I glanced in at the doorway and saw Hawberk busy in his little shop
at the end of the hall. He looked up, and catching sight of me cried
in his deep, hearty voice, “Come in, Mr. Castaigne!” Constance, his
daughter, rose to meet me as I crossed the threshold, and held out her
pretty hand, but I saw the blush of disappointment on her cheeks, and
knew that it was another Castaigne she had expected, my cousin Louis.
I smiled at her confusion and complimented her on the banner she was
embroidering from a coloured plate. Old Hawberk sat riveting the worn
greaves of some ancient suit of armour, and the ting! ting! ting! of
his little hammer sounded pleasantly in the quaint shop. Presently he
dropped his hammer, and fussed about for a moment with a tiny wrench.
The soft clash of the mail sent a thrill of pleasure through me. I
loved to hear the music of steel brushing against steel, the mellow
shock of the mallet on thigh pieces, and the jingle of chain armour.
That was the only reason I went to see Hawberk. He had never interested
me personally, nor did Constance, except for the fact of her being
in love with Louis. This did occupy my attention, and sometimes even
kept me awake at night. But I knew in my heart that all would come
right, and that I should arrange their future as I expected to arrange
that of my kind doctor, John Archer. However, I should never have
troubled myself about visiting them just then, had it not been, as
I say, that the music of the tinkling hammer had for me this strong
fascination. I would sit for hours, listening and listening, and when
a stray sunbeam struck the inlaid steel, the sensation it gave me was
almost too keen to endure. My eyes would become fixed, dilating with
a pleasure that stretched every nerve almost to breaking, until some
movement of the old armourer cut off the ray of sunlight, then, still
thrilling secretly, I leaned back and listened again to the sound of
the polishing rag, swish! swish! rubbing rust from the rivets.
Constance worked with the embroidery over her knees, now and then
pausing to examine more closely the pattern in the coloured plate from
the Metropolitan Museum.
“Who is this for?” I asked.
Hawberk explained, that in addition to the treasures of armour in the
Metropolitan Museum of which he had been appointed armourer, he also
had charge of several collections belonging to rich amateurs. This was
the missing greave of a famous suit which a client of his had traced to
a little shop in Paris on the Quai d’Orsay. He, Hawberk, had negotiated
for and secured the greave, and now the suit was complete. He laid down
his hammer and read me the history of the suit, traced since 1450 from
owner to owner until it was acquired by Thomas Stainbridge. When his
superb collection was sold, this client of Hawberk’s bought the suit,
and since then the search for the missing greave had been pushed until
it was, almost by accident, located in Paris.
“Did you continue the search so persistently without any certainty of
the greave being still in existence?” I demanded.
“Of course,” he replied coolly.
Then for the first time I took a personal interest in Hawberk.
“It was worth something to you,” I ventured.
“No,” he replied, laughing, “my pleasure in finding it was my reward.”
“Have you no ambition to be rich?” I asked, smiling.
“My one ambition is to be the best armourer in the world,” he answered
gravely.
Constance asked me if I had seen the ceremonies at the Lethal Chamber.
She herself had noticed cavalry passing up Broadway that morning, and
had wished to see the inauguration, but her father wanted the banner
finished, and she had stayed at his request.
“Did you see your cousin, Mr. Castaigne, there?” she asked, with the
slightest tremor of her soft eyelashes.
“No,” I replied carelessly. “Louis’ regiment is manœuvring out in
Westchester County.” I rose and picked up my hat and cane.
“Are you going upstairs to see the lunatic again?” laughed old Hawberk.
If Hawberk knew how I loathe that word “lunatic,” he would never use
it in my presence. It rouses certain feelings within me which I do not
care to explain. However, I answered him quietly: “I think I shall drop
in and see Mr. Wilde for a moment or two.”
“Poor fellow,” said Constance, with a shake of the head, “it must be
hard to live alone year after year poor, crippled and almost demented.
It is very good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as often as you do.”
“I think he is vicious,” observed Hawberk, beginning again with his
hammer. I listened to the golden tinkle on the greave plates; when he
had finished I replied:
“No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is
a wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I
would give years of our lives to acquire.”
Hawberk laughed.
I continued a little impatiently: “He knows history as no one else
could know it. Nothing, however trivial, escapes his search, and his
memory is so absolute, so precise in details, that were it known in New
York that such a man existed, the people could not honour him enough.”
“Nonsense,” muttered Hawberk, searching on the floor for a fallen rivet.
“Is it nonsense,” I asked, managing to suppress what I felt, “is it
nonsense when he says that the tassets and cuissards of the enamelled
suit of armour commonly known as the ‘Prince’s Emblazoned’ can be
found among a mass of rusty theatrical properties, broken stoves and
ragpicker’s refuse in a garret in Pell Street?”
Hawberk’s hammer fell to the ground, but he picked it up and asked,
with a great deal of calm, how I knew that the tassets and left
cuissard were missing from the “Prince’s Emblazoned.”
“I did not know until Mr. Wilde mentioned it to me the other day. He
said they were in the garret of 998 Pell Street.”
“Nonsense,” he cried, but I noticed his hand trembling under his
leathern apron.
“Is this nonsense too?” I asked pleasantly, “is it nonsense when Mr.
Wilde continually speaks of you as the Marquis of Avonshire and of Miss
Constance—”
I did not finish, for Constance had started to her feet with terror
written on every feature. Hawberk looked at me and slowly smoothed his
leathern apron.
“That is impossible,” he observed, “Mr. Wilde may know a great many
things—”
“About armour, for instance, and the ‘Prince’s Emblazoned,’” I
interposed, smiling.
“Yes,” he continued, slowly, “about armour also—may be—but he is
wrong in regard to the Marquis of Avonshire, who, as you know, killed
his wife’s traducer years ago, and went to Australia where he did not
long survive his wife.”
“Mr. Wilde is wrong,” murmured Constance. Her lips were blanched, but
her voice was sweet and calm.
“Let us agree, if you please, that in this one circumstance Mr. Wilde
is wrong,” I said.