I CONVERSE WITH A MYSTERY
Late in the afternoon, I opened my door, hoping that the banging of
hammers and the buzz of industry would have ceased, but alas! the noise
was even more deafening than before. I was still in a state of nerves
over the events of the morning. There had been a most distressing lack
of poise on my part, and I couldn't help feeling after it was all over
that my sense of humour had received a shock from which it was not
likely to recover in a long time. There was but little consolation in
the reflection that my irritating visitors deserved something in the
shape of a rebuff; I could not separate myself from the conviction
that my integrity as a gentleman had suffered in a mistaken conflict
with humour. My headache, I think, was due in a large measure to the
sickening fear that I had made a fool of myself, notwithstanding my
efforts to make fools of them. My day was spoilt. My plans were upset
and awry.
Espying Britton in the gloomy corridor, I shouted to him, and he came
at once.
"Britton," said I, as he closed the door, "do you think they will carry
out their threat to have the law on me? Mr. Rocksworth was very
angry--and put out. He is a power, as you know."
"I think you are quite safe, sir," said he. "I've been waiting outside
since two o'clock to tell you something, sir, but hated to disturb
you. I--"
"Thank you, Britton, my head was aching dreadfully."
"Yes, sir. Quite so. Shortly before two, sir, one of the porters from
the hotel came over to recover a gold purse Mrs. Riley-Werkheimer had
dropped in the excitement, and he informed Mr. Poopendyke that the
whole party was leaving at four for Dresden. I asked particular about
the young man, sir, and he said they had the doctor in to treat his
stomach, sir, immediately after they got back to the hotel."
"His stomach? But I distinctly struck him on the verso."
"I know, sir; but it seems that he swallowed his cigarette."
To my shame, I joined Britton in a roar of laughter. Afterwards I
recalled, with something of a shock, that it was the first time I had
ever heard my valet laugh aloud. He appeared to be in some distress
over it himself, for he tried to turn it off into a violent fit of
coughing. He is such a faithful, exemplary servant that I made haste
to pound him on the back, fearing the worst. I could not get on at all
without Britton. He promptly recovered.
"I beg pardon, sir," said he. "Will you have your shave and tub now,
sir?"
Later on, somewhat refreshed and relieved, I made my way to the little
balcony, first having issued numerous orders and directions to the
still stupefied Schmicks, chief among which was an inflexible command
to keep the gates locked against all comers. The sun was shining
brightly over the western hills, and the sky was clear and blue. The
hour was five I found on consulting my watch. Naturally my first impulse
was to glance up at the still loftier balcony in the east wing. It was
empty. There was nothing in the grim, formidable prospect to warrant
the impression that any one dwelt behind those dismantled windows, and
I experienced the vague feeling that perhaps it had been a dream after
all.
Far below at the foot of the shaggy cliff ran the historic Donau,
serene and muddy, all rhythmic testimonials to the contrary. With
something of a shudder I computed the distance from my eerie perch to
the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. Five hundred feet, at least; an
impregnable wall of nature surmounted by a now rank and obsolete
obstruction built by the hand of man: a fortress that defied the legions
of old but to-day would afford no more than brief and even desultory
target practice for a smart battery. To scale the cliff, however, would
be an impossibility for the most resourceful general in the world. All
about me were turrets and minarets, defeated by the ancient and
implacable foe--Time. Shattered crests of towers hung above me, grey
and forbidding, yet without menace save in their senile prerogative
to collapse without warning. Tiny windows marked the face of my still
sturdy walls, like so many pits left by the pox, and from these in the
good old feudal days a hundred marksmen had thrust their thunderous
blunderbusses to clear the river of vain-glorious foes. From the
scalloped bastions cross-bowmen of even darker ages had shot their
random bolts; while in the niches of lower walls futile pikemen waited
for the impossible to happen: the scaling of the cliff!
Friend and foe alike came to the back door of Schloss Rothhoefen, and
there found welcome or stubborn obstacles that laughed at time and
locksmiths: monstrous gates that still were strong enough to defy a
mighty force. There was my great stone-paved courtyard, flanked on all
sides by disintegrating buildings once occupied by serfs and fighting
men; the stables in which chargers and beasts of burden had slept side
by side until called by the night's work or the day's work, as war or
peace prescribed, ranged close by the gates that opened upon the steep,
winding roadway that now dismayed all modern steeds save the conquering
ass. Here too were the remains of a once noble garden, and here were
the granaries and the storehouses.
Far below me were the dungeons, with dead men's bones on their dripping
floors; and somewhere in the heart of the peak were secret, unknown
passages, long since closed by tumbling rocks and earth, as darkly
mysterious as the streets in the buried cities of Egypt.
Across the river and below me stood the walled-in town that paid tribute
to the good and bad Rothhoefens in those olden days: a red-tiled,
gloomy city that stood as a monument to long-dead ambitions. A peaceful,
quiet town that had survived its parlous centuries of lust and greed,
and would go on living to the end of time.
So here I sat me down, almost at the top of my fancy, to wonder if it
were not folly as well!
Above me soared huge white-bellied birds, cousins germain to my dreams,
but alas! infinitely more sensible in that they roamed for a more
sustaining nourishment than the so-called food for thought.
I looked backward to the tender years when my valiant young heart kept
pace with a fertile brain in its swiftest flights, and pinched myself
to make sure that this was not all imagination. Was I really living
in a feudal castle with romance shadowing me at every step? Was this
I, the dreamer of twenty years ago? Or was I the last of the Rothhoefens
and not John Bellamy Smart, of Madison Avenue, New York?
The sun shone full upon me as I sat there in my little balcony, but
I liked the dry, warm glare of it. To be perfectly frank, the castle
was a bit damp. I had had a pain in the back of my neck for two whole
days. The sooner I got at my novel and finished it up the better, I
reflected. Then I could go off to the baths somewhere. But would I
ever settle down to work? Would the plumbers ever get off the place?
(They were the ones I seemed to suspect the most.)
Suddenly, as I sat there ruminating, I became acutely aware of something
white on the ledge of the topmost window in the eastern tower. Even
as I fixed my gaze upon it, something else transpired. A cloud of soft,
wavy, luxurious brown hair eclipsed the narrow white strip and hung
with spreading splendour over the casement ledge, plainly, indubitably
to dry in the sun!
My neighbour had washed her hair!
And it was really a most wonderful head of hair. I can't remember ever
having seen anything like it, except in the advertisements.
For a long time I sat there trying to pierce the blackness of the room
beyond the window with my straining eyes, deeply sensitive to a
curiosity that had as its basic force the very natural anxiety to know
what disposition she had made of the rest of her person in order to
obtain this rather startling effect.
Of course, I concluded, she was lying on a couch of some description,
with her head in the window. That was quite clear, even to a dreamer.
And perhaps she was reading a novel while the sun shone. My fancy went
to the remotest ends of probability: she might even be reading one of
mine!
What a glorious, appealing, sensuous thing a crown of hair--but just
then Mr. Poopendyke came to my window.
"May I interrupt you for a moment, Mr. Smart?" he inquired, as he
squinted at me through his ugly bone-rimmed glasses.
"Come here, Poopendyke," I commanded in low, excited tones. He
hesitated. "You won't fall off," I said sharply.
Although the window is at least nine feet high, Poopendyke stooped as
he came through. He always does it, no matter how tall the door. It
is a life-long habit with him. Have I mentioned that my worthy secretary
is six feet four, and as thin as a reed? I remember speaking of his
knees. He is also a bachelor.
"It is a dreadful distance down there," he murmured, flattening himself
against the wall and closing his eyes.
A pair of slim white hands at that instant indolently readjusted the
thick mass of hair and quite as casually disappeared. I failed to hear
Mr. Poopendyke's remark.
"I think, sir," he proceeded, "it would be a very good idea to get
some of our correspondence off our hands. A great deal of it has
accumulated in the past few weeks. I wish to say that I am quite ready
to attend to it whenever--"
"Time enough for letters," said I, still staring.
"We ought to clean them all up before we begin on the romance, sir.
That's my suggestion. We shan't feel like stopping for a lot of silly
letters--By the way, sir, when do you expect to start on the romance?"
He usually spoke of them as romances. They were not novels to
Poopendyke.
I came to my feet, the light of adventure in my eye.
"This very instant, Poopendyke," I exclaimed.
His face brightened. He loves work.
"Splendid! I will have your writing tablets ready in--"
"First of all, we _must_ have a ladder. Have you seen to that?"
"A ladder?" he faltered, putting one foot back through the window in
a most suggestive way.
"Oh," said I, remembering, "I haven't told you, have I? Look! Up there
in that window. Do you see _that_?"
"What is it, sir? A rug?"
"Rug! Great Scott, man, don't you know a woman's hair when you see it?"
"I've never--er--never seen it--you might say--just like that. Is it
_hair_?"
"It is. You _do_ see it, don't you?"
"How did it get there?"
"Good! Now I know I'm not dreaming. Come! There's no time to be lost.
We may be able to get up there before she hears us!"
I was through the window and half way across the room before his
well-meant protest checked me.
"For heaven's sake, Mr. Smart, don't be too hasty. We can't rush in
upon a woman unexpectedly like this. Who knows? She may be entirely--"
He caught himself up sharply, blinked, and then rounded out his sentence
in safety with the word "deshabille."
I was not to be turned aside by drivel of that sort; so, with a scornful
laugh, I hurried on and was soon in the courtyard, surrounded by at
least a score of persons who madly inquired where the fire was, and
wanted to help me to put it out. At last we managed to get them back
at their work, and I instructed old Conrad to have the tallest ladder
brought to me at once.
"There is no such thing about the castle," he announced blandly, puffing
away at his enormous pipe. His wife shook her head in perfect serenity.
Somewhat dashed, I looked about me in quest of proof that they were
lying to me. There was no sign of anything that even resembled a ladder.
"Where are your sons?" I demanded.
The old couple held up their hands in great distress.
"Herr Britton has them working their souls out, turning a windlass
outside the gates--ach, that terrible invention of his!" groaned old
Conrad. "My poor sons are faint with fatigue, mein herr. You should
see them perspire,--and hear them pant for breath."
"It is like the blowing of the forge bellows," cried his wife. "My
poor little boys!"
"Fetch them at once Conrad," said I, cudgelling my brain for a means
to surmount a present difficulty, and but very slightly interested in
Britton's noble contraption.
The brothers soon appeared and, as if to give the lie to their fond
parents, puffed complacently at their pipes and yawned as if but
recently aroused from a nap. Their sleeves were rolled up and I
marvelled at the size of their arms.
"Is Britton dead?" I cried, suddenly cold with the fear that they had
mutinied against this brusque English overlord.
They smiled. "He is waiting to be pulled up again, sir," said Max. "We
left him at the bottom when you sent for us. It is for us to obey."
Of course, everything had to wait while my obedient vassals went forth
and reeled the discomforted Britton to the top of the steep. He
sputtered considerably until he saw me laughing at him. Instantly he
was a valet once more, no longer a crabbed genius.
I had thought of a plan, only to discard it on measuring with my eye
the distance from the ground to the lowest window in the east wing,
second floor back. Even by standing on the shoulders of Rudolph, who
was six feet five, I would still find myself at least ten feet short
of the window ledge. Happily a new idea struck me almost at once.
In a jiffy, half a dozen carpenters were at work constructing a
substantial ladder out of scantlings, while I stood over them in serene
command of the situation.
The Schmicks segregated themselves and looked on, regarding the window
with sly, furtive glances in which there was a distinct note of
uneasiness.
At last the ladder was complete. Resolutely I mounted to the top and
peered through the sashless window. It was quite black and repelling
beyond. Instructing Britton and the two brothers to follow me in turn,
I clambered over the wide stone sill and lowered myself gingerly to
the floor.
I will not take up the time or the space to relate my experiences on
this first fruitless visit to the east wing of my abiding place. Suffice
to say, we got as far as the top of the stairs in the vast middle
corridor after stumbling through a series of dim, damp rooms, and then
found our way effectually blocked by a stout door which was not only
locked and bolted, but bore a most startling admonition to would-be
trespassers.
Pinned to one of the panels there was a dainty bit of white note-paper,
with these satiric words written across its surface in a bold, feminine
hand:
"_Please keep out. This is private property._"
Most property owners no doubt would have been incensed by this calm
defiance on the part of a squatter, either male or female, but not I.
The very impudence of the usurper appealed to me. What could be more
delicious than her serene courage in dispossessing me, with the stroke
of a pen, of at least two-thirds of my domicile, and what more exciting
than the thought of waging war against her in the effort to regain
possession of it? Really it was quite glorious! Here was a happy,
enchanting bit of feudalism that stirred my romantic soul to its very
depths. I was being defied by a woman--an amazon! Even my grasping
imagination could not have asked for more substantial returns than
this. To put her to rout! To storm the castle! To make her captive and
chuck her into my dungeon! Splendid!
We returned to the courtyard and held a counsel of war. I put all of
the Schmicks on the grill, but they stubbornly disclaimed all interest
in or knowledge of the extraordinary occupant of the east wing.
"We can smoke her out, sir," said Britton.
I could scarcely believe my ears.
"Britton," said I severely, "you are a brute. I am surprised. You
forget there is an innocent babe--maybe a collection of them--over
there. And a dog. We shan't do anything heathenish, Britton. Please
bear that in mind. There is but one way: we must storm the place. I
will not be defied to my very nose."
I felt it to see if it was not a little out of joint. "It is a good
nose."
"It is, sir," said Britton, and Poopendyke, in a perfect ecstasy of
loyalty, shouted: "Long live your nose, sir!"
My German vassals waved their hats, perceiving that a demonstration
was required without in the least knowing what it was about.
"To-night we'll plan our campaign," said I, and then returned in some
haste to my balcony. The mists of the waning day were rising from the
valley below. The smell of rain was in the air. I looked in vain for
the lady's tresses. They were gone. The sun was also gone. His work
for the day was done. I wondered whether she was putting up her hair
with her own fair hands or was there a lady's maid in her menage.
Poopendyke and I dined in solemn grandeur in the great banquet hall,
attended by the clumsy Max.
"Mr. Poopendyke," said I, after Max had passed me the fish for the
second time on my right side--and both times across my shoulder,--"we
must engage a butler and a footman to-morrow. Likewise a chef. This
is too much."
"Might I suggest that we also engage a chambermaid? The beds are very
poorly--"
I held up my hand, smiling confidently.
"We may capture a very competent chambermaid before the beds are made
up again," I said, with meaning.
"She doesn't write like a chambermaid," he reminded me. Whereupon we
fell to studying the very aristocratic chirography employed by my
neighbour in barring me from my own possessions.
After the very worst meal that Frau Schmick had ever cooked, and the
last one that Max under any circumstance would be permitted to serve,
I took myself off once more to the enchanted balcony. I was full of
the fever of romance. A perfect avalanche of situations had been
tumbling through my brain for hours, and, being a provident sort of
chap in my own way, I decided to jot them down on a pad of paper before
they quite escaped me or were submerged by others.
The night was very black and tragic, swift storm clouds having raced
up to cover the moon and stars. With a radiant lanthorn in the window
behind me, I sat down with my pad and my pipe and my pencil. The storm
was not far away. I saw that it would soon be booming about my
stronghold, and realised that my fancy would have to work faster than
it had ever worked before if half that I had in mind was to be
accomplished. Why I should have courted a broken evening on the exposed
balcony, instead of beginning my labours in my study, remains an
unrevealed mystery unless we charge it to the account of a much-abused
eccentricity attributed to genius and which usually turns out to be
arrant stupidity.
I have no patience with the so-called eccentricity of genius. It is
merely an excuse for unkempt hair, dirty finger-nails, unpolished
boots, open placquets, bad manners and a tendency to forget pecuniary
obligations, to say nothing of such trifles as besottednesss, vulgarity
and the superior knack of knowing how to avoid making suitable provision
for one's wife and children. All the shabby short-comings in the
character of an author, artist or actor are blithely charged to genius,
and we are content to let it go at that for fear that other people may
think we don't know any better. As for myself, I may be foolish and
inconsequential, but heaven will bear witness that I am not mean enough
to call myself a genius.
So we will call it stupidity that put me where I might be rained upon
at any moment, or permanently interrupted by a bolt of lightning.
(There were low mutterings of thunder behind the hills, and faint
flashes as if a monstrous giant had paused to light his pipe on the
evil, wind-swept peaks of the Caucasus mountains.)
I was scribbling away in serene contempt for the physical world, when
there came to my ears a sound that gave me a greater shock than any
streak of lightning could have produced and yet left sufficient life
in me to appreciate the sensation of being electrified.
A woman's voice, speaking to me out of the darkness and from some point
quite near at hand! Indeed, I could have sworn it was almost at my
elbow; she might have been peering over my shoulder to read my thoughts.
"I beg your pardon, but would you mind doing me a slight favour?"
Those were the words, uttered in a clear, sweet, perfectly confident
voice, as of one who never asked for favours, but exacted them.
I looked about me, blinking, utterly bewildered. No one was to be seen.
She laughed. Without really meaning to do so, I also laughed,--nervously,
of course.
"Can't you see me?" she asked. I looked intently at the spot from which
the sound seemed to come: a perfectly solid stone block less than three
feet from my right shoulder. It must have been very amusing. She laughed
again. I flushed resentfully.
"Where are you?" I cried out rather tartly.
"I can see you quite plainly, and you are very ugly when you scowl,
sir. Are you scowling at me?"
"I don't know," I replied truthfully, still searching for her. "Does
it seem so to you?"
"Yes."
"Then I must be looking in the right direction," I cried impolitely.
"You must be--Ah!"
My straining eyes had located a small, oblong blotch in the curve of
the tower not more than twenty feet from where I stood, and on a direct
line with my balcony. True, I could not at first see a face, but as
my eyes grew a little more accustomed to the darkness, I fancied I
could distinguish a shadow that might pass for one.
"I didn't know that little window was there," I cried, puzzled.
"It isn't," she said. "It is a secret loop-hole, and it isn't here
except in times of great duress. See! I can close it." The oblong
blotch abruptly disappeared, only to reappear an instant later. I was
beginning to understand. Of course it was in the beleaguered east wing!
"I hope I didn't startle you a moment ago."
I resolved to be very stiff and formal about it. "May I enquire, madam,
what you are doing in my hou--my castle?"
"You may."
"Well," said I, seeing the point, "what are you doing here?"
"I am living here," she answered distinctly.
"So I perceive," said I, rather too distinctly.
"And I have come down to ask a simple, tiny little favour of you, Mr.
Smart," she resumed.
"You know my name?" I cried, surprised.
"I am reading your last book--Are you going?"
"Just a moment, please," I called out, struck by a splendid idea.
Reaching inside the window I grasped the lanthorn and brought its rays
to bear upon the--perfectly blank wall! I stared open-mouthed and
unbelieving. "Good heaven! Have I been dreaming all this?" I cried
aloud.
My gaze fell upon two tiny holes in the wall, exposed to view by the
bright light of my lamp. They appeared to be precisely in the centre
of the spot so recently marked by the elusive oblong. Even as I stared
at the holes, a slim object that I at once recognised as a finger
protruded from one of them and wiggled at me in a merry but exceedingly
irritating manner.
Sensibly I restored the lanthorn to its place inside the window and
waited for the mysterious voice to resume.
"Are you so homely as all that?" I demanded when the shadowy face
looked out once more. Very clever of me, I thought.
"I am considered rather good-looking," she replied, serenely. "Please
don't do that again. It was very rude of you, Mr. Smart." "Oh, I've
seen something of you before this," I said. "You have long, beautiful
brown hair--and a dog."
She was silent.
"I am sure you will pardon me if I very politely ask who you are?" I
went on.
"That question takes me back to the favour. Will you be so very, very
kind as to cease bothering me, Mr. Smart? It is dreadfully upsetting,
don't you feeling that at any moment you may rush in and--"
"I like that. In my own castle, too!"
"There is ample room for both of us," she said sharply. "I shan't be
here for more than a month or six weeks, and I am sure we can get along
very amiably under the same roof for that length of time if you'll
only forget that I am here."
"I can't very well do that, madam. You see, we are making extensive
repairs about the place and you are proving to be a serious obstacle.
I cannot grant your request. It will grieve me enormously if I am
compelled to smoke you out but I fear--"
"Smoke me out!"
"Perhaps with sulphur," I went on resolutely. "It is said to be very
effective."
"Surely you will not do anything so horrid."
"Only as a last resort. First, we shall storm the east wing. Failing
in that we shall rely on smoke. You will admit that you have no right
to poach on my preserves."
"None whatever," she said, rather plaintively.
I can't remember having heard a sweeter voice than hers. Of course,
by this time, I was thoroughly convinced that she was a lady,--a
cultured, high-bred lady,--and an American. I was too densely enveloped
by the fogginess of my own senses at this time, however, to take in
this extraordinary feature of the case. Later on, in the seclusion of
my study, the full force of it struck me and I marvelled.
That plaintive note in her voice served its purpose. My firmness seemed
to dissolve, even as I sought to reinforce it by an injection of
harshness into my own manner of speech.
"Then you should be willing to vacate my premises er--or--" here is
where I began to show irresoluteness--"or explain yourself."
"Won't you be generous?"
I cleared my throat nervously. How well they know the cracks in a man's
armour!
"I am willing to be--amenable to reason. That's all you ought to
expect." A fresh idea took root. "Can't we effect a compromise? A
truce, or something of the sort? All I ask is that you explain your
presence here. I will promise to be as generous as possible under the
circumstances."
"Will you give me three days in which to think it over?" she asked,
after a long pause.
"No."
"Well, two days?"
"I'll give you until to-morrow afternoon at five, when I shall expect
you to receive me in person."
"That is quite impossible."
"But I demand the right to go wherever I please in my own castle.
You--"
"If you knew just how circumspect I am obliged to be at present you
wouldn't impose such terms, Mr. Smart."
"Oho! Circumspect! That puts a new light on the case. What have you
been up to, madam?" I spoke very severely.
She very properly ignored the banality. "If I should write you a nice,
agreeable letter, explaining as much as I can, won't you be satisfied?"
"I prefer to have it by word of mouth."
She seemed to be considering. "I will come to this window to-morrow
night at this time and--and let you know," she said reluctantly.
"Very well," said I. "We'll let it rest till then."
"And, by the way, I have something more to ask of you. Is it quite
necessary to have all this pounding and hammering going on in the
castle? The noise is dreadful. I don't ask it on my own account, but
for the baby. You see, she's quite ill with a fever, Mr. Smart. Perhaps
you've heard her crying."
"The baby?" I muttered.
"It is nothing serious, of course. The doctor was here to-day and he
reassured me--"
"A--a doctor here to-day?" I gasped.
She laughed once more. Verily, it was a gentle, high-bred laugh.
"Will you please put a stop to the noise for a day or two?" she asked,
very prettily.
"Certainly," said I too surprised to say anything else. "Is--is there
anything else?"
"Nothing, thank you," she replied. Then: "Good night, Mr. Smart. You
are very good."
"Don't forget to-morrow--"
But the oblong aperture disappeared with a sharp click, and I found
myself staring at the blank, sphynx-like wall.
Taking up my pad, my pipe and my pencil, and leaving all of my cherished
ideas out there in the cruel darkness, never to be recovered,--at least
not in their original form,--I scrambled through the window, painfully
scraping my knee in passing,--just in time to escape the deluge.
I am sure I should have enjoyed a terrific drenching if she had chosen
to subject me to it.