"No marks of violence," continued Indiman. "Nothing to indicate foul
play; nothing, mind you. 'Dead by the visitation of God,' according to
the coroner, but I should call it an 'adjustment of averages.' That is
a felicitous phrase. I got my facts, by-the-way, from the janitor. He
is rather proud of the affair Barowsky, as we may call it."
"A monster, indeed!" I exclaimed, warmly.
"Oh, we mustn't misjudge our good Dr. Magnus," said Indiman,
indulgently. "I used the word 'monster' in a purely psychological
sense. You can't call such a being immoral; he is simply unmoral."
"Not even a criminal lunatic."
"Certainly not. But I acknowledge that society would be justified in
protecting itself from such a creature. And it will."
"But why should you remain here, exposed to danger?"
"My dear Thorp, I want to play the game. I'm sure it's one worthy of my
best attention."
We argued it out for an hour or more, but Indiman was not to be moved
from his position. So it came back to his original proposition. I was
to take up the search on the outside for the Lady Allegra, and Indiman
was to hold the fort at Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers. I rose to go.
"You don't need these, do you?" he asked, a little doubtfully, picking
up one of the phonographic cylinders. I shook my head. As though I
could have forgotten the smallest inflection of that voice! So we
parted.
It had resolved itself into the needle in a hay-stack, after all. Where
was I to look and for what? A voice! "Vox et preterea nihil," to quote
again that beloved Vergilian line. To the unprejudiced mind it would
seem hopeless enough, and yet I never doubted for an instant but that I
should find her. If a man is sure that the world holds the one woman
intended for him he may be equally confident that their paths will
somewhere, somehow, sometime intersect.
It was the middle of the musical season, and I attended everything from
grand opera to music-hall. For the first and most obvious procedure was
to assume that the Lady Allegra was a professional singer. Either that
or in the very front rank of amateurs. As to the latter, I had always
been more or less in with the musical set, and I knew of no one who
came within a mile of filling my bill of particulars.
A professional, then, but not necessarily high up on the ladder. Merit
may wait a long time for its due recognition. So I did not despise the
humble field of vaudeville and of the continuous performance houses.
Week after week passed without result, and it was now the 1st of March.
I saw Indiman every few days and the game dragged equally with him.
Chivers had called half a dozen times, and was now openly negotiating
for the possession of the phonographic cylinders. But Indiman fenced
skilfully and kept him hanging on.
One night I was strolling through East Houston Street. A transparency
caught my eye. It announced that a performance of high-class vaudeville
was in progress. I paid my dime and entered.
A long, low-studded room, dim with tobacco-smoke and redolent of stale
beer. At the far end a small stage with faded red hangings. The card
read No. 7, and the programme informed me that the turn was "A Bouquet
of Ballads." A slight, fair-haired girl appeared on the stage. Her
cheeks were burning, and she kept her eyes fixed on the floor. The
piano jangled, and she began her song, Schubert's "Linden-Tree." Her
voice shook and quavered as she went on, but I knew it. I had found the
Lady Allegra.
The audience listened indifferently. This sort of thing did not appeal
to East Houston Street sensibilities, and there was no applause at the
end. The girl essayed a few bars of her second number, a popular air in
trivial waltz time, but with even poorer success. Then she broke down
altogether and retired distressfully. Cat-calls and jeers, of course.
But one turn had been allotted to "Mavis," as she was called in the
bill, and I assumed that she would shortly leave the place. I went
outside and waited. Within ten minutes I saw her emerging from the
performer's entrance, cloaked and deeply veiled. But I could not be
mistaken. I stood stock-still like any fool as she passed close to me.
What was I to do?
Then good-fortune smiled for once, and in gratitude for that surpassing
indulgence I hereby relinquish all claim upon the lady for favors to
come, now and forever. As the girl passed down the street a couple of
pasty-faced young men stepped forward. I saw her stop and shrink away.
A half-dozen steps and I had shoved in between them. The presumptuous
youths sprawled to opposite points of the compass and I had drawn her
hand through my arm. I could feel it tremble, but I carried her onward
exultantly, masterfully. A man takes his own when he finds it. Then at
the next street-lamp I stopped and released her. Within the circle of
the light we stood and gazed into each other's eyes.
The Lady Allegra who was! It seems odd to think of her now as Alice
Allaire--a pretty enough name but not particularly romantic. And when
she changes it to Thorp, as she has just promised to do--But perhaps I
am going a bit too fast. However, her story is simplicity itself.
My dear girl is an orphan, and six months ago she went to live with her
guardian and uncle, David Magnus. But the situation quickly became
intolerable. The attentions of the odious creature Olivers were openly
encouraged by Dr. Magnus, and the child, although friendless and in a
strange city, had no recourse but to run away. Surely, her voice would
secure her a living! But the weeks passed and her store of money was
running dangerously low. The Houston Street vaudeville had been the one
chance that had offered, and she had hoped to make it good. But that
first appearance had been her last. After the fiasco of which I had
been a witness she had been discharged on the spot. We smile as we
recall it now, but it had been a terrible catastrophe to contemplate at
the time. What would you have done?
We went straight to Indiman, and he listened with close attention.
"You have property, then?" he asked.
Miss Allaire looked troubled. "There is money. I even think it must be
a large estate. But I don't know; my uncle never spoke of my affairs."
"One of those cases where it is virtually impossible to prove
anything," said Indiman to me. "Nevertheless, Magnus would be quite
satisfied to have the absence of his niece made a permanent one--it
saves the bother of making any explanations whatever."
"The phonographic records were the only clew," I observed. "At least he
thought so."
"Yes, and consequently he has been working all this while to get them
away from me. We're ready now to make a deal, but I'd like to know what
stakes are on the table before playing a card."
"There was an ante of ten thousand dollars, you remember."
"Quite so. Well, Miss Allaire, if you are willing to have me play the
partie in your behalf--"
"I could ask for nothing better," said the girl, quickly.
"Agreed, then. And, really, I think it is the only chance. Magnus is
too clever a man not to have covered his tracks, and in an ordinary
legal battle you would probably be worsted. But he doesn't want a fight
if he can help it, and that is the club I propose to use. Now you'll
have to go, for I expect Chivers at two."
I am glad that I glanced back for that last time as we left the room.
Indiman was smiling, his head thrown back and his eyes aglow. The fight
was on, and he was awaiting it as another man might his bride. To be
remembered at one's best; I know I should wish that for myself.
A fortnight passed. I had not heard a word from Indiman, and I dared
not intrude upon him without an invitation. I had taken Miss Allaire to
the Margaret Louise Home for Women, but two weeks is the limit of
residence there. What was to be done now? My own slender funds were
exhausted and Alice had not a penny. So we did the wisest possible
thing under the circumstances--or the most foolish, whichever you care
to term it. An hour after we had been married I went down to Printing
House Square and literally forced a city editor's hand for an
assignment to general reportorial work. At least we should not starve.
I informed Indiman by letter of the event, but received no reply.
On the afternoon of the 21st of March I was in the city room of the
Planet. Mr. Dodge, the city editor, beckoned to me. He spoke quickly:
"Our representative at Police Headquarters has just telephoned that a
man has been found dead in the Barowsky Brothers' bank building, and
there's some yarn to the effect that he is the fourth to die alone in
that particular office. Better go down and take a look at things. May
be a good story in it."
So there was, but the Planet never published it; they accepted my
resignation in lieu of an explanation.
I tried to think of indifferent matters as I hurried over to William H.
Seward Square, but my heart kept pounding against my ribs. Could it be
that Indiman--that he had lost the game?
There was the usual crowd of curiosity-mongers hanging about the bank
building, and of course the police had taken charge. But the sergeant
happened to be well disposed towards newsmen, and my Planet badge
procured me instant admission to the scene of the tragedy. I passed
into the back room. I could see the rigid figure sitting in the big
chair. I forced myself to look at him squarely.
The dead man was David Magnus.
I went straight from William H. Seward Square to our boarding-house. A
bulky package had just come for me through a special-delivery
messenger. It contained negotiable securities to the amount of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars; also a half-dozen sheets of
letter-paper in Indiman's handwriting. I transcribe the latter:
"Congratulations, my dear Thorp, on your marriage. They're a bit
belated, I know, but I haven't been in the mood for writing of late.
Moreover, I wanted to make sure of Mrs. Thorp's dowry. I enclose the
proceeds of the campaign, and fancy that the settlement isn't so far
out of the way. But then our good friend Magnus never expected that he
would be called upon to pay it. Here's the story as I wrote it down
from day to day.
"March 1. It's plain enough that Magnus has been embezzling the fortune
of his niece, Miss Allaire. From what the girl could tell me of her
late parent's mode of living I put them down as being comfortably off,
if not rich. So I have intimated that I might consider an offer of
fifty thousand dollars for the phonographic records in my safe-deposit
vault. At least I will now draw the enemy's fire.
"March 3. Chivers has called and affects to regard my proposition as
absurd. I have riposted by raising my price to seventy-five thousand
dollars. He protested angrily, and I immediately made it one hundred
thousand dollars.
"March 8. Five days of silence and then another call from Chivers. I
met him with the statement that now I would not take less than one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. He seemed flurried and said
that he would have to consult his principal. 'As you like,' I remarked,
carelessly, 'but it will then cost you one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.' Magnus is evidently alarmed and is wondering how much I
really know.
"March 9. No word from the hostile camp. The inference is that I may
now look for a move on my antagonists' part, 'Otherwise,' as he says in
that precious note, 'there will have to be a new adjustment of
averages.' Precisely.
"The position is probably a dangerous one, and I must take the obvious
precautions. To begin with, I shall not leave these rooms until the
affair is over, and I have made arrangements with an up-town restaurant
to supply me with my meals in sealed vessels. I am thus insured against
a street assault and poison. But all this is probably useless. The
Magnus method of attack will be far more subtle.
"I have just written to Chivers that two hundred thousand dollars will
now be necessary if he wants those phonographic records.
"March 11. I have had a talk with Louis, the janitor, about the
Barowsky 'affairs.' Three men found dead in the big chair that faces
the centre-table in my living-room. The date in every case was the 21st
of March. If not an extraordinary coincidence there is food for
reflection in this plain statement. It gives me ten clear days, and I
can eat my dinner to-night in comparative comfort.
"March 12. I have assumed that the psychological moment is scheduled
for March 21st, but both the direction and the nature of the blow are
still unknown. I have made a minute examination of the rooms and all
that they contain, but can discover nothing in the nature of a trap.
There are no secret doors, no collapsing walls, no hidden tubes for the
dissemination of poisonous vapors. My windows are not overlooked from
any outside point of vantage, thus eliminating the silent bullet of the
air-gun. In a word, the machinery of the melodrama seems to be entirely
non-existent. And yet I know that unless I can get the end of the clew
before the 21st of March I shall sit dead in the big chair over there,
just as the three who have gone before me.
"March 18. Still no answer from Chivers. I have sent him a final
communication fixing my price at two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, and saying that unless the proposition is accepted within
three days further negotiations will be broken off.
"March 19. The offer is accepted. At noon on Friday, the 21st, two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in negotiable securities will be
placed in my hands, and I am to give in return an order on the
safe-deposit company for the phonographic plates. But there is one
paragraph in the letter that puzzles me. It reads:
"'My client will come in person on Friday to conclude the business, but
only in the event of the day being bright and sunny. If rainy or cloudy
you may expect him at a somewhat earlier hour on Saturday or the next
clear day whichever it may be.'
"Now what does this mean? On the face of it, a disinclination on the
part of an elderly gentleman to expose himself to these chill March
winds. But Magnus is not very old, and he does not look in the least
rheumatic.
"I have forgotten to mention the one peculiarity that I discovered in
the furniture of my living-room. The big chair is immovably fixed to
the floor, its heavy pivot-base being riveted down to an iron
bed-plate. And the chair itself is not made of mahogany, as I had
supposed, but of an unknown metallic alloy that simulates the wood very
closely. Well, I was prepared for something like this.
"Another interesting point. The windows in the living-room face in a
southerly direction, and the sun is now every day getting a little
farther round, penetrating a little deeper, at every noon hour, into
the room. On the 21st it will cross the line, and at least one ray will
illumine a spot that for several months has not been touched by the
direct sunlight. What spot?
"It is nearing twelve o'clock, and as I sit in the big chair I can see
the bar of golden light creeping steadily onward. It reaches the chair,
and half-way around the pivot-base. Then the heavenly clock begins its
retrograde movement, and the ray of sunlight is forced to retreat. But
to-morrow it will come a little farther, and so again on the day after.
"Around the sash in the big window the architect has inserted a row of
glass bull's-eyes, a style of ornamentation suited to the semi-Oriental
tastes of William H. Seward Square. I go up and examine them closely.
They seem ordinary enough--but stop! The third from the bottom; it has
a peculiar depth and clearness. It might very well be a lens--a
burning-glass, to use the old-fashioned term. How close has the sun
drawn to this particular bull's-eye? To-morrow I will take note.
"March 20. At high noon the sun has reached within a hair's-breadth of
the third bull's-eye from the bottom. To-morrow it will surely shine
through my suspect, and if the latter be a true lens it will
concentrate, for several minutes, a high degree of heat at the
particular spot upon which its rays are focussed. That spot I have
found, by experiment, to be one of a series of small bosses set in the
pivot-base of the big chair. I applied the flame of a match and
immediately the metal boss began to soften. I understand now. The boss
is made of a fusible alloy that melts at a certain prearranged
temperature; it is simply a variation of the common safety plug used in
all the systems of mechanical protection against fire. At noon
to-morrow, March 21st, the rays of the sun will be concentrated by the
lens in the window-sash and will fall upon this boss of fusible metal.
The plug will melt, releasing a spring, let us say, and a train of
action will be set in motion.
"The precise nature of that action I shall probably not discover. I
incline to the belief that it is of an electrical nature. A connection
is to be thereby established with one of the deadly currents that can
be tapped for the asking here in New York. It may be objected that the
men who died in the chair over there showed no external marks of death
by electrical shock. But the autopsy, if it had been performed by
Coroner Lunkhead, might have told a different story. Magnus is as good
an electrician as he is a chemist, and he could easily rig up some kind
of transformer reducing the power of the current just enough to
paralyze the victim--death by a myriad of small shocks instead of one
big one. Now it is plain why the spider will not come to spring his
trap unless the sun shines on the 21st of March. If it doesn't, the
play goes over to the next clear day, only that the curtain will rise a
minute or so earlier in correspondence with the onward march of the
sun-god, the executioner in the cast of our drama. Well, I have made my
preparations to counter-check. To-morrow we shall see what we shall see.
"March 21. I have still an hour before the expressman will come for the
clock-case, and I must take the opportunity to finish my notes. The
dead man sits opposite me at the table, but that does not matter. There
is plenty of room for us both.
"The day dawned clear and fine, and at ten o'clock the sun was shining
brightly. He will come then.
"At eleven I began to wonder how Dr. Magnus proposes to witness my last
agonies without risk of suspicion attaching to his precious self. If he
is seen entering and leaving my room this morning he may be called upon
for an explanation later. One cannot be too careful in playing the
delicate role of the amateur assassin.
"But I have wronged my excellent friend. He has foreseen the difficulty
and provided against it. At precisely half after eleven a couple of
expressmen delivered what purported to be a clock-case at my outer
office. It was addressed to me and I receipted for it without
hesitation.
"'I understand that we are to call for it again at two o'clock,' said
one of the men. 'That'll give you time to pack up the other clock?'
"'Very good,' said I.
"'And Mr. Gill said that you would set the case out on the landing if
you had to leave the office before we got back. I'll put the receipt
under the door.'
"'I understand,' I answered, carelessly. 'Get yourself some cigars,'
and I slipped a half-dollar in the man's hand. He thanked me and
withdrew. I sat down and waited.
"The lid of the case was removable from the inside. I watched the
screws fall one after another to the floor. Then the lid followed, and
Dr. Magnus stood before me. His eyes, distorted horribly by the extra
powerful lenses of his spectacles, fixed me with a steady look. He came
close as though to assure himself that there was no mistake. His face
almost touched mine. He put on his second and third pair of glasses,
and again I felt like the fly under the microscope.
"We did not go through the farce of exchanging salutations. This was
war and we should both know it. It was now nearly noon and the sun was
rapidly approaching the zenith. I led the way into the rear room.
"'Here are the securities,' said Magnus. I looked them over and
announced myself as satisfied.
"'Kindly sit down and write me out an order on the safe-deposit
company,' he went on, in rather a petulant tone. He was standing by the
big chair. He bent forward as though to turn it in my direction.
"The psychological moment had come, but the trick was even easier than
I had anticipated. Being in a stooping posture, he was partially off
his balance. A sharp jerk at his coat-collar and he was seated in the
big chair. He bit at my hand savagely as a dog snaps, but I had been
too quick for him. Then a couple of turns of stout window-cord put
everything secure.
"The man seemed dazed. He made no attempt to release himself. He did
not even speak. But then his lips were dry. They opened and shut
mechanically. His eyes, staring through their triple glasses, were
turned towards the window. The sunlight, shining in full strength, was
creeping steadily towards the row of bull's-eyes on the right of the
sash. It lay in a broad, golden band on the polished floor.
"A decrepit fly crawled out of a crack and made feebly for the welcome
warmth. The prisoner's feet were free and he advanced one of them
slowly, stealthily towards the miserable insect, then smashed
ruthlessly down upon it. In my turn I looked away, gazing steadily at
the window and the sun beyond. A few minutes now and we would know.
"A little cloud no bigger than a man's hand. It was travelling directly
towards the sun's disk. Suppose now that its veil obscured, at the
final moment, the fatal ray. He saw it too. Together we watched it
slowly drifting through the brilliant blue of the sky--a little cloud
no bigger than a man's hand.
"The currents of air in the upper regions first accelerated and then
retarded the progress of the vaporous island. It seemed to stop; then
it hung for an instant directly on the lower limb of the great ball of
light. A sensation of intolerable cold pervaded my entire body.
Involuntarily I shut my eyes.
"I forced myself to look. The cloud had disappeared. Its imponderable
essence had been absorbed into the clear ether as a drop of water
sizzles into nothingness on a red-hot stove. The sunlight, shining
through the third bull's-eye from the bottom, was instantly transformed
into a single concentrated beam. The heat-ray impinged upon the boss of
fusible metal. I saw the alloy begin to melt. I turned and ran into the
other room.
"Twenty minutes of silence and then I re-entered. I was horribly
afraid, but he sat there quiet and still. I unwound the cord and threw
it out of the window. It was clouding over in earnest now. These March
days are so changeable.
"It is close to two o'clock, and I must be getting ready to depart. I
have set the clock-case out in the passageway, and the lids and screws
are in readiness. The expressman will doubtless be punctual. He will
carry the case down-stairs and load it on his wagon. I shall be
delivered in due course at my destination. What is it to be? Well, I
shall have plenty of time in which to reflect upon the possibilities of
the journey that lies before me.
"One moment in which to seal up these notes, together with the bundle
of securities. Fortunately, I have a special-delivery stamp in my
pocket, and I can post the packet in the mail-chute. Best wishes, my
dear Thorp, for the future happiness of yourself and your charming
wife. You have now given a hostage to fortune and will no longer care
to sail on uncertain seas. But the Wanderlust in my blood seems to be
ineradicable. Again the gates of chance are opening before me and I am
eager to enter in. Good-bye."
Here the record ends abruptly. And there has been no sequel. Not the
slightest sound nor sign has been vouchsafed from the void. He who was
Esper Indiman is gone, like a stone dropped into the gulf, and I have
lost something that is not easily replaced--a friend. But since it is
his wish, there is nothing more to be said. He may return--a message
may come--
The gates of chance! Well, it is exactly a year and a day since that
eventful afternoon when Esper Indiman's visiting-card was thrust into
my unconscious hand. I have travelled along some strange ways in the
course of that twelvemonth, and henceforth I shall be content to trudge
along the common high-road of life. The gates of chance--for me they
are closed forever. But I look over at my wife's dear face and know
that it is better so.