THE CINEMATOGRAPH
On Monday I went out for the first time. I did not go to the office. I
wanted to walk. I thought fresh air and exercise would drive away the
blue devils that had me by the throat. McKnight insisted on a long day
in his car, but I refused.
“I don’t know why not,” he said sulkily. “I can’t walk. I haven’t
walked two consecutive blocks in three years. Automobiles have made
legs mere ornaments—and some not even that. We could have Johnson out
there chasing us over the country at five dollars an hour!”
“He can chase us just as well at five miles an hour,” I said. “But what
gets me, McKnight, is why I am under surveillance at all. How do the
police know _I_ was accused of that thing?”
“The young lady who sent the flowers—she isn’t likely to talk, is she?”
“No. That is, I didn’t say it was a lady.” I groaned as I tried to get
my splinted arm into a coat. “Anyhow, she didn’t tell,” I finished with
conviction, and McKnight laughed.
It had rained in the early morning, and Mrs. Klopton predicted more
showers. In fact, so firm was her belief and so determined her eye that
I took the umbrella she proffered me.
“Never mind,” I said. “We can leave it next door; I have a story to
tell you, Richey, and it requires proper setting.”
McKnight was puzzled, but he followed me obediently round to the
kitchen entrance of the empty house. It was unlocked, as I had
expected. While we climbed to the upper floor I retailed the events of
the previous night.
“It’s the finest thing I ever heard of,” McKnight said, staring up at
the ladder and the trap. “What a vaudeville skit it would make! Only
you ought not to have put your foot on her hand. They don’t do it in
the best circles.”
I wheeled on him impatiently.
“You don’t understand the situation at all, Richey!” I exclaimed. “What
would you say if I tell you it was the hand of a lady? It was covered
with rings.”
“A lady!” he repeated. “Why, I’d say it was a darned compromising
situation, and that the less you say of it the better. Look here,
Lawrence, I think you dreamed it. You’ve been in the house too much. I
take it all back: you do need exercise.”
“She escaped through this door, I suppose,” I said as patiently as I
could. “Evidently down the back staircase. We might as well go down
that way.”
“According to the best precedents in these affairs, we should find a
glove about here,” he said as we started down. But he was more
impressed than he cared to own. He examined the dusty steps carefully,
and once, when a bit of loose plaster fell just behind him, he started
like a nervous woman.
“What I don’t understand is why you let her go,” he said, stopping
once, puzzled. “You’re not usually quixotic.”
“When we get out into the country, Richey,” I replied gravely, “I am
going to tell you another story, and if you don’t tell me I’m a fool
and a craven, on the strength of it, you are no friend of mine.”
We stumbled through the twilight of the staircase into the blackness of
the shuttered kitchen. The house had the moldy smell of closed
buildings: even on that warm September morning it was damp and chilly.
As we stepped into the sunshine McKnight gave a shiver.
“Now that we are out,” he said, “I don’t mind telling you that I have
been there before. Do you remember the night you left, and, the face at
the window?”
“When you speak of it—yes.”
“Well, I was curious about that thing,” he went on, as we started up
the street, “and I went back. The street door was unlocked, and I
examined every room. I was Mrs. Klopton’s ghost that carried a light,
and clumb.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Only a clean place rubbed on the window opposite your dressing-room.
Splendid view of an untidy interior. If that house is ever occupied,
you’d better put stained glass in that window of yours.”
As we turned the corner I glanced back. Half a block behind us Johnson
was moving our way slowly. When he saw me he stopped and proceeded with
great deliberation to light a cigar. By hurrying, however, he caught
the car that we took, and stood unobtrusively on the rear platform. He
looked fagged, and absent-mindedly paid our fares, to McKnight’s
delight.
“We will give him a run for his money,” he declared, as the car moved
countryward. “Conductor, let us off at the muddiest lane you can find.”
At one o’clock, after a six-mile ramble, we entered a small country
hotel. We had seen nothing of Johnson for a half hour. At that time he
was a quarter of a mile behind us, and losing rapidly. Before we had
finished our luncheon he staggered into the inn. One of his boots was
under his arm, and his whole appearance was deplorable. He was coated
with mud, streaked with perspiration, and he limped as he walked. He
chose a table not far from us and ordered Scotch. Beyond touching his
hat he paid no attention to us.
“I’m just getting my second wind,” McKnight declared. “How do you feel,
Mr. Johnson? Six or eight miles more and we’ll all enjoy our dinners.”
Johnson put down the glass he had raised to his lips without replying.
The fact was, however, that I was like Johnson. I was soft from my
week’s inaction, and I was pretty well done up. McKnight, who was a
well spring of vitality and high spirits, ordered a strange concoction,
made of nearly everything in the bar, and sent it over to the
detective, but Johnson refused it.
“I hate that kind of person,” McKnight said pettishly. “Kind of a
fellow that thinks you’re going to poison his dog if you offer him a
bone.”
When we got back to the car line, with Johnson a draggled and drooping
tail to the kite, I was in better spirits. I had told McKnight the
story of the three hours just after the wreck; I had not named the
girl, of course; she had my promise of secrecy. But I told him
everything else. It was a relief to have a fresh mind on it: I had
puzzled so much over the incident at the farm-house, and the necklace
in the gold bag, that I had lost perspective.
He had been interested, but inclined to be amused, until I came to the
broken chain. Then he had whistled softly.
“But there are tons of fine gold chains made every year,” he said. “Why
in the world do you think that the—er—smeary piece came from that
necklace?”
I had looked around. Johnson was far behind, scraping the mud off his
feet with a piece of stick.
“I have the short end of the chain in the sealskin bag,” I reminded
him. “When I couldn’t sleep this morning I thought I would settle it,
one way or the other. It was hell to go along the way I had been doing.
And—there’s no doubt about it, Rich. It’s the same chain.”
We walked along in silence until we caught the car back to town.
“Well,” he said finally, “you know the girl, of course, and I don’t.
But if you like her—and I think myself you’re rather hard hit, old
man—I wouldn’t give a whoop about the chain in the gold purse. It’s
just one of the little coincidences that hang people now and then. And
as for last night—if she’s the kind of a girl you say she is, and you
think she had anything to do with that, you—you’re addled, that’s all.
You can depend on it, the lady of the empty house last week is the lady
of last night. And yet your train acquaintance was in Altoona at that
time.”
Just before we got off the car, I reverted to the subject again. It was
never far back in my mind.
“About the—young lady of the train, Rich,” I said, with what I suppose
was elaborate carelessness, “I don’t want you to get a wrong
impression. I am rather unlikely to see her again, but even if I do,
I—I believe she is already ‘bespoke,’ or next thing to it.”
He made no reply, but as I opened the door with my latch-key he stood
looking up at me from the pavement with his quizzical smile.
“Love is like the measles,” he orated. “The older you get it, the worse
the attack.”
Johnson did not appear again that day. A small man in a raincoat took
his place. The next morning I made my initial trip to the office, the
raincoat still on hand. I had a short conference with Miller, the
district attorney, at eleven. Bronson was under surveillance, he said,
and any attempt to sell the notes to him would probably result in their
recovery. In the meantime, as I knew, the Commonwealth had continued
the case, in hope of such contingency.
At noon I left the office and took a veterinarian to see Candida, the
injured pony. By one o’clock my first day’s duties were performed, and
a long Sahara of hot afternoon stretched ahead. McKnight, always glad
to escape from the grind, suggested a vaudeville, and in sheer _ennui_
I consented. I could neither ride, drive nor golf, and my own company
bored me to distraction.
“Coolest place in town these days,” he declared. “Electric fans, breezy
songs, airy costumes. And there’s Johnson just behind—the coldest
proposition in Washington.”
He gravely bought three tickets and presented the detective with one.
Then we went in. Having lived a normal, busy life, the theater in the
afternoon is to me about on a par with ice-cream for breakfast. Up on
the stage a very stout woman in short pink skirts, with a smile that
McKnight declared looked like a slash in a roll of butter, was singing
nasally, with a laborious kick at the end of each verse. Johnson, two
rows ahead, went to sleep. McKnight prodded me with his elbow.
“Look at the first box to the right,” he said, in a stage whisper. “I
want you to come over at the end of this act.”
It was the first time I had seen her since I put her in the cab at
Baltimore. Outwardly I presume I was calm, for no one turned to stare
at me, but every atom of me cried out at the sight of her. She was
leaning, bent forward, lips slightly parted, gazing raptly at the
Japanese conjurer who had replaced what McKnight disrespectfully called
the Columns of Hercules. Compared with the draggled lady of the
farm-house, she was radiant.
For that first moment there was nothing but joy at the sight of her.
McKnight’s touch on my arm brought me back to reality.
“Come over and meet them,” he said. “That’s the cousin Miss West is
visiting, Mrs. Dallas.”
But I would not go. After he went I sat there alone, painfully
conscious that I was being pointed out and stared at from the box. The
abominable Japanese gave way to yet more atrocious performing dogs.
“How many offers of marriage will the young lady in the box have?” The
dog stopped sagely at ‘none,’ and then pulled out a card that said
eight. Wild shouts of glee by the audience. “The fools,” I muttered.
After a little I glanced over. Mrs. Dallas was talking to McKnight, but
She was looking straight at me. She was flushed, but more calm than I,
and she did not bow. I fumbled for my hat, but the next moment I saw
that they were going, and I sat still. When McKnight came back he was
triumphant.
“I’ve made an engagement for you,” he said. “Mrs. Dallas asked me to
bring you to dinner to-night, and I said I knew you would fall all over
yourself to go. You are requested to bring along the broken arm, and
any other souvenirs of the wreck that you may possess.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I declared, struggling against my
inclination. “I can’t even tie my necktie, and I have to have my food
cut for me.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said easily. “I’ll send Stogie over to fix
you up, and Mrs. Dal knows all about the arm. I told her.”
(Stogie is his Japanese factotum, so called because he is lean, a
yellowish brown in color, and because he claims to have been shipped
into this country in a box.)
The Cinematograph was finishing the program. The house was dark and the
music had stopped, as it does in the circus just before somebody risks
his neck at so much a neck in the Dip of Death, or the hundred-foot
dive. Then, with a sort of shock, I saw on the white curtain the
announcement:
THE NEXT PICTURE
IS THE DOOMED WASHINGTON FLIER, TAKEN A SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE SCENE
OF THE WRECK ON THE FATAL MORNING OF SEPTEMBER TENTH. TWO MILES FARTHER
ON IT MET WITH ALMOST COMPLETE ANNIHILATION.
I confess to a return of some of the sickening sensations of the wreck;
people around me were leaning forward with tense faces. Then the
letters were gone, and I saw a long level stretch of track, even the
broken stone between the ties standing out distinctly. Far off under a
cloud of smoke a small object was rushing toward us and growing larger
as it came.
Now it was on us, a mammoth in size, with huge drivers and a colossal
tender. The engine leaped aside, as if just in time to save us from
destruction, with a glimpse of a stooping fireman and a grimy engineer.
The long train of sleepers followed. From a forward vestibule a porter
in a white coat waved his hand. The rest of the cars seemed still
wrapped in slumber. With mixed sensations I saw my own car, Ontario,
fly past, and then I rose to my feet and gripped McKnight’s shoulder.
On the lowest step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man.
His black derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing away,
and his coat was flying open in the wind. He was swung well out from
the car, his free hand gripping a small valise, every muscle tense for
a jump.
“Good God, that’s my man!” I said hoarsely, as the audience broke into
applause. McKnight half rose: in his seat ahead Johnson stifled a yawn
and turned to eye me.
I dropped into my chair limply, and tried to control my excitement.
“The man on the last platform of the train,” I said. “He was just about
to leap; I’ll swear that was my bag.”
“Could you see his face?” McKnight asked in an undertone. “Would you
know him again?”
“No. His hat was pulled down and his head was bent. I’m going back to
find out where that picture was taken. They say two miles, but it may
have been forty.”
The audience, busy with its wraps, had not noticed. Mrs. Dallas and
Alison West had gone. In front of us Johnson had dropped his hat and
was stooping for it.
“This way,” I motioned to McKnight, and we wheeled into the narrow
passage beside us, back of the boxes. At the end there was a door
leading into the wings, and as we went boldly through I turned the key.
The final set was being struck, and no one paid any attention to us.
Luckily they were similarly indifferent to a banging at the door I had
locked, a banging which, I judged, signified Johnson.
“I guess we’ve broken up his interference,” McKnight chuckled.
Stage hands were hurrying in every direction; pieces of the side wall
of the last drawing-room menaced us; a switchboard behind us was
singing like a tea-kettle. Everywhere we stepped we were in somebody’s
way. At last we were across, confronting a man in his shirt sleeves,
who by dots and dashes of profanity seemed to be directing the chaos.
“Well?” he said, wheeling on us. “What can I do for you?”
“I would like to ask,” I replied, “if you have any idea just where the
last cinematograph picture was taken.”
“Broken board—picnickers—lake?”
“No. The Washington Flier.”
He glanced at my bandaged arm.
“The announcement says two miles,” McKnight put in, “but we should like
to know whether it is railroad miles, automobile miles, or policeman
miles.”
“I am sorry I can’t tell you,” he replied, more civilly. “We get those
pictures by contract. We don’t take them ourselves.”
“Where are the company’s offices?”
“New York.” He stepped forward and grasped a super by the shoulder.
“What in blazes are you doing with that gold chair in a kitchen set?
Take that piece of pink plush there and throw it over a soap box, if
you haven’t got a kitchen chair.”
I had not realized the extent of the shock, but now I dropped into a
chair and wiped my forehead. The unexpected glimpse of Alison West,
followed almost immediately by the revelation of the picture, had left
me limp and unnerved. McKnight was looking at his watch.
“He says the moving picture people have an office down-town. We can
make it if we go now.”
So he called a cab, and we started at a gallop. There was no sign of
the detective. “Upon my word,” Richey said, “I feel lonely without
him.”
The people at the down-town office of the cinematograph company were
very obliging. The picture had been taken, they said, at M——, just two
miles beyond the scene of the wreck. It was not much, but it was
something to work on. I decided not to go home, but to send McKnight’s
Jap for my clothes, and to dress at the Incubator. I was determined, if
possible, to make my next day’s investigations without Johnson. In the
meantime, even if it was for the last time, I would see Her that night.
I gave Stogie a note for Mrs. Klopton, and with my dinner clothes there
came back the gold bag, wrapped in tissue paper.