_In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters._
The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the
winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty Japanese bowl
standing on top of Mac's mantel was already filled with pussy-willows
which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the
Palisades.
Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb
stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another,
the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end
of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a
fourth and fifth--all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming
Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes.
Woods was having a tea!
The portrait of Miss B. J.--in a leghorn hat and feathers, one hand on
her chin, her pet dog in her lap--was finished, and the B. Js. were
assisting Woods's aunt and Woods in celebrating that historical event.
The function being an exclusive one, all the details were perfect: There
were innumerable candles sputtering away in improvised holders of
twisted iron, china, and dingy brass, the grease running down the sides
of their various ornaments; there were burning joss sticks; loose heaps
of bric-a-brac which looked as if they had been thrown pell-mell
together, but which it had taken Woods hours to group; there were
combinations of partly screened lights falling on pots of roses; easels
draped in stuffs; screens hung with Japanese and Chinese robes; divans
covered with rugs and nested with green and yellow cushions; and last,
but by no means least, there was the counterfeit presentment of the
young girl who held court on the divan surrounded by an admiring group
of admirers; some of whom declared that the likeness was perfect; others
that it did not do her justice, and still another--this time an art
critic--who said under his breath that the dog was the only thing on the
canvas that looked alive.
Upstairs, before his wood fire, sat MacWhirter, with only Marny and me
to keep him company. He never went to teas; didn't believe in mixing
with society.
"Better shut the door, hadn't I?" said Mac. "Those joss sticks of
Woods's smell like an opium joint," and he began shifting the screen.
"Hello, Lonnegan, that you?"
"That's me, Mac," answered the architect in a cheery tone. "Are you
moving house?"
"No, trying to get my breath. Did you ever smell anything worse than
that heathen punk Woods is burning?"
"You ought to get a whiff of it inside his studio," answered Lonnegan.
"Got every window tight shut, the room darkened, and jammed with people.
Came near getting my clothes torn off wedging myself in and out," he
continued, readjusting his scarf, pulling up the collar of his Prince
Albert coat, and tightening the gardenia in his button-hole. "You're
going down, Mac, aren't you?"
"No, going to stay right here; so is Marny and the Colonel."
"Woods won't like it."
"Can't help it. Woods ought to have better sense than to turn his studio
upside down for a lot of people that don't know a Velasquez from an 'Old
Oaken Bucket' chromo. Art is a religion, not a Punch and Judy show.
Whole thing is vulgar. Imagine Rembrandt showing his 'Night Watch' for
the first time to the rag-tag and bob-tail of Amsterdam, or Titian
making a night of it over his 'Ascension.' Sacrilege, I tell you, this
mixing up of ice-cream and paint; makes a farce of a high calling and a
mountebank of the artist! If we are put here for anything in this world
it is to show our fellow-sinners something of the beauty we see and they
can't; not to turn clowns for their amusement."
Boggs and Murphy--the Irish journalist had long since become a full
member--had entered and stood listening to Mac's harangue.
"Land o' Moses! Whew!" burst out the Chronic Interrupter. "What's the
matter with you, Mac? You never were more mistaken in your life. You sit
up here and roast yourself over the fire and you don't know what's going
on outside. Woods is all right. He's got his living to make and his
studio rent to pay, and his old aunt is as strong as a three-year-old
and may live to be ninety. If these people want ice-cream fed to them
out of oil cups and want to eat it with palette knives, let 'em do it.
That doesn't make the picture any worse. You saw it. It's a bully good
portrait. Fifty times better looking than the girl and some ripping good
things in it--shadow tones under the hat and the brush work on the gown
are way up in G. Don't you think so, Lonnegan?"
"Yes, best thing Woods has done; but Mac is partly right about the jam
downstairs. Half of them didn't know Woods when they came in. One woman
asked me if I was he, and when I pointed him out, beaming away, she
said, 'What! that little bald-headed fellow with a red face? And is that
the picture? Why, I am surprised!'
"Of course she was surprised," chimed in Mac. "What she expected to see
was a six-legged goat or a cow with two tails."
Jack Stirling's head was now thrust over the Chinese screen. Jack had
been South for half the winter and his genial face was the signal for a
prolonged shout of welcome.
"Yes, that's me," Jack answered, "got home this morning; almighty glad
to see you fellows! Mac, old man, you look more like John Gilbert grown
young than ever; getting another chin on you. Lonny, shake, old fellow!
Hello, Boggs! you're fat enough to kill. Mr. Murphy, glad to see you;
heard you had been given a chair by Mac's fire. Oh, biggest joke on me,
fellows, you ever heard. I stopped in at Woods's tea-party a few minutes
ago. Lord! what a jam! and hot! Well, Florida is a refrigerator to it.
Struck a pretty girl--French, I think--pretty as a picture; big hat,
gown fitting like a glove, eyes, mouth, teeth--well! You remember
Christine, don't you, Mac?" and he winked meaningly at our host. "Same
type, only a trifle stouter. She wanted to know how old one of Woods's
tapestries was, and where one of his embroideries came from, and I got
her off on a divan and we were having a beautiful time when an old lady
came up and called me off, and whispered in my ear that I ought to know
that my charmer was her own dressmaker, who was looking up new costumes
and----"
"Fine! Glorious!" shouted Mac. "That's something like! That's probably
the only honest guest Woods has. I hope, Jack, you went right back to
her and did your prettiest to entertain her."
"I tried to, but she had skipped. Give me a pipe, Mac. Lord, fellows,
but it's good to get back! You'll find this a haven of rest, Mr.
Murphy," and Jack laid his hand on the Irishman's knee.
"It's the only place that fits my shoulders and warms my heart, anyhow,"
answered Murphy. "It's good of you to let me in. You live so fast over
here that a little cranny like this, where you can get out of the rush,
is a Godsend. Your adventure downstairs with the dressmaker, Mr.
Stirling, reminds me of what happened at one of our great London houses
last winter, and which is still the social mystery of London."
Boggs waved his hand to command attention. His friend Murphy's yarns
were the hit of the winter. "Listen, Jack," he said in a lower tone,
"they are all brand-new and he tells 'em like a master. Nobody can touch
him. Draw up, Pitkin--" the sculptor had just come in from Woods's tea.
"We have the same thing in England to fight against that you have here.
Our studios and private exhibitions are blocked up with people who are
never invited. Hardest thing to keep them out. The incident I refer to
occurred in one of those great London houses on Grosvenor Square,
occupied that winter by Lord and Lady Arbuckle--a dingy, smoky,
grime-covered old mansion, with a green-painted door, flower boxes in
the windows, and a line of daisies and geraniums fringing the rail of
the balcony above.
"There the Arbuckles gave a series of dinners or entertainments that
were the talk of London, not for their magnificence so much as for the
miscellaneous lot of people Lady Arbuckle would gather together in her
drawing-rooms. If somebody from Vienna had discovered microbes in cherry
jam, off went an invitation to the distinguished professor to dine or
tea or be received and shaken hands with. Savants with big foreheads,
hollow eyes, and shabby clothes; sunburned soldiers from the Soudan; fat
composers from Leipsic; long-haired painters from Munich; Indian princes
in silk pajamas and kohinoors, were all run to cover, caught, and let
loose at the Arbuckle's Thursdays in Lent, or had places under her
mahogany. Old Arbuckle let it go on without a murmur. If Catherine liked
that sort of thing, why that was the sort of thing that Catherine liked.
He would preside at the head of the table in his white choker and
immaculate shirt front and do the honors of the house. Occasionally,
when Parliament was not sitting, he would stroll through the
drawing-rooms, shake hands with those he knew, and return the salaams or
stares of those he did not.
"On this particular night there was to be an imposing list of guests,
the dinner being served at eight-thirty sharp. Not only was the Prime
Minister expected, but a special collection of social freaks had been
invited to meet him, including Prince Pompernetski of the Imperial
Guards--who turned out afterward to be a renegade Pole and a swindler;
the Rajah of Bramapootah--a waddling Oriental who always brought his
Cayenne pepper with him in the pocket of his embroidered pajamas; one or
two noble lords and their wives, some officers, and a scattering of
lesser lights--twenty-two in all.
"At eight-twenty the carriages began to arrive, the Bobby on the beat
regulating the traffic; the guests stepping out upon a carpet a little
longer and wider than the one Mr. Woods has laid over the sidewalk
downstairs.
"Once inside, the guests were taken in charge by a line of flunkeys--the
women to a cloak room on the right, the men to a basement room on the
left--where 'Chawles' handed each man an envelope containing the name of
the lady he was to take out to dinner and a diagram designating the
location of his seat at his host's table.
"By eight-twenty-five all the guests had arrived except General Sir John
Catnall and Lady Catnall, who had passed thirty years of their life in
India and who had arrived in London but the night before, where they
were met by one of Lady Arbuckle's notes inviting them to dinner to meet
the Prime Minister. That the dear woman had never laid eyes on the
Indian exiles and would not know either of them had she met them on her
sidewalk made no difference to her. The butler in announcing their names
would help her over this difficulty, as he had done a hundred times
before. That the short notice might prevent their putting in an
appearance did not trouble her in the least. She knew her London. Prime
Ministers were not met with every day, even in the best of houses.
"At eight-thirty the two missing guests arrived, Sir John sun-baked to
the color of a coolie, and Lady Catnall not much better off so far as
complexion was concerned. The climate had evidently done its work. Their
queerly cut clothes, too, showed how long they had been out of London.
"With their announcement by the flunkey, who bawled out their names so
indistinctly that nobody caught them--not even Lady Arbuckle--the guests
marched out to dinner, Lord Arbuckle leading with the wife of the Prime
Minister; Lady Arbuckle bringing up the rear with the Rajah, without
that lady having the dimmest idea as to whether all her guests were
present or not.
"Sir John found himself next to a Roumanian woman who had spent
three-quarters of her life in Persia, and Lady Catnall sat beside a
bald-headed scientist from Berlin who spoke English as if he were
cracking nuts. None of the four had ever heard of the others' existence.
"The dinner was the usual deadly dull affair. The Prime Minister smiled
and beamed over his high collar and emitted platitudes that anybody
could print without getting the faintest idea of his meaning; and the
Rajah peppered and ate with hardly a word of any kind to the lady next
him, who talked incessantly; the Scientist jabbered German, completely
ignorant of the fact that Lady Catnall could not understand a word of
what he said, and the other great personages--especially the
women--looked through their lorgnons and studied the menagerie.
"When the port had been served and the ladies had risen to leave the men
to their cigars, Sir John Catnall conducted the Roumanian-Persian
combination to the drawing-room door, clicked his heels, bent his back
in a salaam, and with a certain anxious look on his face hurried back to
the dining-room, and seeing the seat next Lord Arbuckle temporarily
empty slid into it, laid his bronzed hand on his host's thin, white,
blue-veined wrist, and said in a voice trembling with suppressed
emotion:
"'We got your wife's note and came at once, although our boxes are still
unpacked. I could hardly get through the dinner I have been so anxious,
but we arrived so late I could not ask your wife--indeed you were
already moving in to dinner when your man brought us in. I am in London,
as you know, to consult an oculist, for my eyesight is greatly impaired,
and he called professionally just as I was leaving my lodgings.' Then
bending over Lord Arbuckle he said in a voice tremulous with emotion,
'Tell me now about Eliza; is she really as badly off as your wife
thinks?'
"Arbuckle had learned one thing during his long life with Catherine,
never, as you Americans say, to 'give her away.' The identity of the
partly blind, sunburned man, with half a cataract over each eye, who was
gazing at him so intently awaiting an answer from his lips, was as much
of a mystery to him as was the particular malady with which the unknown
Eliza was afflicted or the contents of his wife's letter. Instantly Lord
Arbuckle's face took on a grave and serious expression.
"'Yes,' he answered slowly; 'yes, I regret to say that it is all true.'
"'Good God!' ejaculated the stranger, 'you don't say so. Terrible!
Terrible!' and without another word he rose from his seat, tarried for a
moment at the mantel gazing into the coals, and then slowly rejoined the
ladies.
"When the last guest had departed Arbuckle, who had been smothering a
fire of indignation over the stranger's inquiry and at the uncomfortable
position in which his wife had placed him, owing to her never consulting
him about her guests or her correspondence, shut the door of the
drawing-room so the servants could not hear and burst out with:
"'What damned nonsense it is, Catherine, to invite people who bore you
to death with questions you can't answer! Who the devil is Eliza, and
what's the matter with her?'
"'Who wanted to know, my dear?'
"'That horribly dressed, red-faced person who sat half-way down the
table, next to that frightful frump in a turban from Persia.'
"'I don't know any Eliza!'
"'But you said you did.'
"'I said I did?'
"'Yes; he told me so. You wrote him! Now be good enough, Catherine, to
let me know in advance who you----'
"'But I never told anybody about Eliza; never heard of her.'
"'You did, I tell you. You told that fellow who winks all the time, with
some beastly thing the matter with his eyes.'
"'You mean Sir John Catnall? The man who came in just as we were going
in to dinner? That is, I suppose it was he. Barton told me we were
waiting for him.'
"'Yes; the fellow said he was late.'
"'And he told you--' Here the door opened and the butler entered for her
Ladyship's orders for the night.
"'Barton, whom did you announce last?'
"'I didn't catch the name, your Ladyship, quite.'
"'Was it Sir John Catnall and Lady Catnall?'
"'No, your Ladyship. Something that began with P.'
"'Are you sure it was not "Catnall"?'
"'Quite sure, your Ladyship. Sir John's man was here just after dinner
was announced and left a message, your Ladyship--I forgot to give it to
you. He said Sir John had been out of town, and had that moment
received your Ladyship's note, and that it was impossible for him to
come to dinner. I supposed your Ladyship had known of it and had invited
the gentleman and his lady who came last to take their places, and I put
them in Sir John's and Lady Catnall's seats as it was marked on the
diagram you gave Chawles.'
"'Just as I supposed, Catherine,' snorted Arbuckle, 'a couple of damned
impostors; one passing himself off as a blind man. Serves you right.
They've carried off half the plate by this time. Bingeley lost all of
his spoons and forks that way last week; he told me so in the House
yesterday.'
"'Impostors! You don't think--Barton, go down instantly and see if
anything has been taken out of the cloak-room. And, Barton, see if that
miniature with the jewels around the frame is where I left it on the
mantel--and the candlesticks--Oh! you don't think--It can't be--Oh,
dear--dear--dear!'
"Again the door opened and Barton appeared.
"'The candlesticks are all right, your Ladyship; but the miniature is
gone. I looked everywhere. Chawles said it was taken to your room by the
maid.'
"'Ring for Prodgers at once.'
"'I have, your Ladyship. Here she comes with it in her hand,' and he
handed the jeweled frame to his mistress.
"'Oh, I'm so thankful! You're sure nothing else is missing?'
"'No, your Ladyship; but Chawles found this note on the mantel, which he
says he picked up from the table after they had left.'
"Lord Arbuckle craned his head and his wife eagerly scanned the
inscription.
"On the envelope, scrawled in pencil, were the three words: 'For dear
Eliza.'
"Lady Arbuckle broke the seal.
"Out dropped two twenty-pound Bank of England notes."
* * * * *
The Irishman rose to his feet, pushed back his chair, and taking a
briarwood from his pocket and a small bag of tobacco proceeded to fill
his pipe.
Mac broke the silence first:
"Case of wrong house, wasn't it? I wonder Catnall didn't find it out
before dinner was over."
"Put Arbuckle in a bad hole," remarked Boggs. "What excuse could he make
when he returned the money?"
"I'd have given that butler a dressing down," muttered Lonnegan. "He
ought to have known that there was some mistake when the note arrived,"
Lonnegan like Mac was born without the slightest sense of humor, Boggs
always maintained.
"Keep on guessing, gentlemen," exclaimed Murphy; "London guessed for a
week, and gave it up."
"Well, but is that all?" asked Stirling.
"Every word and line. Nobody knows to this day who they were or where
they came from. The flunkey on the curb said they arrived in a
four-wheeler; that he had whistled to the rank at the end of the square
for a hansom, and that they both stepped in and drove off."
"And old Arbuckle still bags the money?" inquired Boggs.
"Did, the last I heard."
"Did he try to find out who the fellow was?"
"No, Lady Arbuckle wouldn't let him; it would have given the whole thing
away. Besides, it was Arbuckle's statement about Eliza that made the
stranger give the money; rather a delicate situation; looked as if he
and his wife had put up a job."
"Poor devil!" muttered Mac. "Lied to his guest, insulted his wife, and
robbed some poor woman of a charity that might have restored her to
health, and all because of just the same kind of idiotic foolishness
that is going on downstairs at Woods's this very minute. Damnable, the
whole thing."
"I know of a case," said Lonnegan without noticing Mac's outburst, as he
reached for his pipe which he had laid on the mantel, "in which not a
mysterious couple but a mysterious woman figured, and I know the man who
was mixed up in the affair. He's a civil engineer now and lives in
London; got quite a position. When I first met him he was a draughtsman
in one of the downtown offices--this was some fifteen years ago. He was
a good-looking fellow then, about twenty-seven or eight, I should say,
with a smooth-shaven face and features like a girl's, they were so
regular; a handsome chap, really, if he was about up to your shoulders,
Mac."
"What sort of a yarn is this, Lonny?" interrupted Boggs. "Got any point
to it, or is it one of your long-winded things like the one you told us
when you weren't murdered?"
"It's one that will make your hair stand on end," retorted the
architect. "Wonder I never told you before!"
"Go on, Lonny," broke in Jack Stirling. "Dry up, Boggs. He was a
good-looking chap, you said, Lonny, and about up to Mac's shoulders."
"Yes, and half the size of Boggs around his waist," continued Lonnegan,
with a look at MacWhirter.
"The firm he was with sent him to Vienna with some plans and
specifications of a big enterprise in which they were interested. He
arrived in the evening, hungry, and late for dinner; left his trunk at
the station, jumped into a fiacre and drove to a cafe on the Ring
Strasse that he knew. After dining he made up his mind to go back to the
station, pick up his baggage, and find rooms at the Metropole. When he
entered the cafe and took a seat near the door a woman at the next table
turned her head and fastened her eyes upon him in a way that attracted
his attention. He saw that she was of rather distinguished presence,
tall and well formed, broad shoulders--square for a woman--and with a
strong nose and chin. She was dressed all in black, her veil almost
hiding her face. Not a handsome woman and not young--certainly not under
thirty.
"With the serving of the soup he forgot her and went on with his dinner.
That over he paid the waiter, strolled out to the street and called a
cab. When it drove up the veiled woman stood beside him.
"'I think this cab is mine, sir,' she said in excellent English.
"The Engineer raised his hat, offered his hand to the woman and assisted
her into her seat. When he withdrew his fingers they held a small card
edged with black. The woman and the cab disappeared. He turned the card
to the light of the street lamp. On it was written in pencil, 'Meet me
at Cafe Ivanoff at ten to-night. You are in danger.'
"The man read the card and strained his eyes after the cab; then he
called another, drove down to the station, picked up his trunk, and
started for the Hotel Metropole.
"On the way to the hotel he kept thinking of the woman and the card. It
had not been the first time that his fresh cheeks and clean-cut features
had attracted the attention of some woman dining alone--especially in a
city like Vienna; any continental city, in fact. Some of these
adventures he had followed up with varying success; some he had
forgotten. This one interested him. The proffered acquaintance had been
cleverly managed. The warning at the end was, he knew, one of the many
ruses to pique his curiosity; but that did not put the woman out of his
mind.
"When his baggage had been deposited in his rooms, a small salon,
bedroom, and dressing-room, all opening on the corridor--he needed the
salon in which to lay out his plans and maps--he gave his hat an extra
brush, strolled downstairs, and stepped to the porter's desk.
"'Porter.'
"'Yes, sir.'
"'Where is the Cafe Ivanoff?'
"'Near the Opera, sir.'
"'Is it a respectable place?'
"'That depends on what your Excellency requires,' and the porter
shrugged his shoulders.
"'It sounds Russian.'
"'No, sir; it is Polish. You have music and vodka, and sometimes you
have trouble.'
"'With whom?'
"Again the porter shrugged his shoulders. 'With the police.'
"'Are there rows?'
"'No, there are refugees. Vienna is full of them. For you it is
nothing--you are an American--am I not right?'
"The Engineer touched his inside pocket, felt the bulge of his
pocketbook containing his passport, turned down the Ring Strasse, and
stopped at the Opera House. Then he began to look about him. Young,
well-built, clear-headed, and imaginative, this sort of an adventure was
just what he wanted. Soon his eyes fell upon a cafe ablaze with light.
On a ground-glass globe over the door was the word 'Ivanoff.'
"He passed through the front room, turned into another, and was stopped
by a man at the door of the third.
"'What do you want, Monsieur?' This in French.
"'Some cognac and a cup of coffee.'
"'Did Monsieur come in a cab?'
"'No, on foot.'
"'Perhaps, then, the lady came in a cab--and is waiting for you?'
"'Perhaps.'
"'This way, Monsieur.'
"She sat in the far corner of the room, her face hidden in a file of
newspapers. She must have known the attendant's step for she raised her
head and fastened her eyes on the young man before he was half-way
across the room.
"'Sit here, sir,' she said in perfect English, drawing her dress aside
so that he could pass to the chair next the wall. 'I am glad you came; I
am glad you trusted me enough to come.' Her manner was as composed and
her voice as low and gentle and as free from nervousness as if she had
known him all her life. 'And now, before I tell you what I have to say
to you, please tell me something about yourself. You are an American and
have just arrived in Vienna?'
"The Engineer nodded, his eyes still scanning her face, keeping his own
composure as best he could, his astonishment increasing every moment. He
had seen at the first glance that she was not the woman he had taken
her to be. Her face, on closer inspection, showed her to be nearer forty
than thirty, with certain lines about the mouth and eyes which could
only have come from suffering. What she wanted of him, or why she had
interested herself in his welfare, was what puzzled him.
"'You have a mother, perhaps, at home, and some brothers, and you love
them,' she continued.
"Again the Engineer nodded.
"'How many brothers have you?'
"'One, Madame.'
"'That is another bond of sympathy between us. I have one brother left.'
All this time her eyes had been riveted on his, boring into his own as
if she was trying to read his very thoughts.
"'Is he in danger like me, Madame?' asked the Engineer with a smile.
"'Yes, we all are; we live in danger. I have been brought up in it.'
"'But why should I be?' and he handed her the card with the black edge.
"'You are not,' she said, crumpling the card in her hand and slipping it
into her dress. 'It was only a very cheap ruse of mine. I saw you at the
next table and knew your nationality at once. You can help me, if you
will, and you are the only one who can. You seemed to be sent to me. I
thought it all out and determined what to do. You see how calm I am, and
yet my hands have been icy cold waiting for you. I dared not hope you
would really come until I saw you enter and speak to Polski. But you
cannot stay here; you may be seen and I do not want you to be seen--not
now. We Poles are watched night and day; someone may come in and you
might have to tell who you are, and that must not be.' Then she added
cautiously, her eyes fastened on his, 'Your passport--you have one, have
you not?'
"'Yes, for all over Europe.'
"'Oh, yes; of course.' This came with a sigh of relief, as if she had
dreaded another answer. 'That is the right way to travel while this
revolution goes on. Yes, yes; a passport is quite necessary. Now give me
your address. Metropole? Which room? Number thirty-nine? Very well; I'll
be there at eight o'clock to-morrow night. Never mind the coffee, I will
pay for it with mine. Go--now--out the other door; not the one you came
in. There is somebody coming--quick!'
"The tone of her voice and the look in her eye lifted him out of his
seat and started him toward the door without another word. She was
evidently accustomed to be obeyed.
"The next night at eight precisely there came a rap at his door and a
woman wrapped in a coarse shawl, and with a basket covered with a cloth
on her arm, stood outside.
"'I have brought Monsieur's laundry,' she said. 'Shall I lay it in the
bedroom or here in the salon?' and she stepped inside.
"The door shut, she laid the empty basket on the floor and threw back
her shawl.
"'Don't be worried,' she said, turning the key in the lock, 'and don't
ask any questions. I will go as I came. Someone might have stopped me. I
got this basket and shawl from my own laundress. There will be no one
here? You are sure? Then let me sit beside you and tell you what I could
not last night.
"'Our people go to that cafe,' she continued, as she led him to the
sofa, 'because, strange to say, the police think none of us would dare
go there. That makes it the safest. Besides, every one of the servants
is our friend.'
"Then she unfolded a yarn that made his hair stand on end. She had been
banished from a little town in central Poland where she had taken part
in the revolution. Two brothers had died in exile, the other was in
hiding in Vienna. It was absolutely necessary that this remaining
brother should get back to Warsaw. Not only her own life depended on it
but the lives of their compatriots. Some papers which had been hidden
were in danger of being discovered; these must be found and destroyed.
Her brother was now on his way to the hotel and the room in which they
then sat; he would join them in an hour. At nine o'clock he would send
his card up and must be received. His name was Matzoff--her own name
before she was married. Would he lend him his clothes and his passport?
She could not ask this of anyone but an American; when she saw him and
looked into his face she knew God had sent him to her. Only Americans
sympathized with her poor country. The passport would be handed back to
him in three days by the same man--Polski--who conducted him to her
table at the Cafe Ivanoff; so would the clothes. He would not need
either in that time. Would he save her and her people?'
"Well, you can imagine what happened. Like many other young fellows,
carried off his feet by the picturesqueness of the whole affair--the
appeal to his patriotism, to his love of justice, to all the things that
count when you are twenty-five and have the world in a sling--he
consented. It was agreed that she was to wait in the dressing-room,
which also opened on the corridor, and show herself to the brother, and
get him safely inside the dressing-room. The Engineer was not to see him
come. If anything went wrong it was best that he could not identify him.
She would then help him dress--he was about the same build as the
Engineer and could easily wear his clothes. Moreover, he was dark like
the Engineer; black hair and black eyes and just his age. Indeed one
reason she picked him out at the cafe on the Ring Strasse was because he
looked so much like her own brother.
"The two began to get ready for the expected arrival--a shirt and
collar, tie, gloves, travelling suit, overcoat, and the Engineer's bag
with his initials on it were laid out in the dressing-room, together
with an umbrella and walking-stick and the passport. He was to walk down
the corridor and out of the hotel precisely as the young Engineer would
walk out. If he could only see her brother he would know how complete
the disguise would be; just his size--her own, really--her brother being
small for a man and she being tall and broad for a woman.
"At nine o'clock she put her head out of the dressing-room door, laid
her fingers on her lips, pushed the Engineer into the salon and locked
the door. The brother evidently was approaching. Next he heard the
dressing-room door click. Then the sound of a man rapidly changing his
clothes could be heard. Then a soft click of the latch and a heavy step.
[Illustration: Pushed the engineer into the salon.]
"Here his curiosity overcame him and he cautiously opened the salon door
and peered down the corridor. A man carrying his bag, cane, and
umbrella, an overcoat on his arm, was walking rapidly toward the
staircase. He drew in his head and waited. Five minutes passed, then
ten. He tried the dressing-room door. It was still locked. Stepping out
into the corridor he turned the knob and walked into the dressing-room.
It was empty. On the floor was a pair of corsets, some petticoats, and a
dress!"
* * * * *
"Skipped! Well, by Jove!" cried Marny. "Nihilist, wasn't she?"
"He never knew; doesn't to this day."
"What was she then?" persisted Marny.
"I don't know. My only solution was that she was herself in danger of
her life and had cooked up the yarn about her brother to get out of
Vienna."
"Did he get his passport back?" asked Stirling.
"Yes, three months afterward by mail to his bankers from the Hotel
Metropole. She, or somebody else, had been half over Europe with it;
twice to St. Petersburg and once to Warsaw. The clothes and bag he never
heard of. The waiter at the Cafe Ivanoff--the one she called Polski--had
disappeared and he dare not make any inquiries."
"But I don't see why he was afraid, an American like him," broke in
Marny.
"Let up, Marny!" exclaimed Boggs. "Don't spoil a good yarn. What
difference does it make who she was? You've got a first rate doll, don't
pick it to pieces to find out what it's stuffed with; give your
imagination play and enjoy it. She suggests a dozen things to me, but I
don't want any one of them _proved_. She might have been chief of a band
of poisoners with a private graveyard in her cellar; her smile,
perdition; her glance, death. She could also have eluded the Secret
Service of Russia for years in disguises that the mother who bore her
wouldn't have known her in;--her exploits the talk of all Europe. Then
her miraculous escapes--one for instance across the frontier in a sledge
on forged passports, and the disguise of an officer, her maid dressed as
an orderly, both of them smothered in priceless furs; her being trailed
to her hotel by a sleuth; her lightning change of costume to low-neck
gown and jewels given her by a Russian Grand Duke whose body was found
in the Neva the morning after she left; the murder of the sleuth, with a
card tied to the stiletto marked with a skull and crossbones. You
fellows are going wild over this new French impressionistic craze--the
vague, the mysterious, and the suggestive. Why not apply it to
literature? If a man can paint a figure with three dabs of his brush,
why can't a man draw a character or a situation with three strokes of
his pen? You are too literal, old man!"
"Anything else, you overstuffed, loquacious sausage?" cried Marny.
"Yes," retorted Boggs. "That woman was no doubt a member of the----"
"Stop, you beggar!" cried Jack Stirling. "Don't let him get loose again,
Marny! Stuff a pipe in his mouth. Boggs, you are the only man I know who
can start his mouth going and go away and leave it. Here, fellows, get
on your feet and line up and receive the spoilt child of fashion. He's
coming upstairs: I know his step."
At this instant Woods's body was thrust around the jamb of the door. He
still wore the rose in his button-hole, the one Miss B. J.--the original
of the portrait--had pinned there.
Mac sprang up and caught the intruder by the shoulders before he had
time to open his mouth.
"Been having a tea, have you, you gilt-edged fraud! A highly perfumed
powder-puff tea, with lace on the edges and two flounces. 'Oh, how
exquisite, dear Mr. Woods! And is it really all hand-painted? and did
you do it all yourself? How enormously clever you are--How
lovely--How--' Got pretty sick of that sort of taffy after they had
gormed you up with it for three hours, didn't you, Woods? and you had to
come up where you could breathe! Now rip off that undertaker's coat,
throw away that rose, get into that sketching jacket, and sit down here
and disinfect yourself with a pipe--" and Mac's hearty laugh rang
through the room.