CUP AND LIP
Through the crowded Paris terminal Neeland pushed his way, carrying
the olive-wood box in his hand and keeping an eye on his porter, who
preceded him carrying the remainder of his luggage and repeating:
"_Place, s'il vous plaît, m'sieu', dames!_"
To Neeland it was like a homecoming after many years' exile; the
subtle but perfectly specific odour of Paris assailed his nostrils
once again; the rapid, emphatic, lively language of France sounded
once more delightfully in his eager ears; vivacity and intelligence
sparkled in every eye that met his own. It was a throng of rapid
movement, of animated speech, of gesticulation. And, as it was in the
beginning when he first arrived there as a student, he fell in love
with it at first sight and contact.
All around him moved porters, passengers, railroad officials; the red
_képis_ of soldiers dotted the crowd; a priest or two in shovel hat
and buckled shoes, a Sister of Charity from the Rue de Bac lent graver
accents to the throng; and everywhere were the pretty bourgeois women
of the capital gathered to welcome relatives or friends, or themselves
starting on some brief summer voyage so dear to those who seldom find
it in their hearts to leave Paris for longer than a fortnight at a
time.
As he pressed onward he witnessed characteristic reunions between
voyagers and friends who awaited them--animated, cordial, gay scenes
complicated by many embraces on both cheeks.
And, of a sudden, he noticed the prettiest girl he had ever seen in
his life. She was in white, with a black straw hat, and her face and
figure were lovely beyond words. Evidently she was awaiting friends;
there was a charming expectancy on her fresh young face, a slight
forward inclination of her body, as though expectancy and happy
impatience alone controlled her.
Her beauty almost took his breath away.
"Lord!" he thought to himself. "If such a girl as that ever stood
waiting for me----"
At the same moment her golden-grey eyes, sweeping the passing crowd,
met his; a sharp thrill of amazement passed through him as she held
out both gloved hands with a soft exclamation of recognition:
"Jim! Jim Neeland!"
"Rue Carew!" He could scarcely credit his eyesight, where he stood,
hat in hand, holding both her little hands in one of his.
No, there was no use in trying to disguise his astonishment. He looked
into the face of this tall young girl, searched it for familiar
features, recognised a lovely paraphrase of the freckled face and thin
figure he remembered, and remained dumb before this radiant
reincarnation of that other unhappy, shabby, and meagre child he had
known two years ago.
Ruhannah, laughing and flushed, withdrew her hands.
"Have I changed? You haven't. And I always thought you the most
wonderful and ornamental young man on this planet. I knew you at once,
Jim Neeland. Would you have passed without recognising me?"
"Perhaps I wouldn't have passed after seeing you----"
"Jim Neeland! What a remark!" She laughed. "Anyway, it's nice to
believe myself attractive enough to be noticed. And I'm _so_ glad to
see you. Naïa is here, somewhere, watching for you"--turning her
pretty, eager head to search for the Princess Mistchenka. "Oh, there
she is! She doesn't see us----"
They made their way between the passing ranks of passengers and
porters; the Princess caught sight of them, came hastily toward them.
"Jim! It's nice to see you. Thank you for coming! So _you_, found him,
Rue? How are you, Jim? And where is the olive-wood box?"
"I'm well, and there's that devilish box!" he replied, laughing and
lifting it in his hand to exhibit it. "Naïa, the next time you want
it, send an escort of artillery and two battleships!"
"Did you have trouble?"
"Trouble? I had the time of my life. No moving picture can ever again
excite me; no best seller. I've been both since I had your cable to
get this box and bring it to you."
He laughed as he spoke, but the Princess continued to regard him very
seriously, and Rue Carew's smile came and waned like sunlight in a
wood, for she was not quite sure whether he had really encountered any
dangers on this mission which he had fulfilled so well.
"Our car is waiting outside," said the Princess. "Where is your
porter, Jim?"
Neeland glanced about him, discovered the porter, made a sign for him
to follow, and they moved together toward the entrance to the huge
terminal.
"I haven't decided where to stop yet," began Neeland, but the Princess
checked him with a pretty gesture:
"You stop with us, Jim."
"Thank you so much, but----"
"Please. Must I beg of you?"
"Do you really wish it?"
"Certainly," she replied absently, glancing about her. She added: "I
don't see my car. I don't see my footman. I told him to wait here.
Rue, do you see him anywhere?"
"No, I don't," said the girl.
"How annoying!" said the Princess. "He's a new man. My own footman was
set upon and almost killed by Apaches a week ago. So I had to find a
substitute. How stupid of him! Where on earth can he be waiting?"
They traversed the court of the terminal. Many automobiles were parked
there or just leaving; liveried footmen stood awaiting masters and
mistresses; but nowhere was the car of the Princess Mistchenka in
sight.
They stood there, Neeland's porter behind with his suitcase and
luggage, not knowing whether to wait longer or summon a taxicab.
"I don't understand," repeated the Princess impatiently. "I explained
very carefully what I desired. That new groom is stupid. Caron, my
chauffeur, would never have made a mistake unless that idiot groom
misunderstood his instructions."
"Let me go and make some inquiries," said Neeland. "Do you mind
waiting here? I'll not be long----"
He went off, carrying the olive-wood box, which his grasp never
quitted now; and presently the Princess and Ruhannah saw him disappear
among the ranks of automobiles and cabs.
"I don't like it, Rue," repeated the Princess in a low voice. "I
neither understand nor relish this situation."
"Have you any idea----"
"Hush, child! I don't know. That new groom, Verdier, was recommended
by the Russian Embassy. I don't know what to think of this."
"It _can't_ be anything--queer, can it, dear?" asked Rue.
"Anything _can_ have happened. Nothing is likely to have occurred,
however--unless--unless those Apaches were----"
"Naïa!"
"It's possible, I suppose. They may have attacked Picard as part of a
conspiracy. The Russian Embassy may have been deceived in Verdier. All
this may be part of a plan. But--I scarcely believe it.... All the
same, I dislike to take a taxicab----"
She caught sight of Neeland returning; both women moved forward to
meet him.
"I've solved the mystery," he said. "Naïa, your car was run into
outside the station a few minutes after you left it. And I'm sorry to
say that your chauffeur was badly enough hurt to require an
ambulance."
"Where on earth did you learn that?"
"The official at the taxicab control told me. I went to him because
that is where one is likely to receive information."
"Caron hurt!" murmured the Princess. "What a shame! Where did they
take him, Jim?"
"To the Charité."
"I'll go this afternoon. But where is that imbecile groom of mine?"
"It appears that he and a policeman went to a garage on the repair
truck that took your car."
"Was he arrested?"
"I believe so."
"What a _contretemps_!" exclaimed the Princess Mistchenka. "We shall
have to take a taxicab after all!"
"I've ordered one from the control. There it comes now," said Neeland,
as a brand new taxicab, which looked like a private car, drew up at
the curb, and a smiling and very spick and span chauffeur saluted.
Neeland's porter hoisted trunk and suitcase on top; the Princess
stepped into the limousine, followed by Rue and Neeland; the chauffeur
took the order, started his car, wheeled out into the square, circled
the traffic policeman, and whizzed away into the depths of the most
beautiful city in the world.
Neeland, seated with his back to the driver, laid the olive-wood box
on his knees, unlocked it, drew from his breast pocket the papers he
carried; locked them in the box once more, and looked up laughingly at
the Princess and Ruhannah as he placed it at his feet.
"There you are!" he said. "Thank heaven my task and your affair have
been accomplished. All the papers are there--and," to Ruhannah, "that
pretty gentleman you call the Yellow Devil is inside, along with some
assorted firearms, drawing instruments, and photographs. The whole
business is here, intact--and so am I--if that irrelevant detail
should interest you."
Rue smiled her answer; the Princess scrutinised him keenly:
"Did you have trouble, Jim?"
"Yes, I did."
"Serious trouble?"
"I tell you it was like a movie in five reels. Never before did I
believe such things happened outside a Yonkers studio. But they do,
Naïa. And I've learned that the world is full of more excitingly
melodramatic possibilities than any novel or scenario ever
contained."
"You're not serious, of course," began Rue Carew, watching the varying
expressions on his animated features; but the Princess Mistchenka
said, unsmiling:
"A film melodrama is a crude and tawdry thing compared to the real
drama so many of us play in every moment of our lives."
Neeland said to Rue, lightly:
"That is true as far as I have been concerned with that amazing box.
It's full of the very devil--of that Yellow Devil! When I pick it up
now I seem to feel a premonitory tingling all over me--not entirely
disagreeable," he added to the Princess, "but the sort of half-scared
exhilaration a man feels who takes a chance and is quite sure he'll
not have another chance if he loses. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes," said the Princess unsmilingly, her clear, pleasant eyes fixed
on him.
In her tranquil, indefinite expression there was something which made
him wonder how many such chances this pretty woman had taken in her
life of intellectual pleasure and bodily ease.
And now he remembered that Ilse Dumont apparently knew about
her--about Ruhannah, too. And Ilse Dumont was the agent of a foreign
government.
Was the Princess Mistchenka, patron and amateur of the arts, another
such agent? If not, why had he taken this journey for her with this
box of papers?
The passage of the Boulevard was slow; at every square traffic was
halted; all Paris crowded the streets in the early afternoon sunshine,
and the taxicab in which they sat made little speed until the Place de
la Concorde opened out and the great Arc--a tiny phantom of lavender
and pearl--spanned the vanishing point of a fairy perspective between
parallel and endless ramparts of tender green.
"There was a lot of war talk on the _Volhynia_," said Neeland, "but I
haven't heard any since I landed, nor have I seen a paper. I suppose
the Chancelleries have come to some agreement."
"No," said the Princess.
"You don't expect trouble, do you? I mean a general European
free-for-all fight?"
"I don't know, Jim."
"Haven't you," he asked blandly, "any means of acquiring inside
information?"
She did not even pretend to evade the good-humoured malice of his
smile and question:
"Yes; I have sources of private information. I have learned nothing,
so far."
He looked at Rue, but the smile had faded from her face and she
returned his questioning gaze gravely.
"There is great anxiety in Europe," she said in a low voice, "and the
tension is increasing. When we arrive home we shall have a chance to
converse more freely." She made the slightest gesture with her head
toward the chauffeur--a silent reminder and a caution.
The Princess nodded slightly:
"One never knows," she remarked. "We shall have much to say to one
another when we are safely home."
But Neeland could not take it very seriously here in the sunshine,
with two pretty women facing him--here speeding up the Champs Elysées
between the endless green of chestnut trees and the exquisite
silvery-grey façades of the wealthy--with motors flashing by on every
side and the cool, leafy alleys thronged with children and
nurse-maids, and Monsieur Guignol squeaking and drumming in his
red-curtained box!
How could a young man believe in a sequel to the almost incredible
melodrama in which he had figured, with such a sane and delightful
setting, here in the familiar company of two charming women he had
known?
Besides, all Paris and her police were at his elbow; the olive-wood
box stood between his knees; a smartly respectable taxi and its driver
drove them with the quiet _éclat_ and precision of a private
_employé_; the Arc de Triomphe already rose splendidly above them, and
everything that had once been familiar and reassuring and delightful
lay under his grateful eyes on every side.
And now the taxicab turned into the rue Soleil d'Or--a new street to
Neeland, opened since his student days, and only one square long, with
a fountain in the middle and young chestnut trees already thickly
crowned with foliage lining both sides of the street.
But although the rue Soleil d'Or was a new street to him, Paris
construction is also a rapid affair. The street was faced by charming
private houses built of grey Caen stone; the fountain with its golden
sun-dial, with the seated figure--a life-size replica of Manship's
original in the Metropolitan Museum--serenely and beautifully holding
its place between the Renaissance façades and rows of slender trees.
Summer had not yet burned foliage or flowers; the freshness of spring
itself seemed still to reign there.
Three blue-bloused street-sweepers with hose and broom were washing
the asphalt as their cab slowed down, sounding its horn to warn them
out of the way. And, the spouting hose still in their hands, the
street-cleaners stepped out of the gutter before the pretty private
hotel of Madame la Princesse.
Already a butler was opening the _grille_; already the chauffeur had
swung Neeland's steamer trunk and suitcase to the sidewalk; already
the Princess and Rue were advancing to the house, while Neeland
fumbled in his pocket for the fare.
The butler, bowing, relieved him of the olive-wood box. At the same
instant the blue-bloused man with the hose turned the powerful stream
of water directly into the butler's face, knocking him flat on the
sidewalk; and his two comrades tripped up Neeland, passed a red sash
over his head, and hurled him aside, blinded, half strangled,
staggering at random, tearing furiously at the wide band of woollen
cloth which seemed to suffocate him.
Already the chauffeur had tossed the olive-wood box into the cab; the
three blue-bloused men sprang in after it; the chauffeur slipped into
his seat, threw in the clutch, and, driving with one hand, turned a
pistol on the half drowned butler, who had reeled to his feet and was
lurching forward to seize the steering wheel.
The taxicab, gathering speed, was already turning the corner of the
rue de la Lune when Neeland managed to free throat and eyes from the
swathe of woollen.
The butler, checked by the levelled pistol, stood dripping, still
almost blinded by the force of the water from the hose; but he had
plenty of pluck, and he followed Neeland on a run to the corner of the
street.
The street was absolutely empty, except for the sparrows, and the big,
fat, slate-coloured pigeons that strutted and coo-cooed under the
shadow of the chestnut trees.