It was raining when I left my apartment at the Marathon that night—a cold and disagreeable drizzle—and the thought occurred to me as I turned up my coat collar and stepped into the cab I had summoned, that it was a somewhat foolhardy thing to be driving about the streets of New York with fifty thousand dollars in my hand bag. I glanced at the lights of the Tenderloin police station, just across the street, and thought for an instant of going over and asking for an escort. Then I sank back into the seat with a little laugh at my own nervousness.
"One-twenty West Twenty-third," I said, as the cabman slammed the apron shut.
He nodded, spoke to his horse, and we were off.
The asphalt was gleaming with the rain, and a thin fog was in the air, which formed a nimbus around the street lamps and drew a veil before the shop windows. Far away I heard the rattle of the elevated and the never-ceasing hum of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, but, save for these reminders of the city's life, the silence of the street was broken only by the click-clack of our horse's hoofs.
We swung sharply around a corner, and then another. A moment later the cab drew up at the curb, and the driver sprang from his box.
"Here we are, sir," he said, and as I stepped to the pavement, I saw the old Magnus house frowning down upon me.
I had never before seen it at night, and for the first time I really appreciated its gloomy situation. In its day it had been part of a fashionable residential district, of which it was now the only survival. It was of brownstone, with a flight of steps mounting steeply to the door, and stood back from the street at the bottom of a cañon formed by the towering walls of the adjacent office buildings. Why any woman who could afford to live where she chose should choose to live here was a riddle past my solving.
Musing over this, I mounted the steps and rang the bell.
"I am Mr. Lester," I said, to the maid who opened the door. "Mrs.Magnus is expecting me."
She stood aside for me to enter, and as I passed I happened to glance at her face. It was that of a woman no longer young, and yet scarcely middle-aged; not a repulsive face; indeed, rather attractive in a way, except for a certain hardness of expression which told of lost illusions. And as she took my coat and hat, I noticed that the little finger of her left hand was missing.
"This way, sir," she said, and motioned me into a room at the right."Mrs. Magnus will be down in a minute."
I heard her step recede along the hall, and then somewhere a clock struck eight. As the sound died away the rustle of skirts came down the stair, and Mrs. Magnus appeared in the doorway. Her panic of the morning had passed, and she was perfectly self-controlled.
"Ah, Mr. Lester," she said, "you are prompt. You have the money?" she added in a lower tone.
"Yes," I answered, and then stopped, for I fancied I heard a stealthy footstep at the door.
"Let us go up to the study. We will be more comfortable there," and she led the way out into the hall.
I was close at her heels, and looked quickly to right and left. But there was no one in sight.
Mrs. Magnus went before me up the stair, turned toward the front of the house in the hall above, and ushered me into a small room which seemed to have been fitted up as an office. Its principal piece of furniture was a massive, roll-top desk. The top was up at the moment, and disclosed rows of pigeon-holes, some full of papers and some empty. Below them were the usual small drawers. The desk was one of the largest I have ever seen, and I wondered how it had been got into the room. An office chair of the usual swing type stood in front of it.
Something told me that this wasthedesk. It stood in one corner of the room; not closely in the corner, but at an angle to it, its back touching the wall on either side and leaving a little triangle of space behind it. The reason of this was evident enough, for, placed in this way, the person sitting at the desk got the advantage of the light from the window at his right, and also the heat from the fireplace at his left.
The thought flashed through my mind that, before I placed the money on the desk, I would take occasion to glance over into the space back of it.
"Sit down, Mr. Lester," said Mrs. Magnus, and herself drew up a chair to one side of the fireplace, where a wood fire crackled cheerily, throwing out a warmth just strong enough to be grateful on this damp evening. "The money is in that bag?"
"Yes," I said. "I have it in hundred-dollar bills—five packets of one hundred each. I thought perhaps you—your husband would prefer it in that form."
She nodded, and sat for a moment staring absently into the fire.
"This was Mr. Magnus' workroom, I suppose?" I said at last.
"Yes; when he was first really succeeding in business, he used always to bring some work home with him in the evening. But he outgrew that"—a shade of bitterness crept into her voice—"and during the last ten years of his life he used the room hardly at all. But he is using it again now," she added, in another tone. "Every night."
I stared across at her, wondering if she could be in earnest.Certainly her countenance gave every impression of earnestness.
"He will be here to-night," she went on. "It is a little early yet. He usually comes at eight-thirty."
"You mean he is here in the spirit," I said, trying to speak lightly.
"In the spirit, of course."
I breathed a sigh of relief. I fancied that I began to understand.
"Many people believe that their dead watch over them," I said.
"Oh, Mr. Magnus isn't watching over me," said my companion quickly. "There is a certain thing he desires me to do. Once that is done, I don't believe he will bother me any more. I left his note with you this morning. Did you bring it with you?"
"Yes," I said, and got it out of my pocket and handed it to her. "But really, Mrs. Magnus," I continued, "you don't mean to tell me seriously that you saw him write this?"
"I certainly did. He wrote it under my eyes, sitting at that desk three nights ago."
Again I looked at her to see if she was speaking seriously.
"I see you do not believe me," she added.
"Pardon me, Mrs. Magnus," I corrected; "of course I believe you—that is, I believe that you believe. But I cannot but think you are being imposed upon in some way."
A flush of anger crept into her cheeks.
"Do you think I am a woman easily imposed upon?" she asked. "Let me tell you the story, Mr. Lester."
"That is what I have been hoping you would do," I said. "I am very anxious to hear it."
"After my husband's death," she began, "I decided to use this room as my office or workroom. I went through his desk and cleared it out. There were no papers of importance there; but I found one thing which gave me a shock. That was a letter, pushed back and I suppose forgotten in one of the drawers, which proved to me that my husband had been unfaithful."
I was not surprised, of course, after what Godfrey had told me, but I managed to murmur some polite incredulity.
"Oh, it was true," she went on bitterly. "I knew he had grown away from me, but I never suspected that—that he could be so vulgar!" That, of course, was the way in which it would appeal to her—as vulgar.
"It is that which is worrying him now," she added.
"You mean—"
"No matter. He shall have the money to-night, and that will be ended. Let me go on with my story. As I said, I began to use this room. I kept my papers in the desk yonder, and worked there regularly every day. But one morning, when I came in, I noticed something unusual—an odor of tobacco. You know Mr. Magnus was a great smoker."
"Yes," I said.
"You may have noticed that he always smoked a heavy black cigar which he had made for him especially in Cuba. It had a quite distinctive odor."
"Yes," I said again. I had noticed more than once the sweet, heavy aroma of Magnus' cigars.
"I recognized the odor at once," went on Mrs. Magnus. "It was from one of his cigars. When I opened the desk, I found a little heap of ashes on his ash tray, which I had been using to keep pins in, and the remnant of the cigar he had been smoking."
"He?" I repeated. "But why should you think—"
"Wait," she interrupted, "till you hear the rest. I cleaned off the tray and went through my day's work as usual. The next morning I found the same thing—and something more. Some one had been trying to write on the pad of paper on the desk."
"Trying to write?" I echoed.
"Yes, trying—as though some force were holding him back."
She went over to the desk, unlocked a little drawer, and took out several sheets of paper.
"Here is what I found that morning," she said, and handed me a sheet from an ordinary writing pad.
I saw scrawled across it an indecipherable jumble of words. She had expressed it exactly—it seemed as though some one had been trying to write with a weight clogging his hand. And there was something about this scrap of paper—something convincing and authentic—which struck heavily at my skepticism. Here was what a lawyer would call evidence.
"It kept on from day to day," continued Mrs. Magnus, sitting down again. "Every morning the little heap of ashes and fragment of cigar, and a scrawl like that—until finally, one morning, I understood what was happening in this room, for three words were legible."
She handed me another sheet of paper. At the top were the words, "My dear wife," and under them again an indecipherable scrawl.
"Did you tell any one of all this?" I asked.
"Not a word to any one. But I decided to investigate."
"How?"
"By staying in this room at night."
I could guess from her tone what the resolution had cost her.
"And you did?"
"Yes. I came up right after dinner, leaving word that I was not to be disturbed. I went first to the desk to assure myself that the tray was empty and that there was no writing on the top sheet of paper. Then I switched off the light and sat down here by the fire and waited."
"That was brave," I said. "What happened?"
"For an hour, nothing. Then I was suddenly conscious of an odor of tobacco, as though some one smoking a cigar had entered the room, and an instant later I heard that chair before the desk creak as though it had been swung around. I switched on the light at once. The chairhadturned. It had been facing away from the desk, and it was now faced toward it."
She stopped a moment, and I saw that her excitement of the morning was returning. Indeed, my own heart was beating with a quickened rhythm as I glanced around at the desk. I saw that the chair was facing away from it.
"The odor of tobacco grew stronger," went on Mrs. Magnus, "and, even as I watched, a little mass of ashes fell into the tray."
"From nowhere?"
"Apparently from nowhere, but of course it was from the cigar that he was smoking."
"Did you see the smoke?"
"No; how could I?"
Really, I didn't know. I wished that I had given more study to the details of spirit manifestation. I didn't remember that I had ever heard of a ghost smoking a cigar, but doubtless such cases existed. The point was this: Why, if the ashes from the ghost's cigar became visible when knocked off, shouldn't the smoke become visible when expired? Or did the fact that it had been inside an invisible object render it permanently invisible? I fancied this was what Mrs. Magnus had meant by her question. Perhaps she had studied the subject. At any rate, it was too deep for me.
"A moment later," she went on, "another mass of ashes fell; then perhaps five minutes passed, and I saw the remnant of the cigar placed on the tray. I confess that my nerves gave way at that point, and I fled from the room."
"Locking the door after you?"
"No; but I came back and locked it ten or fifteen minutes later."
"Did you enter the room?"
"Yes; I had left the light burning and entered to turn it off. I found on the desk another note beginning, 'My dear wife.'"
"And then what?"
"I was here the next night and the next. There was something about it that fascinated me, and I saw that there was no reason for fear. In the end it came to seem almost natural—almost as if he were here in the flesh."
"And always the same things happened?"
"Yes, or nearly so, the writing growing more legible all the time."
"And then?"
"Then, three nights ago, I grew brave enough to go and stand by the desk, and look over his shoulder, as it were, while he wrote the note which I showed you this morning."
"You mean that he actually did write it while you were looking over his shoulder?"
"I mean that the words formed themselves on the sheet of paper under my eyes, precisely as they flowed off his pen."
"And there wasn't any pen?"
"There wasn't anything. Only the ashes and the odor of tobacco."
I glanced across at Mrs. Magnus sharply. Could it be possible that she was inventing all of this incredible tale?
"No," she said, answering my thought; "it happened precisely as I tell it. I am hoping that you will see for yourself before long. It is almost time for him to come."
I felt the hair crawling up my scalp as I glanced around again at the desk. Like everybody else, I had always professed a lively interest in ghosts and a desire to meet one; but now that it seemed about to be gratified, the desire weakened perceptibly.
"I didn't at first intend to give him the money," she went on. "I didn't see why I should. He was dead. It was mine. He had never, in his life, given me fifty thousand dollars. But when, the next night, the money wasn't there, he expackets over to Mrs. Magnus.
"In writing?"
She nodded and held another sheet of paper out to me. On it, in PeterMagnus' hand, was written:
MY DEAR WIFE: Do not delay. I must right a great wrong before either of us can rest in peace.
"And from this you judge that he wants the money to—to—"
"Yes," she said, not waiting for me to finish. "Even then I hesitated. I did not see that I had any concern in his misdeeds. But last night—"
She stopped, and I saw sweep across her face the sudden, pallor I had noted in the morning.
"Yes," I encouraged, "last night—"
She was clutching the chair arms convulsively, trying to force her trembling lips to form the words. What horrible thing was it had happened last night? What—
And at that instant I was conscious of the odor of tobacco in the air, and distinctly heard the low grating of the office chair as it swung around.
I suppose the student of the supernatural always has to fight against the excitement of the unknown—an excitement which clouds the judgment and confuses reason. Certainly, as I turned my head and sprang to my feet, I was very far from being a cool and collected observer; yet, indisputably, the chairhadturned. Indeed, I snapped my head around in time to see the last of its movement toward the desk. And at the same instant my nostrils caught more strongly the sweet and heavy odor of Peter Magnus' cigar. For a moment all was still. Then Mrs. Magnus rose and beckoned me forward.
"Come," she said, and with an effort I compelled my feet to follow her.
It was a battle between instinct and reason. Instinct was trying to hurl me out of the room and out of the house. Reason was telling me—in a very faint voice, it is true—that there was nothing to be afraid of. I have always been proud of the fact that Ididapproach the desk, instead of making for the door.
And I was even brave enough to glance behind it. One glance was sufficient. The triangular space between the walls and the back of the desk was empty. I don't know why that should have afforded me any relief, but it did.
Then, before my eyes, not three feet away from them, a little gob of ashes dropped from the empty air into the tray.
I am free to confess that that sight swept away any remnant of doubt I may have had in the reality of the unreal—if I may use such a term. Peter Magnus was sitting in that chair. There could be, to my mind, no question of it.
But if any doubt had existed, it would have been ended by what followed.
For my eye was caught by the pad of paper on the desk, and, even as I watched it, I saw unfold upon it, one after another, these words:
MY DEAR WIFE: Place the money on this desk and leave me. I shall be at rest. Good-by.
I wish I could describe to you the sensation which shook me as I witnessed this miracle. For there the words were, and I had seen them flow smoothly from an invisible pen—from Peter Magnus' pen, for the writing was his.
"I have the money," I said, and I caught up my bag from the floor, unlocked it, and took out the five sealed packets. "There are one hundred hundred-dollar bills in each," I explained, almost as if he could hear me—indeed, I was quite sure at the moment that he did hear me; and I passed the packets over to Mrs. Magnus.
Without a word she placed them on the desk, then turned to me.
"Come," she said. "That is all. Good-by, Peter," she added, and there was a little sob in her voice. "God bless you."
Was it my fancy, or did something like a sigh come from that unseen presence in the chair? It was in a sort of maze that I followed Mrs. Magnus from the room. She switched off the light and then closed the door.
"Thank God that is over," she said.
I suddenly realized that my face was dripping with perspiration, and I mopped it feverishly with my handkerchief.
"I would never have believed," I began stammeringly; "I never thought—why, it's a miracle—it's—"
"Yes, a miracle," repeated Mrs. Magnus. "Though there have been many instances of the dead returning."
"Have there?" I asked. "Well, of course, I have heard of them, but I never thought them worthy of belief. But now—"
We had reached the foot of the stairs, and I got my coat down from the rack and struggled into it. I found that I had mechanically picked up my bag as I left the room overhead.
"I want to thank you, Mr. Lester," said Mrs. Magnus, facing me, "for coming here to-night. You have been of the greatest help to me."
"Certainly," I agreed. "Very happy—a great privilege."
I felt that I was talking nonsense, but what, in Heaven's name, is a man to say who has just been through an experience like that? But Mrs. Magnus seemed to understand.
"Thank you," she said, and gave me her hand. Then she opened the street door, and a moment later I found myself groping my way down the steps. Once down, I paused for a deep breath; then I started up the street. But I had scarcely taken a dozen steps when a hand fell upon my arm and drew me into the shadow of a doorway.
For an instant, with the thought of spirits still upon me, I tried to shake away the hand; then, as I started around at my assailant, I saw that it was Godfrey.
"Well, Lester," he said, "did you leave the fifty thousand?"
I nodded; I was even yet scarcely capable of connected speech.
Godfrey looked at me curiously.
"You look like you'd seen a ghost," he said.
"I have."
He laughed amusedly.
"Peter Magnus?"
I nodded.
"How is the old boy?"
"Look here, Godfrey," I said, "this isn't a thing to speak of in that tone. There's something sacred about it."
His face sobered as he looked at me. It grew serious enough to suit even my mood.
"So you were imposed on, too," he said at last.
I didn't like the words, nor the tone in which they were uttered.
"No, I wasn't imposed on," I said tartly. "I must be getting along,Godfrey. I haven't anything to tell you."
"Not just yet," he said. "Come over here across the street, Lester, where I can have an eye on the Magnus house. Don't you see—if I was wrong this morning, then you were right."
"Right?"
"If she told you the truth, some one is trying to do her out of fifty thousand dollars."
"She's given it to her husband," I said. "She thinks he's going to use it as you said."
"Given it to her husband?"
"Well, placed it on the desk in front of him."
"Did youseehim?"
"I saw him write a note," I said doggedly. "You can't see a spirit, you know—its impalpable."
By this time we were deep in the shadow of another doorway across the street, and Godfrey leaned back against a pillar and mused for a moment.
"Of course," he said at last, "I don't want you to do anything unprofessional, Lester, but I really think you'd better tell me. You didn't hesitate to call me in this morning."
"I thought then that somebody was trying to bunco Mrs. Magnus."
"And I think so now," said Godfrey. "Surely you know you can trust me."
I demurred a while longer, but finally told him the whole story. WhenI had ended, he gave a little low whistle of amazement.
"Well," he said, "that's what I call clever. There's a certain artistic touch about it—only one man—"
He fell silent again, absently gnawing his under lip.
"How long are you going to stay here?" I demanded at last.
"Not long," he answered. "Only until that light goes out over yonder."
He nodded toward one of the upper windows of the Magnus house. Even asI looked at it, the light disappeared.
"Now," he said, "we'd better be moving up a little closer, Lester.Around this way, so we can't be seen from the door."
"You mean you think somebody is coming out of that house?"
"Certainly. The ghost's coming out. You didn't expect him to stay there all night, did you? That would be a little—well—indelicate, don't you think?"
"But how—"
"How am I going to see him? Well, I think I'll see him all right. Besides, the money would be visible, wouldn't it? Or does it become invisible when the ghost puts it in his pocket?"
"The cigar was invisible," I said weakly, "and the pen."
Really, out here with Godfrey, itdidseem pretty ridiculous.
I was going to say something more—perhaps to try to excuse myself for my credulity—but Godfrey silenced me with a gesture. We had crept along in the shadow of the adjoining building until we were beside the entrance to the Magnus house.
"Maybe he'll go out the back way," I breathed.
"There isn't any back way. All built up. It's this way, or none."
The thought occurred to me that a brick wall would make no difference to a spirit, but I felt that I was lapsing into a state of imbecility, and stood silent, shivering a little. For it had started to drizzle again.
Then from the direction of the house came the sound of a door softly closing, and I saw a shadow flit down the steps. It certainly looked like a ghost; but I heard Godfrey chuckle softly; then, with a bound, he was upon the figure and had it by the throat. I caught the sound of a sharp struggle, but it was over before I could collect myself sufficiently to go to Godfrey's assistance.
When I did get there I found him grimly surveying a small and wizened creature, whose arm he had linked to his own by means of a handcuff.
"Lester," he said, "allow me to introduce you to the ghost of PeterMagnus—otherwise Mr. Jemmy Blum, the Tom Thumb of con men. Jemmy," headded, "aren't you ashamed to be playing such tricks on my friend, Mr.Lester?"
The small creature's eyes twinkled maliciously as he glanced up at me.
"Ho," he said contemptuously, "'twasn't no trick to foolhim. But I didn't know he wasyourfriend. If I had, I'd 'a' let him alone."
I deserved the taunt, of course, but I winced a little at Godfrey's chuckle.
"You'd fool the devil himself, Jemmy," said his captor. "And now I'll thank you to pass over to me those five little packets which my friend here left on that desk up yonder."
Without a word Jemmy unbuttoned his coat and produced the five packets. I could not but admire the coolness with which he accepted defeat.
"Take 'em, Lester," said Godfrey, "and put 'em back in your bag. We'll leave 'em over at the Tenderloin station, where we'll lodge this gentleman for the night. No use to disturb Mrs. Magnus till morning," he added, with a glance at the gloomy house. "Then we'll have Jemmy give us a special performance of his impersonation of the ghost of Peter Magnus."
The prisoner laughed.
"Glad to," he said. "I think you'll find it A one."
"No doubt," assented Godfrey. "As soon as Lester told me the story I knew you were the only man who could have worked it. And then there was the desk."
"Of course," agreed the prisoner. "You'd see that."
This was all Greek to me, but I knew the explanation would come in time. Meanwhile I carefully stowed away the five precious packets in my bag.
"Why can't we go over to my rooms at the Marathon and hear the story?"I suggested. "It's right across the street from the station."
"All right," said Godfrey, and led the way down the street, with Jemmy keeping step with him as well as his short legs would permit. Five minutes later we were in my rooms, and I switched on the lights and got out the cigars.
"If you'll see that the doors are locked, Lester, I'll open this handcuff temporarily," said Godfrey. "But first," and he ran his hands over his prisoner's person. "Ah, I thought so," he said, and produced a small revolver of exquisite workmanship. "You always were a connoisseur, Jemmy," he added, examining the weapon, and then slipping it into his own pocket. "All right. Now you sit down over there and be good."
"Oh, I'll be good," said Jemmy. "I guess I know when I'm crimped.Thanks," he added, accepting the smoke I offered him.
When the cigars were drawing nicely we were ready to hear the story. Not until then did I fully realize what a little fellow Jemmy was. Now I saw that he was almost a dwarf, little if any over four feet in height, and very slightly built. His face, shrunken and wrinkled, had that look of prenatural wisdom which dwarfs sometimes have, and his little black eyes were incredibly bright. He was evidently something of a dandy, for his clothes were immaculate. I admired again the aplomb with which he accepted the situation.
"Well," he began, "to make a long story short, I started on this lay just after old Magnus' death, when a friend of mine in the fortune-tellin' line told me Mrs. Magnus was a spiritualist."
"A spiritualist?" I queried, in surprise.
"Oh, yes; had been for years. That give me my clue, so I—ah—got into the house."
"How?" demanded Godfrey.
"That's telling."
"Bribed a servant, of course," said Godfrey. "We'll look them over in the morning. Go on."
"I got inside the house, looked over the ground, an' decided on my line of operation. I wanted something neat an' effective, an' I worked on it a good while before I had it goin' just right. There were so many little details. It took a lot of practice—these things do—an' then I had to remodel the inside of the desk—shorten up the drawers, an' make room for myself behind them. Luckily I'm little, an' the desk was one of the biggest I ever saw."
"So you were in the desk?" I asked.
"Sure," he chuckled. "Where else? Lookin' at you out of one of the pigeon-holes, an' wonderin' if I'd better risk it."
"And you decided you would?"
"Yes," said Jemmy slyly; "I saw you were scart to death, an' I was afraid if I didn't demonstrate for the old lady, I wouldn't get the money."
"How did you know she had it?"
"I heard you tell her you'd brought it, down in the parlor."
"Oh," I said; "then it was your step I heard in the hall?"
"I guess so, if you heard one. I just had time to get upstairs an' make my plant before you came in. The rest was easy."
"But the ashes?" I said.
"Flicked out through a pigeonhole. That's what took practice, to make 'em fall just right. Also the cigar."
"And the odor of tobacco?"
He got a little vial out of his pocket, uncorked it, and again I caught the sweet and heavy odor of Peter Magnus' cigar.
"An' here's a fine point I'm proud of," said Jemmy. "I had this made from half a dozen of Magnus' cigars I found in a box in his room. So the smell was just right. I thought for a while of showin' some smoke, but didn't dare risk it."
"But the note," I said. "That was the cleverest of all."
Jemmy chuckled and glanced at Godfrey.
"You'll understand that, Jim," he said. "You remember I worked it backward in that National City Bank case."
Godfrey nodded.
"I remember the signature disappeared from old Murgatroyd's check."
"Backward or forward, it don't make no difference. It all depends on the acid."
"What acid?"
"Ah," chuckled Jemmy, "you'd like to know, wouldn't you? You never will. But it all depends on it. If I put the acid in before the salt, the writin' disappears at the end of two hours; if I put the salt in before the acid, the writin' don't appear for the same length of time. It took me five years to work it out."
"But the writing didn't all appear at once," I objected.
"Of course not," said Jemmy impatiently. "It wasn't all wrote at once, was it? It appeared just like it was wrote."
"How could you time it?"
"Why," answered Jemmy still more impatiently, "I began operations at the same time every night, didn't I? I timed the writin' for eight-forty-five."
"But the chair?" I persisted.
Jemmy shot a disgusted glance at Godfrey.
"Any faker on Sixth Avenue can do that," he said. "A hook on a thread.Anything else?"
"Yes," I said, "one thing. What horror did you perpetrate last night?"
Jemmy grinned mechanically as he looked at me, and I even fancied he reddened a little.
"Did she tell you about that?" he asked.
"She tried to, but couldn't. What was it?"
"Well, you know," said Jemmy apologetically, "I had to bring matters to a head some way, for the old girl certainly did hate to shell out. I was sorry to have to scare her, but I couldn't help it."
"But what did you do?"
Jemmy blew a ring, and watched it fade away in front of him.
"I don't think I'll tell," he said at last.
Godfrey had been listening with an amused smile.
"We'll get that detail from Mrs. Magnus," he said. "Accept my compliments, Jemmy. It was cleverly done. I'm almost sorry you didn't get away with it."
"Oh," answered Jemmy, with studied indifference, "that's all in the day's work, you know. But thank you all the same, Jim."
He was flicking the ashes from the end of his cigar as he spoke, and I saw that he didn't meet Godfrey's eyes.
The latter looked at him an instant; then, with a low exclamation, sprang to his feet, and snapped open the bag in which I had stowed the packets Jemmy had given me. He ripped one of them open, and disclosed, not ten thousand dollars in currency, but a neat bundle of blank paper!
Jemmy was looking at him now, and his face was alight with triumph.
"How did you know I was there?" Godfrey demanded.
"I didn't," grinned Jemmy. "But I wasn't takin' any chances."
"Who was your pal?"
"That's tellin'," answered Jemmy easily.
"Did you see any of the servants, Lester?"
"Only one," I said. "I didn't notice anything about her, except that she was rather good-looking, and—oh, yes—the little finger of her left hand was missing."
Godfrey grabbed the telephone, and I heard him call headquarters, and give terse orders to send a detail at once to the Magnus house, to watch all ferries and trains, and to search all the thieves' haunts in the city for Kate Travis—"Lady" Kate. Headquarters seemed to know perfectly whom he meant.
"You won't get her," said Jemmy calmly, as Godfrey hung up the receiver. "She got away as soon as we turned the corner. She's got a good half hour's start."
"Come along," said Godfrey roughly, and snapped the handcuffs on again. I could see that he was deeply chagrined. "Good night, Lester. I've made a botch of this thing. I've got to catch that woman."
But he hasn't caught her yet, and I suppose, when Jemmy finishes his term, he will find his share of that fifty thousand dollars waiting for him.
I hope so, anyway.
Yes, I have encountered him at last, the veritable birdman! Almost I had commenced to believe that such an individual did not in effect exist—with the exception,bien entendu, of myself. For, as I told them when they offered me avin d'honneuron the occasion of my decoration with the Cross of the Legion, the recognition was long overdue. Indeed, I assured them, the only circumstance that prevented me from flying at the age of three was the fact that messieurs the inventors had not then produced an aeroplane.
But now I have encountered, as I say, another such instinctive aviator to whom flight appears to be as natural as walking. And thou seest by my bandages, my poor friend, what it is that has in consequence arrived to me!
Unhappy meeting! It is with pain and difficulty still that I lift an arm. I can no more, since my accident, illustrate my remarks with appropriate gesture. Forgive, therefore,mon ami, a story inadequately picturesque, vivid,mouvant.And yet—we have brought each other fortune, this young Monsieur Power and I. Fix a little the pillows up, and you shall hear.
A man-eagle, I assure you! A veritable condor of the Andes hatched in human shape, who has, nevertheless, discovered his gift only to renounce it at once and forever.
Our first meeting was curiously disturbing. He appeared suddenly at a door of my ateliers on the flying ground at Mineola, very tall, verysoigné, smiling in the way he had that showed all his strong, square teeth as he recognized me in conversation, with my faithful mechanician, Georges. This latter, grown portly and nervous since marrying a Montmartre shopkeeper, I have since promoted to be my chief designer.
"Pardon the intrusion," said the stranger. "I perceive you are about to murder the stout gentleman. I will wait your convenience."
"Quite on the contrary, monsieur," I explained, bowing. "We discuss merely the theory of the explosion turbine. If monsieur will give himself the trouble to enter—"
"That is my card," he replied, advancing. "I want a strong, swift biplane, and a mechanic to attend to it."
I glanced from the card to this extraordinary young man with interest. For the name itself, John Hamlin Power, told me of a career in Wall Street—brief, but conspicuous in its daring and success; a career in which this immaculate, smiling young cotillion leader had made the very monarchs of finance fear the élan of his attack, the relentless quality of his grip.
"I have taken a fancy," he went on, "to possess the identical machine with which you accomplished your recent Mount McKinley record. It is perhaps for sale?"
"Perfectly, if monsieur wishes," I responded, with another bow. "But it is a machine of unusual speed and power. Monsieur can already fly, no doubt?"
"I do not anticipate any difficulty. As a matter of fact, I have not yet attempted it. It is for that purpose that I have come to buy a machine. It would be a favor if you would arrange to deliver it to me in Westchester to-morrow. The mechanic will, of course, arrive at the same time, as I shall wish to commence practice at once."
He turned aside to inspect a motor that lay dismounted on a wooden stand, as if there were nothing further to discuss. Indeed, though his speech was rapid and incisive, and his every movement full of anallurethat spoke of splendidly poised muscles, he was in face and manner alike the most singularly immobile man I had ever met. He gave the impression of employing neither words nor actions except in case of clear necessity.
I exchanged glances with Georges, who had turned up his eyes, spread his arms, and allowed them to fall again limply to his sides. I coughed. Monsieur Power drew himself up from his inspection of the motor and smiled again expectantly.
"But the question of tuition?" I stammered. "Monsieur has no doubt arranged for the services of an instructor?"
There was the slightest twinkle in that steadfast gaze of his. He had the bravest, and yet the tenderest, eyes in the world.
"I'm afraid I have not sufficient time for the regular course," he said. "I am a rather busy man, as you possibly know. I have consequently taken lessons in advance, by mail. May I expect the machine to-morrow as arranged?"
I murmured something to the effect that he had perhaps underestimated the difficulties of aviation.
"Are they not exaggerated?" he inquired. "You taught my friend, MissHamilton Warren, to fly, did you not?"
"Mademoiselle, it is true, flies here almost daily," I admitted.
"Just so! It does not seem to me that there can be anything very difficult in what a girl can do. However, if you will be so good as to deliver the biplane we will see."
Under that clear, steady gaze of his I was powerless to protest. Behind him I could see the good Georges struggling palpably for breath, and waving his hands to the rafters. I contented myself with a profound bow; whereupon, with the same quick, alert movement with which he had appeared, this strange young man departed. Georges and I fell gasping upon each others' necks, and stared together after his tall, receding figure.
"Without doubt he is mad, this Monsieur Power," I said at last. "You remember that he has just made two millions in a bear raid. Doubtless it has turned his brain. Name of a name! He pretends to have taken flying lessons from an institute of correspondence, and I have promised him a biplane of one hundred horse power! Georges,mon ami, you must yourself accompany it and give him counsel lest he break his neck!"
Not satisfied with this precaution, I myself flew the biplane over to Westchester on the morrow, and explained the controls to Monsieur Power in an extended passenger flight. He was, it appeared, an amateur of the balloon, and accustomed to great heights. When I handed the machine over to him, with the engine throttled down so that he might try rolling practice on the ground, he waited until he was out of our reach, whipped the motor into its full power, heaved himself into the air, and flew back the whole length of his grounds—alighting gently as a falling leaf.
"It seems pretty simple," he said, as he swung himself out of the nacelle. "I do not think I need detain you, Monsieur Lacroix, if your assistant Georges will be good enough to consider himself my guest, and keep the motor running."
It was in vain that I besought him to have patience. He replied only that his time was limited, and that he had given the subject careful study in theory.
And with that assurance I had to depart, little content. First, however, I warned him of one or two pitfalls—as, for instance, that he must never stop his engine in an emergency, as one does instinctively in an auto, because the greater the danger the more need he would have of motive power to get him out of it. Also, I told him not to fly above trees or water, where the currents would suck him downward, but to steer over the darkest patches of land, where the heat of the sun is absorbed, and the air in consequence rises.
In what state of emotion I was maintained by the letters of Georges during the ensuing fortnight, I will make you judge.
"A moi!" he writes to me in the first week. "I am in the clutch of a madman! Each morning I am awakened at six, that I may plunge with him in the lake of cold water attached to the mansion, he having first madela boxenoisily with a fist ball on the floor directly above. To-day in his machine he has described figures of eight in the space of his grounds even, banking the planes at an inclinationaffreuse!"
Again he writes: "I am now to accompany him on a cross-country raid. Farewell to my wife and little one. I will die like a Montmartrois for the honor of France!"
Finally an appeal—urgent, pitiful, telegraphic:
"Take me away,je t'en prie!This maniac wishes now to discuss the possibility of a somersault in the air. I can no more—Georges."
Thereupon I replaced him with another mechanic, and he returned, appearing worn and noticeably thinner.
"It seems to me,tout de même," I remarked, "that this young monsieur knows very well what he is about. We have not been asked to repair a single stick of his machine."
"True," replied Georges. "But that is not his ambition, to break wood. It was his neck that he wished to break, and incidentally my own. Wait, my friend, until you have seen him fly. I, who speak to you, have faced death daily these weeks past, and my clothes hang loose upon me!"
And I was fated to see this monsieur, also, before very long, on the occasion of his dramatic appearance upon the grounds of my flying school. I must explain that Mineola had become a social institution, for already I taught the younger members of the rich sportsman set the new diversion that science had placed within their reach. Crowds assembled each fine day to witness the first flutterings or the finished flights of their friends.
On this occasion the lawn before the hangars was bright with flowers and gay with the costumes of pretty women, in deference to whom I had even permitted what the society reporters began to call "aviation teas," placing little tables about the grass, where the chatter was not too much interrupted by the vicious rattle and the driving smoke of motors under test. I did this the more readily as it prevented the uninstructed from wandering into the path of the machines, which buzzed about the grounds like crippled beetles trying to rise into the air.
The grounds, particularly in expectation of a flight by Miss Warren, bore very much in consequence the appearance of a garden party, and I looked with pride upon a scene such as only the historic flying schools of my dear France had hitherto witnessed.
It was with a start that I recognized, while gazing upon this throng of flower-like women and gallant young men, the figure so tall, so commanding of the aged Monsieur Warren himself. I knew that he did not belong to this plutocratic young sporting set, of which he even disapproved. Moreover, the old financier had never before condescended to recognize the prowess of his daughter as an aviator. Indeed, I understood that the least reference to it had been forbidden in his presence. I hastened forward to welcome him, with joy in this new and powerful convert to the science of flight, and together we watched the preparation of Miss Warren's great French biplane, her beautifulCygne, which she had insisted upon bringing with her from Paris.
Ah,mon vieux, I cannot describe to you the emotion that seized me as she advanced from the hangars, this beautiful girl, to mount her great white bird! The Comte de Châlons, who had followed her from Europe, and rarely left her side, hurried after her with her leather flying gauntlets—for while it was warm on the ground, there came from aloft reports of a chilling wind. I saw the tall, bent old man, her father, gaze with eyes moist with pride and affection on that superb figure of young womanhood as she swung gracefully out toward the gallant machine that awaited her in the sunlight, chatting gayly with her companion as she walked. She wore a thick-knitted jersey of brown silk, a simple brown skirt, and leather gaiters, and a brown leather automobile cap covered her shining, dark hair. Like a slim, brown statue she stood at last on the step of her biplane in the breeze, and I saw the Comte de Châlons bend over her hand as he assisted her into the nacelle.
Well, he had reason, that one! She is a better flier than I can ever make out of him.
A run of fifty yards, and she was aloft with the practiced leap of the expert pilot. The next minute she was breasting the breeze far above our heads, the rear edges of the huge planes quivering transparent against the sky, her motor roaring impetuously. As she passed, I had a single glimpse of her face—bathed in full sunlight, radiant, joyous!
I looked then with curiosity upon the aged Monsieur Warren. The great financier leaned upon his cane, and I saw that the hand that held it was blue and trembling. As he gazed skyward, his breath came deeply as in a sob.
"Ah, monsieur," I thought, with a surge of pride, "it is I, Lacroix, who have enabled you to enjoy a parallel triumph. She is your daughter whom they applaud, truly—but she is also my pupil!"
Figure to yourself my surprise, therefore, when he turned to me suddenly in appeal, and, with a hand that trembled on my arm, besought me to take him away.
"I cannot stand it, my dear Lacroix—it isn't safe!" he said, in a low voice.
He repeated these words several times, his lip quivering like that of a child who suffers, as I led him into the drawing office of the ateliers. There he seated himself, bent and gray, upon the edge of an armchair.
"It's no use, I can't stand it," he said again. "I assure you that I could see the thing shaking, as it passed overhead, in every stick and wire of it. It can't be safe! And there she is, five hundred feet high, with her life hanging on a thread."
"I assure you also, monsieur," I protested, "that I have this very morning examined every nut and bolt, every brace and valve and stay in the entireappareil. Never have I permitted your daughter to ascend without such an inspection. I would stake my life upon the perfect integrity of the machine."
He smiled, a little querulously.
"You are accustomed to stake your life, Monsieur Lacroix. As for me, I am an old man. The old are obstinate and selfish. I abhor the entire proceeding."
Plaudits came from the gay crowd outside as mademoiselle's machine again roared above the hangars. The old man shook his massive head.
"Of course, you don't see it as I do," he went on. "If you had considered risks, you would have accomplished nothing. It is natural that you should think only of the glory and conquest of flight. But I think of the little girl I held on my knee the night her mother died, and I can neither stay away in peace when Ella flies, nor can I bear to watch her."
"But you are powerful, Monsieur Warren," I said, "a commander of the captains of finance. If you said even that a country should not make war, its cannon would rust in the parks, and its soldiers play leapfrog in the casernes. Surely you can bend the will of a young girl who is also your daughter?"
The old man's smile became grim.
"I may be all that you say," he sighed. "But, nevertheless, if you chose to wring my neck at this moment, I could do little to prevent you. Neither dare I stand between an American girl and the desire of her heart."
I looked with sympathy upon this gaunt, mighty, old warrior of Wall Street, bent under the shadow of apprehension and anxiety, and I knew why he had at last visited Mineola. And as I looked, I, too, my friend, saw clearly for the first time the reverse of the bright medal of aerial conquest. I saw the graves of lost comrades, I saw the homes in mourning, I saw mothers who wept for their bravest boys. Truly the price was heavy, and I knew in my heart that it had not been paid in full.
"Monsieur knows," I said, "that I was once a poor mechanician. What I am now, flight has made me, and I have worked for the glory of flight. But now I perceive that in encouraging mademoiselle your daughter to fly, I have perhaps done wrong. I promise you that in future I will do my best to dissuade her."
He rose, and pressed my hand in gratitude.
"I am wealthy," he said. "I am rich beyond dreams. I can buy anything for my little girl that she desires—except a single moment's safety up in the air, or a single moment's true happiness on the earth. And in pursuit of this flying craze of hers, she may easily miss both."
He frowned suddenly as we emerged into the sunlight and saw the Comte de Châlons hasten to assist mademoiselle to dismount. Above the hangars the red storm cone had been hoisted, prohibiting further flight by pupils. Already the treetops were swaying ominously.
"After all, there are some things that can happen to a girl," said Monsieur Warren bitterly, "that may well be worse than breaking her neck in an aeroplane."
He departed in search of his automobile without another word. But I thought I knew what he meant.
It was at this moment that I first saw him fly, this marvelous birdman of a Hamlin Power. Away in the direction of New York, so high that he seemed to hang motionless just under the driving clouds, the spectators had caught sight of his huge biplane, and had delayed their departure to watch his approach. It was Georges, dancing on the grass beside me, who first proclaimed his identity.
"It is he, the crazy pupil!" he cried. "I have seen through my glass the little silk flag he attached to the nacelle. Now you are going to marvel that I still live!"
In a few moments the sound of his motor fell faintly on our ears as a whisper from the clouds. Then—chut!—it stopped, and in a single leap he dived a sheer thousand feet.
That in itself was amazing temerity for one who had flown just long enough to justify him in piloting an aero bus in a dead calm. But I was little prepared for what followed. Instead of continuing his flight horizontally at the end of that headlong dive, this tyro pulled up his elevator, sweeping through a sharp curve into an upward leap with all the dizzy impetus gained in his descent.
The crowd gasped. At my side Georges danced with anxiety upon the turf.
"You are right," I said. "He is certainly crazy, this young MonsieurPower."
"He calls it themontagnes russes, this trick," said Georges. "I have told him that everybody who ever did it is long dead, with the single exception of yourself, but that to him is entirely equal. See, he has dived again only just in time!"
And, in truth, another moment of upward flight would infallibly have caused him to lose headway, and fall backward, to flatten himself upon the ground. But he had with superb coolness entered upon a second dive of the most impressive, continuing his species of switchback descent until within a few hundred feet of the hangars. I saw his head protruding from the nacelle, incased in a flying helmet of perfectly black leather. At that height theremousand gusts hit him at unexpected angles, and his machine rose and fell and rocked, as if upon the waves of an invisible ocean. It was buffeted about until I knew that he could not be on his seat half the time. First one wing tip and then the other was blown upward, threatening irrevocable side slip, but always at the last moment his instinct—for it could have been nothing else—saved him in masterly fashion.
At one moment, indeed, as he banked high to turn down wind, it seemed that he was lost, and a woman in front of me turned away with a little cry of horror, her hands before her eyes.
But no! Blown like a leaf straight toward us, he wheeled again into the teeth of the wind at the same astonishing angle, finally landing neatly in front of the hangars. It was with an exclamation of relief that I saw him leap from his machine safe and sound.
With a number of mechanicians, I ran to greet him, and he held out a gloved hand, smiling in boyish delight and complete unconcern, and showing all his square, white teeth. I burst at once into protests.
"Bunk!" he exclaimed, with an irreverent laugh. "You fellows make a voodoo mystery of flight because it pays you. There's nothing very difficult about it, after all. One has only to keep cool."
I was going to reply with I know not what appeal to his reason, when the clear, contralto voice of Miss Warren came suddenly from behind me. She hastened to meet him, holding out both her hands.
"Jack, this is good of you!" she cried. "It's just your generous way—you couldn't possibly have forgiven me more gracefully. To think that you, of all people, should be the mysterious airman of Westchester who has set every one talking and wondering! Why, it was the pleasantest surprise in life to see you get down from that machine after such a wonderful flight. And my father has been here to-day, also. Two such converts in one afternoon is a coincidence that seems too good to be true."
The young Monsieur Power was regarding her, I noticed, with a sort of curious reserve.
"Maybe there's something in that," he said. "You mustn't get the idea that I've altered my ground in the least, Ella."
"But you are flying yourself, now!"
"Certainly, but that doesn't mean that I approve of it as an amusement for you."
"When did you begin?"
"Last month, when I bought the machine. Since then I've been practicing around home."
The girl started from him in amazement.
"Last month! Why, don't you know you might have killed yourself, cutting capers on a day like this?"
"Precisely what I have allowed myself to point out to monsieur," I interposed. "He attempted feats full of danger even for the expert."
"Well, I guess that's all right," he responded shortly. "A man's life wasn't given to him to nurse. Besides, flying is a great relief after a week in the city."
I turned aside, then, to superintend the disposal of the aeroplanes in their sheds, as it had become evident that a gale was in prospect. It was some minutes later that I received a sudden intimation from Miss Warren that she desired my presence outside her hangar.
"Mademoiselle wishes you to denounce the young American monsieur," added on his own account the mechanic who brought the message.
I found her confronting Monsieur Power, who was leaning in an attitude characteristically immobile against the landing carriage of his machine. The Comte de Châlons stood on one side, pulling at his mustache and staring from one to the other. Monsieur Power chewed a grass stem and smiled in a fashion a littlenarquois.
"Why not give in, Ella, and admit you have been in the wrong? You know you'll have to come to it, sooner or later."
He spoke quite pleasantly, but the girl's magnificent dark eyes were blazing with suppressed anger.
Give in! A thing unheard! She had never suffered compulsion in a young lifetime of following her own sweet way, this dollar princess. As they gazed upon each other, I could see a titanic battle of wills in progress beneath the outward calm of the discussion.
"You would not be so foolhardy, Jack," she said, controlling her voice with an effort. "You know, or at least if you don't know, Monsieur Lacroix and everybody else does, that you couldn't live two minutes in this wind."
"Monsieur Power, you are annoying mademoiselle in a grave degree," broke in the count, suddenly glaring. "My friends will lose no time in waiting on you."
The American swung round with one of those rapid, definite movements so habitual with him.
"Don't trouble your friends," he replied. "We can do without them. Come up and fly with me right away. We'll toss a quarter to decide who steers."
"It would be madness!" exclaimed the count, and his jaw dropped.
"Then kindly mind your own business," said Monsieur Power, chewing again on his grass stem, and talking through his teeth. "Now, Ella, time's up! Am I to go?"
The girl bit her lip, and seemed to struggle vainly for a reply, but the look in her eyes would have withered any man less accustomed to strife than this iron-jawed young soldier of fortune from Wall Street. In my turn, anger seized me as I saw her hesitate.
"You will pardon a further interruption, monsieur," I cried. "I can permit no such madness on my flying ground, and no such discourtesy to my pupils."
I beckoned the head mechanician.
"You will at once remove to a hangar the biplane of Monsieur Power," I told him, "and disconnect the ignition. Should he attempt to enter the nacelle again, you will cause him to evacuate it in march time and three movements!"
"And the first dago that tries it will get hurt," added Monsieur Power pleasantly.
"It's cowardly, Jack!" she cried hotly. "It's unworthy of you, a childish bluff like this!"
He must have been planning all the time how he would spring into his seat and start the motor, for when I looked round he was already there, and the great tractor screw was spinning as the exhaust spluttered viciously, making it impossible to reach him except from behind. With all my legs I ran round to the tail, calling upon the mechanicians to aid me.
Too late! The exhaust ripped out as he whipped his motor into her full horse power, and he leaped into the teeth of the wind with a swerve that almost tore off his lower plane against the ground.
"Imbecile!" I roared, but he no longer heard me. To save myself from a violent collision with his tail planes I was compelled to cling desperately to the frail wood and wire girder of the fuselage, and it was in this position that I was carried the length of the flying ground. The gale tore at my hair and distended my cheeks, the turf slipped away beneath me as smooth as green water in the speed of his mad attempt to force the machine into the air.
Slowly and with extreme care I edged my way inch by inch along the fuselage toward the main planes and the pilot's seat. Casting back a glance I saw the hangars, a mere white bar across the plain. A few spectators who had pursued us in a desultory, ineffectual manner stood now at long intervals in our wake, and gesticulated spasmodically.
The next moment we ran into a hollow, and they were lost to view behind the grassy slope.
It was then that the young American looked behind him for the first time, and realized that he had a passenger. Promptly he throttled down his engine into a slow splutter, and turned in his seat as the machine came to a standstill.
"I suppose you've had an uncomfortable minute or two," he grinned. "But it really wasn't your affair. I am perfectly entitled to fly whenever I feel like it."
Pleading that the roar of the motor had deafened me, I climbed up onto the passenger seat.
"It is beyond doubt, monsieur, that you are sane," I said. "But it is equally certain that you propose the act of a madman. Fortunately I have accompanied you, and it is impossible to rise from the ground with my weight on the tail, and my grip upon the elevator wires."
"Meaning that you refuse to let me ascend?"
"Most categorically!"
"But why?" he demanded. "Do you want Miss Warren to think that I was only bluffing, after all? I promised to show her something startling, and I'm going ahead with it."
"To begin with, it would be suicide," I rejoined. "In addition, you would be inflicting gratuitous distress upon mademoiselle."
At this he rose from his seat with the first sign of emotion I had seen in his manner.
"And what is it that she has inflicted for months on me?" he demanded hotly. "And on her father, too, and on all her friends? We can't pick up a newspaper any day, without going cold with fear that we will read of her maimed or dead in some accident. After all, it's only her own medicine."
He took off the black leather helmet, placed it on the seat, and wiped the motor grease from his brow. When he spoke again, it was in the even tones of a man who issues an ultimatum against an intolerable situation.
"There has been altogether too much of this flying business. It's no game for a girl. There is getting to be too much of this count thing. We don't want his sort around here. I've known Ella Warren since she was as big as a glass of milk! Do you think I am going to stand down for the first scented dago—forgive me if I speak disrespectfully of your countryman—whom she chooses to bring across the Atlantic at her heels? No, sir! It has to be stopped somewhere."
He halted a moment, and regarded me carefully. I could see that he was measuring with his eye the distance between us.
"I'm going to scare her stiff," he said, nodding. "Get down off this plane, Monsieur Lacroix!"
"Pardon me," I replied, with a low bow. "But that is for you to do."
And before he could seize me, with one blow of the foot planted suddenly in his chest I shot the young Monsieur Power squarely off his biplane onto the grass. Even as he measured his long length on the ground, I had seized the controls, and the aeroplane spurted fifty yards ahead of him. Ever since he had removed the black casquette, a wild idea, of a dramatic quality irresistible, had formed itself in my brain. I now seized the helmet and thrust it down upon my own head.