Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “This is dreadful, dreadful!” she faltered. “If you only would give me back my jewels—”

  Sounds, hastily smothered, escaped him. She believed them to be groans, and it made her slightly faint.

  “I — I’ve simply got to telephone for the police,” she said pityingly. “I must ask you to sit down there and wait — there is a chair. Sit there — and please don’t move, for I — this has unnerved me — I am not accustomed to doing cruel things; and if you should move too quickly or attempt to run away I feel certain that this pistol would explode.”

  “Are you going to telephone?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She backed away, cautiously, pistol menacing him, reached for the receiver, and waited for Central. She waited a long time before she realized that the telephone as well as the electric light was out of commission.

  “Did you cut all these wires?” she demanded angrily.

  “I? What wires?”

  She reached out and pressed the electric button which should have rung a bell in her maid’s bedroom on the top floor. She kept her finger on the button for ten minutes. It was useless.

  “You laid deliberate plans to rob this house,” she said, her cheeks pink with indignation. “I am not a bit sorry for you. I shall not let you go! I shall sit here until somebody comes to my assistance, if I have to sit here for weeks and weeks!”

  “If you’d let me telephone to my club—” he began.

  “Your club! You are very plausible. You didn’t offer to call up any club until you found that the telephone was not working!”

  He thought a moment. “I don’t suppose you would trust me to go out and get a policeman?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Or go into the front room and open a window and summon some passer-by?”

  “How do I know you haven’t confederates waiting outside?”

  “That’s true,” he said seriously.

  There was a silence. Her nerves seemed to trouble her, for she began to pace to and fro in front of the passageway where he sat comfortably on his chair, arms folded, one knee dropped over the other.

  The light being behind her he could not as yet distinguish her features very clearly. Her figure was youthful, slender, yet beautifully rounded; her head charming in contour. He watched her restlessly walking on the floor, small hand clutching the pistol resting on her hip.

  The ruddy burnished glimmer on the edges of her hair he supposed, at first, was caused by the strong light behind her.

  “This is atrocious!” she murmured, halting to confront him. “How dared you sever every electric connection in my house?”

  As she spoke she stepped backward a pace or two, resting herself for a moment against the footboard of the bed — full in the gaslight. And he saw her face.

  For a moment he studied her; an immense wave of incredulity swept over him — of wild unbelief, slowly changing to the astonishment of dawning conviction. Astounded, silent, he stared at her from his shadowy corner; and after a while his pulses began to throb and throb and hammer, and the clamoring confusion of his senses seemed to deafen him.

  “‘This is atrocious,’ she murmured, halting to confront him.”

  She rested a moment or two against the footboard of the bed, her big gray eyes fixed on his vague and shadowy form.

  “This won’t do,” she said.

  “No,” he said, “it won’t do.”

  He spoke very quietly, very gently. She detected the alteration in his voice and started slightly, as though the distant echo of a familiar voice had sounded.

  “What did you say?” she asked, coming nearer, pistol glittering in advance.

  “I said ‘It won’t do.’ I don’t know what I meant by it. If I meant anything I was wrong. It will do. The situation is perfectly agreeable to me.”

  “Insolence will not help you,” she said sharply. And under the sharpness he detected the slightest quaver of a new alarm.

  “I am going to free myself,” he said coolly.

  “If you move I shall certainly shoot!” she retorted.

  “I am going to move — but only my lips. I have only to move my lips to free myself.”

  “I should scarcely advise you to trust to your eloquence. I have been duly warned, you see.”

  “Who warned you?” he asked curiously. And, as she disdained to reply: “Never mind. We can clear that up later. Now let me ask you something.”

  “You are scarcely in a position to ask questions,” she said.

  “May I not speak to you?”

  “Is it necessary?”

  He thought a moment. “No, not necessary. Nothing is in this life, you know. I thought differently once. Once — when I was younger — six years younger — I thought happiness was necessary. I found that a man might live without it.”

  She stood gazing at him through the shadows, pistol on hip.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean that happiness is not necessary to life. Life goes on all the same. My life has continued for six years without that happiness which some believe to be essential.”

  After a silence she said: “I can tell by the way you speak that you are well born. I — I dread to do what I simply must do.”

  He, too, sat silent a long time — long enough for an utterly perverse and whimsical humor to take complete possession of him.

  “Won’t you let me go — this time?” he pleaded.

  “I cannot.”

  “You had better let me go while you can,” he said, “because, perhaps, you may find it difficult to get rid of me later.”

  Affronted, she shrank back from the doorway and stood in the center of her room, angry, disdainful, beautiful, under the ruddy glory of her lustrous hair.

  His perverse mood changed, too; he leaned forward, studying her minutely — the splendid gray eyes, the delicate mouth and nose, the full, sweet lips, the witchery of wrist and hand, and the flowing, rounded outline of limb and body under the pretty gown. Could this be she? This lovely, mature woman, wearing scarcely a trace of the young girl he had never forgotten — scarcely a trace save in the beauty of her eyes and hair — save in the full, red mouth, sweet and sensitive even in its sudden sullenness?

  “Once,” he said, and his voice sounded to him like voices heard in dreams— “once, years and years ago, there was a steamer, and a man and a young girl on board. Do you mind my telling you about it?”

  She stood leaning against the footboard of the bed, not even deigning to raise her eyes in reply. So he made the slightest stir in his chair; and then she looked up quickly enough, pistol poised.

  “The steamer,” said Kerns slowly, “was coming into Southampton — six years ago. On deck these two people stood — a man of twenty-eight, a girl of eighteen — six years ago. The name of the steamer was the Carnatic. Did you ever hear of that ship?”

  She was looking at him attentively. He waited for her reply; she made none; and he went on.

  “The man had asked the girl something — I don’t know what — I don’t know why her gray eyes filled with tears. Perhaps it was because she could not do what the man asked her to do. It may have been to love him; it may have been that he was asking her to marry him and that she couldn’t. Perhaps that is why there were tears in her eyes — because she may have been sorry to cause him the pain of refusal — sorry, perhaps, perhaps a little guilty. Because she must have seen that he was falling in love with her, and she — she let him — knowing all the time that she was to marry another man. Did you ever hear of that man before?”

  She had straightened up, quivering, wide eyed, lips parted. He rose and walked slowly into her room, confronting her under the full glare of light.

  Her pistol fell clattering to the floor. It did not explode because it was not loaded.

  “Now,” he said unsteadily, “will you give me my freedom? I have waited for it — not minutes — but years — six years. I ask it now — the freedom I enjoyed before I ever saw y
ou. Can you give it back to me? Can you restore to me a capacity for happiness? Can you give me a heart to love with — love some woman, as other men love? Is it very much I ask of you — to give me a chance in life — the chance I had before I ever saw you?”

  Her big gray eyes seemed fascinated; he looked deep into them, smiling; and she turned white.

  “Will you give me what I ask?” he said, still smiling.

  She strove to speak; she could not, but her eyes never faltered. Suddenly the color flooded her neck and cheeks to the hair, and the quick tears glimmered.

  “I — I did not understand; I was too young to be cruel,” she faltered. “How could I know what I was doing? Or what — what you did?”

  “I? To you?”

  “Y-yes. Did you think that I escaped heart free? Do you realize what my punishment was — to — to marry — and remember! If I was too young, too inexperienced to know what I was doing, I was not too young to suffer for it!”

  “You mean—” He strove to control his voice, but the sweet, fearless gray eyes met his; the old flame leaped in his veins. He reached out to steady himself and his hand touched hers — that soft, white hand that had held him all these years in the hollow of its palm.

  “Did you ever love me?” he demanded.

  Her eyes, wet with tears, met his straight as the starry gaze of a child.

  “Yes,” she said.

  His hand tightened over hers; she swayed a moment, quivering from head to foot; then drawing a quick, sobbing breath, closed her eyes, imprisoned in his arms; and, after a long while, aroused, she looked up at him, her divine eyes unclosing dreamily.

  “Somebody is hammering at the front door,” he breathed. “Listen!”

  “I hear. I believe it must be the Tracer of Lost Persons.”

  “What?”

  “Only a Mr. Keen.”

  “O Lord!” said Kerns faintly, and covered his face with her fragrant hands.

  Very tenderly, very gravely, she drew her hands away, and, laying them on his shoulders, looked up at him.

  “You — you know what there is in your suit case,” she faltered; “are you a burglar, dear?”

  “Ask the Tracer of Lost Persons,” said Kerns gently, “what sort of a criminal I am!”

  They stood together for one blissful moment listening to the loud knocking below, then, hand in hand, they descended the dark stairway to admit the Tracer of Lost Persons.

  CHAPTER XVII

  On the thirteenth day of March, 1906, Kerns received the following cable from 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 his old 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 of Lost Persons, and a moment later a well-built, wiry, sun-scorched young man was ushered into Mr. Keen’s private office by a stenographer prepared to take minutes of the interview.

  The first thing that the Tracer of Lost Persons noted in his visitor was his mouth; the next his eyes. Both were unmistakably good — the eyes which his Creator had given him looked people squarely in the face at every word; the mouth, which a man’s own character fashions agreeably or mars, was pleasant, but firm when the trace of the smile lurking in the corners died out.

  There were dozens of other external characteristics which Mr. Keen always looked for in his clients; and now the rapid exchange of preliminary glances appeared to satisfy both men, for they advanced toward 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 beside you — matches in that silver case. No, I never smoke; but I like the aroma — and I like to watch men smoke. Do you know, Mr. Burke, that no two men smoke in the same fashion? There is as much character in the manner of holding a cigar as there is difference in the technic of artists.”

  Burke nodded, amused, but, catching sight of the busy stenographer, his bronzed 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 collar and cuffs. Then, very simply, he asked her pardon for objecting to her presence, 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 stood up until she had vanished, then reseated themselves vis-a-vis. Mr. Keen calmly dropped his elbow on the concealed button which prepared a hidden phonograph for the reception of every word that passed between them.

  “What news have you for me, Mr. Keen?” asked the younger man with that same directness which the Tracer had already been prepared for, and which 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 mean that I can see these men whenever I desire to do so? Are these scoundrels in this town — within pistol shot?”

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

  “I don’t know how far your pistol carries,” said Mr. Keen. “Do you wish to swear out a warrant?”

  “No, I do not. I merely wish their addresses. You have not used the police in this matter, have you, Mr. Keen?”

  “No. Your cable was explicit,” said the Tracer. “Had you permitted me to use 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 this sort, 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 quest of these two men, Joram Smiles and Emanuel Gandon. Besides, this is the first time you have mentioned pistol range.”

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

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

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

  “I am very grateful to you,” said Burke. “The efficiency of your system is too famous for me to venture to praise it. All I can say is ‘Thank you’; all I can do in gratitude is to write my check — if you will be kind 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 produced a check book and filled in a check for the amount. This was presented and received with pleasant formality. Burke rose, prepared to take his leave, but the Tracer was apparently bus
y with the combination lock of a safe, and the young man lingered a moment to make his adieus.

  As he stood waiting for the Tracer to turn around he studied the writing on 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 him a thousand dollars — and at the same instant he flushed with shame at the idea 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 brief quest, and — was he any nearer the goal — even with the penciled addresses of these two men in his possession? Even with these men almost within pistol shot!

  Pondering there, immersed in frowning retrospection, the room, the Tracer, the city seemed to fade from his view. He saw the red sand blowing in the desert; he heard the sickly squealing of camels at the El Teb Wells; he saw the sun strike fire from the rippling waters of Saïs; he saw the plain, and the ruins high above it; and the odor of the Long Bazaar smote him like a blow, and he heard the far call to prayer from the minarets of Sa-el-Hagar, once Saïs, the mysterious — Saïs of the million lanterns, Saïs of that splendid festival where the Great Triad’s worship swayed dynasty after dynasty, and where, through the hot centuries, Isis, veiled, impassive, looked out upon the hundredth king of kings, Meris, the Builder of Gardens, dragged dead at the chariot of Upper and Lower Egypt.

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

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

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