"I was much surprised to see him," answered his companion, Marshall St.
Clair, of the great law firm of Seward, St. Clair, & De Muth. "I had
lost track of him since he went to Paris as counsel for the American
stockholders of the Canal Company. When did he come back to the States?"
"He turned up suddenly in his ancient haunts about four months ago,"
said Walcott, "as grand, gloomy, and peculiar as Napoleon ever was in
his palmiest days. The younger members of the club call him 'Zanona
Redivivus'. He wanders through the house usually late at night,
apparently without noticing anything or anybody. His mind seems to be
deeply and busily at work, leaving his bodily self to wander as it
may happen. Naturally, strange stories are told of him; indeed, his
individuality and his habit of doing some unexpected thing, and doing
it in such a marvellously original manner that men who are experts at it
look on in wonder, cannot fail to make him an object of interest. He has
never been known to play at any game whatever, and yet one night he sat
down to the chess table with old Admiral Du Brey. You know the Admiral
is the great champion since he beat the French and English officers in
the tournament last winter. Well, you also know that the conventional
openings at chess are scientifically and accurately determined. To
the utter disgust of Du Brey, Mason opened the game with an unheard of
attack from the extremes of the board. The old Admiral stopped and, in
a kindly patronizing way, pointed out the weak and absurd folly of his
move and asked him to begin again with some one of the safe openings.
Mason smiled and answered that if one had a head that he could trust he
should use it; if not, then it was the part of wisdom to follow blindly
the dead forms of some man who had a head. Du Brey was naturally angry
and set himself to demolish Mason as quickly as possible. The game was
rapid for a few moments. Mason lost piece after piece. His opening was
broken and destroyed and its utter folly apparent to the lookers-on. The
Admiral smiled and the game seemed all one-sided, when, suddenly, to
his utter horror, Du Brey found that his king was in a trap. The foolish
opening had been only a piece of shrewd strategy. The old Admiral fought
and cursed and sacrificed his pieces, but it was of no use. He was gone.
Mason checkmated him in two moves and arose wearily.
"'Where in Heaven's name, man,' said the old Admiral, thunderstruck,
'did you learn that masterpiece?'
"'Just here,' replied Mason. 'To play chess, one should know his
opponent. How could the dead masters lay down rules by which you could
be beaten, sir? They had never seen you'; and thereupon he turned and
left the room. Of course, St. Clair, such a strange man would soon
become an object of all kinds of mysterious rumors. Some are true and
some are not. At any rate, I know that Mason is an unusual man with a
gigantic intellect. Of late he seems to have taken a strange fancy to
me. In fact, I seem to be the only member of the club that he will
talk with, and I confess that he startles and fascinates me. He is an
original genius, St. Clair, of an unusual order."
"I recall vividly," said the younger man, "that before Mason went to
Paris he was considered one of the greatest lawyers of this city and he
was feared and hated by the bar at large. He came here, I believe, from
Virginia and began with the high-grade criminal practice. He soon became
famous for his powerful and ingenious defences. He found holes in the
law through which his clients escaped, holes that by the profession at
large were not suspected to exist, and that frequently astonished the
judges. His ability caught the attention of the great corporations. They
tested him and found in him learning and unlimited resources. He pointed
out methods by which they could evade obnoxious statutes, by which they
could comply with the apparent letter of the law and yet violate its
spirit, and advised them well in that most important of all things, just
how far they could bend the law without breaking it. At the time he left
for Paris he had a vast clientage and was in the midst of a brilliant
career. The day he took passage from New York, the bar lost sight of
him. No matter how great a man may be, the wave soon closes over him in
a city like this. In a few years Mason was forgotten. Now only the older
practitioners would recall him, and they would do so with hatred and
bitterness. He was a tireless, savage, uncompromising fighter, always a
recluse."
"Well," said Walcott, "he reminds me of a great world-weary cynic,
transplanted from some ancient mysterious empire. When I come into the
man's presence I feel instinctively the grip of his intellect. I tell
you, St. Clair, Randolph Mason is the mysterious man of New York."
At this moment a messenger boy came into the room and handed Mr. Walcott
a telegram. "St. Clair," said that gentleman, rising, "the directors of
the Elevated are in session, and we must hurry."
The two men put on their coats and left the house.
Samuel Walcott was not a club man after the manner of the Smart Set, and
yet he was in fact a club man. He was a bachelor in the latter thirties,
and resided in a great silent house on the avenue. On the street he was
a man of substance, shrewd and progressive, backed by great wealth. He
had various corporate interests in the larger syndicates, but the basis
and foundation of his fortune was real estate. His houses on the avenue
were the best possible property, and his elevator row in the importers'
quarter was indeed a literal gold mine. It was known that, many years
before, his grandfather had died and left him the property, which, at
that time, was of no great value. Young Walcott had gone out into
the gold-fields and had been lost sight of and forgotten. Ten years
afterward he had turned up suddenly in New York and taken possession
of his property, then vastly increased in value. His speculations were
almost phenomenally successful, and, backed by the now enormous value of
his real property, he was soon on a level with the merchant princes.
His judgment was considered sound, and he had the full confidence of
his business associates for safety and caution. Fortune heaped up riches
around him with a lavish hand. He was unmarried and the halo of his
wealth caught the keen eye of the matron with marriageable daughters.
He was invited out, caught by the whirl of society, and tossed into its
maelstrom. In a measure he reciprocated. He kept horses and a yacht. His
dinners at Delmonico's and the club were above reproach. But with all he
was a silent man with a shadow deep in his eyes, and seemed to court the
society of his fellows, not because he loved them, but because he either
hated or feared solitude. For years the strategy of the match-maker
had gone gracefully afield, but Fate is relentless. If she shields
the victim from the traps of men, it is not because she wishes him to
escape, but because she is pleased to reserve him for her own trap.
So it happened that, when Virginia St. Clair assisted Mrs. Miriam
Steuvisant at her midwinter reception, this same Samuel Walcott fell
deeply and hopelessly and utterly in love, and it was so apparent to the
beaten generals present, that Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant applauded
herself, so to speak, with encore after encore. It was good to see this
courteous, silent man literally at the feet of the young debutante. He
was there of right. Even the mothers of marriageable daughters admitted
that. The young girl was brown-haired, brown-eyed, and tall enough, said
the experts, and of the blue blood royal, with all the grace, courtesy,
and inbred genius of such princely heritage.
Perhaps it was objected by the censors of the Smart Set that Miss St.
Clair's frankness and honesty were a trifle old-fashioned, and that
she was a shadowy bit of a Puritan; and perhaps it was of these same
qualities that Samuel Walcott received his hurt. At any rate the hurt
was there and deep, and the new actor stepped up into the old time-worn,
semi-tragic drama, and began his rôle with a tireless, utter sincerity
that was deadly dangerous if he lost.