CHAPTER V
THE GREAT DIVIDE
Durkin waited until, muffled and far away, the throb and drone of anorchestra floated up to him. This was followed, scatteringly, by thebells of the different _tables d'hote_. They, too, sounded thin andremote, drifting up through the soft, warm air that had always seemedso exotic to him, so redolent of foreign-odored flowers, so burdenedwith alien-smelling tobacco smoke, of unfamiliar sea scentsincongruously shot through with even the fumes of an unknown andindescribable cookery.
While that genial shrill and tinkle of many bells meant refreshment andmost gregarious frivolity for the chattering, loitering, laughing andever-spectacular groups so far below him--and how he hated theiroutlandish gibberish and their arrogant European aloofness!--it meantfor him hard work, and hard work of a somewhat perilous and stimulatingnature.
For, as the last of the demurely noisy groups made their way throughthe deepening twilight to the different hotels and cafes that alreadyspangled the hillsides with scattering clusters of light, Durkin coollyremoved his shoes, twisted and knotted his two bath towels into a stoutrope, securely tied back his heavy French window-shutter of wood withone of his sheets, and having attached his improvised rope to the baseof the shutters, swung himself deftly out. On the return swing hecaught the cast-iron water-pipe that scaled the wall from window tierto window tier. Down this jointed pipe he went, gorilla-like, segmentby segment, until he reached what he knew to be the hotel's thirdfloor. Here he rested for a moment or two against the wall, feelinginwardly grateful that a Mediterranean climate still made possibleMonaco's primitive outside plumbing--to the initiated, he inwardlyremarked, such things had always their unlooked-for advantages. Healso felt both relieved and grateful to see that the two windowsbetween him and his destination had been left shuttered against theheat of the afternoon sun. The third window he could see, was not thusbarricaded, although, as he had expected, the sash itself was securelylocked.
Once convinced of this, he dropped down, stealthily, and lay fulllength on the balcony flooring, with his ear close against the casementwoodwork, listening. Reasonably satisfied, he rose to his knees, andtook from his vest pocket a small diamond ring. Holding this firmlybetween his thumb and forefinger, he described a semi-circle on theheavy window-glass. He listened again, intently. Then he took a smallcold-chisel from still another pocket, and having cut away the putty atthe base of the semicircle, smote the face of the glass one sharplittle tap.
It cracked neatly, along the line of the circling diamond-scratch, sothat, with the help of a suction cap made from the back of a kid glove,he was able to draw out the loosened segment of glass. Then he waitedand listened still again. As he thrust in through the little opening acautiously exploring hand the casual act seemed to take on the dignityof a long-considered ritual. It was a ceremonial moment to him, hefelt, for it marked his transit, across some narrow moral divide, fromlonely ascent to lonely decline.
The impression stayed with him only a second. He turned back to hiswork, with a reckless little up-thrust of each resolute shoulder. Hissearching fingers found the old-fashioned window lever, of hammeredbrass, and on this he pressed down and back, quietly. A moment laterthe sash swung slowly out, and he was inside the room, closing theshutters and then the window after him.
He stood there, in the dark quietness, for what must have been a fullminute. Then he took from his pocket a box of wax matches. He hadpurchased them for the purpose, from the frugal old woman who month bymonth and season by season carried on her quiet trade at the foot ofthe Casino steps, catching, as it were, the tiny drippings from theflaring tapers in that Temple of Gold. And day after day, one turn ofthe roulette wheel took and gave more money than all her years offrugal trade might amass!
Taking one of the vestas, he struck a light, and holding it above hishead, carefully examined the room, from side to side. Then he tiptoedto a door, which stood ajar. This, he saw by a second match, was asleeping-room; and the two rooms, obviously, made up the suite. Adoor, securely locked, opened from the sleeping-room into the outerhallway. The door which opened from the larger room was likewiselocked, but to make assurance doubly sure Durkin slid a second insidebolt, for already his quick eye had caught the gleam of its polishedbrass, just below the door-knob of the ordinary mortised lock. Then,groping his way to the little switchboard, he touched a button, and theroom was flooded with light. He first looked about, carefully butquickly, and then glanced at his watch. He had at least two hours inwhich to do his work. Any time after that Pobloff might return. Andby midnight at least the Prince's valet would be back from Nice, tobegin packing his master's boxes.
He slipped into the bedroom, and took from the bed a blanket andcomforter. These he draped above the hall door, to muffle any chancesound. Then he turned to the northeast corner of the room, where stoodwhat seemed to be a dressing cabinet, with little shelves and aplate-glass mirror above it. The lower part of it was covered by apolished rosewood door.
One sharp twist and pry with his cold-chisel forced this flimsy outerdoor away from its lock. Beneath it, thus lightly masked, stood themore formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath ofrelief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite thesort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock hehad intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor withthe bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away thecement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom.But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkinat the first glance had seen--the sort of strong box which a Thirdavenue cigar seller, at home, would scarcely care to keep on hispremises. Yet this was the deposit vault for which hotel guests, suchas Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, paid ten francs a day extra.
The sound of footsteps passing down the hallway caused the intruder todraw back and listen. He turned quickly, waited, and came to a quick,new decision. Before doing so, however, he re-examined the room morecritically.
This Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff was, obviously, a man of taste.He was also a man of means--and Durkin wondered if in that fact alonelay the reason why a certain young Belgian adventuress had followed himfrom Tangier to Algeciras, and from Algeciras to Gibraltar, and fromGibraltar still on to the Riviera. She had, at any rate, not followeda scentless quarry. He was not the mere curled and perfumed impostorso common to that little principality of shams. Even the garrulousyoung Chicagoan, from whom Durkin had secured his first Casino tickets,was able to vouch for the fact that Pobloff was a true _boyard_. Hewas also something or other in the imperial diplomatic service--justwhat it was Durkin could not at the moment remember.
But he nursed his own personal convictions as to the moral stability ofthis true _boyard_. He had quietly witnessed, at Algeciras, thePrince's adroit card "riffling" in the sun-parlors of The ReinaCristina, when the gouty ex-ambassador to Persia had parted companywith many cumbersome dollars. Durkin's only course, in that time ofadversity and humility, had been one of silence. But he had inwardlyand adventurously resolved, if ever Fate should bring him and thePrince together under circumstances more untrammelled, he would not letpass a chance to balance up that ledger of princely venality. For hereindeed was an adversary, Durkin very well knew, who was worthy of anyman's steel.
So the intruder, opening and closing drawers as he went, glancedquickly but appreciatively at the highly emblazoned cards lying on thelittle red-leather-covered writing-table, at the litter of papersbearing the red and blue and gold of the triple-crowned double eagle,at the solid gold seal, at the row of splendid and regal-looking womenin silver photograph holders, above the reading-desk, and a decanter ortwo of cut-glass. In one of the drawers of this desk he found anivory-handled revolver, a toy-like thirty-two caliber hammerless, ofEnglish make. Durkin glanced at it curiously, noticed that eachchamber held its cartridge, turned it over in his hand, replaced it inthe drawer, and after a moment's thought, took it out once more andslippe
d it into his hip pocket. Then his rapidly roving eye took inthe sable top-coat flung carelessly across the foot of the bed, theneat little heelless Tunisian slippers beneath it, the glistening,military-looking boots, each carefully nursing its English shoe-tree, ahighly embroidered smoking-cap, an ivory-handled shaving-set in itsstamped morocco case, one razor for each day of the week, and thesilver-mounted toilet bottles, so heavily chased.
Having, apparently, made careful mental note of the rooms, Durkin oncemore turned back to the switchboard, and prying loose the flutedmolding that concealed the lighting-wires, he scraped away theinsulating tissue and severed the thread of copper with a sweep or twoof his narrow file. He felt safer, in that enforced darkness, for thework which lay before him.
The black gloom was punctuated by the occasional flare of a match, andthe silence broken now and then, as he worked before the safe, by themetallic click and scrape of steel against steel, and by the muffledrasp and whine of his file against the wax-covered key which from timeto time he fitted into the unyielding safe lock. As he filed andtested and refiled, with infinite care and patience, his preoccupiedmind ranged vaguely along the channel of thought which the events ofthe last half-hour had opened up before him. He wondered why it wasthat Fortune should so favor those who stood the least in need of hersmile. For four nights during the last seven, he knew, the Prince hadwon, and won heavily, both in the Casino and in the Club Prive. Yet,on the other hand, there was the little Bulgarian princess with roomsjust across the corridor from his own, and the rightful possessor ofthe plain little diamond with which he had just cut his way into thismore sumptuous chamber. For a week past now, down at the Casino, shehad been losing steadily, as of course the vast and undirected majorityalways must lose. Even her solitaire earrings had been taken to Niceand pawned, Durkin knew. Three days before that, too, her maid--andwho is ever anybody on the Riviera without a maid?--had beenreluctantly and woefully discharged. At the Trente et Quarante table,as well, Durkin had watched the last thousand-franc note of thePrincess wither away. "And this, my dear, will mean another threemonths with my sweet old palsied Duc de la Houspignolle," she hadlaughingly yet bitterly exclaimed, in excellent English, to theimpassive young Oxford man who was then dogging her heels. She was awit, and she had a beautiful hand, even though she was no better thanthe rest of Monte Carlo, ruminated the safe-breaker easily, as hesquinted, under the flare of a match, at the ward indentations in hiswax-covered key-flange.
His thoughts went back, as he worked, to the timely yet unexpectedscene at the stair-head, two hours before. There he had helped a slimyoung _femme de chambre_ support the Princess to her room, that royallady having done her best to drown her ill fortune in absinthe andAmerican high-balls--which, he knew, was ever an impossiblecombination. She had collapsed at the head of the stairs, and as hehad helped lift her he had first caught sight of the solitaire diamondon the limp and slender finger. This reactionary mood, in the face ofthe earlier more tragical hours of that day of wearing anxieties, wasalmost one of facetiousness. He seemed to revel in the memory of what,in time, he knew, would be humiliating to him. It was a puny littlediamond ring, of but three or four carats' weight, he mused, and yetwith it had come the actual, if not the moral, turn in the tide of allhis restless activities. It marked the moment when life seemed to fallback to its older and darker areas; it was the first diminutivemilestone on his new road of adventure. But he would return the ring,of that he stoutly reassured himself, for he still nursed his ironicsense of justice in the smaller things. Yes, he would return the ring,he repeated, with his ever-recurring inapposite scrupulosity, for theyoung Princess was a lady of fortune under an unlucky star, likehimself.
Durkin smiled a little, over his wax-covered key, as he still filed andfitted and listened. Then he gave vent to an almost inaudible "Ah!"for the bit of the key made the complete circuit, at last, and thewards of the lock clicked back into place.
He swung open the heavy iron door, cautiously, listened for a moment,and then struck another match.
That Pobloff might have the bank-notes with him was a contingency; thathe would carry about with him two thousand napoleons was an absurdity.And Durkin knew the money had not been deposited--to ascertain that hadbeen part of his day's work. The Prince, of course, was a prodigal andfree-handed gentleman--how much of his winnings had already leakedthrough his careless fingers it was impossible to surmise. Durkin evenresented the thought of that extravagance--as though it were a personaland obvious injustice to himself. If it was all the fruit of blindchance, if it came thus unearned and accidental, why should he not havehis share of it? Already Monte Carlo had taught him the mad necessityfor money. But now, of all times, it was necessary for him. One-half,one-quarter, of the sum which this careless-eyed Slavic aristocrat hadcarried so jauntily away from the Trente et Quarante table would endowhim with the means to come into his own once more. It was essentialthat he secure his sinews of war, even before he could continue hissearch for Frank, or rescue her from the dangers that beset her, if shestill wished for rescue. If he regretted the underground and underhandsteps through which that money could alone come into his possession, heconsoled his still protesting conscience with the claim that it was,after all, only a battle of wit against disinterested wit. For,self-delusively, he was beginning once more to regard all organizedsociety and its ways as a mere inquisitorial process which theadventurous could ignore and the keen-witted could circumvent.Warfare, such as his, must be a law unto itself!
Then he gave all his attention to the work before him, as he liftedfrom the safe, first a small steel despatch box, neatly initialed ingold, "I. S. P.," and then a packet of blue-tinted envelopes, heldtogether by two rubber bands, and written on, here and there, in alanguage which the intruder assumed to be Russian. Next came ajapanned-tin box, which proved to hold nothing but a file of quiteunintelligible, Seidlitz-powder-colored papers, and then what seemed,to Durkin's exploring fingers, to be a few small morocco cases. Thequestion flashed through his mind: What if, after all, the money he waslooking for was not to be found! He struck still another match, withimpatient hands. His first fever of audacity had burned itself out,and some indefinite cold reaction of disdain and disgust was settingin. Stooping low, he peered into the safe once more.
Then he gave a little sigh of relief. For there, behind a row of booksthat looked like small ledgers or journals, he caught sight of a stoutleather bag, tied with a corded silk rope. He dropped the burned-outend of the match, and, thrusting in an arm, lifted out the bag. As heplaced it on the floor the muffled click of metal smote on his ear. Hewiped the sweat from his forehead, with a sense of relief. He hadrisked too much to go away empty-handed.
He tore at the carefully knotted cord, first with his fingers and thenwith his teeth. It was not so heavy as he had hoped it might be. Onmore collected second thoughts, indeed, it was woefully light. But theknot defied his efforts. He took out a second match, and was on thepoint of striking it.
Instead of doing so, he stood suddenly erect, and then backednoiselessly into the remotest corner of the room. For a key had beenthrust into the lock of the anteroom door, and already the handle wasbeing slowly turned back.
Durkin's breath quickened and shortened, and his hand swung back to hiship pocket. Then he waited, with his revolver in his hand.
He counted and weighed his chances, quickly, one by one, as he stoodthere, in the black silence. He caught the diffused glimmer of thereflected light from the outer room as the door opened and closed,sharply. But the momentary half-light did not give him a glimpse ofwho or what was before him, for in a second all was blackness again.His first uneasy thought was that it was a very artful move. He andthat Other were alone there, in the utter darkness. Neither, now,would have the advantage. He had been a fool to leave one of the doorswithout its double lock, of some sort. He had once been told that itwas always through the more trivial contingency that the criminal wasultimately trapped.
; He strained his ears, and listened. He could hear nothing. Yet he waspositive that he could feel some approaching presence. It may havebeen a minute vibration of flooring; it may have been through theoperation of some occult sixth sense. But he was sure of thatmysterious Other, coming closer and closer to him.
Suddenly something seemed to stir and move in the darkness. Hecrouched, with every nerve and muscle ready, and a moment later hewould have relieved the tension with some sort of cry, had he notrealized that it was the wooden Swiss clock above the cabinet,beginning to strike the hour.
The sound came to an end, and Durkin was assuring himself that it couldnow be neither Pobloff nor the valet, when a second sound sent a tingleof apprehension through his frame.
It was the blue spurt of a match that suddenly cut the blackness beforehim. The fool--he was striking a light!
Durkin crouched lower, and watched the flame as it grew on thedarkness. The direct glare of it made him blink a little, but he swunghis revolver barrel just above it, and a little to the right. He wasmore confident now, and quite collected. However it all turned out, itcould not be much worse than starving to death, unknown and alone insome public square of Monaco.
As the tiny luminous circle flowered into wider flame the match washeld higher. Durkin could see the rose-like glow between the phalangesof the fingers shielding the light. Then, of a sudden, a face grew outof the blackness, a white face shadowed by a plumed hat. It was awoman's face. Durkin lowered his revolver, slowly, inch by inch.
It was his wife who stood there in the darkness, not six paces awayfrom him.
"_You_!" he gasped involuntarily, incredibly. Sheer wonder survivedhis instinctive recoil. It was the bolt, striking twice in the samespot.
The two white faces looked at each other, gaped at each other,insanely. He could see her breath come and go, shortly, and thedeathly pallor of her face, and the relaxed lower jaw that had fallen alittle away from the drooping upper lip. But she neither moved norspoke. The match burned to her finger-ends, and fell to the floor.Darkness enveloped them again.
"You!" he repeatedly vacuously. The blackness and the silence seemedto blanket and smother him, like something tangible to the touch. Hetook three steps toward where she still stood motionless, and in anagonized whisper cried out to her:
"_My God, Frank, what is it_?"
Phantom Wires: A Novel Page 5