ANTHONY TRENT SAVES A PIANO
FOR some months now Trent had been preparing a campaign against the
collection of precious stones belonging to Carr Faulkner whose white
stone mansion looked across the Park from his home. But whereas Trent’s
house faced east, the Faulkner abode looked west. And in matter of
residence locality there is an appreciable difference in this outlook.
The Faulkner millions were in the main inherited. There was a
conservative banking house on Broad Street bearing the Faulkner name but
it did not look for new business and found its principal work in
guarding the vast Faulkner fortune.
Faulkner’s first wife had been a collector of pearls, those modest
stones whose assembled value is always worth the criminal’s attention.
The second wife, a young woman of less aristocratic stock, eschewed
pearls, holding the theory that each one was a tear. She wanted flashing
stones which advertised their value more ostentatiously. Trent had seen
her at the Opera and marked her down as a profitable client.
It was because Trent worked so carefully that he made so few mistakes.
He had no friends to ask him leading questions and gossip about his mode
of life. He had been half a year collecting information about the Carr
Faulkners, the style in which they lived, the intimate friends they had
and a hundred little details which a careful professional must know
before he can hope to make a success.
The system of burglar alarm installed in the mansion was an elaborate
one but he was not unskilled in matters of this sort. For three months
he had worked in the shop where they were made and his general inborn
mechanical skill had been aided by conscientious study. Attention to
detail had saved him more than once, and is an aid to be counted on more
than luck.
Yet it was sheer blind, kindly, garrulous luck that finally took Trent
unsuspected into the Carr Faulkner mansion. Riding up Madison avenue in
a trolley car late one afternoon, he overheard one of the Faulkner’s
maids discussing the family.
One of the girls had knocked over a vase of cut flowers which stood on a
grand piano in Mrs. Carr Faulkner’s boudoir and the water had leaked
through onto the wire and wood, doing some little damage.
“She was madder’n a wet hen,” said the girl.
“Them things cost a lot of money,” her companion commented, “and that
was inlaid like all the other things in her room. Gee! the way Mr.
Faulkner spends the money on her is a crime.”
“Second wives have a cinch,” said the first girl, sneering. “From all I
hear the first was a perfect lady and kind to the maids, but this one is
down-right ordinary. You should have heard what she said about me over
the ‘phone when she told the piano people to send a tuner up, and me
standing there. Said I was “clumsy” and “stupid” and “a love-sick fool.”
I could tell something about love-sick fools if I wanted to! And she
knows it.”
Her friend cautioned her.
“Be careful,” she whispered, “you may want to lose your job but I don’t.
Don’t talk so loud.”
It was hardly five o’clock. Anthony Trent left the car and started for a
telephone booth. He went methodically through the lists of the better
known piano makers. There was one firm whose high-priced instrument was
frequently encased in rare woods for specially furnished rooms.
“This is Mr. Carr Faulkner’s secretary speaking,” he began when the
number was given to him. “Have you been instructed to see about a piano
here?”
“We are sending a man right away,” he was told.
“To-morrow morning will do,” said the supposed secretary. “We are giving
a small dance to-night and it will not be convenient.”
“We should prefer to send now,” came the answer. “A valuable instrument
might be extensively damaged if not attended to right away.”
Trent became confidential. He dropped his voice.
“It’s nothing for Mr. Faulkner to buy a new instrument if it’s needed,
but it’s a serious thing if a dance that Mrs. Faulkner gives is
interrupted. Money is no consideration here as you ought to know.”
The piano man, remembering the price that was exacted for the special
case, smiled to himself. It would be better for him to sell a new
instrument. It would not surprise him if this affable secretary called
in some fine morning and hinted at commission. Such things had been done
before in the trade.
“It’s just as you say,” he returned. “At what hour shall our Mr. Jackson
call?”
“As soon as he likes after ten,” said the obliging Trent, and rang off.
Then he called up the Carr Faulkner house and told the answering man
servant that Mr. Jackson of Stoneham’s would call at half past six. He
was switched on to the private wire of Mrs. Carr Faulkner.
“It’s disgraceful that you can’t come before,” she stormed.
“Yours is specially made instrument,” he reminded her, “and I need
special tools.”
Then he took the crosstown car to his home and changed into a neat dark
business suit. He also arrayed himself in a brand new shirt and collar.
Mrs. Kinney always washed these, and many a criminal has had his
identity proved by his laundry mark. Trent, like a wise man, admitted
the possibility that some day he might be caught but was determined
never to take the risks that lesser craftsmen hardly thought of.
Anthony Trent thought it most probable that the Faulkner’s butler would
be of the imported species. He hoped so. He found that they were more
easily impressed by good manners and dress than the domestic breed.
Some day he determined to write an essay on butlers. There was Conington
Warren’s bishop-like Austin, cold, severe, aloof. There was Guestwick’s
man, the jovial sportsman type molding himself no doubt on some admired
employer of earlier days.
Faulkner’s butler was an amiable creature and inclined to associate with
a piano tuner on equal terms. He had rather fine features and was
admired of the female domestics. His dignity forbade him to indulge in
much familiarity with the men beneath him and he welcomed the
pseudo-tuner as an opportunity to converse.
“I knew you by your voice,” said the butler cordially. “Come in.”
There was little chance that the maid servants behind whom he had sat on
the car would recognize him. Or if they did there was no reason why they
should be suspicious.
Mrs. Carr Faulkner’s boudoir was a delightful room on the third floor. A
little electric, self-operated elevator leading to it was pointed out by
the butler.
“Not for the likes of you or me,” said the man. “We can walk.”
Mrs. Carr Faulkner was a dissatisfied looking blonde woman. In her opera
box surrounded by friends and displaying her famous jewels she had
seemed a vision of loveliness to the gazing far-away Trent. Here in her
own home and dealing with those whom she considered her inferiors, she
made no effort to be even civil.
“Who is this person?” she demanded of the butler.
“The man come to look at the piano, ma’am,” he returned.
“You’re not Mr. Jackson,” she said with abruptness.
It was plain Jackson was known. Trent blamed himself for not thinking of
this possibility.
“I am the head tuner,” he said with dignity, “we understood it was a
case where the highest skill was needed.”
She looked at him coldly.
“I don’t know that it demands much of what you call skill,” she
retorted acidly. “You have come at a singularly inconvenient hour.
Please get to work at once.”
With this she left the room. The butler gazed after her scowling.
“Do you have to put up with that all day?” Trent asked him.
“How the boss stands it I don’t know,” said the butler.
“Why take it out on a mere piano tuner?” Trent asked.
The butler winked knowingly. He dug Trent in the ribs with a fine, free
and friendly gesture.
“Speaking as one man of the world to another,” he observed, “I guess you
spoiled a little _tête-à-tête_ as we say in gay Paree. Mr. Carr Faulkner
leaves the Union Club at seven and walks up the Avenue in time to dress
for his dinner at eight. There’s another gentleman leaves another club
on the same Avenue and gets here as a rule at six and leaves in time to
avoid the master.” The butler leaned forward and whispered in the
tuner’s ear, “She’s crazy about him. The only man who doesn’t know is
the boss. It’s always the way,” added the self-confessed man of the
world, “I wouldn’t trust any woman living. The more they have the worse
they are. If ever I marry I’ll take a job as lighthouse keeper and take
my wife along.”
“Will they come in here?” Trent asked anxiously. He wanted the
opportunity to do his own work while the family dined and he did not
want to be seen by an unnecessary person. He disliked taking even a
million to one shot.
The cynical butler interpreted his interest differently.
“You won’t understand a word of what they’re saying. They talk in
French. She was at school in Lausanne and he’s a French count, or says
he is. I’ve made a mistake in scorning foreign languages,” the butler
admitted, “I’d give a lot to know what they talk about.” He was not to
know that Trent knew French moderately well.
Left to himself Trent called to mind the actions of a piano tuner. He
had often watched his own grand being tuned. When Mrs. Carr Faulkner
came into the room she beheld an earnest young man delving among the
piano’s depths. She was interested in no man but Jules d’Aucquier who
filled her heart and emptied her purse.
“Is the thing much damaged?” she asked presently.
“I think not,” he replied.
“Then you need not stay long?”
“I shall go as soon as possible,” he said.
She sank into a deep chair and thought of Jules. And there came to her
face a softer, happier look. The butler’s talk Trent dismissed as mere
servants’ gossip. Of Carr Faulkner he knew nothing except that he was
years older than his wife. He was, probably, a wealthy roué who had
coveted this beautiful woman and bought her in marriage. In high society
it was often that way, he mused. Family coercion, perhaps, or the need
to aid impoverished parents. It was being done every day. This man of
whom the butler spoke was probably her own age. Since the stone age this
domestic intrigue must have been going on.
He touched the keyboard--pianissimo at first and then growing bolder
plunged into the glorious _Liebestod_. It was not the sort of thing Mr.
Jackson would have done but then Anthony Trent was a head tuner as he
had explained. He watched the woman’s face to see into what mood the
music would lead her. He was speedily to find out.
“Stop,” she commanded and rising to her feet came to his side. “Why do
you do that?”
“I must try it,” he answered, a little sheepishly, “we always have to
test an instrument.”
“But to play the _Liebestod_” she said severely. “I have heard them all
play it, Bauer, Borwick, Grainger, d’Albert and Hoffman and you dare to
try! It was impertinent of you. Of course if you must play just play
those chords tuners always use.”
Trent admitted afterwards he had never been more angry or felt more
insulted in his life. He had not for a moment supposed this butterfly
woman even knew the name of what he played.
“I won’t offend again,” he said with what he hoped was a sarcastic
inflection. She answered never a word. She seemed to be listening. Trent
heard a sound that might have been the opening of the elevator door.
Then came hurried steps along the hall and Jules d’Aucquier entered.
He was dark to the point of swarthiness, tall and graceful. His rather
small head reminded Trent of a snake’s. As a man who knew men Trent
determined that the newcomer was dangerous. The look that he threw
across the room to the intruder was not pleasant.
He spoke very quickly in French.
“Who is this?” he demanded.
“No one who matters,” she answered in the same tongue.
“But what is the pig doing here at this hour?” he asked.
“Repairing the piano,” she told him, “a poor tuner I imagine for the
reason that he plays so well. I had to stop him when he began the
_Liebestod_. It affects me too much. That was being played when you
first looked into my eyes, dear one.”
“Send him away,” the man commanded.
“But that would look suspicious,” she declared.
Trent noticed that Jules did not respond to the affection which was in
the woman’s tone.
“You should not telephone to me at the club,” he said as he took a seat
at her side. “I am only a temporary member and do not want to embarrass
my sponsor.”
“But you were so cruel to me yesterday,” she murmured.
“Cruel?” he repeated and turned his cold, snake eyes on her, eyes that
could, when he willed it, glow with fire and passion. “Who is the
crueler, you or I?”
“What do you mean?” she cried almost tearfully. “You know I love you.”
“And yet when I ask you to do a favor which is easily within your power
to perform you refuse. I must have money; that you know.”
“It is always money now,” she complained. “You no longer say that you
love me.”
“How can I when my creditors bark at my heels like hungry dogs? Unless
I pay by to-morrow it is finished. You and I see one another no more,
that is certain.”
He looked at her in annoyed surprise when she suddenly smiled. He
watched her with an even greater interest than the man gazing from
behind the piano. From an escritoire she took a package wrapped in
lavender paper. This she placed in the pocket of the coat that he had
thrown across a chair.
“What good are cigarettes to me now?” he demanded. “I have told you that
unless I have fifteen thousand dollars by noon to-morrow, I am done.”
“When you get to your rooms,” she said, smiling, “open your cigarettes
and see if I do not love you.”
Trent admitted this Jules was undeniably handsome now that the dark face
was wreathed in smiles. Jules gathered her in his arms.
“My soul,” he whispered, and covered her face with kisses. When he
attempted to rise and go to the coat his eyes were staring at, she held
him tight.
“I got twenty thousand from him,” she said. “You will find the twenty
bills each wrapped in the cigarette papers. I pushed the tobacco out and
they fitted in.”
“Wasteful one,” he said in tender reproach and sought again to retrieve
his coat.
Unfortunately for the debonair Jules d’Aucquier this was not immediately
possible. The click of the little elevator was heard. The two looked at
one another in alarm.
“It must be Carr,” she whispered. “Nobody else could possibly use that
elevator now. Somebody has told him.” She looked about her in despair.
“You must hide. Quick, behind the piano there until I get him away.”
Trent working industriously amid the wreckage of what had been a grand
piano looked up with polite surprise at the tall man who flung himself
almost at his feet and tried to conceal himself behind part of the
instrument.
“Hide me, quickly,” Jules whispered, “do you hear. I will give you
money. Quick, fool, don’t gape at me.”
For the second time that evening Anthony Trent smothered his anger and
smiled when rage was in his heart. And he did so for the second time not
because he was conscious of fear but because he saw himself suitably
rewarded for his efforts. He felt a note thrust into his hand but this
was not the reward he looked for. He was arranging the piano débris
around the prostrate Jules when there was a knock on the door and Carr
Faulkner entered.
The millionaire’s eye fell first of all upon the coat over the chair.
“Who’s is this?” he demanded.
The pause was hardly perceptible before she answered.
“I suppose it belongs to the piano man.”
Faulkner looked across at the instrument and beheld the busy Trent
taking what else was possible from the Stoneman. All the king’s horses
and all the king’s men could not put that instrument together again
easily. Trent went about his business with quiet persistence.
Carr Faulkner’s voice was very courteous and kind as he addressed the
tuner.
“I’m afraid I must ask you to wait outside in the hall for a few minutes
until I have had a little private talk with my wife.”
“Is that necessary,” she said quickly. “I’m just going to dress for
dinner. We have people coming, remember.”
“There is time,” he said meaningly. “I left my club half an hour earlier
to-day. Did the change incommode you?”
“Why should it?” she said lightly.
Faulkner was a man of middle age with a fine thoughtful face. It was a
face that made an instant appeal to Trent. It mirrored kindliness and
good breeding, and reminded him in a subtle way of his own father, a
country physician who had died a dozen years before his only son left
the way of honest men.
“A few minutes only,” he said and Trent passed out into the hall taking
care to leave the door opened an inch or so. It was necessary for his
peace of mind that he should know what it was Mr. Faulkner had to say to
his wife. It might concern him vitally. It was possible that inquiry at
Stoneman’s might have informed Faulkner of his trickery. While this was
improbable Trent was not minded to be careless. This kindly aspect of
the millionaire might be assumed to put him off his guard; even now men
might be stationed at the exits to arrest him. Very quietly he stole
back to the door and listened.
“I have found out for certain what I have long suspected,” Faulkner was
saying to his wife. “It is always the husband who learns last. Don’t
protest,” he added. “I know too much. I know for example that you have
sold many of your jewels to provide funds for a gambler and a rascal.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she cried white-faced.
“You do,” he said, and there was a trace of deep sadness in his voice.
“You know too well. This man Jules d’Aucquier is not of a noble French
family at all. He is a French-Canadian and was formerly a valet to an
English officer of title at Ottawa. It was there he picked up this
smattering of knowledge which has made it easy to fool the
unsuspecting.”
“I don’t believe it,” she cried vehemently.
He looked at her sadly. The whole scene was crucifixion for him.
“I shall prove it,” he said quietly.
“I don’t care if you do,” she flung back at him.
“You would care for him just the same?” he asked.
“I have not said that I care for him at all,” she said, a trace of
caution creeping into her manner.
“I shall give you the opportunity to prove it one way or another within
a few minutes. We have come to the parting of the ways.”
It was at this moment Anthony Trent knocked timidly upon the door. The
stage was set to his liking. When he was bidden to enter his quick eye
took in everything. There, out of sight d’Aucquier skulked while he
prepared to hear his despicable history told to the woman who was his
victim. As for the woman she was defiant. She would probably elect to
follow a scoundrel who had fascinated her and leave a man behind whose
good name she had trailed in the dust. The situation was not a new one
but Trent was moved by it. Carr Faulkner had all his sympathy. He
registered a vow if ever he met d’Aucquier, or whatever his name might
be, to exact a punishment.
“Excuse me,” said Anthony Trent, stepping into the room, “but my train
leaves in twenty minutes--I live out in Long Island--and I’ve got to
catch it or else the missus will be worrying.”
Mrs. Faulkner looked at him frowning. She wanted to get this scene over.
He was a good looking piano tuner, she decided, and now his tragedy was
plain. He who had no doubt once aimed at the concert stage tuned pianos
to support a wife and home in Long Island!
“I’ll finish the job to-morrow morning.”
She waved him toward the door imperiously. Every moment she and her
husband spent in this room added to the chance of the hiding man’s
discovery.
“Why don’t you go?” she cried.
Anthony Trent permitted himself to smile faintly.
“I’ve come for my coat, Ma’am,” he said, and glanced at the raiment
d’Aucquier had thrown carelessly over a chair, the coat now laden with
such precious cigarettes.
Carr Faulkner was growing impatient at this interruption. He could not
understand the look of anger on his wife’s face.
“Don’t you understand,” he exclaimed, “that the man merely wants to go
home and take his coat with him?”
He turned to the deferential Trent.
“All right, all right,” Trent moved to the chair and took the garment.
At the door he turned about and bowed profoundly.
In the lower hall he found the cynical butler whose ideas on matrimony
were so decided. He startled that functionary by thrusting into his hand
the ten dollars d’Aucquier had forced upon him.
“What’s this for?” demanded the butler. When piano tuners came with
gifts in their hands he was suspicious. “I don’t understand this.” He
observed that the affability which had made the tuner seem kin to
himself was vanished. A different man now looked at him.
“It’s for you,” said Trent. “I’m not a piano tuner. I’m a detective and
I came here after that ex-valet who pretends to be a French nobleman.”
The butler breathed hard.
“I ’ate that man, sir,” he said simply. “I’d like to dot him one.”
“You’ll be able to and that within five minutes,” Trent assured him. “He
is concealed behind the lid of the grand piano I was supposed to repair.
Mr. and Mrs. Faulkner are both in the room but _he_ doesn’t know Jules
is there. You take two footmen and yank him out and then if you want to
‘dot him one’ or two, there’s your chance.”
The muscles of the butler’s big shoulders swelled with anticipation.
“Where are you going?” he asked of Trent, now making for the front door.
“To get the patrol wagon,” said Anthony Trent.
“How long will you be?” asked the man.
“I shall be back in no time,” Trent answered cryptically.
Arrived in his quiet rooms he undid the box of cigarettes. At first he
thought he had been fooled for the top layer of cigarettes were
tobacco-filled and normal.
But it was on the next row that Mrs. Carr Faulkner had expended her
trouble. Each one contained a new thousand dollar bill and their tint
enthralled him.