“He!” demanded Quint fiercely. “If he has I’ll kill him some day.”
He meant his one-time friend, Dr. Boomly. Alas!
“For heaven’s sake, why are you two perpetually squabbling?” I asked wearily. “You used to be inseparable friends. Why can’t you make up?”
“Because I’ve come to know him. That’s why! I have unmasked this — this Borgia — this Machiavelli — this monster of duplicity! Matters are approaching a point where something has got to be done short of murder. I’ve stood all his envy and jealousy and cheap imputations and hints and contemptible innuendoes that I’m going to—”
He stopped short, glaring at the doorway, which had suddenly been darkened by the vast bulk of Professor Boomly — a figure largely abdominal but majestic — like the massive butt end of an elephant. For the rest, he had a rather insignificant and peevish face and a melancholy mustache that usually looked damp.
“Mr. Smith,” he said to me, in his thin, high, sarcastic voice — a voice incongruously at variance with his bulk— “has anybody had the infernal impudence to enter my room and nose about my desk?”
“Yes, I have!” replied Quint excitedly. “I’ve been in your room. What of it? What about it?”
Boomly permitted his heavy-lidded eyes to rest on Quint for a moment, then, turning to me:
“I want a patent lock put on my door. Will you speak to Professor Farrago?”
“I want one put on mine, too!” cried Quint. “I want a lock put on my door which will keep envious, dull-minded, mentally broken-down, impertinent, and fat people out of my office!”
Boomly flushed heavily:
“Fat?” he repeated, glaring at Quint. “Did you say ‘fat?’”
“Yes, fat — intellectually and corporeally fat! I want that kind of individual kept out. I don’t trust them. I’m afraid of them. Their minds are atrophied. They are unmoral, possibly even criminal! I don’t want them in my room snooping about to see what I have and what I’m doing. I don’t want them to sneak in, eaten up with jealousy and envy, and try to damage the eggs of the Silver Moon butterfly because the honour and glory of hatching them would probably procure for me the Carnegie Educational Medal—”
“Why, you little, dried-up, protoplasmic atom!” burst out Boomly, his face suffused with passion, “Are you insinuating that I have any designs on your batch of eggs?”
“It’s my belief,” shouted Quint, “that you want that medal yourself, and that you put an ichneumon fly in my breeding-cage in hopes it would sting the eggs of the Silver Moon.”
“If you found an ichneumon fly there,” retorted Boomly, “you probably hatched it in mistake for a butterfly!” And he burst into a peal of contemptuous laughter, but his little, pig-like eyes under the heavy lids were furious.
“I now believe,” said Quint, trembling with rage, “that you have criminally substituted a batch of common Plexippus eggs for the Silver Moon eggs I had in my breeding-cage! I believe you are sufficiently abandoned to do it!”
“Ha! Ha!” retorted Boomly scornfully. “I don’t believe you ever had anything in your breeding-cage except a few clothes moths and cockroaches!”
Quint began to dance:
“You did take them!” he yelled; “and you left me a bunch of milkweed butterflies’ eggs! Give me my eggs or I shall violently assault you!”
“Assault your grandmother!” remarked Boomly, with unscientific brevity. “What do you suppose I want of your ridiculous eggs? Haven’t I enough eggs of Heliconius salome hatching to give me the Carnegie medal if I want it?”
“The Silver Moon eggs are unique!” cried Quint. “You know it! You know that if they hatch, pupate, and become perfect insects that I shall certainly be awarded—”
“You’ll be awarded the Matteawan medal,” remarked Boomly with venom.
Quint ran at him with a half-suppressed howl, his momentum carrying him halfway up Professor Boomly’s person. Then, losing foothold, he fell to the floor and began to kick in the general direction of Professor Boomly. It was a sorrowful sight to see these two celebrated scientists panting, mauling, scuffling and punching each other around the room, tables and chairs and scrapbaskets flying in every direction, and I mounted on the window-sill horrified, speechless, trying to keep clear of the revolving storm centre.
“Where are my Silver Moon eggs!” screamed Dr. Quint. “Where are my eggs that Jones brought me from Singapore — you entomological robber! You’ve got ’em somewhere! If you don’t give ’em up I’ll find means to destroy you!”
“You insignificant pair of maxillary palpi!” bellowed Professor Boomly, galloping after Dr. Quint as he dodged around my desk. “I’ll pull off those antennæ you call whiskers if I can get hold of em—”
Dr. Quint’s threatened mustaches bristled as he fled before the elephantine charge of Professor Boomly — once again around my desk, then out into the hall, where I heard the door of his office slam, and Boomly, gasping, panting, breathing vengeance outside, and vowing to leave Quint quite whiskerless when he caught him.
It was a painful scene for scientists to figure in or to gaze upon. Profoundly shocked and upset, I locked up the anthropological department offices and went out into the Park, where the sun was shining and a gentle June wind stirred the trees.
Too completely upset to do any more work that day, I wandered about amid the gaily dressed crowds at hazard; sometimes I contemplated the monkeys; sometimes gazed sadly upon the seals. They dashed and splashed and raced round and round their tank, or crawled up on the rocks, craned their wet, sleek necks, and barked — houp! houp! houp!
For luncheon I went over to the Rolling Stone Restaurant. There was a very pretty girl there — an unusually pretty girl — or perhaps it was one of those days on which every girl looked unusually pretty to me. There are such days.
Her voice was exquisite when she spoke. She said:
“We have, today, corned beef hash, fried ham and eggs, liver and bacon—” but let that pass, too.
I took my tea very weak; by that time I learned that her name was Mildred Case; that she had been a private detective employed in a department store, and that her duties had been to nab wealthy ladies who forgot to pay for objects usually discovered in their reticules, bosoms, and sometimes in their stockings.
But the confinement of indoor work had been too much for Mildred Case, and the only outdoor job she could find was the position of lady waitress in the rustic Rolling Stone Inn.
She was very, very beautiful, or perhaps it was one of those days — but let that pass, too.
“You are the great Mr. Percy Smith, Curator of the Anthropological Department, are you not?” she asked shyly.
“Yes,” I said modestly; and, to slightly rebuke any superfluous pride in me, I paraphrased with becoming humility, pointing upward: “but remember, Mildred, there is One greater than I.”
“Mr. Carnegie?” she nodded innocently. That was true, too. I let it go at that.
We chatted: she mentioned Professor Boomly and Dr. Quint, gently deploring the rupture of their friendship. Both gentlemen, in common with the majority of the administration personnel, were daily customers at the Rolling Stone Inn. I usually took my lunch from my boarding-house to my office, being too busy to go out for mere nourishment.
That is why I had hitherto missed Mildred Case.
“Mildred,” I said, “I do not believe it can be wholesome for a man to eat sandwiches while taking minute measurements of defunct monkeys. Also, it is not a fragrant pastime. Hereafter I shall lunch here.”
“It will be a pleasure to serve you,” said that unusually — there I go again! It was an unusually beautiful day in June. Which careful, exact, and scientific statement, I think ought to cover the subject under consideration.
After luncheon I sadly selected a five-cent cigar; and, as I hesitated, lingering over the glass case, undecided still whether to give full rein to this contemplated extravagance, I looked up and found her beautiful grey eyes gazing into mine.
/> “What gentle thoughts are yours, Mildred?” I said softly.
“The cigar you have selected,” she murmured, “is fly-specked.”
Deeply touched that this young girl should have cared — that she should have expressed her solicitude so modestly, so sweetly, concerning the maculatory condition of my cigar, I thanked her and purchased, for the same sum, a packet of cigarettes.
That was going somewhat far for me. I had never in all my life even dreamed of smoking a cigarette. To a reserved, thoughtful, and scientific mind there is, about a packet of cigarettes, something undignified, something vaguely frolicsome.
When I paid her for them I felt as though, for the first time in my life, I had let myself go.
Oddly enough, in this uneasy feeling of gaiety and abandon, a curious sensation of exhilaration persisted.
We had quite a merry little contretemps when I tried to light my cigarette and the match went out, and then she struck another match, and we both laughed, and that match was extinguished by her breath.
Instantly I quoted: “‘Her breath was like the new-mown hay—’”
“Mr. Smith!” she said, flushing slightly.
“‘Her eyes,’ I quoted, ‘were like the stars at even!’”
“You don’t mean my eyes, do you?”
I took a puff at my unlighted cigarette. It also smelled like recently mown hay. I felt that I was slipping my cables and heading toward an unknown and tempestuous sea.
“What time are you free, Mildred?” I asked, scarcely recognising my own voice in such reckless apropos.
She shyly informed me.
I struck a match, relighted my cigarette, and took one puff. That was sufficient: I was adrift. I realised it, trembled internally, took another puff.
“If,” said I carelessly, “on your way home you should chance to stroll along the path beyond the path that leads to the path which—”
I paused, checked by her bewildered eyes. We both blushed.
“Which way do you usually go home?” I asked, my ears afire.
“‘Which way do you usually go home?’ I asked.”
She told me. It was a suitably unfrequented path.
So presently I strolled thither; and seated myself under the trees in a bosky dell.
Now, there is a quality in boskiness not inappropriate to romantic thoughts. Boskiness, cigarettes, a soft afternoon in June, the hum of bees, and the distant barking of the seals, all these were delicately blending to inspire in me a bashful sentiment.
A specimen of Papilio turnus, di-morphic form, Glaucus, alighted near me; I marked its flight with scientific indifference. Yet it is a rare species in Bronx Park.
A mock-orange bush was in snowy bloom behind me; great bunches of wistaria hung over the rock beside me.
The combination of these two exquisite perfumes seemed to make the boskiness more bosky.
There was an unaccustomed and sportive lightness to my step when I rose to meet Mildred, where she came loitering along the shadow-dappled path.
She seemed surprised to see me.
She thought it rather late to sit down, but she seated herself. I talked to her enthusiastically about anthropology. She was so interested that after a while she could scarcely keep still, moving her slim little feet restlessly, biting her pretty lower lip, shifting her position — all certain symptoms of an interest in science which even approached excitement.
Warmed to the heart by her eager and sympathetic interest in the noble science so precious, so dear to me, I took her little hand to soothe and quiet her, realizing that she might become overexcited as I described the pituitary body and why its former functions had become atrophied until the gland itself was nearly obsolete.
So intense her interest had been that she seemed a little tired. I decided to give adequate material support to her spinal process. It seemed to rest and soothe her. I don’t remember that she said anything except: “Mr. Smith!” I don’t recollect what we were saying when she mentioned me by name rather abruptly.
The afternoon was wonderfully still and calm. The month was June.
After a while — quite a while — some little time in point of accurate fact — she detected the sound of approaching footsteps.
I remember that she was seated at the opposite end of the bench, rather feverishly occupied with her hat and her hair, when young Jones came hastily along the path, caught sight of us, halted, turned violently red — being a shy young man — but instead of taking himself off, he seemed to recover from a momentary paralysis.
“Mr. Smith!” he said sharply. “Professor Boomly has disappeared; there’s a pool of blood on his desk; his coat, hat, and waistcoat are lying on the floor, the room is a wreck, and Dr. Quint is in there tearing up the carpet and behaving like a madman. We think he suddenly went insane and murdered Professor Boomly. What is to be done?”
Horrified, I had risen at his first word. And now, as I understood the full purport of his dreadful message, my hair stirred under my hat and I gazed at him, appalled.
“What is to be done?” he demanded. “Shall I telephone for the police?”
“Do you actually believe,” I faltered, “that this unfortunate man has murdered Boomly?”
“I don’t know. I looked over the transom, but I couldn’t see Professor Boomly. Dr. Quint has locked the door.”
“And he’s tearing up the carpet?”
“Like a lunatic. I didn’t want to call in the police until I’d asked you. Such a scandal in Bronx Park would be a frightful thing for us all—” He hesitated, looked around, coldly, it seemed to me, at Mildred Case. “A scandal,” he repeated, “is scarcely what might be expected among a harmonious and earnest band of seekers after scientific knowledge. Is it, Mil — Miss Case?”
Now, I don’t know why Mildred should have blushed. There was nothing that I could see in this young man’s question to embarrass her.
Preoccupied, still confused by the shock of this terrible news, I looked at Jones and at Mildred; and they were staring rather oddly at each other.
I said: “If this affair turns out to be as ghastly as it seems to promise, we’ll have to call in a detective. I’ll go back immediately—”
“Why not take me, also?” asked Mildred Case, quietly.
“What?” I asked, looking at her.
“Why not, Mr. Smith? I was once a private detective.”
Surprised at the suggestion, I hesitated.
“If you desire to keep this matter secret — if you wish to have it first investigated privately and quietly — would it not be a good idea to let me use my professional knowledge before you call in the police? Because as soon as the police are summoned all hope of avoiding publicity is at an end.”
She spoke so sensibly, so quietly, so modestly, that her offer of assistance deeply impressed me.
As for young Jones, he looked at her steadily in that odd, chilling manner, which finally annoyed me. There was no need of his being snobbish because this very lovely and intelligent young girl happened to be a waitress at the Rolling Stone Inn.
“Come,” I said unsteadily, again a prey to terrifying emotions; “let us go to the Administration Building and learn how matters stand. If this affair is as terrible as I fear it to be, science has received the deadliest blow ever dealt it since Cagliostro perished.”
As we three strode hastily along the path in the direction of the Administration Building, I took that opportunity to read these two youthful fellow beings a sermon on envy, jealousy, and coveteousness.
“See,” said I, “to what a miserable condition the desire for notoriety and fame has brought two learned and enthusiastic delvers in the vineyard of endeavor! The mad desire for the Carnegie medal completely turned the hitherto perfectly balanced brains of these devoted disciples of Science. Envy begat envy, jealousy begat jealousy, pride begat pride, hatred begat hatred—”
“It’s like that book in the Bible where everybody begat everybody else,” said Mildred seriously.
At first I thought she had made an apt and clever remark; but on thinking it over I couldn’t quite see its relevancy. I turned and looked into her sweet face. Her eyes were dancing with brilliancy and her sensitive lips quivered. I feared, she was near to tears from the reaction of the shock. Had Jones not been walking with us — but let that go, too.
We were now entering the Administration Building, almost running; and as soon as we came to the closed door of Dr. Quint’s room, I could hear a commotion inside — desk drawers being pulled out and their contents dumped, curtains being jerked from their rings, an unmistakable sound indicating the ripping up of a carpet — and through all this din the agitated scuffle of footsteps.
I rapped on the door. No notice taken. I rapped and knocked and called in a low, distinct voice.
Suddenly I recollected I had a general pass-key on my ring which unlocked any door in the building. I nodded to Jones and to Mildred to stand aside, then, gently fitting the key, I suddenly pushed out the key which remained on the inside, turned the lock, and flung open the door.
A terrible sight presented itself: Dr. Quint, hair on end, both mustaches pulled out, shirt, cuffs, and white waistcoat smeared with blood, knelt amid the general wreckage on the floor, in the act of ripping up the carpet.
“Doctor!” I cried in a trembling voice. “What have you done to Professor Boomly?”
He paused in his carpet ripping and looked around at us with a terrifying laugh.
“I’ve settled him!” he said. “If you don’t want to get all over dust you’d better keep out—”
“Quint!” I cried. “Are you crazy?”
“Pretty nearly. Let me alone—”
“Where is Boomly!” I demanded in a tragic voice. “Where is your old friend, Billy Boomly? Where is he, Quint? And what does that mean — that pool of blood on the floor? Whose is it?”
“It’s Bill’s,” said Quint, coolly ripping up another breadth of carpet and peering under it.
“What!” I exclaimed. “Do you admit that?”
“Certainly I admit it. I told him I’d terminate him if he meddled with my Silver Moon eggs.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1172