CRAIG BUILDS A THEORY.
The idea seems too preposterous to be entertained for a moment, and yet
he must give some credence to what his eyes have seen. Besides, the
strange presence of Dorothy in the Midway is as yet unexplained, though
she has, particularly, promised to enlighten him on the following
evening, if he will call.
Craig is sorely puzzled. Many things flash into his mind and confuse
him. Perhaps, after all, he might have been mistaken. Why has not
Wycherley made some comment upon the matter? So the Bachelor of the
Midway, as the actor has, in a spirit of humor, dubbed his athletic
companion, when learning how the Canadian has persistently haunted the
region of world’s fakes and curiosities, turns now to that party.
“That was something not down on the bills, I’m thinking, Claude,” he
remarks.
“I’m puzzling my head over the cause of it all. The pasha was in deadly
earnest. Don’t imagine that it was a set-up game to clear the room.
What did he expect to see?”
“Probably he suspected that someone he knew was playing a joke on him,”
says Aleck quietly.
“Humph! he was a bear then,” grunts the other.
“By the way, my dear boy, did she remind you of--well, anyone you had
seen before?”
“That’s what makes me mad. A chump in the seat in front got his beastly
head between me and the stage, so that I couldn’t see her face. You
saw me knock his hat down over his ears. Well, just then the lights
went out and I missed the opportunity of solving the riddle of the
mysterious veiled prophetess of Cairo Street.”
It is Aleck’s turn to grunt now.
“Was she very beautiful, Craig?”
“Yes, strikingly so. I wish you had seen her. Never mind, did the pasha
come out?”
“Rather! he was ahead of us. Perhaps he feared the consequences of his
bold act, for these people of the Orient are quick to use knife or
yataghan. As he passed I heard him laugh, and, as it is seldom these
Turks do that, I can guess he was well pleased over what he had done,
and that he recognized the face from which he snatched the veil.”
If ever a sorely puzzled man walked up or down that singular narrow
street, our bachelor is the individual. He cudgels his brains for a
solution to the enigma and finds it not.
“I don’t see how I can wait until to-morrow night to solve the
problem,” he mutters.
“What’s that?” demands Wycherley quickly. “Is it so bad as to keep you
from sleeping? Aleck, my poor fellow, I pity you.”
“Nonsense! I’m bothering my head over quite another thing. In fact,
I’ve a nut to crack that threatens to do me up. Pardon, old boy, but
I’ve been thinking of the story you told me.”
“You mean about old Samson; of course you are deeply interested
now--that’s natural. To the best of my belief he’s a millionaire and
better--lives in grand style on the lake shore. I walked past the
house several times, because, you see, I wanted to understand how
the land lay, if I was to be a prospective son-in-law--ha, ha. All
dreams knocked in the head now, I assure you, dear boy. I shall feel
at liberty to throw a kiss to the pretty girl in the cigar stand. My
bonds are gone, the shackles loosened, and Claude Wycherley is again a
free man.”
An odd genius this, assuredly. Aleck can never edge a word in so long
as his flow of breath lasts, so he usually holds his peace until the
actor pauses.
“I want to ask you a few questions,” he says.
“A thousand, if you wish. I would do anything for you, Aleck. Again you
have saved my life.”
“How?” demands the Canadian.
“Only for you I should perhaps have been fool enough to have attempted
that climb on the wheel. I am in poor condition to-night, and ten to
one I would have lost my grit and my grip. Then they’d have swept me
up below, and poor Wycherley would have been a bursted bubble, a back
number. So I feel awfully grateful to you. Ask me any favor and I’ll
put myself out to do it--anything but giving you a tip on the market.
That’s a dead secret yet--my plans are not quite perfected. If I win
that million now----”
“Hang the million! What I want to know concerns that part of your story
in which the Chicagoan brought his Georgian wife--stolen from the
Turkish pasha--to this place.”
“All right. What I know is at your service. As I learned it from his
royal nibs, Scutari, of course I’m in the dark wherever he is.”
“I realize that,” returns Aleck slowly; “but perhaps I may unearth some
fact that will help me to solve this question. You told me the lovely
Marda died a year or so after reaching Chicago.”
“So Scutari said and swore to.”
“Yet the daughter knows nothing concerning her mother. Why should
Samson Cereal desire to keep the facts from her if there was nothing to
conceal?”
“Look here, you’re probing this thing like a lawyer. You go beyond me.
I deal in facts, and never worry about the reasons back of them. What
are you getting at--didn’t Marda die?”
“Ah! that is what I am unable to say. It is a secret that perhaps only
Samson Cereal could explain. As to myself, without any positive proof
to back my theory up, I have a notion that all these years the old
manipulator of wheat has deceived his daughter.”
“Confusion! I say, you strike hard, Cannuck.”
“That Marda is not dead.”
“Bless me! what puts such a strange notion into your head, my _dear_
fellow?”
“I believe I have seen her.”
Craig smokes his cigar while delivering these sledge-hammer blows.
He really enjoys the astonishment of his companion, for generally
Wycherley is proof against such assault.
“The plot thickens. It was a great hour when I ran across you, Aleck
Craig. When do you think you saw Samson’s Georgian wife, and where?”
“In this street of Cairo, to-night. Plainly, Claude, that was why I was
so anxious to learn if you had seen the face of the fortune teller.”
At this the nomad assumes an attitude that is a revelation concerning
his ability as an actor. Strange that the world failed to properly
appreciate him.
“Great Scott! you don’t mean it--and the pasha---- Why, I’m already
half convinced. He suspected--but see here, how could it be that Marda
living would appear dead all these years? Incredible!”
“I admit it seems so, and yet perhaps if we knew what Samson Cereal
knows, deep down in his heart, we might find it easier to believe. It
is a matter of speculation with me, but if you stop and think for a
moment you can understand how difficult it would be for happiness to
follow such a marriage--he, a progressive American with all the ideas
we claim, she born and reared under the blighting influence of Eastern
customs. I can readily imagine a quarrel arising and she fleeing back
to the sunny land of her birth.”
“What! leaving her child behind?”
“Quite likely. This is theory. When I learn some facts we can see how
near I was to being right.”
“Well, continue the theory: why does she come to the land of ice
again--the country from which she fled years and years ago?”
Aleck shrugs his shoulders.
“Ask me something easy. Put the question to one of the Sandwich
Islanders or a Hottentot. Perhaps she has been drawn by the mother
love to see her child again, for that affection is not confined to
any class. The lioness will fight for her whelps. Putting speculation
aside, Claude, I am ready to swear that the face of this veiled
prophetess was very like that of Dorothy. I was struck dumb by the
resemblance. At first I had a positive notion it was she. Then I
gradually realized that such a thing was too improbable, and while we
walked along my mind evolved the theory which I have given you.”
“Would that have any bearing on the presence of Dorothy here?” asks
Wycherley, stopping to light his pipe at the gas jet of a tobacconist,
and nodding familiarly to the Greek in charge.
“It might. She told me her mission was a sacred one, and what could
be more in keeping with such a word than the search of a child for
her mother? However, we may be meddling with what does not concern
us, though fortune has apparently decreed that I should be interested
in the fortunes of Dorothy Cereal, judging from our several peculiar
meetings. Have you any other plans for to-night, comrade?”
“I never leave here until closing time. Can’t explain it, but there’s
a charm about this same old Midway that is life to me. You know my
nature, Craig, and it just chimes with such a kaleidoscopic scene as
this, color, music, and laughter--not a tear or a frown. Heigho! when
the curtain rings down and the bugle sounds 'lights out,’ I shall have
to seek consolation in making love to that black-eyed Spanish cigar
girl, or emigrate with all these Turks, Arabs, and Moors.”