I
The car crossed to the Avenue and bore north. Archie was again left high
in air. He had expected to be piloted by circuitous routes to some vile
thieves' den in the intricate mazes of the East Side, but the car and
the smartly appareled men encouraged the hope of a very different
destination. The Governor, evidently enjoying his companion's
befuddlement, talked of the changes that had taken place in the upper
city in his memory. His reminiscences did not interest Archie greatly.
He thought it likely the Governor was uttering commonplaces for the
benefit of the men on the box, who could easily hear their passengers'
conversation through the partition windows. The car passed two clubs in
which Archie was a member in good standing and he caught a fleeting
glimpse down an intersecting thoroughfare of the apartment house in
which he was a tenant with a recurrence of the disagreeable questionings
he had experienced so frequently as to whether he was himself or some
other and very different person.
The Governor had not warned him to avoid marking the route, which was as
familiar to Archie as the palm of his hand, but somewhere in the
Seventies he did for a moment lose track of the streets, and the car,
swinging east, stopped midway of a block of handsome residences. There
was still the chance that this was all by-play, a trick for concealing
their arrival in town; but the footman was already ringing the bell of a
house whose facade was the most distinguished in sight. The door was
opened by a manservant, whose face expressed pleasure as the Governor
passed him with all the airs of incontestable proprietorship.
"I think we may as well go at once to our rooms," he said. "You
understand, Baring, that we dine at seven-thirty--places for three?"
"Very good, sir: I received your telegram."
Amid the various phases of surprise through which he had passed since
reaching the station Archie had kept his ears open, thinking the
servants would address their employer by a name, but no such clue was
forthcoming. The house exhaled an atmosphere of luxury and taste, and
the furnishings were rich and consistently chosen. Archie recalled
twenty houses in which he was frequently a guest that in nowise
approached the Governor's establishment for comfort and charm. If he had
been puzzled before he was stupefied now. The enormous effrontery of the
thing overwhelmed him. He knew the general neighborhood too well not to
be sure that it was not a region where a housebreaker of even the most
exalted rank could live unchallenged. To be sure this was summer, and
most of the houses along the street were boarded up; but the Governor
would certainly not be invading in broad daylight premises to which he
had no claim, and the retinue of trained and decorous servants disposed
effectually of any such speculations.
On the second floor the Governor lingered in the drawing-room to call
his guest's attention to some pictures, contemporary American work,
which Archie recognized instantly. Indeed he knew several of the
painters very well.
"We must encourage our own artists," remarked the Governor. "It's the
only way we shall ever develop an American art."
Continuing up another flight (there was an elevator, the Governor
explained, but he preferred the stairs) Archie surveyed approvingly a
lounging room, half library and half office.
"If you have a taste for old leather there's stuff here that will please
you. No rubbish, you see; a man's room, a little quaint as to furniture,
and the telephone and electric fan are the only anachronisms, a
concession to the spirit of modern life. Here I have worked out some
most abstruse problems in astrology. A capital place to ponder the
mysteries. If anything on that tray interests you, help yourself."
Archie tottered toward the stand on which decanters, syphons, and a
silver bowl of ice had been placed. He helped himself generously to
Scotch; the Governor contented himself with a glass of mineral water--he
never took anything else, he explained.
"Odd, but I've never used the stuff at all. Bless you, no fanatical
notions on the subject! If you don't see what you like there just press
a button and it will probably be found for you. And now, my dear
Archie"--he closed the door and turned on the fan--"you are my guest, in
every sense my guest. You wouldn't be human if you didn't wonder about
me rather more than at any time since we first met; you had not the
slightest idea that I should bring you to so decent a shack as this. It
may have occurred to you that I may be an interloper here, but such is
not the case. I own this house and the ground it stands on and
everything in it. You are, of course, not a prisoner; not in any sense,
and there's a telephone in your room--you shall see in a moment--by
which you can talk to all the world quite freely,--no restrictions
whatsoever.
"My name is not Saulsbury, of course, but something quite different. The
servants in this house do not know my true name. They might, of course,
work it out, for I pay taxes here, and my family history is spread in
the public records, but the people you see about here are trained to
curb their curiosity; I trust them just as I trust you. They are all
from under the crust,--the man who met us at the station is a daring
housebreaker; the chauffeur a second-story man, the only one I ever knew
who had the slightest judgment; the butler is a hotel thief, and a
shrewd operator until he got too corpulent for transom work. Down to the
scullery maid, who was a clever shoplifter, all the servants are crooks
I've picked up and installed here until they can do what Leary's doing,
invest their ill-gotten gains in some legitimate business. When Baring
offers you the asparagus or serves your coffee you may derive a thrill
from the knowledge that the man at your elbow has enough rewards hanging
over him to make any one rich who can telephone his whereabouts to
police headquarters in any town in America. As all branches of the
profession are represented here my retainers repay my hospitality by
keeping me in touch with their comrades everywhere."
Archie wiped the perspiration from his face and groped for the decanter.
"You're not afraid--not afraid of _them_!"
"Ingratitude, my dear Archie, is reserved for the highbrow moralist; I
trust these people with my life and liberty, and they know I'll not only
protect them but that my facilities for shielding them and assisting in
the liquidation of their loot is theirs to command. While they are here
their lives are wholly circumspect, though they are not without their
temptations. With a place like this to operate from they could raid this
whole block and back vans up to my door and cart it away. Officious
caretakers and hidden wires connected with detective agencies would only
stimulate their wits. But nothing doing, Archie! A policeman on this
beat suggested to Baring, over a bottle of beer in the basement, the
lifting of plate in a house round the corner, but what did Baring do but
show the fellow the door! And yet Baring has stolen thousands of
dollars' worth of stuff of all kinds and has it well planted waiting for
me to turn it into cash. By the way, you saw the chap who brought in the
tray? You probably noticed his melancholy air? I had just told him of
Hoky's death and he's all broken up. He and Hoky ranged the Missouri
River towns a few years ago and the police out there are still trying to
explain their plunderings."
"I suppose, I suppose," Archie timidly ventured, "you've told them about
_me_?"
"Not a word! They'd be jealous: wouldn't understand how I made you a
guest when all the rest of 'em have to work for a living. You will act
exactly as though you were a visitor in the house of an old friend. And
now I must go through this mail--I've got a chap who collects my stuff
from some of the unofficial post-offices up-state and here it is all
ready for inspection. The first room to the right is yours.
"A few pretty good pastels stuck around here," he continued, opening a
door. "That 'Moonrise on the Grand Lagoon' is rather well done.
Everything seems to be in order; if you want your clothes pressed poke
the button twice."
Archie snapped his fingers impatiently. When he went to Washington to
say good-by to his sister he had ordered a trunk packed with the major
portion of his wardrobe and held for orders. How to possess himself of
the trunk without disclosing his presence in town to the valet of the
Dowden Apartments was beyond his powers.
"If you have something tucked away that you'd like to get hold of--"
suggested the Governor with one of his intuitive flashes.
"It's a trunk at my--er--lodgings. A man who works there packed it for
me--"
"Why don't you come out with it and say that the syndicate valet in one
of these palatial bachelor chambers somewhere uptown packed it for you?
I can tell a man who's been valeted as far as my eyes will reach. Now I
have no curiosity whatever about your personal identity or affairs of
any sort, as I've told you before. I'll ring for my own valet, who was
an honest tailor before he became a successful second-story worker, and
you may confide your predicament to him. He'll ride home on the trunk.
There was never yet a valet who wouldn't steal the trousers off a bronze
statue, and I'll lift the ban on crooked work here long enough for
Timmons to call at your lodgings and either by violence or corruption
secure your trunk. No! Not a cent. Remember that you are my guest."
The trunk was in Archie's room in just one hour. Timmons, who had
received his instructions without the slightest emotion, gravely
unpacked it.
"You've got to admit the service in this house is excellent. If you
don't mind we'll dress for dinner," remarked the Governor lounging in
the doorway. "I forgot to say that there's a lady dining with us--"
"A lady!" demanded Archie with a frown. He had assumed, when the
Governor reminded Baring that dinner was to be served for three, that he
was to be introduced to some prominent member of what the Governor was
fond of calling the great fraternity. But the threatened projection of a
woman into the household struck Archie unfavorably. The Governor's tale
of his love affair with a bishop's daughter he had discounted heavily;
it was hardly possible that any respectable woman would dine in the
house. The Governor, with his usual quick perception, noted his
companion's displeasure.
"Your qualms and your concern for the proprieties are creditable to your
up-bringing. But how ungenerous of you to suspect me of wishing to mix
you up with anything even remotely bordering upon an intrigue, a vulgar
liaison! One thing I am not, my boy; one thing I may, with a degree of
assurance, say for myself, and that is that with all my sins I am not
vulgar!"
"Of course I didn't mean that," said Archie clumsily, knowing that this
was exactly what he had meant. "But I thought you might be--er--more
comfortable if I didn't appear."
"The suspicion had sunk deep! But once more I shall forgive you. Your
presence will help me tide over a difficult situation. I am not only
showing you once more the depth of my confidence and trust but, more
than that, I pay you the compliment of asking your assistance. You bear
yourself so like a gentleman that your presence at my table can hardly
fail to reassure the lady and contribute to her own ease and peace of
mind. And without you we might quarrel horribly. You will act as a
buffer, a restraining influence; your charming manners will mitigate the
violence of her resentment against me. The lady--"
Archie waited for what further he might have to say about the lady. The
Governor had grown suddenly grave. He crossed the room, stared at the
floor for a moment, and then said from the door:
"The lady, my dear boy, is my sister."