I climbed the three dilapidated flights of stairs, which I had so often
climbed before, and knocked at a small door at the end of the corridor.
Mr. Wilde opened the door and I walked in.
When he had double-locked the door and pushed a heavy chest against
it, he came and sat down beside me, peering up into my face with his
little light-coloured eyes. Half a dozen new scratches covered his
nose and cheeks, and the silver wires which supported his artificial
ears had become displaced. I thought I had never seen him so hideously
fascinating. He had no ears. The artificial ones, which now stood out
at an angle from the fine wire, were his one weakness. They were made
of wax and painted a shell pink, but the rest of his face was yellow.
He might better have revelled in the luxury of some artificial fingers
for his left hand, which was absolutely fingerless, but it seemed to
cause him no inconvenience, and he was satisfied with his wax ears.
He was very small, scarcely higher than a child of ten, but his arms
were magnificently developed, and his thighs as thick as any athlete’s.
Still, the most remarkable thing about Mr. Wilde was that a man of his
marvellous intelligence and knowledge should have such a head. It was
flat and pointed, like the heads of many of those unfortunates whom
people imprison in asylums for the weak-minded. Many called him insane,
but I knew him to be as sane as I was.
I do not deny that he was eccentric; the mania he had for keeping
that cat and teasing her until she flew at his face like a demon, was
certainly eccentric. I never could understand why he kept the creature,
nor what pleasure he found in shutting himself up in his room with this
surly, vicious beast. I remember once, glancing up from the manuscript
I was studying by the light of some tallow dips, and seeing Mr. Wilde
squatting motionless on his high chair, his eyes fairly blazing with
excitement, while the cat, which had risen from her place before the
stove, came creeping across the floor right at him. Before I could
move she flattened her belly to the ground, crouched, trembled, and
sprang into his face. Howling and foaming they rolled over and over
on the floor, scratching and clawing, until the cat screamed and fled
under the cabinet, and Mr. Wilde turned over on his back, his limbs
contracting and curling up like the legs of a dying spider. He _was_
eccentric.
Mr. Wilde had climbed into his high chair, and, after studying my face,
picked up a dog’s-eared ledger and opened it.
“Henry B. Matthews,” he read, “book-keeper with Whysot Whysot and
Company, dealers in church ornaments. Called April 3rd. Reputation
damaged on the race-track. Known as a welcher. Reputation to be
repaired by August 1st. Retainer Five Dollars.” He turned the page and
ran his fingerless knuckles down the closely-written columns.
“P. Greene Dusenberry, Minister of the Gospel, Fairbeach, New Jersey.
Reputation damaged in the Bowery. To be repaired as soon as possible.
Retainer $100.”
He coughed and added, “Called, April 6th.”
“Then you are not in need of money, Mr. Wilde,” I inquired.
“Listen,” he coughed again.
“Mrs. C. Hamilton Chester, of Chester Park, New York City. Called April
7th. Reputation damaged at Dieppe, France. To be repaired by October
1st Retainer $500.
“Note.—C. Hamilton Chester, Captain U.S.S. ‘Avalanche’, ordered home
from South Sea Squadron October 1st.”
“Well,” I said, “the profession of a Repairer of Reputations is
lucrative.”
His colourless eyes sought mine, “I only wanted to demonstrate that I
was correct. You said it was impossible to succeed as a Repairer of
Reputations; that even if I did succeed in certain cases it would cost
me more than I would gain by it. To-day I have five hundred men in my
employ, who are poorly paid, but who pursue the work with an enthusiasm
which possibly may be born of fear. These men enter every shade and
grade of society; some even are pillars of the most exclusive social
temples; others are the prop and pride of the financial world; still
others, hold undisputed sway among the ‘Fancy and the Talent.’ I choose
them at my leisure from those who reply to my advertisements. It is
easy enough, they are all cowards. I could treble the number in twenty
days if I wished. So you see, those who have in their keeping the
reputations of their fellow-citizens, I have in my pay.”
“They may turn on you,” I suggested.
He rubbed his thumb over his cropped ears, and adjusted the wax
substitutes. “I think not,” he murmured thoughtfully, “I seldom have to
apply the whip, and then only once. Besides they like their wages.”
“How do you apply the whip?” I demanded.
His face for a moment was awful to look upon. His eyes dwindled to a
pair of green sparks.
“I invite them to come and have a little chat with me,” he said in a
soft voice.
A knock at the door interrupted him, and his face resumed its amiable
expression.
“Who is it?” he inquired.
“Mr. Steylette,” was the answer.
“Come to-morrow,” replied Mr. Wilde.
“Impossible,” began the other, but was silenced by a sort of bark from
Mr. Wilde.
“Come to-morrow,” he repeated.
We heard somebody move away from the door and turn the corner by the
stairway.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“Arnold Steylette, Owner and Editor in Chief of the great New York
daily.”
He drummed on the ledger with his fingerless hand adding: “I pay him
very badly, but he thinks it a good bargain.”
“Arnold Steylette!” I repeated amazed.
“Yes,” said Mr. Wilde, with a self-satisfied cough.
The cat, which had entered the room as he spoke, hesitated, looked up
at him and snarled. He climbed down from the chair and squatting on the
floor, took the creature into his arms and caressed her. The cat ceased
snarling and presently began a loud purring which seemed to increase in
timbre as he stroked her. “Where are the notes?” I asked. He pointed
to the table, and for the hundredth time I picked up the bundle of
manuscript entitled—
“THE IMPERIAL DYNASTY OF AMERICA.”
One by one I studied the well-worn pages, worn only by my own handling,
and although I knew all by heart, from the beginning, “When from
Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran,” to “Castaigne, Louis de
Calvados, born December 19th, 1877,” I read it with an eager, rapt
attention, pausing to repeat parts of it aloud, and dwelling especially
on “Hildred de Calvados, only son of Hildred Castaigne and Edythe
Landes Castaigne, first in succession,” etc., etc.
When I finished, Mr. Wilde nodded and coughed.
“Speaking of your legitimate ambition,” he said, “how do Constance and
Louis get along?”
“She loves him,” I replied simply.
The cat on his knee suddenly turned and struck at his eyes, and he
flung her off and climbed on to the chair opposite me.
“And Dr. Archer! But that’s a matter you can settle any time you wish,”
he added.
“Yes,” I replied, “Dr. Archer can wait, but it is time I saw my cousin
Louis.”
“It is time,” he repeated. Then he took another ledger from the table
and ran over the leaves rapidly. “We are now in communication with
ten thousand men,” he muttered. “We can count on one hundred thousand
within the first twenty-eight hours, and in forty-eight hours the state
will rise _en masse_. The country follows the state, and the portion
that will not, I mean California and the Northwest, might better never
have been inhabited. I shall not send them the Yellow Sign.”
The blood rushed to my head, but I only answered, “A new broom sweeps
clean.”
“The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could
not rest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even their
unborn thoughts,” said Mr. Wilde.
“You are speaking of the King in Yellow,” I groaned, with a shudder.
“He is a king whom emperors have served.”
“I am content to serve him,” I replied.
Mr. Wilde sat rubbing his ears with his crippled hand. “Perhaps
Constance does not love him,” he suggested.
I started to reply, but a sudden burst of military music from the
street below drowned my voice. The twentieth dragoon regiment, formerly
in garrison at Mount St. Vincent, was returning from the manœuvres in
Westchester County, to its new barracks on East Washington Square. It
was my cousin’s regiment. They were a fine lot of fellows, in their
pale blue, tight-fitting jackets, jaunty busbys and white riding
breeches with the double yellow stripe, into which their limbs seemed
moulded. Every other squadron was armed with lances, from the metal
points of which fluttered yellow and white pennons. The band passed,
playing the regimental march, then came the colonel and staff, the
horses crowding and trampling, while their heads bobbed in unison, and
the pennons fluttered from their lance points. The troopers, who rode
with the beautiful English seat, looked brown as berries from their
bloodless campaign among the farms of Westchester, and the music of
their sabres against the stirrups, and the jingle of spurs and carbines
was delightful to me. I saw Louis riding with his squadron. He was as
handsome an officer as I have ever seen. Mr. Wilde, who had mounted a
chair by the window, saw him too, but said nothing. Louis turned and
looked straight at Hawberk’s shop as he passed, and I could see the
flush on his brown cheeks. I think Constance must have been at the
window. When the last troopers had clattered by, and the last pennons
vanished into South Fifth Avenue, Mr. Wilde clambered out of his chair
and dragged the chest away from the door.
“Yes,” he said, “it is time that you saw your cousin Louis.”
He unlocked the door and I picked up my hat and stick and stepped into
the corridor. The stairs were dark. Groping about, I set my foot on
something soft, which snarled and spit, and I aimed a murderous blow at
the cat, but my cane shivered to splinters against the balustrade, and
the beast scurried back into Mr. Wilde’s room.
Passing Hawberk’s door again I saw him still at work on the armour,
but I did not stop, and stepping out into Bleecker Street, I followed
it to Wooster, skirted the grounds of the Lethal Chamber, and crossing
Washington Park went straight to my rooms in the Benedick. Here I
lunched comfortably, read the _Herald_ and the _Meteor_, and finally
went to the steel safe in my bedroom and set the time combination. The
three and three-quarter minutes which it is necessary to wait, while
the time lock is opening, are to me golden moments. From the instant
I set the combination to the moment when I grasp the knobs and swing
back the solid steel doors, I live in an ecstasy of expectation. Those
moments must be like moments passed in Paradise. I know what I am to
find at the end of the time limit. I know what the massive safe holds
secure for me, for me alone, and the exquisite pleasure of waiting is
hardly enhanced when the safe opens and I lift, from its velvet crown,
a diadem of purest gold, blazing with diamonds. I do this every day,
and yet the joy of waiting and at last touching again the diadem, only
seems to increase as the days pass. It is a diadem fit for a King among
kings, an Emperor among emperors. The King in Yellow might scorn it,
but it shall be worn by his royal servant.
I held it in my arms until the alarm in the safe rang harshly, and then
tenderly, proudly, I replaced it and shut the steel doors. I walked
slowly back into my study, which faces Washington Square, and leaned
on the window sill. The afternoon sun poured into my windows, and a
gentle breeze stirred the branches of the elms and maples in the park,
now covered with buds and tender foliage. A flock of pigeons circled
about the tower of the Memorial Church; sometimes alighting on the
purple tiled roof, sometimes wheeling downward to the lotos fountain
in front of the marble arch. The gardeners were busy with the flower
beds around the fountain, and the freshly turned earth smelled sweet
and spicy. A lawn mower, drawn by a fat white horse, clinked across
the green sward, and watering-carts poured showers of spray over the
asphalt drives. Around the statue of Peter Stuyvesant, which in 1897
had replaced the monstrosity supposed to represent Garibaldi, children
played in the spring sunshine, and nurse girls wheeled elaborate baby
carriages with a reckless disregard for the pasty-faced occupants,
which could probably be explained by the presence of half a dozen trim
dragoon troopers languidly lolling on the benches. Through the trees,
the Washington Memorial Arch glistened like silver in the sunshine, and
beyond, on the eastern extremity of the square the grey stone barracks
of the dragoons, and the white granite artillery stables were alive
with colour and motion.
I looked at the Lethal Chamber on the corner of the square opposite. A
few curious people still lingered about the gilded iron railing, but
inside the grounds the paths were deserted. I watched the fountains
ripple and sparkle; the sparrows had already found this new bathing
nook, and the basins were covered with the dusty-feathered little
things. Two or three white peacocks picked their way across the lawns,
and a drab coloured pigeon sat so motionless on the arm of one of the
“Fates,” that it seemed to be a part of the sculptured stone.
As I was turning carelessly away, a slight commotion in the group of
curious loiterers around the gates attracted my attention. A young man
had entered, and was advancing with nervous strides along the gravel
path which leads to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber. He paused
a moment before the “Fates,” and as he raised his head to those three
mysterious faces, the pigeon rose from its sculptured perch, circled
about for a moment and wheeled to the east. The young man pressed his
hand to his face, and then with an undefinable gesture sprang up the
marble steps, the bronze doors closed behind him, and half an hour
later the loiterers slouched away, and the frightened pigeon returned
to its perch in the arms of Fate.
I put on my hat and went out into the park for a little walk before
dinner. As I crossed the central driveway a group of officers passed,
and one of them called out, “Hello, Hildred,” and came back to shake
hands with me. It was my cousin Louis, who stood smiling and tapping
his spurred heels with his riding-whip.
“Just back from Westchester,” he said; “been doing the bucolic; milk
and curds, you know, dairy-maids in sunbonnets, who say ‘haeow’ and ‘I
don’t think’ when you tell them they are pretty. I’m nearly dead for a
square meal at Delmonico’s. What’s the news?”
“There is none,” I replied pleasantly. “I saw your regiment coming in
this morning.”
“Did you? I didn’t see you. Where were you?”
“In Mr. Wilde’s window.”
“Oh, hell!” he began impatiently, “that man is stark mad! I don’t
understand why you—”
He saw how annoyed I felt by this outburst, and begged my pardon.
“Really, old chap,” he said, “I don’t mean to run down a man you
like, but for the life of me I can’t see what the deuce you find in
common with Mr. Wilde. He’s not well bred, to put it generously; he is
hideously deformed; his head is the head of a criminally insane person.
You know yourself he’s been in an asylum—”
“So have I,” I interrupted calmly.
Louis looked startled and confused for a moment, but recovered and
slapped me heartily on the shoulder. “You were completely cured,” he
began; but I stopped him again.
“I suppose you mean that I was simply acknowledged never to have been
insane.”
“Of course that—that’s what I meant,” he laughed.
I disliked his laugh because I knew it was forced, but I nodded gaily
and asked him where he was going. Louis looked after his brother
officers who had now almost reached Broadway.
“We had intended to sample a Brunswick cocktail, but to tell you the
truth I was anxious for an excuse to go and see Hawberk instead. Come
along, I’ll make you my excuse.”
We found old Hawberk, neatly attired in a fresh spring suit, standing
at the door of his shop and sniffing the air.
“I had just decided to take Constance for a little stroll before
dinner,” he replied to the impetuous volley of questions from Louis.
“We thought of walking on the park terrace along the North River.”
At that moment Constance appeared and grew pale and rosy by turns as
Louis bent over her small gloved fingers. I tried to excuse myself,
alleging an engagement uptown, but Louis and Constance would not
listen, and I saw I was expected to remain and engage old Hawberk’s
attention. After all it would be just as well if I kept my eye on
Louis, I thought, and when they hailed a Spring Street horse-car, I got
in after them and took my seat beside the armourer.
The beautiful line of parks and granite terraces overlooking the
wharves along the North River, which were built in 1910 and finished
in the autumn of 1917, had become one of the most popular promenades
in the metropolis. They extended from the battery to 190th Street,
overlooking the noble river and affording a fine view of the Jersey
shore and the Highlands opposite. Cafés and restaurants were scattered
here and there among the trees, and twice a week military bands from
the garrison played in the kiosques on the parapets.
We sat down in the sunshine on the bench at the foot of the equestrian
statue of General Sheridan. Constance tipped her sunshade to shield
her eyes, and she and Louis began a murmuring conversation which was
impossible to catch. Old Hawberk, leaning on his ivory headed cane,
lighted an excellent cigar, the mate to which I politely refused, and
smiled at vacancy. The sun hung low above the Staten Island woods, and
the bay was dyed with golden hues reflected from the sun-warmed sails
of the shipping in the harbour.
Brigs, schooners, yachts, clumsy ferry-boats, their decks swarming
with people, railroad transports carrying lines of brown, blue and
white freight cars, stately sound steamers, déclassé tramp steamers,
coasters, dredgers, scows, and everywhere pervading the entire bay
impudent little tugs puffing and whistling officiously;—these were the
craft which churned the sunlight waters as far as the eye could reach.
In calm contrast to the hurry of sailing vessel and steamer a silent
fleet of white warships lay motionless in midstream.
Constance’s merry laugh aroused me from my reverie.
“What _are_ you staring at?” she inquired.
“Nothing—the fleet,” I smiled.
Then Louis told us what the vessels were, pointing out each by its
relative position to the old Red Fort on Governor’s Island.
“That little cigar shaped thing is a torpedo boat,” he explained;
“there are four more lying close together. They are the _Tarpon_, the
_Falcon_, the _Sea Fox_, and the _Octopus_. The gun-boats just above
are the _Princeton_, the _Champlain_, the _Still Water_ and the _Erie_.
Next to them lie the cruisers _Faragut_ and _Los Angeles_, and above
them the battle ships _California_, and _Dakota_, and the _Washington_
which is the flag ship. Those two squatty looking chunks of metal which
are anchored there off Castle William are the double turreted monitors
_Terrible_ and _Magnificent_; behind them lies the ram, _Osceola_.”
Constance looked at him with deep approval in her beautiful eyes. “What
loads of things you know for a soldier,” she said, and we all joined in
the laugh which followed.
Presently Louis rose with a nod to us and offered his arm to Constance,
and they strolled away along the river wall. Hawberk watched them for a
moment and then turned to me.
“Mr. Wilde was right,” he said. “I have found the missing tassets and
left cuissard of the ‘Prince’s Emblazoned,’ in a vile old junk garret
in Pell Street.”
“998?” I inquired, with a smile.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Wilde is a very intelligent man,” I observed.
“I want to give him the credit of this most important discovery,”
continued Hawberk. “And I intend it shall be known that he is entitled
to the fame of it.”
“He won’t thank you for that,” I answered sharply; “please say nothing
about it.”
“Do you know what it is worth?” said Hawberk.
“No, fifty dollars, perhaps.”
“It is valued at five hundred, but the owner of the ‘Prince’s
Emblazoned’ will give two thousand dollars to the person who completes
his suit; that reward also belongs to Mr. Wilde.”
“He doesn’t want it! He refuses it!” I answered angrily. “What do you
know about Mr. Wilde? He doesn’t need the money. He is rich—or will
be—richer than any living man except myself. What will we care for
money then—what will we care, he and I, when—when—”
“When what?” demanded Hawberk, astonished.
“You will see,” I replied, on my guard again.
He looked at me narrowly, much as Doctor Archer used to, and I knew he
thought I was mentally unsound. Perhaps it was fortunate for him that
he did not use the word lunatic just then.
“No,” I replied to his unspoken thought, “I am not mentally weak; my
mind is as healthy as Mr. Wilde’s. I do not care to explain just yet
what I have on hand, but it is an investment which will pay more than
mere gold, silver and precious stones. It will secure the happiness and
prosperity of a continent—yes, a hemisphere!”
“Oh,” said Hawberk.
“And eventually,” I continued more quietly, “it will secure the
happiness of the whole world.”
“And incidentally your own happiness and prosperity as well as Mr.
Wilde’s?”
“Exactly,” I smiled. But I could have throttled him for taking that
tone.
He looked at me in silence for a while and then said very gently, “Why
don’t you give up your books and studies, Mr. Castaigne, and take a
tramp among the mountains somewhere or other? You used to be fond of
fishing. Take a cast or two at the trout in the Rangelys.”
“I don’t care for fishing any more,” I answered, without a shade of
annoyance in my voice.
“You used to be fond of everything,” he continued; “athletics,
yachting, shooting, riding—”
“I have never cared to ride since my fall,” I said quietly.
“Ah, yes, your fall,” he repeated, looking away from me.
I thought this nonsense had gone far enough, so I brought the
conversation back to Mr. Wilde; but he was scanning my face again in a
manner highly offensive to me.
“Mr. Wilde,” he repeated, “do you know what he did this afternoon? He
came downstairs and nailed a sign over the hall door next to mine; it
read:
“MR. WILDE,
REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS.
Third Bell.”
“Do you know what a Repairer of Reputations can be?”
“I do,” I replied, suppressing the rage within.
“Oh,” he said again.
Louis and Constance came strolling by and stopped to ask if we would
join them. Hawberk looked at his watch. At the same moment a puff of
smoke shot from the casemates of Castle William, and the boom of the
sunset gun rolled across the water and was re-echoed from the Highlands
opposite. The flag came running down from the flag-pole, the bugles
sounded on the white decks of the warships, and the first electric
light sparkled out from the Jersey shore.
As I turned into the city with Hawberk I heard Constance murmur
something to Louis which I did not understand; but Louis whispered “My
darling,” in reply; and again, walking ahead with Hawberk through the
square I heard a murmur of “sweetheart,” and “my own Constance,” and
I knew the time had nearly arrived when I should speak of important
matters with my cousin Louis.