A SUPPOSITION BECOMES A FACT.
“You remember when Phil Clark was running up on Fifth Avenue,” begins
the major, after the wine has been brought and pronounced only
half-iced.
“Rather,” responds Chauncey, dryly. “I dropped five hundred there one
night and it wasn’t much of a game at that.”
“Well, I drifted into Phil’s one night three years ago, more or less,
and found the place as quiet as a country village. There was no big game
going on, and mighty few small ones. In one of the rooms I found Col.
Dunnett. You remember Dunnett. We were chatting and commenting on the
dullness of the evening, when two young men came into the room and,
after a glance at us, one of them suggested a hand at poker.
“I knew one of the young men slightly. His name was Stanley, I believe.
Quiet, reserved sort of a chap. He hadn’t been in New York long, he
said. Made books out at the Sheepshead races. I did not fancy his
friend, who had been drinking some and was inclined to be a bit noisy.
His name—let me see—Fenton, or Fallon; no, Felton, that was what Stanley
called him.
“We began the game and it broke up after the hand I started in to tell
you about. The betting simmered down to Felton and Stanley. Felton held
four aces and bet all the cash he had. ‘I ought to raise you,’ said
Stanley; ‘still,’ he added, ‘if that is all the cash you have—’
“‘You needn’t worry about me,’ sneered Felton, as he took a check-book
from his pocket. ‘I said that was all the change I had with me, but my
check is good.’ He scratched off a check and threw it on the table. ‘You
can see that, or call my previous bet, as you please.’
“Stanley was as calm as I am now. He leaned over to me, and, spreading
his cards, asked: ‘Major, will you loan me a thousand a moment to bet
this hand?’ I glanced at it and had a trifle of difficulty in
restraining my surprise. He had filled, as he told me afterward, the
middle of a straight flush, king up!
“‘Cert, my boy,’ I replied, cheerfully, to his request, and I passed
over two $500 bills. Stanley tossed them on the table, and looked
inquiringly at Felton. The latter, with a smile of sublime confidence,
spread out four aces. ‘No good,’ was Stanley’s calm announcement. He
exhibited his hand, and then pocketing the stakes, after returning me my
thousand, he remarked: ‘Thank you, gentlemen, for your entertainment. I
don’t believe I’ll play any more to-night.’ And putting on his coat and
hat, he left the room.
“Felton sat like one dazed for some moments. Then he walked to the bar
and after a stiff drink hurried off. I never saw either of them after
that night.”
Ashley and Barker have been silent and interested listeners to this yarn
by the major. As the latter and his friends rise Ashley rises also and
taps the major on the shoulder. “Pardon the intrusion,” he says, with an
engaging smile. “I have been vastly interested in your poker story, sir,
for the reason that I think I know one of the players—Felton, I believe
you called him. Do you happen to recall what sort of a looking chap he
was?”
“Hanged if I remember,” replies the major, wondering at the other’s
earnestness.
“Was he a rather tall, good-looking young fellow, with light-brown hair
and eyes and a tawny mustache?” persists Ashley.
“Now that you speak of the mustache, I believe that your description
fits him. He had a heavy, yellowish mustache, which he was in the habit
of biting, as though his dinner did not suit him.”
“Thank you,” says Ashley. “Will you have something more to drink,
gentlemen?”
But the major and his party take themselves off and Ashley resumes his
seat with a satisfied smile.
“So, Barker, we hit it about right after all, eh?”
“It would appear so,” returns the detective complacently. “We now know
what we have assumed to have been the case—that Ernest Stanley suffered
imprisonment two years for another’s crime, and that the real criminal,
the man who forged Cyrus Felton’s name, was none other than his son,
Ralph Felton.”
As Barker pronounces these words Ashley hears a smothered exclamation
behind him and turns quickly. But all he sees is a gentleman and lady
gathering their wraps preparatory to taking their departure. The man’s
back is toward Ashley, but the latter waits until the party faces his
way and then for the space of a second their eyes meet.
“There is only one more selection, and it does not amount to much,” Van
Zandt tells Mrs. Harding, and they join the crowd that is leaving the
garden.
“Do you know those two men who sat at the next table to us? The younger
looked at you as though he knew you and was waiting to be recognized.”
“Your imagination, cara mia. I know neither of them,” replies Van Zandt,
lightly. Then, as he hands her into a carriage at the corner and says
“Kensington” to the driver, he holds Isabel’s hand a moment at parting
and inquires gravely: “So you are really going away then?”
“In two days,” she answers, and searches his face for some evidence of
regret. It is as impassive as the sphinx.
“Well, I suppose I shall see you at the French ball to-morrow evening?”
“You may, if you care to look for a Russian court lady, attired wholly
in black.”
“Rest assured that the festivities will be robed in sables until I find
her. Good-night.” Van Zandt closes the carriage door, watches it a
moment as it rattles up the avenue and then saunters toward Broadway.
Ashley and Barker have remained at their table in the garden and Jack is
telling the detective that for the second time within twenty-four hours
he has caught the stare of the man with the brown beard and piercing
eyes. “I have seen that face somewhere,” he mutters, as he wrinkles his
brow in a desperate effort to burst the memory cell that prisons the
secret. Suddenly he smites the table a blow that sets the glasses
jingling and invites the disapprobation of the waiter. “Oh, memory!
Memory, thou sleepy, shiftless warder of the brain!” he cries.
“What is the matter now?” asks Barker.
“Keep calm, old chap,” returns Ashley, gripping the detective’s wrist.
“Keep calm while I confess to you that we have let slip through our
hands the key to the Hathaway mystery!”
“What!” almost shouts the detective, starting to his feet. “You mean—”
“I mean that the man with the brown beard and stiletto optics who just
left us is my friend of the mountain gorge. He is Ernest Stanley!”
“Well, he has slipped us this time,” says the detective, disconsolately,
as they stand outside the garden and sweep the street with anxious gaze.
“Not yet,” Ashley rejoins cheerfully. “See! There he is beyond that
third light, handing his magnificent companion into a carriage.”
“Call a cab and follow them,” says the detective, starting toward the
line of conveyances pulled up at the curb.
“No need of that,” Ashley interrupts. “He is not going to ride.” At that
moment it was that Van Zandt closed the door to the carriage which bore
Mrs. Harding to the Kensington, and as he starts toward Broadway the
detective and the newspaper man follow at a cautious distance.
Unconscious of the espionage Van Zandt starts uptown at a swinging gait.
At Thirty-second Street he branches into Sixth Avenue, and the two men
behind him wonder that he does not ride. At the park he turns down
Fifty-ninth Street and finally enters the Wyoming apartment house,
leaving Ashley and Barker staring up at the brownstone elevation.
The former waits five minutes and then pulls the bell. “The name of the
gentleman who has just gone upstairs?” he asks the colored attendant who
responds.
“Mr. Phillip Van Zandt,” replies the sable youth, as he slips a
half-dollar into his pocket.
“Van Zandt—is that his name?” queries Ashley, a trifle disappointed,
although he might have expected a strange name. Then the porter tells
him that the gentleman with the brown beard has been a resident of the
Wyoming for several months; that he is a wealthy bachelor, and a variety
of other equally important information.
“Well, what do you think now?” asks Barker, as they walk over to the
elevated road.
“I haven’t changed my opinion,” is Ashley’s response. “I believe that
Phillip Van Zandt is or was Ernest Stanley.”
“Well, we have him located, at any rate,” remarks the detective. “See
you at the French ball to-morrow night? I am on the lookout for a couple
of gentry whom I expect to be there. This is my station. Good-night.”
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