out by day was most dangerous, and sent the landlord after the
newspapers. The feelings with which he read them were mixed. He was
proud of the complete success of his plot, but the inevitableness of it
terrified him. The success was _too_ complete. He had left himself no
loophole. He had locked the door on himself and thrown the key out of
the window. Now, that she was lost to him forever, he found, if that
were possible, he loved his wife more devotedly than before. He felt
that to live in the same world with Jeanne and never speak to her, never
even look at her, could not be borne. He was of a mind to rush to the
wharf and take another leap into the dark waters, and this time without
a life-line. From this he was restrained only by the thought that if he
used infinite caution, at infrequent intervals, at a great distance, he
still might look upon his wife. This he assured himself would be
possible only after many years had aged him and turned his hair gray.
Then on second thoughts he believed to wait so long was not absolutely
necessary. It would be safe enough, he argued, if he grew a beard. He
always had been clean-shaven, and he was confident a beard would
disguise him. He wondered how long a time must pass before one would
grow. Once on a hunting-trip he had gone for two weeks without shaving,
and the result had not only disguised but disgusted him. His face had
changed to one like those carved on cocoanuts. A recollection of this
gave him great pleasure. His spirits rose happily. He saw himself in the
rags of a tramp, his face hidden in an unkempt beard, skulking behind
the hedges that surrounded his house. From this view-point, before
sailing away from her forever, he would again steal a look at Jeanne. He
determined to postpone his departure until he had grown a beard.
Meanwhile he would plead illness, and keep to his room, or venture out
only at night. Comforted by the thought that in two weeks he might again
see his wife, as she sat on the terrace or walked in her gardens, he
sank peaceably to sleep.
The next morning the landlord brought him the papers. In them were many
pictures of himself as a master of foxhounds, as a polo-player, as a
gentleman jockey. The landlord looked at him curiously. Five minutes
later, on a trivial excuse, he returned and again studied Jimmie as
closely as though he were about to paint his portrait. Then two of the
other boarders, chums of the landlord, knocked at the door, to borrow a
match, to beg the loan of the morning paper. Each was obviously excited,
each stared accusingly. Jimmie fell into a panic. He felt that if
already his identity was questioned, than hiding in his room and growing
a beard nothing could be more suspicious. At noon, for West Indian
ports, a German boat was listed to sail from the Twenty-fourth Street
wharf. Jimmie decided at once to sail with her and, until his beard was
grown, not to return. It was necessary first to escape the suspicious
landlord, and to that end he noiselessly packed his trunk and suit-case.
In front of the house, in an unending procession, taxi-cabs returning
empty from the Twenty-third Street ferry passed the door, and from the
street Jimmie hailed one. Before the landlord could voice his doubts
Jimmie was on the sidewalk, his bill had been paid, and, giving the
address of a hotel on Fourteenth Street, he was away.
At the Fourteenth Street hotel Jimmie dismissed the taxi-cab and asked
for a room adjoining an imaginary Senator Gates. When the clerk told him
Senator Gates was not at that hotel, Jimmie excitedly demanded to be led
to the telephone. He telephoned the office of the steamship line: and,
in the name of Henry Hull, secured a cabin. Then he explained to the
clerk that over the telephone he had learned that his friend, Senator
Gates, was at another hotel. He regretted that he must follow him.
Another taxi was called, and Jimmie drove to an inconspicuous and
old-fashioned hotel on the lower East Side, patronized exclusively by
gunmen. There, in not finding Senator Gates, he was again disappointed,
and now having broken the link that connected him with the suspicious
landlord, he drove back to within a block of his original starting-point
and went on board the ship. Not until she was off Sandy Hook did he
leave his cabin.
It was July, and passengers to the tropics were few; and when Jimmie
ventured on deck he found most of them gathered at the port rail. They
were gazing intently over the ship's side. Thinking the pilot might be
leaving, Jimmie joined them. A young man in a yachting-cap was pointing
north and speaking in the voice of a conductor of a "seeing New York"
car.
"Just between that lighthouse and the bow of this ship," he exclaimed,
"is where yesterday James Blagwin jumped overboard. At any moment we may
see the body!"
An excitable passenger cried aloud and pointed at some floating seaweed.
"I'll bet that's it now!" he shouted.
Jimmie exclaimed indignantly:
"I'll bet you ten dollars it isn't!" he said.
In time the ship touched at Santiago, Kingston, and Colon, but, fearing
recognition, Jimmie saw these places only from the deck. He travelled
too fast for newspapers to overtake him, and those that on the return
passage met the ship, of his death gave no details. So, except that his
suicide had been accepted, Jimmie knew nothing.
Least of all did he know, or even guess, that his act of renunciation,
intended to bring to Jeanne happiness, had nearly brought about her own
end. She believed Jimmie was dead, but not for a moment did she believe
it was for fear of blindness he had killed himself. She and Maddox had
killed him. Between them they had murdered the man who, now that he was
gone, she found she loved devotedly. To a shocked and frightened letter
of condolence from Maddox she wrote one that forever ordered him out of
her life. Then she set about making a saint of Jimmie, and counting the
days when in another world they would meet, and her years of remorse,
penitence, and devotion would cause him to forgive her. In their home
she shut herself off from every one. She made of it a shrine to Jimmie.
She kept his gloves on the hall table; on her writing-desk she placed
flowers before his picture. Preston, the butler, and the other servants
who had been long with them feared for her sanity, but, loving "Mr.
James" as they did, sympathized with her morbidness. So, in the old
farmhouse, it was as though Jimmie still stamped through the halls, or
from his room, as he dressed, whistled merrily. In the kennels the
hounds howled dismally, in the stables at each footstep the ponies
stamped with impatience, on the terrace his house dog, Huang Su, lay
with his eyes fixed upon the road waiting for the return of the master,
and in the gardens a girl in black, wasted and white-faced, walked alone
and rebelled that she was still alive.
After six weeks, when the ship re-entered New York harbor, Jimmie, his
beard having grown, and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, walked boldly
down the gangplank. His confidence was not misplaced. The polo-player,
clean-faced, lean, and fit, had disappeared. Six weeks of German
cooking, a German barber, and the spectacles had produced a graduate of
Heidelberg.
At a furnished room on a side street Jimmie left his baggage, and at
once at the public library, in the back numbers of the daily papers,
read the accounts of his death and interviews with his friends. They all
agreed the reason for his suicide was his fear of approaching blindness.
As he read, Jimmie became deeply depressed. Any sneaking hopes he might
have held that he was not dead were now destroyed. The evidence of his
friends was enough to convince any one. It convinced him. Now that it
was too late, his act of self-sacrifice appeared supremely stupid and
ridiculous. Bitterly he attacked himself as a bungler and an ass. He
assured himself he should have made a fight for it; should have fought
for his wife: and against Maddox. Instead of which he weakly had effaced
himself, had surrendered his rights, had abandoned his wife at a time
when most was required of him. He tortured himself by thinking that
probably at that very moment she was in need of his help. And at that
very moment head-lines in the paper he was searching proved this was
true.
"BLAGWIN'S LOST WILL," he read. "DETECTIVES RELINQUISH SEARCH! REWARD
OF TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS FAILS TO BRING CLEW!"
Jimmie raced through the back numbers. They told him his will, in which
he had left everything to Jeanne, could not be found; that in
consequence, except her widow's third, all of his real estate, which was
the bulk of his property, would now go to two distant cousins who
already possessed more than was good for them, and who in Paris were
leading lives of elegant wastefulness. The will had been signed the week
before his wedding-day, but the lawyer who had drawn it was dead, and
the witnesses, two servants, had long since quit Jimmie's service and
could not be found. It was known Jimmie kept the will in the safe at his
country house, but from the safe it had disappeared.
Jimmie's best friend, and now Jeanne's lawyer, the man who had refused
him the divorce, had searched the house from the attic to the coal
cellar; detectives had failed to detect; rewards had remained unclaimed;
no one could tell where the will was hidden. Only Jimmie could tell. And
Jimmie was dead. And no one knew that better than Jimmie. Again he
upbraided himself. Why had he not foreseen this catastrophe? Why,
before his final taking off, had he not returned the will to the safe?
Now, a word from him would give Jeanne all his fortune, and that word he
could not speak.
The will was between the leaves of a copy of "Pickwick," and it stood on
a shelf in his bedroom. One night, six months before, to alter a small
bequest, he had carried the will up-stairs and written a rough draft of
the new codicil. And then, merely because he was sleepy and disinclined
to struggle with a combination lock, he had stuck the will in the book
he was reading. He intended the first thing the next morning to put it
back in the safe. But the first thing the next morning word came from
the kennels that during the night six beagle puppies had arrived, and
naturally Jimmie gave no thought to anything so unimportant as a will.
Nor since then had he thought of it. And now how was he, a dead man, to
retrieve it?
That those in the library might not observe his agitation, he went
outside, and in Bryant Park on a bench faced his problem. Except
himself, of the hidden place of the will no one could possibly know. So,
if even by an anonymous letter, or by telephone, he gave the information
to his late lawyer or to the detectives, they at once would guess from
where the clew came and that James Blagwin was still alive. So that plan
was abandoned. Then he wondered if he might not convey the tip to some
one who had access to his bedroom; his valet or a chambermaid who, as
though by accident, might stumble upon the will. But, as every one would
know the anonymous tipster could be only Blagwin himself, that plan also
was rejected. He saw himself in a blind alley. Without an accomplice he
could not act; with an accomplice his secret would be betrayed.
Suddenly a line in one of the newspapers returned to him. It was to the
effect that to discover the lost will several clairvoyants, mediums, and
crystal-gazers had offered their services. Jimmie determined that one of
these should be his accomplice. He would tell the clairvoyant he
formerly had been employed as valet by Blagwin and knew where Blagwin
had placed his will. But he had been discharged under circumstances that
made it necessary for him to lie low. He would hint it was the police he
feared. This would explain why he could not come forward, and why he
sought the aid of the clairvoyant. If the clairvoyant fell in with his
plan he would tell him where the will could be found, the clairvoyant
would pretend in a trance to discover the hiding-place, would confide
his discovery to Mrs. Blagwin's lawyer, the lawyer would find the will,
the clairvoyant would receive the reward, and an invaluable
advertisement. And Jimmie's ghost would rest in peace. He needed only a
clairvoyant who was not so upright that he fell over backward. Jimmie
assured himself one of that kind would not be difficult to find.
He returned to the newspaper-room of the library and in the advertising
columns of a Sunday paper found a clairvoyant who promised to be the man
he wanted.
He was an Indian prince, but for five dollars would tell fortunes, cast
horoscopes, and recover lost articles. Jimmie found him in the back room
on the first floor of an old-fashioned house of sandstone on a side
street. A blonde young woman, who was directing envelopes and enclosing
in them the business card of the prince, accepted Jimmie's five dollars
and ushered him into the presence. The back room was very dark. There
were no windows showing, and the walls were entirely hidden by curtains
in which twinkled tiny mirrors. The only light came from a lamp that
swung on chains.
The prince was young, tall, dark-skinned, with a black, pointed beard.
He wore his national costume and over it many necklaces of strange
stones, and of jewels more strange. He sat on a papier-maché throne with
gilded elephants for supports, and in his hand held a crystal globe. His
head was all but hidden in an enormous silken turban on which hung a
single pearl. Jimmie made up his mind that if the prince was no more on
the level than his jewels there would be no trouble.
Jimmie came quickly to the point.
"I can't show up," he explained, "because after I lost my job as Mr.
Blagwin's valet several articles of value were missing. But _you_ can
show up for me. If the will is not where I saw it--where I tell you it
is--you're no worse off than you are now. You can say the spirits misled
you. But, if I'm telling you the truth, you stand to get half the reward
and the biggest press story any ghost-raiser ever put across.
"And why," in conclusion Jimmie demanded, "should I ask you to do this,
if what I say is not true?"
The prince made no reply.
With a sweeping gesture he brought the crystal globe into his lap and,
bending his head, apparently peered into its depths. In reality he was
gaining time. To himself he was repeating Jimmie's question. If the
stranger were _not_ speaking the truth, why was he asking him to join in
a plot to deceive? The possibility that Jimmie _was_ telling the truth
the prince did not even consider. He was not used to the truth, and as
to the motives of Jimmie in inviting him to break the law he already had
made his guess. It was that Jimmie must be a detective setting a trap
which later would betray him to the police. And the prince had no desire
to fall in with the police nor to fall out with them. All he ever asked
of those gentlemen was to leave him alone. And, since apparently they
would not leave him alone, he saw, deep down in the crystal globe, a way
by which not only could he avoid their trap, but might spring it to his
own advantage.
Instead of the detective denouncing him, he would denounce the
detective. Of the police he would become an ally. He would call upon
them to arrest a man who was planning to blackmail Mrs. James Blagwin.
Unseen by Jimmie, in the arm of his throne he pressed an electric
button, and in the front room in the ear of the blonde a signal buzzed.
In her turn the blonde pushed aside the curtains that hid the door to
the front hall.
"Pardon, Highness," she said, "a certain party in Wall Street"--she
paused impressively, and the prince nodded--"wants to consult you about
his Standard Oil stock."
"He must wait," returned the prince.
"Pardon, Highness," persisted the lady; "he cannot wait. It is a matter
of millions."
Of this dialogue, which was the vehicle always used to get the prince
out of the audience-chamber and into the front hall, undoubtedly the
best line was the one given to the blonde--"it is a matter of millions!"
Knowing this, she used to speak it slowly and impressively. It impressed
even Jimmie. And after the prince had reverently deposited his globe
upon a velvet cushion and disappeared, Jimmie sat wondering who in Wall
Street was rich enough to buy Standard Oil stock, and who was fool
enough to sell it.
But over such idle questions he was not long left to meditate. Something
more personal demanded his full attention. Behind him the prince
carefully had closed the door to the front hall. But, not having his
crystal globe with him, he did not know it had not remained closed, and
as he stood under the hall stairs and softly lifted the receiver from
the telephone, he was not aware that his voice carried to the room in
which Jimmie was waiting.
"Hello," whispered the prince softly. His voice, Jimmie noted with
approval, even over a public telephone was as gentle as a cooing dove.
"Hello! Give me Spring 3100."
A cold sweat swept down Jimmie's spine. A man might forget his birthday,
his middle name, his own telephone number, but not Spring 3100!
Every drama of the underworld, crook play, and detective story had
helped to make it famous.
Jimmie stood not upon the order of his going. Even while police
headquarters was telling the prince to get the Forty-seventh Street
police station, Jimmie had torn open the front door and was leaping down
the steps.
Not until he reached Sixth Avenue, where if a man is seen running every
one takes a chance and yells "Stop thief!" did Jimmie draw a halt. Then
he burst forth indignantly.
"How was I to know he was honest!" he panted. "He's a hell of a
clairvoyant!"
With indignation as great the prince was gazing at the blonde secretary;
his eyes were filled with amazement.
"Am I going dippy?" he demanded. "I sized him up for a detective--and he
was a perfectly honest crook! And in five minutes," he roared
remorsefully, "this house will be full of bulls! What am I to do? What
am I to tell 'em?"
"Tell 'em," said the blonde coldly, "you're going on a long journey."
Jimmie now appreciated that when he determined it was best he should
work without an accomplice he was most wise. He must work alone and,
lest the clairvoyant had set the police after him, at once. He decided
swiftly that that night he would return to his own house, and that he
would return as a burglar. From its hiding-place he would rescue the
missing will and restore it to the safe. By placing it among papers of
little importance he hoped to persuade those who already had searched
the safe that through their own carelessness it had been overlooked. The
next morning, when once more it was where the proper persons could find
it, he would again take ship for foreign parts. Jimmie recognized that
this was a desperate plan, but the situation was desperate.
And so midnight found him entering the grounds upon which he never again
had hoped to place his foot.
The conditions were in his favor. The night was warm, which meant
windows would be left open; few stars were shining, and as he tiptoed
across the lawn the trees and bushes wrapped him in shadows. Inside the
hedge, through which he had forced his way, he had left his shoes, and
he moved in silence. Except that stealing into the house where lay
asleep the wife he so dearly loved made a cruel assault upon his
feelings, the adventure presented no difficulties. Of ways of entering
his house Jimmie knew a dozen, and, once inside, from cellar to attic he
could move blindfolded. His bedroom, where was the copy of "Pickwick" in
which he had placed the will, was separated from his wife's bedroom by
her boudoir. The walls were thick; through them no ordinary sound could
penetrate, and, unless since his departure Jeanne had moved her maid or
some other chaperon into his bedroom, he could ransack it at his
leisure. The safe in which he would replace the will was in the
dining-room. From the sleeping-quarters of Preston, the butler, and the
other servants it was far removed.
Cautiously in the black shadows of the trees Jimmie reconnoitred. All
that was in evidence reassured him. The old farmhouse lay sunk in
slumber, and, though in the lower hall a lamp burned, Jimmie knew it was
lit only that, in case of fire or of an intruder like himself, it might
show the way to the telephone. For a moment a lace curtain fluttering at
an open window startled him, but in an instant he was reassured, and had
determined through that window to make his entrance. He stepped out of
the shadows toward the veranda, and at once something warm brushed his
leg, something moist touched his hand.
Huang Su, his black chow, was welcoming him home. In a sudden access of
fright and pleasure Jimmie dropped to his knees. He had not known he had
been so lonely. He smothered the black bear in his hands. Huang Su
withdrew hastily. The dignity of his breed forbade man-handling, and at
a safe distance he stretched himself nervously and yawned.
Jimmie stepped to the railing of the veranda, raised his foot to a cleat
of the awning, and swung himself sprawling upon the veranda roof. On
hands and knees across the shingles, still warm from the sun, he crept
to the open window. There for some minutes, while his eyes searched the
room, he remained motionless. When his eyes grew used to the
semidarkness he saw that the bed lay flat, that the door to the boudoir
was shut, that the room was empty. As he moved across it toward the
bookcase, his stockinged feet on the bare oak floor gave forth no
sound. He assured himself there was no occasion for alarm. But when,
with the electric torch with which he had prepared himself, he swept the
book-shelves, he suffered all the awful terrors of a thief.
His purpose was to restore a lost fortune; had he been intent on
stealing one he could not have felt more deeply guilty. At last the tiny
shaft of light fell upon the title of the "Pickwick Papers." With
shaking fingers Jimmie drew the book toward him. In his hands it fell
open, and before him lay "The Last Will and Testament of James Blagwin,
Esquire."
With an effort Jimmie choked a cry of delight. He had reason to feel
relief. In dragging the will from its hiding-place he had put behind him
the most difficult part of his adventure; the final ceremony of
replacing it in the safe was a matter only of minutes. With
self-satisfaction Jimmie smiled; in self-pity he sighed miserably. For,
when those same minutes had passed, again he would be an exile. As soon
as he had set his house in order, he must leave it, and once more upon
the earth become a wanderer and an outcast.
The knob of the door from the bedroom he grasped softly and, as he
turned it, firmly. Stealthily, with infinite patience and stepping close
to the wall, he descended the stairs, tiptoed across the hall, and
entered the living-room. On the lower floor he knew he was alone. No
longer, like Oliver Twist breaking into the scullery of Mr. Giles, need
he move in dreadful fear. But as a cautious general, even when he
advances, maps out his line of retreat, before approaching the safe
Jimmie prepared his escape. The only entrances to the dining-room were
through the living-room, in which he stood, and from the butler's
pantry. It was through the latter he determined to make his exit. He
crossed the dining-room, and in the pantry cautiously raised the window,
and on the floor below placed a chair. If while at work upon the safe he
were interrupted, to reach the lawn he had but to thrust back the door
to the pantry, leap to the chair, and through the open window fall upon
the grass. If his possible pursuers gave him time, he would retrieve his
shoes; if not, he would abandon them. They had not been made to his
order, but bought in the Sixth Avenue store where he was unknown, and
they had been delivered to a man named Henry Hull. If found, instead of
compromising him, they rather would help to prove the intruder was a
stranger.
Having arranged his get-away, Jimmie returned to the living-room. In
defiance of caution and that he might carry with him a farewell picture
of the place where for years he had been so supremely happy, he swept it
with his torch.
The light fell upon Jeanne's writing-desk and there halted. Jimmie gave
a low gasp of pleasure and surprise. In the shaft of light, undisturbed
in their silver frames and in their place of honor, he saw three
photographs of himself. The tears came to his eyes. Then Jeanne had not
cast him utterly into outer darkness. She still remembered him kindly,
still held for him a feeling of good will. Jimmie sighed gratefully. The
sacrifice he had made for the happiness of Jeanne and Maddox now seemed
easier to bear. And that happiness must not be jeopardized.