IN THE LALLA ROOKH
The car in itself was in no way remarkable. A twelve-section and
drawing-room, mahogany-finish, wide-vestibule sleeper, done in cream
brown, hangings shading into Indian reds--a type of the Pullman car so
popular some years ago for transcontinental travel; neither too heavy
for the mountains nor too light for the pace across the plains.
There were many features added to the passenger schedule on the West
End the year Henry S. Brock and his friends took hold of the road, but
none made more stir than the new Number One, run then as a crack
passenger train, a strictly limited, vestibuled string, with barbers,
baths, grill rooms, and five-o'clock tea. In and out Number One was
the finest train that crossed the Rockies, and bar nobody's.
It was October, with the Colorado travel almost entirely eastbound and
the California travel beginning, westbound, and the Lalla Rookh sleeper
being deadheaded to the coast on a special charter for an O. and O.
steamer party; at least, that was all the porter knew about its
destination, and he knew more than anyone else.
At McCloud, where the St. Louis connection is made, Number One sets out
a diner and picks up a Portland sleeper--so it happened that the Lalla
Rookh, hind car to McCloud, afterward lay ahead of the St. Louis car,
and the trainmen passed, as occasion required, through it--lighted down
the gloomy aisle by a single Pintsch burner, choked to an all-night
dimness.
But on the night of October 3d, which was a sloppy night in the
mountains, there was not a great deal to take anybody back through the
Lalla Rookh. Even the porter of the dead car deserted his official
corpse, and after Number One pulled out of Medicine Bend and stuck her
slim, aristocratic nose fairly into the big ranges the Lalla Rookh was
left as dead as a stringer to herself and her reflections--reflections
of brilliant aisles and staterooms inviting with softened lights, shed
on couples that resented intrusion; of sections bright with lovely
faces and decks ringing with talk and laughter; of ventilators singing
of sunshine within, and of night and stars and waste without--for the
Lalla Rookh carried only the best people, and after the overland voyage
on her tempered springs and her yielding cushions they felt an
affection for her. When the Lalla Rookh lived she lived; but to-night
she was dead.
This night the pretty car sped over the range a Cinderella deserted,
her linen stored and checked in her closets, her pillows bunked in her
seats, and her curtains folded in her uppers, save and except in one
single instance--Section Eleven, to conform to certain deeply held
ideas of the porter, Raz Brown, as to what might and might not
constitute a hoodoo, was made up. Raz Brown did not play much: he
could not and hold his job; but when he did play he played eleven
always whether it fell between seven, twenty-seven, or four,
forty-four. And whenever Raz Brown deadheaded a car through, he always
made up section eleven, and laid the hoodoo struggling but helpless
under the chilly linen sheets of the lower berth.
Glover had spent the day without incident or excitement on the Wind
River branches, and the evening had gone, while waiting to take a train
west to Medicine Bend, in figuring estimates at the agent's desk in
Wind River station. He was working night and day to finish the report
that the new board was waiting for on the rebuilding of the system.
At midnight when he boarded the train he made his way back to look for
a place to stretch out until two o'clock.
The Pullman conductor lay in the smoking-room of the head 'Frisco car
dreaming of his salary--too light to make any impression on him except
when asleep. It seemed a pity to disturb an honest man's dreams, and
the engineer passed on. In the smoking-room of the next car lay a
porter asleep. Glover dropped his bag into a chair and took off his
coat. While he was washing his hands the train-conductor, Billy
O'Brien, came in and set down his lantern. Conductor O'Brien was very
much awake and inclined rather to talk over a Mexican mining
proposition on which he wanted expert judgment than to let Glover get
to bed. When the sleepy man looked at his watch for the fifth time,
the conductor was getting his wind for the dog-watch and promised to
talk till daylight.
"My boy, I've got to go to bed," declared Glover.
"Every sleeper is loaded to the decks," returned O'Brien. "This is the
most comfortable place you'll find."
"No, I'll go forward into the chair-car," replied Glover. "Good-night."
"Stop, Mr. Glover; if you're bound to go, the Lalla Rookh car right
behind this is dead, but there's steam on. Go into the stateroom and
throw yourself on the couch. This is the porter here asleep."
"William, your advice is good. I've taken it too long to disregard it
now," said Glover, picking up his bag. "Good-night."
But it was not a good night; it was a bad night, and getting worse as
Number One dipped into it. Out of the northwest it smoked a ragged,
wet fog down the pass, and, as they climbed higher, a bitter song from
the Teton way heeled the sleepers over the hanging curves and streamed
like sobs through the meshed ventilators of the Lalla Rookh. It was a
nasty night for any sort of a sleeper; for a dead one it was very bad.
Glover walked into the Lalla Rookh vestibule, around the smoking-room
passage, and into the main aisle of the car, dimly lighted at the hind
end. He made his way to the stateroom. The open door gave him light,
and he took off his storm-coat, pulled it over him for a blanket, and
had closed his eyes when he reflected he had forgotten to warn O'Brien
he must get off at Medicine Bend.
It was unpleasant, but forward he went again to avoid the annoyance of
being carried by. He could tell as he came back, by the swing, that
they were heading the Peace River curves, for the trucks were hitting
the elevations like punching-bags. Just as he regained the main aisle
of the Lalla Rookh, a lurch of the car plumped him against a
section-head. He grasped it an instant to steady himself, and as he
stopped he looked. Whether it was that his eyes fell on the curtained
section swaying under the Pintsch light ahead--Section Eleven made
up--or whether his eyes were drawn to it, who can tell? A woman's head
was visible between the curtains. Glover stood perfectly still and
stared. Without right or reason, there certainly stood a woman.
With nobody whatever having any business in the car, a car out of
service, carried as one carries a locked and empty satchel--yet the
curtains of Section Eleven, next his stateroom, were parted slightly,
and the half-light from above streamed on a woman's loose hair. She
was not looking toward where he stood; her face was turned from him,
and as she clasped the curtain she was looking into his stateroom.
What the deuce! thought Glover. A woman passenger in a dead sleeper?
He balanced himself to the dizzy wheel of the truck under him, and
waited for her to look his way--since she must be looking for the
porter--but the head did not move. The curtains swayed with the
jerking of the car, but the woman in Eleven looked intently into the
dark stateroom. What did it mean? Glover determined a shock.
"Tickets!" he exclaimed, sternly--and stood alone in the car.
"Tickets!" The head was gone; not alone that, strangely gone. How?
Glover could not have told. It was _gone_. The Pintsch burned dim;
the Teton song crooned through the ventilators; the wheels of the Lalla
Rookh struck muffled at the fish-plates; the curtains of Section Eleven
swung slowly in and out of the berth--but the head was not there.
A creepy feeling touched his back; his first impulse was to ignore the
incident, go into the stateroom and lie down. Then he thought he might
have alarmed the passenger in Eleven when he had first entered. Yet
there was, officially at least, no passenger in Eleven; plainly there
was nothing to do but to call the conductor. He went forward. O'Brien
was sorting his collections in the smoking-room of the next car. Raz
Brown, awake--nominally, at least--sat by, reading his dream-book.
"Is this the Lalla Rookh porter?" asked Glover. O'Brien nodded.
"Who's your passenger in Eleven back there?" demanded Glover, turning
to the darky.
"Me?" stammered Raz Brown.
"Who's your fare in Eleven in Lalla Rookh?"
"My fare? Why, I ain't got nair 'a fare in Lalla Rookh. She's dead,
boss."
"You've got a woman passenger in Eleven. What are you talking about?
What's the matter with you?"
Raz Brown's eyes rolled marvellously. "'Fore God, dere ain't nobody
dere ez I knows on, Mr. O'Brien," protested the surprised porter,
getting up.
"There's a woman in Eleven, Billy," said Glover.
"Come on," exclaimed O'Brien, turning to the porter. "She may be a
spotter. Let's see."
Raz Brown walked back reluctantly, Conductor O'Brien leading. Into the
Lalla Rookh, dark and quiet, around the smoking-room, down the aisle,
and facing Eleven; there the Pintsch light dimly burned, the draperies
slowly swayed in front of the darkened berth. Raz Brown gripped the
curtains preliminarily.
"Tickets, ma'am." There was a heavy pause.
"Tickets!" No response.
"C'nduct'h wants youh tickets, ma'am."
The silence could be cut with an axe. Raz Brown parted the curtains,
peered in, opened them wider, peered farther in; pushed the curtains
back with both hands. The berth was empty.
Raz looked at Conductor O'Brien. O'Brien grasped the curtains himself.
The upper berth hung closed above. The lower, made up, lay
untouched--the pillows fresh, the linen sheets folded back,
Pullmanwise, over the dark blanket.
The porter looked at Glover. "See foh y'se'f."
Glover was impatient. "She's somewhere about the car," he exclaimed,
"search it." Raz Brown went through the Lalla Rookh from vestibule to
vestibule: it was as empty as a ceiling.
Puzzled and annoyed, Glover stood trying to recall the mysterious
appearance. He walked back to where he had seen the woman, stood where
he had stood and looked where he had looked. She had not seemed to
withdraw, as he recalled: the curtains had not closed before the head;
it had vanished. The wind sung fine, very fine through the copper
screens, the Pintsch light flowed very low into the bright globe, the
curtains swung again gracefully to the dip of the car; but the head was
gone.
A discussion threw no light on the mystery. On one point, however,
Conductor O'Brien was firm. While the conductor and the porter kept up
the talk, Glover resumed his preparations for retiring in the
stateroom, but O'Brien interfered.
"Don't do it. Don't you do it. I wouldn't sleep in that room now for
a thousand dollars."
"Nonsense."
"That's all right. I say come forward."
They made him up a corner in the smoking-room of the 'Frisco car, and
he could have slept like a baby had not the conviction suddenly come
upon him that he had seen Gertrude Brock. Should he, after all, see
her again? And what did it mean? Why was she looking in terror into
his stateroom?