THE GIRL IN THE CAFE
Next morning began the conversion, or rather the persuasion, of Monsieur
Dragot to remain a while longer with the _Whim_. Pete started off with
another triumphant breakfast and before our guest had gone far with it
his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy and I put ourselves out to be
agreeable, telling him jokes that sometimes registered but frequently
did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.
"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you'll have a
better chance to find that child!"
Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.
"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go but anywhere, and that
ought to fall in with your plans."
"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you,
searching?"
"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather taken a fancy to you,
haven't we, Tommy?"
"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a
million-dollar bill to us!"
"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment and pleasure, "you
disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"
"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What d'you know about this
little gezabo, anyhow!"
Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new
word.
"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"
"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that's you!"
"Your American Indian language?"
"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around.
Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known
that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.
"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone
upwards of twenty years."
"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six
years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home,
leads me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care of
herself!"
Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:
"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet,
as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing
search, my boys!"
Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:
"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called
'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave
kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up
one there, as a last resort."
"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy,
explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas,
really an intellectual outcast.
"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I will stay with you a
while, eh? Maybe we can teach him something--this cut-upping Tommy of
yours!"
He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and later Tommy
confided to me that he was glad we wouldn't have to sit on the old
fellow's head.
Passing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the _Whim_ tacked prettily
through the entrance of Havana harbor and in another scant two miles
dropped anchor.
Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as the skies and
hardly less contagious than the city's laughter. But when one drops
anchor and then hoists it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud
those blue waves hide; and this circumstance, slight as it may seem,
held a potent influence on our future.
Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design very much like the
_Whim_, except that her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were
checked with age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she long
ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the
impression of aristocracy--broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No
bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country's emblem waved over her
taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather
badly painted word _Orchid_ on her name plate. Taken altogether, she was
rather difficult to place.
These signs of poverty would have passed unobserved by us, had we not in
coming to anchor swung between her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not
that it made any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we
impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously polite
thing to have done--and Gates was a stickler on matters of yacht
etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable about it, while at the same time
being reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the bottom of
Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined to megaphone apologies
and consult her wishes. Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two
sailors were seated forward playing cards--a surlier pair of ruffians
would have been hard to find--but neither of them so much as glanced up.
"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.
Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no better success. Then
to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally
growling: "Lascars, likely!"--and proceeded to hail in something he
afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to
attract the surly pair who played at cards.
"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy suggested, but this was
lost on the serious little man. Yet he did call in another strangely
sounding tongue, then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:
"They must be stuffies!"
"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice people don't say
stuffies, ever!"
"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he smiled at me. I had noticed
that when preoccupied or excited the idioms of his various languages got
tumbled into a rather hopeless potpourri.
Quarantine and customs were passed in the leisurely fashion of Cuban
officials, and Monsieur asked to be sent immediately ashore, promising
to return at sundown. There was a man, the secret agent, he explained,
who held important information.
"I'll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir," Gates told him,
but he refused to consider this, declaring that he could hire any of the
boatmen thereabout to bring him out.
"He's that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to me. "But I carn't
make head nor tail of him. Bilkins says he went in to lay out his
clothes, and the things he's got stuck in those bags would astonish
you!"
Nearing six o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one
oar--a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen--and when Monsieur
came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung
listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as if at last its weight
had proven too great for the squat body.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy Jack?"
"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining us.
Monsieur's pale eyes stared for a moment, then blinked several times
before he murmured:
"The man I went to see is dead--murdered, just after he mailed that
report. So I have no information. These police called it suicide because
a knife lay in his hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any
man I kill!"
"Was he a friend of yours?"
"No. I have never seen him. But he knew something!"
"He evidently knew too much," Tommy suggested.
"You speak true, my boy. It seems to be a dangerous thing here to know
too much of certain matters!"
"Well," I laughed, trying to put a heartiness in my voice and drive away
his depression, "let's go ashore for dinner! Then the Opera--and
afterwards another bite where the high life eats? What-say, Professor?"
As it turned out, however, neither the dinner, nor all of Tommy's
banter, nor Madame Butterfly sung in Spanish (as if it could!) succeeded
in restoring Monsieur to a normal temper.
"We've simply got to make him laugh," I whispered to Tommy. "It's a
matter of principle now!"
"Then wait till we have supper, and get him soused," my confederate
cautiously replied. "That'll do it. But you'd better not drink much," he
added. "How are the nerves this evening?"
"I've almost forgotten them," I answered.
But Tommy was persistent at times. Unknown to me he was now preparing a
report to wire the Mater.
"Sleeping better?" he asked.
"Lots."
"Lying to me?"
"A little," I laughed outright. "But honestly I'm in heaps better
shape!"
"Oh, I've seen you improving from day to day, but we want to put it over
right. So don't hit the asphalt too hard tonight."
And in all justice to myself and my friendship to Tommy I really did not
intend to. What place was it that some one said is paved with good
intentions?
Leaving the Opera House we mixed with the laughing tide that flowed
along the Prado, and by the merest chance--destinies of nations, much
less our own, sometimes rest upon a merest chance--dropped in for supper
at a fashionable place patronized by those who wish to see the brightest
of Havana life. There were other places, of course, that might have
offered quite as much, but this one happened to be on the route we had
taken.
Midnight passed, but still we lingered, seated on the latticed balcony
that encircles an inner court where cabaret features are
held--suggestive of a bull ring. One rather piquant Spanish girl,
playing her accompaniment on a guitar, gazed softly up at Tommy while
singing about some wonderful Nirvana, an enchanted island that floated
in a sea of love. It was a pretty song, even if more intense than
temperate, and pleased with it he tossed her a coin; whereupon she
tilted her chin and raised a shoulder, asking in the universal language
of cabarets if she should not come up and drink a health with the
_imperioso Senor_. But he, whose heart was beating against a twenty-page
letter from a nymph in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, laughed a
negative, this time throwing her a flower that she kissed lightly and
put in her hair.
We had supped well, the mandolins were now tinkling, incessantly, and
this, mingled with the silvery tones of glasses touched in eager
pledges, created an ensemble of sounds dear to the heart of every true
Bohemian. Effects were good here. The ceilings and walls of our balcony
were lighted by vari-colored electric bulbs artfully placed amidst
growing vines that drooped in festoons above the tables, producing a
fairy-like enchantment. And, indeed, the cafe proved to be a mart not
only of enchantments but entertainments, including a popular gambling
salon.
At last, in desperation seeing that Monsieur refused to be cheered,
Tommy sprang up, saying:
"Come, gezabo, let's court Dame Roulette! Join us, Jack?"
This I declined, and watched them move off arm in arm. But a strange
thing arrested my attention for, as they preceded down the corridor, I
saw a man in yachting clothes--the uniform of a captain--draw quickly
back into an alcove as if wanting to escape discovery. When they had
passed he looked out, more fearfully than curiously, and after a moment
of indecision slowly followed them. Urged by a suspicion that this was
in some way associated with the professor, I arose and also followed.
Yet upon reaching the salon the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Tommy
and Monsieur were each buying a stack of chips, the place seemed quiet
and orderly, so without being observed I returned to my table.
Now left alone I leaned back, idly twisting the stem of my glass,
looking over the sea of merry people who made a picture that quickened
interest. For I am particularly fond of sitting apart and watching an
assemblage of handsomely groomed men and women laughing, talking and
making love. I like to guess whether fears or tears or desperate courage
hide behind their gayety; whether the rapidly wagging tongues are
uttering inanities or planning naughty things; whether the love-making
will stop with coffee and liqueur, or, lighted by them, burn into
eternity.
All phases of human banality and human enigma seemed to be represented.
There were languid beauties of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might
have expressed _ennui_, passion, pride--anything, in fact, that one's
humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption was there, with heavy
ear-rings of jet, whose habit was that of looking slant-wise through her
cigarette smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked,
eyebrow; also there were a few American women, by far the most smartly
dressed. Great was the throb of life in this discreet and fashionable
cafe. I felt its tremendous emphasis, and was content.
Then, quite without warning, I caught my breath as my glance fell upon a
girl dining with an old chap but three tables away. Among the habitues
of the Ritzes of two continents there could not have been found another
like her, for never had I beheld a face as exquisite--and I've seen
many. It possessed a beauty that left me helpless--yet there was an
indefinable sadness in it that might have suggested a haunting fear.
One of the lights among the vines hung close to her, and I could see
these things. Even could I see the color of her eyes, deep purple
eyes--the tone the wild iris takes at twilight. When she leaned one way
I might have thought the rich abundance of her hair contained spun
copper or deep red gold, and again I would have sworn it matched the
mellow brown of chestnuts; in all forming an arrangement of waves, each
refusing to stay in place yet never really getting out of order, each
coquetting with a subtle mischief that found an echo in her lips. Her
neck and shoulders were of that perfection that men realize but can not
analyze; and her mouth, laughing or in repose, was maddening.
And there was an added charm quite apart from hair and eyes and lips.
This I had never before seen in any face. Animation? Yes, and more.
Interest in the life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree.
Wildness? That was it!--a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that
found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there
from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to
keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness
that she typified which made my cheeks grow hot with watching.
But who has ever made a picture worthy of his dreams! How, then, can I
describe this girl, when painter, sculptor, writer--all--would miserably
fail at attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination might gaze in
frank amazement and admit itself surpassed! Here, indeed, was all the
vital, colorful magnetism of a type that men are quick to die for!
Her gown--yet how can man describe a woman's gown? It was a very rich
affair and added to the picture. But this I did observe distinctly, that
in revealing her arms and shoulders there was no slightest hint of that
abandonment of _decollete_ which denotes the approach of feminine
despair, nor was the color in her cheeks a result of anything less pure
than the kiss of air and sunshine.
Her _vis-a-vis_, almost too old to have been her father, was one of
those whose nationality is difficult to place. His hair, mustache and
Vandyke beard were gray; he was tall, thin, and perhaps seventy-five
years old. His complexion impressed one most unpleasantly because of its
sallow, almost yellow, hue; and although I had not yet had a full-face
view of him I intuitively knew that his teeth were long and thin and
yellow. A slight palsy never let his head be still, as if some
persistent agent were making him deny, eternally deny, an inarticulate
accusation--as accusations of the conscience perforce must be.
Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement,
sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed
the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the
waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually placid
individual to a state of amazed incapacity. Then a quick, really a
pitiful, look of terror came into the girl's eyes as she shrank back in
her chair. It lasted but a second before she was again making herself
agreeable--acting, of course--and I wanted to cross to him and demand:
"Why is this lady afraid?"
I hated the man; at first sight I loathed him. It was one of those
antipathies sometimes observed in dogs that see each other from a
distance--hair up and teeth bared. The feeling is spontaneous,
unpredictable, and the usual result is fight.
Up to this time she had not seen me, or even known of my insignificant
existence; but suddenly, as though it were a sally of banter whose blade
he parried in the nick of time, her laughter-bathed eyes darted past him
and squarely met my own; her lips sobered into a half parted expression
of interest and, some strange thought--perhaps unbidden--coming into her
mind, sent the blood surging to her cheeks. As quickly as this happened
it had gone, and again she seemed to be absorbing the attention of her
_vis-a-vis_.
Once, years ago in the Dolomites, I thoughtlessly struck my staff upon a
piece of rock when, lo, a wonderful tone arose therefrom. And the memory
of that rich, unbidden sound was re-awakened now as the contact of our
glances stirred something which thrilled me with a maddening sense of
harmony. As an E string vibrates when another E is struck somewhere near
to it, so my being vibrated with each tilt of her head, each movement of
her lips. Yet however much I conjured the magnet of my will to make her
look again, she successfully, if coquettishly, resisted.
The Spanish waiter came up softly to refill my glass; an attention I
permitted, murmuring happily:
"Right, kiddo! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with champagne, for my
heart is faint with love!"--only Solomon didn't sing it quite like
that, the fickle old dog, nor did my waiter understand me, which was
just as well.
Engrossed with watching her I saw a new look come into her face as she
quickly whispered something across the table. Her _vis-a-vis_ turned
impatiently as a man approached them, who to my surprise was the yacht
captain--the fellow who had apparently followed Tommy and Monsieur. He
was a well-built blond, with a bullet-shaped head, high cheek bones and
deep set eyes--pig eyes. His right cheek bore several scars which,
considering his type, strongly suggested a German of University dueling
experiences. So I looked on him with a livelier suspicion, even as she
seemed to be doing.
In an undertone he now said something that brought the old man to his
feet. With fear written on their faces they talked for several minutes,
during which the blond jerked his head once or twice toward the gambling
rooms. The girl had leaned forward watching them intently. Then with a
peremptory order the old one sent him away and sank back into his chair;
but a moment later, clutching the tablecloth, he spoke a few words that
made her recoil in evident horror.
I did not know what to do or what to think, so I merely watched with
every sense alert. I saw him call the waiter for his settlement, I saw
him take out a large roll of money and with trembling fingers peel off
the outside bill--a new and crinkly fifty-dollar note. I saw the girl
idly marking on the winecard with a small gold pencil, though her eyes
were veiling an intense excitement; and when the waiter returned with a
pile of change which the old man began to count, I saw her furtively
slip the winecard to her lap. A moment later it fell to the floor as she
arose to leave.
Together they started toward the exit, but having taken a few steps she
left him with a brief word and returned, presumably for her glove.
Partially free from his eternal vigilance, she raised her eyes without
dissimulation and looked quickly, appealingly into mine; then down at
her hand, on which she leaned, whose fingers were unfolding from a
little ball of paper. Again into my eyes she looked--a look of infinite
appeal.
Across the void from her world to my own she was signaling--trying to
tell me what?--and frantically my fancy sprang to translate the message.
But as the man, with growing agitation, had been watching narrowly
throughout this--a condition of which I felt sure she must be acutely
aware--I dared not make the slightest sign. Yet she seemed to understand
and, joining him, they passed out.
I pounced upon that crumpled ball of paper and was back in my chair
unfolding it with nervous fingers. Feverishly pressing out the creases I
saw that it was, indeed, a corner torn from the winecard, and written
upon it--nothing. Absolutely nothing!
Perhaps I should have laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in
my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a
stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my
orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched
across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my
harp were snapped, curled up, and could not be made to play again.
But the Spanish girl was playing her guitar, once more singing her
impassioned song of the enchanted island in its sea of love, which made
me pity myself so much that I permitted the waiter again to fill my
glass. What a wondrous adventure this night might have brought!
Such thoughts wore not to be profaned by the companionship of Tommy and
Monsieur, so I slipped away, hailed a cab and alighted at the Machina
wharf. The boatman there, whom I aroused to take me out, was one of the
most stupid fellows I've ever encountered. At any rate, someone was
stupid.
Going aboard the yacht I stood for a moment listening to the lonely
sweep of his oar sculling shoreward through the murky night. Over the
castellated walls of La Cabana raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm
brewing, or had some supernal madness touched the night?
The watch forward called in a guarded voice: "All right, sir?" to which
I answered, "All right," then went cautiously across deck and crept down
the companionway stairs. The cabin was dark so I felt for my stateroom,
passed in and closed the door. Somehow my fingers could not locate the
light jet, but what matter? In three minutes I had undressed and was
fast asleep.