Tootles had progressed along the arduous road to masterpieces to
the extent that he felt a need of realistic detail. Flick, of
course, was but a substitute, the center of the stage, as well
as Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s perfection dress suit, being now
occupied by Belle Shaler, who gave a satisfactory rendering of the
new hothouse variety of young man. Sassafras (when he could put
the elevator out of commission) represented Primitive Man with
impressive ferocity, but there was something lacking in the Sphinx
of King O’Leary. O’Leary suggested many things, but he did not
suggest the feminine mystery of that historic lady. Tootles felt
this, and felt it acutely, when it suddenly occurred to him that,
with a little diplomacy, relief might be at hand. Accordingly, one
day at high noon, he went tripping down the stone stairway to the
floor below and over to the door which was inscribed:
MME. THEODORA PROBASCO
SPIRITUALISTIC SÉANCES
He rapped gently once, and then once more firmly, with an uneasy
glance at the darkened glass, that seemed to him of an unearthly
obscurity.
“Who knocks at this door?” said a solemn voice.
“The one above,” said Tootles, in an equally mysterious whisper.
The door was opened cautiously, and Madame Probasco’s streaked
curls appeared. From inside came the unmistakable scent of a pork
chop frying.
“How do you do?” said Tootles, affably, with a radiating smile.
“And how are all the little spirits?”
“Oh, it’s you?” said Madame Probasco, descending to a
conversational tone.
“Only me; and in distress--oh, nothing for the spirits to do, but I
need a sphinx. Thought you might have one on the premises?”
“A sphinx? I have a sphinx,” said Madame Probasco, ceremoniously.
“May I enter?”
Madame Probasco was still hesitating, considering the advisability
of introducing such a visitor behind the scenes, when the memory of
the pork chop decided her. She hurried back, followed by Tootles,
who witnessed the rescue with an expression of sympathy, while
seeking among the black-curtained partitions for the abode of
ghostly aids.
“I hope we have done nothing to disturb the spirits,” he said
genially, at the first opportunity.
“It’s not you--it’s that Dutch yodler!” said Madame Probasco, taken
strategically on flank. “He broke up a see-ance only last night and
sent me into a fit of hysterics. It’s an outrage!”
“Madame, have I your permission to speak to Mr. Schneibel?” said
Tootles majestically.
“’Deed you’ll save my life if you do,” said Madame Probasco, with
a fleshy sigh. “What was it you wanted--oh, yes, a sphinx,” she
added, turning toward the mantelpiece, where underneath gleaming
death-masks and plastered hands was a collection of scarabs,
elephants, and a bronze fragment representing the sphinx in the
shadow of the Pyramid.
“One moment--don’t move!” said Tootles, in an excited voice. “Hold
that position--by Jove, that is marvelous now!”
“Heavens! what is the matter?” said Madame Probasco, startled.
“Madame Probasco, have you ever posed--has any one ever done your
portrait?”
“There’s Mooney, down on the second floor, did a colored photo that
wasn’t bad--”
“No, no; I mean did you ever have your portrait painted? By jove,
just that moment--then I caught an expression--I say, do you know
you _would_ make a remarkable symbolic study of the Sphinx?”
“Really?” said Madame Probasco, smiling and fastening the brooch at
her neck, which had become undone, with a reawakening of coquetry.
“’Pon my word! Tell you what I’ll do: If you’ll sit for the Sphinx,
for a monumental decoration I’m doing, I’ll make a special sketch
and present it to you. Think of the publicity!”
On this basis, the bargain was completed immediately, and King
O’Leary, vastly relieved, was promoted to the rôle of Paris,
who, with one arm about Helen of Troy (Millie Brewster) a glave
brandished in the air, was represented hesitating in his passionate
flight to glance back at the symbolic vision of the modern ravisher
of hearts in the person of the Well-dressed Man. Madame Probasco
entered, in fact, so completely into the spirit of the conception,
that the brooding realism of her frown brought cold shivers to the
impressionable imaginations of Pansy Hartmann and Millie Brewster.
The work went on gaily, as all great works of inspiration carry
happiness.
The girls, since the night of the farewell dinner, had heaped
coals of fire upon the heads of their admirers by an unlooked-for
loyalty. Myrtle Popper had brought Mr. Pomello to the studio, a
lonely little old man in loose clothes, who conveyed the idea of a
shy species of cockatoo behind black-rimmed spectacles, and who
accepted the introduction to “cousin” O’Leary with meek obedience.
It was evident that he was all eyes for the brimming youth of the
girl, and hurriedly seconded her suggestion that O’Leary should
preside over the orchestra of one piano in the “continuous” below,
from eight until eleven P. M. Belle Shaler, in her turn, succeeded
in inviting the three friends to one banquet and two dances, which
considerably improved their household account; while Pansy, as
though realizing for the first time the heights to which Tootles
might ascend, became almost docile, and if she still listened to
the assiduous compliments of Drinkwater and others, at least she
concealed the evidence with skill. The larder was not exactly
overcrowded, but with O’Leary’s salary and three mother-in-law
jokes which Flick obtained in translation from Mr. Cornelius and
modernized for _Puck_, the wolf was kept at a respectable distance,
while Flick planned the killing on Tootles’ masterpiece which would
revolutionize the commercial arts.
Dangerfield came in twice again for a flitting visit and a few
words of advice, but the first enthusiasm had vanished, or rather,
he seemed obsessed by some distant preoccupation. A week had now
passed since the episode of the interrupted boxing-match, and
the heated discussions as to who Dangerfield really was and what
were the mysterious complications in which he was involved had
been going on with unabated excitement, when, one Sunday evening,
without warning, he appeared at the door of the studio dressed to
go out.
“O’Leary, are you free for about half an hour?” he said, without
notice of the fact that Tootles and Flick were tidying up the
supper-dishes; though by now they had grown accustomed to his
abstractions.
“What can I do for you?”
“Can you come with me--now?”
“Going out?” said O’Leary, surprised, while the others looked up,
for this in itself was in abrupt contrast to his late habit of
never setting foot outside of the Arcade.
“Yes.”
O’Leary slipped into his things and joined him in the hall.
“Where away?”
“I prefer not to go out of the Arcade--I have reasons,” said
Dangerfield, his voice pitched just above the normal. “We will go
down a couple of flights and out through the apartment-house.”
They descended, and by a bridge (one of the many mysterious byways
of the Arcade) passed into an apartment-house that set upon the
side street. Down this they went without word of explanation,
O’Leary more and more intrigued by the behavior of his companion,
who stopped at each landing to read the cards upon the door-plates,
talking to himself the while. At the entrance below, as O’Leary
was passing curiously out, he caught him with a sudden restraining
clutch and a low admonition. Then he lit a match and studied the
row of mail-boxes in the vestibule.
“No, no; that’s all right,” he said at last. “Old cards, all of
them. No changes here.” He blew out the match and looked back at
the stairs lost in the dimness of the hall light. “Uncanny, isn’t
it? Anything might happen there. All right, now. Out, and turn
straight toward Amsterdam Avenue.”
“As you say,” said O’Leary, struck by the restrained excitement in
the other’s voice and gesture.
They went down the block and up the avenue two streets, then
eastward to Columbus Avenue, and prepared to descend. Opposite
Healy’s, Dangerfield stopped and said abruptly:
“Now, O’Leary, keep your eyes open and if you see any one you have
seen before--” He stopped short, and his eyes set suspiciously on
the other’s face.
“Any one I’ve seen before?” said O’Leary, frowning.
“Exactly--any one--who was downstairs the night you saw the car.
Oh, it’s all right; you didn’t deceive me then--I know. That’s not
the point. I must know if any one’s around.”
“All right; but I don’t understand a word,” said O’Leary
helplessly. “Just what are you driving at?”
But for all answer his companion smiled knowingly, shrugged his
shoulders and said:
“You understand? Touch my arm if you see him. Come.”
They crossed Lincoln Square after a careful reconnoitering of the
surrounding spaces, and descending briskly on the Arcade, passed
along the Broadway front and around the corner to the lower street,
going in by the side entrance, past the stuffy halls of the animal
fancier. The inner arcade, deserted in the barren calm of Sunday
night, showed only the lingering figures of a group of newsboys and
the half-lights of the telegraph office.
“All right; that’s enough,” said Dangerfield, looking apparently
satisfied. “Mighty decent of you. Thanks.”
“Don’t see that I’ve done anything in particular,” said O’Leary,
following him into the elevator, “but at your service any time.”
Nevertheless, mystified as he was, he concealed the details of
their trip under an evasive answer when he returned to his room.
However, the experience remained fixed in his mind, and he divined
that Inga, by now, must have told Dangerfield in detail of his
discoveries. The precautions taken to bar the door, the voluntary
self-imprisonment, the brooding suspicion in the man himself, had
spread an uncanny feeling of suspense in the upper hall, where,
from day to day, each awaited some dramatic explanation. How near
it was at hand no one, not even King O’Leary, had any suspicion.
On the following night, Madame Probasco gave a party “to meet
the spooks,” as Tootles expressed it. Just how it came to take
place, or who may have put the suggestion into her mind, was never
clearly defined. The fact of Drinkwater’s participation left a
certain suspicion in the minds of some, especially considering what
happened later. At a quarter before midnight, being the witching
hour, they came down, expectant and a little awestruck, to Madame
Probasco’s rooms. The black-draped passage, which had an aroma
of heavy incense, was faintly revealed by a solitary green lamp,
which cast uncanny hues over their faces and caused Pansy to take a
desperate clutch of Tootles’ hand.
“I can feel them spirits already,” said Myrtle Popper, with a
nervous laugh.
“Sh! sh! Silence!” said Flick, in a voice which caused Belle Shaler
to stumble with a smothered cry.
Mr. Cornelius, Miss Quirley, and Schneibel, the last in the charge
of O’Leary, who had given his word to restrain his volubility,
pressed forward eagerly, while Millie Brewster, at the sight of the
coffinlike passage, the green light, and the black-draped curtains,
billowing as though with the passage of unseen shapes, gave a
scream and fled precipitately. Inga and Dangerfield were likewise
absentees.
At the door of the salon, a surprise awaited them. Madame Probasco
was still behind the scenes, but in the center of the misty room
was no other than Drinkwater, gaunter and taller than ever, in the
midst of the death-masks and plastered hands which set against the
walls. A great white collar flashed about his neck against the
somber hue of his face and his coal-black eyes.
“Madame Probasco will come on as soon as every one is seated,” he
said suavely, yet with a queer little break of excitement in his
voice. “She particularly wished me to caution you that there must
be the most absolute quiet. Any sudden noise might prove almost
fatal to her in the intense mental concentration into which she
must go for these experiments.”
This revelation of Drinkwater’s connection with the spiritualistic
parlors came as a disagreeable introduction. Tootles gazed at
O’Leary, rather undecided, with a vague sense of something ominous
impending. O’Leary, for a moment, seemed on the point of breaking
out into an objection, but before he could take a decision, from
the other room the voice of Madame Probasco came floating in, in
querulous complaint.
“Too much noise--hush!”
The wavering passed. They grouped themselves in a circle on the
chairs which had already been placed. In the center of the room a
great armchair was waiting beside a table on which were displayed
two gray-and-white elephants and a plaster skull. Drinkwater passed
to the door by which they had entered and drew it shut, and going
to the window, flung across a second curtain. In the circle the
bodies seemed to recede into a mist, leaving only the white faces
distinct, faces white as the chalky death-masks that spotted the
walls.
“Remember, silence; absolute silence,” said Drinkwater, with his
finger on his lips. He took a last precautionary glance and then
stepped gingerly and softly to the door of the inner room, knocked
three times, and announced,
“Everything is ready!”
Madame Probasco delayed her appearance for an interminable,
creepy interval, and then, when they were least expecting her,
came floating in, clad in long, fluttering garments of slatish
blue, her hair bound with Greek fillets, her arms and neck laden
with shining ornaments, her eyes half closed, hands extended in
groping gestures. Drinkwater went to her side and piloted her to
the armchair, amid a heavy craning-forward of her tense audience.
She gazed fixedly ahead a moment, with blank, glassy eyes, her lips
parted in short, troubled breaths. Then she bent her head suddenly
and covered her eyes with one hand, while the other stretched
across the dark table until it found the gray-and-white elephant
that, in the dim light, seemed to have come into a grotesque
distortion of life. At the end of a full ten minutes, during
which Drinkwater, at her back with warning finger, cautioned all
to immovability and silence, her hand jerked up rapidly in three
commanding gestures, and she began babbling in a deep, guttural
tone, a jargon without relevance or resemblance to any language
they knew.
Drinkwater, as though he had waited for this stage, moved toward
the expectant circle, hesitated a moment, and selecting Myrtle
Popper, whispered:
“A handkerchief--anything--of your own. Yes; a glove--that will do.
You’ve worn it? All right.”
Madame Probasco immediately transferred the glove to her forehead,
and the jargon increased in rapidity. Another interval, and all at
once she swayed in her seat and began to talk intelligibly.
“Rivers--trees--a house on a hill--much snow--children, many
children in sleighs--a great fireplace with a copper kettle
boiling--a holiday--a holiday party of some sort. Who’s that?
A man--two men--a widower and a young man--a quarrel. I see
discord--many quarrels--a journey to a church in a sleigh with the
young man--no, no; something’s wrong--I don’t understand--it’s
turned back.”
Here Myrtle Popper’s voice was heard exclaiming:
“My God, it’s true!”
The medium ran on more confidently.
“Discord--more quarrels--railroads--crowds, people--so many
people--”
For a while, what she said continued broken and mystifying.
Suddenly she seemed to pick up the thread again.
“Some one close to you will die within the year--a relative--no,
not a relative--perhaps the old man--” She lapsed into the
mysterious jargon and again came out: “Changes, marvelous
changes--wealth by death, beyond your dreams; and yet your
dream, the real dream, will not be realized--a woman--two other
women--stand between you and that. This year--everything seems to
come in this year--all the changes in your life--great fortune and
great disappointments--journeys--new conditions--everything will be
changed. That’s all I can see--the rest is blurred.”
With which, she flung the glove from her and sank her head in her
arms.
Drinkwater selected Miss Quirley next, and after her Schneibel.
Whether Madame Probasco was feigning or not, the outstanding fact
was that the next experiments varied greatly in effectiveness. With
some she began to prophesy immediately, and with others she refused
to go on absolutely, declaring she could do nothing. The séance
had been going on thus with alternate success and failure, when
Drinkwater selected Mr. Cornelius. Now, several of those present,
reviewing these events at a later date, believed that it had all
been a carefully laid plan of the lawyer’s to ferret into the
baron’s past and that the scene had been agreed upon with Madame
Probasco. Yet others insisted that what she had said had startled
Drinkwater almost as much as any one, and that indeed he had gone
white and leaned against the wall. However that may be, as soon as
Madame Probasco had received into her hands a watch-chain which
Mr. Cornelius had given with the greatest reluctance, she cried, in
excellent French, in a voice shrill and quite different from her
own,
“_Cinq mille louis sur la bande!_”
The effect on the Frenchman was amazing. He half rose from his
seat with a gasp of astonishment, and only the firm hold of his
companions in the chain of hands kept him down. The next moment,
Madame Probasco was running on in her usual guttural voice:
“I see a great house--oh, but a great, great house--tapestries--a
great marble fireplace--and a woman--not there--no--not
there--somewhere else--can’t quite make out--only she is tall and
her hair is like a flame--and there are lights, lots of lights
all around her, at her feet, in the air--people are applauding
her--flowers--I smell the scent of roses, always roses--yellow,
pink. Why, I can’t see her distinctly any more--what has happened?
Why, she is not young--she is not beautiful at all--there’s no
one around her, and the room is dark--she leans on a cane.” All
at once her hands began to clutch nervously in the air, and she
cried in more excited voice: “What’s this? Blows are struck--high
words--some one is choking him--some one has him by the throat,
forcing him over a table, a green table--and now all the lights are
back--oh, so many lights, my head is turned with the lights.... _Le
numéro quatre!_” she cried suddenly, or rather, the same shrill
nasal voice cried from her. Then she began to tremble as she had at
no time before. “No, no, I can’t--don’t make me tell what I see!”
“What do you see?” said Drinkwater suddenly, in a voice that made
them start. “Tell us what you see.”
The medium moaned and wrung her hands hysterically, her breath
coming in quick gasps.
“No, no, I can’t; I can’t tell that.”
“Tell it, _madame_, tell it--I command you!”
It was the baron, who, quite beside himself, had broken out into a
shrill command.
“_He_ wishes it! _He_ does!”
“Yes, yes.”
“I see--I see--blood,” said Madame Probasco, shuddering.
Drinkwater started back against the wall, though Mr. Cornelius
seemed, if anything, relieved, whatever it may have been he was
afraid to hear, for he said rather indifferently:
“Now, or in ze future?”
“In the future; but near, very near. Not your blood--no; it’s not
on you, the blood--and yet, why it’s--”
Whatever she might have said was destined to remain a closed
secret, for, at this moment, the outer door was flung open with a
crash that shook the room and Inga’s voice was heard calling:
“O’Leary! Wilder! Quick--quick! They’re kidnaping him! For God’s
sake, help!”
Instantly the room broke up into a seething mass. Madame Probasco
was screaming and rolling on the floor, but no one noticed her.
Drinkwater sprang to the lights, but O’Leary was too quick for him,
and, with a sudden clutch at his shoulder, sent him rolling across
the floor. The door was locked, and Inga’s voice still screaming
from the other side, as O’Leary flung his body against the frail
supports and went crashing into the hall. Flick, Schneibel, the
baron, Tootles came piling after him and up the stairs on the
heels of the fleeing girl. In the corner studio, Dangerfield was
struggling in the hands of four men, who had him wrapped around
with cords and were trying to pass him out of the window over the
roof.