The Tracer of Lost Persons

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XVII

  On the thirteenth day of March, 1906, Kerns received the following cablefrom an old friend:

  "Is there anybody in New York who can find two criminals for me? I don't want to call in the police.

  "J.T. BURKE."

  To which Kerns replied promptly:

  "Wire Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, N.Y."

  And a day or two later, being on his honeymoon, he forgot all about hisold friend Jack Burke.

  On the fifteenth day of March, 1906, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons,received the following cablegram from Alexandria, Egypt:

  "_Keen, Tracer, New York:_--Locate Joram Smiles, forty, stout, lame, red hair, ragged red mustache, cast in left eye, pallid skin; carries one crutch; supposed to have arrived in America per S. S. _Scythian Queen_, with man known as Emanuel Gandon, swarthy, short, fat, light bluish eyes, Eurasian type.

  "I will call on you at your office as soon as my steamer, _Empress of Babylon_, arrives. If you discover my men, keep them under surveillance, but on no account call in police. Spare no expense. Dundas, Gray & Co. are my bankers and reference.

  "JOHN TEMPLETON BURKE."

  On Monday, April 2d, a few minutes after eight o'clock in the morning,the card of Mr. John Templeton Burke was brought to Mr. Keen, Tracer ofLost Persons, and a moment later a well-built, wiry, sun-scorched youngman was ushered into Mr. Keen's private office by a stenographerprepared to take minutes of the interview.

  The first thing that the Tracer of Lost Persons noted in his visitor washis mouth; the next his eyes. Both were unmistakably good--the eyeswhich his Creator had given him looked people squarely in the face atevery word; the mouth, which a man's own character fashions agreeably ormars, was pleasant, but firm when the trace of the smile lurking in thecorners died out.

  There were dozens of other external characteristics which Mr. Keenalways looked for in his clients; and now the rapid exchange ofpreliminary glances appeared to satisfy both men, for they advancedtoward each other and exchanged a formal hand clasp.

  "Have you any news for me?" asked Burke.

  "I have," said the Tracer. "There are cigars on the table besideyou--matches in that silver case. No, I never smoke; but I like thearoma--and I like to watch men smoke. Do you know, Mr. Burke, that notwo men smoke in the same fashion? There is as much character in themanner of holding a cigar as there is difference in the technic ofartists."

  Burke nodded, amused, but, catching sight of the busy stenographer, hisbronzed features became serious, and he looked at Mr. Keen inquiringly.

  "It is my custom," said the Tracer. "Do you object to my stenographer?"

  Burke looked at the slim young girl in her black gown and white collarand cuffs. Then, very simply, he asked her pardon for objecting to herpresence, but said that he could not discuss his case if she remained.So she rose, with a humorous glance at Mr. Keen; and the two men stoodup until she had vanished, then reseated themselves _vis-a-vis_. Mr.Keen calmly dropped his elbow on the concealed button which prepared ahidden phonograph for the reception of every word that passed betweenthem.

  "What news have you for me, Mr. Keen?" asked the younger man with thatsame directness which the Tracer had already been prepared for, andwhich only corroborated the frankness of eyes and voice.

  "My news is brief," he said. "I have both your men under observation."

  "Already?" exclaimed Burke, plainly unprepared. "Do you actually meanthat I can see these men whenever I desire to do so? Are thesescoundrels in this town--within pistol shot?"

  His youthful face hardened as he snapped out his last word, like thecrack of a whip.

  "I don't know how far your pistol carries," said Mr. Keen. "Do you wishto swear out a warrant?"

  "No, I do not. I merely wish their addresses. You have not used thepolice in this matter, have you, Mr. Keen?"

  "No. Your cable was explicit," said the Tracer. "Had you permitted me touse the police it would have been much less expensive for you."

  "I can't help that," said the young man. "Besides, in a matter of thissort, a man cannot decently consider expense."

  "A matter of what sort?" asked the Tracer blandly.

  "Of _this_ sort."

  "Oh! Yet even now I do not understand. You must remember, Mr. Burke,that you have not told me anything concerning the reasons for your questof these two men, Joram Smiles and Emanuel Gandon. Besides, this is thefirst time you have mentioned pistol range."

  Burke, smoking steadily, looked at the Tracer through the blue fog ofhis cigar.

  "No," he said, "I have not told you anything about them."

  Mr. Keen waited a moment; then, smiling quietly to himself, he wrotedown the present addresses of Joram Smiles and Emanuel Gandon, and,tearing off the leaf, handed it to the younger man, saying: "I omit thepistol range, Mr. Burke."

  "I am very grateful to you," said Burke. "The efficiency of your systemis too famous for me to venture to praise it. All I can say is 'Thankyou'; all I can do in gratitude is to write my check--if you will bekind enough to suggest the figures."

  "Are you sure that my services are ended?"

  "Thank you, quite sure."

  So the Tracer of Lost Persons named the figures, and his client produceda check book and filled in a check for the amount. This was presentedand received with pleasant formality. Burke rose, prepared to take hisleave, but the Tracer was apparently busy with the combination lock of asafe, and the young man lingered a moment to make his adieus.

  As he stood waiting for the Tracer to turn around he studied the writingon the sheet of paper which he held toward the light:

  Joram Smiles, no profession, 613 West 24th Street. Emanuel Gandon, no profession, same address. Very dangerous men.

  It occurred to him that these three lines of pencil-writing had cost hima thousand dollars--and at the same instant he flushed with shame at theidea of measuring the money value of anything in such a quest as this.

  And yet--and yet he had already spent a great deal of money in his briefquest, and--_was_ he any nearer the goal--even with the penciledaddresses of these two men in his possession? Even with these men almostwithin pistol shot!

  Pondering there, immersed in frowning retrospection, the room, theTracer, the city seemed to fade from his view. He saw the red sandblowing in the desert; he heard the sickly squealing of camels at the ElTeb Wells; he saw the sun strike fire from the rippling waters of Sais;he saw the plain, and the ruins high above it; and the odor of the LongBazaar smote him like a blow, and he heard the far call to prayer fromthe minarets of Sa-el-Hagar, once Sais, the mysterious--Sais of themillion lanterns, Sais of that splendid festival where the Great Triad'sworship swayed dynasty after dynasty, and where, through the hotcenturies, Isis, veiled, impassive, looked out upon the hundredth kingof kings, Meris, the Builder of Gardens, dragged dead at the chariot ofUpper and Lower Egypt.

  Slowly the visions faded; into his remote eyes crept the consciousnessof the twentieth century again; he heard the river whistles blowing, andthe far dissonance of the streets--that iron undertone vibrating throughthe metropolis of the West from river to river and from the Palisades tothe sea.

  His gaze wandered about the room, from telephone desk to bookcase, fromthe table to the huge steel safe, door ajar, swung outward like thepolished breech of a twelve-inch gun.

  Then his vacant eyes met the eyes of the Tracer of Lost Persons, almosthelplessly. And for the first time the full significance of this questhe had undertaken came over him like despair--this strange, hopeless,fantastic quest, blindly, savagely pursued from the sand wastes of Saisto the wastes of this vast arid city of iron and masonry, ringing to thesky with the menacing clamor of its five monstrous boroughs.

  Curiously weary of a sudden, he sat down, resting his head on one hand.The Tracer watched him, bent partly over his desk. From moment to momenthe tore minute pieces from the blotter, or drew imaginary circles andarabesques on his pad with an i
nkless pen.

  "Perhaps I could help you, after all--if you'd let me try," he saidquietly.

  "Dou you mean--_me_?" asked Burke, without raising his head.

  "If you like--yes, you--or any man in trouble--in perplexity--in theuncertain deductions which arise from an attempt at self-analysis."

  "It is true; I am trying to analyze myself. I believe that I don't knowhow. All has been mere impulse--so far. No, I don't know how to analyzeit all."

  "I do," said the Tracer.

  Burke raised his level, unbelieving eyes.

  "You are in love," said the Tracer.

  After a long time Burke looked up again. "Do you think so?"

  "Yes. Can I help you?" asked the Tracer pleasantly.

  The young man sat silent, frowning into space; then:

  "I tell you plainly enough that I have come here to argue with two menat the end of a pistol; and--you tell me I'm in love. By what logic--"

  "It is written in your face, Mr. Burke--in your eyes, in every feature,every muscle's contraction, every modulation of your voice. My tables,containing six hundred classified superficial phenomena peculiar to allhuman emotions, have been compiled and scientifically arranged accordingto Bertillon's system. It is an absolutely accurate key to every phaseof human emotion, from hate, through all its amazingly paradoxicalphenomena, to love, with all its genera under the suborder--all itsspecies, subspecies, and varieties."

  He leaned back, surveying the young man with kindly amusement.

  "You talk of pistol range, but you are thinking of something more fatalthan bullets, Mr. Burke. You are thinking of love--of the first, great,absorbing, unreasoning passion that has ever shaken you, blinded you,seized you and dragged you out of the ordered path of life, to push youviolently into the strange and unexplored! That is what stares out onthe world through those haunted eyes of yours, when the smile dies outand you are off your guard; that is what is hardening those flat, cleanbands of muscle in jaw and cheek; that is what those hints of shadowmean beneath the eye, that new and delicate pinch to the nostril, thatrefining, almost to sharpness, of the nose, that sensitive edging to thelips, and the lean delicacy of the chin."

  He bent slightly forward in his chair.

  "There is all that there, Mr. Burke, and something else--the glimmeringdawn of desperation."

  "Yes," said the other, "that is there. I am desperate."

  "_Ex_actly. Also you wear two revolvers in a light, leather harnessstrapped up under your armpits," said the Tracer, laughing. "Take themoff, Mr. Burke. There is nothing to be gained in shooting up Mr. Smilesor converting Mr. Gandon into nitrates."

  "If it is a matter where one man can help another," the Tracer addedsimply, "it would give me pleasure to place my resources at yourcommand--without recompense--"

  "Mr. Keen!" said Burke, astonished.

  "Yes?"

  "You are very amiable; I had not wished--had not expected anythingexcept professional interest from you."

  "Why not? I like you, Mr. Burke."

  The utter disarming candor of this quiet, elderly gentleman silenced theyounger man with a suddenness born of emotions long crushed, longrelentlessly mastered, and which now, in revolt, shook him fiercely inevery fiber. All at once he felt very young, very helpless in theworld--that same world through which, until within a few weeks, he hadroved so confidently, so arrogantly, challenging man and the godsthemselves in the pride of his strength and youth.

  But now, halting, bewildered, lost amid the strange maze of bywayswhither impulse had lured and abandoned him, he looked out into a worldof wilderness and unfamiliar stars and shadow shapes undreamed of, andhe knew not which way to turn--not even how to return along the ways hisimpetuous feet had trodden in this strange and hopeless quest of his.

  "How can you help me?" he said bluntly, while the quivering undertonerang in spite of him. "Yes, I am in love; but how can any living manhelp me?"

  "Are you in love with the dead?" asked the Tracer gravely. "For thatonly is hopeless. Are you in love with one who is not living?"

  "Yes."

  "You love one whom you know to be dead?"

  "Yes; dead."

  "How do you know that she is dead?"

  "That is not the question. I knew that when I fell in love with her. Itis not that which appals me; I ask nothing more than to live my life outloving the dead. I--I ask very little."

  He passed his unsteady hand across his dry lips, across his eyes andforehead, then laid his clinched fist on the table.

  "Some men remain constant to a memory; some to a picture--sane,wholesome, normal men. Some men, with a fixed ideal, never encounter itsfacsimile, and so never love. There is nothing strange, after all, inthis; nothing abnormal, nothing unwholesome. Gruenwald loved the marblehead and shoulders of the lovely Amazon in the Munich Museum; he diedunmarried, leaving the charities and good deeds of a blameless life tojustify him. Sir Henry Guest, the great surgeon who worked among thepoor without recompense, loved Gainsborough's 'Lady Wilton.' Theportrait hangs above his tomb in St. Clement's Hundreds. D'Epernay lovedMlle. Jeanne Vacaresco, who died before he was born. And I--I love inmy own fashion."

  His low voice rang with the repressed undertone of excitement; he openedand closed his clinched hand as though controlling the lever of hisemotions.

  "What can you do for a man who loves the shadow of Life?" he asked.

  "If you love the shadow because the substance has passed away--if youlove the soul because the dust has returned to the earth as it was--"

  "It has _not_!" said the younger man.

  The Tracer said very gravely: "It is written that whenever 'the SilverCord' is loosed, 'then shall the dust return unto the earth as it was,and the spirit shall return unto Him who gave it.'"

  "The spirit--yes; _that_ has taken its splendid flight--"

  His voice choked up, died out; he strove to speak again, but could not.The Tracer let him alone, and bent again over his desk, drawingimaginary circles on the stained blotter, while moment after momentpassed under the tension of that fiercest of all struggles, when a mansits throttling his own soul into silence.

  And, after a long time, Burke lifted a haggard face from the cradle ofhis crossed arms and shook his shoulders, drawing a deep, steady breath.

  "Listen to _me_!" he said in an altered voice.

  And the Tracer of Lost Persons nodded.