“There’s a door between the two bedrooms,” suggested Edith. “We’ll try that.”
They went into Westgate’s room. There too the window was inexplicably open, and hardly had they crossed the threshold when the door blew shut behind them. Westgate jumped to the knob and then groaned:
“This one’s jammed too! This is getting phony.”
Humphrey’s voice reached them through the wall in a muffled roar:
“Whah you boo boom? Onagona — “
“We’re locked in too!”
The door between, the two bedrooms was to be as unamenable to persuasion as the others. Westgate looked out the window.
“Wouldn’t these rooms be sure to have gratings?”
“Father was afraid of kidnapers.” She raised her voice.” Humphrey, there’s a ventilator over the door. We can talk through that.”
They heard him moving furniture to stand on; a moment later his voice reached them clear and wild :
“If you think I’m going to stand for this! If you think I don’t know — “
“Humphrey, we’re just as helpless as you are.”
“Then who did it? Doors don’t lock themselves.”
“Looks like the Eskimo.”
“Ring your call bell, Humphrey,” said Edith.” I’ve tried this one, but it must be broken.”
.Westgate sat down and considered.
“Somebody wanted us to be locked in our rooms tonight,” said Westgate. “ That’s all I can make out.”
“What Iwant toknow is what you two are doing,” demanded Humphrey.
“Oh, we’re dancing nose to nose,” said Westgate disgustedly.” To a new tune called Pain in a Corner. Ever hear it?”
“I mean, what are you talking about? I hope you’re not trying to explain — “
“You can hear every word we say.”
“I don’t call this hearing.”
“You’re using your ears, aren’t you?”
“But I have to stand on top of a chair on top of a sofa — “
“I didn’t promise anything about a chair and sofa — “
“Sh — sh!” Edith whispered suddenly.” There’s some one outside the door, walking very quietly.”
“Hey, you!” cried Westgate. “Who’s that? We want to get out of here!”
*****
There was no answer, but the shuffle of footsteps continued. Then they both started as they saw the handle of the door turn very quietly, turn back into place.
“Who’s that?” Westgate cried. “Hands up or I fire!”
As he was unarmed and had no means of knowing whether or not his commands were obeyed, his threat was somewhat superfluous. The footsteps lisped off and died away.
“Well, if it was a burglar at least he can’t get the — “ Westgate broke off.” Say, where’s my coat? I gave it to you.”
“Your coat!” Edith uttered a little cry.” I dropped it in the hall.”
Westgate sat down and whistled.
“What’s that?” cried Humphrey.
“Tell him,” Westgate said, “that it’s the first bars of the Miserere.”…
An hour passed very quietly, save when from time to time a haggard voice came through the ventilator:
“You’re not whispering, are you?”
“No!”
“It isn’t fair that I should have to stand here.”
“Then why don’t you go to sleep? That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“While you make up some fool explanation for Edith? I know it’s something you don’t want me to hear, something just disgraceful — “
Another hour waned while Edith dozed on the bed and Westgate stretched on the settee. Then, as if a church clock striking in the village was a signal, a cry, followed by a crash, came from the other room. Westgate sprang to his feet.
“He’s down!” he exclaimed.” Poor old Humphrey. Now I can talk. Listen, Edith, and listen quick.”
“Yes,” she said in a frightened voice;” I’m listening.”
“It wasn’t me who was sued for breach of promise — itwas my father. I let people think it because he was senileand I wanted him to die with a good name. I’ve only just finished paying off his bills. Now if there’s anythingfancy about that explanation — “
“What is it?” cried Humphrey, who had painfully regained his perch.” Here I have a nasty fall and you take advantage of it — “ He broke off at a curious hushed sound. “What is it, Edith?” he cried, despairing.
“Oh, Humphrey, can’t a girl cry?”
“Anyhow, it’s another day,” said Westgate.
“Not until dawn.”
“All right, then.”
After that there was no sound at all from the room except the occasional squeaking of a wicker settee. Westgate and Edith were keeping their promise.
*****
At the crack of dawn they got the attention of a farmer outside and in half an hour they were free. But the coat was gone from the hall, and with it the tiara was gone — and Pan-e-troon.
“I still can’t believe it,” protested Edith.” But if he took it he’ll be easy to find.”
“I don’t know — it might have been a clever disguise.” Deering looked at Westgate. “ A clever inside job.”
They were making a cursory tour of the place in the early light, and now they started at a cry from the farmer, who had opened the door of the little icehouse.
Inside, where quarters of beef and mutton swung from hooks, Pan-e-troon was just raising himself sleepily from a pile of sawdust.
“Good morning,” he said, grinning. And then, as the men advanced toward him menacingly,” No be mad today. Pan-e-troon sorry. He no think you bad men now.”
“But we think you are!” thundered Humphrey. “Where’s the coronet?”
“I got it. That’s why I fix door so you locked up in room. I think you bad men maybe. ,But now no — I catch real bad man. Put him here for cool off. I only half good detect,” grinned Pan-e-troon.” I forget lock his door too. But when I make march round and round the big house I see him come out with black coat. Then we have big hit fight and I take headdress.”
“I see,” said Westgate. He turned to Edith.” Then Christopher did answer the call bell — but when he saw the coat in the hall he saw his opportunity.”
Pan-e-troon stretched.” I sure danger was there,” he said. “Now I go Lapland today.”
“Just once before you go we want you to render Pain in a Corner for the special benefit of Mr. Humphrey Deering,” Westgate said.
But Pan-e-troon was the son of many chiefs and he had too much dignity to be kidded.
“That fine song in my country. That mean danger.”
*****
Pan-e-troon’s visit to Chicago is handed down in the annals of his tribe, though the Eskimo version differs a little — the Cary estate, for instance, did not break off from the mainland and float out into Lake Michigan, with Westgate and Edith perched upon it. And as Pan-e-troon is entirely a gentleman his wife will never know that part of his devotion is reserved for a princess of the fabled trading posts in the far away.
IMAGE ON THE HEART
The train rolled into the little French town as if it were entering a dusty garden. As the floor of the railroad carriage trembled and shifted with the brakes, the stationary human figures outside the window became suddenly mobile as the train itself, and began running along beside it. The passengers seemed to blend right into the countryside as soon as the porters on the platform were running as fast as the train.
She was waiting for him — eight months was a long time and they were shy with each other for a moment. She had fair hair — delicate, shiny, essentially private hair — it was not arranged as blondes preferred at the moment but rather as if it were to be let down for someone alone sometime, somewhere. There was no direct challenge in it, and in her face there were the sort of small misproportions that kept her from being smooth and immediately pretty. But in her nineteen years
she had managed to be a standard of beauty to two or three men — Tudy was lovely to those to whom she wanted to be lovely.
They got into one of those old-fashioned victorias that have a last refuge in the south of France; as the horse started off down the cobblestoned street, the man turned to the girl beside him and asked simply:
“Do you still want to marry me?”
“Yes, Tom.”
“Thank God.”
They interlaced hands and arms. Even though the cab was moving so slowly up a hill of the old town that pedestrians kept pace with them, it didn’t seem necessary to let go. Everything seemed all right in this mellow Provencal sunshine.
“It seemed forever till you’d come,” Tudy murmured. “Forever and forever. The University closes in another week — and that’s the end of my education.”
“You finish as a freshman.”
“Just a freshman. But I’d rather have had this than any finishing school — especially because you gave it to me.”
“I had to bring you up to my standard,” he said lightly. “Do you feel improved?”
“Do I! Maybe you think these French universities haven’t got standards. It’s — “ She broke off to say suddenly: “There’s you, Tom — don’t you see? That French officer coming out of the magasin de tabac across the street — he’s your double.”
Tom looked over toward the sleepy sidewalk, picked out the man, and agreed. “He does look like me, at least like I looked ten years ago. We’ll have to look him up if he lives here.”
“I know him, he’s been here a week on leave. He’s a naval aviator from Toulon. I wanted to meet him because he looked so much like you.”
Like Tom the man was darkly blond and handsome with a flickering in his face, a firelight over high cheekbones. Not having thought much of the matter for years, he stared curiously at the naval officer — who recognized Tudy and waved at her — and said meditatively:
“So that’s what Hook like.”
A minute later the carriage clattered into a green cove under a roof of poplars; beneath the soft roof slept the Hotel des Thermes, tranquil as when it had been a Roman Bath two thousand years before.
“Of course, you’ll stay on at your pension until Mother comes,” he said.
“I have to, Tom. I’m still a student. Isn’t that absurd — when you think that I’m a widow?”
The carriage had drawn up at the door. The concierge was bowing.
“Mother will be here in ten days — then the wedding — then we’re off for Sicily.”
She pressed his hand.
“In half an hour at the Pension Duval,” she said. “I’ll be in the front garden waiting.”
“As soon as I snatch a bath,” he said.
As the cab started off without him, Tudy squeezed back in the corner. She was trying not to think too much but irresistibly she kept saying to herself:
“I’m a lost soul maybe — I don’t feel at all like I ought to feel. Oh, if he’d only come a week ago.”
They had known each other for many years before this rendezvous in France. Or rather Tom had known her people, for he had thought of her as a little girl until one day at Rehoboth Beach a year before. Then word had gone around the hotel that there was a bride of a week whose husband had been tragically drowned that morning. Tom took charge of the immediate situation — it developed that she had no one to turn to and that she was left penniless. He fell in love with her and with her helplessness, and after a few months he persuaded her to let him lend her the money to go abroad and study for a year — and put something between herself and the past. There were no strings attached — indeed, nothing had been said — but he knew that she responded to him in so far as her grief permitted, and there was correspondence more and more intimate and in a few months he wrote asking her to marry him.
She wrote him a glowing answer — and thus it was that he was here. Thus it was that she sat opposite him in an outdoor restaurant on the Rue de Provence that night. The electric lights behind the leaves swayed into sight sometimes in a faint wind, making her head into a ball of white gold.
“Oh, you’ve been so good to me,” she said. “And I really have worked hard, and I’ve loved it here.”
“That’s why I want to be married here, because I’ve so often thought of you in this old town — my heart’s been here for eight months.”
“And I’ve pictured you stopping here when you were a boy, and loving it so much you wanted to send me here.”
“Did you really think of me — like your letters said?”
“Every day,” she answered quickly. “Every letter was true. Sometimes I couldn’t get home fast enough to write you.”
If only he had come a week ago!
Tom talked on:
“And you like the idea of Sicily? I have two months. If you have any other place — “
“No, Sicily’s all right — I mean Sicily’s wonderful.”
Four men, two of them naval officers, and a girl had come into the little cafe. One face among them emerged in the hundred little flashlights and dark patches of leaves — it was that of Lieutenant de Marine Riccard, the man Tudy had pointed out that afternoon. The party settled themselves at a table opposite, grouping and regrouping with laughter.
“Let’s go,” Tudy said suddenly. “We’ll ride up to the University.”
“But isn’t that my double? I’m curious to meet him.”
“Oh, he’s very — young. He’s just here on leave and he’s going back soon, I think — he probably wants to talk to his friends. Do let’s go.”
Obediently he signaled for the check, but it was too late. Riccard has risen from the table, with him two of the other men.
“ — ‘Sieu Croirier.”
“ — ‘Sieu Silve.”
“ — soir.”
“ — chantee.”
“Why, we do look alike,” Tom said to Riccard.
Riccard smiled politely.
“Excuse me? Oh, yes — I see — a little bit of a bit.” Then he conceded rather haughtily, “I am the English type, I had a Scotswoman for a grandmother.”
“You speak English well.”
“I have known English and American people.” Fragmentarily his eyes strayed towards Tudy. “You speak French well, I wish I could speak so good English. Tell me,” he said intently, “do you know any tricks?”
“Tricks?” Tom asked in surprise.
“Americans all know tricks and I am like an American that way. We have been doing tricks this evening before we came here. Do you know the trick with the fork where you hit it so — “he illustrated with graphic gesturing — “and it lands here in the glass?”
“I’ve seen it. I can’t do it.”
“Neither can I mostly, but sometimes though. Garcon, bring a fork. Also there are some tricks with matches — very interesting. They make you think, these tricks.”
Suddenly Tom remembered that though tricks were no hobby of his, he did happen to have with him something of the sort bought for a nephew and undelivered. It was in his trunk in the hotel, and it was plain that Riccard would consider it a prince among jests. Pleased by the thought, he watched the French people bring their ready concentration, their delight in simple things made complex, to bear upon the forks and matches and handkerchiefs that presently came into play. He liked watching them; he felt young with them; he laughed in tune to Tudy’s laughter — it was fine to be sitting beside her in the soft balm of a Provencal night watching French people make nonsense at the day’s end…
He was an astute man, but he was so wrapped up in his dream of Tudy that it was not until two nights later that he realized something was not as it should be. They had invited several of her friends from the University and Lieutenant Riccard to dine with them in the same little cafe. Tom did the trick that he had recovered from his trunk, a familiar old teaser that depended on two little rubber bulbs connected by a thin cord two yards long.
One of the bulbs was planted under the tab
le cloth beneath Riccard’s plate, and by squeezing the other bulb from across the table, Tom was able to make the Frenchman’s plate rise and fall inexplicably, jiggle, bump, tilt, and conduct itself in a generally supernatural manner. It was not Tom’s notion of the cream of human wit, but Riccard had asked for it and so far as practical jokes go it was a decided success.
“I don’t know what can be the matter with my fork tonight,” Riccard said mournfully. “You Americans will think I am barbarian. There! I have done it again! Can it be that my hand is trembling?” He looked anxiously at his hands. “No — yet there it is — I am destined to spill things tonight. It is one of those matters in life that can never be explained — “
He started as the knife on his plate gave a little sympathetic clink.
“Mon Dieu!” Once again he attempted a logical treatment of the situation, but he was obviously disturbed and he kept a watchful eye on the plate. “It is because I haven’t flown in ten days,” he decided. “You see, I am used to currents of air, to adjustments very sudden, and when it does not come I imagine it — “
It was a warm night, but there was extra dew on his young forehead, and then Tudy’s voice, very clear and piercing, cut through the tranquil air.
“Stop it, Tom. Stop it!”
He looked at her with an amazement as great as Riccard’s. In fear of a contagious mirth he had been avoiding her eyes, but he saw suddenly that there was no mirth in her face at all — only an engrossed compassion.
His world tilted like the plate for a moment, righted itself; he explained to Riccard the mechanics of the joke, and then as a sort of atonement, presented him with the apparatus. Riccard, trying to get back at someone, tried immediately to put it into action, inveigling the proprietor of the restaurant to sit down on it, but for the time Tom only remembered the expression on Tudy’s face when she had cried out. What did it mean when she could be so sorry for another man? Perhaps it was a general tenderness, perhaps her maternal instinct was so strong that he would be glad later when she felt that way about their children. Oh, she was good, but there was something in him unreconciled to the poignancy, the spontaneity of that cry — and on the way home in the cab he asked her:
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 347