BILLY HAS HIS DOUBTS
The encounter in the bazaars that Thursday afternoon brought one
more result to young Hill besides the bruise upon his chin and the
privilege of bowing to Lady Claire and her vigilant chaperon, and
the presence of Lady Claire's little handkerchief in his coat
pocket.
It brought a young German, scrupulously sober, soberly apologetic,
in formal state to Billy's hotel upon Friday morning, whose card
announced him to be Frederick von Deigen and whose speech proclaimed
him to be utterly aghast at his own untoward behavior.
"I was not myself," he owned, with a sigh and a melancholy twist of
his upstanding mustaches. "I had been lunching alone--and it is bad
to lunch alone when one has a sadness. One drinks--to forget.... But
you are too young to understand." He waved his hand in compliment to
Billy's youth, then continued, with increasing energy, "But when I
find what _dummheit_ I have done--how I have so rudely addressed the
young Fräulein with you, and have used my fists upon you, even to
the point of hurling you upon the street--I have no words for my
shame."
"Oh, it wasn't exactly a hurl," Billy easily amended. "There was a
banana peel where my heel happened to be--and I wasn't half
scrapping. I could see you weren't yourself."
"Indeed no! Would I," he struck himself gloomily upon the breast,
"would I intrude upon a young Fräulein, and attack her protector? It
was that bottle--that last bottle.... I knew--at the time.... I
offer you my apology. I can do no more--unless you would have
satisfaction--no?"
"I guess I had all the satisfaction that was coming to me
yesterday," said Billy. "You've got a fist like a professional. But
there's no harm done.... Only you want to get over taking that last
bottle and offering presents to young ladies," he concluded, with an
accent of youthful severity.
The German nodded a depressed head. His melancholy, bloodshot eyes
fixed themselves sadly upon Billy. "Ach, it is so," he assented
meekly, "but when one has a sadness--" He sighed.
"Yes, of course, that's tough," agreed Billy sympathetically. "I
hate a sadness."
"Perhaps you have known--?" The other's eyes lifted toward him, then
dropped dispiritedly. "But, no, you are too young. But I--Ach!" He
added in his own tongue a line of which Billy caught _geliebt_ and
_gelebt_, and so nodded understandingly.
"That geliebing business is bad stuff," he returned, and again the
other tugged at his mustaches with a nervous hand and shook his big
blond head.
"She was to have met me here," he said abruptly. "She wrote--I was
to come quick--and then she comes not. That is woman, the _ewige
weibliche_." He scowled. "But, Gott, how enchantment was in her!"
Billy heard himself sigh in unison. The phrase suggested Arlee. And
the situation was not dissimilar. He felt a positive sympathy for
the big blond fellow in his pronounced clothes and glossy boots and
careful boutonnière.... He smiled in friendly fashion.
"She'll come along yet," he prophesied, "and if she doesn't, just
you go out after her. I wouldn't take too many chances in the
waiting game."
The German shook his head. His blue eyes swam with sentimental
moisture. "You do not understand," he said. "She went with
another--I must wait for her to come away. I have no address--so?"
"Well, that--that's different," stammered the young American. His
sympathy became cynical. Fishy business--but even a fishy business
has its human side. So presently he found himself gazing
interestedly upon the photograph the German displayed in the back of
his watch--the photograph of a decolleté young woman with
provocative dark eyes and parted lips and pearl-like teeth, and he
shook the caller's hand most heartily in parting, and prophesied,
with fine assurance, the successful end of this fishy romance.
"You have a heart, my friend," said the German solemnly, and lifting
hat and stick and lemon-colored gloves from the table, he bowed
profoundly in farewell.
"And to the Fräulein--you will give my so deep apology?" he added
earnestly, and Billy assured him that he would. And he found
himself, for all his pre-occupation with the vision of Arlee's
spring-like beauty, by no means displeased at the errand. A man must
have something to do while he is waiting--if he is to avoid last
bottles! He would seek her out that very afternoon.
* * * * *
But by afternoon he was tearing upstairs and downstairs through the
hotel after a very different quarry, which at last he ran to earth
at a tiny table behind a palm on the veranda. The quarry was further
protected by an enveloping newspaper, but Billy did not stand on
ceremony.
"I want to talk to you," said he.
Falconer looked up. He recognized Billy perfectly, though his gaze
gave no admission of that. This tall young fellow with the deep-set
gray eyes and the rugged chin and the straight black hair he first
remembered seeing dancing that Wednesday evening with Arlee--after
their own disastrous tea and its estrangement. Arlee had appeared on
mystifyingly good terms with him, though he was positive from his
own observations, and had corroboration from the Evershams, that she
had never spoken to him until five minutes before. Then the fellow
had fairly grilled the Evershams about the girl's whereabouts last
night. And he had learned that the previous afternoon he had managed
to take Claire's protection upon himself in the bazaars, actually
convincing her that she ought to feel indebted to him, and had
driven back with them.... An unabashed intruder, that fellow! He
ought to have a lesson.
His air of unwelcome deepened, if possible, as Billy helped himself
to a chair, drew it confidentially close to him and cast a careful
glance about the veranda.
"I don't want anyone to hear this," he explained.
Falconer smiled cynically. He had met confidential young Americans
before. There was nothing they could sell _him_.
"It's about Miss Beecher." Billy looked uncomfortable. He hesitated,
blushed boyishly through his tan, and blurted, "There's something
mighty queer about that departure of hers yesterday."
"Ah!"
"I don't feel right about it.... It's deuced queer. She isn't in
Alexandria."
"Ah!"
"If you say 'Ah' again, I hope you choke," said Billy violently to
himself. Aloud he continued, "I wired to the Khedivial and to all
the other hotels--there are just a few--and she isn't registered
there, and the Maynards are not, either."
"Possibly staying with friends," said Falconer indifferently. He
regarded his paper.
"Very few Americans have friends in Alexandria. However, that might
be so. But no ship has arrived from the Continent for three days,
and it seems mighty odd, if they were there three days ago, for them
to have wired at the last minute and had her tear off like that."
"I do not pretend to account for your compatriots," said the
sandy-haired young man.
Billy looked at him a minute. "There's no use in your being
disagreeable," he remarked. "I didn't thrust myself upon you because
I was attracted to you, at all. But I thought you were a sensible,
masculine human being who was interested in Miss Beecher's
whereabouts."
"I beg your pardon," said the other young man. "I am--I mean I am
interested--if you think there is anything really wrong. But I do
not see your point."
"Well, now, see if you can see this. I wired the consul there and
some other fellow at the port, and they wired back that no people of
the name of Maynard have arrived on any of the boats for the past
two weeks--that was as far back as they looked up. Now that's
_queer_."
"He could be mistaken--or they could have bought some one else's
accommodations--and that would account for the hastiness of their
plans," Falconer argued.
"But what train did she go on?"
"What train? Why, the express for Alexandria."
"That left at eight-thirty. Now why in the world would she rush away
in the middle of the afternoon, sending a telegram from the station
and leaving her packing undone, for an eight-thirty train?"
"Why I--I really can't say. She may have had errands----"
"Where did she have her dinner? Did she dine with friends at some of
the hotels? What friends has she here?"
"I really can't say as to that, either. I wasn't aware that she had
any."
"And where did she send that telegram from? There isn't a copy of
any such telegram at the offices I've been to--at Cook's or the
station. It might have been written on a telegraph blank and sent up
by messenger with the money--but why not come herself, with all that
time on her hands? And nobody remembers selling her any ticket to
Alexandria--and you know anybody would remember selling anything to
a girl like that."
Falconer was silent.
"And nobody at Cook's paid out any money on her letter of credit--or
cashed any express checks for her. Where did that money come from
that was sent back to the hotel?"
"But what is the point of all this?"
"That's what I just particularly don't know.... But it needs looking
into."
Falconer favored him with a level scrutiny. "How long have you known
Miss Beecher?"
"I met her the night before last. That, however, doesn't enter into
the case."
"It would seem to me that it might."
"Between three days and three weeks," said Billy, remembering
something, "the difference is sometimes no greater than between
Tweedledum and Tweedledee." He smiled humorously at the other young
man, a frank, likeable smile that softened magically the bluntness
of his young mouth. "That's why I came to you. You are the only soul
I know to be interested in Miss Beecher's welfare. The Evershams are
off up the Nile--and they'd probably be helpless, anyway. Besides,
you know more about this blamed Egypt of yours than I do.... Have
you any idea where she went yesterday afternoon?"
"Not at all."
"Neither have the Evershams. They were surprised when I asked them
about it this morning. They didn't know she was going. Now she went
somewhere in a limousine----"
"Probably to the station."
"American girls don't go to stations in floating white clothes and
hats all pink roses. I particularly remember the pink rose," said
Billy gloomily. "No, if she had been going to the station she would
have had on a little blue or gray suit, very up and down, and a
little minute of a hat with just one perky feather. And she'd have a
bag of sorts with her--no girl would rush away to Alexandria without
a bag."
"She could have sent it ahead of her or returned and dressed later
for the station."
"Why the mischief did I tramp off to those bazaars?" said the young
American. "But, see here--weren't you around the hotel after that
yesterday--at tea time?"
"Er--yes--I----"
"And weren't you rather looking out for Miss Beecher? Wouldn't you
have noticed if she had been coming or going?"
Falconer stroked his small mustache and shot a look at Billy out of
the corners of his eyes which expressed his distinct annoyance at
these intrusive demands.
"I don't remember to have met you," said he slowly.
"You haven't. I know your name, but you don't know mine. I am
William B. Hill."
"Ah--Behill."
"No--_B._ Hill. The B is an initial."
"Of what?" said the other casually, and Billy's cheeks grew suddenly
warm.
"Of my middle name," said he, with steady composure. "If we are to
do any team-work you will have to let it go at the William and the
Hill."
"What team-work do you suggest?"
"Find out where she went yesterday. Find out where she is now. What
worries me," he burst out, with ungovernable uneasiness, yet with a
hint of humor at his own extravagant imaginings, "is her talking to
that Turk fellow yesterday--that Captain Kerissen, I think she
called him. She had told me the night before that he was going to
get her some ball tickets or other, and I didn't think anything of
it, but yesterday I thought he had his nerve to come and call upon
her. You see, I passed through the hall and saw them talking. I went
out to the veranda and after he had gone I came in again, but she
was nowhere in sight. Then I went back to the veranda, and in a few
moments she came out, in white with a rose on her hat, and went off
in a car that was ready. Of course Kerissen wasn't in the car, and I
haven't any proof of his connection with the thing, but he might
easily have induced her to look at some mosque or other off the
'beaten track'----"
"But she returned, for later she sent that telegram from the
station," Falconer argued.
Billy was silent. Then he burst out, "But all the same there is a
mystery to this thing.... She--she's too confoundedly young and
pretty to run around alone in this painted jade of a city."
"This city has law and order--much more of them than there are in
your national hotbeds of robbery and murder."
"H'm--well, I don't hold any brief for Chicago--I suppose Chicago is
the target--so I won't defend that. But I've heard stories."
"Queer ones, I should say."
"_Devilish_ queer ones!... How about that young Monkton or Monkhouse
who dropped out of things last winter?"
Falconer looked annoyed. "Oh, there are rumors----"
"Yes, rumors that he flirted with a Turkish lady--that he was on
horseback just outside her carriage during the jam at the
Kasr-el-Nil bridge, and they looked and smiled and afterwards met in
a shop. And rumors that she gave him a _rendezvous_ at her home and
that he told another man about it at the club, who warned him
sharply, and he only laughed.... But it's no rumor that he
disappeared. He's gone, all right, and nobody knows where he went,
and nobody seems to want to know. Officially they said he was
drowned out swimming--or lost in a sandstorm riding in the
desert--or spiked on top of an obelisk or something equally
reasonable--but, privately, people say other things.... No
international law intrudes into the Turkish woman question."
"What of it?" Falconer looked stubborn. "I daresay the fellow
received his deserts.... But the case hardly applies--what?"
"Well--it makes one feel that anything can happen here--that the
city is quicksand where a chance step would engulf one." Billy
stared frowningly out on the vivid street ahead of him. A pretty
English bride and her soldier husband were out exercising their
dogs. Two ladies in a victoria were advertising their toilettes. A
blond baby toddled past with his black nurse. It was all very
peaceful and charming. It did not look like quicksand.... Into the
picture came a one-eyed man with a stuffed crocodile on his head,
stalking slowly along, scanning the veranda with his single,
penetrating eye, calling his wares in harsh gutturals, and with him
came suddenly the sense of that strange background before which all
this bright tourist life was played, that dark watching, secret
East, curious and incalculable.
Falconer folded his paper with a sharp crackle that recalled young
Hill's wandering thought. "That's all very well, but it doesn't
apply," he observed, with conviction.
"Then where is she?" Billy was bluntly belligerent.
The other put his paper in his pocket. "In Alexandria, to be sure,
and not at all pleased, either, to have you bring her name into such
questioning." He looked squarely at Billy as he said that, and the
eyes of the two young man met and exchanged a secret challenge of
hostility.
Billy rose. "Oh, all right," he returned. "I daresay I am as much a
fool as you take me for.... She may be all right. But if not--I
thought I'd give you a chance to take a hand in it."
"The sporting chance," said Falconer, with an appreciable smile.
"I'm much obliged--but I don't at all share your misgivings.... And
what in the world do you propose to do about it?"
For a minute Billy's gaze blankly interrogated the sunlit distances.
His eyes were fixed, but empty; his forehead knitted in an uncertain
frown. Then quite suddenly he turned and flashed at Falconer a look
of odd and unforeseen decision.
"I'm going to buy a crocodile," he imparted, with a wide, boyish
grin. "I'm going to buy a crocodile of a one-eyed man."
Stolidly Falconer eyed his departing back. Stolidly, definitely,
comprehensively, he pronounced judgment. "Mad," said he. "Mad as the
March Hare."