It was seven o'clock on a rainy evening, and Kenwick turned up the
collar of his coat as he left the St. Germaine. Inside the Hartshire
Building there was a cheerful warmth that promised well for the evening.
He ignored the elevator and walked up the three flights of stairs to the
floor where the photographer had his rooms. On the way, he tried to
persuade himself that he was not doing this in order to gain time. But
there was a good hour intervening between now and time to start for the
theater, and at the end of that hour, he reflected Jarvis might not care
to keep the engagement.
As he toiled upward Kenwick considered every possible detail of the
scene that was before him, and then wearily discarded them all. "Why do
I do it?" he challenged himself, as he reached the last landing. "How do
I dare to do it? My God! I can't afford to do it; I've got to have one
friend left!"
But as he had once told Jarvis, those scenes of life whose settings are
scrupulously ordered usually lack dramatic climax. At the end of what he
was pleased to characterize as his "confession," the photographer
surveyed him with sympathetic but unastonished eyes.
"I'd begun to think that there might be something personal in it," he
commented. "I could see that there was something lying heavy on your
chest. It's a devilish mess, isn't it?"
The other man was looking at him with a disconcerting sharpness. But the
thing for which he probed was not in Granville Jarvis's eyes.
"I seem to be such a helpless sort of brute," his host went on, and
pushed a box of cigars across the table as though in an unconscious
effort to make up with tobacco what he lacked in counsel. "I never can
think of the right thing to do just on the spur of the minute.
Inspiration has an uncomfortable habit of failing to keep her
engagements with me."
"I didn't expect any advice," Kenwick told him. "But it's a relief to
tell you and get it off my mind; to tell you and yet not have you think
that I ought to be locked up."
"Somebody ought to be locked up," Jarvis remarked grimly. "And it's your
job to find that person. Why don't you go East?"
"I am going East. I've decided to go next week. It would be hard to make
you understand why I haven't done it before, but----Well, this sort of
an--illness does a terrible thing to a man's soul, Jarvis. It paralyzes
his initiative. It gives him the most deadly thing in this world; the
patience of despair. I'm constantly _waiting_ for things to clear up
instead of going at them hammer and tongs."
His companion nodded. "I think I understand. It would be the hell of a
situation for you back there among people you've always known, and who
presumably know all about you, and not being able to bridge the gap. I
can see why you wanted to get a line on yourself first, and you're
right, too. After all, a man owes something to his nervous system. But
since you've decided to go and brave it out back there I think I'd let
things rest the way they are till you go. Sometimes life works itself
out better if we don't interfere too much. Somebody is bound to make a
foolish play if you let them all manage their own hands."
"And yet somebody told me the other day, Jarvis, that I was too passive
in the crutches of fate; that I ought to be more combative, more
aggressive."
Jarvis laughed. "I'd be willing to bet that it was a woman who told you
that."
"Yes, a woman did tell me. It was that trance medium."
"I might have guessed it. By the way, I went to see her myself the other
day. Your story got me interested. She ought to have paid you a liberal
commission for that yarn. But I suppose she doesn't even know you wrote
it. She struck me as being a mighty clever little woman. Well, it's
after eight o'clock. Let's go."
They found their seats in the first row of the balcony. The house was
brilliantly lighted and filling up rapidly. But although Jarvis had
urged his companion to forget for a time the tangle in which he was
enmeshed, it was he who returned to the theme while they sat waiting for
the curtain to rise.
"The trouble is, there's a missing link in the chain somewhere. I don't
mean an event, but a person. Somebody dealt those cards, of course, and
whoever did it knows where the marked one is. The New York trip may be a
wild goose chase after all. Did you ever think of hiring a detective to
help you out?"
"Yes, I've thought of it a lot. But somehow I don't want to do it. I
don't want to have anybody mixed up in my affairs as intimately as
that. I can't explain my feeling about it. But there is so much noise
about this sort of thing if it once rises to the surface, and if there's
any graft connected with my name, I'd like to keep the scandal private.
Besides," he laughed with a tolerant self-indulgence, "I don't suppose
the person lives, Jarvis, who doesn't believe that way down inside of
him somewhere, sleeping but never dead, is the genius of the detective.
I've made a sort of a covenant with myself that I and no other shall run
this thing to cover, and do it without kicking up a noise."
Jarvis was staring speculatively at the foot-lights. "It's one of the
most curious cases I ever knew. I'll tell you what, Kenwick. You're the
original 'Wise Man from Our Town.' Remember him?
"And when he found his eyes were out,
With all his might and main,
He jumped into the bramble-bush
And scratched them back again."
"A dangerous experiment, I always thought," Kenwick remarked.
"So is dynamite, but sometimes we have to use it, and nothing else will
take its place."
"Are you advising me to put a bomb under somebody on the chance that it
might be the man who shuffled the deck?"
"No. I'm advising you to do the bramble-bush stunt. Don't jump forward;
jump back."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, the more I think of it the more I believe that the solution of
this mystery is to be found in the place where it began."
"But where did it begin?"
"So far as your knowledge of it extends, it began in the cañon or ravine
or whatever place it was that you had the accident. If I'm not mistaken,
Kenwick, that place is your bramble-bush."
The curtain rose upon the first act and there was no opportunity for
further conversation. It was during the intermission between the second
and third acts that Jarvis, leaning over the balcony, said suddenly,
"There's a friend of yours; fourth row on the right."
Kenwick made a cursory examination of the seats and shook his head.
"Don't see him. Don't see anybody I know here to-night except Aiken, our
dramatic critic."
"This is a woman. Count seven seats over in the fourth row. Isn't that
lady in the garnet-colored coat your Madame Rosalie?"
"You're right; it is."
"I thought I couldn't be mistaken. There's a certain air of distinction
about that woman in spite of----" Jarvis stopped, for he saw that his
companion was not listening. For a moment Kenwick sat there staring down
at the fourth row like a man in a dream. Then he gripped Jarvis's arm.
"Look!" he cried. "Down there with Madame Rosalie."
"What's the matter? You're such an excitable cuss, Kenwick."
"That fellow who's with her. Look! Jarvis, _that's_ the man!"
"What man?"
"The man we've been talking about--my Missing Link."
Together they leaned over the balcony and scrutinized, with the intent
gaze of a pair of detectives, the couple in the fourth row right. It may
have been coincidence, or it may have been that species of visual
hypnotism known to us all, which suddenly impelled Madame Rosalie's
escort to turn in his seat. His eyes swept the house with a casual
glance, then lifted to the balcony. Slowly they surveyed the arc of
faces above the lights. The two men leaning toward him did not move. In
another instant he had found them, and for a full minute he and Roger
Kenwick held each other. And then the theater went black as the curtain
rose on the last act.
Just before it was over Kenwick bade his companion a hurried farewell.
"I'm going down and introduce myself to that fellow. I know I've seen
him before somewhere, and he may be able to give me my clue. You don't
mind if I break away? I want to catch him before he is lost in the
crowd."
But this hope was thwarted. For hurrying down the aisle in that moment
before the rush of exit, while the audience was finding its wraps, he
found two seats in the fourth row empty. Slowly he walked back to the
St. Germaine, his thoughts in a tumult. Why should they have wanted to
leave before the end of as good a performance as that? Something must
have happened. Could it be that they had wanted to escape him? At such
long range it hadn't been possible for him to determine whether or not
there was a flash of recognition in the other man's eyes, but his
mysterious disappearance was haunting. On the following morning, before
going to the "Clarion" office he took a car out to Fillmore Street.
At Madame Rosalie's shabby home a man in shirt sleeves opened the door.
"Oh, she don't live here any more," he explained to the caller. "She
moved a week ago. I'm gettin' the place ready for a new tenant."
"Do you know where she went?"
The man grinned. "Them mediums don't generally leave no forwardin'
address. Their motto is 'Keep Movin'.' I will say, though, that the
Rosalie woman was a perfect lady and paid her rent regular in advance."
Kenwick walked away, turning this latest development slowly in his mind,
looking at it from every angle. At his office he worked mechanically,
scarcely conscious of what he wrote. He was in two minds now about the
Eastern trip. Perhaps it would be better to take Jarvis's advice and let
things have their head a bit longer. And he was certain of some of his
facts now. The face of the man in the fourth row had been like the flash
of a torch at midnight. For most of the night he had been awake, going
back over the painful trail of the past, fitting some of its previously
incomprehensible details into their places. What a curious mosaic his
life had been! What contrasts of light and shade! But as for going back
to Mont-Mer----The idea made him shudder. No, that was one thing he
would not do. It would be like courting the return of a nightmare.
At four o'clock he left the office and went to keep an appointment with
Dr. Gregson Bennet in the Physicians' Building. Dr. Bennet belonged to
that class of specialists who designate their business quarters in
plural terms. His offices comprised a suite of four rooms. The sign on
the door of the first one invited the caller to enter, unheralded.
Complying with this injunction, Kenwick found himself in a well-lighted
chamber containing a massive collection of light-green upholstery and an
assortment of foreign-looking pictures artfully selected to convey the
impression that their owner was on chummy terms with the capitals of
Europe.
As the door closed automatically behind him, a white-uniformed figure
appeared, like a perfectly trained cuckoo, from the adjoining room and
announced in level tones, "The-doctor-will-see-you-in-just-a-minute."
Kenwick accepted this assurance with the grave credulity that one
fiction-maker accords another. He glanced at the five other patients
already awaiting their turns and picked up a magazine.
By four-thirty he had read the jokes in the back of "Anybody's Magazine"
for the preceding six months. No physician in reputable standing ever
removes old numbers of periodicals from his files. For what better
testimony can he offer in support of his claim upon a long-established
practice? As Kenwick read, he was aware that his companions were being
summoned one by one to embark upon that mysterious journey from whose
bourne no traveler returns, departure having been arranged for around
some obscure corner, to prevent exchange between arriving and retreating
patient of a "Look! Stop! Listen!" signal.
By five o'clock only one other patient besides himself remained; a
little woman in shiny serge suit and passée summer hat. Kenwick put down
his magazine with a long-drawn sigh, and she smiled in patient sympathy.
"Gets pretty tiresome waitin', doesn't it?" she ventured.
His quick eyes took in her shabby suit and the knotted ungloved hands.
She was probably the mother of a growing family, he reflected, and would
not get home in time now to prepare dinner. His easy sympathy flared
into words.
"It's an outrage to keep people waiting like this when they have an
appointment for a definite hour. They tell me Bennet's a nerve
specialist, and I believe it."
She smiled wanly, but there was an eager championship in her response.
"Oh, but he's wonderful! When he once begins to talk to you, you forget
all about bein' mad at him. Seems like he sees right through your head
to tell what's the matter with you."
The white uniform appeared and pronounced a name: "Mr. Kenwick." He rose
and followed her through the door. The second room was like the first,
minus reading-matter and plus wall-charts. Here he sat, gazing at the
fire-escapes on the opposite building, while the white uniform made a
not completely satisfying attempt to collect family statistics. And
then, at last, the door of the third room opened and Dr. Bennet himself
emerged. He was enveloped in a heavy white apron that recalled to
Kenwick's mind the pictures he had seen in the agricultural magazines
featuring model dairying.
But if the specialist had been slow to admit him, he was equally
reluctant to let him go. When he had finished his examination, Kenwick
stood beside the couch in the fourth and last room pulling on his coat.
"Then you think I'm in pretty good condition, doctor?" Through the
half-open door he could see the white uniform hovering, like an emblem
of peace, above a steaming basin of warlike instruments.
"I should say," the physician told him slowly, "that you are absolutely
sound. Your nerves are a bit too highly charged, but I imagine that is
more a matter of temperament than overstrain."
"Is that all?"
"No, that isn't all. The history of your case, as you have given it to
me, is a most interesting one. And you were right to let me make the
examination and form my own conclusions before telling me anything about
your history. I wish it were possible for you to recall the name of the
physician who handled your case in France. I'd like to get the
scientific beginning of the story. Without it I can only make a guess,
and guessing is not satisfactory. But I think that in his place I should
have taken the chance and operated. However, you can't judge; he may not
have had the proper equipment. I wish you would come around next
Saturday when the office is closed, and let me make some X-ray plates.
I'd like to display them at the medical convention in April."
"And what do you advise me to do for my--my mental health?"
"Forget your mental health. Take some regular out-of-door exercise and
mix with your friends. I can't give you any better prescription than
that. If it were something done up in pink paper you'd be more apt to
take it, I know."
Kenwick walked back through the darkening streets with a feeling of
exultation. The pendulum of his despair was swinging backward to a
height only attained by those who can plumb the depths of wretchedness.
For the first time in six weeks he felt his old defiance of life. And
recalling the pale ghost of a former prayer, he was ashamed of its
cowardice. "_That_ never happens to the desperate and the lonely," he
reminded himself grimly. "The best security on earth for a prolonged
life is to express a sincere desire to die. After that, you lead a
charmed existence. Houses burn to the ground and not one inmate escapes;
ships go down with everybody aboard; pedestrians are run over by cars
and shot by thugs, but none of these things come near the man who courts
them. They overtake those whom others find it hard to spare, those whose
lives are vivid with purpose."
As he walked back to the hotel he found himself thinking of Marcreta
again. Had he ever really made a place for himself in her life? Whether
he had or not, he knew that he had never, even in his blackest moments,
given her up. All the plans for his future centered still about her.
Well, he had a fight before him now, and not until he won it would he
make himself known at the house on Pine Street.
On the corner a newsboy thrust a paper under his face. He waved it
aside. "I can read all that bunk for nothing, sonny," he told him
cheerfully. The huge head-lines filled him with a spiritual nausea. The
chronicle of the day's tragedies for the public to batten upon! Was
there never to be an end to America's greed for the sensational?
At the St. Germaine the clerk handed him a telephone call. It was from
Jarvis and urged him to call him up immediately. In his own room Kenwick
complied with this request. The voice of the Southerner came to him,
sharply commanding, over the wire. "Can you come around right away? I
want to talk it over with you."
"Talk what over?" Kenwick's voice was almost defiant.
"Why, haven't you seen it? Well, come around anyway. I'll be here for
the next hour."
When Kenwick arrived at the Hartshire he found the photographer sorting
over a pile of films. But as his guest entered, he swept these into a
pasteboard box, and cleared off a chair for him. "Where have you been?"
he demanded. "I called you at the hotel and the 'Clarion' office twice."
Kenwick gave him a brief account of the last two hours. Jarvis grunted.
"Well, I don't blame you for wanting to get the seal of scientific
approval but--I can't believe that you haven't read the 'Record' yet.
And you a newspaper man!"
He fished the paper out from under a stack of developing-trays and
searched the columns of the second page. "Remember what I suggested to
you last night, that you let things take their own course for a while?
Well, it seems that they've been taking them in rather a headlong
fashion." He creased back the page and handed the paper to Kenwick.
"Read that and see if it doesn't give you something of a jolt."
He took the paper. The head-lines at the top of the third page riveted
themselves upon his brain.
RELATIVE SEEKS MISSING MAN
Body of Roger Kenwick to Be Exhumed at Mont-Mer
The body of Roger Kenwick, son of the late Charles Kenwick, of New
York, who died at Rest Hollow last November, is to be exhumed for
examination on the demand of Mrs. Hilda Fanwell, of Reno, Nevada.
Mrs. Fanwell, a widow, arrived from her home last week in search of
her brother, Ralph Regan, who has been a resident of Mont-Mer for
the last two years. A letter received from him in the early part of
November indicated, according to the sister's statement, that he
was in failing health. Being unable to come to him then, owing to
the illness of her husband, Mrs. Fanwell wrote several letters,
none of which were answered. The description of her brother, which
she furnished the police, has resulted in a demand to the
authorities to have the body of Roger Kenwick exhumed.
Kenwick let the paper slide to the table. "My Lord!" he murmured.
"Jarvis, what would you do about it?"
"Why should _you_ do anything about it? This Fanwell woman is apparently
the oldest Gold Dust twin. Let her do your work."
But Kenwick's eyes were still fixed upon the paper. Over it a drop of
acid from the developing-tray was eating a slow passage. "But to see my
name tied up to a gruesome thing like that----Why, you can't imagine
how it----It gives me the feeling that--that I've just begun on this
thing. And I thought when I came in here that I had all the cards in my
hands."
He got up from the table slowly, like a hospital patient testing his
strength on the first day out of bed. And Jarvis, after one glance at
his pale face, rose too. "You've got nothing to worry about----," he
began. But Kenwick waved the soothing aside with a fierce impatience.
"Nothing to worry about?" he cried hotly. "Don't offer me that stuff,
Jarvis. How do I know--how _can_ I ever know what I may have done during
those ghastly ten months?"