paused a moment at Dupont Street, and there, near the corner, read the
following sign:
[Illustration: MICHAEL O'BRIEN
CHOICE WINES AND LIQUORS]
Some few months afterwards, on returning from his honeymoon, which
was passed among the grand scenery of Washington and Oregon, he found
himself again near the corner of Dupont Street, with his bride. With a
start of remembrance and recognition, he looked up. The imposing black
and gold of the liquor sign had disappeared, and in its place, in gold
and red, a smaller board bore the significant inscription:
[Illustration: WUN LUNG
CHINESE LAUNDRY]
It was evident to Malcolm Joyce that on the night of his memorable
adventure Mr. Michael O'Brien had taken the bony semblance of his
Celestial victim for The Real Thing.
WHEN THE CUCKOO CALLED
The announcement that London music hall audiences are losing their
heads and hearts over "The Girl with the Guitar" causes Mr. Seymour
Gaston to smile as he looks down upon the world from his offices on the
nineteenth floor of a New York sky-scraper. Mr. Gaston is an ingenious,
much traveled young bachelor with a history and a fortune. He recently
invented a folding fire-escape, which also has a history and in which
another fortune is said to await him. And "The Girl with the Guitar"
is one of the two Zillerthaler sisters, whose permanent address is
unknown and who receive two hundred guineas a night for presenting
their Tyrolean second-sight séance. To such an extent do these
mysterious maidens from the mountains hypnotize the public that they
appear nightly at four different music halls. At the Alhambra they open
the performance at eight o'clock, after which they are rushed by their
manager in an automobile to the stage door of the second music hall,
where they appear at eight forty-five, and so on, winding up at the
Aquarium at a few minutes before ten with a thousand dollars in their
pockets for the evening's work.
When the curtain rises upon their ten-minute act it discloses a typical
Tyrolean scene--dim mountains in the background, a sombre pine forest,
a toylike, gabled cottage in the distance. The lights are low and the
stage is empty. The orchestra begins almost inaudibly a simple melody
in the minor key. Presently a rich voice, that raises doubt in the
mind of the listener as to whether it is male or female, joins in. It
is a song of love, a serenade. The lights grow dimmer. A new sound
steals into the concerted music of voice and instruments; there are
strange, bizarre chords and rippling arpeggios, and then the music
is drowned in the burst of wild applause that greets the appearance
of "The Girl with the Guitar." She bows modestly, the lights go up,
the rich voice is heard again in a joyous yodel, and the sister,
too, appears, dressed in the picturesque attire of an Alpine hunter.
This artistically conceived prologue brings the audience into closer
sympathy with what follows. "The Girl with the Guitar," unheeding the
applause and the demonstrations of the male portion of the audience,
seats herself at the extreme right of the stage near the footlights.
The sister is led by the manager along a narrow platform projecting
into the centre of the hall, where, after being blindfolded, she seats
herself with her back to the stage, and the real performance begins,
to the muted music of the orchestra and the sad, fantastic chords of
the guitar. The second-sight séance progresses in the time-honored
way, except that no word is spoken save by the blindfolded sister,
who accurately names and describes, in a clear, musical voice, each
article as it is borrowed from the audience and held up in silence
before the footlights by the manager, some thirty feet behind her back.
"A gold watch with a picture of a lady on its face"; "a pair of pearl
opera glasses"; "a half-crown piece with a hole in it"; and so on, the
blindfolded girl describes the exhibits as though they were held out
before her naked eyes. She never falters, never misses, and the puzzled
look that comes to every face shows how completely she has mastered
her art. But it is the strange, brilliant beauty and the fantastic
music of "The Girl with the Guitar," who, seemingly unconscious of her
surroundings, gazes idly across the stage, that hold the breathless
attention of the audience. Music like hers has never before been heard
from any instrument. It is absolutely unique; a new scale and new
system of harmonies seem to have been discovered by this sombre-eyed
girl. It is her weird, haunting melodies that trouble the mind with
strange thoughts, and the impression of mystical, occult powers at
work, produced by the performance, is really traceable to this music
and the mysterious personality of the girl which pervades and dominates
it all.
All this vividly recalls to Mr. Gaston a ten-minute drama of life
in which he once played a part and which illustrates how a man can
regain his lost peace of mind by being suddenly brought to the brink of
eternity.
Four years ago, while he was managing the affairs of a large American
enterprise in London, a cablegram announced to him one day that
his business partner in the United States had robbed him of all he
possessed. Brooding over his ruined business, to which he had given ten
years of his life and sacrificed his health, his peace of mind fled
and he traveled aimlessly over the Continent in search of anything
that might bring him sleep and help him to bury the past. The doctors
sent him to Baden-Baden, but he soon found that the conventional
watering-place, where one reads suffering in almost every face,
proved an irritant to his insomnia. The more he came in contact with
humanity the more he felt drawn toward Nature. So he started on a
tour of the Black Forest. At Trieberg, the picturesque little village
which stands on the edge of a great waterfall high up in the dark,
pine-clothed mountains, he found pleasure for a few days in visiting
the quaint cottages scattered through the surrounding wilderness where
the cuckoo clocks, music-boxes and wood carvings are made that always
attract foreigners. The mountaineers carry these clocks and carvings
on the back for miles down the winding, perilous pathways to a public
exhibition hall at Trieberg in which is kept a full line of samples for
the convenience of purchasers.
But the novelty of these scenes soon wore off, and on the third day
after his arrival Gaston, craving excitement, bribed the custodian
of this exhibition hall to set off all the clocks and instruments at
intervals of one second. The chorus of a thousand cuckoos, reinforced
by the patriotic rendering of "Die Wacht am Rhein," the William Tell
Overture and "Die Lorelei" by scores of orchestrions and music-boxes,
delighted him, but proved demoralizing to a party of American tourists
bent on doing Europe in ten days. Mistaking their excited brandishing
of alpenstocks, umbrellas and Baedekers for demonstrations of approval,
the keeper kept up the performance until the inexorable schedule
dragged the prospective purchasers away. They had spent the ten minutes
allotted to the Black Forest.
In his wanderings and search for adventure, Gaston came one day upon
what seemed like an unused trail that led higher up the mountain from
an almost impenetrable jumble of rocks and pines near the waterfall.
"The Witches' Path," exclaimed his landlord, when questioned, "and
whoever follows it never returns." It might have an outlet in another
valley beyond, he added, but, shaking his head, there were strange
stories about the Witches' Path, and while he could not verify them he
knew that no one of his guests who had essayed to explore it had ever
come back.
Sick of chattering men and women, harrowed day and night by his
troubles, Gaston rejoiced in the prospect of an adventure of any
kind, and while he smiled at the suggestion of danger lurking in the
recesses of the Witches' Path, he secretly hoped there might be. Life
was not a joyful possession to Seymour Gaston in those days, and he
cared little whether he lived or died. So, early the following morning,
with a well-provisioned knapsack on his back and an alpenstock in his
hand, he set out upon the Witches' Path. After ten hours of climbing,
crawling, sliding and slipping over almost impassable rocks and
through impossible thickets, the trail led into a stretch of forest so
dense as to completely shut out the fading daylight, and the wanderer
was glad to accept as a bed the thick, endless carpet of pine needles
that lay stretched out before him. The following morning he resumed
his journey and at noon discovered, high on the mountain side, what
appeared like a gray toy-house hidden among the rocks and pines. After
another hour of tiresome climbing he stood before a cottage built upon
the very edge of an immense cleft. From far below echoed the hoarse
booming of a mountain stream. His knock was answered by a short,
white-bearded mountaineer with piercing gray eyes, who, upon learning
that his visitor spoke German, received him hospitably with the remark
that it was seldom indeed that visitors came his way to brighten the
lonely lives of himself and niece, who, he added, lived by making
cuckoo clocks. It required no urging on the part of Caspar Kollner, the
cottager, to induce his guest to defer his return until the following
day, and after supper, served by the mountaineer's attractive young
niece, the tourist was equally willing to join his host in a pipe and
game of écarté, while the young lady looked on and played weird airs
upon her guitar. Whether it was the strange quality of her undeniable
beauty and the sombre mystery of her eyes, or her music, Gaston soon
lost interest in the game. Although there seemed little purpose or
training in her half listless playing, the sounds seemed to hint at
unfathomable things, at fancies such as Gaston supposed might visit
the soul of one who had strayed from the paths of his fellow-men into
an exotic, unhealthy world of his own, where strange birds sang in a
dusky, scented twilight. He played recklessly, lost steadily, and was
repeatedly compelled to resort to the Bank of England notes in his
wallet.
"You are in bad luck to-night. Shall we stop? You must be tired after
your long tramp," at last suggested the host. Then, counting the money
slowly and with evident pleasure, he handed to Gaston all the latter
had lost. It was promptly pushed back protestingly, whereupon Kollner
exclaimed, "Never! The pleasure is mine; the money is yours. It is my
custom to play for stakes to lend interest to the game, but the law
of hospitality forbids my keeping what I win." So Gaston returned the
money to his wallet and bade his generous host and hostess good-night.
Kollner led him to a large, low-studded room on the upper floor in
which every article of furniture was elaborately hand-carved.
"The masterpiece of my craft," exclaimed Kollner, as he pointed with
pride to a mammoth cuckoo clock, fully four feet wide and reaching
nearly to the ceiling. "But our proudest possession," he continued, as
he led his guest through a tall French window upon a small veranda,
"is this," pointing to a view that caused Gaston to gasp for breath.
The balcony directly overhung the mighty gorge, and from the gulf of
blackness far below rose the sound of the tumultuous stream, while an
uncertain moon threw fantastic shadows over the towering peaks above.
"Most wonderful of all," continued Kollner, "is the echo, 'The Ghost of
the Gorge' as it is called. You shall hear it at dawn." With that he
wound up and set the big clock, adding, "When the cuckoo calls, rise
and come to this balcony. My niece shall play from the rocks below and
you will hear the spirit answer. Good-night!"
As on many other weary nights, sleep refused to come to Gaston. He lay
for hours listening to the gurgle of the water and hearing in it echoes
of the wild music of the guitar. Towards morning a feverish slumber
came, from which he was aroused by the shrill "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" of the
mechanical bird.
Clad in his pajamas he drowsily groped his way in the dusk towards
the balcony. He had almost reached it when he overturned the chair
which had served to keep the window half open during the night. In
its outward fall it carried down the balcony with a crash and Gaston,
horror-stricken, barely kept his balance by grasping the window casing.
From the dark chasm rose the weird strains of the guitar, echoing
through the gorge. The Lorelei was calling! But her notes were drowned
by the shrill creaking of the iron hinges upon which the balcony now
swung to and fro below Gaston, and which, like a flash, told him he had
been led to a man-trap of hellish ingenuity. Instantly horror gave way
to anger and the instinct of self-defence roused him to action. For
months he had been reckless of danger, almost courted death. Now he was
seized with an overpowering desire to live. He turned from the window
and began to dress hurriedly when a noise attracted his attention to
the cuckoo clock. Was it a hideous delusion? No! The thing was actually
moving towards the centre of the room! In another instant Kollner
appeared from an adjoining room through a door which the clock had
concealed, his eyes glaring fiendishly as they rested upon the empty
bed. Then, as he turned and saw Gaston, his face became a mask of
absolute fright and bewilderment. For a moment only he recoiled, then
flung himself upon his guest with the fury of a beast. Each instantly
realized that the struggle would be to the death. Frenzied by the
miscarrying of his diabolical plot, the mountaineer struggled madly,
blindly, for a grip that should enable him to hurl his adversary over
the mighty precipice. Foiled again and again by the agility of Gaston
and forced to the defensive, he turned towards the open door to escape.
As he did so Gaston rushed upon him, pinned his arms to his sides, and
pushed him inch by inch to the open window, and--Caspar Kollner reached
the end of the Witches' Path! Ten minutes later Gaston found the niece
quietly preparing breakfast. She looked surprised, but when he told
her that her uncle and not he had answered the Lorelei's call, she
asked, with naïve innocence, what he meant. It was only after he had
threatened to hand her over to the police at Trieberg that she made
this confession:--
She had been brought up by her uncle, who had invented the folding
balcony, and who always engaged his guests in a game of cards. He
invariably won because he had taught her as a child to signal, by means
of notes and chords on the guitar, the cards held by his opponent. He
thus learned if his guests were supplied with money, and to gain their
full confidence returned all they had lost. He was enabled to set the
man-trap from his room below. Although the gorge held the remains of
thirty victims, it was his boast that he had never killed a man, that
each had of his own free will walked into eternity.
Gaston had heard enough. He did not stop for breakfast. He left
Trieberg the following evening and thoughts of his business troubles no
longer occupied his mind. When he returned to America he set to work to
retrieve his lost fortune, and the folding fire-escape, he tells his
friends, was suggested by something he saw abroad.
Gaston does not claim the gift of second sight, but he knows, he
says, that in the performance of the Zillerthalers, the weird strains
produced by "The Girl with the Guitar" describe to her blindfolded
sister the articles borrowed of the audience.
ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION
As the traveler, turning his back to the setting sun, descends into
Paradise Valley, there spreads before him a brilliant checker-board of
orchard and vineyard. Beyond this an extensive and picturesque group
of red buildings gleams still ruddier, and upon one corner of the roof
of the principal structure a small house of glass glistens like a huge
jewel in the sunset glow. Approaching nearer, the buildings are seen
to be surrounded by parks and gardens, where men and women are amusing
themselves with golf and baseball, croquet and tennis, under the
watchful eyes of discreet attendants.
Here is the home of many a human wreck, cast upon the shores of mental
oblivion in the strenuous struggle of life--the man who, during the
gold fever of '49, found fortune to lose all else, he who sacrificed
everything and gained nothing, and hundreds of others, men and women,
who have proved unequal to the strain on nerve and brain imposed by the
stress of an unkindly Fate.
Walking apart from these groups may be seen a white-haired man of
melancholy mien, who pauses occasionally and makes a peculiar motion
with his hands, as if in the act of cutting with an imaginary pocket
knife. This man is the sole occupant of the glass house on the roof,
which is always brilliantly lighted, blazing all night with electric
lamps. At intervals of a few months, he is visited by two ladies, who
seem extremely solicitous for his welfare, and twice a year a noted
alienist from Paris comes to study this interesting case. Here is the
story of this peculiar patient:
Anyone with a sweet tooth and a good memory will recall the curious
little pear-shaped sweetmeats which were so popular thirty years ago
and then suddenly dropped out of sight. Everyone bought and talked
of the new candy, which was small, apple-green and translucent, with
a curious red streak in the core. It was not only very delicious
to the taste, but produced a strange effect of mental and physical
stimulation, of buoyancy--almost of intoxication. Totally different
from the action of any known drug, however, and especially from
alcohol, it had absolutely no deleterious reaction, but on the contrary
seemed to exercise a tonic influence upon the nervous system. Joy
Drops, as they were called, were carried in school-children's satchels,
sold on trains, taken as a "pick-me-up" by men, ordered by society
ladies for their "functions" and consumed by shop-girls by the ton.
The enormous profits from their sales were not divided among
shareholders, but all went to one man, Walter H. Torreton, the inventor
and manufacturer, who, starting in a small way, had constantly
increased his business and incidentally the fame of the Lake city where
he lived. There he bought the handsomest estate on Park Avenue and
built extensive conservatories, giving much personal attention to a
unique species of lily, which had never before been seen, called by him
the multi-bloom.
As the fame of Torreton's confectionery spread, other manufacturers
put imitations on the market, but without success. Though their candy
looked much the same, it wholly lacked the peculiar qualities of the
genuine Joy Drops, in which analysis had failed to reveal anything
more than sugar, a little fruit flavoring and the merest trace of some
quite unknown but very volatile essence, which appeared to be located
in the red central stripe.
Torreton received large offers for the use of his secret formula, but
these he promptly declined, and went on enlarging his business. Then
his competitors began a systematic endeavor to steal what they could
not buy. Information was lodged with the internal revenue officers that
the candy contained alcohol, but this was disproved by the government
analysis, which, however, utterly failed to show the nature of the
characteristic ingredient. Torreton often found spy-glasses and cameras
levelled upon his laboratory windows from buildings across the way.
Repeated attempts were made to bribe his workmen, but they only
served to bring out the fact that no one knew the secret but Torreton
himself. Then complaint was brought against him for violating the fire
regulations, and among the inspectors who came when an investigation
was ordered he recognized a chemist from Chicago. But even this spy,
after gaining access to the citadel, and peering and sniffing about
the premises, could find no clue but a strange aroma which he could
not identify. Some express packages which arrived at the factory were
traced back to Amsterdam, where, after a tedious search, it was found
that they had been originally shipped across the ocean by Torreton
himself, merely as a blind. When it seemed as if persecution and
inquisition could go no further, the inventor, one evening on leaving
the factory, discovered a small balloon anchored over his laboratory
skylight!
Not long after this, a real estate firm, acting, it was surmised, for
a foreign syndicate, bought a vacant tract of land on the outskirts,
commonly known as Sumach Park. On the high ground in the centre a large
brick building was erected and enclosed by a high brick wall like
those which give privacy to many English estates. The building itself
was surmounted by a glass structure, somewhat like the lantern of a
lighthouse, and was the cause of much curiosity. This curiosity was
partially gratified eventually, and the story of a foreign syndicate
shattered by the following notice, which appeared one evening in all
the papers:
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD will be paid by the undersigned to the
person who first brings news to his residence on Park Avenue that
the electric light has gone out in the cupola of the new Torreton
Confectionery Works, in Sumach Park.
WALTER H. TORRETON.
As soon as the papers were on the street, men went out of their way
to get a look at the new light. There it was, sure enough, and as
the darkness gathered it displayed a beautiful green pear, with a red
streak in the centre, a gleaming reproduction of the famous candy. It
was pronounced a great advertisement, but one scarcely necessary in
a locality where the confection itself was already in the mouth of
everybody. However, the reward offered was tempting, and not only did
every policeman and fireman immediately become a night watchman for
the Torreton works, but every man and boy as well who could invent any
pretext for being out.
But while thus, in one sense, subjected to closer espionage than ever,
Torreton's factory was no longer troubled by the spies of his rivals,
and his business increased even beyond his expectations. Still he
labored regularly as ever, and lived with his wife and niece just
as quietly, his only extravagance being frequent additions to his
greenhouses.
The light in the cupola burned steadily, and the tempting reward seemed
destined to remain unclaimed, until one evening more than two years
after the completion of the building, when a newsboy lingering late
in the endeavor to dispose of an overstock of "extrys" suddenly saw a
blurred halo surrounding the green and red beacon. It trembled, grew
pale and--
_The light went out!_
Dropping his papers, the boy took the shortest route to Park Avenue,
but soon found he was not alone in the race for the Torreton residence,
as he passed men and boys and even women, all silently striving for the
promised reward. A watchful and active fireman was the first to arrive
in the presence of Mrs. Torreton to claim it, and she, with her niece,
who acted as confidential secretary to her uncle at the factory, were
already in a carriage swinging out of the grounds when the great body
of panting messengers arrived.
During the anxious drive to Sumach Park, the girl explained that,
rather earlier than usual, her uncle told her he was going to the city
and would not return to the works. When she started for home she had
noticed that the door to a small inner laboratory vault, in which Mr.
Torreton kept his most important chemicals and papers, was open. She
had closed and locked it. What connection this incident might have with
the extinguishing of the light she could not imagine, yet she felt that
something was wrong, as any attempt to enter the building by night
would put out the beacon and give an alarm.