My voice trailed off into silence. For I suddenly knew that she was thinking of her own utter helplessness. And as the fact tortured her nne, free spirit, so also it tortured mine. I reached my hand toward hers; then, since she did not see, withdrew it. There could be no help for either of us in that contact—nothing but a deeper confusion. Then I turned and walked away across the room, and sat gloomily on the edge of the bed.
We must have remained silent for several minutes. It seemed an hour to me, as I sat there, brooding, and struggling against the tendency to brood.
Then I heard her step, and her voice; and looked up to find her standing over me. She was actually smiling—a resolute smile.
“Forgive me, Anthony,” she said. And then, before I could exclaim at this, she added, enthusiastically, like the girl she often seems—
“Let's make the new scales now!”
For a moment I could only look at her, wondering at her astonishing buoyancy of spirit. Then, as she was herself carrying my phonograph to the table and adjusting the horn, I got up—still heavy and a thought bewildered—and brought a box of cylinders.
While I was at this, she walked a few times to the window and back, swinging her arms freely, like a boy, and inhaling deep breaths. Her collar evidently confined her throat, for she tore it open with an unconscious vigor that displaced a hook and sent it flying against the window. She seemed not to notice this. She swung up on the balls of her feet and ran through a number of vocal exercises. It thrilled me to hear again that wonderful voice, with the firm resonance and the fine quality that always, to me, makes her seem something more than woman.
“It's a wonder I can bring the tones out at all,” she observed, half to herself. “I have n't sung a note for days.”
Next she began running scales; very carefully and precisely, her eyebrows puckered into an intent frown. And I watched her white throat, and round chin, and delicately curving mouth.
She caught me looking at her, and flashed a smile at me. Then, with her eyes on mine, took in a quick deep breath that filled her chest out solidly, and, full voice, broke into the old familiar waltz song from “Romeo and Juliet.”
I knew then that I had never really heard her sing before. She saw the surprise on my face, I know, for her eyes suddenly sparkled anti sprung away from mine and she flushed with pleasure; but she went right on with the song—sang it clear through, managing the lace-like coloratura work with perfect ease and precision, unconsciously throwing her whole body into the glorious, swaying rhythm of the waltz, and letting out a volume of tone—of sheer, luscious tone, without a particle of “wood” in it—that filled the room, that would have filled the greatest opera house in the world, that throbbed about my ears and set my emotions vibrating in harmony with it and with the mood of the singer that animated it.
When she had done, I stood motionless there. It seemed to me that echoes of that wonderful voice were still floating to my sense-consciousness from every quarter of the shabby little room. I know that I hail to look out for a moment at the sunlight on the roofs beyond the window, and myself take in a deep breath that, I fear, was half a sigh.
She was standing by me.
“We must get to work,” she said.
I put a cylinder on the machine. First I looked at her and tried to speak, but could not. I don't know what it could have been that I thought I wanted to say. Probably it was nothing more than the inarticulate emotions her singing had stirred, groping for some outward expression in words.
Her eyes were very bright. I motioned her to go ahead.
“You have n't wound it up,” she said, and chuckled softly. I can not account for her moods. But, for that matter, I think I chuckled with her.
We made twelve records. I believe they will prove to be even better, on the whole, than the ten I destroyed. So, whatever happens, I have again my close-interval scale; again I have the selfish gratification of knowing that I have been enabled to establish a basis of scientific interval comparison for the use of all students of primitive music. It is Heloise's last gift to me, done in a strange sort of joy that, even to-night, breaks triumphantly through the shadow that lies on her life and mine.
She watched me while I removed the last of the twelve cylinders, and carefully sealed it in its separate box, and wrote the label. Then she said:
“Oh, Anthony, it is so—worth while!”
All I could say in reply—so full was my heart—was:
“Yes, dear. Work is the answer.”
And so close were we now, that I knew she did not think my reply inept.
She looked at her watch, then soberly reflected. “It is half past one, Anthony,” she said. Conscious that I still found some difficulty in talking, she added: “Would it do any good for me to go—with you, or alone?”
“No,” said I, shaking my head. “Not now. It would only excite him. And that would help nobody.”
“I know,” said she. “I hate to be passive, this way. I feel as if I were shirking—”
“You are n't. It will take some courage to do what you must do.”
“I know,” she said again. “Be patient, keep steady; help you that way I know, Anthony.”
It had occurred to me, when I left Crocker in the morning, that, in the event of any actual physical encounter, there would be a quite unnecessary danger to me in wearing my glasses. I thought of this again, now; and going to the bureau I got my spectacle case and slipped it into my coat pocket.
Heloise watched me, but asked no questions. I put on my hat, and took my stick from the corner by the door.
“Good-by, Heloise,” I said. I knew that unless we parted swiftly my will would weaken and I should take her in my arms. So I only said good-by, and opened the door.
But she came right forward, and took my hand. Our eyes met. What I saw in hers reassured me. She seemed very steady and strong.
“Anthony,” she said, “I have been selfish, and weak. I have made it hard for you. But you can count on me now.”
I tried to murmur a protest to this, but she swept on: “I am going to do whatever you decide for me. I shan't make any more difficulties. Now go. God bless you, Anthony.”
She dropped my hand, and stepped back.
I stood there and fumbled the door knob. I felt that I was almost certainly going to draw her to me and kiss those wonderful eyes that are the light of my soul.
But she still looked strong.
“I wonder,” she said, musingly, “if there was ever, anywhere in the world, a man exactly like you.”
Then she turned away. “You'd better go,” she said, with a little gesture.
I went then.
Crocker was not in his room, at the Wagon-lits. I knocked several times; then, turning the knob and finding that the door was unlocked, walked in and looked around.
I was about to leave when the thought of that sheath knife came to me. It was an unpleasant thought; but once it had got into my mind I could not, it: seemed, get it out. I stood there in the middle of the room, thinking about it. The suitcase was still on the chair by the wall, closed.
I took a step toward it. Then another. Then, suddenly conscious of my weakness, I went over to it and threw back the cover.
The knife was not there. I rummaged through the garments and the odds and ends that filled the suit-case. But the knife was gone.
I rushed out of the room and ran the length of the corridor. I hurried down the stairs; looked about the office and lounge; went to the bar. There was no sign of him.
I was turning away from the barroom door, when I realized that a fat man was beckoning to me from a table by the opposite wall. He was sitting alone, an empty liqueur glass before him. Across the table was another empty glass.
He was beckoning violently, with his whole arm. I had seen that round face somewhere. Then I remembered. He was on the ship with us, crossing the Pacific—the vaudeville manager from Cincinnati—played fan-tan all the lime. I never did know his name. He wore a genial grin now. Perhaps he would have some information for me. At least, I could ask him. So I crossed over.
He wrung my hand. “How's little Mr. Music Master,” he cried. “Sit down. Oh, sure you can—sit right down there!”
I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes of two. I had said that I would be at Crocker's room at two. It was pretty important that I should keep my word. Why could n't I think more clearly? He might be somewhere about the hotel, of course. If only the knife hadn't disappeared! Suddenly I wanted to rush back upstairs and look through that suit-case again. The knife might have slipped down one side. Yes, he might have done that in getting something else cut of the suit-case.... Come to think of it, I had n't looked in the dining-room!
Then I heard what the fat vaudeville manager was saying:
“Remember the Port Watch? Big fellow—walked the deck so much—and kept a sort o' slow bun sizzling all the time? Well—”
“Have you seen him?” I asked quickly.
“Sure, right here. Not five minutes back. Had a couple of drinks with me. But say, I don't think he knew me. He acted funny—walked and sat very erect—looked solemn and did n't say much.”
“Which way did he go?” said I, trying to appear composed. But I felt him looking quizzically at me, as if saying to himself, “Well, here's another of 'em.”
“Did he have his hat?” said I, on the heels of my other question.
“No. I think he went up to get it. Funny thing. I did n't make out what was the matter until he pulled out a big knife—in a lacquered sheath, it was—and said—what was it he said?—Oh, yes—'They pretty near put it over on me, but I'm too smart for them.' That was it. He whispered it, real mysterious—'They pretty near put it over on me, but I'm too smart for them.' Do you know, he made me feel damn uncomfortable. I think the man ain't safe.”
I listened to all this, in a way. At least, I seem to recall it now, word for word. But I was trying to decide whether to go upstairs on the chance of heading him off there, or to hurry directly back to theHôtel de Chine.
I decided on the latter course. I think the vaudeville man had just about uttered the last sentence recorded above when I turned and ran out of the room. He must have been puzzled.
Yes, I ran. One or two of the drinking crowd shouted after me, I think. I ran down the corridor, through the lounge, and out to the street. T remember that two Chinese hall boys stood gaping as I passed. And parties of tourists looked up from their after-tiffin coffee and their drinks—always the drinks.
I leaped into a rickshaw, and called—
“Two plecee coolie! Two piecee coolie!” And then, when one brown-legged ragamuffin had picked up the shafts and another had fallen in behind the seat, added, still in a shrill voice, “Hôtel de Chine—chop, chop!”
It was incongruous, that absurd pidgin-English at such a time.
But it was effective. I have never traveled so rapidly through the streets of Peking. I found two Mexican dollars in my pocket, and held them up, one in each hand.
“Chop, chop! Chop, chop!” I cried again. And the coolies put their heads down and ran with all the strength that was in them.
They pulled up in my shabby little street, with a jerk that nearly threw me out. I sprang down, threw the two dollars on the seat, and ran into the hotel.
Then I stopped short.
For standing by the clerk's desk, looking over the board that hung there with our names—Hel-oise's and mine—in plain view, stood Crocker. He was peering closely from line to line down the first column of names, guiding his eye with an unsteady forefinger. He stood up very straight, with feet placed a little way apart. From the side pocket of his coat projected the silver tip of the knife handle, beneath which I could see a half-inch of black lacquer.
I drew my spectacle case from my pocket, took off my glasses, and carefully put them away.
He was intent on the list of names and room numbers. Behind the counter stood the little French manager, leaning forward and watching him rather coldly. But Crocker was oblivious to all but the one idea; his finger wobbled slowly downward from name to name.
My first impulse was to go directly up to him. But what then? What could I say or do? He was past reason, surely; but not past the use of his physical strength. He had been every bit as drunk as this when he knocked the waiter down in the hotel at Yokohama. What if he were to knock me down in the same way—with that sudden, short swing of his fist to the chin? I would of course drop as the waiter had dropped, and, like him, would lie inert, leaving Crocker free to rove at will.
My eyes turned to the stairway, up and down which I have walked or run so many times during this eventful week.
That was the place. I would at least be above him there... if I could pass him and reach it safely.
I stepped forward, cautiously
The manager was watching me as well, now, with knit brows. But this was no time to consider him.
Crocker was having some difficulty in reading the list of names. His finger went back to the top of the board, and again began wobbling slowly down from line to line.
I tiptoed past him. He did not turn.
I went on up the stairs, but not quite to the top. T hank God, Heloise did not know—not yet.
From this point I could not see him. I waited.
Finally—it seemed a long time, but I suppose it was not more than two or three minutes, really—he appeared at the foot of the stairs. He was swaying a very little. On his face was the crafty expression I had seen there once or twice during our talk in the morning; his eyes had narrowed down to slits. Curiously enough, he was still pale, not red, as I should naturally expect in the case of a man as drunk as he. If he saw me at all, waiting there a little way from the top of the stairway, the sight of me meant nothing to his disordered mind.
He placed one foot on the bottom step, stopped and put his hand to his mouth (standing motionless, as if trying to think), then brought out his knife. He drew it from the sheath. It had a wicked blade—designed for desperate, primitive uses, I should say. The sheath he returned to his pocket.
Then, with a curiously set, almost businesslike expression on his face, he came running up the stairs.
I blocked the way, holding out both arms.
He brushed me aside. But I clung to his arm.
He made an effort to jerk away from me. I said something to him; I don't know now what it was, but I remember that I was very careful not to raise my voice. I think he didn't reply at all; just kept on pulling away from me.
But I clung. I did n't know what on earth I could do. There could be no agreement, no arrangement, with this wild man. Everything had gone to pieces. All my hopes for Heloise had been snuffed out in a moment. And the thought that my grip on his arm was the only thing intervening between her and a fate that I can not even bring myself to think about, almost stops my heart, right now. Then, of course, there was no time to consider even that; I just clung to him.
I think he must have caught hold of the rail at first with his right hand, to steady himself as he silently tugged and jerked; for it was a moment later that he struck me. I had swung around partly behind him, fortunately, and the blow glanced off my head. It made me feel giddy for a moment, but it was not effective. We tottered, and I think he caught again at the rail to keep from falling.
I hung desperately to his thrashing arm, pillowing my head behind it to keep out of his reach.
Then, looking down, I saw his feet, the left a step below the right. I hooked my right foot around his left ankle, and, with all my strength, pulled it toward me. I felt his leg give. I pulled harder; made one great convulsive effort.
He tottered, and fell slowly backward, carrying me a little way with him. Then I found myself sitting jammed against the wall, with a dazed, aching head, while he slid clear to the ground floor and lay there, on his back, his left leg doubled under him in a curiously unnatural way. The manager, I remember, stood over him, very white, pulling with rapid little jabs at his mustache, and saying nothing at all.
It was an oddly silent affair, from beginning to end. I remember looking anxiously upward in the fear that Heloise had heard and run out. I dreaded the look of anguish that would surely be on her face. But she was not there.
I drew myself to my feet. A few steps below me lay the knife. I picked it up, then went on down.
Some China boys were bringing a cot. They lifted Crocker, very carefully, and laid him on it, then carried him into the office. He must have been suffering intense pain; but he only set his teeth hard, and once or twice drew in a quick, hissing breath.
I followed them in, and stood over him. After a moment he rolled his head around and looked at me. I could see that he was puzzled.
“Where am I, Eckhart?” he asked.
“At theHôtel de Chine.”
“TheHôtel de—That's where—”
“It is where I am stopping,” said I.
He whitened, and winced; whether in physical or mental pain I am unable to say.
“My leg is broken,” he observed, a little later.
I nodded.
“Who did it?”
“I did.”
He knit his brows. Then he saw the knife in my hand, and bit his lip. It did not occur to me, then, to put the knife away.
We were silent again. Then—“Take me to the Wagon-lits,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I cried, “we will take care of you here,”
He shook his head, and again bit his lip. “I want to go to the Wagon-lits,” he repeated.
“In one moment, sir.” It was the manager, talking over my shoulder. I stared; for I had not heard him approach. “In a moment, sir. The automobile, it will be here.”
After all, it was better so, if he could stand it. And doubtless he could.
He was looking again at the knife in my hand. I held it up and stared at it. There was a little blood on it, near the point. He reached out, and I gave it to him. It was his property, not mine Very deliberately he drew the sheath from his pocket, put the knife into it, and thrust it into his side pocket. But he thought differently of this; for a moment later, when he thought I was not looking, he transferred it to his inside breast pocket. I wondered a little at this. Then it occurred to me that he feared it might be observed by others, there in the side pocket.
An automobile drew up before the building.
“I have telephone for the doctor,” said the manager. “It is that he will await us at the Wagon-lits.”
Then we carried Crocker out on his cot—the manager, three Chinamen, and I. He was very heavy. And they took him away. He did not look at me again, or speak to me. And I, of course, said nothing.
I hesitated outside the door of my room, trying to think out what I should say to Heloise. But I could not think very clearly. Neither could I stand there indefinitely.
I went in, opening the door very softly, and closing it softly behind me. My principal thought, at the moment, was of getting across to my bureau and brushing my hair and straightening my tie before Heloise should see me. I could not bear to think of coming before her with these visible evidences of the struggle upon me.
But I could not get beyond the bed. I sank down on it, leaning against the footboard. I was sitting this way when Heloise came in.
She came swiftly toward me, a hundred questions in her eyes. She never before looked so lovely to me as standing there before me, blue of gown and eye—all blue, it seemed to me—something flushed with excitement, her under lip drawn in a little way between her teeth.
0287
“Oh, Anthony,” she said, low and breathless, “you are hurt!”
I shook my head. But she was staring down at my left hand, that lay on my knee. My gaze followed hers. There was blood on my wrist. It must have run down my arm.
She helped me take off my coat, and with a small pair of scissors that she got from her room cut off my shirt sleeve at the shoulder. It was wet and stained with red.
There was a gash in my upper arm.
She held up the arm and looked closely at it. I liked the direct, practical way she went about it.
“It is n't an artery,” she mused, studying the wound. “Not a big one, anyway.” And she washed it, and drew it together with plaster from my emergency kit, and bandaged it very neatly. Then she helped me to lie down—brought pillows from her own room to place behind my head.
She did not ask one question; just worked to make me comfortable. Finally she sat on the edge of the bed, and critically looked me over.
“You'll be all right,” she said thoughtfully. “I know one thing that is the matter. We both forgot all about luncheon.”
I had not thought of it.
“Well,” she went on, “I feel a little faint myself. I couldn't think what on earth was the matter until it came over me all at once that I've eaten nothing to-day but one very small breakfast.”
I let her ring for the waiter and order food. During this space of time I lay still, trying to think how I should tell her. Every moment it grew harder. But at last I caught her hand, when she was passing the bed, and drew her down beside me. She knew well enough what was on my mind, but she only stroked my forehead with her soft, cool fingers.
In this time, so pregnant for her, and so painful, she was thinking how she might spare me!
I told her exactly what had taken place; clumsily enough but, at least, clearly.
She had been there in her room all the time, and had not heard a single unusual sound.
She did not say much, beyond a thoughtful question or two. The tray came, and she arranged the little meal as attractively as she could, there on the edge of the bed. But we both grew more and more sober as the moments went by. The thought of poor Crocker in acute physical pain, that once splendid body of his crippled and useless, disturbed us both. I was glad to see that there were tears in Heloise's eyes.
After the belated luncheon I felt distinctly better. At four o'clock I got up. Heloise, who was doing her best to keep busy about her own room, came to the door and suggested a walk.
“It won't hurt either of us,” she added, with a wan smile.
So we went out and strolled over to that great thoroughfare, the Hata High Street, where the yellow people swarm, and the uniformed police direct the traffic with an almost Occidental sense of order, and the long brown camel trains from Mongolia and Kansu pad softly over the very modern pavement and under the electric street lights.
We stayed out until nearly six. But our spirits did not rise as we had hoped. For whatever way our thoughts turned, they found no light. We did not have to talk about this; now and then our eyes met, and that was enough. Heloise was strangely, almost completely passive. Even in such trivial matters as picking our way through the traffic—where, I know, it would be natural for her to look out for herself in that brisk, self-reliant way that young American women have—she would turn to me for guidance, and press against my arm. She watched me a good deal, too, to make sure that I was not becoming tired.
At last we came back to the hotel. As we ascended the stairs I slipped my arm through hers. She looked up at my touch, and tried to smile; and her eyes seemed to cling to mine for a moment. In the dim light I could feel them as well as I could see them.
I opened my door, and stepped aside to let her pass in. Then we both stopped and looked down at a white envelope that lay on the sill. I picked it up, then entered and closed the door while she switched on the light.
I turned the envelope over and over in my hand. She watched me for a fleeting second, almost timidly, then went into her own room to take off her hat.
The envelope bore the imprint of the hotel. I opened it, and read the following:
“It is with regret that the management begs to inform you of a previous engagement of rooms 16 and 18 for the 15th instant, necessitating that the rooms be vacated by that date.”
Heloise came to the door, and stood there observing me. She was tucking back a rebellious strand of hair; and she looked very slim and girlish, standing that way with both arms raised.
I went over to the casement window, and threw it open. Then I sat down by it, on one of the chairs of bent iron.
She came toward me, disturbed but hesitant.
I handed her the paper. She read it, standing very st ill. Then she looked up. Her face twisted a little.
“Why, Anthony,” she said, with a catch in her voice, “we 're put out of the hotel!”
The sentence ended in an odd, explosive little laugh. Then, abruptly, she slipped to the floor beside me, threw her arms across my knees, hid her face on them, and sobbed.
There was nothing I could say, of course. The matter was absurdly unimportant compared with the grimmer uncertainties before us. Yet it had hit me with almost the same force.
I laid my hand on her shoulder. I stroked her head. After a little she groped for my hand with one of hers and, when she found it, clung tightly to it.
And all the time I was thinking how like a child she seemed. I believe that is the supreme quality of the artist—childlikeness. It is a quality that carries the adult worker through hells of suffering and heavens of unearthly joy; and it is a quality for which small allowance is made in this particular world.
It will soon be dawn. I have written almost all night. Probably now I had better try to get some sleep.
She came to the door—hours ago. There was on her face that new passive quality; I can not define it exactly, even in my own thinking.
“Anthony,” she said, with choirs of suppressed music in her low voice, “would it be better, tomorrow you know, for us to...” She had to begin again. “Do you wish me to go away from you? You must tell me—not what you want, but what you believe is best.”
I could only look at her for a moment. I could n't think at all.
“Heloise dear,” I said finally, “I don't know what is best. But I know I can't let you go. Not yet. Not with everything uncertain, like this. We'll look up another hotel in the morning.”
She pursed her lips. Then, with a look of sober relief that she could not altogether control she slipped back into her own room. And I closed the shrunken door behind her, and hung my raincoat over the narrow opening that was left.
WE are in another dingy little hotel—off to the eastward of the Legation Quarter, opposite the German wall. We packed our trunks last night. It is forlorn business, of course. But Heloise has not seemed greatly depressed. I suppose that any activity is a relief to her spirits after the strain.
She is out now; and I am a little worried. The situation has switched about rather oddly, it appears, within the hours, and it is I who must play the passive rôle.
Directly after breakfast we rode over with our band luggage and engaged these rooms. I left Heloise here, and myself went back for the trunks. It took me some little time.
When I returned, I found a note in my room. Heloise had suspended it by a string from my chandelier, where I could not miss it.
There were only a few sentences, penciled in haste. She feels that she must see Crocker herself. And now that he, poor fellow, has lost the advantage of his greater physical strength, they can meet as equals, in a sense.
This is natural, I think—and right. There would have to be a meeting; I can see that now. But it is not so easy to sit quietly here. I can do nothing, except to go on writing until she....
They are calling in the hall. I think they want me at the telephone.
It was Heloise.
I am still to wait. She asks it; and I will. And she is right. It is the only thing to do. This is her task, not mine.
But what a task for her slender hands—alone there in the great hotel where men drink and bargain, where tourists swarm, where women parade!
I wish I could know something of the details, and of what is to be done. If I could only help!
“Anthony,” she said. “He is gone.”
“Gone!” I repeated stupidly.
“He died this morning, Anthony. He was not alive when the automobile arrived here.”
“But,” I blundered on, “I don't understand—it was a bad fall, but—”
“It was not the fall,” she said. Then, “Wait there, I shall need you.”
I heard the click that cut me off, but for a moment I just stood there with the receiver still pressed to my ear.
It was I myself who had let him have the knife.
HELOISE called me over to the big hotel this noon, and we had a little talk. I was glad to find her completely mistress of herself. She was very grave, but she had a direct, practical way about her that, I could see, had instantly commanded respect among these strangers. One thought that had worried me not a little during the hours of her absence was that she might have difficulty in identifying herself as Crocker's widow. But it was evident that no such question had arisen.
She told me that there was some uncertainty as to whether the American Minister or the Consul-General at Tientsin should be brought into the matter, and asked me to speak with the manager.
I was down in the main corridor, near the office, waiting for an opportunity to do this, when I encountered the Cincinnati man. He rose from a table, in the lounge, and crooked his finger at me. I joined him.
He glanced about to make sure that no one was within earshot, then said, talking around his cigar: “I saw them bring him in. Is he dead?”
I nodded.
“Looked like it. Too bad.” He lowered his cigar and pursed his lips.
“Do the job himself?”
I nodded again.
“Thought so. The idiots brought him right through here, with the knife lying on top of the robe. Pure luck that it happened to be morning, and nobody much around. I've been looking him up. It's awkward—awkward as hell. I saw his wife. You want to keep her out of the publicity, I take it.”
The man was not unkind. He was studying me with shrewd eyes,—I knew that,—but he was so physically big and solid, and so plainly a man of affairs in that rough, practical world that Crocker himself had inhabited, that I found myself leaning on him. He could help. And, as I returned his quiet gaze, I knew that I could trust him. I realized, all at once, that the code has its good side as well as its bad.
“Has there got to be publicity?” I asked.
He squinted his eyes, took a thoughtful pull at his cigar, and nodded. “Rather,” he replied. “Everybody knows the Crocker family. And this fellow himself has been on the front page now and then. Publicity? Good God, man, stop and think a minute! He's dead. And death is one thing you can't hush up so easily. I know our newspaper boys—and I knowthat.... Look here, suppose I take hold with you. Glad to do what I can.”
I nodded at this, and said—“I wish you would.”
“All right. But tell me first, is Mrs. Crocker all right? The correspondents are sure to get at her, you know. Can she meet them, and keep cool?”
“Yes,” said I, “she can do that.”
His gaze lingered a moment on my face.
“I thought so,” he replied. “She looks like the right kind.”
For a little time he sat back in his chair, smoking and meditating. Then he said:
“I'll get the Consul-General on the wire and ask him to come over himself. We'll have to tell him everything, but I think we can satisfy him—I can bear witness that he was drunk and making threats. So can you. The little Frenchman from the other hotel must have seen the thing. He sputtered around like a crazy man.”
“Yes,” said I, “Crocker was alive when they started over here in the automobile.”
“I gathered that. Well, we can give a pretty complete story, among us all. I don't know just how much you can tell, of course, but I advise you to come out with everything you know. Then, when we are all together, we can agree on what we'll give to the press. The managers of both hotels will be glad to keep it quiet. And the Consul-General's all right—he'll help us out to that extent, I think. You see, there's no public interest to consider, nothing to hide but news. It's the lady being involved, you know.”
He smoked a moment longer, then concluded:
“I think we can swing it. You go up now and advise the lady to keep very quiet and follow instructions, while I'm getting Tientsin on the wire. Then meet me here.”
When I came down, twenty minutes later, he met me with a cheerful sort of steadiness and led the way to a corner of the lounge.
“The old boy's coming himself,” he said, as we dropped into chairs. “I'm dam' glad. This is no job for student interpreters.”
For a few moments we talked along in a desultory way. We had to wait for a few hours—no escaping that. I could see that the Cincinnati man had assumed the task of keeping me occupied, and I liked him for it.
He gave me his card, by the way. His name is
Hindmann. He has large interests in vaudeville theaters through the Middle West.
As we chatted, my share in this strange drama of Crocker's life and death seemed to be clearing itself up in my mind and taking form as a narrative. Hindmann had advised me to tell everything to the Consul-General. I was wondering how I could ever do it. For one moment I even thought of handing him my journal and asking him to read it. The next moment, of course, I realized how impossible it would be to do that—for this most intimately personal of my belongings is no longer mine; it is more than a part Heloise's. And the story I tell the Consul-General must be only my story.
Not an easy thing to do—disentangle my share in the tragic business from Heloise's and my joint share, and tell only that much while still telling the truth! It is a little out of my line, this lawyer-like sort of thinking.
I must have appeared rather distrait to Hindmann. But if I did, he ignored it. He just sat and smoked—a comfortably fat, round-faced man with shrewd, steady eyes—and talked along in an easy manner. He told me a good deal about his vaudeville business, I remember, and the curious problems that are constantly arising out of the invasion of the entertainment field by the moving pictures. I think I expressed some interest, now and then, even asked an intelligent question or two; but all the time that story was arranging and rearranging itself in the back of my head.
Finally I found myself beginning to tell bits of it to him. After all, why not? He would hear most of it anyway, before night. Then, after a little, it all came rushing out; and I realized that I was making a confidant of this fat man. It had to be, I think. Surely every human being, at certain intense moments of his life, needs a confidant. And I suppose there is never any telling, in a given case, what sort of individual will be chosen for the trust. Crocker chose me—and Sir Robert! I chose Mr. Hindmann, of Cincinnati... sitting there in a corner of the lounge of theHôtel Wagon-lits, talking in a low voice in order that the little groups of American and British folk and Germans might not hear the details of the love that has so very nearly' torn my life to pieces. The usual row of Chinese merchants were over against the wall, I remember, with their glorious display of embroidered silk coats and skirts and scarves and squares hung higher than their heads. Once a great Mandarin walked by and bowed impersonally to us, attended by a dozen or more of lesser Mandarins who bowed in their turn; and they all wore stiff-fitting frock coats, and American shoes, and silk hats that came down almost to the tops of their ears!
Hindmann said very little—just listened, and smoked. Then, when I had finished, he turned away, looked rather steadily out the window, and muttered something about its being a queer world.
Later on, when it was about time for the Consul-General to arrive, he advised me to tell only of my earlier acquaintance with Crocker, of his drinking and his declared intent to do murder, of my happening to be on the stairway in theHôtel de Chinewhen he came running up with a knife in his hand—and the rest in full.
“But,” I protested, “the Consul-General will suspect. There are too many coincidences in that story.”
“Of course there are,” said Hindmann. “And of course he'll see through them. He was n't born yesterday. But he won't say anything about that. Neither will you. And there you are.”
The Consul-General, with his secretary, arrived at four o'clock. He took possession at once of Crocker's effects, locked them in his room and put a seal on the door. Then he called all of us before him in the manager's private office—the two hotel men, Hindmann and myself—and in the course of an hour's steady questioning drew out the story.
After which I and the hotel men withdrew, leaving him with Hindmann for another hour. I don't know what was said; Hindmann has not referred to it since. But a messenger was sent to the Legation and I know that the Consul-General himself did some telephoning.
One curious fact came out during the examination in the manager's office. Before the automobile had got out of the little Chinese street on the way from theHôtel de Chine, Crocker borrowed a pencil and wrote a few hasty sentences on the back of an envelope. The Consul-General asked for the paper; but no one had thought to look for it. It proved not to be in Crocker's pockets. The automobile was called; and there, sure enough, it was, on the floor of the tonneau, just where he had dropped it.
He had written—“Don't send me home. Bury me in China.” It was dated, and signed. The Consul-General thought this over and finally suggested a temporary interment at Tientsin, unless Mrs. Crocker should have other plans. He said that the matter of a lot could easily be arranged.
Hindmann told me at dinner that the Consul-General is perplexed over Heloise's standing in the matter. While outwardly he is considerate to a fault, he explained privately to Hindmann that he can not recognize her in any official way. He is going to send Crocker's effects home under seal, for the courts to dispose of as they may decide. He suggests that Heloise employ counsel to look after her interest in his property. There is, of course, no hurry about this; it will be a year, or two, or three, before the estate can be wound up.
Hindmann was right about the newspaper correspondents. It seems that several of the largest American papers have their own men here. The great news agencies are represented, of course. And all these men got at us to-day.
I find this experience perhaps the most disturbing of all. They are very insistent, these reporters. They make me curiously uncomfortable. Underlying all their questions is a morbid eagerness to uncover a sensation, to make their “stories” as thrilling as possible. Several of them, I think, firmly believe that Crocker was murdered. They have picked up something of his recent history. They know that he was pursuing Heloise, and that he was drinking. Fortunately, none of them appears to connect me with the story in any intimate way. They are all on the trail of that other man, the man with whom she came to China. I realized to-day the curious fact that I do not so much as know the name of that man I am glad I don't.
But they will have to accept our version, I believe—the simple fact that Crocker took his own life in a fit of despondency. There are only seven persons alive who know further details, and only four who know the whole story.
Two of the reporters forced their way to Heloise this evening. It was just after eight. I was in the lounge, waiting for Hindmann. I could n't bear to think of dinner, but was trying to drink some coffee and eat a little toast. The usual evening crowd was swarming about me, talking every language under the sun. A China boy brought a chit. It was just a line asking me if I could come upstairs, signed “H.”
I went up instantly.
The management had given her the use of a small suite on the second floor. The door to her parlor was ajar, and I heard voices. I knocked, and she called to me to come in.
There were the two reporters, hats in hand. Heloise was standing by the table. She was pale, but very erect and composed. She had put on a black tailored suit. It was this, perhaps, that emphasized the ivory whiteness of her skin, and subdued the blue in her eyes.
I think she saw on my face indications that I was about to speak indiscreetly. For I was. The sight of the reporters in that room, trying to pin Heloise down to the details of this dreadful story, angered me. But before I could utter a word she took command of the situation.
“Forgive me for calling you in this peremptory way, Mr. Eckhart,” she said, “but I cannot talk to these men. You were good enough to offer to help, and, since I am alone here, I am forced to take you at your word.” Then she turned to the reporters, adding, “Mr. Eckhart knew my husband. You will please talk with him.”
Her voice was steady; but my quick eye caught a familiar, listless gesture of her left hand as she finished.
“But, Mrs. Crocker,” persisted the older man, “it has been said that—”
I threw the door wide, and sprang directly in front of Heloise, facing the reporter.