Love was in the air! Love was making Tom Mer-riwether impatient, as that love which is the love of loving always makes the mateless man.
He could no longer sit calmly. He could not sit at all. He craved to do something, to do anything, so long as it was motion. Therefore he walked briskly northward. At Ninetieth Street he halted abruptly. He had begun to walk mechanically and he could think of what he did not wish to think. So he shook himself free from the spell and walked back.
An hour had passed. He again rang the bell of 777. The same footman opened the door.
“Is he in?” asked Tom, impatiently.
“Yes, sir—he is, sir. I told him the moment he came in, sir.” He looked as uncomfortable as a lifelong habit of impassivity permitted.
“What did he say?” asked Tom.
“He said: 'How much did he offer to give you when you said I wasn't at home?' Yes, sir. That's what he asked me.”
“And you said?”
“I said it was a yellowback, sir. That's all I could see. I said I wouldn't take it, and he said I might just as well have taken it. Thank you, sir! This way, sir.”
The footman led the way to the door in the rear, rapped, and in the sonorous, triumphant voice that a twenty-dollar tip will give to any menial he announced:
“Mr. Merriwether!”
The same man was in the same chair in the same room, with his back to the stained-glass window. Tom recalled all the incidents of his previous visits—recalled every detail. Also the old question: What is the game? Also the new question: Where is she?
The man rose and bowed. It was the bow of a social equal, Tom saw.
“Good morning, Mr. Merriwether. Won't you be seated, sir?” And he motioned him to a chair.
“Thank you.”
“How can I serve you?”
“Who is the woman?” said Tom, abruptly. “Your fate!” answered the man.
“Her name?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Her address?”
“I don't know it.”
“What is your game?”
“I have money enough for my whims and time enough to gratify my desire to help you. Eugenics is my hobby. I recognize that I cannot fight against the decree of destiny.”
“I am tired of all this humbug.”
“I ask nothing of you now. You can go or you can come. You can go to India or to Patagonia—or even farther. You may send detectives and lawyers, or even thugs, to me. You may cease your search for her—if you can!”
“You have roused my curiosity—”
“That is a sign of intelligence.”
“I tell you now that I don't believe a word of what you say.”
“Free country, young man.”
“I've had enough of this nonsense—”
“Though I am always glad to see you, young sir, and would not wound your feelings for worlds”—the man's voice was very polite, but also very cold—“I might be forgiven for observing that I did not ask you to call.”
“I'll give you a thousand dollars—”
The man stopped him with a deprecatory wave of the hand.
“One of the pearls I offered you, Mr. Merriwether, is valued at ten thousand dollars. You did not select that one; but I'll exchange the one you took for it—now if you wish.”
“That's all very well, but—” Tom paused, and the man cut in:
“Do you wish to see her from a safe distance? Or do you wish to talk to her without seeing her? Or—”
“To see her and talk to her!”
“Wait!”
The man intently regarded the tip of Tom's left shoe for fully five minutes. Then he raised his head and clapped his hands twice. The black manservant with the fez appeared.
The man said something in Arabic—at least it sounded so to Tom. The black answered. The man spoke again. The black replied:
The man said what sounded to Tom like, “Ay adad.”
The negro answered, “Al-sabi! Al-sabi wal Saboun.”
The man waved his hand dismissingly and the negro salaamed and left the room.
After a moment the man turned to Tom and said, with obvious perplexity: “I am not sure it is wise for me to meddle, but perhaps it is written that I am to help you three times. Who knows?”
He stared into Tom's eyes as though he would read a word there—either yes or no. But Tom said, a trifle impatiently:
“Well, sir?”
“Go to the opera to-night. Take seat H 77. No other seat will do.”
“H 77—to-night,” repeated Thomas Thorne Merriwether.
“The opera is 'Madame Butterfly.'”
“Thanks,” said Tom, and started for the door. He halted when the man spoke.
“It is the seat back of G 77. None other will do.”
“Good day, sir,” said Tom, and left the room.
The telephone operator in E. H. Merriwether's office manipulated the plugs in the switchboard and answered in advance:
“Mr. Merriwether's office!”
From the other end of the wire came:
“This is the Rivulet Club. Mr. Waters wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. Merriwether. Personal matter.”
“He's engaged just now. Will any one else do?”
“No. Say it is Mr. Waters—about Mr. Tom Merriwether.”
People resorted to all manner of tricks and subterfuges to speak to Mr. E. H. Merriwether—deluded people who thought they could get what they wished if only they could speak to Mr. Merriwether himself. They never succeeded. He was too well guarded by highly paid experts who prevented the waste of his precious time. But the telephone operator knew her business. She switched the would-be conversationalist on to the private secretary's line, saying: “Mr. Waters, Rivulet Club, wishes to speak to Mr. E. H. in regard to Mr. Tom Merriwether.”
“I'll talk to him,” hastily said the private secretary.
“Hello, Mr. Waters! This is McWayne, Mr. Merriwether's private secretary. Has anything happened to Tom that—Oh! Yes—of course! At once, Mr. Waters.”
McWayne then had the operator put Mr. Waters on Mr. E. H.'s wire.
“Who?” said the czar of the Pacific & Southwestern. “Waters? Oh yes. Go ahead!”
And Mr. E. H. Merriwether heard, in a young man's voice:
“Say, Mr. Merriwether, some of the fellows here thought I'd better speak to you about Tom. He's been acting kind of queer; of course I don't mean crazy or—er—alarming; but—don't you know?—unusual.... Yes, sir! A little unusual for him, Mr. Merriwether. To-day it was about the opera. Says he's got to get a certain seat, no matter what it costs. Of course it isn't our business.... Oh no! he never drinks too much. No; never! We don't think we are called on to follow him to the Metropolitan, where he has just gone; but we thought you ought to know it. Please don't bring us into any—you know we are very fond of Tom; and we were a little worried, he's been so unlike himself lately. We teased him about being in love, and he—er—he seemed to get quite angry.... Yes, Mr. Merriwether; we'll keep you posted; and please don't give me away. It was a very delicate matter and—Don't mention it, Mr. Merriwether. We'd all do anything for Tom, sir. Good-by.”
E. H. Merriwether, the greatest little cuss in the world, as his admirers called him, hung up the telephone. His face, that impassive gambler's face which never told anything, now showed as plainly as could be that he was wounded in a vital spot.
His son Tom was all this great millionaire had!
His railroad became so much junk and his vast plans just so much waste paper as he thought of Tom. Was the boy going insane? Was it drugs? Was it one of those mysterious maladies that break millionaires' hearts by baffling the greatest physicians of the entire world and being beyond the reach of gold? Or was it a joke? Young Evert Waters was a friend of Tom's; but might not he exaggerate? He rang the bell for his private secretary.
“McWayne, send somebody with brains to the Metropolitan Opera House to find out whether my son Tom has been up there—box-office—and what he is up to. I want to know how he acts. I want to know where the boy goes and what he does, whom he sees and where. Get some specialist on—er”—he could not bring himself to say mental diseases—“on nervous troubles, and make an appointment with him to come to my house to-morrow morning. He will have breakfast with us—say, at eight-thirty. I don't want Tom to know.”
He avoided McWayne's eyes.
“Yes, sir,” said McWayne.
“Be ready to notify the papers to suppress any and all stories about Tom. I fear nothing and expect nothing, because I know nothing. Drop everything else and attend to these matters at once. I have heard that Tom is acting a little queer. It may be a lie or a joke—or a trick. I want to find out—that's all.”
He would learn before he acted decisively. He stared at a pigeonhole in his desk marked T. T. M. There he kept all letters Tom had written him from boarding-school and from college. Presently he raised his head and drew a deep breath. There was no need to worry until he knew. It would be a waste of energy and of time; and, for all his millions, he could not afford the waste. He rang a bell; and when a clerk appeared he said in his calm, emotionless voice:
“I'll see Governor Bolton the moment he comes in.”
There was a big battle on between capital and labor. He was in the thick of it. He put Tom out of his mind for the time being. He could do that at will; but he could not put Tom out of his heart—this little chap that people called ruthless.
Tom Merriwether went to the box-office at the Metropolitan and said, pleasantly, as men do when they ask for what they know will be given to them:
“I want the seat just back of G 77—orchestra—for to-night. I suppose it will be H 77.”
The clerk, who knew the heir of the Merriwether millions, said, “I'll see whether we have it, Mr. Merriwether.” He saw. Then he said, with sincere regret: “I'm very sorry. It's gone.”
“I must have it,” said Tom, determinedly.
“I don't quite see how I can help you, Mr. Merri-wether. I can give you another just as—”
“I don't want any other seat. Who bought it?”
“I don't know. It may be a subscription seat, sold months ago.”
“It's the double seven on the seventh row that I am concerned about. I want the seat just back of it.”
“I'll call up the ticket agencies. There's a bare chance they may have it.” After a few minutes he said, “I'm very sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but I can't get it. They haven't it.”
“I'm willing to pay any price for H 77. I'll give you a hundred dollars if you—”
“Mr. Merriwether, I couldn't do it if you offered me a thousand! If I could do it at all I'd be only too glad to do it for you—for nothing,” the clerk said, and blushed.
Everybody liked Tom.
The sincerity in the clerk's voice impressed young Mr. Merriwether, who thanked him warmly and withdrew. The baffled feeling that he took away with him from the ticket-window grew in intensity until he was ready to fight.
It was a natural-enough impulse that led him back to 777 Fifth Avenue; but he was not quite sure whether he was angry at the man for telling him to do what was obviously impossible or at himself for determining to find her!
He rang the bell of the house of mystery. The footman that answered was one of the intelligent four; but his face was impassive, as though he had never before seen Tom.
“Your master?” asked Tom, abruptly.
“Your card, please,” said the footman, impassively.
Tom gave it to him. The man disappeared, presently to return.
“This way, sir.” And at the door in the rear he paused and announced, “Mr. Merriwether!”
The master of the house was in his usual place. He bowed his head gravely and waited.
“I couldn't get the seat,” said Tom, with a frown.
“It is written, 'Vain are man's efforts!'”
“That's all very well, my friend. But the next time—”
“Fate deals with time—not with next time! There is no certainty of any time but one. If you can do nothing I can do nothing. I still say, The seat back of G 77 to-night.”
Tom Merriwether looked searchingly into the calm eyes before him. The baffled feeling returned; also, a great curiosity. What would the end be? At length he said, “Good day, sir.” He half hoped the man would volunteer some helpful remark.
“Good day, sir,” said the man, with cold politeness.
Tom went back to the Opera House and asked for somebody in authority to whom he might talk. They ushered him into Mr. Kirsch's presence. Mr. Kirsch, amiable by birth, temperament, and training, listened to him with much gravity; also, with a concern he tried to conceal, for it was too sad—a bright, clean-living, intensely likable chap like Tom, only heir to the Merriwether millions!
Fearing a scene, he told Tom that he would speak to the ticket-takers in the lobby to be on the lookout for ticket H 77. Then he conferred with the emissary McWayne had sent, who thereupon was able to send in a most alarming report.
The private secretary softened it as much as he could, and even dared to suggest to the chief that it might be a bet; but the little czar of the Pacific & Southwestern, who had never flinched under any strain or stress, grew visibly older as he heard that his son was offering thousands for an opera-seat—for the seat back of the double seven, seventh row. It could mean but one thing!
Tom was so fortunate as to be standing beside the ticket-collector at the middle door of the main entrance when the owner of H 77 appeared. He was a fat man with a pink and shiny face, a close-cropped mustache, and huge pearl studs. The fat man was fortunately alone.
“Sir,” said Tom, “I should like to speak a moment with you.”
The man looked apprehensive. Then he said, “What is it about?”
“For very strong personal reasons I should like to exchange tickets with you. I can give you G 126—every bit as good—on the other side of the aisle.”
“Why should I change?” queried the shiny-faced man, suspiciously.
“To oblige a very nice young lady and myself. Of course, if you prefer to be paid—”
“I don't need money.”
“Well, I'll pay you a hundred dollars for your ticket,” said Tom, coldly.
The man shook his head from force of habit, in order that Tom might see he was offering too little. Then he said, recklessly:
“It's yours, my friend. I have a pet charity. I'll give your money to it. Where's the hundred?”
Tom took out a small roll of yellow bills, pulled off one, and handed it to the man with the pet charity, who took it, looked at it, nodded, put it in his pocket, gave the coupon to Tom, and then held out his right hand.
“Where is the ticket for G 120 that you'll give me in place of mine?”
Tom gave it to him and walked into the house, not knowing that McWayne's emissary had listened and reported. He sat in H 77 and tried to laugh at his own absurd behavior; but somewhere within him—away in, very deep—something was thrillingly alert, tantalizingly expectant.
The seat before him was empty. It remained empty during the first act. It angered Tom that the climax should be so long in coming. The three seats in front of him remained vacant until just before the curtain went up on the last act. Somebody came in just as the lights were lowered and occupied seat G 77.
Tom sat up and braced himself. He leaned over, vaguely desiring to be near her. Unconscious that he was under a strain he, nevertheless, drew a deep breath.
Instantly there came to him the odor of sweet peas, and with it thoughts of summer, of a beautiful girl, of a soul-mate, of a wife. Love filled his being. He wished to love and be loved. He wished to be somebody's husband, so that he might begin to live the life he was to live until the day of his death!
He leaned back in his chair and again inhaled the fragrance of sweet peas—the odor that must mean kisses in the open; the inarticulate love-making of breezes and blossoms; the multitudinous whispers of midsummer nights heard by love-hungry ears. And then the music! There came the breaking of a heart about to cease beating and the sobbing crash of the brasses in the finale. It was almost more than Tom could bear.
Then the curtain fell and light flooded the house. People streamed out. Tom twisted and turned to see the face of the lady who made him think of the sweet peas, which made him think of love and marriage and children—but she was wrapped to the cheeks in a fur-edged opera-cloak and her head was covered with a black-lace wrap. He could not see her face; and after rivulets of people reached the main stream in the middle aisle he found himself hopelessly separated from her. He tried to jostle his way through. McWayne, his father's private secretary, suddenly happened to be there.
“Hello, Tom!” he said. “What's your rush?”
Tom saw that it was useless to pursue the phantom of sweet peas and dreams of love unless he vaulted over the stalls. McWayne's presence made him realize how his friends would be shocked by such actions.
“No hurry at all,” said Tom, who, after all, was a Merriwether. “Just wanted to smoke and to see whether I knew that girl.”
“I'll bet she's a pippin!” said McWayne, with a friendly smile. It irritated Tom.
“I don't know any of your friends,” said Tom, coldly; “lady friends and pippins, fellows like you call them, I believe.”
That was what convinced McWayne that the worst was to be feared about poor Tom, who was so considerate and amiable when normal. Poor Tom! McWayne telephoned to the waiting E. H. Merriwether, whose only reply was to ask the private secretary to arrange to have Dr. Frauenthal, the great specialist, at breakfast in the Merriwether house the next morning, without fail.
It was a common occurrence for Dr. Frauenthal to meet—under false pretenses, as it were—persons whose sanity was suspected by fond relatives who dared not openly acknowledge their suspicions. He was a man whose eyes had been compared to psychic corkscrews, with which he brought the patient's secret thoughts to the light of day. Some one said of him that, by inducing a feeling of guilt and detection among the predatory rich, he was able to exact colossal fees from them. He was the man who had made Ordway Blake give up making six millions a year in Wall Street by quitting the game. Mr. Blake was still alive.
Frauenthal was introduced to Tom as a gentleman whose advice “E. H.” desired. The men conversed on various topics apparently haphazard; but in reality Tom, without knowing it, was answering test questions. The answers could not conclusively prove insanity, but they would certainly show whether a more thorough examination was necessary.
Mr. Merriwether and Frauenthal left the house together. They entered the waiting brougham. The great little railroad magnate gave the address of the doctor's office to the footman, then turned to Frauenthal and said, calmly:
“Well, what do you think of him?”
His voice was steady and cold; his face imperturbable; his eyes were fixed with intelligent scrutiny on the specialist's, but his fingers tightly clutched a rolled morning newspaper.
Frauenthal turned his clinical stare on E. H. Merriwether, as though the financier were really the patient. He swept the little man's face—the eyes, the mouth, and the poise—and then let his eyes linger on the clenched fingers about the newspaper.
The iron-nerved, glacial-blooded, flint-hearted Merriwether could not control himself after forty-five seconds of this. He flung the newspaper on the floor violently.
“Go ahead!” he said, harshly.
The doctor did not smile outwardly; but you felt that within himself he had found an answer to one of his own unspoken questions about the father of the suspect.
“There are, Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” he began, in the measured tones and overcareful enunciation of a lecturer at a clinic, “various forms of—let us say—madness; and your son Tom, a fine young man of twenty-eight, is quite unmistakably suffering from—”
He paused to give the fine young man's emotionless father an opportunity to show human feelings. Frauenthal was always interested in the struggle between the emotional and the physical in his millionaire patients.
“Go on!” said E. H. Merriwether, so very coldly as to irritate.
His eyes never left the alienist's own secret-draggers; but he was drumming on his thigh with the tips of his uncontrollable fingers. Ordinarily his desk would have screened from sight this betrayal of human feeling.
“Your son, sir, is suffering, beyond any question, from the oldest madness of all—love!”
“What?”
“Your son Tom is in love. That is what ails him.”
“Are you serious?” Mr. Merriwether was frowning fiercely now.
“You'll think so,” retorted Frauenthal, coldly, “when you get my bill.”
“My boy Tom in love?” repeated the czar, blankly. “Yes.”
“With whom?”
“I don't know. I'm a neurologist—not a soothsayer.”
“Well, suppose he is in love—what of it?”
“Nothing—to me.”
“Then what is serious about it?”
“I can't tell you, for its seriousness to you depends on your point of view toward society at large. There are, of course, the obvious disquieting circumstances.”
“For instance?”
“He is a fine chap—healthy, bright, honest. What is the reason he has said nothing to you? Is he ashamed or afraid? If he is ashamed it is very serious to both of you. If he is afraid—well, then the seriousness depends on how intelligent a father you have been to him.”
“Don't talk like a damned fool! I've been a good father to him; of course—”
“Wait! Wait! First tell me why you do what you ask me not to do?” In the specialist's eyes was a sort of professional curiosity.
“What do you mean?” said E. H. Merriwether, impatiently. It exasperated him to be puzzled.
“Why do you talk like a damned fool?” said Frauenthal.
Nobody ever talked that way to Mr. E. H. Merriwether, overlord of the greatest railroad empire in history. He flushed and was about to retort angrily, but controlled himself in time. The brougham had reached Frauenthal's office. Mr. Merriwether spoke too calmly—you could feel the tense restraint:
“Dr. Frauenthal, I've heard a great deal of your wonderful ability.”
He paused. It came hard to him to be ingratiating. This difficulty is the revenge which nature takes on people who acquire the habit of 'paying money for everything in this world. Such men cannot talk except with a check-book, and the check-book loses the power of speech before happiness—and before death.
“What very difficult thing is it you wish me to do for you?” asked Frauenthal, coldly.
“You are sure Tom is not—” He hesitated.
“Crazy?” prompted the specialist.
“Yes.”
“Yes; I'm sure he is not. Therefore he is saner than you who are a money-maker.”
Mr. Merriwether let this remark pass. He was anxious to save Tom. This man was uncannily sharp. He said, “And can't you do something, so that Tom will not—”
“I am not God!” interrupted Frauenthal.
“Then, what can I do? What do you suggest might be done?”
“As a neurologist?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing.”
“Then, as a man of the world—as one who knows human nature? You see, this—this—er—sort of thing is not in my line. What shall I do?” It was a terrible thing for the great Merriwether to confess inefficiency in anything.
“Pray!”
The little magnate flushed. “Dr. Frauenthal,” he began, with chilling dignity, “I asked—”
“And I answered. Have your millions deafened you? Pray! Pray to whatever other god you may have that the lady prove to be neither a prima donna nor a novelist. A temperamental daughter-in-law is really worse than you deserve, for all the money they say you have made. There are check-book gods and stock-ticker gods; and there is also God. I'd pray to Him if I were you. Good day, sir!”
The footman had opened the door, and the great specialist, without another look at the railroad man, got out and walked into his house.
“Where to, sir?” asked the footman.
Mr. Merriwether, however, was vexed to think that in relieving his anxiety over Tom's sanity Frauenthal had replaced it with a dread question—Why had not Tom told his father about her? The boy must be either crazy or in love. If he was not crazy, who in blazes was she? What was she? Why was she? All this angered him. He muttered aloud: “Hell!”
“Yes, sir—very good, sir,” said the footman, from force of habit. Then he trembled; but his master had not heard him.' The footman breathed deeply and said, tremulously, “B-beg p-pardon, sir?”
“Nearest Subway station!” said E. H. Merriwether. .
He was in a hurry to reach his office, not because he had important business to transact there, but because somehow he always thought best in his own chair before his own desk in his own office. There he was an autocrat, and there he could think autocratically and issue commands that were obeyed. He had much thinking to do—Tom was concerned, his son Tom; and Tom's future. And it was now clear that T. T. Merriwether's future was also the future of E. H. Merriwether!
Why had this thing come on him? Talk about your thunderbolts out of a clear sky—this love-affair was a million times worse! It was mysterious—and it is well known in Wall Street that a mystery is worse than nitroglycerine—infinitely more dangerous.
What was this love-affair? How far had it gone? Just where was the dynamite stored? Who was she? Why did not Tom say something? Why could not Tom have fallen in love safely? Why could he not have married a good girl who would help him and help E. H. Merriwether help both by minding her own business—to wit, a few little male Merriwethers?
It was time Tom became his father's successor-to-be. E. H. Merriwether had loved to do his own work his own way all his life. It was his pleasure. But the work suddenly took on an aspect of far greater importance than the worker. The work was the work of the Merriwethers—not of one Merriwether; not even of the great E. H., but of all the Merriwethers, living and to be.
Tom must be trained not only to be the son of a Merriwether, but to be himself a Merriwether. And therefore E. H. must cease to be a railroad expert toward Tom; he must become Tom's father, the trainer of a successor—flesh and blood the same; the fortune the same.
And, as a sense of impending loss always heightens values, E. H. Merriwether suddenly realized how important to him and to his happiness Tom was. He loved Tom, who was not only his only son, but the only Merriwether. That told everything: He loved Tom.
After his father and Dr. Frauenthal left the house Tom tried to feel that he had finished his breakfast—that is to say, he attempted to read the newspapers. But the printed letters failed to combine themselves into intelligible forms, and even when he read a word here and there his mind did not record it. Obeying an unexplained impulse, he rose.
Then he sat down merely because he had been standing. Then he tried to reason why he was sitting and what sitting there thinking of himself in that particular position meant. But the sky was too blue! It called to him in an azure voice that made him long for the sunshine and the open air, and the rooflessness of outdoors that permits ten million fancies to soar unchecked.
Also, he longed for something; and, though he knew that he longed, he did not know exactly what it was he longed for, because it was not his mind that desired it, but all of him; and all of him did not think with precision. Young men are apt to feel like that in the springtime—also young women. Also widowers and relicts and canaries and heifers and burros—and even bankers!
Therefore Tom swore at that nothing which is always something and gave up trying to make himself think that he wanted to read the morning papers. His nervous system coined a proverb for him: “When in doubt, walk out!” So he walked out of the house and crossed the Avenue.
He found himself in Central Park—the remedy which the very rich do not and the very poor cannot use to cure the spring in the blood. And as he walked the soul-fidgets left him, so that after a mile or two he quite cold-bloodedly began to think of his most pressing duties. He went about them systematically.
The first thing he had to do was some shopping; shopping on Fifth Avenue—on Fifth Avenue where the jewelry-shops were; in the jewelry-shops where the wedding-presents were. There! He was off again. Everybody was getting married! What business had people to make people think of wives—yes, wives—plural; lots of wives; all beautiful, all desirable and worthy; all lovely and loving and lovable; and all fit to be rolled into one—Tom's?
It was not polygamy. It was merely composite photography. The one he desired had a little of each of the girls he admired. She was the amorous crazy-quilt that youth is so apt to dazzle itself with in the springtime—a nose from a friend; two lips from a stranger; a complexion from a distant relative; a pair of eyes from the sky; a heart from the heart of the sun—and lo! the wife-to-be!
And so the wedding-presents—a silver service, to be used by two sitting on opposite sides of a table, looking into each other's eyes; a glittering string, to be admired on a wonderful throat—were heavy enough to keep Tom's soul from soaring. And because his feet were on the pavement he soon found himself—of course!—before 777 Fifth Avenue.
Why should he not go to that house? And why should he not ring the bell? Why not? He was just in the mood to meet her!
His intentions were above suspicion, though marriage is a serious thing; but, really, now was the time for the adventure to appear—even if the adventure turned out to be merely the adventuress.
Therefore, with the inexorable logic of the most illogical state of mind known, he rang the bell and waited with an eagerness—half hope, half curiosity—most unusual among people who, like Tom, early acquire the habit of asking, check-book in hand, for whatever they wish.
The footman who answered was one of the men with the over-intelligent faces.
“I am Mr. Merriwether. I wish to see your master.”
Tom's voice rang a trifle more commandingly than the occasion appeared to call for. There was a physiological reason for it. The man hesitated so that Tom wondered; but presently all expression vanished from the non-menial face and the footman said:
“This way, if you please, sir.”
He preceded Tom to the door of his master's library. He rapped twice smartly and waited in an attitude of listening. Tom also listened intently; he could not have told why he did it—though it was, of course, inevitable.
Not a sound was heard. The over-intelligent footman's lips moved for all the world as though he were counting, and presently he opened the door and announced:
“Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether—7-7-7 7.”
Tom entered. The master of this strange house was seated at the over-elaborate library table, writing. He looked up, but before Tom could speak the man said, coldly:
“I cannot do anything for you, sir.”
It was so much like a refusal to give alms to a beggar that Tom flushed angrily. He managed to check a sharp retort on the very brink and, instead, began in a mildly ironical tone:
“Of course you know what I—”
“Of course!” interrupted the man, rudely; and he began impatiently to drum on the edge of the table with his penholder. “Do you imagine for a minute that you are the only mateless male in New York looking for his destined bride? And do you really think that the fruitlessness—until now—of your search is a world-tragedy? Because your name happens to be Thomas—which is a descriptive title when applied to marriageable felines of your own sex—do you fancy I am concerned with your affairs? Young man, you are the only son and heir of a very rich man; but there are some things that money cannot buy. Love is one of them.”
He frowned at Tom, but something in the young millionaire's face made him relent. He went on, more kindly, more encouragingly:
“My boy, she is seeking you, even as you are seeking her. She is very beautiful! You will meet her at the appointed hour—have no doubt of it. After your perfectly stupid failure at the opera—Wait!” He held up a hand as Tom was about to speak in self-defense. “The very futility of your manoeuvers shows that youth, brains, money, persistence, and desire are all powerless to hurry fate. As you, who have never seen her, love her, she loves you, though she has never seen you. She will know you as you will know her; but she is gone!”
“Where?” Tom spoke before he knew it.
“Be patient! After you meet her you will live with her until death parts you.”
He said this, without theatrical emphasis, in a most matter-of-fact way. Tom's suspicions, always present in this house of mystification rather than of mystery, were not made livelier by the man's words; but neither were they allayed by the tone of his voice. He hesitated, and then, adventure whispering, he said:
“To be perfectly frank, I am interested in this—”
“Young man, I told you before that I ask nothing of you—no favor, no money, no service; not even your interest. When I asked you to do a certain thing you did it. I am not particularly grateful. You could not have refused! Possibly you can explain to your own satisfaction your own inexplicable acquiescence; you doubtless have evolved a dozen most ingenious theories to account for your doings and mine. The shortest and easiest explanation is the true one—fate. After you marry you will compare notes with her—and yet you will not understand why I concerned myself with your lives. You will perplex yourselves so unnecessarily; all because of your unwillingness to say, fate! Men hate fate as a hypothesis. It is not flattering to admit that we are but puppets—the strongest of us no stronger than an autumn leaf in the wind. And because you do not see fate you do not believe in it. And, for fear of being considered an ass by a lot of asses, who also do not believe in fate, you will never tell any one your romantic story. And yet, of the scores you call friends, there are only seven men who are happily married. And those seven I helped, as I have helped you and as I shall help those I am ordered to help. Even now the Dispeller of Darkness is out, making one heart send a message in the dark to another heart waiting for it!”
“Do you mean to say you cannot or will not arrange for my meeting the mysterious person you tell me I am going to marry?”
“I mean to say that your coming to this house with such a hope merely means a waste of your time, young sir, and of mine. You will meet your love, but you cannot find her. No man finds happiness by means of a systematic or diligent search. It comes or it does not come—as God wills.”
The man rose. Tom also rose and said:
“But at least tell me where this—this alleged fate of mine is.”
The man shook his head with a smile that was in the nature of a mild sneer.
“Doubting Thomas! He won't admit it, but he can't deny it! Ah, so wise! So clever in his suspicions! So intelligently skeptical! Ah yes!”
Still nodding in ironical admiration, he approached the filing-cabinet.
“Let me see—you are 7-7-77.” He pulled out drawer seven in section seven and took out an envelope from which he drew a lot of papers. He read a typewritten sheet. He replaced the papers, closed the drawer, turned, and stared doubtfully at Tom, muttering half to himself: “I don't know! I don't know!”
“What?” asked Tom.
“Do you really want her? Do you feel that you must meet her soon or die?”
Tom knew he would not die if he did not meet her soon, but as for wanting her, he certainly did. Every cell in his body was on the alert, waiting for her, hoping to see her; and adventure, through a megaphone, was vociferating in the middle of his soul: “Come! Come!” Therefore Tom looked the man straight in the eyes and answered:
“Yes, I do!”
The man hesitated. Then he said:
“Listen! It is for the last time. Do you hear? For the last time! Do you agree?”
He looked sternly at Tom, who thereupon answered, impatiently:
“Yes! Yes!”
“Boston! Hotel Lorraine! Secure Room 77, seventh floor. On Thursday at exactly 7 p.m. be in the southeast corner of the library or reading-room, which is on the left of the hall as you go to the main dining-room. Green arm-chair. Hold your hat between your knees—bottom side upward. Close your eyes. A letter will be dropped into the hat. Then do as you please. Personally I don't think it will help or hinder. But you are young; and perhaps if you wish hard enough it may happen according to your desire. Good day!”
The man turned his back squarely on Tom, leaving to the heir of the Merriwether millions no alternative but to go out dissatisfied, excited, skeptical, hopeful, and determined to go to Boston—danger or no danger, swindle or no swindle.
The mysterious man, too mysterious to be anything but a charlatan, who said he did not wish Tom's money and, for that reason, probably did—this man promised Tom he should meet a girl—a beautiful girl, the girl he would marry. If there was to be no compulsion about it; if they, the man and his accomplices, counted on her charms to capture Tom's heart and hand—why, the sooner she began the attack, the better. Also, it was one of those things that only an ass would talk about, since the telling would put an end to all doubts as to the teller's asininity.
Therefore, without saying a word to anybody, Tom went to Boston, not knowing that McWayne's detectives had orders to follow Tom wherever he went and to report in detail what he was seen to do and what he was heard to say and to whom.
Tom arrived in Boston, went to the Hotel Lorraine, registered, and asked the polite room clerk for Room 77 on the seventh floor. The clerk smiled pleasantly, as he always did whenever a guest-to-be asked for rooms that did not end in thirteen, disappeared to look at the index, and returned.
“I'm sorry, sir, but that room is taken. I can give you—”
“Taken!” said Tom, in such a disappointed tone that the clerk deigned to explain sympathetically: “Engaged by telegraph.”
“Who engaged it?”
Tom asked this so peremptorily that the clerk looked at him icily with raised eyebrows, turned his back on the New-Yorker, made a pretense of once more looking at the index of rooms and guests, and said to him with a cold determination in his voice: “I made a mistake. I thought we had a vacant room on the eighth floor. I find we have no vacant room anywhere. I'm sorry, sir. Nothing left.”
He marked something after Tom's name on the register and turned away. He evidently considered the incident closed.
Tom was too surprised to be angry. Then he recovered himself. His business in Boston was to get a certain room in this hotel. He was a son of his father; so he said, with a quiet determination that disturbed the clerk:
“I must have Room 77 on the seventh floor! The price is of no consequence. I am Mr. Merriwether.”
“I told you it was engaged.”
“And I told you I must have it. Don't you understand English?”
“Don't you?” said the clerk, trying to disguise his growing uneasiness with a sneer.
This made Tom calm. He said, quietly:
“Will you be good enough to send my card to Mr. Starrett, the owner of this hotel? He knows who I am and who my father is; but if he should have forgotten, say that he is to call up Major Wilkinson, of Pierce, Wilkinson & Company, the bankers, or Mr. Blandy, of the Moontucket National Bank, or anybody who knows where New York is on the map. Good heavens! there must be somebody in Boston who hasn't been asleep for the last twenty years!” The clerk decided to be polite. The name Merriwether had a familiar sound, but he could not associate it. He said, more politely:
“I am sorry, Mr. Merriwether, but the room you want—and three others with it—have been engaged.”
“By whom?”
“You are asking me to break one of our rules.”
“Well, can you tell me whether it has been engaged since yesterday?”
“Oh, longer than that!” He disappeared, consulted a book, and came back with the triumphant expression human beings put on when they do not wish to say “I told you so,” aloud, “Engaged and paid for since the eighth, Mr. Merriwether. That's nine days ago. So, you see, we can't do what you ask us to. Sorry!”
Wherever he went, Tom thought he was confronted by crude attempts at mystery. To send him to this particular room, 77 on the seventh floor, was merely the same as an effort to impress children by using the magical number seven.
Who had engaged the room? Was it an accomplice or some stranger guiltless of participation in the rather juvenile joke?
Still, Tom was in Boston to do a particular thing; and, though much of the spring restlessness had gone from his veins, there remained the desire to see the affair through to the end, whether the end should be a smile or a mild oath. Therefore, after a pause, Tom said to the clerk:
“Can you give me the room exactly opposite 77 on the seventh floor?”
The clerk hesitated, then said:
“Just a minute, please.”
He consulted one of the bookkeepers, from whom he must have learned whose son Tom was. And, though Boston is not New York, money is money, even in Massachusetts; and the heir to fifty or a hundred million dollars is something, whether or not he is somebody.
“Certainly,” said the clerk, and handed the key to a young man called, in New York, a bell-boy. The young man now preceded Tom to the seventh floor and ushered the New-Yorker into Room 78.
Tom gave the studious youth a dollar and never noticed that the boy regarded the bill with a mixture of suspicion and alarm, put it gingerly into his pocket, and left the room, closing the door. Tom opened the door. The boy thought it had opened itself and returned to close it. Tom waved him away. The boy hastily retreated. He did not, however, throw away the dollar. He had discovered it was not “phony.”
The bell-boy found the room clerk engaged in conversation with two men. He, divining that the talk concerned the generous lunatic, flung at the room clerk that look of exaggerated perplexity which will cause any normal human being inevitably to ask: “What is it?”
The room clerk saw the look and still kept on talking with the men; whereupon the bell-boy walked up to the desk, frowned fiercely, and muttered, “He is in his room!”
“What's that, boy?”
“I said,” retorted the studious youth, glacially, “he was in his room—78. He gave me a dollar and left the door open. I tried to close it, but he opened it again—after he gave me the dollar.”
The clerk, awe in his face, turned to the men and nodded confirmatively.
“Your man!” he said. “Of course we don't want any fuss—”
“We'll telephone Mr. McWayne, the private secretary. The young fellow isn't violent, you know.”
The hotel clerk said the inevitable thing:
“Only son, too—isn't he?”
“Yes. Over a hundred million dollars, I've heard.” The detective, induced thereto by the invitation in the clerk's voice, had vouchsafed inside information.
“Too bad!” murmured the clerk, thinking of the hundred million and Tom. “Too damned bad!” he almost whimpered, thinking of the hundred million and himself. To show that he was unimpressed by vast wealth he added, sternly, “No trouble, you understand!”
One of the men whom McWayne had instructed to shadow Tom sat in the lobby just in front of the elevator. The other, with the clerk's permission, went up to the seventh floor and sat down by the floor telephone operator. From there he could keep a ten-dollar-a-day eye on Room 78.
Meantime Tom's impatience had reached such a point that he could not sit still. Through his open door he could see the closed door of Room 77. The thought came to him to see who was in that room. Then it struck him that perhaps the mysterious man in New York had reckoned precisely on rousing the Merriwether curiosity. Perhaps an unpleasant surprise awaited the man who should enter Room 77. Perhaps the room was occupied by some one who had nothing to do with her—and therefore nothing to do with him. Perhaps he should put himself in a ridiculous predicament. Perhaps a million disagreeable things might happen, making it obviously the unwise thing to do to go into Room 77.
All these reflections, however, weighed no more than a shadow with him. The more he thought of why he should not go into Room 77 the more difficult it became to resist the call of adventure. He walked across the hall and knocked sharply on the door. No answer came. He knocked again. A hotel maid approached him.
“I beg your pardon, sir. Are you in the party?”
“What party?”
“In Room 77.”
“No. I am in 78.”
“I am very sorry—but it is against the rules of the house, sir.”
Tom had nothing to say to the maid; so he closed the door of his own room, conscious that his actions must appear erratic, but not much concerned over it. Presently he went out for a walk and did not go to either of his Boston clubs. This omission was duly noted by the clever Mr. McWayne's star sleuths.
Tom returned to the hotel, feeling almost cured. He realized that he had come on a fool's errand; and yet there was something that told him it was not a fool's errand. It was too elaborate for a practical joke. So long as no motive was apparent the mystery remained a mystery; and no mystery is laughable—at least, not while in the act of mystifying.
So he decided for the tenth time to go through with his part, absurd or not. He walked about the lobby, utterly unconscious that he was a marked man. He could not see that the clerks and the bellboys and the two men from the New York agency followed his movements, not only with the liveliest curiosity, but with deep pity.
All he was doing was to wait more or less impatiently for seven o'clock; but impatience is so natural a feeling, and comes so easily to most human beings, that it always rouses suspicion. Tom did not “act right” to the watchers. Any perfectly sane and intelligent man, accused of being mad, will confirm the accusation if he is watched for five minutes. People who never think and never imagine are never taken for lunatics. That nowadays is about the only compensation for being an ass.
At 6.56 p.m. he walked into the hotel library and found that the green-plush arm-chair in the corner by the window was occupied by an elderly woman. It annoyed him because he desired to sit in that chair at exactly seven o'clock. Absurd or not, the problem became how to get rid of the old woman quickly and without disturbing the peace or alarming the office.
His mind worked logically enough for a man under observation for insanity, and his sense of humor acted as a safety-valve for his inventiveness. He merely drew his chair very close to the startled old lady and opened a magazine. He found a poem and began to read it in the exasperating undertone used by the demons who have the next seats to yours at the opera.
Presently he began to drum on his thigh with the tips of his fingers, and at regular intervals of ten seconds he thumped it with his clenched fist bass-drumwise. Every twenty-five seconds he pulled out his watch, looked at it, exclaimed, “Gracious!”—and blew his nose loudly and determinedly.
Within two and three-quarter minutes the old lady glared at him, rose, looked at the clock, glared again at him to make sure, and left the room. In the hall she stopped and spoke to the young lady who checked hats and coats near the entrance of the main dining-room.
“I had to leave the reading-room. A perfectly horrible person came in! He simply drove me out.”
“Yes, madam. He is insane. It is a very sad case.”
“Goodness! What a narrow—“.
“Oh, he is quite harmless, madam.”
“It's a wonder a first-class hotel, like this claims to be, allows—”
“You are right!” agreed the wise young woman, whose business was to encourage generosity.
The old lady went away, muttering. Thomas Thome Merriwether sat down in the vacated chair, put his hat between his knees, and waited. The mahogany clock on the mantel presently began to chime the hour and Tom felt a pang of angry disappointment. Nothing had happened—except that he again had made an ass of himself!
A tall, strongly built man at that moment entered the room, looked at Tom, saw the hat held between the knees, and turned away as if the last person in the world he wished to see was young Mr. Merriwether.
Tom saw him stretch his hand toward a panel in the wall. Instantly the room was in darkness. It occurred to Tom that this would be a good way to attack him; but there instantly followed the reflection that it was not a good place in which to do any robbing or murdering.
Therefore young Merriwether sat on quietly. He felt something drop into his hat. A faint odor of sweet peas came to his nostrils—the odor he had associated with his youth until he began to associate it with her, and therefore with love.
This evanescent perfume that made vague memories stir within him—that made him desire to see the woman who was to be his wife—that made him thrill obediently at the call of adventure—made him feel that the mysterious man of 777 Fifth Avenue was not a cheap charlatan.
Suddenly the light was turned on again. Tom saw a slip of paper within his hat, fished it out, and, without stopping to see what it was or what it said, rushed from the room into the corridor.
He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was among them or whether the man who had entered the library—who probably was the man that put out the light—was among the crowd. But the sleuths and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt could remain? In their minds there was none.
Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a woman's hand:
For T. M.
He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, on which he read, in the same handwriting:
Too late!
He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk.
“I must—” he began, but stopped.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!” The clerk used the voice and manner of a man saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother.
“About Room 77 on the seventh floor,” said Tom.
“We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir.”
“What? Has she—Is it vacant?”
“Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll—”
“I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once.”
He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous occupants.
“Certainly. Front!”
Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He thought he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but the odor, which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented him from thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. There was no sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the mist of dreams and longings.
He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors to look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife—the mother of his children—the woman whose mere existence will influence his life more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a different man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different point of view.
Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of view would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she be the girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the mysterious person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with whom he might fall in love—adventuress or not? His love of love had not yet changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a definite love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that this affair was being stage-managed for his benefit.
He would forgive everything so long as in the end something happened—something in which there was a girl, whether or not she was the girl. What most irritated him was the indefiniteness of the mystery so far. The spice of danger; the tragical possibilities; the lure of adventure; the call of the unusual; the attraction of the unknown and therefore of the interesting—were no longer quite enough. The glimpse of a face—of a living face—and a hand to shake, a waist to clasp and lips to kiss—these things he now desired.
His irritability over his failure to develop an adventure in Boston grew keener until it became anger. He would have it out once for all with the mysterious man at 777 Fifth Avenue.
He went down-stairs, paid his bill, and took the midnight train for New York.
Some men are so picturesque that they do not need publicity agents, and so intelligent that they wish to be let alone by the public prints. E. H. Merriwether was one. He employed the ablest experts for his corporations and they got more than their share of publicity; but for himself—nothing. Possibly he realized that ungratified curiosity is a valuable asset; and, of course, he knew that in a democracy the less a man raises his head above the level of the mass the better it will be for his comfort.
He took pains to make it plain that he cared only for his work, because that proved he had no thoughts for mere money-making; and, since he was not interested in money-making, he could not be primarily concerned with despoiling the public—which, in turn, clearly proved he was not dangerous. And, of course, the more he kept himself out of the papers the more the papers wanted to see him in their hospitable columns. Everything he did or thought was, therefore, news. Anecdotes about him were so hard to get that the brightest minds in the profession manufactured a few. They had to be very good anecdotes—and they were.
To the metropolitan reporters, however, E. H. Merriwether was known to be mute, dumb, silent, constitutionally incapable of speech, and, besides, devoid of vocal cords. His office was always free from reporters, because they had learned to save themselves time by the simple expedient of writing their interviews with him in their own offices, after this fashion:
Mr. Merriwether refused to discuss the matter. Neither confirmation nor denial could be obtained at his office.
The financial editors of the newspapers fared no better. He was never too busy to see them; but all news about his work came from his bankers.
On the same day that Tom went to Boston, a young man went to the Merriwether offices in the Transcontinental Trust Company Building. A stout, rather high railing fenced off the bookkeepers' room from the general and unwelcome public.
At a small, flat desk near the gate sat, not a frecklefaced boy, but a man, powerful of build, keen-eyed and quick-muscled. He, was writing a letter on a very good quality of note-paper. He said: “Well?”—but kept on writing. He did not look up. This always discouraged strangers; by making them feel their utter insignificance. The effect on millionaire magnates, who similarly found themselves ignored, also was salutary.
“I wish to see Mr. E. H. Merriwether,” said the young man, pleasantly and unimpressed.
The gate-keeper wrote two paragraphs and then, still writing, asked, wearily:
“Got an appointment?”
“No; but—”
The over-mature office-boy, in one breath and in a voice that dripped insolence, said, still without looking up:
“What do you want to see him about? He is very busy. Cannot possibly see any one to-day. Good day!”
There was a laugh, not at all ironical, or in the nature of an exaggerated and audible sneer, but full of amusement; and then the stranger without the gate said:
“When I tell you what I am you will bring Mr. E. H. Merriwether to me.”
The voice was not menacing at all or cold, but there was an assurance about it that made the Merriwether hireling look up. He saw a young man, of about thirty, with very intelligent, gray-blue eyes, a straight, well-modeled nose, and a determined chin. His square shoulders and general air of muscular strength made him look as if he could give as good an account of himself in a rough-and-tumble fight as in a battle of wits.
The Merriwether gateman felt his entire being permeated by a feeling of hostility. This was neither a crank to turn over to a complaisant police nor an alms-seeker to be shooed away; nor yet a millionaire in good standing. He must be, therefore, a reporter of the new school made possible by the eccentricities of the Administration in Washington.
“My good James,” said the new-school reporter, with a mocking superciliousness, “I would see your boss. Be expeditious.”
The gate-keeper, whose name was not James but Doyle, flushed dangerously; but his wages were high, and he forced himself to keep his temper under control. For all that, his voice shook as he said:
“If you have no appointment, you ought to know it's no use. No stranger from a newspaper ever sees Mr. Merriwether. I—I'm sorry!” Here Doyle gulped. Then he finished: “Good day!”—and resumed, his writing.
The reporter said, “Look at me!” so sharply that Doyle in a flash pushed back his chair, jumped to his feet, and looked pugnaciously at the man who dared to give commands in E. H. Merriwether's office.
“My Celtic friend,” pursued the reporter, in a voice of such cold-blooded vindictiveness that Doyle listened with both astonishment and respect, “for years the domestics of this office have been rude and impolite to my profession. Mr. Merriwether never cared how angry reporters might feel or what they said about him; but to-day I am the one who does not care, and E. H. Merriwether is the man who is vitally concerned.Idon't give a damn whether he sees me or not. And as for you, in order to avenge the poor chaps to whom you have been intelligently rude, I, to whom you have been unintelligently impolite, shall have you fired. I've got E. H. Merriwether where I want him. If I can end your boss I can end your job—can't I? Oh no, Alexander! I am not crazy. I simply have the power. It was bound to happen, for Waterloo comes to all great men who are not clever enough to die at the right time. Now you go and get McWayne—and be quick about it!”