CHAPTER X.TOLMAN BIKE.
One evening Mr. Richard Treadwell found the following letter awaiting him when he went to his rooms to dress for dinner.
“Washington,June Third, 18—.“Dear Dick:“I am glad to say our prolonged visit has drawn to a close, and to-morrow we return to dear old New York and—Dick. I wonder how much we have been missed. You cannot imagine how anxious I am to see you. I feel sure that you are ready to tell me all about the poor dead girl.“You can’t imagine how I feel about her. Auntie says I am morbid and depressed. When I go to bed at night and close my eyes I can see her again lying before us, her masses of golden hair, her pretty little hands, her delicate clothes, and I can’t go to sleep for wondering whose darling she was and how she came to stray so far away from home and that they never found her.“I firmly believe she eloped with some rascal who tired of her at last and murdered her to free himself.“When will you solve this unhappy mystery?“Your short, unsatisfactory letters, I have felt all along, were a mere blind to keep me from suspecting the surprising story you have in reserve for me.“If you have been wasting your time in being devoted to some of the many girls who used to attract your attention, and neglectingthe Park mystery case, I feel that I can never forgive you.“I forgot to tell you in my last that we met Clara Chamberlain and her mother here. They came over for a day to arrange with their lawyers something about Clara’s Washington property. Clara confessed to me that the report which was published awhile ago concerning her engagement was true. You remember none of us credited it at the time. Well, it is true, and the wedding is to be celebrated privately on the seventh. Auntie is to go and I promised Clara I would be there. Will this not be rather a blow to your friend Chauncey Osborne?“Her fiancé, I believe, is quite unknown in our set. You know how very peculiar dear Clara always was! She, of course, says that he is charming and a man of culture and ability, a prominent politician and bound to make a stir in the world.“Auntie met an old friend here, Mr. Schuyler, who went to school with auntie. They have been living their school-days over again—it seems they were boy and girl lovers—and to hear them laugh over the things they used to do makes me laugh from very sympathy.“Do you know, girls don’t have half the fun now that they did in auntie’s day. I will never be able, when I get to be an old woman, to sit down and recall with a playmate the funny scrapes we got into when we were children. When I hear auntie and Mr. Schuyler talk, I feel so sorry that my life has been so common-place.“But there—I have written four times as much as you did in your last. Mr. Schuyler is going over to New York with us, and we are going to show him about. He has not been there since he was a boy.“Hoping you have been a good boy during my absence, I am,“Very sincerely your (s),“Penelope.”To“Richard Treadwell, Esqre.,“‘The Washington,’“New York City.”“I forgot to say that Clara’s fianceé, I have been told, is the sole proprietor of some kind of a factory downtown which assures him quite a nice income. His name is Tolman Bike. Did you ever hear of him?”
“Washington,June Third, 18—.
“Dear Dick:
“I am glad to say our prolonged visit has drawn to a close, and to-morrow we return to dear old New York and—Dick. I wonder how much we have been missed. You cannot imagine how anxious I am to see you. I feel sure that you are ready to tell me all about the poor dead girl.
“You can’t imagine how I feel about her. Auntie says I am morbid and depressed. When I go to bed at night and close my eyes I can see her again lying before us, her masses of golden hair, her pretty little hands, her delicate clothes, and I can’t go to sleep for wondering whose darling she was and how she came to stray so far away from home and that they never found her.
“I firmly believe she eloped with some rascal who tired of her at last and murdered her to free himself.
“When will you solve this unhappy mystery?
“Your short, unsatisfactory letters, I have felt all along, were a mere blind to keep me from suspecting the surprising story you have in reserve for me.
“If you have been wasting your time in being devoted to some of the many girls who used to attract your attention, and neglectingthe Park mystery case, I feel that I can never forgive you.
“I forgot to tell you in my last that we met Clara Chamberlain and her mother here. They came over for a day to arrange with their lawyers something about Clara’s Washington property. Clara confessed to me that the report which was published awhile ago concerning her engagement was true. You remember none of us credited it at the time. Well, it is true, and the wedding is to be celebrated privately on the seventh. Auntie is to go and I promised Clara I would be there. Will this not be rather a blow to your friend Chauncey Osborne?
“Her fiancé, I believe, is quite unknown in our set. You know how very peculiar dear Clara always was! She, of course, says that he is charming and a man of culture and ability, a prominent politician and bound to make a stir in the world.
“Auntie met an old friend here, Mr. Schuyler, who went to school with auntie. They have been living their school-days over again—it seems they were boy and girl lovers—and to hear them laugh over the things they used to do makes me laugh from very sympathy.
“Do you know, girls don’t have half the fun now that they did in auntie’s day. I will never be able, when I get to be an old woman, to sit down and recall with a playmate the funny scrapes we got into when we were children. When I hear auntie and Mr. Schuyler talk, I feel so sorry that my life has been so common-place.
“But there—I have written four times as much as you did in your last. Mr. Schuyler is going over to New York with us, and we are going to show him about. He has not been there since he was a boy.
“Hoping you have been a good boy during my absence, I am,
“Very sincerely your (s),
“Penelope.”
“I forgot to say that Clara’s fianceé, I have been told, is the sole proprietor of some kind of a factory downtown which assures him quite a nice income. His name is Tolman Bike. Did you ever hear of him?”
“The name sounds familiar to me,” thought Dick, as he folded the letter and put it in his pocket. “Still I do not remember ever knowing such a person. Probably I recollect it, from reading that notice of Clara’s engagement, although I had forgotten the whole matter.”
Dick Treadwell was not feeling very easy. He longed for Penelope’s return, yet he dreaded it, knowing that he had no progress to report in the task she had imposed upon him. He had thought she would be pleased with his conduct in regard to Dido Morgan and Maggie Williams, but when she had expressed a hope that he had not been devoting himself to girls and wasting the time that belonged to the work he had undertaken, he felt a little dubious as to the way in which she would receive any account of the part he took with the poor girls whom he wished to befriend.
“Isn’t the matter of likes and dislikes a strange thing?” Dick asked, when, an hour later, he and Dido Morgan were dining together. He refilled the glasses which stood by their plates. “This is very good wine, don’t you think? Let me help you to some spaghetti. I have often wondered why at firstmeeting we conceive a regard for some people and a dislike for others.
“You remember the incident I related to you the first, or rather the second time you dined with me, of the man I met in the Hoffman House who warned me that I was shadowed. Well, I have run across him several times since. I have the strangest feeling for him, and he apparently dislikes me. I can’t say that I like him, but I have such a desire to be with and near him that I can’t say I dislike him either. By Jove, I was surprised when he fell against the bar that day and looked so miserably ill. I thought at first it was the sight of my name that affected him, but he assured me that it was a spasm of the heart, a chronic complaint of his.”
“What was his name?” asked Dido, breaking off a bit of bread. She was growing prettier every day since Richard had secured aposition for her, and to-night she was bewitching in a new gray cloth gown.
“Clark, he said; I think I asked him for it,” said Dick, laughing.
“You don’t seem to have tired of going around to all sorts of restaurants,” he continued, noticing the happy expression on Dido’s pretty face.
“Tired of it!”
Her tone but faintly expressed what untold happiness those evenings had been to her.
“I thought you would be disgusted with our search before it was half finished,” he said, looking admiringly into her soft brown eyes that had given him one of those startled glances which half bewitched him.
“It has been heaven!” she said, with a sigh of rapture. “I love the bright lights, and the well-dressed, happy people, and the busy, silent waiters, and the white linen andthe fine dishes. Oh, I think people who can take their dinners out all the time must be very, very happy.”
“You would not think so if you were a poor, forlorn man,” he said, smiling at her enthusiasm, “and had to dine out three hundred and sixty-five times a year, not counting breakfast and luncheon. I’ve started out evenings and I’ve stopped on Broadway and wondered where on earth I should eat. Delmonico’s, St. James, Hoffman, all are old stories, clear down the list. Here I had luncheon, there probably I had breakfast, the other place I dined last night or the night before, and at last I turn down some cross street, and go into a cheap place where a fellow can’t get a mouthful that it doesn’t gag him, so I’ll have an appetite to-morrow. I hate the sight of a bill of fare and I get so that I’ll fool around for half an hour until some man near me orders, and then I orderthe same thing. I tell you it’s dreadful not to know where to eat.”
“I suppose that is the reason some men marry?” she asked, brightly.
“Well, not exactly,” he said, flushing slightly.
“Do the people you see in the restaurants never interest you?” Dido asked, seeing he had become silent.
“No, I never notice them unless it is some one with loud dress or manners, and then I watch them as I watch a lot of monkeys in a cage.”
“Every place I go I see some one interesting,” Dido said, slowly. “Look at that fat woman over there, in the cherry-red dress and hat. See how proud that little dark man looks of having such a woman with him. I have heard her tell him of her former great triumphs as an actress, and I can imagine a story of her life. See that slender, pretty,dark-eyed girl, with very white brow, and very red cheeks, and very dark shadows about her eyes, and very, very golden hair. See her smile and talk to that insipid-looking man, with an enormous nose and bald head and eye-glasses, whose ‘villain’s mustache,’ carries a sample of everything he had for dinner. Now can’t you picture that pretty girl is some ballet girl ambitious to rise. He, a man of means and influence, and she forgets his looks and that he talks through his nose, and tries to impress him with her ability.”
“Hum!” said Richard, giving Dido a strange smile. “I’m afraid my imagination is not as great or as charitable as yours. Tell me what you think of the party to our left.”
“That poor little man without legs?” asked Dido, quick tears coming to her eyes. “He has a bright, happy face though, and he has diamonds—many of them, on his fingers.I think that large woman who sits beside him and looks into his eyes so affectionately, loves him very much because of his affliction. I’m sure I would. And that man and woman opposite, though I don’t like their looks, seem to heed every word he says and to be very fond of him.”
Richard laughed softly.
“Well, Dido, I don’t want to spoil your dream, but that little man has a brain that is far out of proportion to his weak and dwarfed body. He stands at the head of his profession, and has accumulated wealth by his industry and ability. Quite a reproach to us worthless fellows, who were born with legs. I have a great admiration for him, but those people with him neither care for him for his ability or his affliction. They are not of that kind.”
“What then?” asked Dido, in distress.
“Money—money, child. It’s the story you could read at almost every table here.That’s why I don’t allow my imagination any liberty in restaurants. Your eyes have not yet tried the worldly glasses which experience has put on mine. And now, while we drink our coffee, let us talk about Maggie’s sister.”
A girl came through, trying to sell some badly assorted flowers, and a black and yellow bird in a cage, high above their heads, thrusts his long beak and head through the wires and, impudently twisting his head to see what was taking place below him, gave vent at intervals to a shrill, defiant cry.
Meanwhile, Richard lighted a cigarette and resumed the conversation.
“I think it is useless to hunt for Maggie’s sister any longer. We have made a pretty thorough search of the resorts where I thought we were likely to meet her. I confess I am disappointed. I was sure we would run across her somewhere, and that you would recognizeher. Do you think it is possible for you not to recognize her?”
“No, indeed! I’d recognize Lucille Williams anywhere,” Dido replied, earnestly.
“My private opinion—don’t tell Maggie—is, that she tired of her family and home and that she took herself to better quarters and means to keep them in ignorance of her whereabouts, fearing they would ask her to give towards their support.”
“I hardly think Lucille was as heartless as that,” thoughtfully replied Dido. “She was vain and fond of dressing, but I don’t think she would be as mean as that.”
“What were her habits?” asked Dick.
“Habits? What she did regularly? Well, she used to go to Coney Island and Rockaway and such places in the Summer, with some boys she met in the places she worked, but after she got work in the office at the factory where we worked, she got very steadyand she wouldn’t go out with anybody any more. The nights she went out she went to do extra work.”
“How did she get along with your employer? You gave me the impression that he was very brutal,” Dick said, musingly.
“Oh, Lucille got along splendidly with him. I always thought he was horrible, but she never said anything about him. She was very easy-natured, anyway, and I have a bad temper,” said Dido, in a shamefaced way.
“How did he like her, do you know?”
“Who? Tolman Bike?” asked Dido, quickly.
“Tolman Bike? Why”—stammered Dick.
“He was the proprietor, you know, and Lucille was his stenographer,” exclaimed Dido. “I don’t know what he thought of her, for Lucille didn’t talk much; but she seemed to get along well enough.”
Dido became silent, as Richard was intent on his own thoughts.
Tolman Bike was the name of the man who was to marry Clara Chamberlain.
Tolman Bike was also the name of the employer of Lucille and Maggie Williams and Dido Morgan.
Tolman Bike, Miss Chamberlain’s fianceé, was the proprietor of a downtown factory, so it must be one and the same man.
Well, and if so, could it be possible that Tolman Bike, the man who was engaged to marry a banker’s daughter, could have been in love with Lucille Williams, a poor stenographer, and persuaded her to leave her home for him?
Richard was a young man, and the idea was not a surprising one to him. According to what he could learn, the dark-haired stenographer was fond of the things she could little afford to possess, and it was likely that heremployer, knowing her desires, made it possible for her to gratify them.
Now that he was to marry, he would not be likely to hold out any inducement for the girl to stay with him, and if they should happen across her now it was possible that she would gladly return to the humble home of her sister.
Still, supposing Tolman Bike had found no attraction for him in the stenographer? It was a very delicate thing to handle, considering that Richard’s knowledge was mostly supposition.
“Do you think that Maggie’s sister really worked those nights she was away from home?” Dick asked Dido.
“She always brought extra money home, which proved she did,” Dido replied positively.
“Did she ever talk about Tolman Bike?”
“Never, except when she mentioned thathe had dictated more work than usual, or something of that kind.”
“Well, I believe that Tolman Bike can tell me something about Maggie’s sister,” Richard said. Dido looked at him with a smile of doubt. “If she is not with him, he can tell me who she is with, and that is just as well. I must see him immediately. I have no time to lose, for three days from to-morrow he is to be married.”