"I will make the call, of course."
"Of course!"
"There maybe a story there--who knows. Besides, it's directly on my way
to the Globe, and the curtain is not until eight-thirty. Tell you what,
old man; come along with me and see the thing to a finish. Fate leads a
card--Mr. Esper Indiman's--and we'll play the second hand; what do you
say?"
I declined firmly. God forbid that I should be featured, along with the
other exhibits in the case, on the first page of to-morrow's Planet.
"So," he assented, indifferently, and pushed his chair back. "Well, I
must push along--Lord! there's that copy--the old man will have it in
for me good and plenty if I don't get it down in time. Adios!" He
disappeared, and I let him depart willingly enough. Later on I went up
to the library for a smoke--no fear of encountering any Jeckleys there,
and, in fact, the room was entirely deserted. I looked at my watch; it
was ten minutes after seven, and that gave me a quarter of an hour in
which to think it over. Should I accept Mr. Indiman's invitation to
call?
I looked around for an ash-tray, and, seeing one on the big
writing-table in the centre of the room, I walked over to it.
There were some bits of white lying in the otherwise empty tray--the
fragments of a torn-up visiting-card. A portion of the engraved script
caught my eye, "Indi--"
It was not difficult to piece together the bits of pasteboard, for I
knew pretty well what I should find. Completed, the puzzle read, "Mr.
Esper Indiman," and in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at
half-past seven this evening."
So there were three of us--if not more. Rather absurd this assignment
of a separate quarter of an hour to each interview--quite as though Mr.
Indiman desired to engage a valet and we were candidates for the
position. Evidently, an eccentric person, but it's a queer world
anyhow, as most of us know. There's my own case, for example. I'm
supposed to be a gentleman of leisure and means. Leisure, certainly,
but the means are slender enough, and proceeding in a diminishing
ratio. That's the penalty of having been born a rich man's son and
educated chiefly in the arts of riding off at polo and thrashing a
single-sticker to windward in a Cape Cod squall. But I sha'n't say a
word against the governor, God bless him! He gave me what I thought I
wanted, and it wasn't his fault that an insignificant blood-clot should
beat him out on that day of days--the corner in "R. P." It was never
the Chicago crowd that could have downed him--I'm glad to remember that.
Well, there being only the two of us, it didn't matter so much; it
wasn't as though there were a lot of helpless womenfolk to consider.
After the funeral and the settlement with the creditors there was
left--I'm ashamed to say how little, and, anyway, it's no one's
business; the debts were paid. What is a man to do, at thirty-odd, who
has never turned his hand to anything of use? The governor's friends?
Well, they didn't know how bad things were, and I couldn't go to them
with the truth and make them a present of my helpless, incompetent self.
And so for the last two years I've been sticking it out in a hall
bedroom, just west of the dead-line. I have a life membership in the
club--what a Christmas present that has turned out to be!--and twice in
the week I dine there. As for the rest of it, never mind--there are
things which a man can do but of which he doesn't care to speak.
The future? Ah, you can answer that question quite as well as I. Now I
had calculated that, at my present rate of expenditure, I could hold
out until Easter, but there have been contingencies. To illustrate, I
had my pocket picked yesterday morning. Amusing--isn't it?--that it
should have been my pocket--my pocket!
Fortunately I have stacks of clothes and some good pearl shirt-studs,
and I continue to present a respectable appearance. I shall always do
that, I think. I don't like the idea of the pawn-shop and the dropping
down one degree at a time. If, in the end, it shall be shown clearly
that the line is to be crossed, I shall walk over it quietly and as a
man should; I object to the indecency of being dragged or carried
across. What line do I mean? I don't know that I could tell you
clearly. What is in your own mind? There IS a line.
At half after seven I left the club, and exactly a quarter of an hour
later I stood opposite the doorway of No. 4020 Madison Avenue. A tall
man was descending the steps; I recognized Bingham, a member of my
club, and recalled the torn-up visiting-card that I had found in the
library. So Bingham was one of us.
Now I don't know Bingham, except by sight, and I shouldn't have cared
to stop and question him, anyway. But I caught one glimpse of his face
as he hurried away, and it looked gray under the electrics. Call it the
effect of the arc light, if you like; he was hurrying, certainly, and
it struck me that it was because he was anxious to get away.
Many are the motives that send men into adventurous situations, but
there is at least one among them that is compelling--hunger. I have
said that I had gone to the club for dinner; I did not say that I got
it. To be honest, I had hoped for an invitation--charity, if you insist
upon it. But I had been unfortunate. None of my particular friends had
chanced to be around, and Jeckley's cocktail had been the only
hospitality proffered me. You remember that my pocket had been picked
yesterday morning, and since then--well, I had eaten nothing. I might
have signed the dinner check, you say. Quite true, but I shall probably
be as penniless on the first of the month as I am to-day, and then
what? Too much like helping one's self from a friend's pocket.
So it was just a blind, primeval impulse that urged me on. This Mr.
Indiman had chosen to fish in muddy waters, and his rashness but
matched my necessity. A host must expect to entertain his guests. I
walked up the steps and rang the bell.
Instantly the door opened, and a most respectable looking serving-man
confronted me.
"Mr. Indiman will see you presently," he said, before I had a chance to
get out a word. "This way, sir."
The house was of the modern American basement type, and I was ushered
into a small reception-room on the right of the entrance hall. "Will
you have the Post, sir? Or any of the illustrated papers? Just as you
please, sir; thank you."
The man withdrew, and I sat looking listlessly about me, for the room,
while handsomely furnished, had an appearance entirely commonplace.
Five and ten minutes passed, and I began to grow impatient. I
remembered that Jeckley's appointment had been for eight o'clock, and
for obvious considerations I did not wish that he should find me
waiting here. It was eight o'clock now, and I would abide Mr. Indiman's
lordly pleasure no longer. I rose to go; the electric bell sounded.
I could hear Jeckley's high-pitched voice distinctly; he seemed to be
put out about something; he spoke impatiently, even angrily.
"But this is 4020 Madison Avenue, isn't it? Mr. Indiman--I was asked to
call--Mr. Jeckley, of the Planet."
"Must be some mistake, sir," came the answer. "This is No. 4020, but
there's no Mr. Inkerman--"
"Indiman, not Inkerman--Mr. Esper Indiman. Look at the card."
"Never heard the name, sir."
"What! Well, then, who does live here?"
"Mr. Snell, sir. Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell. But he's at dinner, and I
couldn't disturb him."
"Humph!" I fancy that Jeckley swore under his breath as he turned to
go. Then the outer door was closed upon him.
It was a relief, of course, to be spared the infliction of Mr.
Jeckley's society, but I could not but admit that the situation was
developing some peculiarities. Eliminating the doubtful personality of
Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell, who was this Mr. Esper Indiman, whose
identity had been so freely admitted to me and so explicitly denied to
Jeckley? The inference was obvious that Jeckley had failed to pass the
first inspection test, and so had been turned down without further
ceremony. This reflection rather amused me; I forgot about the
incivility to which I was being subjected in the long wait, and began
to be curious about the game itself. What next?
At a quarter after eight, and then again at half after, there were
inquiries at the door for Mr. Indiman. To each caller the answer was
returned that no Mr. Indiman was known at No. 4020 Madison Avenue, and
that Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell could not be disturbed at his dinner.
There was no caller at the next quarter, and none again at nine
o'clock. The series had, therefore, come to an end, and I remained the
sole survivor--of and for what?
I dare say that my nerves had been somewhat weakened by my two days'
fast, or else it was the effect of Jeckley's cocktail on an otherwise
empty stomach. Whatever the cause, I suddenly became conscious that I
was passing into a state of high mental tension; I wanted to scream, to
beat impotently upon the air; Jeckley would have put it that I was
within an ace of flying off the handle.
A deafening clash of clanging metal smote my ears. It should have been
the finishing touch, and it was, but not after the fashion that might
have been expected. As though by magic, the horrible tension relaxed;
my nerves again took command of the situation; I felt as cool and
collected as at any previous moment in my life.
In the centre of the room stood a heavy table of some East-Indian
wood--teak, I think, they call it. I could have sworn that there was
nothing whatever upon this table when I entered the room; now I saw
three objects lying there. I walked up and examined them. As they lay
towards me, the first was a ten-thousand-dollar bill, the second a
loaded revolver, caliber .44, the third an envelope of heavy white
paper directed to me, Winston Thorp. The letter was brief and formal;
it read:
"Mr. Indiman presents his compliments to Mr. Thorp and requests the
honor of his company at dinner, Tuesday, March the thirtieth, at nine
o'clock.
"4020 Madison Avenue."
Dishonor, death, and dinner--a curious trio to choose between. Yet to a
man in my present position each of them appealed in its own way, and
I'm not ashamed to confess it. Perhaps the choice I made may seem
inevitable, but what if you had seen Bingham's face as I did, with the
arc light full upon it? It was the remembrance of that which made me
hesitate; twice I drew my hand away and looked at the money and the
pistol.
Through the open door came a ravishing odor, that of a filet a la
Chateaubriand; the purely animal instincts reasserted themselves, and I
picked up the gardenia blossom that lay beside the letter and stuck it
into the button-hole of my dinner-jacket. I looked down at the table,
and it seemed to me that the ten-thousand-dollar note and the pistol
had disappeared. But what of that, what did anything matter now; I was
going to dine--to dine!
I walked up-stairs, guided by that delicious, that heavenly odor, and
entered the dining-room in the rear, without the smallest hesitation.
At one end of the table sat a man of perhaps forty years of age. An
agreeable face, for all of the tired droop about the mouth and the deep
lines in the forehead; it could light up, too, upon occasion, as I was
soon to discover. For the present I did not bother myself with
profitless conjectures; that entrancing filet, displayed in a massive
silver cover, stood before him; I could not take my eyes from it.
My host, for such he evidently was, rose and bowed with great
politeness.
"You must pardon me," he said, "for sitting down; but, as my note said,
I dine at nine. I will have the shell-fish and soup brought on."
"I should prefer to begin with the filet," I said, decidedly.
A servant brought me a plate; my hand trembled, but I succeeded in
helping myself without spilling the precious sauce; I ate.
"There are three conditions of men who might be expected to accept the
kind of invitation which has brought me the honor of your company,"
remarked my host as we lit our cigarettes over the Roman punch. "To
particularize, there is the curious impertinent, the merely foolish
person, and the man in extremis rerum. Now I have no liking for the
dog-faced breed, as Homer would put it, and neither do I suffer fools
gladly. At least, one of the latter is not likely to bother me again."
He smiled grimly, and I thought of Bingham's face of terror.
"I found my desperate man in you, my dear Mr. Thorp, shall we drink to
our better acquaintance?" I bowed, and we drank.
"The precise nature of your misfortune does not concern me," he
continued, airily. "It is sufficient that we are of the same mind in
our attitude towards the world--'to shake with Destiny for beers,' is
it not?
"One may meet with many things on the highway of life--poverty,
disease, sorrow, treacheries. These are disagreeable, I admit, but they
are positive; one may overcome or, at least, forget them. But suppose
you stand confronting the negative of existence; the highway is clear,
indeed, but how interminable its vista, its straight, smooth, and
intolerably level stretch. That road is mine.
"Yes; I have tried the by-paths. Once I was shanghaied; twice I have
been marooned and by my own men. That last amused me--a little. I was
the second man to arrive at Bordeaux in the Paris-Madrid race of 1903;
during the Spanish-American war I acted as a spy for the United States
government in Barcelona.
"I made the common mistake of confounding the unusual with the
interesting. Romance is a shy bird, and not to be hunted with a brass
band. Where is the heart of life, if not at one's elbow? At the
farthest, one has only to turn the corner of the street. It is useless
to look for prodigies in the abyss, but every stream has its straws
that float; I have determined to watch and follow them.
"I want a companion, and so I advertised after my own fashion. I
selected you, tentatively, from the mob; later on I made the test more
complete. But you have no boutonniere; allow me."
He took a spray of orchid from the silver bowl in the centre of the
table and handed it to me.
I protested: "I have my gardenia--" I looked at my button-hole and it
was gone.
Mr. Indiman smiled. "Let me confess," he said. "You recall the abnormal
tension of your nerves as you sat waiting in my reception-room. Merely
the effect produced by a mixture of certain chemical gases turned on
from a tap under my hand. Then the crash of a brazen gong; it is what
the scientists call 'massive stimulation,' resolving super-excitation
into partial hypnosis.
"Once I had you in the hypnotic condition, the rest was simple enough.
I had only to suggest to your mind the three objects on the table, and
you saw them. The bank-note, the revolver--they were as immaterial as
the gardenia that no longer adorns your button-hole.
"I did not attempt to influence your choice among the three, as that
would have destroyed the value of the test to me. But, as I had hoped,
you accepted my invitation to dinner. Frankly, now, I am curious--why?"
"That is very simple," I answered. "I had not eaten anything for two
days, and I detected the odor of that exquisite filet. Not the
slightest ethical significance in the choice, as you see."
Esper Indiman laughed. "I should have kept my pantry door closed. But
it does not matter; I am satisfied. Shall we go into the library for
coffee?"
Directly opposite the door of the latter apartment stood an easel
holding an unframed canvas. A remarkable portrait--little as I know
about pictures, I could see that clearly enough. A three-quarter length
of a woman wearing a ducal coronet and dressed in a magnificent costume
of red velvet.
"Lely's 'Red Duchess,'" remarks my host, carelessly. "You may have seen
it in the Hermitage at Petersburg."
I looked at the picture again. Why should this masterpiece not have
been properly mounted and glazed? The edges of the canvas were jagged
and uneven, as though it had been cut from its frame with a not
oversharp knife. We sat down to our coffee and liqueurs.
As I awake in the narrow quarters of my hall bedroom I am inclined to
believe that the occurrences of the preceding night were only the
phantasms of a disordered digestion; where had I eaten that Welsh
rabbit? The morning paper had been thrown over the transom, and,
following my usual custom, I reached for it and began reading. Among
the foreign despatches I note this paragraph dated St. Petersburg:
"The famous portrait of the Duchess of Lackshire, by Sir Peter Lely,
better known as the 'Red Duchess,' has disappeared from the gallery of
the Hermitage. It is now admitted that it must have been stolen, cut
bodily from its frame and carried away. The theft took place several
months ago, but the secret has just become public property. The absence
of the picture from its accustomed place had, of course, been noted,
but it was understood that it had been removed for cleaning. An
enormous reward is to be offered for information leading to its
recovery."
There is also a letter for me which I had not noticed until now. It was
from Indiman, and it read:
"Dear Thorp,--Dine with me to-night at half after eight. I noticed that
you were rather taken with my 'Red Duchess'; we will ask the lady to
preside over our modest repast, and you can then gaze your fill upon
her. Faithfully, E. I."
Of course, I intend to accept the invitation.