see you in the morning.”
The sharp contrast of that voice’s quality enhanced the memory of the
other. I thanked him, and proceeded to play the game.
“What should you say an original Fierienti would bring?” I asked.
“Your old copy? Well, about two-fifty, as it’s you, Enid.”
“And a genuine Cellini Mercury?” I added.
“A Cellini? Oh, my dear girl, that is nonsense! No doubt, though, yours
is a nice little imitation that ought to bring you as high as fifty
dollars.”