"Oh, this evening is time enough. Man, man, can't you see through a
ladder? They're after the girl with the gray eyes, and hope in this way
to get a clew to her whereabouts. Now, you can't fight shadows; the
only chance is to match them against each other. Do I make myself quite
clear?"
"Not in the least."
"I want to know who sends that message, and it's possible that the
answer is right under our eyes." He held up the strip of telegraphic
tape. "Do you see the letter S, enclosed in parentheses, and repeated
before several words?"
"Means nothing, so far as I see."
"Unless it's a habit with the operator to occasionally sound the three
dots that make up the letter S in the Morse alphabet--unconsciously,
you know, and just as another man, in speaking, might stutter or
continually introduce a hesitating 'er' or 'um.'"
"Impossible."
"Nothing is impossible, my dear fellow." Here the bell of the
desk-telephone rang. "For example, this call may be from Mademoiselle
D. herself." He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. "It is,"
he said, looking over at me.
The weather conditions happened to be particularly favorable for
telephonic communication; I could hear almost as distinctly, standing
on my side of the table, as Indiman himself. I started to walk away,
then I stopped, and announced my intention of listening also; Indiman
nodded assent.
There was unmistakable annoyance and anxiety in the tones of the voice
that greeted us. "I have just seen your absurd advertisement," it
began. "I beg of you to let this matter drop, instantly, finally."
"A request without a reason," answered Indiman, "You owe me something
more than that."
"There is danger--"
"To me or to you?"
"To yourself."
"I am sorry, but you have indicated the sole condition which makes my
withdrawal possible."
A little feminine sigh came from the other end of the wire. "Oh, dear,
it was so stupid of me to say that--to a man!" A pause. Then, in a
slightly vexed tone, "Supposing that it is a question of minding one's
own business."
"Precisely what I am trying to do," said Indiman, humbly. "It is a
settlement that I am proposing."
"I perceive, sir, that I am making myself ridiculous," and the voice
sounded cold and inconceivably distant. "I have the honor to wish you a
very good-morning." The telephone rang off sharply.
I fancy that the same thought was in both our minds: Could this be the
same woman whom we had seen selling her kisses at an East Side bazaar?
The very thought was incredible. And remember that we had not heard her
voice before. Yet neither of us doubted, even for a moment.
"After all, it was only the one kiss that was actually sold and
delivered," said Indiman, half-defiantly. But he need not have defended
her to me.
It was getting to be a very pretty problem as it stood, the one obvious
probability being that it was the girl herself who stood in danger.
What could we do? To discover the nature of the impending peril and,
above all, the personnel of the conspirators. And then what? How were
we to communicate with or warn the girl?--for, of course, she had
called up Indiman from a public pay-station, leaving no clew to her
identity or address. Well, there was still the Personal column in the
HERALD; it had reached her once and might again.
"I am going down-town to the main office of the Western Union," said
Indiman, "and may be away all day. If I shouldn't return by
dinner-time, you will carry out the instructions in the message.
Exactly, remember--car No. 6, and the best butter--each detail may be
important. About nine o'clock should be a good hour."
"I understand," I said, and we parted.
At exactly half after nine that evening I stepped off car No. 6 at the
crossing of West Fourth and Eleventh streets. The grocery was on the
northwest corner, and I entered without hesitation.
Like many other big cities, New York (even excluding the transpontine
suburbs) is a collection of towns and villages rather than a
homogeneous municipality. Chelsea and Harlem and the upper West
Side--all these are distinct and separate centres of community life.
Greenwich Village knows naught of Yorkville, and the East Side Ghetto
has no dealings with the inhabitants of the French quarter.
Now the small area bounded by Waverley Place, Christopher, West Fourth,
and West Eleventh streets is also a law unto itself. The neighborhood
is respectable and severely old fashioned, the houses large and
comfortable, and the resident population almost entirely native
New-Yorkers in moderate circumstances. A village, then, with its shops
and school-houses and churches; it is as provincial in its way as the
Lonelyville of the comic weeklies. The grocery is the village club, at
least for the respectable part of the male population, the men who
would not be seen in a corner saloon. There were half a dozen of the
regulars now in the shop, seated on boxes and chairs around the stove,
for it was a raw and chilly day. They looked up as I entered, but no
one moved or spoke. Undoubtedly my man was in the group, but how to
pick him out. I walked to the counter and addressed the young fellow
who lounged behind it.
"Two pounds of the best butter, please."
"All out," was the unexpected reply.
"All out!" I repeated, stupidly.
"None of the best--that's what I said."
"I wanted a purple trading-stamp," I went on, helplessly.
"Anything over five cents' worth--jar of pickles, if you like."
"No, not that. Here, give me--how much are those cigars?"
"Five and ten."
"Ten cents, then."
The young man handed out the box with a nonchalant air. "Help
yourself," he said.
I selected a cigar. "You're sure you haven't any butter--the BEST
butter?"
"Ah, now, whadjer giving us? This ain't no Tiffany & Co. Best butter?
Uh! P'r'aps you'd like to take a peck of di'monds home wid jer--the
best di'monds, mind, all ready shelled and fried in gold-dust. And just
throw in a bunch of them German-silver banglelets for the salad.
Yessir; charge 'em to Mr. Astor, Astorville, N. G."
The loungers about the stove sniggered audibly, but something in the
fellow's voice made me forget his insolence. I looked up and into the
eyes of Esper Indiman.
I think I did it pretty well--the cool, ignoring stare with which one
is accustomed to put a boor out of countenance.
"Let me have a light," I went on, quietly, and the pretended grocer's
boy was zealous to oblige, scratching the match himself and leaning
across the counter to hold the flame to the cigar end.
"Coach waiting for you in front of the church," he whispered. "Drive
straight home and slowly--to give him a chance."
I left the shop without troubling to glance at the loungers about the
fire; Indiman would attend to that part of the business. The coach was
in waiting at the Baptist Church, and the driver touched his hat when I
mentioned my name. I gave him the address, and told him to drive
slowly. As we turned into Seventh Avenue I looked back and saw a cab
following.
An hour later Indiman came in and joined me in the library. "Now,
then!" I said, impatiently, after waiting to see him mix a high-ball
and light a tremendously black breva. Indiman is a little provoking at
times with his infinite deliberation.
"Where were we?" he began. "Ah, yes, I had my theory about finding the
chap who wrote out that message. It was correct--absolutely so," and
Indiman puffed away in dreamy content, staring up at the ceiling.
"I know Mason of the main Western Union office quite well, and he was
most obliging. Recognized the peculiarity of the telegraphic sending at
once; there actually was a fellow who had a habit of interjecting the
superfluous S in his despatches. Name of Ewall, and he was the operator
in a sub-station near Jefferson Market.
"Well, I posted up there and sounded him. He didn't know anything about
it at first, so I had to scare him a bit; he weakened then, and told me
what I wanted to know.
"Of course it wasn't a real message; he had run it off on his machine
at the request of a queer-looking gentleman who had given him a couple
of dollars for his trouble. According to his description, the man was
stout and dark, with one ear--the left--decidedly larger than the
other."
"Aha! the fellow we saw at the bazaar. But he wasn't in the group about
the grocery stove."
"Of course not, but he had his capper there."
"Go on."
"Well, I thanked Mr. Ewall for his information, and left him with a
solemn admonition to be more careful in the future about doing business
on the side. Then I sat down to consider.
"Now, I was sure that the grocery and its proprietor, the two pounds of
the best butter, and the purple trading-stamp had nothing to do with
the real business of the evening. The game was simply to identify the
'Mr. House-smith' who had advertised for his ninety-and-nine kisses,
and the clap-trap of the message in telegraphic characters, and all the
rest of it, were simply the kind of bait at which so eccentric a person
might be expected to bite. The gentleman with one ear larger than the
other desired to find the elusive Mademoiselle D., erstwhile dispenser
of kisses at an East Side charity bazaar, and, consequently, he was
following up every possible clew. He wanted 'Mr. House-smith,' and I
wanted him.
"Fight shadows with shadows, remember; and so I took service with my
honest friend, David Brown, dealer in groceries at West Fourth and
Eleventh streets. He was rather offish at first, but Mattson, at Police
Head-quarters, had provided me with a special detective badge, and Mr
Brown was led to believe that I was working up a case of graft. He lent
me a jumper, and I was forthwith installed behind the counter.
"Everything went off according to schedule. The 'shadow' had his cab in
readiness and I had mine. He trailed you to No. 4020 Madison Avenue,
and I followed Mr. Shadow to the Central Detective Office. It seems to
have been a case of sleuth against sleuth, with the match all square."
"Anything else?"
"Well, yes. As I came into the house just now, two men were waiting for
me in the vestibule. They went through me; but I didn't seem to have
what they wanted. I still retain possession of my watch and purse."
"So," I said, somewhat helplessly. "What's the next move on the board?"
"It is the last night of the supplementary opera season," answered
Indiman, "and we are going to dress and see what we can of
Tschaikowsky's 'Queen of Spades.' A novelty--first and only performance
outside of Russia, and Ternina heads the cast."
"There is Mademoiselle D.," remarked Indiman, as his glass swept
the semicircle of the parterre. "The fourth box from the end."
There were but three people in the party--the girl with the gray eyes,
an elderly man with a ribbon in his button-hole, and Jack Crawfurd,
whom everybody knows.
The curtain fell on the third act, and immediately Crawfurd made his
appearance in the omnibus-box where we were sitting.
"Come with me, mes enfants," he said, genially. "It seems that you and
the adorable Countess Gilda are old friends. She commands your instant
attendance. What, man! do you hesitate? I shall lose my head an our
sovereign lady be not instantly obeyed."
The girl with the gray eyes greeted us with smiling unconcern. "Do you
know my uncle?" she asked, and we were forthwith presented to his
Excellency Baron Cassilis, the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Then the Countess Gilda addressed herself squarely to Indiman.
"I am in your debt, Mr. Indiman, and you must permit me to discharge
the obligation. My dear uncle, your purse."
Indiman bowed and accepted the fifty-dollar bill tendered him.
"Now we are quits," she said, smiling.
"Not quite," he answered, hardily. He drew a half-dollar from his
waistcoat-pocket and offered it to her. A flood of color mantled her
brow, but she took the coin and slipped it into her glove. "Well?" she
asked, her small chin defiantly uptilted.
"I have only one question," said Indiman, earnestly. "Is there danger
for you?"
"None in the world."
"Then I am quite satisfied."
She softened at that. "Only a rather aggravating disappointment; it
does not matter now. But why will you men interfere in an unoffending
woman's affairs."
"I had no idea--"
"Of course not. However, we need not enter further into particulars.
Your friend in the orchestra-stall yonder will doubtless enlighten you
later on." A stout man with one ear distinctly larger than the other
deliberately faced about in his seat and directed his glasses at our
box. Immediately upon this the curtain went up on the last act, and his
Excellency held up his hand to command silence.
"Madame," said Indiman, as he handed the Countess Gilda to her
carriage, "I swear to you that the blunder I have unintentionally
committed shall be atoned for. I ask but a hint--the slightest of
clews."
"With pleasure, monsieur. I give you, therefore, the third appearance
of the Queen of Spades. Au revoir! We sail to-morrow by the Cunarder."
The man with the disproportionate ears touched Indiman's elbow. "Beg
pardon, sir," he said, deferentially, "but I shall have to have a word
or two with you."
We drove to the Utinam Club and found a secluded corner. "Now, what is
it, officer?" said Indiman.
The detective looked rather sheepish. "I'm afraid we've made a mess of
it between us. Case of political blackmail, you see, and the young lady
thought she could handle it herself. And so she could have done if we
hadn't butted in, begging your pardon for so saying."
"Get to the point."
"Well, then, it's a question of a letter belonging to a great person in
Roosha--written to or by her don't matter. The letter is here in New
York, and it isn't a question of money with the holder, but power.
There's only one thing to do in that case--steal it, and the Countess
thought she could turn the trick. So she went over on the Rooshan East
Side and laid her pipes to stand next to the old party who holds the
precious document. At the Baron's request I was detailed from the
Central Office and instructed to keep my eyes on the young woman and my
hands off the case. 'Course, then, I couldn't do neither. I lost the
girl when you walked off with her at the house-smiths' bazaar, and then
I had to stick in my oar and answer your personal in the Herald. I laid
what I thought was a pretty smart trap. You fell into it, right enough."
"So you were the fellow who had me searched and held up at my own front
door," said Indiman. "Confound your impudence! What did you expect to
get?"
"Why, the letter, sir. I had figured it out that you was the
black-mailer."
"Oh, the deuce! And in the mean time the real article had been put on
his or her guard by all this hullabaloo, and the Countess Gilda's game
was blocked."
"That's it, sir. A mistake all round."
"I should think so. Well, there's nothing more to be done. That's all
you know about the case?"
"That's all, sir."
"Never heard of the Queen of Spades in this connection?"
"Never, sir."
"Well, good-night, officer. Brownson's your name, eh? I shan't forget
it."
"Good-night, sir."
The night was fine, and we walked home. Over on Eighth Avenue a
masquerade ball was in progress; we passed under the brightly lit
windows of the hall in which it was being held. A masker stood at the
door, a woman dressed to impersonate the Queen of Spades. She waved her
hand to Indiman, who had chanced to look up; then she plucked a rose
from her bodice and tossed it over to him. He caught the flower, as
becomes a gallant man, but immediately walked on.
"That was your cue--the Queen of Spades," I said.
"Not at all. It is only the third time that counts. First at the opera,
and now here; the final and only important appearance is still to come."
At the next corner a wretchedly clad woman sat grinding a small
barrel-organ. "For the love of Mary!" she whimpered, and Indiman thrust
something into her waiting hand. He tried to hide the action, but I had
caught sight of the money--a yellow-backed bill bearing the magic
figures 50.
"Did you notice the tune?" said Indiman, as we walked on. "The
Ninety-and-Nine."