inevitable, if one insists on absenting one's self even for as little as
half a decade. Intimations of immense changes were borne in upon
Whitaker while the steamer worked up the Bay. The Singer Building was an
unfamiliar sky-mark, but not more so than the Metropolitan Tower and the
Woolworth. The _Olympic_ docked at an impressive steel-and-concrete
structure, new since his day; and Whitaker narrowly escaped a row with a
taxicab chauffeur because the fellow smiled impertinently when directed
to drive to the Fifth Avenue Hotel.
A very few hours added amazingly to the catalogue of things that were
not as they had been: a list so extensive and impressive that he made up
his mind to maintain his incognito for a few days, until familiar with
the ways of his home. He was quick to perceive that he would even have
to forget most of the slang that had been current in his time, in
addition to unlearning all he had picked up abroad, and set himself with
attentive ears pricked forward and an open mind to master the new,
strange tongue his countrymen were speaking, if he were to make himself
intelligible to them--and them to him, for that matter.
So he put up at the Ritz-Carlton, precisely as any foreigner might be
expected to do, and remained Hugh Morten while he prowled around the
city and found himself. Now and again in the course of his wanderings he
encountered well-remembered faces, but always without eliciting the
slightest gleam of recognition: circumstances that only went to prove
how thoroughly dead and buried he was in the estimation of his day and
generation.
Nothing, indeed, seemed as he remembered it except the offerings in the
theatres. He sat through plays on three successive nights that sent him
back to his hotel saddened by the conviction that the tastes of his
fellow-countrymen in the matter of amusements were as enduring as
adamant--as long-enduring. Some day (he prophesied) New York would be
finished and complete; then would come the final change--its
name--because it wouldn't be New York unless ever changing; and when
that was settled, the city would know ease and, for want of something
less material to occupy it, begin to develop a soul of its own--together
with an inclination for something different in the way of theatrical
entertainment.
But his ultimate and utter awakening to the truth that his home had
outgrown him fell upon the fourth afternoon following his return, when a
total but most affable gentleman presented himself to Whitaker's
consideration with a bogus name and a genuine offer to purchase him a
drink, and promptly attempted to enmesh him in a confidence game that
had degenerated into a vaudeville joke in the days when both of them had
worn knickerbockers. Gently but firmly entrusting the stranger to the
care of a convenient policeman, Whitaker privately admitted that he was
outclassed, that it was time for him to seek the protection of his
friends.
He began with Drummond. The latter, of course, had moved his offices; no
doubt he had moved them several times; however that may be, Whitaker had
left him in quiet and contracted quarters in Pine Street; he found him
independently established in an imposing suite in the Woolworth
Building.
Whitaker gave one of Mr. Hugh Morten's cards to a subdued office-boy.
"Tell him," he requested, "that I want to see him about a matter
relating to the estate of Mr. Whitaker."
The boy dived through one partition-door and reappeared by way of
another with the deft certainty of a trained pantomime.
"Says t' come in."
Whitaker found himself in the presence of an ashen-faced man of
thirty-five, who clutched the side of his roll-top desk as if to save
himself from falling.
"Whitaker!" he gasped. "My God!"
"Flattered," said Whitaker, "I'm sure."
He derived considerable mischievous amusement from Drummond's patent
stupefaction. It was all so right and proper--as it should have been. He
considered his an highly satisfactory resurrection, the sensation it
created as complete, considered in the relation of anticipation to
fulfilment, as anything he had ever experienced. Seldom does a scene
pass off as one plans it; the other parties thereto are apt to spoil
things by spouting spontaneously their own original lines, thus cheating
one out of a crushing retort or cherished epigram. But Drummond played
up his part in a most public-spirited fashion--gratifying, to say the
least.
It took him some minutes to recover, Whitaker standing by and beaming.
He remarked changes, changes as striking as the improvement in
Drummond's fortunes. Physically his ex-partner had gone off a bit; the
sedentary life led by the average successful man of business in New York
had marked his person unmistakably. Much heavier than the man Whitaker
remembered, he wore a thick and solid air of good-natured prosperity.
The hair had receded an inch or so from his forehead. Only his face
seemed as it had always been--sharply handsome and strong. Whitaker
remembered that he had always somewhat meanly envied Drummond his good
looks; he himself had been fashioned after the new order of
architecture--with a steel frame; but for some reason Nature, the master
builder, had neglected sufficiently to wall in and conceal the skeleton.
Admitting the economy of the method, Whitaker was inclined to believe
that the effect must be surprising, especially if encountered without
warning....
He discovered that they were both talking at once--furiously--and, not
without surprise, that he had a great deal more enlightenment to impart
to Drummond than he had foreseen.
"You've got an economical streak in you when it comes to
correspondence," Drummond commented, offering Whitaker a sheet of paper
he had just taken from a tin document-box. "That's Exhibit A."
Whitaker read aloud:
"'DEAR D., I'm not feeling well, so off for a vacation. Burke has
just been in and paid $1500 in settlement of our claim. I'm
enclosing herewith my check for your share. Yours, H. M. W.'"
"Far be it from me to cast up," said Drummond; "but I'd like to know why
the deuce you couldn't let a fellow know how ill you were."
Whitaker frowned over his dereliction. "Don't remember," he confessed.
"I was hardly right, you know--and I presume I must have counted on
Greyerson telling."
"But I don't know Greyerson...."
"That's so. And you never heard--?"
"Merely a rumour ran round. Some one--I forget who--told me that you and
Stark had gone sailing in Stark's boat--to cruise in the West Indies,
according to my informant. And somebody else mentioned that he'd heard
you were seriously ill. More than that nothing--until we heard that the
_Adventuress_ had been lost, half a year later."
"I'm sorry," said Whitaker contritely. "It was thoughtless...."
"But that isn't all," Drummond objected, flourishing another paper. "See
here--Exhibit B--came in a day or so later."
"Yes." Whitaker recognized the document. "I remember insisting on
writing to you before we turned in that night."
He ran through the following communication:
"DEAR DRUMMOND: I married here, to-night, Mary Ladislas. Please
look out for her while I'm away. Make her an allowance out of my
money--five hundred a month ought to be enough. I shall die
intestate, and she'll get everything then, of course. She has your
address and will communicate with you as soon as she gets settled
down in Town.
"Faithfully--
"HUGH MORTEN WHITAKER."
"If it hadn't been so much in character," commented Drummond, "I'd've
thought the thing a forgery--or a poor joke. Knowing you as well as I
did, however ... I just sat back to wait for word from Mrs. Whitaker."
"And you never heard, except that once!" said Whitaker thoughtfully.
"Here's the sole and only evidence I ever got to prove that you had told
the truth."
Drummond handed Whitaker a single, folded sheet of note-paper stamped
with the name of the Waldorf-Astoria.
"CARTER S. DRUMMOND, Esq., 27 Pine Street, City.
"DEAR SIR: I inclose herewith a bank-note for $500, which you will
be kind enough to credit to the estate of your late partner and my
late husband, Mr. Hugh Morten Whitaker.
"Very truly yours,
"MARY LADISLAS WHITAKER."
"Dated, you see, the day after the report of your death was published
here."
"But why?" demanded Whitaker, dumfounded. "_Why?_"
"I infer she felt herself somehow honour-bound by the monetary
obligation," said the lawyer. "In her understanding your marriage of
convenience was nothing more--a one-sided bargain, I think you said she
called it. She couldn't consider herself wholly free, even though you
were dead, until she had repaid this loan which you, a stranger, had
practically forced upon her--if not to you, to your estate."
"But death cancels everything--"
"Not," Drummond reminded him with a slow smile, "the obligation of a
period of decent mourning that devolves upon a widow. Mrs. Whitaker may
have desired to marry again immediately. If I'm any judge of human
nature, she argued that repayment of the loan wiped out every
obligation. Feminine logic, perhaps, but--"
"Good Lord!" Whitaker breathed, appalled in the face of this contingency
which had seemed so remote and immaterial when he was merely Hugh
Morten, bachelor-nomad, to all who knew him on the far side of the
world.
Drummond dropped his head upon his hand and regarded his friend with
inquisitive eyes.
"Looks as though you may have gummed things up neatly--doesn't it?"
Whitaker nodded in sombre abstraction.
"You may not," continued Drummond with light malice, "have been so
generous, so considerate and chivalric, after all."
"Oh, cut that!" growled Whitaker, unhappily. "I never meant to come
back."
"Then why did you?"
"Oh ... I don't know. Chiefly because I caught Anne Presbury's sharp
eyes on me in Melbourne--as I said a while ago. I knew she'd talk--as
she surely will the minute she gets back--and I thought I might as well
get ahead of her, come home and face the music before anybody got a
chance to expose me. At the worst--if what you suggest has really
happened--it's an open-and-shut case; no one's going to blame the woman;
and it ought to be easy enough to secure a separation or divorce--"
"You'd consent to that?" inquired Drummond intently.
"I'm ready to do anything she wishes, within the law."
"You leave it to her, then?"
"If I ever find her--yes. It's the only decent thing I can do."
"How do you figure that?"
"I went away a sick man and a poor one; I come back as sound as a bell,
and if not exactly a plutocrat, at least better off than I ever expected
to be in this life.... To all intents and purposes I _made_ her a
partner to a bargain she disliked; well, I'll be hanged if I'm going to
hedge now, when I look a better matrimonial risk, perhaps: if she still
wants my name, she can have it."
Drummond laughed quietly. "If that's how you feel," he said, "I can only
give you one piece of professional advice."
"What's that?"
"Find your wife."
After a moment of puzzled thought, Whitaker admitted ruefully: "You're
right. There's the rub."
"I'm afraid you won't find it an easy job. I did my best without
uncovering a trace of her."
"You followed up that letter, of course?"
"I did my best; but, my dear fellow, almost anybody with a decent
appearance can manage to write a note on Waldorf stationery. I made sure
of one thing--the management knew nothing of the writer under either her
maiden name or yours."
"Did you try old Thurlow?"
"Her father died within eight weeks from the time you ran away. He left
everything to charity, by the way. Unforgiving blighter."
"Well, there's her sister, Mrs. Pettit."
"She heard of the marriage first through me," asserted Drummond. "Your
wife had never come near her--nor even sent her a line. She could give
me no information whatever."
"You don't think she purposely misled you--?"
"Frankly I don't. She seemed sincerely worried, when we talked the
matter over, and spoke in a most convincing way of her fruitless
attempts to trace the young woman through a private detective agency."
"Still, she may know now," Whitaker said doubtfully. "She may have heard
something since. I'll have a word with her myself."
"Address," observed Drummond, dryly: "the American Embassy, Berlin....
Pettit's got some sort of a minor diplomatic berth over there."
"O the devil!... But, anyway, I can write."
"Think it over," Drummond advised. "Maybe it might be kinder not to."
"Oh, I don't know--"
"You've given me to understand you were pretty comfy on the other side
of the globe. Why not let sleeping dogs lie?"
"It's the lie that bothers me--the living lie. It isn't fair to her."
"Rather sudden, this solicitude--what?" Drummond asked with open
sarcasm.
"I daresay it does look that way. But I can't see that it's the decent
thing for me to let things slide any longer. I've got to try to find
her. She may be ill--destitute--in desperate trouble again--"
Drummond's eyebrows went up whimsically. "You surely don't mean me to
infer that your affections are involved?"
This brought Whitaker up standing. "Good heavens--no!" he cried. He
moved to a window and stared rudely at the Post Office Building for a
time. "I'm going to find her just the same--if she still lives," he
announced, turning back.
"Would you know her if you saw her?"
"I don't know." Whitaker frowned with annoyance. "She's six years
older--"
"A woman often develops and changes amazingly between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-four."
"I know," Whitaker acknowledged with dejection.
"Well, but what _was_ she like?" Drummond pursued curiously.
Whitaker shook his head. "It's not easy to remember. Matter of fact, I
don't believe I ever got one good square look at her. It was twilight in
the hotel, when I found her; we sat talking in absolute darkness, toward
the end; even in the minister's study there was only a green-shaded lamp
on the table; and on the train--well, we were both too much worked up, I
fancy, to pay much attention to details."
"Then you really haven't any idea--?"
"Oh, hardly." Whitaker's thin brown hand gesticulated vaguely. "She was
tall, slender, pale, at the awkward age...."
"Blonde or brune?"
"I swear I don't know. She wore one of those funny knitted caps, tight
down over her hair, all the time."
Drummond laughed quietly. "Rather an inconclusive description,
especially if you advertise. 'Wanted: the wife I married six years ago
and haven't seen since; tall, slender, pale, at the awkward age; wore
one of those funny knit--'"
"I don't feel in a joking humour," Whitaker interrupted roughly. "It's a
serious matter and wants serious treatment.... What else have we got to
mull over?"
Drummond shrugged suavely. "There's enough to keep us busy for several
hours," he said. "For instance, there's my stewardship."
"Your which?"
"My care of your property. You left a good deal of money and securities
lying round loose, you know; naturally I felt obliged to look after 'em.
There was no telling when Widow Whitaker might walk in and demand an
accounting. I presume we might as well run over the account--though it
is getting late."
"Half-past four," Whitaker informed him, consulting his watch. "Take too
long for to-day. Some other time."
"To-morrow suit you?"
"To-morrow's Sunday," Whitaker objected. "But there's no hurry at all."
Drummond's reply was postponed by the office boy, who popped in on the
heels of a light knock.
"Mr. Max's outside," he announced.
"O the deuce!" The exclamation seemed to escape Drummond's lips
involuntarily. He tightened them angrily, as though regretting the lapse
of self-control, and glanced hurriedly askance to see if Whitaker had
noticed. "I'm busy," he added, a trace sullenly. "Tell him I've gone
out."
"But he's got 'nappointment," the boy protested. "And besides, I told
him you was in."
"You needn't fob him off on my account," Whitaker interposed. "We can
finish our confab later--Monday--any time. It's time for me to be
getting up-town, anyway."
"It isn't that," Drummond explained doggedly. "Only--the man's a bore,
and--"
"It isn't Jules Max?" Whitaker demanded excitedly. "Not little Jules
Max, who used to stage manage our amateur shows?"
"That's the man," Drummond admitted with plain reluctance.
"Then have him in, by all means. I want to say howdy to him, if nothing
more. And then I'll clear out and leave you to his troubles."
Drummond hesitated; whereupon the office boy, interpreting assent,
precipitately vanished to usher in the client. His employer laughed a
trifle sourly.
"Ben's a little too keen about pleasing Max," he said. "I think he looks
on him as the fountainhead of free seats. Max has developed into a
heavy-weight entrepreneur, you know."
"Meaning theatrical manager? Then why not say so? But I might've guessed
he'd drift into something of the sort."
A moment later Whitaker was vigorously pumping the unresisting--indeed
the apparently boneless--hand of a visibly flabbergasted gentleman, who
suffered him for the moment solely upon suspicion, if his expression
were a reliable index of his emotion.
In the heyday of his career as a cunning and successful promoter of
plays and players, Jules Max indulged a hankering for the picturesquely
eccentric that sat oddly upon his commonplace personality. The hat that
had made Hammerstein famous Max had appropriated--straight crown, flat
brim and immaculate gloss--bodily. Beneath it his face was small of
feature, and fat. Its trim little mustache lent it an air of
conventionality curiously at war with a pince-nez which sheltered his
near-sighted eyes, its enormous, round, horn-rimmed lenses sagging to
one side with the weight of a wide black ribbon. His nose was
insignificant, his mouth small and pursy. His short, round little body
was invariably by day dressed in a dark gray morning-coat, white-edged
waistcoat, assertively-striped trousers, and patent-leather shoes with
white spats. He had a passion for lemon-coloured gloves of thinnest kid
and slender malacca walking-sticks. His dignity was an awful thing, as
ingrained as his strut.
He reasserted the dignity now with a jerk of his maltreated hand, as
well as with an appreciable effort betrayed by his resentful glare.
"Do I know you?" he demanded haughtily. "If not, what the devil do you
mean by such conduct, sir?"
With a laugh, Whitaker took him by the shoulders and spun him round
smartly into a convenient chair.
"Sit still and let me get a _good_ look," he implored. "Think of it!
Juley Max daring to put on side with me! The impudence of you, Juley!
I've a great mind to play horse with you. How dare you go round the
streets looking like that, anyway?"
Max recovered his breath, readjusted his glasses, and resumed his stare.
"Either," he observed, "you're Hugh Whitaker come to life or a damned
outrage."
"Both, if you like."
"You sound like both," complained the little man. "Anyway, you were
drowned in the Philippines or somewhere long ago, and I never waste time
on a dead one.... Drummond--" He turned to the lawyer with a vastly
business-like air.
"No, you don't!" Whitaker insisted, putting himself between the two men.
"I admit that you're a great man; you might at least admit that I'm a
live one."
A mollified smile moderated the small man's manner. "That's a bargain,"
he said, extending a pale yellow paw; "I'm glad to see you again, Hugh.
When did you recrudesce?"
"An hour ago," Drummond answered for him; "blew in here as large as life
and twice as important. He's been running a gold farm out in New Guinea.
What do you know about that?"
"It's very interesting," Max conceded. "I shall have to cultivate him; I
never neglect a man with money. If you'll stick around a few minutes,
Hugh, I'll take you up-town in my car." He turned to Drummond,
completely ignoring Whitaker while he went into the details of some
action he desired the lawyer to undertake on his behalf. Then, having
talked steadily for upwards of ten minutes, he rose and prepared to go.
"You've asked him, of course?" he demanded of Drummond, nodding toward
Whitaker.
Drummond flushed slightly. "No chance," he said. "I was on the point of
doing it when you butted in."
"What's this?" inquired Whitaker.
Max delivered himself of a startling bit of information: "He's going to
get married."
Whitaker stared. "Drummond? Not really?"
Drummond acknowledged his guilt brazenly: "Next week, in fact."
"But why didn't you say anything about it?"
"You didn't give me an opening. Besides, to welcome a deserter from the
Great Beyond is enough to drive all other thoughts from a man's mind."
"There's to be a supper in honour of the circumstances, at the Beaux
Arts to-night," supplemented Max. "You'll come, of course."
"Do you think you could keep me away with a dog?"
"Wouldn't risk spoiling the dog," said Drummond. He added with a
tentative, questioning air: "There'll be a lot of old-time acquaintances
of yours there, you know."
"So much the better," Whitaker declared with spirit. "I've played dead
long enough."
"As you think best," the lawyer acceded. "Midnight, then--the Beaux
Arts."
"I'll be there--and furthermore, I'll be waiting at the church a week
hence--or whenever it's to come off. And now I want to congratulate
you." Whitaker held Drummond's hand in one of those long, hard grips
that mean much between men. "But mostly I want to congratulate her. Who
is she?"
"Sara Law," said Drummond, with pride in his quick color and the lift of
his chin.
"Sara Law?" The name had a familiar ring, yet Whitaker failed to
recognize it promptly.
"The greatest living actress on the English-speaking stage," Max
announced, preening himself importantly. "My own discovery."
"You don't mean to say you haven't heard of her. Is New Guinea, then, so
utterly abandoned to the march of civilization?"
"Of course I've heard--but I have been out of touch with such things,"
Whitaker apologized. "When shall I see her?"
"At supper, to-night," said the man of law. "It's really in her
honour--"
"In honour of her retirement," Max interrupted, fussing with a gardenia
on his lapel. "She retires from the stage finally, and forever--she
says--when the curtain falls to-night."
"Then I've got to be in the theatre to-night--if that's the case," said
Whitaker. "It isn't my notion of an occasion to miss."
"You're right there," Max told him bluntly. "It's no small matter to
me--losing such a star; but the world's loss of its greatest
artist--_ah!_" He kissed his finger-tips and ecstatically flirted the
caress afar.
"'Fraid you won't get in, though," Drummond doubted darkly. "Everything
in the house for this final week was sold out a month ago. Even the
speculators are cleaned out."
"_Tut!_" the manager reproved him loftily. "Hugh is going to see Sara
Law act for the last time from my personal box--aren't you, Hugh?"
"You bet I am!" Whitaker asserted with conviction.
"Then come along." Max caught him by the arm and started for the door.
"So long, Drummond...."
VI
CURTAIN
Nothing would satisfy Max but that Whitaker should dine with him. He
consented to drop him at the Ritz-Carlton, in order that he might dress,
only on the condition that Whitaker would meet him at seven, in the
white room at the Knickerbocker.
"Just mention my name to the head waiter," he said with magnificence;
"or if I'm there first, you can't help seeing me. Everybody knows my
table--the little one in the southeast corner."
Whitaker promised, suppressing a smile; evidently the hat was not the
only peculiarity of Mr. Hammerstein's that Max had boldly made his own.
Max surprised him by a shrewd divination of his thoughts. "I know what
you're thinking," he volunteered with an intensely serious expression
shadowing his pudgy countenance; "but really, my dear fellow, it's good
business. You get people into the habit of saying, 'There's Max's
table,' and you likewise get them into the habit of thinking of Max's
theatre and Max's stars. As a matter of fact, I'm merely running an
immense advertising plant with a dramatic annex."
"You are an immense advertisement all by your lonesome," Whitaker agreed
with a tolerant laugh, rising as the car paused at the entrance of the
Ritz.
"Seven o'clock--you won't fail me?" Max persisted. "Really, you know,
I'm doing you an immense favour--dinner--a seat in my private box at
Sara Law's farewell performance--"
"Oh, I'm thoroughly impressed," Whitaker assured him, stepping out of
the car. "But tell me--on the level, now--why this staggering
condescension?"