There was a stir as if they were leaving. Bean retreated a dozen feet
before he breathed again. So that was their game, was it? He'd see about
that!
He waited for them to emerge, but they had apparently settled to more of
this high-handed talk. Then, like an icy wave to engulf him, came a
name--"Tommy Hollins." It came in the Demon's voice, indistinguishable
words preceding it. And in the flapper's voice came "Tommy Hollins!"
gently, caressingly, it seemed. In truth, the flapper had sniffed before
uttering it, and the sniff had meant good-natured contempt but Bean had
lost the sniff.
Now he had it! Tommy Hollins! He identified the youth, a yellow-headed,
pink-faced lout in flannels who was always riding over, and who seemed
to "go in" for nearly everything. He had detected a romping intimacy
between the two. So it was Tommy Hollins. At once he felt a great
relief; he need worry no longer over the singular attentions of this
young woman. Let Tommy Hollins worry! He could admit, now, how grave had
been his alarm. And there was nothing in it. He could meet her without
being afraid. He was almost ready to approach them genially and pass an
hour in light conversation. He advanced a few steps with this intention,
but again came the voice of the flapper replying, apparently, to some
unheard admonition. It came, cold and terrible.
"I don't care. I've got the right to choose the father of my own
children!"
He blushed for this language, a blush he could feel mantling his very
toes. He fled from there. He saw that the moment was not for light
conversation. And even as he fled he caught the Demon's prolonged
"U-u-mmm!"
Yet when he left in the morning the flapper lurked for him as ever,
materializing from an apparently vacant corridor. He greeted her for the
first time without ulterior questioning. He thought he liked her pretty
well now. And she was undeniably good to look at in the white of her
tennis costume; the hair, like Nap's spots in its golden brown, was
filleted with a scarlet ribbon, and her eyes shone from her freshened
face with an unwonted sparkle--decision, certitude--what was it? He
deemed that he knew.
"Tommy Hollins coming to play," she vouchsafed in explanation of the
racquet she carried. "Are you glad to go?"
"Glad to see my dog again." He smiled as a man of the world. He was on
the verge of coquetry, now that he knew it to be safe.
"We'll bring him along too, next time."
"Oh, the next time!" He put it carelessly aside.
"You'll be out again, soon enough. I simply know Pops is going to have
another bad spell--in a week or so."
He could have sworn that the eyes of Breede's daughter gleamed with cold
anticipatory malice. He shuddered for Breede. And he wished Tommy
Hollins well of his bargain. Flirt, indeed! All alike!
"Chubbins!" called the unconscious father from afar.
"Yes, Pops!" She gripped his hand with a well-muscled fervour. "Oh,
he'll have another in a little while, don't you worry!" And she was off,
with this evil in her heart, to a father but now convalescent.
Marvelling, he walked on to the Demon's ambuscade. She pounced upon him
from behind a half-opened door.
"I want to say one word, young man. Oh, you needn't think I don't see
the way things are going. I'm not blind if I am seventy-six! If you're
the tender and innocent thing you say you are, you look out for
yourself. I know you all! If you don't break out one time you do
another. I'd a good deal rather you'd had it over before now and put it
all behind you--don't interrupt--but you're sound and clean as far as I
can see, and you've got a good situation. I don't say it couldn't be
worse. But if you are--well, you see that you _stay_ that way. Don't try
to tell me. I've seen enough of men in my time--"
He broke away from her at Breede's call. The flapper jerked her head
twice at him, very neatly, as the car passed the tennis court. She was
beginning a practise volley with Tommy Hollins, who was disporting
himself like a young colt.
"Chubbins!" he thought. Not a bad name for her, though it had come
queerly from Breede. For the first time he was pricked with the needle
of suspicion that Hollins might not be the right man for the flapper.
Hearing her called "Chubbins" somehow made it seem different. Maybe
Hollins, who seemed all of twenty, wouldn't "make her happy." He thought
it was something that the family ought to consider very seriously. He
was conscious of a willingness to consider it himself, as a friend of
the family and a well-wisher of Chubbins.
* * * * *
He was back in the apartment and in the presence of a document that
swept his mind of all Breedes. Never had he in fancy ceased to be king
Ram-tah, cheated of historic mention because of his wisdom and goodness.
He had looked commiseratingly upon Breede's country-house, thinking of
his own palace on the banks of the slow-moving Nile. "--probably made
this place look like a shack!" he had exultantly thought. And the benign
monarch had ended his reign in peace, to be laid magnificently away, to
repose undisturbed while the sands drifted over him--until--
The hour had come. "My men have succeeded, after incredible hardships,"
wrote Professor Balthasar. "The _goods_ will be delivered to you
Thursday night, the tenth. I trust the final payment will be ready, as,
relying on your honour, I have advanced--"
The rest did not matter. His honour was surely to be relied upon. The
money had been richly earned. An able man, this Balthasar! He had
achieved the thing with admirable secrecy. Bean had feared the hounds of
the daily press. They might discover who It was, to whom It was going;
discover the true identity of Bunker Bean. The whole thing might come
out in the papers! But Balthasar had known how. He approved the caution
that had led him to speak of "the _goods_"; there was something almost
witty about it.
He leaned far out a window, listening, straining his eyes up and down
the lighted avenue. There was confusion in his mind as to how It could
most fittingly be brought to him. The sable vision of a hearse drawn by
four lordly black horses at first possessed his mind. But this was
dismissed; there was no death! And the spectacle would excite comment.
The idea of an ambulance, which he next considered, seemed equally
impracticable. It would have to be done quietly; Balthasar would know.
Trust Balthasar!
He heard the rhythmic clump-clump of a horse's hoofs on the asphalt
pavement. This was presently accompanied by the sounds of wheels. An
express wagon came under the street-lights. Balthasar rode beside the
driver, his frock coat and glossy tall hat having been relinquished for
the garb of an ordinary citizen. Back of them in the wagon he could
distinguish the lines of an Object. It had come to him in a common
express wagon, in a common crate, and the driver did not even wear a
black mask. Balthasar had cunningly eluded detection by pretending there
was nothing to conceal.
He drew back from the window and with fast beating heart went to open
the door. They were already on the stairway. Balthasar was coming first.
With sublime effrontery he had impressed Cassidy to help carry It, and
Cassidy was warning the expressman to look out for that turn an' not
tear inta th' plashter.
It was lowered to the floor in the throne-room. Cassidy and the
expressman puffed freely and looked at the thing as if wondering how two
men had ever been equal to it.
"'Twould be brickybac," said Cassidy genially.
"That there hall's choked with dust," said the expressman with seeming
irrelevance.
"I noticed it meself," said Cassidy.
"Clogged me throat up fur fair," continued the expressman huskily.
"Pay the men liberally and let them be on their way," said Balthasar.
Bean pressed money upon both and they departed.
"You couldn't get me to do it again for twice the money," said
Balthasar; "the nervous strain I've been under. A custom-house detective
was on our trail, but one of my men took care of him--at a dark corner."
Bean shuddered.
"They didn't--"
"Oh, nothing serious. He'll be as well as ever in a few days. Got a
hatchet." He gestured significantly toward the crate.
But this was too precipitate for Bean. He could not disinter himself--it
seemed like that--under the eyes of Balthasar.
"Not now! Not now! You've done your part--here!" He passed Balthasar the
check he had written earlier in the evening.
"I'll leave you, then," said the professor. "But one thing, don't handle
it much. It might disintegrate. I bid you farewell, my young friend."
Bean, at the door, listened to his descending steps. The professor was
whistling. He recognized the air, "Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon." It
was a lively air and the professor rendered it ably but quite softly.
The door locked, he was back staring at the crate that concealed his
dead self. He was helpless before it. The fleshly tenement of a great
king who had later flashed upon the world as Napoleon I, and was now
Bunker Bean! Could he bear to look? He trembled and knew himself weak.
Yet it would be done, some time.
There was a vigorous knock at the door. All was discovered!
The crime of assault at the dark corner had been traced to his door.
Balthasar had betrayed him. The Egyptian authorities had discovered
their loss. The thing was there. He was caught red-handed.
He reached the door and cautiously opened it an inch. Cassidy stood
there, armed with a hatchet. They would use violence!
"Hatchet!" said Cassidy, genially extending the weapon. He wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand. The aroma of beer stole into the room.
"F'r brox brickybac!" insinuated Cassidy.
"Thanks!" said Bean, accepting the tool.
"We kem frum th' sem county, Mayo, him an' me," volunteered Cassidy.
"G'night!"
Once more Bean faced the crate. It must be done at once. Discovery was
too probable. Gingerly he forced the blade under one of the boards and
pried. The nails screeched horribly as they were withdrawn. The task was
simple enough; the crate was a flimsy affair to have withstood so
difficult a journey. But after each board was removed he peered to the
street from behind the closed blind, half expecting to find policemen
drawn to the spot.
A smoothly packed layer of excelsior greeted his eyes. It was rather
reassuring. He felt that he might be unpacking any casual object.
Exposed at last was the wooden case that enveloped him!
Awestruck, he looked down at it for a long time. He recognized the
workmanship, having seen a dozen such in the museum in the park. He
knelt by it and ran a reverent hand over its painted surface. In many
colours were birds and beasts, and men in profile, and queer marks that
he knew to be picture-writing; processions of slaves and oxen, reapers
and water-bearers. The tints were fresh under their overlaying lacquer.
There was even a smell of varnish. He wondered if the contents--if
It--were in the same remarkable state of preservation. He rapped on the
thin wood--it was cedar, he thought, or perhaps sycamore. The sound was
musical, resonant; the same note that had vibrated how many thousands of
years before.
Nap came up to smell, seeming to suspect that the box might contain
food. He stretched his forepaws to the top of the case and betrayed
eagerness.
"Napoleon!" cried Bean sternly, putting the dog's complete name upon him
for the first time. He was banished to his couch and made to know that
leaving it would entail unpleasantness.
The thought of the Corsican came back with a new significance. In that
embodiment he had felt, perhaps dimly recalled, his Egyptian life. Had
he not been drawn irresistibly to Egypt? "In the shadow of the
pyramids," he had read in a history, "the conqueror of Italy dreamed of
the pomp and power of a crown and sceptre, and upon his return to France
from the Egyptian expedition, with characteristic energy he set himself
to work to bring the dream to pass--" It was plain enough. He knew now
the inner meaning of that engraving he had bought, in which Napoleon
stood in rapt meditation before the Sphinx. They had all--King, Emperor,
Bean--been dreamers that brought their dreams to pass. He mused long,
staring down at the case; a queerly shaped thing, fashioned to follow
the lines of the human form. From the neck the shoulders rounded
gracefully. They might have been cut to give the wearer the appearance
of perfect physical development; at least they seemed to fit him neatly.
It occurred to Bean that the case should not lie prone. It suggested
death where death was not. He pulled out more excelsior until he could
raise the case. It was surprisingly light and he leaned it upright
against the wall. He now tried to pretend that everything was over. He
gathered boards, excelsior and the crate and piled them in the
kitchenette, which they approximately filled.
But inevitably he was brought back. He stood with hands upon the cover
of the upreared case, drew a long shivering breath and gently lifted it
off. His eyes were upon the swathed figure within, then slowly they
crept up the yellowed linen and came to rest upon the bared face.
He had tried feebly to prefigure this face, but never had his visioning
approached the actual in its majestic, still beauty. The brow was nobly
broad, the nose straight and purposeful, the chin bold yet delicate. The
grimness of the mouth was relieved by a faint lift of the upper lip,
perhaps an echo of the smile with which he greeted death. There was a
gleam of teeth from under the lip. The eyes had closed peacefully; the
lids lay light upon their secrets as if they might flutter and open
again. On cheek and chin was a discernible growth of dark beard; the
hair above the brow was black and abundant. It was a kingly face, a face
of command, though benign. It was all too easy to believe that a crown
had become it well. And there had been no weakening at the end, no
sunken cheeks nor hollowed temples. The lines were full. The general
colour was of rich red mahogany.
He ran a tremulous hand over the face, smoothed the thick hair, fingered
the firm lips that almost smiled. Under the swathing of linen he could
see where the hands were folded on the breast. Low down on the right jaw
was unmistakably a mole, a thing that had strangely survived on Bean's
own face. Again he ran a hand over the features, then a corroborating
hand over his own. Intently and long he studied each detail, nostrils,
eyebrows, ears, hair, the tips of the just-revealed teeth.
"God!" he breathed. It was hardly more than a whisper and was uttered in
all reverence.