reflection upon the chain of unpleasant circumstances that had forced
upon him the unavoidable and distasteful role of a bribe-taker. Yet
how else could he have carried off the part he had assumed? How else
could he have obtained custody of Mr. Brockelsby? And surely the
doctors richly deserved punishment. It was not meet that they should
go scot free and in no other way could he bring it about that
retribution should be visited upon them.
"It is all here," said Mr. Middleton, when he had counted the bills
brought by Dr. Darst. "I shall now see that Mr. Brockelsby is taken
back to the office whence you took him."
"Pardon me," said Dr. Darst, "how in the world did you know we took
him from his office? How did you ferret it all out?"
"I cannot tell you that," said Mr. Middleton. "I shall take him back
to the office. He will be found there later in the day, just as you
found him. You are wise enough to make no inquiries concerning him, to
watch for no news of developments. Indeed, to make in some measure an
alibi, should it be needed, you had better leave town by next train
for the rest of the day. If it were known you were with Mr. Brockelsby
at any time, might it not be thought that you were responsible for the
condition he was found in?"
The doctors boarded the very next train, and Mr. Middleton, serene in
the knowledge that no one would disturb him now, had the box taken
back and set up in the main office. A slight thump in the box as it
was ended up against the wall, caused Mr. Middleton to believe that
Mr. Brockelsby was now resting on his head, but he resolved to allow
this unavoidable circumstance to occasion him no disquiet. Going to a
large department store where a sale of portieres was in progress, he
purchased some portieres and a number of other things. The portieres
he draped over the box, concealing its bare pine with shimmering
cardinal velvet and turning it into the semblance of a cabinet. Lest
any inquisitive hand tear it away, he placed six volumes of Chitty and
a bust of Daniel Webster upon the top and tacked two photographs of
Mr. Brockelsby upon the front. Confident that no one would disturb the
receptacle containing his employer, he went into court and after a
short but exceedingly spirited legal battle in which he displayed a
forensic ability, a legal lore, and a polished eloquence which few of
the older members of the Chicago bar could have equalled, he won a
signal victory.
Although it was not his intention to set about restoring Mr.
Brockelsby until an hour that would ensure him against likelihood of
interruption, he returned to the office to see if by any untoward
mischance anybody could have interfered with the box. To his surprise,
he found Mrs. Brockelsby seated before that object of vertu with her
eye straying abstractedly over the cardinal portieres, the photographs
of Mr. Brockelsby, the bust of Daniel Webster, and the volumes of
Chitty.
"Oh, Mr. Middleton," exclaimed the lady. "Mr. Brockelsby did not come
home to-day and they tell me he wasn't in court."
"No, he was not in court," said Mr. Middleton.
"Oh, where, oh, where can he be!" moaned Mrs. Brockelsby.
Mr. Middleton being of the opinion that this question was merely
exclamatory, ejaculatory in its nature, of the kind orators employ to
garnish and embellish their discourse and which all books of rhetoric
state do not expect or require an answer, accordingly made no answer.
He was, nevertheless, somewhat disturbed by the poor lady's grief and
wished that it were possible to restore her husband to her instantly.
"Oh, I have wanted to see him so, I have wanted him so! Oh, where can
he be, Mr. Middleton! I must find him. I cannot endure it longer. I
will offer a reward to anyone who will bring him home within
twenty-four hours, to anyone who will find him. Oh, oh, oh, oh! I will
give $200. I will give it to you, yourself, if you will find him.
Write a notice to that effect and take it to the newspaper offices."
This great distress on the part of the lady was all contrary to what
Dr. McAllyn had said concerning her indifference to the absence of her
spouse and caused Mr. Middleton to feel very much like a guilty
wretch. As he wrote out the notices for the papers, he reiterated
assurances that Mr. Brockelsby would turn up before morning, while the
partner of the missing barrister continued her heartbroken wailing and
the cause of it all was driven well-nigh wild.
"Oh, if you only knew!" she said, as Mr. Middleton was about to depart
for the newspaper offices. "Day after to-morrow, I am going to
Washington to attend a meeting of the Federation of Woman's Clubs.
That odious Mrs. LeBaron is going to spring a diamond necklace worth
two thousand dollars more than mine. Augustus must come home in time
to sign a check so I can put three thousand dollars more into mine."
A great load soared from Mr. Middleton's mind and blithe joy reigned
there instead.
"Mrs. Brockelsby, I'll leave no stone unturned. I'll bring you your
husband before breakfast," and escorting the lady to her carriage and
handing her in with the greatest deference and most courtly gallantry,
he set forth for one of the more famous of the large restaurants which
are household words among the elite of Chicago. Mr. Middleton had
never passed its portals, but with fourteen hundred dollars in his
pocket and two hundred more in sight, he felt he could afford to give
himself a good meal and break the fast he had kept since the evening
before, for in the crowded events of the day, he had found time to
refresh himself with nothing more substantial than an apple and a bag
of peanuts, or fruit of the Arachis hypogea.
As he sat down at a table in the glittering salle-a-manger, what was
his great surprise and even greater delight, to see seated opposite,
just slowly finishing his dessert--a small bowl of sherbet--habited in
a perfectly-fitting frock coat with a red carnation in the lapel, the
urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Having
exchanged mutual expressions of pleasure at this unexpected encounter,
Mr. Middleton, overjoyed and elated at the successes of the day, began
to pour into the ears of the prince a relation of the events that had
resulted from the gift of the treatise of the learned hakim of Madras,
which is in India. He told everything from the beginning to the end.
"In the morning," he said in conclusion, "I take Mr. Brockelsby home
in a cab and get the two hundred dollars."
"Alas, alas!" said Achmed mournfully, his great liquid brown eyes
resting sorrowfully upon Mr. Middleton. "What a corrupting effect the
haste to get rich has upon American youth. My friend, it cannot be
that you intend to take the two hundred dollars?"
"But I find old Brock, don't I?'
"That is precisely what you do not do. You know where he is. You put
him there. How can you say you found him?"
"All right, I won't do it," said Mr. Middleton, abashed at Achmed's
reproof, a reproof his conscience told him was eminently deserved.
"I thank Allah," said the prince, "that I am an Arab and not an
American. The fortunes of my line, its glories, were not won in the
vulgar pursuits of trade, in the chicanery of business, in the shady
paths of speculation, in the questionable manipulation of stocks and
bonds. It was not thus that the ancient houses of the nobility of
Europe and the Orient built up their honorable fortunes. Never did the
men of my house parley with their consciences, never did they strike a
truce with their knightly instincts in order to gain gold. Ah, no,
no," mused the prince, looking pensively up at the gaily decorated
ceiling as he reflected upon the glories of his line; "it was in the
noble profession of arms, the illustrious practice of warfare that we
won our honorable possessions. At the sacking of Medina, the third
prince of our house gained a goodly treasure of gold and precious
stones, and founded our fortune. In warfare with the Wahabees, we
acquired countless herds and the territories for them to roam upon. By
descents across the Red Sea into the realms of the Abyssinians, we
took hundreds of slaves. From the Dey of Aden we acquired one hundred
thousand sequins as the price of peace. In the sacking of the cities
of Hedjaz and Yemen and even the dominions of Oman, did we gallantly
gain in the perilous and honorable pursuit of war further store of
treasure. Ah, those were brave days, those days of old, those knightly
days of old! Faugh, I am out of tune with this vile commercial country
and this vile commercial age."
The prince arose as he uttered these last words and in his rhapsody
forgetting the presence of Mr. Middleton, without a farewell he
stalked through the great apartment, absentmindedly, though gracefully
twirling a pair of pearl gray gloves in the long sensitive fingers of
his left hand. A little hush fell upon the brilliant assemblage and
many a bright eye dwelt admiringly upon the elegant person, so
elegantly attired, of the urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe
of Al-Yam.
For some time Mr. Middleton sat plunged in abstraction, toying with
the three kinds of dessert he had ordered, as he meditated upon the
words of the emir. At last rousing himself, he had finished the
marrons glacees and was about to begin upon a Nesselrode pudding, when
he heard himself addressed, and looking up saw before him a young
woman of an exceedingly prepossessing appearance. She was richly
dressed with a quiet elegance that bespoke her a person of good taste.
Laughing, roguish eyes illuminated a piquant face in which were to be
seen good sense, ingenuousness and kindness, mingled with
self-reliance and determination. Mr. Middleton knew not whether to
admire her most for the beautiful proportions of her figure, the
loveliness of her face, or the fine mental qualities of which her
countenance gave evidence. With a delightful frankness in which there
was no hint of real or pretended embarrassment, she said:
"Pray pardon this intrusion on the part of a total stranger. I have
particular reasons for desiring to know the name and station of the
gentleman who left you a short time ago, and knowing no one else to
ask, have resolved to throw myself upon your good nature. I will ask
of you not to require the reasons of me, assuring you that they are
perhaps not entirely unconnected with the welfare of this gentleman. I
observed from your manner toward one another that you were
acquaintances and that it was no chance conversation between
strangers. He is, I take it, an Italian."
Without pausing to reflect that the emir might not be at all pleased
to have this young woman know of his identity, Mr. Middleton exclaimed
hastily and with a gesture of expostulation:
"Oh, no! He is not a Dago," and then after a pause he remarked
impressively, "He is an Arab," and then after a still longer pause, he
said still more impressively, "He is the Emir Achmed Ben Daoud,
hereditary prince of the tribe of Al-Yam, which ranges on the borders
of that fertile and smiling region of Arabia known as Yemen, or Arabia
the Happy."
"He is not a Dago!" said the young woman, clasping her hands with
delighted fervor.
"He is not a Dago!" said another voice, and Mr. Middleton became aware
that at his back stood a second young woman scarcely less charming
than the first. "He is not a Dago!" she repeated, scarcely less
delighted than the first.
Mr. Middleton arose and assumed an attitude which was at once
indicative of proper deference toward his fair questioners and enabled
him the better to feast his entranced eyes upon them. Moreover, on all
sides he observed that people were looking at them and he needed no
one to tell him that his conversation with these two daughters of the
aristocracy was causing the assemblage to regard him as an individual
of social importance. He gave the emir's address upon Clark Street and
after dwelling some time upon his graces of person and mind, related
how it was that this Eastern potentate was resident in the city of
Chicago in a comparatively humble capacity.
"His brother is shut up in a vermillion tower."
"Vermillion, did you say?" breathlessly asked the first young lady.
"Oh, how romantic!" exclaimed the second young lady. "A tower of
vermillion! Is he good looking, like this one? Do you suppose he will
come here? Oh, Mildred, I must meet him. And the imam of Oman is going
to give the vermillion tower to the brother, when he is released. We
could send one of papa's whalebacks after it. What a lovely house on
Prairie Avenue it would make. 'The Towers,' we would call it. No,
'Vermillion Towers.' How lovely it would sound on a card, 'Wednesdays,
Vermillion Towers.' We must get him out. Can't we do it?"
"If it were in this country," said Mr. Middleton, "I would engage to
get him out. I would secure a writ of habeas corpus, or devise other
means to speedily release him. But unfortunately, I am not admitted to
practice in the dominions of Oman. But I do not pity the young man.
One could well be willing to suffer incarceration in a tower of
vermillion, if he knew he were an object of solicitude to one so fair
as yourself. One could wear the gyves and shackles of the most
terrible tyranny almost in happiness, if he knew that such lovely eyes
grew moist over his fate and such beauteous lips trembled when they
told the tale of his imprisonment."
Now such gallant speeches were all very well in the days of
knee-breeches and periwigs, but in this age and in Chicago, they are
an anachronism and the two young ladies started as if they had
suddenly observed that Mr. Middleton had on a low-cut vest, or his
trousers were two years behind the times, and somewhat curtly and
coolly making their adieus, they sailed rapidly away, leaving Mr.
Middleton--who was not the most obtuse mortal in the world--to
savagely fill with large pieces of banana pie the orifice whence had
lately issued the words which had cut short his colloquy with the two
beauties. He deeply regretted that in his association with Prince
Achmed he had fallen into a flowery and Oriental manner of speech and
resolved henceforth to eschew such fashion of discourse.
The clocks were solemnly tolling the hour of midnight when Mr.
Augustus Alfonso Brockelsby rubbed his eyes and sat up in the
revolving chair in the main office of his suite. Mr. Middleton was
standing near, hastily putting away a razor. A warm odor lay on the
still air of the room.
"Hello, isn't it daylight yet?" asked Mr. Brockelsby. The hot cakes
that had but lately been applied to his shaven crown, seemed to have
dispelled the fogs of intoxication and he was master of himself.
"It is twelve o'clock," said Mr. Middleton.
"Twelve! Why, it was three when I left the banquet table. Twelve!"
"Twelve," said Mr. Middleton, pointing gravely to the clock on the
desk.
"It--is--twelve. Don't tell me it is the day after."
"I am compelled to do so. You were at the banquet of the Sons of
Andrew Jackson's Wars, twenty-four hours ago."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Mr. Brockelsby, thrusting his hands through
his hair, or rather making the motion of doing so. "Great Scott!" he
repeated, "I am bald-headed. What the devil have I been into? Where
the devil have I been?"
"I found you here this morning. Your wife has been here."
"Oh, lord! Oh, lord! What did she say when she saw me dead to the
world--and bald-headed?"
"She did not see you. I had concealed you."
"Good boy, good boy."
"She offered me two hundred dollars reward to bring you home," and Mr.
Middleton related all that Mrs. Brockelsby had said.
"It would be all off when she saw me bald-headed. What the devil
wouldn't she suspect? I don't know. I would say I didn't know where I
had been. That would certainly sound fishy. It would sound like a
preposterous excuse to cover up something pretty questionable. People
don't go out in good society and get their heads shaved. She's pretty
independent and uppish now. She said the next time she knew of me
cutting up any didoes, she would get a divorce. She comes into two
hundred thousand from her grandfather's estate in six months and she's
pretty independent. Say, my boy, can't you take a check for the money
she wants? She's going to Washington to-morrow. Tell her I went out of
town and sent the money. I _will_ go out of town. But the boys will
see my bald head. Where do you suppose I was? What sort of crowd was I
with? I must have a wig. You must get it for me. The boys would josh
me to death, and if the story got to my wife it would be all off. I'll
go to Battle Creek and get a new lot of hair started."
Mr. Middleton sat down and wrote busily for a moment. He handed a
sheet of paper to Mr. Brockelsby.
"What's this? You resign? You're not going to help me out?"
"I am no longer in your employ. I will undertake to do all you ask of
me for a proper compensation, say one hundred and fifty a day for two
days."
"What?" screamed Mr. Brockelsby. "This is robbery, extortion,
blackmail."
"It is what you often charge yourself. Very well. Get your own wig and
be seen on the streets going after it. Leave your wife to wonder why I
do not come to report what progress is made in the search for you and
to start a rigorous investigation herself. I am under no obligations
not to ease her worry, to calm her disturbed mind by telling her I
have found you. She'll be hot foot after you then."
"She'd spot the wig at once. It would fool others, but not her. She'd
see I had been jagged. You've got me foul. I'll have to accede to your
terms. You'll not give me away?"
"Sir, I would not, in this, my first employment as an independent
attorney, be so derelict to professional honor, as to betray the
secrets of my client. We have chosen to call this three hundred
dollars--a check for which you will give me in advance--payment for
the services I am about to perform. In reality, I consider it only
part of what you owe for the miserably underpaid services of the past
three years."
As Mr. Middleton wended his way homeward, it was with some melancholy
that he recalled how, on previous occasions when good fortune had
added to his stock of wealth, he had rejoiced in it because he saw his
dreams of marriage with the young lady of Englewood approaching
realization more and more. But now they had drifted apart. Not once
had he seen her since that fatal night. On several evenings he had
made the journey to Englewood and walked up and down before her house,
but not so much as her shadow on the curtain had he seen. Let her make
the first move toward a reconciliation. If she expected him to do so
after her treatment of him, she was sadly mistaken.
_The Adventure of Achmed Ben Daoud._
Being curious to hear of the young ladies who had inquired concerning
the emir in the restaurant, and to learn what their connection with
that prince might be, Mr. Middleton repaired to the bazaar on Clark
Street on the succeeding night. But the emir was not in. Mesrour
apparently having experienced one of those curious mental lesions not
unknown in the annals of medicine, where a linguist loses all memory
of one or more of the languages he speaks, while retaining full
command of the others--Mesrour having experienced such a lesion, which
had, at least temporarily, deprived him of his command of the English
language, Mr. Middleton was unable to learn anything that he desired
to know, until bethinking himself of the fact that alcohol loosens the
thought centers and that by its agency Mesrour's atrophied brain cells
might be stimulated, revivified, and the coma dispelled, he made
certain signs intelligible to all races of men in every part of the
world and took the blackamore into a neighboring saloon, where, after
regaling him with several beers, he learned that only an hour before
an elegant turnout containing two young women, beautiful as houris,
had called for the emir and taken him away.
"He done tole me that if I tole anybody whar he was gwine, he'd
bowstring me and feed mah flesh to the dawgs."
Mr. Middleton shuddered as he heard this threat, so characteristically
Oriental.
"Where _was_ he going?" he inquired with an air of profound
indifference and irrelevance, signalling for another bottle of beer.
The blackamore silently drank the beer, a gin fizz, and two Scotch
high-balls, his countenance the while bearing evidence that he was
struggling with a recalcitrant memory.
"'Deed, I doan' know, suh," said Mesrour finally. "He never done tole
me."
Though Mr. Middleton called three times during the next week, he did
not find the emir in. Nor could Mesrour give any information
concerning his master's whereabouts. However, in the society news of
the Sunday papers, appeared at the head of several lists of persons
attendant upon functions, one A. B. D. Alyam, and this individual was
included among those at a small dinner given by Misses Mildred and
Gladys Decatur. As Mildred was the name of one of the young ladies who
had accosted him in the restaurant, Mr. Middleton felt quite certain
that this A. B. D. Alyam was none other than Achmed Ben Daoud, emir of
the tribe of Al-Yam.
On the tenth day, Mesrour informed Mr. Middleton that the emir had
left word to make an appointment with him for seven o'clock on the
following evening, at which time Mr. Middleton came, to find the
accomplished prince sitting at a small desk made in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, engaged in the composition of a note which he was inscribing
upon delicate blue stationery with a gold mounted fountain pen.
Arising somewhat abruptly and offering his hand at an elevation in
continuity of the extension of his shoulder, the emir begged the
indulgence of a few moments and resumed his writing. He was arrayed in
a black frock coat and gray trousers and encircling his brow was a
moist red line that told of a silk hat but lately doffed. "Give the
gentleman a cup of tea," said he to Mesrour, looking up from the note,
which now completed, he was perusing with an air that indicated
satisfaction with its chirography, orthography, and literary style. At
last, placing it in an envelope and affixing thereto a seal, he turned
and ordering Mesrour to give Mr. Middleton another cup of tea, he
lighted a cigarette and began as follows:
"This is the last time you will see me here. My lease expires
to-morrow and my experience as a retail merchant, in fact, as any sort
of merchant, is over. On this, the last evening that we shall meet in
the old familiar way, the story I have to relate to your indulgent
ears is of some adventures of my own, adventures which have had their
final culmination in a manner most delightful to me, and in which
consummation you have been an agent. Indeed, but for your friendship I
should not now be the happy man I am. Without further consuming time
by a preamble which the progress of the tale will render unnecessary,
I will proceed.
"Last summer, I spent a portion of the heated term at Green Lake,
Wisconsin. I know that sentiment in this city is somewhat unequally
divided upon the question of the comparative charms of Green Lake and
Lake Geneva and that the former resort has not acquired a vogue equal
to that of the latter, but I must say I greatly prefer Green Lake. I
have never been at Lake Geneva, it is true, but nevertheless, I prefer
Green Lake.