_Callers_
The house in which Lucie Ledanois lived had been her mother's; the
furniture and other things in it had been her mother's; the two negro
servants, who spoke only the Creole French patois, had been her
mother's. It was a small house, but very beautiful inside. The exterior
betrayed a lack of paint or the money with which to have painting done.
The Ledanois family, although distantly connected with others such as
the Maillards, had sent forth its final bud of fruition in the girl
Lucie. Her mother had died while she was yet an infant, and through the
years she had companioned her father, an invalid during the latter days.
He had never been a man to count dollars or costs, and to a large extent
he had outworn himself and the family fortunes in a vain search for
health.
With Lucie he had been in Europe at the outbreak of war, and had come
home to America only to die shortly afterward. Once deprived of his fine
recklessness, the girl had found her affairs in a bad tangle. Under the
guardianship of Maillard the tangle had been somewhat resolved and
simplified, but even Maillard would appear to have made mistakes, and of
late Lucie had against her will suspected something amiss in the matter
of these mistakes.
It was natural, then, that she should take Jachin Fell into her
confidence. Maillard had been her guardian, but it was to Fell that she
had always come with her girlish cares and troubles, during even the
lifetime of her father. She had known Fell all her life; she had met him
in strange places, both at home and abroad. She entertained a
well-grounded suspicion that Jachin Fell had loved her mother, and this
one fact lay between them, never mentioned but always there, like a bond
of faith and kindliness.
At precisely three o'clock of the Sunday afternoon Jachin Fell rang the
doorbell and Lucie herself admitted him. She ushered him into the
parlour that was restful with its quiet brasses and old rosewood.
"Tell me quickly, Uncle Jachin!" eagerly exclaimed the girl. "Did you
actually see the Midnight Masquer last night? I didn't know until
afterward that he had really been downstairs and had robbed----"
"I saw him, my dear," and the little gray man smiled. There was more
warmth to his smile than usual just now. Perhaps it was a reflection
from the eager vitality which so shone in the eyes of Lucie. "I saw him,
yes."
A restful face was hers--not beautiful at first glance; a little too
strong for beauty one would say. The deep gray eyes were level and quiet
and wide apart, and on most occasions were quite inscrutable. They were
now filled with a quick eagerness as they rested upon Jachin Fell. Lucie
called him uncle, but not as she called Joseph Maillard uncle; here was
no relationship, no formal affectation of relationship, but a purely
abiding trust and friendship.
Jachin Fell had done more for Lucie than she herself knew or would know;
without her knowledge he had quietly taken care of her finances to an
appreciable extent. Between them lay an affection that was very real.
Lucie, better than most, knew the extraordinary capabilities of this
little gray man; yet not even Lucie guessed a tenth of the character
that lay beneath his surface. To her he was never reserved or secretive.
Nonetheless, she touched sometimes an impenetrable wall that seemed ever
present within him.
"You saw him?" repeated the girl, quickly. "What was he like? Do you
know who he is?"
"Certainly I know," replied Fell, still smiling at her.
"Oh! Then who is he?"
"Softly, softly, young lady! I know him, but even to you I dare not
breathe his name until I obtain some direct evidence. Let us call him
Mr. X., after the approved methods of romance, and I shall expound what
I know."
He groped in his vest pocket. Lucie sprang up, bringing a smoking stand
from the corner of the room to his chair. She held a match to his El
Rey, and then curled up on a Napoleon bed and watched him intently while
he spoke.
"The bandit did not enter the house during the evening, nor did he
leave, nor was he found in the house afterward," he said, tonelessly.
"So, incredible as it may appear, he was one of the guests. This Mr. X.
came to the dance wearing the aviator's costume, or most of it,
underneath his masquerade costume. When he was ready to act, he doffed
his outer costume, appeared as the Midnight Masquer, effected his
purpose, then calmly donned his outer costume again and resumed his
place among the guests. You understand?
"Well, then! Maillard yesterday received a note from the Masquer,
brazenly stating that he intended to call during the evening. I have
that note. It was written with an extremely hard lead pencil, such as
few men carry, because it does not easily make very legible writing.
Last night I asked Mr. X. for a pencil, and he produced one with an
extra hard lead--mentioning that he had borrowed it from Bob Maillard,
as indeed he had."
"What! Surely, you don't mean----"
"Of course I don't. Mr. X. is very clever, that's all. Here is what took
place last night. Mr. X. brought us another note from the Masquer,
saying that he had found it pinned to the library door. As a matter of
fact, he had written it on a leaf torn from his notebook. I took the
note from him, observing at the time that the paper had no pin holes.
Probably, Mr. X. saw that there was something amiss; he presently went
back downstairs, took the remainder of the torn leaf from his notebook,
and pinned it to the door. A little later, I met him and mentioned the
lack of pin holes; he calmly referred me to the piece on the door,
saying that he had merely torn off the note without removing the pins.
You follow me?"
"Of course," murmured the girl, her eyes wide in fascinated interest.
"And he knew that you guessed him to be the Masquer?"
"He suspected me, I think," said Fell, mildly. "It is understood that
you will not go about tracing these little clues? I do not wish to
disclose his identity, even to your very discreet brain----"
"Don't be silly, Uncle Jachin!" she broke in. "You know I'll do nothing
of the sort. Go on, please! Did you find the airplane?"
"Yes." Jachin Fell smiled drily. "I was thinking of that as I left the
house and came to the line of waiting automobiles. A word with one of
the outside detectives showed me that one of the cars in the street had
been testing its engine about midnight. I found that the car belonged to
Mr. X.
"How simple, Lucie, and how very clever! The chauffeur worked a powerful
motor with a muffler cutout at about the time Mr. X., inside the house,
was making his appearance. It scarcely sounded like an airplane motor,
yet frightened and startled, people would imagine that it did. Thus
arose the legend that the Midnight Masquer came and departed by means of
airplane--a theory aided ingeniously by his costume. Well, that is all I
know or suspect, my dear Lucie! And now----"
"Now, I suppose," said the girl, thoughtfully, "you'll put that awful
Creole of yours on the track of Mr. X.? Ben Chacherre is a good
chauffeur, and he's amusing enough--but he's a bloodhound! I don't
wonder that he used to be a criminal. Even if you have rescued him from
a life of crime, you haven't improved his looks."
"Exactly--Ben is at work," assented Jachin Fell. "The gentleman under
suspicion is very prominent. To accuse him without proof would be utter
folly. To catch him _in flagrante delicto_ will be difficult. So, I am
in no haste. He will not disappear, believe me, and something may turn
up at any moment to undo him. Besides, I can as yet discover no motive
for his crimes, since he is quite well off financially."
"Gambling," suggested the girl.
"I cannot find that he has lost any considerable sums. Well, no matter!
Now that I have fully unbosomed myself, my dear, it is your turn."
"All right, Uncle Jachin." Lucie took a large morocco case from the
chair beside her, and extended it. "You lent me these things to wear
last night, and I----"
"No, no," intervened Fell. "I gave them to you, my dear--in fact, I
bought them for you two years ago, and kept them until now! You have
worn them; they are yours, and you become them better than even did poor
Queen Hortense! So say no more. I trust that Mrs. Maillard was righteous
and envious?"
"She was disagreeable," said Lucie. She leaned forward and imprinted a
kiss upon the cheek of the little gray man. "There! that is all the
thanks I can give you, dear uncle; the gift makes me very happy, and
I'll not pretend otherwise. Only, I feel as though I had no right to
wear them--they're so wonderful!"
"Nonsense! You can do anything you want to, as Eliza said when she
crossed the ice. But all this isn't why you summoned me here, you bundle
of mystery! What bothered you last night, or rather, who?"
Lucie laughed. "There was a Franciscan who tried to be very mysterious,
and to read my mind. He talked about oil, about a grasping, hard man,
and mentioned you as my friend. Then he warned me against a proposal
that Bob might make; and sure enough, Bob did propose to buy what land
is left to me on Bayou Terrebonne, saying he'd persuade his oil company
that there was oil on it, and that they'd buy or lease it. I told him
no. The Franciscan, afterward, proved to be Henry Gramont; I wondered if
you had mentioned----"
"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Mr. Fell, piously. "I never even met Gramont
until last night! Do you like him?"
"Very much." The girl's eyes met his frankly. "Do you?"
"Very much," said Jachin Fell.
Lucie's gray eyes narrowed, searched his face. "I'm almost able to tell
when you're lying," she observed, calmly. "You said that a trifle too
hastily, Uncle Jachin. Why don't you like him?"
Fell laughed, amused. "Perhaps I have a prejudice against foreign
nobles, Lucie. Our own aristocracy is bad enough, but----"
"He's discarded all that. He was never French except in name."
"You speak as though you'd known him for some time. Have you had secrets
from me?"
"I have!" laughter dimpled in the girl's face. "For years and years!
When I was in New York with father, before the war, we met him; he was
visiting in Newport with college friends. Then, you know that father and
I were in France when the war broke out--father was ill and almost
helpless at the time, you remember. Gramont came to Paris to serve with
his regiment, and met us there. He helped us get away, procured real
money for us, got us passage to New York. He knows lots of our friends,
and I've always been deeply grateful to him for his assistance then.
"We've corresponded quite frequently during the war," she pursued. "I
mentioned him several times after we got home from France, but you
probably failed to notice the name. It's only since he came to New
Orleans that I really kept any secrets from you; this time, I wanted to
find out if you liked him."
Jachin Fell nodded slowly. His face was quite innocent of expression.
"Yes, yes," he said. "Yes--of course. He's a geologist or engineer, I
think?"
"Both, and a good one. He's a stockholder in Bob Maillard's oil company,
and I think he's come here to stay. Well, about last night--he probably
guessed at some of my private affairs; I've written or spoken rather
frankly, perhaps. Also, Bob may have blabbed to him. Bob still
drinks--prohibition has not hit _him_ very hard!"
"No," agreed Fell, gravely. "Unfortunately, no. Lucie, I've discovered a
most important fact. Joseph Maillard did not own any stock in the Bayou
Oil Company at the time your land was sold them by him, and he had no
interest at all in the real estate concern that bought your St. Landry
swamplands and made a fortune off them. We have really blamed him most
unjustly."
For a moment there was silence between them.
"We need not mince matters," pursued Fell, slowly. "Maillard has no
scruples and no compassion; all the same, I am forced to the belief that
he has maintained your interest uprightly, and that his mistakes were
only errors. I do not believe that he has profited in the least from
you. Two small fortunes were swept out of your grip when he sold those
lands; yet they had been worthless, and he had good offers for them. His
investments in the companies concerned were made afterward, and I am
certain he sold the lands innocently."
Lucie drew a deep breath.
"I am glad you have said this," she returned, simply. "It's been hard
for me to think that Uncle Joseph had taken advantage of me; I simply
couldn't make myself believe it. I think that he honestly likes me, as
far as he permits himself to like any one."
"He'd not loan you money on it," said Fell. "Friendship isn't a tangible
security with him. And a girl is never secure, as Eliza said when she
crossed the ice."
"Well, who really did profit by my loss? Any one?"
Fell's pale gray eyes twinkled, then cleared in their usually wide
innocence.
"My dear Lucie, is there one person in this world to whose faults Joseph
Maillard is deliberately blind--one person to whose influence he is ever
open--one person to whom he would refuse nothing, in whom he would
pardon everything, of whom he would never believe any evil report?"
"You mean----" Lucie drew a quick breath, "Bob?"
"Yes, I mean Bob. That he has profited by your loss I am not yet in a
position to say; but I suspect it. He has his father's cupidity without
his father's sense of honour to restrain him. When I have finished with
the Masquer, I shall take up his trail."
Jachin Fell rose. "Now I must be off, my dear. By the way, if I have
need of you in running down the Masquer, may I call upon your services?"
"Certainly! I'd love to help, Uncle Jachin! We'd be real detectives?"
"Almost." Jachin Fell smiled slightly. "Will you dine with us to-morrow
evening, Lucie? My mother commanded me to bring you as soon as
possible----"
"Oh, your mother!" exclaimed the girl, contritely. "I was so absorbed in
the Masquer that I forgot to ask after her. How is she?"
"Quite as usual, thank you. I presume that you'll attend Comus with the
Maillards?"
"Yes. I'll come to-morrow night gladly, Uncle Jachin."
"And we'll take a look at the Proteus ball afterward, if you like. I'll
send Ben Chacherre for you with the car, if you're not afraid of him."
Lucie looked gravely into the smiling eyes of Fell.
"I'm not exactly afraid of him," she responded, soberly, "but there is
something about him that I can't like. I'm sorry that you're trying to
regenerate him, in a way."
Fell shrugged lightly. "All life is an effort, little one! Well,
good-bye."
Jachin Fell left the house at three-forty. Twenty minutes later the bell
rang again. Lucie sent one of the servants to admit Henry Gramont; she
kept him waiting a full fifteen minutes before she appeared, and then
she made no apologies whatever for the delay.
Not that Gramont minded waiting; he deemed it a privilege to linger in
this house! He loved to study the place, so reflective of its owner. He
loved the white Colonial mantel that surrounded the fireplace,
perpetually alight, with its gleaming sheen of old brasses, and the
glittering fire-set to one side. The very air of the place, the
atmosphere that it breathed, was sweet to him.
The Napoleon bed that filled the bow window, with its pillows and soft
coverings; the inlaid walnut cabinet made by Sheraton, with its quaintly
curved glasses that reflected the old-time curios within; the tilt
tables, the rosewood chairs, the rugs, bought before the oriental rug
market was flooded with machine-made Senna knots--about everything here
had an air of comfort, of long use, of restfulness. It was not the sort
of place built up, raw item by raw item, by the colour-frenzied hands of
decorators. It was the sort of place that decorators strive desperately
to imitate, and cannot.
When Lucie made her appearance, Gramont bent over her hand and addressed
her in French.
"You are charming as ever, Shining One! And in years to come you will be
still more charming. That is the beauty of having a name taken direct
from the classics and bestowed as a good fairy's gift----"
"Thank you, monsieur--but you have translated my name at least twenty
times, and I am weary of hearing it," responded Lucie, laughingly.
"Poor taste, mademoiselle, to grow weary of such beauty!"
"Not of the name, but of your exegesis upon it. Why should I not be
displeased? Last night you were positively rude, and now you decry my
taste! Did you leave all your manners in France, M. le prince?"
"Some of them, yes--and all that prince stuff with them." Smiling as he
dropped into English, Gramont glanced about the room, and his eyes
softened.
"This is a lovey and loveable home of yours, Lucie!" he exclaimed,
gravely. "So few homes are worthy the name; so few have in them the
intimate air of use and friendliness--why are so many furnished from
bargain sales? This place is touched with repose and sweetness; to come
and sit here is a privilege. It is like being in another world, after
all the money striving and the dollar madness of the city."
"Oh!" The girl's gaze searched him curiously. "I hope you're not going
to take the fine artistic pose that it is a crime to make money?"
Gramont laughed.
"Not much! I want to make money myself; that's one reason I'm in New
Orleans. Still, you cannot deny that there is a craze about the eternal
clutching after dollars. I can't make the dollar sign the big thing in
life, Lucie. You couldn't, either."
She frowned a little.
"You seem to have the European notion that all Americans are dollar
chasers!"
He shrugged his shoulders slightly. His harshly lined face was very
strong; one sensed that its harshness had come from the outside--from
hunger, from hardship and privations, from suffering strongly borne. He
had not gone through the war unscathed, this young man who had tossed
away a princely "de" in order to become plain Henry Gramont, American
citizen.
"In a sense, yes; why not?" he answered. "I am an American. I am a
dollar chaser, and not ashamed of it. I am going into business here.
Once it is a success, I shall go on; I shall see America, I shall come
to know this whole country of mine, all of it! I have been a month in
New Orleans--do you know, a strange thing happened to me only a few days
after I arrived here!"
With her eyes she urged him on, and he continued gravely:
"In France I met a man, an American sergeant named Hammond. It was just
at the close of things. We had adjoining cots at Nice----"
"Ah!" she exclaimed, quickly. "I remember, you wrote about him--the man
who had been wounded in both legs! Did he get well? You never said."
"I never knew until I came here," answered Gramont. "One night, not long
after I had got established in my pension on Burgundy Street, a man
tried to rob me. It was this same man, Hammond; we recognized each other
almost at once.
"I took him home with me and learned his story. He had come back to
America only to find his wife dead from influenza, his home broken up,
his future destroyed. He drifted to New Orleans, careless of what
happened to him. He flung himself desperately into a career of burglary
and pillage. Well, I gave Hammond a job; he is my chauffeur. You would
never recognize him as the same man now! I am very proud of his
friendship."
"That was well said." Lucie nodded her head quickly. "I shan't call you
M. Le prince any more--unless you offend again."
He smiled, reading her thought. "I try not to be a snob, eh? Well, what
I'm driving at is this: I want to know this country of mine, to see it
with clear, unprejudiced eyes. We hide our real shames and exalt our
false ones. Why should we be ashamed of chasing the dollar? So long as
that is a means to the end of happiness, it's all right. But there are
some men who see it as an end alone, who can set no _finis_ to their
work except the dollar dropping into their pouch. Such a man is your
relative, Joseph Maillard--I say it without offence."
Lucie nodded, realizing that he was driving at some deeper thing, and
held her peace.
"You realize the fact, eh?" Gramont smiled faintly. "I do not wish to
offend you, and I shall therefore refrain from saying all that is in my
mind. But you have not hesitated to intimate very frankly that you are
not wealthy. Some time ago, if you recall, you wrote me how you had just
missed wealth through having sold some land. I have taken the liberty of
looking up that deal to some extent, and I have suspected that your
uncle had some interest in putting the sale through----"
The gray eyes of the girl flashed suddenly.
"Henry Gramont! Are my family affairs to be an open book to the world?"
A slight flush, perhaps of anger, perhaps of some other emotion, rose in
the girl's cheeks. "Do you realize that you are intruding most
unwarrantably into my private matters?"
"Unwarrantably?" Gramont's eyes held her gaze steadily. "Do you really
mean to use that word?"
"I do, most certainly!" answered Lucie with spirit. "I don't think you
realize just what the whole thing tends toward----"
"Oh, yes I do! Quite clearly." Gramont's cool, level tone conquered her
indignation. "I see that you are orphaned, and that your uncle was your
guardian, and executed questionable deals which lost money for you.
Come, that's brutally frank--but it's true! We are friends of long
standing; not intimate friends, perhaps, and yet I think very good
friends. I am most certainly not ashamed to say that when I had the
occasion to look out for your interests I was very glad of the chance."
Gramont paused, but she did not speak. He continued after a moment:
"You had intimated to me, perhaps without meaning to do so, something of
the situation. I came here to New Orleans and became involved in some
dealings with your cousin, Bob Maillard. I believed, and I believe now,
that in your heart you have some suspicion of your uncle in regard to
those transactions in land. Therefore, I took the trouble to look into
the thing to a slight extent. Shall I tell you what I have discovered?"
Lucie Ledanois gazed at him, her lips compressed. She liked this new
manner of his, this firm and resolute gravity, this harshness. It
brought out his underlying character very well.
"If you please, Henry," she murmured very meekly. "Since you have thrust
yourself into my private affairs, I think I should at least get whatever
benefit I can!"
"Exactly. Why not?" He made a grave gesture of assent. "Well, then, I
have discovered that your uncle appears to be honestly at fault in the
matter----"
"Thanks for this approval of my family," she murmured.
"And," continued Gramont, imperturbably, "that your suspicions of him
were groundless. But, on the other hand, something new has turned up
about which I wish to speak--but about which I must speak delicately."
"Be frank, my dear Henry--even brutal! Speak, by all means."
"Very well. Has Bob Maillard offered to buy your remaining land on the
Bayou Terrebonne?"
She started slightly. So it was to this that he had been leading up all
the while!
"He broached the subject last night," she answered. "I dismissed it for
the time."
"Good!" he exclaimed with boyish vigour. "Good! I warned you in time,
then! If you will permit me, I must advise you not to part with that
land--not even for a good offer. This week, immediately Mardi Gras is
over, I am going to inspect that land for the company; it is Bob
Maillard's company, you know.
"If there's any chance of finding oil there, I shall first see you, then
advise the company. You can hold out for your fair share of the mineral
rights, instead of selling the whole thing. You'll get it! Landowners
around here are not yet wise to the oil game, but they'll soon learn."
"You would betray your business associates to help me?" she asked,
curious to hear his reply. A slow flush crept into his cheeks.
"Certainly not! But I would not betray you to help my business friends.
Is my unwarrantable intrusion forgiven?"
She nodded brightly. "You are put on probation, sir. You're in Bob's
company?"
"Yes." Gramont frowned. "I invested perhaps too hastily--but no matter
now. I have the car outside, Lucie; may I have the pleasure of taking
you driving?"
"Did you bring that chauffeur?"
"Yes," and he laughed at her eagerness.
"Good! I accept--because I must see that famous
soldier-bandit-chauffeur. If you'll wait, I'll be ready in a minute."
She hurried from the room, a snatch of song on her lips. Gramont smiled
as he waited.