AN APPARITION
"Don't look so scared!" she said smilingly to me. "I'm only on your
hands a few minutes; a package left to be called for."
I had watched them coming back to me at our old table, with its
telephone extension, the girl with eyes for no one but Worth, who helped
her out of her wrap now with a preoccupied air and,
"Shed the coat, Bobs," adding as he seated her beside him, "The luck of
luck that I chanced on you here this evening."
That brought the color into her face; the delicate rose shifted under
her translucent skin almost with the effect of light, until that
lustrous midnight beauty of hers was as richly glowing as one of those
marvellous dark opals of the antipodes.
"Yes," she said softly, with a smile that set two dimples deep in the
pink of her cheeks, "wasn't it strange our meeting this way?" Worth
wasn't looking at her. He'd signaled a waiter, ordered a pot of black
coffee, and was watching its approach. "I didn't go down to the wedding,
but Ina herself invited me to come here to-night. I had half a mind not
to; then at the last minute I decided I would--and I met you!"
Worth nodded, sat there humped in a brown study while the waiter poured
our coffee. The minute the man left us alone, he turned to her with,
"I've got a stunt for you."
"A--a stunt?"
The light failed abruptly in her face; her mouth with its soft, firm
molding, its vivid, floral red, like the lips of a child, went down a
bit at the clean-cut corners. A small hand fumbled the trimming of her
blouse; it was almost as if she laid it over a wounded heart.
"Yes," he nodded. "Jerry's got something in his pocket that'll be pie
for you."
She turned to me a look between angry and piteous--the resentment she
would not vent on him.
"Is--is Mr. Boyne interested in stunts--such as I used to do?"
"Sure," Worth agreed. "We both are. We--"
"Oh, that was why you wanted me to come back with you?" She had got hold
of herself now. She was more poised, but still resentful.
"Bobs," he cut straight across her mood to what he wanted, "Jerry Boyne
is going to read you something it took about 'steen blind people to
see--and you'll give us the answer." I didn't share his confidence, but
I rather admired it as he finished, poising the tongs, "One lump, or
two?"
Of course I knew what he meant. My hand was already fumbling in my
pocket for the description of Clayte. The girl looked as though she
wasn't going to answer him; she moved to shove back her chair. Worth's
only recognition of her attitude was to put out a hand quietly, touch
her arm, not once looking at her, and say in a lowered tone,
"Steady, Bobs." And then, "Did you say one lump or two?"
"None." Her voice was scarcely audible, but I saw she was going to stay;
that Worth was to have his way, to get from her the opinion he
wanted--whatever that might amount to. And I passed the paper to him,
suggesting,
"Let her read it. This is too public a place to be declaiming a thing of
the sort."
She hesitated a minute then gave it such a mere flirt of a glance that I
hardly thought she'd seen what it was, before she raised inquiring eyes
to mine and asked coldly,
"Why shouldn't that be read--shouted every ten minutes by the traffic
officer at Market and Kearny? They'd only think he was paging every
other man in the Palace Hotel."
I leaned back and chuckled. After a bare glance, this sharp witted girl
had hit on exactly what I'd thought of the Clayte description.
"Is that all? May I go now, Worth?" she said, still with that dashed,
disappointed look from one of us to the other. "If you'll just put me on
a Haight Street car--I won't wait for--" And now she made a definite
movement to rise; but again Worth held her by the mere touch of his
fingers on her sleeve.
"Wait, Bobs," he said. "There's more."
"More?" Her eyes on Worth's face talked louder than her tongue, but that
also gained fluency as he looked back at her and nodded. "Stunts!" she
repeated his word bitterly. "I didn't expect you to come back asking me
to do stunts. I hated it all so--working out things like a calculating
machine!" Her voice sank to a vehement undertone. "Nobody thinking of
me as human, with human feelings. I have never--done--one stunt--since
my father died."
She didn't weaken. She sat there and looked Worth squarely in the eye,
yet there was a kind of big gentleness in her refusal, a freedom from
petty resentment, that had in it not so much a girl's hurt vanity as the
outspoken complaint of a really grieved heart.
"But, Bobs," Worth smiled at her trouble, about the same careless,
good-natured smile he had given little Pete when he flipped him the
quarter, "suppose you could possibly save me a hundred thousand dollars
a minute?"
"Then it's not just a stunt?" She settled slowly back in her chair.
"Certainly not," I said. "This is business--with me, anyhow. Miss
Wallace, why do you think a description like that could be shouted on
the street without any one being the wiser?"
"Was it supposed to be a description?" she asked, raising her brows a
bit.
"The best we could get from sixteen or eighteen people, most of whom
have known the man a long time; some of them for eight years."
"And no one--not one of all these people could differentiate him?"
"I've done my best at questioning them."
She gave me one straight, level look, and I wondered a little at the way
those velvety black eyes could saw into a fellow. But she put no query,
and I had the cheap satisfaction of knowing that she was convinced I'd
overlooked no details in the quiz that went to make up that
description. Then she turned to Worth.
"You said I might save you a lot of money. Has the man you're trying
here to describe anything to do with money--in large amounts--financial
affairs of importance?"
Again the little girl had unconsciously scored with me. To imagine a
rabbit like Clayte, alone, swinging such an enormous job was ridiculous.
From the first, my mind had been reaching after the others--the
big-brained criminals, the planners whose instrument he was. She
evidently saw this, but Worth answered her.
"He's quite a financier, Bobs. He walked off with nearly a million cash
to-day."
"From you?" with a quick breath.
"I'm the main loser if he gets away with it."
"Tell me about it."
And Worth gave her a concise account of the theft and his own share in
the affair. She listened eagerly now, those innocent great eyes growing
big with the interest of it. With her there was no blind stumbling over
Worth's motive in buying a suitcase sight unseen. I had guessed, but she
understood completely and unquestioningly. When he had finished, she
said solemnly,
"You know, don't you, that, if you've got your facts right--if these
things you've told me are square, even cubes of fact--they prove Clayte
among the wonderful men of the world?"
Worth's big brown paw went out and covered her little hand that lay on
the table's edge.
"Now we're getting somewhere," he encouraged her. As for me, I merely
snorted.
"Wonderful man, my eye! He's got a wonderful gang behind him."
"Oh, you should have told me that you know there is a gang, Mr. Boyne,"
she said simply. "Of course, then, the result is different."
"Well," I hedged, "there's a gang all right. But suppose there wasn't,
how would you find any wonderfulness in a creature as near nothing as
this Clayte?"
She sat and thought for a moment, drawing imaginary lines on the table
top, finally looking up at me with a narrowing of the lids, a tightening
of the lips, which gave an extraordinary look of power to her young
feminine face.
"In that case, Clayte would inevitably be one of the wonderful men of
the world," she repeated her characterization with the placid, soft
obstinacy of falling, snow. "Didn't you stop a minute--one little
minute, Mr. Boyne--to think it wonderful that a man so devoid of
personality as that--" she slanted a slim finger across the description
of Clayte--"Didn't you add up in your mind all that you told me about
the men disagreeing as to which side he parted his hair on, whether he
wore tan shoes or black, a fedora or derby, smoked or didn't,--
absolutely nothing left as to peculiarities of face, figure, movement,
expression, manner or habit to catch the eye of one single
observer among the sixteen or eighteen you questioned--surely you added
that up, Mr. Boyne? What result did you get?"
"Nothing," I admitted. "To hear you repeat it, of course it sounds as if
the man was a freak. But he wasn't. He was just one of those fellows
that are born utterly commonplace, and slide through life without
getting any marks put on 'em."
"And is it nothing that this man became a teller in a bank without
infringing at all on the circle of his nothingness? Remained so shadowy
that neither the president nor cashier can, after eight years'
association, tell the color of his hair and eyes? Then add the fact that
he is the one clerk in the bank without a filed photograph and
description on record with your agency--what result now, Mr. Boyne?"
"A coincidence," I said, rather hastily.
"Don't, please, Mr. Boyne!" her eyes glowed softly as she smiled her
mild sarcasm. "Admit that he has ceased to be a freak and becomes a
marvel."
"As you put it--" I began, but she cut in on me with,
"I haven't put it yet. Listen." She was smiling still, but it was plain
she was thoroughly in earnest. "When this cipher--this nought--this
zero--manages to annex to himself a million dollars that doesn't belong
to him, his nothingness gains a specific meaning. The zero is an
important factor in mathematics. I think we have placed a digit before
the long string of ciphers of Clayte's nothingness."
"Nothing and nothing--make nothing." I spoke more brusquely because I
was irritated by her logic. "You called the turn when you spoke of him
as a zero. There are digits to be added, but they're the gang that
planned and helped--and used zero Clayte as their tool. You're talking
of those digits, not Clayte."
"I believe Bobs'll find them for you, Jerry--if you'll let her," said
Worth.
"Oh, I'll let anybody do anything"--a bit nettled. "I'm ready to have
our friend Clayte take his place, with the pyramids and the hanging
gardens of Babylon, among the earth's wonders; but you've got to show
me."
"All right." Worth gave the girl a look that brought something of that
wonderful rose flush fluttering back into her cheeks. "I'm betting on
her. Go to it, Bobsie--let him in on your mathematical logic."
"You used the word 'coincidence,' Mr. Boyne." She leaned across toward
me, eyes bright, little finger tip marking her points. "Allow one
coincidence--that the only description, the only photograph missing from
your files are those of the self-effacing Clayte. To-day Clayte has
proved to be a thief--"
"In seven figures," Worth threw in, and she smiled at him.
"You would call that another coincidence, Mr. Boyne?"
I nodded, rather unable at the moment to think of a better word to use.
"Two coincidences," she went on,--"we are still in mathematics--you
can't add. They run by geometrical progression into the impossible."
The phone rang. While I turned to answer it, my mind was still hunting a
comeback to this. The call was from Foster, just in from Ocean View and
reporting for instructions. Covering the transmitter with my hand, I
told Worth the situation and asked,
"Any suggestions?"
"Not I," he shook his head. I added, a bit sarcastically,
"Or you, Miss Wallace?"
"Yes," she surprised me. "Have your man Foster find three women who have
seen Edward Clayte; get from them the color of his hair and eyes; tell
him to have them be exact about it."
"Fine! But you know they'll not agree, any more than the other people
agreed."
"Oh, yes they will," she laughed at me a little. "Don't you notice that
a girl always says a blue-eyed man or a brown-eyed man? That's what she
sees when she first meets him, and it sticks in her mind. Girls and
women sort out people by types; small differences in color mean
something to them."
I didn't keep Foster waiting any longer.
"Hello," I spoke quickly into the transmitter. "Get busy and dig out any
women clerks of the bank, stenographers, scrub-women there, or whatever,
and ask them particularly as to the exact shade of Clayte's hair and
eyes. Get Mrs. Griggsby again at the St. Dunstan. I want at least three
women who can give these points exactly. Exactly, understand?"
He did, and I thanked Miss Wallace for her suggestion.
"Now that," I said, "is what I want; a good, practical idea--"
"And it won't be a bit of use in the world to you," she laughed across
the table into my eyes. "Why, Mr. Boyne, you've found out already that
there are too many Edward Claytes, speaking in physical terms, for you
to run one down by description. There are three of him here, within
sight of our table right now--and the place isn't crowded."
I grinned in half grudging agreement, and found nothing to say. It was
Worth who spoke.
"Like to have you go a step further in this, if you would," and when she
shook her head, he went on a bit sharply. "See here, Bobs; you and I
used to be pals, didn't we?" She nodded, her look brightening. "Well
then, here's the biggest game I've been up against since I crawled out
of the trenches and shucked my uniform. I come to you and give you the
high-sign--and you throw me down. You don't want to play with me--is
that it?"
"Oh, Worth! I do. I do want to play with you," she was almost in tears
now. "But you see, I didn't quite understand. I felt as though you were
sort of putting me through my paces."
"Sure not," Worth drove it at her like a turbulent urchin. "I'm having
the time of my young life with this thing, and I want to take you in on
it."
"If--if you fail you lose a lot of money; wasn't that what you said?"
she questioned.
"Oh, yes," he nodded, "Nothing in it if there weren't a gamble."
"And if he wins out, he makes quite a respectable pile," I added.
"What I want of you now," he explained, "is to go with us to Clayte's
room at the St. Dunstan--the room he disappeared from--look it over and
tell us how he got out and where he went."
He made his request light-heartedly; she considered it after the same
fashion; it seemed to me all absurdity.
"To-morrow morning--Sunday," she said. "No office to-morrow," she sipped
the last of her black coffee slowly. "All the rest of the facts there
ever will be about Edward Clayte are in that room--aren't they?" Her
voice was musing; she looked straight ahead of her as she finished
softly, "What time do we go?"
"Early. Does nine o'clock suit you?" Worth didn't even glance at me as
he made this arrangement for us both. "We'd scoot up there now if it
wasn't so late."
"I've no doubt you'll find the place carpeted with zeros and hung with
noughts and ciphers." I couldn't refrain from joshing her a little. She
took it with a smile glanced across the room, looked a little surprised,
and half rose with,
"Why, there they are for me now."
I couldn't see anybody that she might mean, except a man who had walked
the length of the place talking to the head waiter, and now stood
arguing at the corner of what had been Bronson Vandeman's supper table.
This man evidently had his attention directed to us, turned, looked, and
in the moment of his crossing I saw that it was Cummings. There was not
even the usual tight-lipped half smile under that cropped mustache of
his.
"Good evening." He looked at our faces, uttering none of the surprise he
plainly felt, letting the two words do for greeting to us all, and, as
it seemed, to me, an expression of disapproval as well. The young lady
replied first.
"Oh, Mr. Cummings, did they send you for me? Where are the others?"
She had come to her feet, and reached for the coat which Worth was
holding more as if he meant to keep it than put it on her.
"I left your chaperone waiting in the machine," Cumming's tone and look
carried a plain hurry-up. Worth took his time about the coat, and spoke
low to the girl while he helped her into it.
"You'll go with us to-morrow morning?"
She gave me one of those adorable smiles that brought the dimples
momentarily in her cheeks.
"If Mr. Boyne wants me. He hasn't said yet."
"Do I need to?" I asked. The question seemed reasonable. There she
stood, such a very pretty girl, between her two cavaliers who looked at
each other with all the traditional hostility that belonged to the
situation. She smiled on both, and didn't neglect me. I settled the
matter with,
"Worth has your address; we'll call for you in my machine." And I got
the idea that Cummings was asking questions about it as he went away
holding her arm.
"Do you think the little girl will really be of any use?" I spoke to the
back of Worth's head as he continued to stare after them.
"Sure. I know she will." He shoved his crumpled napkin in among the
coffee service, and we moved toward the desk. "Sure she will," he
repeated. "Wonder where she met Cummings."