It was on December 21st that Indiman took up his tenancy of the offices
in the Barowsky Building. I should have been glad to have accompanied
him, but he would not have it. It was the dealer's hand at bridge and
must be played alone. And owing to the accident of a slight attack of
grippe it was some ten days later before I was able to call upon him in
his new quarters.
William H. Seward Square has its unique features. Lying in the heart of
the East Side, it is outside the regular lines of north and south
travel. There are thousands of otherwise well-informed New-Yorkers to
whom its very name is unknown. And yet it is an important political
centre, the capital of the Yiddish country, and the recipient of many
special favors at the hands of a paternal municipality. There are still
streets in the up-town districts whose pavement is the antiquated
Belgian blocks or even cobble-stones, but none in Yiddishland; here
everything is asphalted. You may trust the district leader to take care
of his own.
A fine, stone building forms the principal architectural feature of the
square on the west side. It contains the free baths and would be a
credit to any part of the city. Most of the remaining space is given
over to the children for a playground. There is a semi-enclosed
gymnasium for the boys, hand-ball and tether-ball courts, a separate
enclosure for the girls and smaller children--in a word, every form of
amusement and exercise that is practicable in a public institution of
comparatively limited area. The children enjoy it, too. They come in
droves, and the swings and flying rings are in constant use.
It is like going to a foreign country. The shop signs, written in
Hebrew characters, suggest a combination of horseshoes and
carpet-tacks, and you may walk for blocks without hearing an English
word spoken. Ask your whereabouts of a street boy and he will quite
likely turn pale and edge away. He does not understand. You are an
alien, a foreign devil.
The Barowsky Brothers' bank building is the show-place of the district.
It is a staring white structure covered with gilt business signs and
adorned with abortive minarets that give it an air distinctly Oriental.
The entrance hall and the banking-rooms are sumptuous. They recall the
Arabian Nights and the word-painting of a circus poster. Mirrors,
gilding, mosaics--it is all a dream of luxury and impresses one with a
realizing sense of the financial standing of the Barowsky Brothers. You
must have a good front in the Yiddish country if you expect to handle
other people's money.
Esper Indiman, adjuster of averages, occupied a suite of rooms on the
fifth floor. I proceeded thither and found him in. We sat down and
smoked amicably.
"How is business?" I asked. "Have you adjusted many averages to-day?
And, by-the-way, I'm rather taken with the title of your new trade.
'Adjuster of averages'--there's an imposing note of omnipotence in the
words."
"It's a perfectly legitimate occupation. You'll find it listed in the
business directory."
"Of course, and never mind the details. I'm satisfied with its face
value, a brevet of vice-gerency. God knows there are plenty of averages
to be adjusted in this weary old world."
"Well, I may have some accounts to balance before I take down my sign,"
said Indiman, with a grim little smile. "I'm glad you came in to-day,
Thorp; I've been wanting to have a talk with you."
"Fire away," I answered, flippantly.
"Come into the back room," and he led the way.
The suite ran through the building. There was a good-sized room facing
on the square, fitted up with ordinary office furniture; back of that a
bath-room, and then the rear office, which had been turned into a
bachelor's living-room. There were bookcases, rugs, pictures, a big
mahogany writing-table, an open fireplace, easy-chairs--everything to
make life comfortable. "And the couch over there is my bed," concluded
Indiman. "I'm pretty well fixed, you see."
"Decidedly so."
"Intellectual diversion in abundance; even the artistic element is not
wholly wanting."
He stepped over to a table in the far corner; a phonographic machine of
some kind stood upon it. Indiman touched a lever, and again I heard
that unforgettable melody, "Ah, fors e lui," and in her voice--her
voice! A cry escaped me. Indiman pushed me back into my chair. "Be good
enough to listen," he said, and I obeyed.
"While you have been laid up," he began, "I have been amusing myself
with a little theory building. I had taken the liberty to sequestrate
the remarkable phonographic apparatus of your quondam friend Dr.
Gonzales; in fact, I carried it away in the same carriage with your
honorable self from the house of the Philadelphia 'quizzing-glass.' The
police didn't notice--that was all.
"Dr. Gonzales was a genius, and his instrument is a revolution in
phonographs--purity of tone, perfect enunciation, and all that. But the
really interesting thing (to me as to you) was not the machine, but the
records that it used. To whom belonged the voice that these little
disks and cylinders so faithfully reproduced? It was a real woman who
had poured the passion and sorrow of life into this insentient
mechanism. And the medium had been sufficient; your heart had responded.
"You were my friend, and I could not be indifferent to aught that
concerned you. We are, neither of us, sentimental, so the bare
statement of the fact is sufficient. You were on your back, and so it
was my part to go to work. I did.
"It is unprofitable business looking for a needle in a hay-stack when
you can buy a packet of the best helix No. 8's at any shop for a
nickel. But after spending a blank week interviewing the makers of
phonographic records I began to feel doubtful of my economic theory.
Nowhere could I find the slightest trace of this particular job of
record-making. And then one day I ran across a chap named Hugens, who
was in the business in a small way. His place was three blocks east of
the Bowery, but I've forgotten the name of the cross street.
"It was the usual experience at first--no information--but something
told me that the man was lying. Finally, I pretended to give up the
inquiry and left the shop. It was after dark on a snowy January
afternoon, and I started to walk over to the Madison Avenue cars. I
dawdled along purposely so as to give the telephone time to get in its
work, and the affair turned out exactly as I had foreseen. At Elm
Street a couple of fellows jostled against me, and when the mix-up was
over the parcel containing my two sample records was gone. That was all
that had been wanted; my watch, pin, and money had not been touched.
"It was plain, then, that some one had an interest in preventing my
tracing up these particular records. Not Hugens, of course, but his
client, whoever he might be. Well, at least, it made the case more
interesting--yes, and more promising. Two nights later the house in
Madison Avenue was entered by second-story men while I was at dinner.
But the records and repeating apparatus had been removed to the
safe-deposit vaults, and my unknown opponent had drawn another blank.
"Getting exciting, wasn't it? And then for a month or more nothing
happened. You continued to convalesce and I kept on thinking.
"This impersonal opposition--well, there had been something of the same
sort once or twice before. You remember, in particular, the affair of
the private letter-box. A devilish intelligence had been at work there,
and some day, as I told you, the mystery would be cleared up.
"Then did we ever know who Mr. Aram Balencourt really was? An agent of
the 'Forty'? Well, perhaps so, but I can't help thinking that there was
always a bigger man behind him. The same conclusion would apply to the
case of that poor wretch Grenelli in the affair of the Russia and the
box of dynamite. Some one with brains pulled the strings to make all
these marionettes dance.
"Finally, there was your own adventure with the amiable Dr. Gonzales.
Did he ever remind you, even indefinitely, of some one else whom you
had known? Think carefully. Well, it doesn't matter. I was deceived
myself, and when I afterwards went to the Bellevue insane pavilion to
make some inquiries I found that he had long since been discharged as
cured.
"There was just one hypothesis--the existence somewhere of a strong and
alert personality; a genius along mechanical and scientific lines; a
creature of abnormally developed mentality and correspondingly
defective ethical nature; an intelligence absolutely passionless and
ruthless, playing the game entirely for its own sake, and equally
indifferent to the end and to the means used to attain it--in other
words, a monster. Quite an elaborate theory, you observe; but the
difficulty was to fit it to the individual. Looking back on the
problem, I accuse myself of being rather slow-witted. Right under my
eyes and yet only an accident opened them.
"Well, you recall the night at the Utinam when we met Mr. Chivers and I
accepted his very liberal proposition to become an adjuster of
averages. Of course, it was a trap, but what connoisseur of the
adventure grotesque could refuse such a bait? All I wanted to know was
with whom I was expected to match wits.
"Of course, the thousand-dollar bills were counterfeits--stage money?
Not at all; every one was as good as the gold it called for at the
sub-treasury. Bribery? From whom and for what? Doubtless I should know
later. As it happened, I found out a little ahead of time.
"You remember the incident of the honest cabman and the hieroglyphic
letter which he turned over to me? Here it is, addressed, as you
observe, to Mr. Chivers."
Indiman drew from a locked drawer in the big centre-table the long
strip of bluish paper covered with its incomprehensible dashes. "One of
the oldest of devices for secret writing," he remarked. "This slip of
paper was originally wrapped about a cylinder of a certain diameter and
the message traced upon it, and it can only be deciphered by rerolling
it upon another cylinder of the same diameter. Easy enough to find the
right one by the empiric method--I mean experiment. Once you recognize
the fundamental character of the cryptogram the rest follows with
ridiculous certainty. Behold!"
Indiman took a long, round, slender stick from the mantel-piece and
proceeded to wrap the ribbon of bluish paper about it, touching both
ends with paste to keep the slip in place. It read in part:
"He will not find the girl, but so long as those records remain in his
possession the possibility continues to exist. I leave it with you to
make the bargain, and if he is not altogether a fool he will be content
with his ten thousand dollars, and Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers will be
again without a tenant. Otherwise--and it is generally otherwise with
these meddlers--there will have to be a new adjustment of
averages--what a felicitous phrase!--and this, as usual, I will take
upon myself. One way or the other, and, personally, I don't care a
straw which it is."
The name signed to this curious epistle was David Magnus.
"Our Dr. Magnus of the Utinam," explained Indiman, but I hardly heard
him. One overwhelming thought obscured everything else--there was a
real Lady Allegra, after all. That was it--to find her, and I had the
clew. I must go at once. But Indiman restrained me.
"Yes, that is precisely what I want you to do, only let us first
understand the situation thoroughly. I intend remaining here during the
progress of the investigation, and if anything should happen--"
"What do you mean?"
"Pleasant rooms, aren't they?" and he looked about him approvingly.
"And yet three men have been found sitting dead in the particular chair
that I am now occupying."