The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  “Why, I—” began Merrill. He saw that the stick was an expensive one. “I don’t know that I ought to—”

  “You mean because I haven’t gone straight,” cried Fisher, hurt.

  “Not at all,” said Merrill. “Thanks, Henry. I’ll keep it. Thanks.”

  “A present from Fisher,” whined the other. “A gift to the only man he ever met that he couldn’t swindle. For that’s what you are, Bob: the shrewdest, wisest man I ever struck. Keep the stick—and good-by.”

  He held out his hand. Merrill took it.

  “Good-by, Henry,” he said. “If you ever decide to go straight—good luck.”

  Fisher mumbled something and slipped out. With a look about to make sure that he had forgotten nothing, Merrill opened the door and followed. In his hand he carried the ebony walking stick; it was indeed a beautiful gift, and he looked down at it with pride. The gold elephant of the handle was very large, but not too large for a hand that had for ten years branded cattle in Texas.

  Merrill went on deck. Dusk had fallen, and the stars were twinkling above the unlovely old warehouses along the waterfront. Like an ungainly lover sidling up to the lady of his choice, the liner was making clumsy efforts to dock. On the pier where they were shortly to land a black mass of people waited.

  The ranchman stepped to the rail. Down below the waters were cluttered with small boats bearing venders of fruit and Bowers. In one leaky craft a band of daring musicians twanged guitars and sang divinely “O-o-o solemia—” And there, faint in the dusk, were the villas, white and climbing; Vesuvius, with its eternal menace and its eternal romance, and over all the stars. Saturday night in Naples! Bob Merrill’s heart beat fast. Truly, this was a land to come to in search of one’s beloved.

  The liner docked, and a gangway was dropped at an angle of forty-five degrees to the pier. Before the passengers could go ashore their baggage trundled down into that now howling mob and off through many hands to the customs. Bob Merrill watched with misgivings as his trunk was carried through the crowd. His heart sank, for he knew he must follow and rescue it from excitable little men who did not speak his language. Landing in Italy began to have its serious side.

  Then he remembered the stick in his hand. A gift to a man who could not be swindled. Was he such a man, he wondered. He hoped so. He was still hoping when some one gave him a shove down that steep gangway, and the next thing he knew he was in Italy.

  First to greet him was Cook’s man, his blessed English voice rising heavenly above the clutter of a strange tongue. Merrill was rescued from the loudly raving hotel runners, and soon landed with surprising ease in the lobby of the Hotel du Vesuve.

  That night he walked with the crowds on the Via Roma, amid the dandies, the cabbies with their eternally cracking whips, the laughing signorinas. Head and shoulders though he was above the little men of this country, they awed him with their babble. Meekly he submitted to their picturesque extortions. He felt lonely, lost, overwhelmed.

  And those delighted Neapolitans were quick to realize his state of mind. Dazed Americans had once been no novelty, but scarce they were in these war times, and the more to be cherished. Bob Merrill was a babe in their woods, and they made the most of him. Many hands were stretched out in impudent demand for his pennies, and as he filled them all he grasped his ebony stick the tighter, smiling grimly when he remembered what was given to him.

  * * * *

  The next afternoon a member of the band of forty thieves, disguised as a cabman, landed him at the station, and he left for Rome as per the promise he had made to Cook. He reached his destination at dusk, and the capital city was a revelation to him. The street of his hotel was as modern as Texas; crowds thronged it, gazing into the lighted shag windows, gathering at the doors of the moving-picture theatres. Street cars clanged down it. To one who had got his ideas of Rome from a picture of the Colosseum by moonlight, all this was startling. He was given a room looking out on the Via Nationale, and all night long the rattle of trolley cars broke in upon his sleep. Yet just behind his hotel the ruins of Nero’s time lay white beneath the moon, and across the famous Tiber the great dome of St. Peter’s stood guard.

  He awoke next morning from his disturbed slumbers a happy man. By evening he was to gaze again into the eyes that had so agitated his bosom in far-off Texas; he was to hear that voice which had been raised to such melodious effect in a dozen church choirs. Celia was lovely, she was feminine, she was his.

  He had just finished shaving when there came a knock at his door, and without ceremony a bellboy ushered a stranger into his room. He stepped Into the bedroom to find a small, swarthy Italian with fierce mustache and shifting eye, waiting for him.

  “Hello,” said Merrill. “Who are you?”

  “My most profound apology,” said the stranger, “that I must thus disturb you. But it is of the greatest importance. I am in the service of the Government. You wish my credentials?”

  He handed over stamped and sealed documents, and Bob Merrill stared helplessly at the unfamiliar script.

  “Can’t make ’em out,” said the ranchman as he gave back the impressive bundle. “But I suppose you came to look at my papers. Go as far as you like.” And he produced his passport.

  “Ah, yes.” The Italian read. “This tells you are an American, signor.”

  “You bet I am,” Merrill answered. “One of the few left. I guess that’s all, eh?”

  The Italian shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly about the room, glancing at Merrill’s possessions. Suddenly he wheeled, dramatically.

  “If you are an American, signor,” he cried, “how comes it that you serve Italy’s enemies as a spy?” Bob Merrill had heard it was the common fate of travelers to be suspected, and he smiled pleasantly. But his heart sank. In this odd land of strangers he felt more than ever lost and alone could he make himself understood?

  “Nonsense, Tony,” he said genially. “Somebody has been handing you a fake tip.”

  “Somebody has made it known,” the man answered, “that you carry papers of the utmost importance. I must search, signor.”

  “Search and be damned,” the ranchman laughed. “I suppose it’s your regular business. But make it quick, for I’ve gut a date with a breakfast downstairs.”

  He stood at the window while the little man stooped over his trunk, hastily overturning the contents. At home, among his own kind, he would have taken the stranger by the scruff of the neck and deposited him elsewhere. But when in Rome—

  “Nothing to it, Tony,” he smiled. “You’re wasting time. There’s my valise. See -innocent as a babe—that’s me.”

  The Italian had paused. His eyes were on a corner of the room, where stood the ebony stick. He stepped over and took the gold elephant of the handle in both his hands. It came off, and from a hollow in the wood the emissary of the Government removed a thin roll of paper and held it up before Merrill’s startled eyes.

  “So, you carry nothing, eh?” The Italian spread the papers out on a table. Merrill saw that the topmost sheet was covered with crosses, waving lines, writing. “What is this? A map of the Champagne district in France: of trenches, of the distribution of forces. Information for Austria, a country with which Italy has been at war a month and over. Signor, you are under arrest!”

  Merrill passed his hand before his dazed eyes.

  “Look here, he said, “I don’t know anything about this. That stick was given to me: a present from a friend.”

  “Signor, the weakest of stories is that—”

  “But it’s the truth.”

  “You will have the opportunity to explain later. But I advise that you find some story more plausible. It matters little, however. You are captured completely. Prison, signor, and—perhaps—the firing squad.”

  “Prison nothing. It would take a hundred like you to put me there.”

  “Then the hundred shall be found.”

  “I’m leaving for Florence this afternoon. I’ve an appointment there: with a lady.
” Merrill faced him helplessly.

  “Let us hope the lady is not too charming,” sneered the other. “It will be many weeks before you see her—if ever. Do not keep me waiting, signor.”

  Merrill strode to the window. So Fisher was a spy now and had made use of him. It was plain enough. Somewhere along the line a confederate was to have relieved him of the stick. He looked out on that foreign scene that had made him so childishly helpless even before he was in trouble. He would be taken where few spoke his language, and his explanation was weak in any tongue. It was incredible. It sounded poor even to his own ears. Prison would surely follow. He recalled a line in a play he had seen: “Italian prisons are devilishly uncomfortable.” Meanwhile Celia would wait, frightened, woeful.

  “Come, signor,” urged the little man.

  Suddenly into Merrill’s mind flashed a statement made to him several times by Fisher in the course of his tales of graft. It was to the effect that no Italian official was above a bribe, rightly offered. He turned and looked the Italian in the eye.

  “See here,” he said, “you’ve saved your country’s honor. That’s enough, ain’t it? What will you get by dragging me off to jail? Nothing. If you could see your way clear to letting this matter drop I might make you a very handsome present.”

  The man drew himself up to his full height, which was little.

  “You insult,” he said, “me, my position, my Government. It is unworthy of you. Come, signor.”

  “Five hundred dollars,” said Merrill.

  “No; I’ll put it in your money: it sounds more. Two thousand five hundred lire—a neat little sum. Go out of here and forget what you’ve found and it’s yours.”

  The man smiled.

  “My price it is cheap, in your eyes,” he said. “No, signor—many times no.” He came closer. “Ten thousand lire,” he added softly. “Not a centesimi less.”

  “Two thousand dollars,” Merrill answered. “You’ve got your nerve. Take me to jail.” He put on his hat. “I suppose I can communicate with the embassy,” he said.

  “If you like,” agreed the Italian. “Three other men of your nation, caught as you are caught, have communicated. It does little good. There are negotiations—what you call red tape—a long time is taken. Meanwhile you wait in prison.”

  Merrill paused. He cursed Henry Howard Fisher under his breath. He thought of Celia—of her happy, eager letter that had been waiting for him at Naples.

  “All right,” he said. “Come over to the bank with me and I’ll cash in on my letter of credit. I’d like to fight this, but I can’t afford to be held up now.”

  They went out into the sunlight, the Italian carrying the ebony stick. At the Banca d’Italia Merrill showed his passport and canceled his letter, receiving in return ten Italian notes, each good for a thousand lire, along with a little small currency that represented the difference in exchange. Had there been an American behind the bars of that bank the deal might have fallen through. But here, too, everything was foreign, strange. They returned to the street.

  “Here, you merry little grafter,” said Merrill, “take your money, quick, before I brain you. You caught me with the goods, and no mistake. How about that roll of plans?”

  “See,” said his companion. “To Italy I am true. The plans, I destroy them.”

  And, standing there on the street corner, he tore into shreds the papers Merrill had been carrying in the ebony stick.

  “You might give me the cane,” suggested Merrill. “I’d sort of like to keep it, as a souvenir.”

  “A thousand pardons,” the Italian answered. “It is not good you should carry it. A stick of this style: it is better in my hands than in those of—a spy.”

  And he walked away down the street, gayly twirling the stick in his hand.

  Merrill stood looking after him, chagrined that he had been so easy, yet knowing in his heart that he had done the only wise thing. To be dragged into court as a spy, particularly when the evidence was so hopelessly against him, would have been unthinkable at this time. Money came quickly at the ranch, and Celia’s company weighed against ten thousand lire easily tipped the scales. He hoped, however, that he could keep the matter from the boys at the Silver Star.

  He set out for his hotel. If he had felt helpless in this foreign land before, he felt vastly more so now that his pockets were empty and his credit gone. He searched for funds, and found only his tickets and a few lire that would hardly last the day out. Back at the hotel he sent his cable to Dick asking for another thousand. Fortunately he was able to charge it, though this was not included in the scheme of Cook. And he knew that now he could not leave Rome until his money came. The hotel porter explained to him that owing to the difference in time the cable would probably reach Texas at an even earlier hour than that at which it was sent, and predicted that the answer would come back by evening at the latest. Merrill cheered greatly to hear this. But we have seen how that cablegram was swept into the discard on the desk of Major Tellfair. The hour came when the ranchman was due by his promise to Cook to start for Florence, and there had been no word from Texas. He was compelled to send Celia a telegram stating that he was delayed. All the next day and the next he waited, fuming, wondering. Cook’s arrangement served him no longer, and his bill at the hotel was mounting. He sent Celia frequent telegrams, charging them on that bill. He was a worried man.

  But, fortunately for the ranchman, Clay Garrett was moved on the morning of the third day to sing “Silver threads among the gold,” and thus wake the major to his forgotten duty. At three in the afternoon the money reached Rome, and Bob Merrill, much relieved, paid his bill at the hotel and took the four o’clock train for Florence.

  On that ride to the lovely city of his happiness he was crowded into a second-class compartment along with five army officers and what appeared to be an Italian honeymoon. The afternoon was warm, the quarters cramped, and the scenery along the way not what he had been led to expect of Italy. But at the end of that journey waited Celia, and he was content to sit and dream, while the soft language of the country, being squandered on all sides of him, lulled his senses. In the corridor outside the compartment walked many Romeos, stopping now and then at the door, after the Italian custom, to stare impudently at the lady who was within.

  For three hours Merrill sat in his cramped corner, and then he decided to become one of the walkers in the corridor. He strolled up and down several times, stretching his legs. His path led him past several first-class compartments at the farther end of the car. One of these had its door closed, its curtains drawn. Pausing reflectively outside, Merrill caught a glimpse beneath a curtain not quite down of two gray and natty spats. They seemed somehow familiar. Going the Italians one better, he deliberately stooped and looked into the compartment. Lolling at his ease in a corner, the sole occupant, he beheld Mr. Henry Howard Fisher!

  Smiling with joy over his discovery, Merrill thrust open the door and came abruptly into the presence of his erstwhile friend. At sight of the ranchman Fisher’s eyes narrowed, but he leaped to his feet in cordial greeting.

  “By Gad,” he cried, “if it isn’t Bob Merrill. I thought you had left for Florence several days ago. Your tickets from Cook—”

  “I had an accident,” said Merrill.

  “So sorry. What happened?”

  “Those little plans you gave me, Henry, along with the ebony stick. Of course you haven’t heard—”

  “Plans—what plans? Sit down, Bob.” Fisher thrust Merrill down upon the seat opposite. “Hot in here, isn’t it?” He took off the light-gray duster he was wearing to protect his faultless attire from the stains of travel. “Don’t you notice it—devilish hot? What was the accident, Bob?” And he carelessly threw the duster on the baggage rack above his head. His aim was good but luck was against him. For Bob Merrill’s eyes, following the duster, saw that from one end of it there still protruded a large gold elephant, the head of a handsome ebony stick!

  For some Seconds, with Fisher’s
frightened gaze upon him, Bob Merrill sat staring at the stick. And now at last into his simple, unsuspecting mind there flashed the truth regarding the game that had been played on him. Hot anger swept into his heart. Fisher, watching, one eye on the door, saw and shuddered.

  “W—well?” stammered Fisher at last.

  “Well?” repeated Merrill sharply. He turned his eyes from the stick. “Well, Henry, you’re shivering again. Like you were on the boat that last day. All sort of gone inside, eh? Afraid—God, you’re afraid.”

  “What are you going to do?” Fisher demanded.

  “I don’t know,” replied Merrill. “I’m a slow thinker, Henry. Be patient with me. Give me time. Blamed if your teeth ain’t chattering. Buck up, be a man. You make me sick to look at you. The police haven’t got you yet.”

  “You can’t prove anything,” Fisher cried. “Not a thing—”

  “I know it,” Merrill answered. “Come, Henry, try and be a man.” The anger was gone already; the smile returned. “You ought to know I’m not the sort to run sniveling to the police. I’m just as afraid of the jabbering bunch as you are. I couldn’t explain it to them in a thousand years. If you’ll think hack, Henry. You’ll recall I paid high in Rome to keep away from them, innocent though I was. No, Henry: it won’t be the police.”

  With visible relief, Fisher sank back into his corner. But his expression changed when Merrill added, looking at him critically:

  “Not the police, but—you and me are alone here, Henry. I could break you in two with one hand, and throw the pieces out that window. That’s what I ought to do, I guess. But I’m a tender-hearted man—on my way to be married. And it was a clever game, Henry, a clever game.”

  Fisher smiled wanly.

  “Glad you appreciate it,” he murmured.

  “I’m no cry-baby,” said Merrill. “You got my roll. That’s about the end of it. I ain’t sure I didn’t have it coming to me, I was so all-fired stuck up over what you said about me as a judge of men. And the stick, you gave it to the one man you couldn’t swindle. By Gad, Henry, you sure are full of humor”