If you find this it is the will of God. I have been watchedfor several days, and am now convinced that they have alwaysknown I was here but were leaving me alone for some unknownpurpose. I roll this ball because anything folded and leftin a conspicuous place would be useless should they come forme. I understand. It is you, poor boy. They are watchingme in hopes of catching you, and I've no way to warn you notto come here. It was after I sent you the key that I learnedthe truth. God bless you and guard you!STEFANI.
Hawksley tore the note into scraps. Food and sleep. He walked toward the kitchen, musing. What an odd mixture he was! Superficially British, with the British outlook; and yet filled with the dancing blood of the Latin and the cold, phlegmatic blood of the Slav. He was like a schoolmaster with two students too big for him to handle. Always the Latin was dispossessing the Slav or the Slav was ousting the Latin. With fatalistic confidence that nevermore would he look upon the kindly face of Stefani Gregor, alive, he went in search of food.
Not a crust did he find. In the ice-chest there was a bottle of milk—soured. Hungry; and not a crumb! And he dared not go out in search of food. No one had observed his entrance to the apartment, but it was improbable that such luck would attend him a second time.
He returned to the bedroom. He did not turn on the light because a novel idea had blossomed unexpectedly—a Latin idea. There might be food on some window ledge. He would leave payment. He proceeded to the window, throwing up both it and the curtain, and looked out. Ripping! There was a fire escape.
As he slipped a leg over the sill a golden square sprang into existence across the way. Immediately he forgot his foraging instincts. In a moment he was all Latin, always susceptible to the enchantment of beauty.
The distance across the court was less than forty feet. He could see the girl quite plainly as she set about the preparation of her evening meal. He forgot his danger, his hunger, his code of ethics, which did not permit him to gaze at a young woman through a window.
Alone. He was alone and she was alone. A novel idea popped into his head. He chuckled; and the sound of that chuckle in his ears somehow brought back his resolve to carry on, to pass out, if so he must, fighting. He would knock on yonder window and ask the beautiful lady slavey for a bit of her supper!
Kitty Conover had inherited brains and beauty, and nothing else but the furniture. Her father had been a famous reporter, the admiration of cubs from New York to San Francisco; handsome, happy-go-lucky, generous, rather improvident, and wholly lovable. Her mother had been a comedy actress noted for her beauty and wit and extravagance. Thus it will be seen that Kitty was in luck to inherit any furniture at all.
Kitty was twenty-four. A body is as old as it is, but a brain is as old as the facts it absorbs; and Kitty had absorbed enough facts to carry her brain well into the thirties.
Conover had been dead twenty years; and Kitty had scarcely any recollections of him. Improvident as the run of newspaper writers are, Conover had fulfilled one obligation to his family—he had kept up his endowment policies; and for eighteen years the insurance had taken care of Kitty and her mother, who because of a weak ankle had not been able to return to the scenes of her former triumphs. In 1915 this darling mother, whom Kitty loved to idolatry, had passed on.
There was enough for the funeral and the cleaning up of the bills; but that was all. The income ceased with Mrs. Conover's demise. Kitty saw that she must give up writing short stories which nobody wanted, and go to work. So she proceeded at once to the newspaper office where her father's name was still a tradition, and applied for a job. It was frankly a charity job, but Kitty was never to know that because she fell into the newspaper game naturally; and when they discovered her wide acquaintance among theatrical celebrities they switched her into the dramatic department, where she had astonishing success as a raconteur. She was now assistant dramatic editor of the Sunday issue, and her pay envelope had four crisp ten-dollar notes in it each Monday.
She still remained in the old apartment; sentiment as much as anything. She had been born in it and her happiest days had been spent there. She lived alone, without help, being one of that singular type of womanhood that is impervious to the rust of loneliness. Her daily activities sufficed the gregarious instincts, and it was often a relief to move about in silence.
Among other things Kitty had foresight. She had learned that a little money in the background was the most satisfying thing in existence. So many times she and her mother had just reached the insurance check, with grumbling bill collectors in the hall, that she was determined never to be poor. She had to fight constantly her love of finery inherited from her mother, and her love of good times inherited from her father. So she established a bank account, and to date had not drawn a check against it; which speaks well for her will power, an attribute cultivated, not inherited.
Kitty was as pleasing to the eye as a basket of fruit. Her beauty was animated. There was an expression in her eyes and on her lips that spoke of laughter always on tiptoe. An enviable inheritance, this, the desire to laugh, to be searching always for a vent to laughter; it is something money cannot buy, something not to be cultivated; a true gift of the gods. This desire to laugh is found invariably in the tender and valorous; and Kitty was both. Brown hair with running threads of gold that was always catching light; slate-blue eyes with heavy black fringe-Irish; colour that waxed and waned; and a healthy, shapely body. Topped by a sparkling intellect these gifts made Kitty desirable of men.
Kitty had no beau. After the adolescent days beaux ceased to interest her. This would indicate that she was inclined toward suffrage. Nothing of the kind. Intensely romantic, she determined to await the grand passion or go it alone. No experimental adventures for her. Be assured that she weighed every new man she met, and finding some flaw discarded him as a matrimonial possibility. Besides, her unusual facilities to view and judge men had shown her masculine phases the average woman would have discovered only after the fatal knot was tied. She did not suspect that she was romantical. She attributed her wariness to common sense.
If there is one place where a pretty young woman may labour without having to build a wall of liquid air about her to fend off amatory advances that place is the editorial room of a great metropolitan daily. One must have leisure to fall in love; and only the office boys could assemble enough idle time to call it leisure.
Her desk faced Burlingame's; and Burlingame was the dramatic editor, a scholar and a gentleman. He liked to hear Kitty talk, and often he lured her into the open; and he gathered information about theatrical folks that was outside even his wide range of knowledge.
A drizzly fog had hung over New York since morning. Kitty was finishing up some Sunday special. Burlingame was reading proofs. All day theatrical folks had been in and out of this little ten-by-twelve cubby-hole; and now there would be quiet.
But no. The door opened and an iron-gray head intruded.
“Will I be in the way?”
“Lord, no!” cried Burlingame, throwing down his proofs. “Come along in, Cutty.”
The great war correspondent came in and sat down, sighing gratefully.
Cutty was a nickname; he carried and smoked—everywhere they would permit him—the worst-looking and the worst-smelling pipe in Christendom. You may not realize it, but a nickname is a round-about Anglo-Saxon way of telling a fellow you love him. He was Cutty, but only among his dear intimates, mind you; to the world at large, to presidents, kings, ambassadors, generals, and capitalists he is known by another name. You will find it on the roster of the Royal Geographical; on the title page of several unique books on travel, jewels, and drums; in magazines and newspapers; on the membership roll of the Savage in London and the Lambs in New York. But you will not find it in this story; because it would not be fair to set his name against the unusual adventures that crossed his line of life with that of the young man who wore the tobacco pouch suspended from his neck.
Tall, bony, graceful enough except in a chair, where his angles became conspicuous; the ruddy, weather-bitten complexion of a deep-sea sailor, and a sailor man's blue eye; the brow of a thinker and the mouth of a humourist. Men often call another man handsome when a woman knows they mean manly. Among men Cutty was handsome.
Kitty considerately rose and gathered up her manuscript.
“No, no, Kitty! I'd rather talk to you than Burly, here. You're always reminding me of that father of yours. Best comrade I ever had. You laugh just like him. Did your mother ever tell you that old Cutty is your godfather?”
“Good gracious!”
“Fact. I told your dad I'd watch over you.”
“And a fat lot of watching you've done to date,” jeered Burlingame.
“Couldn't help that. But I can be on the job until I return to the Balkans.”
Kitty laughed joyously and sat down, perhaps a little thrilled. She had always admired Cutty from afar, shyly. Once in a blue moon he had in the old days appeared for tea; and he and Mrs. Conover would spend the balance of the afternoon discussing the lovable qualities of Tommy Conover. Kitty had seen him but twice during the war.
“Every so often,” began Cutty, “I have to find listeners. Fact. I used to hate crowds, listeners; but those ten days in an open boat, a thousand miles from anywhere, made me gregarious. I'm always wanting company and hating to go to bed, which is bad business for a man of fifty-two.” Cutty's ship had been torpedoed.
To Kitty, with his tired eyes and weather-bitten face, his bony, gangling body, he had the appearance of a lazy man. Actually she knew him to be a man of tremendous vitality and endurance. Eagles when they roost are heavy-lidded and clumsy. She wondered if there was a corner on the globe he had not peered into.
For thirty years he had been following two gods—Rumour and War. For thirty years he had been the slave of cables and telegrams. Even now he was preparing to return to the Balkans, where the great fire had started and where there were still some threatening embers to watch.
Cutty was not well known in America; his reputation was European. He played the game because he loved it, being comfortably fortified with worldly goods. He was a linguist of rare attainments, specializing in the polyglot of southeastern Europe. He came and went like cloud shadow. His foresight was so keen he was seldom ordered to go here or there; he was generally on the spot when the orders arrived.
He was interested in socialism and its bewildering ramifications, but only as an analytical student. He could fit himself into any environment, interview a prime minister in the afternoon and take potluck that night with the anarchist who was planning to blow up the prime minister.
Burlingame, an intimate, often exposed for Kitty's delectation the amazing and colourful facets of Cutty's diamond-brilliant mind. Cutty wrote authoritatively on famous gems and collected drums. He had one of the finest collections of chrysoprase in the world. He loved these semi-precious stones because of their unmatchable, translucent green—like the pulp of a grape. From Burlingame Kitty had learned that Cutty, rather indifferent to women, carried about with him the photographs—large size—of famous professional beauties and a case filled with polished chrysoprase. He would lay a photograph on a table and adorn the lovely throat with astonishing necklaces and the head with wonderful tiaras, all the while his brain at work with some intricate political puzzle.
And he collected drums. The walls of his apartment—part of the loft of a midtown office building—were covered with a most startling assortment of drums: drums of war, of the dance, of the temples of the feast, ancient and modern, some of them dreadful looking objects, as Kitty had cause to remember.
Though Cutty had known her father and mother intimately, Kitty was a comparative stranger. He recollected seeing her perhaps a dozen times. She had been a shy child, not given to climbing over visitors' knees; not the precocious offspring of the average theatrical mother. So in the past he had somewhat overlooked her. Then one day recently he had dropped in to see Burlingame and had seen Kitty instead; which accounts for his presence here this day. Neither Kitty nor Burlingame suspected the true attraction. The dramatic editor accepted the advent as a peculiar compliment to himself. And it is to be doubted if Cutty himself realized that there was a true magnetic pole in this cubbyhole of a room.
Kitty, however, had vivid recollections. Actually the first strange man she had ever met. But not having been visible on her horizon, except in flashes, she knew of the man only what she had read and what Burlingame had casually offered during discussions.
“Well, anyhow,” said Burlingame, complacently, “the war is over.”
Cutty smiled indulgently. “That's the trouble with us chaps who tramp round the world for news. We can't bamboozle ourselves like you folks who stay at home. The war was only the first phase. There's a mess over there; wanting something and not knowing exactly what, those millions; milling cattle, with neither shed nor pasture. The Lord only knows how long it will take to clarify. Would you mind if I smoked?”
“Wow!” cried Burlingame.
“Not at all,” answered Kitty. “I don't see how any pipe could be worse than Mr. Burlingame's.”
“I apologize,” said the dramatic editor, humbly.
“You needn't,” replied the girl. She turned to the war correspondent. “Any new drums?”
“I remember that day. You were scared half to death at my walls.”
“Small wonder! I was only twelve; and I dreamed of cannibals for weeks.”
“Drums! I wonder if any living man has heard a greater variety than I? What a lot of them! I have heard them calling a jehad in the Sudan. Tumpi-tum-tump! tumpitum-tump! Makes a white man's hair stand up when he hears it in the night. I don't know what it is, but the sound drives the Oriental mad. And that reminds me—I've had them in mind all day—the drums of jeopardy!”
“What an odd phrase! And what are the drums of jeopardy?” asked Kitty, leaning on her arms. Odd, but suddenly she felt a longing to go somewhere, thousands and thousands of miles away. She had never been west of Chicago or east of Boston. Until this moment she had never felt the call of the blood—her father's. Cocoanut palms and birds of paradise! And drums in the night going tumpi-tum-tump! tumpi-tum-tump!
“I've always been mad over green things,” began Cutty. “A wheat field in the spring, leafing maples. It's Nature's choice and mine. My passion is emeralds; and I haven't any because those I want are beyond reach. They are owned by the great houses of Europe and Asia, and lie in royal caskets; or did. If I could go into a mine and find an emerald as big as my fist I should be only partly happy if it chanced to be of fine colour. In a little while I should lose interest in it. It wouldn't be alive, if you can get what I mean. Just as a man would rather have a homely woman to talk to than a beautiful window dummy to admire. A stone to interest me must have a story—a story of murder and loot, of beautiful women, palaces.
“Br-r-r!” cried Burlingame.
“Why, I've seen emeralds I would steal with half a chance. I couldn't help it. Fact,” declared Cutty, earnestly. “Think of the loot in the Romanoff palaces! What's become of all those magnificent stones? In a little while they'll be turning up in Amsterdam to be cut—some of them. Or maybe Mister Bolsheviki's inamorata will be stringing them round her neck. Loot.”
“But the drums of jeopardy!” said Kitty.
“Emeralds, green as an English lawn in May after a shower, Kitty. By the way, do you mind if I call you Kitty? I used to.”
“And I've always thought of you as Cutty. Fifty-fifty.”
“It's a bargain. Well, the drums to my thinking are the finest two examples of the green beryl in the world. Polished, of course, as emeralds always should be. I should say that they were about the size of those peppermint chocolate drops there.”
“Have one?” said Kitty.
“No. Spoil the taste of the pipe.”
“You ought to spoil that taste once in a while,” was Burlingame's observation. “But go on.”
“I suppose originally there was a single stone, later cut into halves, because they are perfect matches. The drums proper are exquisitely carved ivory statuettes, of Hindu or Mohammedan drummers, squatting, the golden base of the drums between the knees, and the drumheads the emeralds. Lord, how they got to me! I wanted to run off with them. The history of murder and loot they could tell! Some Delhi mogul owned them first. Then Nadir Shah carried them off to Persia, along with the famous peacock throne. I saw them in a palace on the Caspian in 1912. Russia was very strong in Persia at one time. Perhaps they were gifts; perhaps they were stolen—these emeralds. Anyhow, I'd never heard of them until that year. And I travelled all the way up from Constantinople to get a glimpse of them if it were possible. I had to do some mighty fine wire-pulling. For one of those stones I would give half of all I own. To see them in the possession of another man would be a supreme test to my honesty.”
“You old pirate!” said Burlingame.
“But why the word jeopardy?” persisted Kitty, who was intrigued by the phrase.
“Probably some Hindu trick. It is a language of flowery metaphors. It means, I suppose, that when you touch the drums they bite. In journeying from one spot to another they always leave misfortune behind, as I understand it. Just coincidence; but you couldn't drive that into an Oriental skull. This is what makes the study of precious stones so interesting. There is always some enchantment, some evil spell. To handle the drums is to invite a minor accident. Call it twaddle; probably is; and yet I have reason to believe that there's something to the superstition.”
Burlingame sniffed.
“I can prove it,” Cutty declared. “I held those drums in my hands one day. I carried them to a window the better to observe them. On my return to the hotel I was knocked down by a horse and laid up in bed for a week. That same night someone tried to kill the man who showed me the emeralds. Coincidence? Perhaps. But these days I'm shying at thirteen, the wrong side of the street, ladders, and religious curses.”
“An old hard-boiled egg like you?” Burlingame threw up his hands in mock despair.
“I laugh, too; but I duck, nevertheless. The chap who showed me the stones was what you'd call the honorary custodian; a privileged character because of his genius. Before approaching him I sent him a copy of my monograph on green stones. I found that he was quite as crazy over green as I. That brought us together; and while I drew him out I kept wondering where I had seen him before. Both his name and his face were vaguely familiar. It seems a superstition had come along with the stones, from India to Persia, from there to Russia. A maid fortunate enough to see the drums would marry and be happy. The old fellow confessed that occasionally he secretly admitted a peasant maid to gaze upon the stones. But he never let the male inmates of the palace find this out. He knew them a little too intimately. A bad lot.”
“And this palace?” asked Kitty.
“Not one stone on another. The proletariat rose up and destroyed it. To mobs anything beautiful is offensive. Palaces looted, banks, museums, houses. The ignorant toying with hand grenades, thinking them sceptres. All the scum in the world boiling to the top. After the Red Day comes the Red Night.”
“Whatever will become of them—the little kings and princes and dukes?” After all, thought Kitty, they were human beings; they would not suffer any the less because they had been born to the purple.
“Maybe they'll go to work,” said Cutty, dryly. “Sooner or later, all parasites will have to work if they want bread. And yet I've met some men among them, big in the heart and the mind, who would have made bully farmers and professors. The beautiful thing about the Anglo-Saxon education is that the whole structure is based upon fair play. In eastern and southeastern Europe few of them can play solitaire without cheating. But I would give a good deal to know what has happened to those emeralds—the drums of jeopardy. They'll probably be broken up and sold in carat weights. The whole family was wiped out in a night.... I say, will you take lunch with me to-morrow?”
“Gladly.”
“All right. I'll drop in here at half after twelve. Here's my telephone number, should anything alter your plans. If I'm going to be godfather I might as well start right in.”
“The drums of jeopardy; what a haunting phrase!”
“Haunting stones, too, Kitty. For picking them up in my hands I went to bed with a banged-up leg. I can't forget that. We Occidentals laugh at Orientals and their superstitions. We don't believe in the curse. And yet, by George, those emeralds were accursed!”
“Piffle!” snorted Burlingame. “Mush! It's greed, pure and simple, that gives precious stones their sinister histories. You'd have been hit by that horse if you had picked up nothing more valuable than a rhinestone buckle. Take away the gold lure, and precious stones wouldn't sell at the price of window glass.”
“Is that so? How about me? It isn't because a stone is worth so much that makes me want it. I want it for the sheer beauty; I want it for the tremendous panorama the sight of it unfolds in my mind. I imagine what happened from the hour the stone was mined to the hour it came into my possession. To me—to all genuine collectors—the intrinsic value is nil. Can't you see? It is for me what Balzac's La Peau de Chagrin would be to you if you had fallen on it for the first time—money, love, tragedy, death.”
An interruption came in the form of one of the office boys. The chief was on the wire and wanted Cutty at once.
“At half after twelve, Kitty. And by the way,” added Cutty as he rose, “they say about the drums that a beautiful woman is immune to their danger.”
“There's your chance, Kitty,” said Burlingame.
“Am I beautiful?” asked Kitty, demurely.
“Lord love the minx!” shouted Cutty. “A corner in Mouquin's.”
“Rain or shine.” After Cutty had departed Kitty said: “He's the most fascinating man I know. What fun it would be to jog round the world with a man like that, who knew everybody and everything. As a little girl I was violently in love with him; but don't you ever dare give me away.”
“You'll probably have nightmare to-night. And honestly you ought not to live in that den alone. But Cutty has seen things,” Burlingame admitted; “things no white man ought to see. He's been shot up, mauled by animals, marooned, torpedoed at sea, made prisoner by old Fuzzy-Wuzzy. An ordinary man would have died of fatigue. Cutty is as tough and strong as a gorilla and as active as a cat. But this jewel superstition is all rot. Odd, though; he'll travel halfway round the world to see a ruby or an emerald. He says no true collector cares a cent for a diamond. Says they are vulgar.”
“Except on the third finger of a lady's left hand; and then they are just perfectly splendid!”
“Oho! Well, when you get yours I hope it's as big as the Koh-i-noor.”
“Thank you! You might just as well wish a brick on me!”
Kitty left the office at a quarter of six. The phrase kept running through her head—the drums of jeopardy. A little shiver ran up her spine. Money, love, tragedy, death! This terrible and wonderful old world, of which she had seen little else than city streets, suddenly exhibited wide vistas. She knew now why she had begun to save—travel. Just as soon as she had a thousand she would go somewhere. A great longing to hear native drums in the night.
Even as the wish entered her mind a new sound entered her ears. The Subway car wheels began to beat—tumpitum-tump! tumpitum-tump! Fudge! She opened her evening paper and scanned the fashions, the dramatic news, and the comics. Being a woman she read the world news last. On the front page she saw a queer story, dated at Albany: Mysterious guests at a hotel; how they had fought and fled in the early morning. There had been left behind a case with foreign orders incrusted with several thousand dollars' worth of gems. Bolsheviki, said the police; just as they said auto bandits a few years ago when confronted with something they could not understand. The orders had been turned over to the Federal authorities from whom it was learned that they were all royal and demi-royal. Neither of the two guests had returned up to noon, and one had fled, leaving even his hat and coat. But there was nothing to indicate his identity.
“Loot!” murmured Kitty. “All the scum in the world rising to the top”—quoting Cutty. “Poor things!” as she thought of the gentle ladies who had died horribly in bedrooms and cellars.
Kitty was beginning to cast about for more congenial quarters. There were too many foreigners in the apartments, and none of them especially good housekeepers. Always, nowadays, somebody had a washing out on the line, the odour of garlic was continuously in the air, and there were noisy children under foot in the halls. The families she and her mother had known were all gone; and Kitty was perhaps the oldest inhabitant in the block.
The living-room windows faced Eightieth Street; bedrooms, dining room, and kitchen looked out upon the court. From the latter windows one could step out upon the fire-escape platform, which ran round the three sides of the court.
Among the present tenants she knew but one, an old man by the name of Gregory, who lived opposite. The acquaintance had never ripened into friendship; but sometimes Kitty would borrow an egg and he would borrow some sugar. In the summertime, when the windows were open at night, she had frequently heard the music of a violin swimming across the court. Polish, Russian, and Hungarian music, always speaking with a tragic note; nothing she had ever heard in concerts. Once, however, she had heard him begin something from Thais, and stop in the middle of it; and that convinced her that he was a master. She was fond of good music. One day she asked Gregory why he did not teach music instead of valeting at a hotel. His answer had been illuminative. It was only his body that pressed clothes; but it would have torn his soul to listen daily to the agonized bow of the novice. Kitty was lonely through pride as much as anything. As for friends, she had a regiment of them. But she rarely accepted their hospitality, realizing that she could not return it. No young men called because she never invited them. All this, however, was going to change when she moved.
As she turned on the hail light she saw an envelope on the floor. Evidently it had been shoved under the door. It was unstamped. She opened it, and stepped out of the humdrum into the whirligig.
DEAR MISS CONOVER:If anything should happen to me all the things in my apartmentI give to you without reservation.STEPHEN GREGORY.
She read the letter a dozen times to make sure that it meant exactly what it said. He might be ill. After she had cooked her supper she would run round and inquire. The poor lonely old man!
She went into the kitchen and took inventory. There was nothing but bacon and eggs and coffee. She had forgotten to order that morning. She lit the gas range and began to prepare the meal. As she broke an egg against the rim of the pan the nearby Elevated train rushed by, drumming tumpitum-tump! tumpitum-tump! She laughed, but it wasn't honest laughter. She laughed because she was conscious that she was afraid of something. Impulse drove her to the window. Contact with men—her unusual experiences as a reporter—had developed her natural fearlessness to a point where it was aggressive. As she pressed the tip of her nose against the pane, however, she found herself gazing squarely into a pair of exceedingly brilliant dark eyes; and all the blood in her body seemed to rush violently into her throat.
Tableau!
Kitty gasped, but she did not cry out. The five days' growth of blondish stubble, the discoloured eye—for all the orb itself was brilliant—and the hawky nose combined to send through her the first great thrill of danger she had ever known.
Slowly she backed away from the window. The man outside immediately extended his hands with a gesture that a child would have understood. Supplication. Kitty paused, naturally. But did the man mean it? Might it not be some trick to lure her into opening the window? And what was he doing outside there anyhow? Her mind, freed from the initial hypnosis of the encounter, began to work quickly. If she ran from the kitchen to call for help he might be gone when she returned, only to come back when she was again alone.
Once more the man executed that gesture, his palms upward. It was Latin; she was aware of that, for she was always encountering it in the halls. Another gesture. She understood this also. The tips of the fingers bunched and dabbed at the lips. She had seen Italian children make the gesture and cry: “Ho fame!” Hungry. But she could not let him into the kitchen. Still, if he were honestly hungry—She had it!
In the kitchen-table drawer was an imitation revolver—press the trigger, and a fluted fan was revealed—a dance favour she had received during the winter.
She plucked it out of the drawer and walked bravely to the window, which she threw up.
“What do you want? What are you doing out there on the fire escape?” she instantly demanded to know.
“My word, I am hungry! I was looking out of the window across the way and saw you preparing your dinner. A bit of bread and a glass of milk. Would you mind, I wonder?”
“Why didn't you come to the door then? What window?” Kitty was resolute; once she embarked upon an enterprise.
“That one.”
“Where is Mr. Gregory?” Kitty recalled that odd letter.
“Gregory? I should very much like to know. I have come many miles to see him. He sent me a duplicate key. There was not even a crust in the cupboard.”
Gregory away? That letter! Something had happened to that poor, kindly old man. “Why did you not seek some restaurant? Or have you no money?”
“I have plenty. I was afraid that I might not be able conveniently to return. I am a stranger. My actions might be viewed with suspicion.”
“Indeed! Describe Mr. Gregory.”
Not of the clinging kind, evidently, he thought. A raving beauty—Diana domesticated!
“It is four years since I saw him. He was then gray, dapper, and erect. A mole on his chin, which he rubs when he talks. He is a valet in one of the fashionable hotels. He is—or was—the only true friend I have in New York.”
“Was? What do you mean?”
“I'm afraid something has happened to him. I found his bedroom things tossed about.”
“What could possibly happen to a harmless old man like Mr. Gregory?”
“Pardon me, but your egg is burning!”
Kitty wheeled and lifted off the pan, choking in the smother of smoke. She came right-about face swiftly enough. The man had not moved; and that decided her.
“Come in. I will give you something to eat. Sit in that chair by the window, and be careful not to stir from it. I'm a good shot,” lied Kitty, truculently. “Frankly, I do not like the looks of this.”
“I do look like a burglar, what?” He sat down in the chair meekly. Food and a human being to talk to! A lovely, self-reliant American girl, able to take care of herself. Magnificent eyes—slate blue, with thick, velvety black lashes. Irish.
In a moment Kitty had three eggs and half a dozen strips of bacon frying in a fresh pan. She kept one eye upon the pan and the other upon the intruder, risking strabismus. At length she transferred the contents of the pan to a plate, backed to the ice chest, and reached for a bottle of milk. She placed the food at the far end of the table and retreated a few steps, her arms crossed in such a way as to keep the revolver in view.
“Please do not be afraid of me.
“What makes you think I am?”
“Any woman would be.”
Kitty saw that he was actually hungry, and her suspicions began to ebb. He hadn't lied about that. And he ate like a gentleman. Young, not more than thirty; possibly less. But that dreadful stubble and that black eye! The clothes would have passed muster on any fashionable golf links. A fugitive? From what?
“Thank you,” he said, setting down the empty milk bottle.
“Your accent is English.”
“Which is to say?”
“That your gestures are Italian.”
“My mother was Italian. But what makes you believe I am not English?”
“An Englishman—or an American, for that matter—with money in his pocket would have gone into the street in search of a restaurant.”
“You are right. The fundamentals of the blood will always crop out. You can educate the brain but not the blood. I am not an Englishman; I merely received my education at Oxford.”
“A fugitive, however, of any blood might have come to my window.”
“Yes; I am a fugitive, pursued by the god of Irony. And Irony is never particular; the chase is the thing. What matters it whether the quarry be wolf or sheep?”
Kitty was impressed by the bitterness of the tone. “What is your name?”
“John Hawksley.”
“But that is English!”
“I should not care to call myself Two-Hawks, literally. It would be embarrassing. So I call myself Hawksley.”
A pause. Kitty wondered what new impetus she might give to the conversation, which was interesting her despite her distrust.
“How did you come by that black eye?” she asked with embarrassing directness.
Hawksley smiled, revealing beautifully white teeth. “I say, it is a bit off, isn't it! I received it”—a twinkle coming into his eyes—“in a situation that had moribund perspectives.”
“Moribund perspectives,” repeated Kitty, casting the phrase about in her mind in search of an equivalent less academic.
“I am young and healthy, and I wanted to live,” he said, gravely. “I am curious to know what is going to happen to-morrow and other to-morrows.”
Somewhere near by a door was slammed violently. Kitty, every muscle in her body tense, jumped convulsively, with the result that her finger pressed automatically the trigger of her pistol. The fan popped out gayly.
Hawksley stared at the fan, quite as astonished as Kitty. Then he broke into low, rollicking laughter, which Kitty, because her basic corpuscle was Irish, perforce had to join. For all her laughter she retreated, furious and alarmed.
“Fancy! I say, now, you're jolly plucky to face a scoundrel like me with that.”
“I don't just know what to make of you,” said Kitty, irresolutely, flinging the fan into a corner.
“You have revivified a celestial spark—my faith in human beings. I beg of you not to be afraid of me. I am quite harmless. I am very grateful for the meal. Yours is the one act of kindness I have known in weeks. I will return to Gregor's apartment at once. But before I go please accept this. I rather suspect, you know, that you live alone, and that fan is amusing and not particularly suitable.” He rose and unsmilingly laid upon the table one of those heavy blue-black bull-dogs of war, a regulation revolver. Kitty understood what this courteous act signified; he was disarming himself to reassure her.
“Sit down,” she ordered. Either he was harmless or he wasn't. If he wasn't she was utterly at his mercy. She might be able to lift that terrible-looking engine of murder, battle, and sudden death with the aid of both hands, but to aim and fire it—never in this world! “As I came in to-night I found a note in the hall from Mr. Gregory. I will fetch it. But you call him Gregor?”
“His name is Stefani Gregor; and years and years ago he dandled me on his knees. I promise not to move until you return.”
Subdued by she knew not what, no longer afraid, Kitty moved out of the kitchen. She had offered Gregory's letter as an excuse to reach the telephone. Once there, however, she did not take the receiver off the hook. Instead she whistled down the tube for the janitor.
“This is Miss Conover. Come up to my apartment in ten minutes.... No; it's not the water pipes.... In ten minutes.”
Nothing very serious could happen inside of ten minutes; and the janitor was reliable and not the sort one reads about in the comic weeklies. Her confidence reenforced by the knowledge that a friend was near, she took the letter into the kitchen. Apparently her unwelcome guest had not stirred. The revolver was where he had laid it.
“Read this,” she said.
The visitor glanced through it. “It is Gregor's hand. Poor old chap! I shall never forgive my self.”
“For what?”
“For dragging him into this. They must have intercepted one of my telegrams.” He stared dejectedly at the strip of oilcloth in front of the range. “You are an American?”
“Yes.”
“God has been exceedingly kind to your country. I doubt if you will ever know how kind. I'll take myself off. No sense in compromising you.” He laid a folded handkerchief inside his cap which he put on. “Know anything about this?”—indicating the revolver.
“Nothing whatever.”
“Permit me to show you. It is loaded; there are five bullets in the clip. See this little latch? So, it is harmless. So, and you kill with it.”
“It is horrible!” cried Kitty. “Take it with you please. I could not keep my eyes open to shoot it.”
“These are troublous times. All women should know something about small arms. Again I thank you. For your own sake I trust that we may never meet again. Good-bye.” He stepped out of the window and vanished.
Kitty, at a mental impasse, could only stare into the night beyond the window. This mesmeric state endured for a minute; then a gentle and continuous sound dissipated the spell. It was raining. Obliquely she saw the burnt egg in the pan. The thing had happened; she had not been dreaming.
Her brain awoke. Thought crowded thought; before one matured another displaced it; and all as futile as the sparks from the anvil. An avalanche of conjecture; and out of it all eventually emerged one concrete fact. The man Was honest. His hunger had been honest; his laughter. Who was he, what was he? For all his speech, not English; for all his gestures, not Italian. Moribund perspectives. Somewhere that day he had fought for his life. John Two-Hawks.
And there was the mysterious evanishment of old Gregory, whose name was Stefani Gregor. In a humdrum, prosaic old apartment like this!
Kitty had ideas about adventure—an inheritance, though she was not aware of that. There had to be certain ingredients, principally mystery. Anything sordid must not be permitted to edge in. She had often gone forth upon semi-perilous enterprises as a reporter, entered sinister houses where crimes had been committed, but always calculating how much copy at eight dollars a column could be squeezed out of the affair. But this promised to be something like those tales which were always clear and wonderful in her head but more or less opaque when she attempted to transfer them to paper. A secret society? Vengeance? An echo of the war?
“Johnny Two-Hawks,” she murmured aloud. “And he hopes we'll never meet again!”
There was a mirror over the sink, and she threw a glance into it. Very well; if he thought like that about it.
Here the doorbell tinkled. That would be the faithful janitor. She ran to the door.
“Whadjuh wanta see me about, Miz Conover?”
“What has happened to old Mr. Gregory?”
“Him? Why, some amb'lance fellers carted him off this afternoon. Didn't know nawthin' was the matter with 'im until I runs into them in the hall.”
“He'd been hurt?”
“Couldn't say, miz. He was on a stretcher when I seen 'im. Under a sheet.”
“But he might have been dead!”
“Nope. I ast 'em, an' they said a shock of some sort.”
“What hospital?”
“Gee, I forgot t'ast that!”
“I'll find out. Good-night.”
But Kitty did not find out. She called up all the known private and public hospitals, but no Gregor or Gregory had been received that afternoon, nor anybody answering his description. The fog had swallowed up Stefani Gregor.