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Title: The Mystery of Murray Davenport: A Story of New York at the Present Day

Author: Robert Neilson Stephens

Release date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #9185]
                Most recently updated: May 29, 2013

Language: English

Credits: Text file produced by Stan Goodman, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders
        
        HTML file produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT: A STORY OF NEW YORK AT THE PRESENT DAY ***




Produced by Stan Goodman, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders








                     THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT

                 _A Story of New York at the Present Day_

                                   By

                        Robert Neilson Stephens

                                  1903



Works of Robert Neilson Stephens

An Enemy to the King

The Continental Dragoon

The Road to Paris

A Gentleman Player

Philip Winwood

Captain Ravenshaw

The Mystery of Murray Davenport




[Illustration: "'DO YOU KNOW WHAT A "JONAH" IS?'"]




CONTENTS

    I. MR. LARCHER GOES OUT IN THE RAIN

   II. ONE OUT OF SUITS WITH FORTUNE

  III. A READY-MONEY MAN

   IV. AN UNPROFITABLE CHILD

    V. A LODGING BY THE RIVER

   VI. THE NAME OF ONE TURL COMES UP

  VII. MYSTERY BEGINS

 VIII. MR. LARCHER INQUIRES

   IX. MR. BUD'S DARK HALLWAY

    X. A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

   XI. FLORENCE DECLARES HER ALLEGIANCE

  XII. LARCHER PUTS THIS AND THAT TOGETHER

 XIII. MR. TURL WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL

  XIV. A STRANGE DESIGN

   XV. TURL'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

  XVI. AFTER THE DISCLOSURE

 XVII. BAGLEY SHINES OUT

XVIII. FLORENCE




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"'DO YOU KNOW WHAT A "JONAH" IS?'"

"THE PLAY BECAME THE PROPERTY OF BAGLEY"

"'I'M AFRAID IT'S A CASE OF MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE'"

"'YOU'RE QUITE WELCOME TO THE USE OF MY AUTOMOBILE'"

"TURL, HAVING TAKEN A MOMENT'S PRELIMINARY THOUGHT, BEGAN HIS ACCOUNT"

"'GOOD EVENING, MR. MURRAY DAVENPORT! HOW ABOUT MY BUNCH OF MONEY?'"




THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT




CHAPTER I.


MR. LARCHER GOES OUT IN THE RAIN

The night set in with heavy and unceasing rain, and, though the month was
August, winter itself could not have made the streets less inviting than
they looked to Thomas Larcher. Having dined at the caterer's in the
basement, and got the damp of the afternoon removed from his clothes and
dried out of his skin, he stood at his window and gazed down at the
reflections of the lights on the watery asphalt. The few people he saw
were hastening laboriously under umbrellas which guided torrents down
their backs and left their legs and feet open to the pour. Clean and dry
in his dressing-gown and slippers, Mr. Larcher turned toward his easy
chair and oaken bookcase, and thanked his stars that no engagement called
him forth. On such a night there was indeed no place like home, limited
though home was to a second-story "bed sitting-room" in a house of
"furnished rooms to let" on a crosstown street traversing the part of New
York dominated by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Mr. Larcher, who was a blue-eyed young man of medium size and medium
appearance every way, with a smooth shaven, clear-skinned face whereon
sat good nature overlaid with self-esteem, spread himself in his chair,
and made ready for content. Just then there was a knock at his door, and
a negro boy servant shambled in with a telegram.

"Who the deuce--?" began Mr. Larcher, with irritation; but when he opened
the message he appeared to have his breath taken away by joyous surprise.
"Can I call?" he said, aloud. "Well, rather!" He let his book drop
forgotten, and bestirred himself in swift preparation to go out. The
telegram read merely:

"In town over night. Can you call Savoy at once? EDNA."

The state of Mr. Larcher's feelings toward the person named Edna has
already been deduced by the reader. It was a state which made the young
man plunge into the weather with gladness, dash to Sixth Avenue with no
sense of the rain's discomfort, mentally check off the streets with
impatience as he sat in a north-bound car, and finally cover with flying
feet the long block to the Savoy Hotel. Wet but radiant, he was, after
due announcement, shown into the drawing-room of a suite, where he was
kept waiting, alone with his thumping heart, for ten minutes. At the end
of that time a young lady came in with a swish from the next room.

She was a small creature, excellently shaped, and gowned--though for
indoors--like a girl in a fashion plate. Her head was thrown back in
a poise that showed to the best effect her clear-cut features; and
she marched forward in a dauntless manner. She had dark brown hair
arranged in loose waves, and, though her eyes were blue, her flawless
skin was of a brunette tone. A hint has been given as to Mr. Larcher's
conceit--which, by the way, had suffered a marvellous change to humility
in the presence of his admired--but it was a small and superficial thing
compared with the self-satisfaction of Miss Edna, and yet hers sat upon
her with a serenity which, taking her sex also into consideration, made
it much less noticeable.

"Well, this is a pleasure!" he cried, rapturously, jumping up to meet
her.

"Hello, Tom!" she said, placidly, giving him her hands for a moment. "You
needn't look apprehensively at that door. Aunt Clara's with me, of
course, but she's gone to see a sick friend in Fifty-eighth Street. We
have at least an hour to ourselves."

"An hour. Well, it's a lot, considering I had no hope of seeing you at
this time of year. When I got your telegram--"

"I suppose you _were_ surprised. To think of being in New York in
August!--and to find such horrid weather, too! But it's better than a hot
wave. I haven't any shopping to do--any real shopping, that is, though I
invented some for an excuse to come. I can do it in five minutes, with a
cab. But I came just to see you."

"How kind of you, dearest. But honestly? It seems too good to be true."
The young man spoke sincerely.

"It's true, all the same. I'll tell you why in a few minutes. Sit down
and be comfortable,--at this table. I know you must feel damp. Here's
some wine I saved from dinner on purpose; and these cakes. I mustn't
order anything from the hotel--Auntie would see it in the bill. But if
you'd prefer a cup of tea--and I could manage some toast."

"No, thanks; the wine and cakes are just the thing--with you to share
them. How thoughtful of you!"

She poured a glass of Hockheimer, and sat opposite him at the small
table. He took a sip, and, with a cake in his hand, looked delightedly
across at his hostess.

"There's something I want you to do for me," she answered, sitting
composedly back in her chair, in an attitude as graceful as comfortable.

"Nothing would make me happier."

"Do you know a man in New York named Murray Davenport?" she asked.

"No," replied Larcher, wonderingly.

"I'm sorry, because if you knew him already it would be easier. But I
should have thought you'd know him; he's in your profession, more or
less--that is, he writes a little for magazines and newspapers. But,
besides that, he's an artist, and then sometimes he has something to do
with theatres."

"I never heard of him. But," said Larcher, in a somewhat melancholy tone,
"there are so many who write for magazines and newspapers."

"I suppose so; but if you make it an object, you can find out about him,
of course. That's a part of your profession, anyhow, isn't it?--going
about hunting up facts for the articles you write. So it ought to be
easy, making inquiries about this Murray Davenport, and getting to know
him."

"Oh, am I to do that?" Mr. Larcher's wonder grew deeper.

"Yes; and when you know him, you must learn exactly how he is getting
along; how he lives; whether he is well, and comfortable, and happy, or
the reverse, and all that. In fact, I want a complete report of how he
fares."

"Upon my soul, you must be deeply interested in the man," said Larcher,
somewhat poutingly.

"Oh, you make a great mistake if you think I'd lose sleep over any man,"
she said, with lofty coolness. "But there are reasons why I must find out
about this one. Naturally I came first to you. Of course, if you
hesitate, and hem and haw--" She stopped, with the faintest shrug of the
shoulders.

"You might tell me the reasons, dear," he said, humbly.

"I can't. It isn't my secret. But I've undertaken to have this
information got, and, if you're willing to do me a service, you'll get
it, and not ask any questions. I never imagined you'd hesitate a moment."

"Oh, I don't hesitate exactly. Only, just think what it amounts
to--prying into the affairs of a stranger. It seems to me a rather
intrusive, private detective sort of business."

"Oh, but you don't know the reason--the object in view. Somebody's
happiness depends on it,--perhaps more than one person's; I may tell you
that much."

"Whose happiness?"

"It doesn't matter. Nobody's that you know. It isn't _my_ happiness, you
may be sure of that, except as far as I sympathize. The point is, in
doing this, you'll be serving _me_, and really I don't see why you should
be inquisitive beyond that."

"You oughtn't to count inquisitiveness a crime, when the very thing you
ask me to do is nothing if not inquisitive. Really, if you'd just stop to
think how a self-respecting man can possibly bring himself to pry and
question--"

"Well, you may rest assured there's nothing dishonorable in this
particular case. Do you imagine I would ask you to do it if it were? Upon
my word, you don't flatter me!"

"Don't be angry, dear. If you're really _sure_ it's all right--"

"_If_ I'm sure! Tommy Larcher, you're simply insulting! I wish I had
asked somebody else! It isn't too late--"

Larcher turned pale at the idea. He seized her hand.

"Don't talk that way, Edna dearest. You know there's nobody will serve
you more devotedly than I. And there isn't a man of your acquaintance can
handle this matter as quickly and thoroughly. Murray Davenport, you say;
writes for magazines and newspapers; is an artist, also, and has
something to do with theatres. Is there any other information to start
with?"

"No; except that he's about twenty-eight years old, and fairly
good-looking. He usually lives in rooms--you know what I mean--and takes
his meals at restaurants."

"Can you give me any other points about his appearance? There _might_
possibly be two men of the same name in the same occupation. I shouldn't
like to be looking up the wrong man."

"Neither should I like that. We must have the right man, by all means.
But I don't think I can tell you any more about him. Of course _I_ never
saw him."

"There wouldn't probably be more than one man of the same name who was a
writer and an artist and connected with theatres," said Larcher. "And it
isn't a common name, Murray Davenport. There isn't one chance in a
thousand of a mistake in identity; but the most astonishing coincidences
do occur."

"He's something of a musician, too, now that I remember," added the young
lady.

"He must be a versatile fellow, whoever he is. And when do you want this
report?"

"As soon as possible. Whenever you find out anything about his
circumstances, and state of mind, and so forth, write to me at once; and
when you find out anything more, write again. We're going back to
Easthampton to-morrow, you know."

A few minutes after the end of another half-hour, Mr. Larcher put up his
umbrella to the rain again, and made his way back to Sixth Avenue and a
car. Pleasurable reflections upon the half-hour, and the additional
minutes, occupied his mind for awhile, but gave way at last to
consideration of the Murray Davenport business, and the strangeness
thereof, which lay chiefly in Edna Hill's desire for such intimate news
about a man she had never seen. Whose happiness could depend on getting
that news? What, in fine, was the secret of the affair? Larcher could
only give it up, and think upon means for the early accomplishment of his
part in the matter. He had decided to begin immediately, for his first
inquiries would be made of men who kept late hours, and with whose
midnight haunts he was acquainted.

He stayed in the car till he had entered the region below Fourteenth
Street. Getting out, he walked a short distance and into a basement,
where he exchanged rain and darkness for bright gaslight, an atmosphere
of tobacco smoke mixed with the smell of food and cheap wine, and the
noisy talk of a numerous company sitting--for the most part--at long
tables whereon were the traces of a _table d'hôte_ dinner. Coffee and
claret were still present, not only in cups, bottles, and glasses, but
also on the table-cloths. The men were of all ages, but youth
preponderated and had the most to say and the loudest manner of saying
it. The ladies were, as to the majority, unattractive in appearance,
nasal in voice, and unabashed in manner. The assemblage was, in short,
a specimen of self-styled, self-conscious Bohemia; a far-off,
much-adulterated imitation of the sort of thing that some of the young
men with halos of hair, flowing ties, and critical faces had seen in
Paris in their days of art study. Larcher made his way through the crowd
in the front room to that in the back, acknowledging many salutations.
The last of these came from a middle-sized man in the thirties, whose
round, humorous face was made additionally benevolent by spectacles, and
whose forward bend of the shoulders might be the consequence of studious
pursuits, or of much leaning over café-tables, or of both.

"Hello, Barry Tompkins!" said Larcher. "I've been looking for you."

Mr. Tompkins received him with a grin and a chuckle, as if their meeting
were a great piece of fun, and replied in a brisk and clean-cut manner:

"You were sure to find me in the haunts of genius." Whereat he looked
around and chuckled afresh.

Larcher crowded a chair to Mr. Tompkins's elbow, and spoke low:

"You know everybody in newspaper circles. Do you know a man named Murray
Davenport?"

"I believe there is such a man--an illustrator. Is that the one you
mean?"

"I suppose so. Where can I find him?"

"I give it up. I don't know anything about him. I've only seen some of
his work--in one of the ten-cent magazines, I think."

"I've got to find him, and make his acquaintance. This is in confidence,
by the way."

"All right. Have you looked in the directory?"

"Not yet. The trouble isn't so much to find where he lives; there are
some things I want to find out about him, that'll require my getting
acquainted with him, without his knowing I have any such purpose. So the
trouble is to get introduced to him on terms that can naturally lead up
to a pretty close acquaintance."

"No trouble in that," said Tompkins, decidedly. "Look here. He's an
illustrator, I know that much. As soon as you find out where he lives,
call with one of your manuscripts and ask him if he'll illustrate it.
That will begin an acquaintance."

"And terminate it, too, don't you think? Would any self-respecting
illustrator take a commission from an obscure writer, with no certainty
of his work ever appearing?"

"Well, then, the next time you have anything accepted for publication,
get to the editor as fast as you can, and recommend this Davenport to do
the illustrations."

"Wouldn't the editor consider that rather presumptuous?"

"Perhaps he would; but there's an editor or two who wouldn't consider it
presumptuous if _I_ did it. Suppose it happened to be one of those
editors, you could call on some pretext about a possible error in the
manuscript. I could call with you, and suggest this Davenport as
illustrator in a way both natural and convincing. Then I'd get the editor
to make you the bearer of his offer and the manuscript; and even if
Davenport refused the job,--which he wouldn't,--you'd have an opportunity
to pave the way for intimacy by your conspicuous charms of mind and
manner."

"Be easy, Barry. That looks like a practical scheme; but suppose he
turned out to be a bad illustrator?"

"I don't think he would. He must be fairly good, or I shouldn't have
remembered his name. I'll look through the files of back numbers in my
room to-night, till I find some of his work, so I can recommend him
intelligently. Meanwhile, is there any editor who has something of yours
in hand just now?"

"Why, yes," said Larcher, brightening, "I got a notice of acceptance
to-day from the _Avenue Magazine_, of a thing about the rivers of New
York City in the old days. It simply cries aloud for illustration."

"That's all right, then. Rogers mayn't have given it out yet for
illustration. We'll call on him to-morrow. He'll be glad to see me; he'll
think I've come to pay him ten dollars I owe him. Suppose we go now and
tackle the old magazines in my room, to see what my praises of Mr.
Davenport shall rest on. As we go, we'll look the gentleman up in the
directory at the drug-store--unless you'd prefer to tarry here at the
banquet of wit and beauty." Mr. Tompkins chuckled again as he waved a
hand over the scene, which, despite his ridicule of the pose and conceit
it largely represented, he had come by force of circumstances regularly
to inhabit.

Mr. Larcher, though he found the place congenial enough, was rather for
the pursuit of his own affair. Before leaving the house, Tompkins led the
way up a flight of stairs to a little office wherein sat the foreign old
woman who conducted this tavern of the muses. He thought that she, who
was on chaffing and money-lending terms with so much talent in the shape
of her customers, might know of Murray Davenport; or, indeed, as he had
whispered to Larcher, that the illustrator might be one of the crowd in
the restaurant at that very moment. But the proprietress knew no such
person, a fact which seemed to rate him very low in her estimation and
somewhat high in Mr. Tompkins's. The two young men thereupon hastened to
board a car going up Sixth Avenue. Being set down near Greeley Square,
they went into a drug-store and opened the directory.

"Here's a Murray Davenport, all right enough," said Tompkins, "but he's
a playwright."

"Probably the same," replied Larcher, remembering that his man had
something to do with theatres. "He's a gentleman of many professions,
let's see the address."

It was a number and street in the same part of the town with Larcher's
abode, but east of Madison Avenue, while his own was west of Fifth. But
now his way was to the residence of Barry Tompkins, which proved to be a
shabby room on the fifth floor of an old building on Broadway; a room
serving as Mr. Tompkins's sleeping-chamber by night, and his law office
by day. For Mr. Tompkins, though he sought pleasure and forage under the
banners of literature and journalism, owned to no regular service but
that of the law. How it paid him might be inferred from the oldness of
his clothes and the ricketiness of his office. There was a card saying
"Back in ten minutes" on the door which he opened to admit Larcher and
himself. And his friends were wont to assert that he kept the card
"working overtime," himself, preferring to lay down the law to
companionable persons in neighboring cafés rather than to possible
clients in his office. When Tompkins had lighted the gas, Larcher saw a
cracked low ceiling, a threadbare carpet of no discoverable hue, an old
desk crowded with documents and volumes, some shelves of books at one
side, and the other three sides simply walled with books and magazines
in irregular piles, except where stood a bed-couch beneath a lot of
prints which served to conceal much of the faded wall-paper.

Tompkins bravely went for the magazines, saying, "You begin with that
pile, and I'll take this. The names of the illustrators are always in the
table of contents; it's simply a matter of glancing down that."

After half an hour's silent work, Tompkins exclaimed, "Here we are!" and
took a magazine to the desk, at which both young men sat down. "'A Heart
in Peril,'" he quoted; "'A Story by James Willis Archway. Illustrated by
Murray Davenport. Page 38.'" He turned over the leaves, and disclosed
some rather striking pictures in half-tone, signed "M.D." Two men and two
women figured in the different illustrations.

"This isn't bad work," said Tompkins. "I can recommend 'M.D.' with a
clear conscience. His women are beautiful in a really high way,--but
they've got a heartless look. There's an odd sort of distinction in his
men's faces, too."

"A kind of scornful discontent," ventured Larcher. "Perhaps the story
requires it."

"Perhaps; but the thing I mean seems to be under the expressions
intended. I should say it was unconscious, a part of the artist's
conception of the masculine face in general before it's individualized.
I'll bet the chap that drew these illustrations isn't precisely the man
in the street, even among artists. He must have a queer outlook on life.
I congratulate you on your coming friend!" At which Mr. Tompkins,
chuckling, lighted a pipe for himself.

Mr. Larcher sat looking dubious. If Murray Davenport was an unusual sort
of man, the more wonder that a girl like Edna Hill should so strangely
busy herself about him.




CHAPTER II.


ONE OUT OF SUITS WITH FORTUNE

Two days later, toward the close of a sunny afternoon, Mr. Thomas Larcher
was admitted by a lazy negro to an old brown-stone-front house half-way
between Madison and Fourth Avenues, and directed to the third story back,
whither he was left to find his way unaccompanied. Running up the dark
stairs swiftly, with his thoughts in advance of his body, he suddenly
checked himself, uncertain as to which floor he had attained. At a
hazard, he knocked on the door at the back of the dim, narrow passage he
was in. He heard slow steps upon the carpet, the door opened, and a man
slightly taller, thinner, and older than himself peered out.

"Pardon me, I may have mistaken the floor," said Larcher. "I'm looking
for Mr. Murray Davenport."

"'Myself and misery know the man,'" replied the other, with quiet
indifference, in a gloomy but not unpleasing voice, and stepped back to
allow his visitor's entrance.

A little disconcerted at being received with a quotation, and one of such
import,--the more so as it came from the speaker's lips so naturally
and with perfect carelessness of what effect it might produce on a
stranger,--Larcher stepped into the room. The carpet, the wall-paper, the
upholstery of the arm-chair, the cover of the small iron bed in one
corner, that of the small upright piano in another, and that of the table
which stood between the two windows and evidently served as a desk, were
all of advanced age, but cleanliness and neatness prevailed. The same was
to be said of the man's attire, his coat being an old gray-black garment
of the square-cut "sack" or "lounge" shape. Books filled the mantel, the
flat top of a trunk, that of the piano, and much of the table, which held
also a drawing-board, pads of drawing and manuscript paper, and the
paraphernalia for executing upon both. Tacked on the walls, and standing
about on top of books and elsewhere, were water-colors, drawings in
half-tone, and pen-and-ink sketches, many unfinished, besides a few
photographs of celebrated paintings and statues. But long before he had
sought more than the most general impression of these contents of the
room, Larcher had bent all his observation upon their possessor.

The man's face was thoughtful and melancholy, and handsome only by these
and kindred qualities. Long and fairly regular, with a nose distinguished
by a slight hump of the bridge, its single claim to beauty of form was in
the distinctness of its lines. The complexion was colorless but clear,
the face being all smooth shaven. The slightly haggard eyes were gray,
rather of a plain and honest than a brilliant character, save for a tiny
light that burned far in their depths. The forehead was ample and smooth,
as far as could be seen, for rather longish brown hair hung over it, with
a negligent, sullen effect. The general expression was of an odd
painwearied dismalness, curiously warmed by the remnant of an
unquenchable humor.

"This letter from Mr. Rogers will explain itself," said Larcher, handing
it.

"Mr. Rogers?" inquired Murray Davenport.

"Editor of the _Avenue Magazine_."

Looking surprised, Davenport opened and read the letter; then, without
diminution of his surprise, he asked Larcher to sit down, and himself
took a chair before the table.

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Larcher," he said, conventionally; then, with
a change to informality, "I'm rather mystified to know why Mr. Rogers,
or any editor, for that matter, should offer work to me. I never had any
offered me before."

"Oh, but I've seen some of your work," contradicted Larcher. "The
illustrations to a story called 'A Heart in Peril.'"

"That wasn't offered me; I begged for it," said Davenport, quietly.

"Well, in any case, it was seen and admired, and consequently you were
recommended to Mr. Rogers, who thought you might like to illustrate this
stuff of mine," and Larcher brought forth the typewritten manuscript from
under his coat.

"It's so unprecedented," resumed Davenport, in his leisurely, reflective
way of speaking. "I can scarcely help thinking there must be some
mistake."

"But you are the Murray Davenport that illustrated the 'Heart in Peril'
story?"

"Yes; I'm the only Murray Davenport I know of; but an offer of work to
_me_--"

"Oh, there's nothing extraordinary about that. Editors often seek out new
illustrators they hear of."

"Oh, I know all about that. You don't quite understand. I say, an offer
to _me_--an offer unsolicited, unsought, coming like money found, like a
gift from the gods. Such a thing belongs to what is commonly called good
luck. Now, good luck is a thing that never by any chance has fallen to me
before; never from the beginning of things to the present. So, in spite
of my senses, I'm naturally a bit incredulous in this case." This was
said with perfect seriousness, but without any feeling.

Larcher smiled. "Well, I hope your incredulity won't make you refuse to
do the pictures."

"Oh, no," returned Davenport, indolently. "I won't refuse. I'll accept
the commission with pleasure--a certain amount of pleasure, that is.
There was a time when I should have danced a break-down for joy,
probably, at this opportunity. But a piece of good luck, strange as it
is to me, doesn't matter now. Still, as it has visited me at last, I'll
receive it politely. In as much as I have plenty of time for this work,
and as Mr. Rogers seems to wish me to do it, I should be churlish if I
declined. The money too, is an object--I won't conceal that fact. To
think of a chance to earn a little money, coming my way without the
slightest effort on my part! You look substantial, Mr. Larcher, but I'm
still tempted to think this is all a dream."

Larcher laughed. "Well, as to effort," said he, "I don't think I should
be here now with that accepted manuscript for you to illustrate, if I
hadn't taken a good deal of pains to press my work on the attention of
editors."

"Oh, I don't mean to say that your prosperity, and other men's, is due
to having good things thrust upon you in this way. But if you do owe all
to your own work, at least your work does bring a fair amount of reward,
your efforts are in a fair measure successful. But not so with me. The
greatest fortune I could ever have asked would have been that my pains
should bring their reasonable price, as other men's have done. Therefore,
this extreme case of good luck, small as it is, is the more to be
wondered at. The best a man has a right to ask is freedom from what
people call habitual bad luck. That's an immunity I've never had. My
labors have been always banned--except when the work has masqueraded
as some other man's. In that case they have been blessed. It will seem
strange to you, Mr. Larcher, but whatever I've done in my own name has
met with wretched pay and no recognition, while work of mine, no better,
when passed off as another man's, has won golden rewards--for him--in
money and reputation."

"It does seem strange," admitted Larcher.

"What can account for it?"

"Do you know what a 'Jonah' is, in the speech of the vulgar?"

"Yes; certainly."

"Well, people have got me tagged with that name. I bring ill luck to
enterprises I'm concerned in, they say. That's a fatal reputation, Mr.
Larcher. It wasn't deserved in the beginning, but now that I have it, see
how the reputation itself is the cause of the apparent ill luck. Take
this thing, for instance." He held up a sheet of music paper, whereon he
had evidently been writing before Larcher's arrival. "A song, supposed to
be sentimental. As the idea is somewhat novel, the words happy, and the
tune rather quaint, I shall probably get a publisher for it, who will
offer me the lowest royalty. What then? Its fame and sale--or whether it
shall have any--will depend entirely on what advertising it gets from
being sung by professional singers. I have taken the precaution to submit
the idea and the air to a favorite of the music halls, and he has
promised to sing it. Now, if he sang it on the most auspicious occasion,
making it the second or third song of his turn, having it announced with
a flourish on the programme, and putting his best voice and style into
it, it would have a chance of popularity. Other singers would want it, it
would be whistled around, and thousands of copies sold. But will he do
that?"

"I don't see why he shouldn't," said Larcher.

"Oh, but he knows why. He remembers I am a Jonah. What comes from me
carries ill luck. He'll sing the song, yes, but he won't hazard any
auspicious occasion on it. He'll use it as a means of stopping encores
when he's tired of them; he'll sing it hurriedly and mechanically; he'll
make nothing of it on the programme; he'll hide the name of the author,
for fear by the association of the names some of my Jonahship might
extend to him. So, you see, bad luck _will_ attend my song; so, you see,
the name of bad luck brings bad luck. Not that there is really such a
thing as luck. Everything that occurs has a cause, an infinite line of
causes. But a man's success or failure is due partly to causes outside
of his control, often outside of his ken. As, for instance, a sudden
change of weather may defeat a clever general, and thrust victory upon
his incompetent adversary. Now when these outside causes are adverse,
and prevail, we say a man has bad luck. When they favor, and prevail, he
has good luck. It was a rapid succession of failures, due partly to folly
and carelessness of my own, I admit, but partly to a run of adverse
conjunctures far outside my sphere of influence, that got me my unlucky
name in the circles where I hunt a living. And now you are warned, Mr.
Larcher. Do you think you are safe in having my work associated with
yours, as Mr. Rogers proposes? It isn't too late to draw back."

Whether the man still spoke seriously, Larcher could not exactly tell.
Certainly the man's eyes were fixed on Larcher's face in a manner that
made Larcher color as one detected. But his weakness had been for an
instant only, and he rallied laughingly.

"Many thanks, but I'm not superstitious, Mr. Davenport. Anyhow, my
article has been accepted, and nothing can increase or diminish the
amount I'm to receive for it."

"But consider the risk to your future career," pursued Davenport, with a
faint smile.

"Oh, I'll take the chances," said Larcher, glad to treat the subject as
a joke. "I don't suppose the author of 'A Heart in Peril,' for instance,
has experienced hard luck as a result of your illustrating his story."

"As a matter of fact," replied Davenport, with a look of melancholy
humor, "the last I heard of him, he had drunk himself into the hospital.
But I believe he had begun to do that before I crossed his path. Well, I
thank you for your hardihood, Mr. Larcher. As for the _Avenue Magazine_,
it can afford a little bad luck."

"Let us hope that the good luck of the magazine will spread to you, as
a result of your contact with it."

"Thank you; but it doesn't matter much, as things are. No; they are
right; Murray Davenport is a marked name; marked for failure. You must
know, Mr. Larcher, I'm not only a Jonah; I'm that other ludicrous figure
in the world,--a man with a grievance; a man with a complaint of
injustice. Not that I ever air it; it's long since I learned better than
that. I never speak of it, except in this casual way when it comes up
apropos; but people still associate me with it, and tell newcomers about
it, and find a moment's fun in it. And the man who is most hugely amused
at it, and benevolently humors it, is the man who did me the wrong. For
it's been a part of my fate that, in spite of the old injury, I should
often work for his pay. When other resources fail, there's always he to
fall back on; he always has some little matter I can be useful in. He
poses then as my constant benefactor, my sure reliance in hard times. And
so he is, in fact; though the fortune that enables him to be is built on
the profits of the game he played at my expense. I mention it to you, Mr.
Larcher, to forestall any other account, if you should happen to speak of
me where my name is known. Please let nobody assure you, either that the
wrong is an imaginary one, or that I still speak of it in a way to
deserve the name of a man with a grievance."

His composed, indifferent manner was true to his words. He spoke, indeed,
as one to whom things mattered little, yet who, being originally of a
social and communicative nature, talks on fluently to the first
intelligent listener after a season of solitude. Larcher was keen to make
the most of a mood so favorable to his own purpose in seeking the man's
acquaintance.

"You may trust me to believe nobody but yourself, if the subject ever
comes up in my presence," said Larcher. "I can certainly testify to the
cool, unimpassioned manner in which you speak of it."

"I find little in life that's worth getting warm or impassioned about,"
said Davenport, something half wearily, half contemptuously.

"Have you lost interest in the world to that extent?"

"In my present environment."

"Oh, you can easily change that. Get into livelier surroundings."

Davenport shook his head. "My immediate environment would still be the
same; my memories, my body; 'this machine,' as Hamlet says; my old,
tiresome, unsuccessful self."

"But if you got about more among mankind,--not that I know what your
habits are at present, but I should imagine--" Larcher hesitated.

"You perceive I have the musty look of a solitary," said Davenport.
"That's true, of late. But as to getting about, 'man delights not me'--to
fall back on Hamlet again--at least not from my present point of view."

"'Nor woman neither'?" quoted Larcher, interrogatively.

"'No, nor woman neither,'" said Davenport slowly, a coldness coming upon
his face. "I don't know what your experience may have been. We have only
our own lights to go by; and mine have taught me to expect nothing from
women. Fair-weather friends; creatures that must be amused, and are
unscrupulous at whose cost or how great. One of their amusements is to
be worshipped by a man; and to bring that about they will pretend love,
with a pretence that would deceive the devil himself. The moment they
are bored with the pastime, they will drop the pretence, and feel injured
if the man complains. We take the beauty of their faces, the softness of
their eyes, for the outward signs of tenderness and fidelity; and for
those supposed qualities, and others which their looks seem to express,
we love them. But they have not those qualities; they don't even know
what it is that we love them for; they think it is for the outward
beauty, and that that is enough. They don't even know what it is that we,
misled by that outward softness, imagine is beyond; and when we are
disappointed to find it isn't there, they wonder at us and blame us for
inconstancy. The beautiful woman who could be what she looks--who could
really contain what her beauty seems the token of--whose soul, in short,
could come up to the promise of her face,--there would be a creature!
You'll think I've had bad luck in love, too, Mr. Larcher."

Larcher was thinking, for the instant, about Edna Hill, and wondering
how near she might come to justifying Davenport's opinion of women. For
himself, though he found her bewitching, her prettiness had never seemed
the outward sign of excessive tenderness. He answered conventionally:
"Well, one _would_ suppose so from your remarks. Of course, women like
to be amused, I know. Perhaps we expect too much from them.

     'Oh, woman in our hours of ease,
     Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
     And variable as the shade
     By the light quivering aspen made.'

I've sometimes had reason to recall those lines." Mr. Larcher sighed at
certain memories of Miss Hill's variableness. "But then, you know,--

     'When pain and anguish wring the brow,
     A ministering angel them.'"

"I can't speak in regard to pain and anguish," said Davenport. "I've
experienced both, of course, but not so as to learn their effect on
women. But suppose, if you can, a woman who should look kindly on an
undeserving, but not ill-meaning, individual like myself. Suppose that,
after a time, she happened to hear of the reputation of bad luck that
clung to him. What would she do then?"

"Undertake to be his mascot, I suppose, and neutralize the evil
influence," replied Larcher, laughingly.

"Well, if I were to predict on my own experience, I should say she would
take flight as fast as she could, to avoid falling under the evil
influence herself. The man would never hear of her again, and she would
doubtless live happy ever after."

For the first time in the conversation, Davenport sighed, and the
faintest cloud of bitterness showed for a moment on his face.

"And the man, perhaps, would 'bury himself in his books,'" said Larcher,
looking around the room; he made show to treat the subject gaily, lest
he might betray his inquisitive purpose.

"Yes, to some extent, though the business of making a bare living takes
up a good deal of time. You observe the signs of various occupations
here. I have amused myself a little in science, too,--you see the cabinet
over there. I studied medicine once, and know a little about surgery,
but I wasn't fitted--or didn't care--to follow that profession in a
money-making way."

"You are exceedingly versatile."

"Little my versatility has profited me. Which reminds me of business.
When are these illustrations to be ready, Mr. Larcher? And how many are
wanted? I'm afraid I've been wasting your time."

In their brief talk about the task, Larcher, with the private design of
better acquaintance, arranged that he should accompany the artist to
certain riverside localities described in the text. Business details
settled, Larcher observed that it was about dinnertime, and asked:

"Have you any engagement for dining?"

"No," said Davenport, with a faint smile at the notion.

"Then you must dine with me. I hate to eat alone."

"Thank you, I should be pleased. That is to say--it depends on where you
dine."

"Wherever you like. I dine at restaurants, and I'm not faithful to any
particular one."

"I prefer to dine as Addison preferred,--on one or two good things well
cooked, and no more. Toiling through a ten-course _table d'hôte_ menu is
really too wearisome--even to a man who is used to weariness."

"Well, I know a place--Giffen's chop-house--that will just suit you. As
a friend of mine, Barry Tompkins, says, it's a place where you get an
unsurpassable English mutton-chop, a perfect baked potato, a mug of
delicious ale, and afterward a cup of unexceptionable coffee. He says
that, when you've finished, you've dined as simply as a philosopher and
better than most kings; and the whole thing comes to forty-five cents."

"I know the place, and your friend is quite right."

Davenport took up a soft felt hat and a plain stick with a curved handle.
When the young men emerged from the gloomy hallway to the street, which
in that part was beginning to be shabby, the street lights were already
heralding the dusk. The two hastened from the region of deteriorating
respectability to the grandiose quarter westward, and thence to Broadway
and the clang of car gongs. The human crowd was hurrying to dinner.

"What a poem a man might write about Broadway at evening!" remarked
Larcher.

Davenport replied by quoting, without much interest:

'The shadows lay along Broadway,
'Twas near the twilight tide--And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.'

"Poe praised those lines," he added. "But it was a different Broadway
that Willis wrote them about."

"Yes," said Larcher, "but in spite of the skyscrapers and the
incongruities, I love the old street. Don't you?"

"I used to," said Davenport, with a listlessness that silenced Larcher,
who fell into conjecture of its cause. Was it the effect of many
failures? Or had it some particular source? What part in its origin had
been played by the woman to whose fickleness the man had briefly alluded?
And, finally, had the story behind it anything to do with Edna Hill's
reasons for seeking information?

Pondering these questions, Larcher found himself at the entrance to the
chosen dining-place. It was a low, old-fashioned doorway, on a level
with the sidewalk, a little distance off Broadway. They were just about
to enter, when they heard Davenport's name called out in a nasal,
overbearing voice. A look of displeasure crossed Davenport's brow, as
both young men turned around. A tall, broad man, with a coarse, red face;
a man with hard, glaring eyes and a heavy black mustache; a man who had
intruded into a frock coat and high silk hat, and who wore a large
diamond in his tie; a man who swung his arms and used plenty of the
surrounding space in walking, as if greedy of it,--this man came across
the street, and, with an air of proprietorship, claimed Murray
Davenport's attention.




CHAPTER III.


A READY-MONEY MAN

"I want you," bawled the gentleman with the diamond, like a rustic
washerwoman summoning her offspring to a task. "I've got a little matter
for you to look after. S'pose you come around to dinner, and we can talk
it over."

"I'm engaged to dine with this gentleman," said Davenport, coolly.

"Well, that's all right," said the newcomer. "This gentleman can come,
too."

"We prefer to dine here," said Davenport, with firmness. "We have our own
reasons. I can meet you later."

"No, you can't, because I've got other business later. But if you're
determined to dine here, I can dine here just as well. So come on and
dine."

Davenport looked at the man wearily, and at Larcher apologetically; then
introduced the former to the latter by the name of Bagley. Vouchsafing a
brief condescending glance and a rough "How are you," Mr. Bagley led the
way into the eating-house, Davenport chagrinned on Larcher's account, and
Larcher stricken dumb by the stranger's outrage upon his self-esteem.

Nothing that Mr. Bagley did or said later was calculated to improve the
state of Larcher's feelings toward him. When the three had passed from
the narrow entrance and through a small barroom to a long, low apartment
adorned with old prints and playbills, Mr. Bagley took by conquest from
another intending party a table close to a street window. He spread out
his arms over as much of the table as they would cover, and evinced in
various ways the impulse to grab and possess, which his very manner of
walking had already shown. He even talked loud, as if to monopolize the
company's hearing capacity.

As soon as dinner had been ordered,--a matter much complicated by Mr.
Bagley's calling for things which the house didn't serve, and then
wanting to know why it didn't,--he plunged at once into the details of
some business with Davenport, to which the ignored Larcher, sulking
behind an evening paper, studiously refrained from attending. By the
time the chops and potatoes had been brought, the business had been
communicated, and Bagley's mind was free to regard other things. He
suddenly took notice of Larcher.

"So you're a friend of Dav's, are you?" quoth he, looking with benign
patronage from one young man to the other.

"I've known Mr. Davenport a--short while," said Larcher, with all the
iciness of injured conceit.

"Same business?" queried Bagley.

"I beg your pardon," said Larcher, as if the other had spoken a foreign
language.

"Are you in the same business he's in?" said Bagley, in a louder voice.

"I--write," said Larcher, coldly.

Bagley looked him over, and, with evident approval of his clothes,
remarked: "You seem to've made a better thing of it than Dav has."

"I make a living," said Larcher, curtly, with a glance at Davenport, who
showed no feeling whatever.

"Well, I guess that's about all Dav does," said Bagley, in a jocular
manner. "How is it, Dav, old man? But you never had any business sense."

"I can't return the compliment," said Davenport, quietly.

Bagley uttered a mirthful "Yah!" and looked very well contented with
himself. "I've always managed to get along," he admitted. "And a good
thing for you I have, Dav. Where'ud you be to-day if you hadn't had me
for your good angel whenever you struck hard luck?"

"I haven't the remotest idea," said Davenport, as if vastly bored.

"Neither have I," quoth Bagley, and filled his mouth with mutton and
potato. When he had got these sufficiently disposed of to permit further
speech, he added: "No, sir, you literary fellows think yourselves very
fine people, but I don't see many of you getting to be millionaires by
your work."

"There are other ambitions in life," said Larcher.

Mr. Bagley emitted a grunt of laughter. "Sour grapes! Sour grapes, young
fellow! I know what I'm talking about. I've been a literary man myself."

Larcher arrested his fork half-way between his plate and his mouth, in
order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only
manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long sip of ale.

"Nobody would ever think it," said Larcher.

"Yes, sir; I've been a literary man; a playwright, that is. Dramatic
author, my friend Dav here would call it, I s'pose. But I made it pay."

"I must confess I don't recognize the name of Bagley as being attached to
any play I ever heard of," said Larcher. "And yet I've paid a good deal
of attention to the theatre."

"That's because I never wrote but one play, and the money I made out of
that--twenty thousand dollars it was--I put into the business of managing
other people's plays. It didn't take me long to double it, did it, Dav?
Mr. Davenport here knows all about it."

"I ought to," replied Davenport, coldly.

"Yes, that's right, you ought to. We were chums in those days, Mr.--I
forget what your name is. We were both in hard luck then, me and Dav. But
I knew what to do if I ever got hold of a bit of capital. So I wrote that
play, and made a good arrangement with the actor that produced it, and
got hold of twenty thousand. And that was the foundation of _my_ fortune.
Oh, yes, Dav remembers. We had hall rooms in the same house in East
Fourteenth Street. We used to lend each other cuffs and collars. A man
never forgets those days."

With Davenport's talk of the afternoon fresh in mind, Larcher had
promptly identified this big-talking vulgarian. Hot from several
affronts, which were equally galling, whether ignorant or intended, he
could conceive of nothing more sweet than to take the fellow down.

"I shouldn't wonder," said he, "if Mr. Davenport had more particular
reasons to remember that play."

Davenport looked up from his plate, but merely with slight surprise, not
with disapproval. Bagley himself stared hard at Larcher, then glanced at
Davenport, and finally blurted out a laugh, and said:

"So Dav has been giving you his fairy tale? I thought he'd dropped it as
a played-out chestnut. God knows how the delusion ever started in his
head. That's a question for the psychologists--or the doctors, maybe. But
he used to imagine--I give him credit for really imagining it--he used to
imagine he had written that play. I s'pose that's what he's been telling
you. But I thought he'd got over the hallucination; or got tired telling
about it, anyhow."

But, in the circumstances, no nice consideration of probabilities was
necessary to make Larcher the warm partisan of Davenport. He answered,
with as fine a derision as he could summon:

"Any unbiased judge, with you two gentlemen before him, if he had to
decide which had written that play, wouldn't take long to agree with Mr.
Davenport's hallucination, as you call it."

Mr. Bagley gazed at Larcher for a few moments in silence, as if not
knowing exactly what to make of him, or what manner to use toward him. He
seemed at last to decide against a wrathful attitude, and replied:

"I suppose you're a very unbiased judge, and a very superior person all
round. But nobody's asking for your opinion, and I guess it wouldn't
count for much if they did. The public has long ago made up its mind
about Mr. Davenport's little delusion."

"As one of 'the public,' perhaps I have a right to dispute that,"
retorted Larcher. "Men don't have such delusions."

"Oh, don't they? That's as much as you know about the eccentricities of
human nature,--and yet you presume to call yourself a writer. I guess you
don't know the full circumstances of this case. Davenport himself admits
that he was very ill at the time I disposed of the rights of that play.
We were in each other's confidence then, and I had read the play to him,
and talked it over with him, and he had taken a very keen interest in it,
as any chum would. And then this illness came on, just when the marketing
of the piece was on the cards. He was out of his head a good deal during
his illness, and I s'pose that's how he got the notion he was the author.
As it was, I gave him five hundred dollars as a present, to celebrate the
acceptance of the piece. And I gave him that at once, too--half the amount
of the money paid on acceptance, it was; for anything I knew then, it
might have been half of all I should ever get for the play, because
nobody could predict how it would pan out. Well, I've never borne him an
ounce of malice for his delusion. Maybe at this very moment he still
honestly thinks himself the author of that play; but I've always stood by
him, and always will. Many's the piece of work I've put in his hands; and
I will say he's never failed me on his side, either. Old Reliable Dav,
that's what I call him; Old Reliable Dav, and I'd trust him with every
dollar I've got in the world." He finished with a clap of good fellowship
on Davenport's shoulder, and then fell upon the remainder of his chop and
potato with a concentration of interest that put an end to the dispute.

As for Davenport, he had continued eating in silence, with an
expressionless face, as if the matter were one that concerned a stranger.
Larcher, observing him, saw that he had indeed put that matter behind
him, as one to which there was nothing but weariness to be gained in
returning. The rest of the meal passed without event. Mr. Bagley made
short work of his food, and left the two others with their coffee,
departing in as self-satisfied a mood as he had arrived in, and without
any trace of the little passage of words with Larcher.

A breath of relief escaped Davenport, and he said, with a faint smile:

"There was a time when I had my say about the play. We've had scenes, I
can tell you. But Bagley is a man who can brazen out any assertion; he's
a man impossible to outface. Even when he and I are alone together, he
plays the same part; won't admit that I wrote the piece; and pretends to
think I suffer under a delusion. I _was_ ill at the time he disposed of
my play; but I had written it long before the time of my illness."

"How did he manage to pass it off as his?"

"We were friends then, as he says, or at least comrades. We met through
being inmates of the same lodging-house. I rather took to him at first.
I thought he was a breezy, cordial fellow; mistook his loudness for
frankness, and found something droll and pleasing in his nasal drawl.
That brass-horn voice!--ye gods, how I grew to shudder at it afterward!
But I liked his company over a glass of beer; he was convivial, and told
amusing stories of the people in the country town he came from, and of
his struggles in trying to get a start in business. I was struggling as
hard in my different way--a very different way, for he was an utter
savage as far as art and letters were concerned. But we exchanged
accounts of our daily efforts and disappointments, and knew all about
each other's affairs,--at least he knew all about mine. And one of mine
was the play which I wrote during the first months of our acquaintance.
I read it to him, and he seemed impressed by it, or as much of it as he
could understand. I had some idea of sending it to an actor who was then
in need of a new piece, through the failure of one he had just produced.
My play seemed rather suitable to him, and I told Bagley I thought of
submitting it as soon as I could get it typewritten. But before I could
do that, I was on my back with pneumonia, utterly helpless, and not
thinking of anything in the world except how to draw my breath.

"The first thing I did begin to worry about, when I was on the way to
recovery, was my debts, and particularly my debt to the landlady. She
was a good woman, and wouldn't let me be moved to a hospital, but took
care of me herself through all my illness. She furnished my food during
that time, and paid for my medicines; and, furthermore, I owed her for
several weeks' previous rent. So I bemoaned my indebtedness, and the
hopelessness of ever getting out of it, a thousand times, day and night,
till it became an old song in the ears of Bagley. One day he came in
with his face full of news, and told me he had got some money from the
sale of a farm, in which he had inherited a ninth interest. He said he
intended to risk his portion in the theatrical business--he had had some
experience as an advance agent--and offered to buy my play outright for
five hundred dollars.

"Well, it was like an oar held out to a drowning man. I had never before
had as much money at the same time. It was enough to pay all my debts,
and keep me on my feet for awhile to come. Of course I knew that if my
play were a fair success, the author's percentage would be many times
five hundred dollars. But it might never be accepted,--no play of mine
had been, and I had hawked two or three around among the managers,--and
in that case I should get nothing at all. As for Bagley, his risk in
producing a play by an unknown man was great. His chances of loss seemed
to me about nine in ten. I took it that his offer was out of friendship.
I grasped at the immediate certainty, and the play became the property
of Bagley.

"I consoled myself with the reflection that, if the play made a real
success, I should gain some prestige as an author, and find an easier
hearing for future work. I was reading a newspaper one morning when the
name of my play caught my eye. You can imagine how eagerly I started to
read the item about it, and what my feelings were when I saw that it was
immediately to be produced by the very actor to whom I had talked of
sending it, and that the author was George A. Bagley. I thought there
must be some mistake, and fell upon Bagley for an explanation as soon as
he came home. He laughed, as men of his kind do when they think they have
played some clever business trick; said he had decided to rent the play
to the actor instead of taking it on the road himself; and declared that
as it was his sole property, he could represent it as the work of anybody
he chose. I raised a great stew about the matter; wrote to the
newspapers, and rushed to see the actor. He may have thought I was a
lunatic from my excitement; however, he showed me the manuscript Bagley
had given him. It was typewritten, but the address of the typewriter
copyist was on the cover. I hastened to the lady, and inquired about the
manuscript from which she had made the copy. I showed her some of my
penmanship, but she assured me the manuscript was in another hand. I ran
home, and demanded the original manuscript from Bagley. 'Oh, certainly,'
he said, and fished out a manuscript in his own writing. He had copied
even my interlineations and erasures, to give his manuscript the look of
an original draft. This was the copy from which the typewriter had
worked. My own handwritten copy he had destroyed. I have sometimes
thought that when the idea first occurred to him of submitting my play to
the actor, he had meant to deal fairly with me, and to profit only by an
agent's commission. But he may have inquired about the earnings of plays,
and learned how much money a successful one brings; and the discovery may
have tempted him to the fraud. Or his design may have been complete from
the first. It is easy to understand his desire to become the sole owner
of the play. Why he wanted to figure as the author is not so clear. It
may have been mere vanity; it may have been--more probably was--a desire
to keep to himself even the author's prestige, to serve him in future
transactions of the same sort. In any case, he had created evidence of
his authorship, and destroyed all existing proof of mine. He had made
good terms,--a percentage on a sliding scale; one thousand dollars down
on account. It was out of that thousand that he paid me the five hundred.
The play was a great money-winner; Bagley's earnings from it were more
than twenty thousand dollars in two seasons. That is the sum I should
have had if I had submitted the play to the same actor, as I had intended
to do. I made a stir in the newspapers for awhile; told my tale to
managers and actors and reporters; started to take it to the courts, but
had to give up for lack of funds; in short, got myself the name, as I
told you today, of a man with a grievance. People smiled tolerantly at my
story; it got to be one of the jokes of the Rialto. Bagley soon hit on
the policy of claiming the authorship to my face, and pretending to treat
my assertion charitably, as the result of a delusion conceived in
illness. You heard him tonight. But it no longer disturbs me."

"Has he ever written any plays of his own? Or had any more produced over
his name?" asked Larcher.

"No. He put the greater part of his profits into theatrical management.
He multiplied his investment. Then he 'branched out;' tried Wall Street
and the race-tracks; went into real estate. He speculates now in many
things. I don't know how rich he is. He isn't openly in theatrical
management any more, but he still has large interests there; he is what
they call an 'angel.'"

"He spoke of being your good angel."

"He has been the reverse, perhaps. It's true, many a time when I've been
at the last pinch, he has come to my rescue, employing me in some affair
incidental to his manifold operations. Unless you have been hungry, and
without a market for your work; unless you have walked the streets
penniless, and been generally 'despised and rejected of men,' you,
perhaps, can't understand how I could accept anything at his hands. But
I could, and sometimes eagerly. As soon as possible after our break, he
assumed the benevolent attitude toward me. I resisted it with proper
scorn for a time. But hard lines came; 'my poverty but not my will'
consented. In course of time, there ceased to be anything strange in the
situation. I got used to his service, and his pay, yet without ever
compounding for the trick he played me. He trusts me thoroughly--he
knows men. This association with him, though it has saved me from
desperate straits, is loathsome to me, of course. It has contributed as
much as anything to my self-hate. If I had resolutely declined it, I
might have found other resources at the last extremity. My life might
have taken a different course. That is why I say he has been, perhaps,
the reverse of a good angel to me."

"But you must have written other plays," pursued Larcher.

"Yes; and have even had three of them produced. Two had moderate success;
but one of those I sold on low terms, in my eagerness to have it accepted
and establish a name. On the other, I couldn't collect my royalties. The
third was a failure. But none of these, or of any I have written, was up
to the level of the play that Bagley dealt with. I admit that. It was my
one work of first-class merit. I think my poor powers were affected by my
experience with that play; but certainly for some reason I

     '... never could recapture
     The first fine careless rapture.'

I should have been a different man if I had received the honor and the
profits of that first accepted play of mine."

"I should think that, as Bagley is so rich, he would quietly hand you
over twenty thousand dollars, at least, for the sake of his conscience."

"Men of Bagley's sort have no conscience where money is concerned. I used
to wonder just what share of his fortune was rightly mine, if one knew
how to estimate. It was my twenty thousand dollars he invested; what
percentage of the gains would belong to me, giving him his full due for
labor and skill? And then the credit of the authorship,--which he flatly
robbed me of,--what would be its value? But that is all matter for mere
speculation. As to the twenty thousand alone, there can be no doubt."

"And yet he said tonight he would trust you with every dollar he had in
the world."

"Yes, he would." Davenport smiled. "He knows that _I_ know the difference
between a moral right and a legal right. He knows the difficulties in
the way of any attempt at self-restitution on my part,--and the
unpleasant consequences. Oh, yes, he would trust me with large sums; has
done so, in fact. I have handled plenty of his cash. He is what they call
a 'ready-money man;' does a good deal of business with bank-notes of high
denomination,--it enables him to seize opportunities and make swift
transactions. He should interest you, if you have an eye for character."

Upon which remark, Davenport raised his cup, as if to finish the coffee
and the subject at the same time. Larcher sat silently wondering what
other dramas were comprised in the history of his singular companion,
besides that wherein Bagley was concerned, and that in which the fickle
woman had borne a part. He found himself interested, on his own account,
in this haggard-eyed, world-wearied, yet not unattractive man, as well
as for Miss Hill. When Davenport spoke again, it was in regard to the
artistic business which now formed a tie between himself and Larcher.

This business was in due time performed. It entailed as much association
with Davenport as Larcher could wish for his purpose. He learnt little
more of the man than he had learned on the first day of their
acquaintance, but that in itself was considerable. Of it he wrote a full
report to Miss Hill; and in the next few weeks he added some trifling
discoveries. In October that young woman and her aunt returned to town,
and to possession of a flat immediately south of Central Park. Often as
Larcher called there, he could not draw from Edna the cause of her
interest in Davenport. But his own interest sufficed to keep him the
regular associate of that gentleman; he planned further magazine work for
himself to write and Davenport to illustrate, and their collaboration
took them together to various parts of the city.




CHAPTER IV.


AN UNPROFITABLE CHILD

The lower part of Fifth Avenue, the part between Madison and Washington
Squares, the part which alone was "the Fifth Avenue" whereof Thackeray
wrote in the far-off days when it was the abode of fashion,--the far-off
days when fashion itself had not become old-fashioned and got improved
into Smart Society,--this haunted half-mile or more still retains many
fine old residences of brown stone and of red brick, which are spruce
and well-kept. One such, on the west side of the street, of red brick,
with a high stoop of brown stone, is a boarding-house, and in it is an
apartment to which, on a certain clear, cold afternoon in October, the
reader's presence in the spirit is respectfully invited.

The hallway of the house is prolonged far beyond the ordinary limits of
hallways, in order to lead to a secluded parlor at the rear, apparently
used by its occupants as a private sitting and dining room. At the left
side of this room, after one enters, are folding doors opening from what
is evidently somebody's bed-chamber. At the same side, further on, is a
large window, the only window in the room. As the ceiling is so high, and
the wall-paper so dark, the place is rather dim of light at all times,
even on this sunny autumn afternoon when the world outside is so full of
wintry brightness.

The view of the world outside afforded by the window--which looks
southward--is of part of a Gothic church in profile, and the backs of
houses, all framing an expanse of gardens. It is a peaceful view, and
this back parlor itself, being such a very back parlor, receives the
city's noises dulled and softened. One seems very far, here, from the
clatter and bang, the rush and strenuousness, really so near at hand.
The dimness is restful; it is relieved, near the window, by a splash of
sunlight; and, at the rear of the room, by a coal fire in the grate. The
furniture is old and heavy, consisting largely of chairs of black wood
in red velvet. Half lying back in one of these is a fretful-looking,
fine-featured man of late middle age, with flowing gray hair and flowing
gray mustache. His eyes are closed, but perhaps he is not asleep. There
is a piano near a corner, opposite the window, and out of the splash of
sunshine, but its rosewood surface reflects here and there the firelight.
And at the piano, playing a soft accompaniment, sits a tall, slender
young woman, with a beautiful but troubled face, who sings in a low voice
one of Tosti's love-songs.

Her figure is still girlish, but her face is womanly; a classic face, not
like the man's in expression, but faintly resembling it in form, though
her features, clearly outlined, have not the smallness of his. Her eyes
are large and deep blue. There is enough rich color of lip, and fainter
color of cheek, to relieve the whiteness of her complexion. The trouble
on her face is of some permanence; it is not petty like that of the
man's, but is at one with the nobility of her countenance. It seems to
find rest in the tender sadness of the song, which, having finished, she
softly begins again:

"'I think of what thou art to me,
I think of what thou canst not be'"--

As the man gives signs of animation, such as yawning, and moving in his
chair, the girl breaks off gently and looks to see if he is annoyed by
the song. He opens his eyes, and says, in a slow, complaining voice:

"Yes, you can sing, there's no doubt of that. And such
expression!--unconscious expression, too. What a pity--what a
shame--that your gift should be utterly wasted!"

"It isn't wasted if my singing pleases you, father," says the girl,
patiently.

"I don't want to keep the pleasure all to myself," replies the man,
peevishly. "I'm not selfish enough for that. We have no right to hide
our light under a bushel. The world has a claim on our talents. And the
world pays for them, too. Think of the money--think of how we might live!
Ah, Florence, what a disappointment you've been to me!"

She listens as one who has many times heard the same plaint; and answers
as one who has as often made the same answer:

"I have tried, but my voice is not strong enough for the concert stage,
and the choirs are all full."

"You know well enough where your chance is. With your looks, in comic
opera--"

The girl frowns, and speaks for the first time with some impatience: "And
you know well enough my determination about that. The one week's
experience I had--"

"Oh, nonsense!" interrupted the man. "All managers are not like that
fellow. There are plenty of good, gentle young women on the comic opera
stage."

"No doubt there are. But the atmosphere was not to my taste. If I
absolutely had to endure it, of course I could. But we are not put to
that necessity."

"Necessity! Good Heaven, don't we live poorly enough?"

"We live comfortably enough. As long as Dick insists on making us our
present allowance--"

"Insists? I should think he would insist! As if my own son, whom I
brought up and started in life, shouldn't provide for his old father to
the full extent of his ability!"

"All the same, it's a far greater allowance than most sons or brothers
make."

"Because other sons are ungrateful, and blind to their duty, it doesn't
follow that Dick ought to be. Thank Heaven, I brought him up better than
that. I'm only sorry that his sister can't see things in the same light
as he does. After all the trouble of raising my children, and the hopes
I've built on them--"

"But you know perfectly well," she protests, softly, "that Dick makes us
such a liberal allowance in order that I needn't go out and earn money.
He has often said that. Even when you praise him for his dutifulness to
you, he says it's not that, but his love for me. And because it is the
free gift of his love, I'm willing to accept it."

"I suppose so, I suppose so," says the man, in a tone of resignation to
injury. "It's very little that I'm considered, after all. You were always
a pair, always insensible of the pains I've taken over you. You always
seemed to regard it as a matter of course that I should feed you, and
clothe you, and educate you."

The girl sighs, and begins faintly to touch the keys of the piano again.
The man sighs, too, and continues, with a heightened note of personal
grievance:

"If any man's hopes ever came to shipwreck, mine have. Just look back
over my life. Look at the professional career I gave up when I married
your mother, in order to be with her more than I otherwise could have
been. Look how poorly we lived, she and I, on the little income she
brought me. And then the burden of you children! And what some men would
have felt a burden, as you grew up, I made a source of hopes. I had
endowed you both with good looks and talent; Dick with business ability,
and you with a gift for music. In order to cultivate these advantages,
which you had inherited from me, I refrained from going into any business
when your mother died. I was satisfied to share the small allowance her
father made you two children. I never complained. I said to myself, 'I
will invest my time in bringing up my children.' I thought it would turn
out the most profitable investment in the world,--I gave you children
that much credit then. How I looked forward to the time when I should
begin to realize on the investment!"

"I'm sure you can't say Dick hasn't repaid you," says the girl. "He
began to earn money as soon as he was nineteen, and he has never--"

"Time enough, too," the man breaks in. "It was a very fortunate thing I
had fitted him for it by then. Where would he have been, and you, when
your grandfather died in debt, and the allowance stopped short, if I
hadn't prepared Dick to step in and make his living?"

"_Our_ living," says the girl.

"Our living, of course. It would be very strange if I weren't to reap a
bare living, at least, from my labor and care. Who should get a living
out of Dick's work if not his father, who equipped him with the qualities
for success?" The gentleman speaks as if, in passing on those valuable
qualities to his son by heredity, he had deprived himself. "Dick hasn't
done any more than he ought to; he never could. And yet what _he_ has
done, is so much more than nothing at all, that--" He stops as if it were
useless to finish, and looks at his daughter, who, despite the fact that
this conversation is an almost daily repetition, colors with displeasure.

After a moment, she gathers some spirit, and says: "Well, if I haven't
earned any money for you, I've at least made some sacrifices to please
you."

"You mean about the young fellow that hung on to us so close on our trip
to Europe?"

"The young man who did us so many kindnesses, and was of so much use to
you, on our trip to Europe," she corrects.

"He thought I was rich, my dear, and that you were an heiress. He was a
nobody, an adventurer, probably. If things had gone any further between
you and him, your future might have been ruined. It was only another
example of my solicitude for you; another instance that deserves your
thanks, but elicits your ingratitude. If you are fastidious about a
musical career, at least you have still a possibility of a good marriage.
It was my duty to prevent that possibility from being cut off."

She turns upon him a look of high reproach.

"And that was the only motive, then," she cries, "for your tears and your
illness, and the scenes that wrung from me the promise to break with
him?"

"It was motive enough, wasn't it?" he replies, defensively, a little
frightened at her sudden manner of revolt. "My thoughtfulness for your
future--my duty as a father--my love for my child--"

"You pretended it was your jealous love for me, your feeling of
desertion, your loneliness. I might have known better! You played on my
pity, on my love for you, on my sense of duty as a daughter left to fill
my mother's place. When you cried over being abandoned, when you looked
so forlorn, my heart melted. And that night when you said you were dying,
when you kept calling for me--'Flo, where is little Flo'--although I was
there leaning over you, I couldn't endure to grieve you, and I gave my
promise. And it was only that mercenary motive, after all!--to save me
for a profitable marriage!" She gazes at her father with an expression so
new to him on her face, that he moves about in his chair, and coughs
before answering:

"You will appreciate my action some day. And besides, your promise to
drop the man wasn't so much to give. You admitted, yourself, he hadn't
written to you. He had afforded you good cause, by his neglect."

"He was very busy at that time. I always thought there was something
strange about his sudden failure to write--something that could have
been explained, if my promise to you hadn't kept me from inquiring."

The father coughs again, at this, and turns his gaze upon the fire, which
he contemplates deeply, to the exclusion of all other objects. The girl,
after regarding him for a moment, sighs profoundly; placing her elbows on
the keyboard, she leans forward and buries her face in her hands.

This picture, not disturbed by further speech, abides for several ticks
of the French clock on the mantelpiece. Suddenly it is broken by a knock
at the door. Florence sits upright, and dries her eyes. A negro man
servant with a discreet manner enters and announces two visitors. "Show
them in at once," says Florence, quickly, as if to forestall any possible
objection from her father. The negro withdraws, and presently, with a
rapid swish of skirts, in marches a very spick and span young lady,
her diminutive but exceedingly trim figure dressed like an animated
fashion-plate. She is Miss Edna Hill, and she comes brisk and dashing,
with cheeks afire from the cold, bringing into the dull, dreamy room the
life and freshness of the wintry day without. Behind her appears a
stranger, whose name Florence scarcely heeded when it was announced, and
who enters with the solemn, hesitant air of one hitherto unknown to the
people of the house. He is a young man clothed to be the fit companion of
Miss Hill, and he waits self-effacingly while that young lady vivaciously
greets Florence as her dearest, and while she bestows a touch of her
gloved fingers and a "How d'ye do, Mr. Kenby," on the father. She then
introduces the young man as Mr. Larcher, on whose face, as he bows, there
appears a surprised admiration of Florence Kenby's beauty.

Miss Hill monopolizes Florence, however, and Larcher is left to wander to
the fire, and take a pose there, and discuss the weather with Mr. Kenby,
who does not seem to find the subject, or Larcher himself, at all
interesting, a fact which the young man is not slow in divining. Strained
relations immediately ensue between the two gentlemen.

As soon as the young ladies are over the preliminary burst of compliments
and news, Edna says:

"I'm lucky to find you at home, but really you oughtn't to be moping in
a dark place like this, such a fine afternoon."

"Father can't go out because of his rheumatism, and I stay to keep him
company," replies Florence.

"Oh, dear me, Mr. Kenby," says Edna, looking at the gentleman rather
skeptically, as if she knew him of old and suspected a habit of
exaggerating his ailments, "can't you pass the time reading or
something? Florence _must_ go out every day; she'll ruin her looks if
she doesn't,--her health, too. I should think you could manage to
entertain yourself alone an hour or two."

"It isn't that," explains Florence; "he often wants little things done,
and it's painful for him to move about. In a house like this, the
servants aren't always available, except for routine duties."

"Well, I'll tell you what," proposes Edna, blithely; "you get on your
things, dear, and we'll run around and have tea with Aunt Clara at
Purcell's. Mr. Larcher and I were to meet her there, but you come with
me, and Mr. Larcher will stay and look after your father. He'll be very
glad to, I know."

Mr. Larcher is too much taken by surprise to be able to say how very
glad he will be. Mr. Kenby, with Miss Hill's sharp glance upon him,
seems to feel that he would cut a poor figure by opposing. So Florence
is rushed by her friend's impetuosity into coat and hat, and carried
off, Miss Hill promising to return with her for Mr. Larcher "in an hour
or two." Before Mr. Larcher has had time to collect his scattered
faculties, he is alone with the pettish-looking old man to whom he has
felt himself an object of perfect indifference. He glares, with a defiant
sense of his own worth, at the old man, until the old man takes notice of
his existence.

"Oh, it's kind of you to stay, Mr.--ahem. But they really needn't have
troubled you. I can get along well enough myself, when it's absolutely
necessary. Of course, my daughter will be easier in mind to have some
one here."

"I am very glad to be of service--to so charming a young woman," says
Larcher, very distinctly.

"A charming girl, yes. I'm very proud of my daughter. She's my constant
thought. Children are a great care, a great responsibility."

"Yes, they are," asserts Larcher, jumping at the chance to show this
uninterested old person that wise young men may sometimes be entertained
unawares. "It's a sign of progress that parents are learning on which
side the responsibility lies. It used to be universally accepted that
the obligation was on the part of the children. Now every writer on the
subject starts on the basis that the obligation is on the side of the
parent. It's hard to see how the world could have been so idiotic
formerly. As if the child, summoned here in ignorance by the parents for
their own happiness, owed them anything!"

Mr. Kenby stares at the young man for a time, and then says, icily:

"I don't quite follow you."

"Why, it's very clear," says Larcher, interested now for his argument.
"You spoke of your sense of responsibility toward your child."

("The deuce I did!" thinks Mr. Kenby.)

"Well, that sense is most natural in you, and shows an enlightened mind.
For how can parents feel other than deeply responsible toward the being
they have called into existence? How can they help seeing their
obligation to make existence for that being as good and happy as it's in
their power to make it? Who dare say that there is a limit to their
obligation toward that being?"

"And how about that being's obligations in return?" Mr. Kenby demands,
rather loftily.

"That being's obligations go forward to the beings it in turn summons to
life. The child, becoming in time a parent, assumes a parent's debt. The
obligation passes on from generation to generation, moving always to the
future, never back to the past."

"Somewhat original theories!" sniffs the old man. "I suppose, then, a
parent in his old age has no right to look for support to his children?"

"It is the duty of people, before they presume to become parents, to
provide against the likelihood of ever being a burden to their children.
In accepting from their children, they rob their children's children.
But the world isn't sufficiently advanced yet to make people so
far-seeing and provident, and many parents do have to look to their
children for support. In such cases, the child ought to provide for the
parent, but out of love or humanity, not because of any purely logical
claim. You see the difference, of course."

Mr. Kenby gives a shrug, and grunts ironically.

"The old-fashioned idea still persists among the multitude," Larcher
goes on, "and many parents abuse it in practice. There are people who
look upon their children mainly as instruments sent from Heaven for them
to live by. From the time their children begin to show signs of
intelligence, they lay plans and build hopes of future gain upon them.
It makes my blood boil, sometimes, to see mothers trying to get their
pretty daughters on the stage, or at a typewriter, in order to live at
ease themselves. And fathers, too, by George! Well, I don't think there's
a more despicable type of humanity in this world than the able-bodied
father who brings his children up with the idea of making use of them!"

Mr. Larcher has worked himself into a genuine and very hearty
indignation. Before he can entirely calm down, he is put to some wonder
by seeing his auditor rise, in spite of rheumatism, and walk to the door
at the side of the room. "I think I'll lie down awhile," says Mr. Kenby,
curtly, and disappears, closing the door behind him. Mr. Larcher, after
standing like a statue for some time by the fire, ensconces himself in a
great armchair before it, and gazes into it until, gradually stolen upon
by a sense of restful comfort in the darkening room, he falls asleep.

He is awakened by the gay laugh of Edna Hill, as she and Florence enter
the room. He is on his feet in time to keep his slumbers a secret, and
explains that Mr. Kenby has gone for a nap. When the gas is lit, he sees
that Florence, too, is bright-faced from the outer air, that her eye has
a fresher sparkle, and that she is more beautiful than before. As it is
getting late, and Edna's Aunt Clara is to be picked up in a shop in
Twenty-third Street where the girls have left her, Larcher is borne off
before he can sufficiently contemplate Miss Kenby's beauty. Florence is
no sooner alone than Mr. Kenby comes out of the little chamber.

"I hope you feel better for your nap, father."

"I didn't sleep any, thank you," says Mr. Kenby. "What an odious young
man that was! He has the most horrible principles. I think he must be an
anarchist, or something of that sort. Did you enjoy your tea?"

The odious young man, walking briskly up the lighted avenue, past piano
shops and publishing houses, praises Miss Kenby's beauty to Edna Hill,
who echoes the praise without jealousy.

"She's perfectly lovely," Edna asserts, "and then, think of it, she has
had a romance, too; but I mustn't tell that."

"It's strange you never mentioned her to me before, being such good
friends with her."

"Oh, they've only just got settled back in town," answers Edna,
evasively. "What do you think of the old gentleman?"

"He seems a rather queer sort. Do you know him very well?"

"Well enough. He's one of those people whose dream in life is to make
money out of their children."

"What! Then I _did_ put my foot in it!" Larcher tells of the brief
conversation he had with Mr. Kenby. It makes Edna laugh heartily.

"Good for him!" she cries. "It's a shame, his treatment of Florence. Her
brother out West supports them, and is very glad to do so on her account.
Yet the covetous old man thinks she ought to be earning money, too. She's
quite too fond of him--she even gave up a nice young man she was in love
with, for her father's sake. But listen. I don't want you to mention
these people's names to anybody--not to _anybody_, mind! Promise."

"Very well. But why?"

"I won't tell you," she says, decidedly; and, when he looks at her in
mute protest, she laughs merrily at his helplessness. So they go on up
the avenue.




CHAPTER V.


A LODGING BY THE RIVER

The day after his introduction to the Kenbys, Larcher went with Murray
Davenport on one of those expeditions incidental to their collaboration
as writer and illustrator. Larcher had observed an increase of the
strange indifference which had appeared through all the artist's
loquacity at their first interview. This loquacity was sometimes
repeated, but more often Davenport's way was of silence. His apathy, or
it might have been abstraction, usually wore the outer look of
dreaminess.

"Your friend seems to go about in a trance," Barry Tompkins said of him
one day, after a chance meeting in which Larcher had made the two
acquainted.

This was a near enough description of the man as he accompanied Larcher
to a part of the riverfront not far from the Brooklyn Bridge, on the
afternoon at which we have arrived. The two were walking along a squalid
street lined on one side with old brick houses containing junk-shops,
shipping offices, liquor saloons, sailors' hotels, and all the various
establishments that sea-folk use. On the other side were the wharves,
with a throng of vessels moored, and glimpses of craft on the broad
river.

"Here we are," said Larcher, who as he walked had been referring to a
pocket map of the city. The two men came to a stop, and Davenport took
from a portfolio an old print of the early nineteenth century,
representing part of the river front. Silently they compared this with
the scene around them, Larcher smiling at the difference. Davenport then
looked up at the house before which they stood. There was a saloon on
the ground floor, with a miniature ship and some shells among the bottles
in the window.

"If I could get permission to make a sketch from one of those windows up
there," said Davenport, glancing at the first story over the saloon.

"Suppose we go in and see what can be done," suggested Larcher.

They found the saloon a small, homely place, with only one attendant
behind the bar at that hour, two marine-looking old fellows playing some
sort of a game amidst a cloud of pipe-smoke at a table, and a third old
fellow, not marine-looking but resembling a prosperous farmer, seated
by himself in the enjoyment of an afternoon paper that was nearly all
head-lines.

Larcher ordered drinks, and asked the barkeeper if he knew who lived
overhead. The barkeeper, a round-headed young man of unflinching aspect,
gazed hard across the bar at the two young men for several seconds, and
finally vouchsafed the single word:

"Roomers."

"I should like to see the person that has the front room up one flight,"
began Larcher.

"All right; that won't cost you nothing. There he sets." And the
barkeeper pointed to the rural-looking old man with the newspaper, at
the same time calling out, sportively: "Hey, Mr. Bud, here's a couple o'
gents wants to look at you."

Mr. Bud, who was tall, spare, and bent, about sixty, and the possessor
of a pleasant knobby face half surrounded by a gray beard that stretched
from ear to ear beneath his lower jaw, dropped his paper and scrutinized
the young men benevolently. They went over to him, and Larcher explained
their intrusion with as good a grace as possible.

"Why, certainly, certainly," the old man chirped with alacrity. "Glad to
have yuh. I'll be proud to do anything in the cause of literature. Come
right up." And he rose and led the way to the street door.

"Take care, Mr. Bud," said the jocular barkeeper. "Don't let them sell
you no gold bricks or nothin'. I never see them before, so you can't
hold me if you lose your money."

"You keep your mouth shut, Mick," answered the old man, "and send me up
a bottle o' whisky and a siphon o' seltzer as soon as your side partner
comes in. This way, gentlemen."

He conducted them out to the sidewalk, and then in through another door,
and up a narrow stairway, to a room with two windows overlooking the
river. It was a room of moderate size, provided with old furniture, a
faded carpet, mended curtains, and lithographs of the sort given away
with Sunday newspapers. It had, in its shabbiness, that curious effect
of cosiness and comfort which these shabby old rooms somehow possess,
and luxurious rooms somehow lack. A narrow bed in a corner was covered
with an old-fashioned patchwork quilt. There was a cylindrical stove,
but not in use, as the weather had changed since the day before; and
beside the stove, visible and unashamed, was a large wooden box partly
full of coal. While Larcher was noticing these things, and Mr. Bud was
offering chairs, Davenport made directly for the window and looked out
with an interest limited to the task in hand, and perfunctory even so.

"This is my city residence," said the host, dropping into a chair. "It
ain't every hard-worked countryman, these times, that's able to keep up
a city residence." As this was evidently one of Mr. Bud's favorite jests,
Larcher politically smiled. Mr. Bud soon showed that he had other
favorite jests. "Yuh see, I make my livin' up the State, but every now
and then I feel like comin' to the city for rest and quiet, and so I keep
this place the year round."

"You come to New York for rest and quiet?" exclaimed Larcher, still
kindly feigning amusement.

"Sure! Why not? As fur as rest goes, I just loaf around and watch other
people work. That's what I call rest with a sauce to it. And as fur as
quiet goes, I get used to the noises. Any sound that don't concern me,
don't annoy me. I go about unknown, with nobody carin' what my business
is, or where I'm bound fur. Now in the country everybody wants to know
where from, and where to, and what fur. The only place to be reely alone
is where thur's so many people that one man don't count for anything. And
talk about noise!--What's all the clatter and bang amount to, if it's got
nothin' to do with your own movements? Now at my home where the noise
consists of half a dozen women's voices askin' me about this, and wantin'
that, and callin' me to account for t'other,--that's the kind o' noise
that jars a man. Yuh see, I got a wife and four daughters. They're very
good women--very good women, the whole bunch--but I do find it restful
and refreshin' to take the train to New York about once a month, and loaf
around a week or so without anybody takin' notice, and no questions ast."

"And what does your family say to that?"

"Nothin', now. They used to say considerable when I first fell into the
habit. I hev some poultry customers here in the city, and I make out I
got to come to look after business. That story don't go fur with the
fam'ly; but they hev their way about everything else, so they got to
gimme my way about this."

Davenport turned around from the window, and spoke for the first time
since entering:

"Then you don't occupy this room more than half the time?"

"No, sir, I close it up, and thank the Lord there ain't nothin' in it
worth stealin'."

"Oh, in that case," Davenport went on, "if I began some sketches here,
and you left town before they were done, I should have to go somewhere
else to finish them."

It was a remark that made Larcher wonder a little, at the moment, knowing
the artist's usual methods of work. But Mr. Bud, ignorant of such
matters, replied without question:

"Well, I don't know. That might be fixed all right, I guess."

"I see you have a library," said Davenport, abruptly, walking over to a
row of well-worn books on a wooden shelf near the bed. His sudden
interest, slight as it was, produced another transient surprise in
Larcher.

"Yes, sir," said the old man, with pride and affection, "them books is my
chief amusement. Sir Walter Scott's works; I've read 'em over again and
again, every one of 'em, though I must confess there's two or three
that's pretty rough travellin'. But the others!--well, I've tried a good
many authors, but gimme Scott. Take his characters! There's stacks of
novels comes out nowadays that call themselves historical; but the people
in 'em seems like they was cut out o' pasteboard; a bit o' wind would
blow 'em away. But look at the _body_ to Scott's people! They're all the
way round, and clear through, his characters are.--Of course, I'm no
literary man, gentlemen. I only give my own small opinion." Mr. Bud's
manner, on his suddenly considering his audience, had fallen from its
bold enthusiasm.

"Your small opinion is quite right," said Davenport. "There's no doubt
about the thoroughness and consistency of Scott's characters." He took
one of the books, and turned over the leaves, while Mr. Bud looked on
with brightened eyes. "Andrew Fairservice--there's a character. 'Gude
e'en--gude e'en t' ye'--how patronizing his first salutation! 'She's a
wild slip, that'--there you have Diana Vernon sketched by the old servant
in a touch. And what a scene this is, where Diana rides with Frank to the
hilltop, shows him Scotland, and advises him to fly across the border as
fast as he can."

"Yes, and the scene in the Tolbooth where Rob Roy gives Bailie Nicol
Jarvie them three sufficient reasons fur not betrayin' him." The old man
grinned. He seemed to be at his happiest in praising, and finding another
to praise, his favorite author.

"Interesting old illustrations these are," said Davenport, taking up
another volume. "Dryburgh Abbey--that's how it looks on a gray day. I
was lucky enough to see it in the sunshine; it's loveliest then."

"What?" exclaimed Mr. Bud. "You been to Dryburgh Abbey?--to Scott's
grave?"

"Oh, yes," said Davenport, smiling at the old man's joyous wonder, which
was about the same as he might have shown upon meeting somebody who had
been to fairy-land, or heaven, or some other place equally far from New
York.

"You don't say! Well, to think of it! I _am_ happy to meet you. By
George, I never expected to get so close to Sir Walter Scott! And maybe
you've seen Abbotsford?"

"Oh, certainly. And Scott's Edinburgh house in Castle Street, and the
house in George Square where he lived as a boy and met Burns."

Mr. Bud's excitement was great. "Maybe you've seen Holyrood Palace, and
High Street--"

"Why, of course. And the Canongate, and the Parliament House, and the
Castle, and the Grass-market, and all the rest. It's very easy; thousands
of Americans go there every year. Why don't you run over next summer?"

The old man shook his head. "That's all too fur away from home fur me.
The women are afraid o' the water, and they'd never let me go alone. I
kind o' just drifted into this New York business, but if I undertook to
go across the ocean, that _would_ be the last straw. And I'm afraid I
couldn't get on to the manners and customs over there. They say
everything's different from here. To tell the truth, I'm timid where I
don't know the ways. If I was like you--I shouldn't wonder if you'd been
to some of the other places where things happen in his novels?"

With a smile, Davenport began to enumerate and describe. The old man sat
enraptured. The whisky and seltzer came up, and the host saw that the
glasses were filled and refilled, but he kept Davenport to the same
subject. Larcher felt himself quite out of the talk, but found
compensation in the whisky and in watching the old man's greedy enjoyment
of Davenport's every word. The afternoon waned, and all opportunity of
making the intended sketches passed for that day. Mr. Bud was for
lighting up, or inviting the young men to dinner, but they found pretexts
for tearing themselves away. They did not go, however, until Davenport
had arranged to come the next day and perform his neglected task. Mr. Bud
accompanied them out, and stood on the corner looking after them until
they were out of sight.

"You've made a hit with the agriculturist," said Larcher, as they took
their way through a narrow street of old warehouses toward the region of
skyscrapers and lower Broadway.

"Scott is evidently his hobby," replied Davenport, with a careless smile,
"and I liked to please him in it."

He lapsed into that reticence which, as it was his manner during most of
the time, made his strange seasons of communicativeness the more
remarkable. A few days passed before another such talkative mood came on
in Larcher's presence.

It was a drizzling, cheerless night. Larcher had been to a dinner in
Madison Avenue, and he thus found himself not far from Davenport's abode.
Going thither upon an impulse, he beheld the artist seated at the table,
leaning forward over a confusion of old books, some of them open. He
looked pallid in the light of the reading lamp at his elbow, and his
eyes seemed withdrawn deep into their hollows. He welcomed his visitor
with conventional politeness.

"How's this?" began Larcher. "Do I find you pondering,

     '... weak and weary,
     Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore?'"

"No; merely rambling over familiar fields." Davenport held out the
topmost book.

"Oh, Shakespeare," laughed Larcher. "The Sonnets. Hello, you've marked
part of this."

"Little need to mark anything so famous. But it comes closer to me than
to most men, I fancy." And he recited slowly, without looking down at the
page:

'When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,'--

He stopped, whereupon Larcher, not to be behind, and also without having
recourse to the page, went on:

'Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,'--

"But I think that hits all men," said Larcher, interrupting himself.
"Everybody has wished himself in somebody else's shoes, now and again,
don't you believe?"

"I have certainly wished myself out of my own shoes," replied Davenport,
almost with vehemence. "I have hated myself and my failures, God knows!
I have wished hard enough that I were not I. But I haven't wished I were
any other person now existing. I wouldn't change selves with this
particular man, or that particular man. It wouldn't be enough to throw
off the burden of my memories, with their clogging effect upon my life
and conduct, and take up the burden of some other man's--though I
should be the gainer even by that, in a thousand cases I could name."

"Oh, I don't exactly mean changing with somebody else," said Larcher.
"We all prefer to remain ourselves, with our own tastes, I suppose. But
we often wish our lot was like somebody else's."

Davenport shook his head. "I don't prefer to remain myself, any more
than to be some man whom I know or have heard of. I am tired of myself;
weary and sick of Murray Davenport. To be a new man, of my own
imagining--that would be something;--to begin afresh, with an
unencumbered personality of my own choosing; to awake some morning and
find that I was not Murray Davenport nor any man now living that I know
of, but a different self, formed according to ideals of my own. There
_would_ be a liberation!"

"Well," said Larcher, "if a man can't change to another self, he can at
least change his place and his way of life."

"But the old self is always there, casting its shadow on the new
place. And even change of scene and habits is next to impossible
without money."

"I must admit that New York, and my present way of life, are good enough
for me just now," said Larcher.

Davenport's only reply was a short laugh.

"Suppose you had the money, and could live as you liked, where would
_you_ go?" demanded Larcher, slightly nettled.

"I would live a varied life. Probably it would have four phases,
generally speaking, of unequal duration and no fixed order. For one
phase, the chief scene would be a small secluded country-house in an old
walled garden. There would be the home of my books, and the centre of my
walks over moors and hills. From this, I would transport myself, when
the mood came, to the intellectual society of some large city--that of
London would be most to my choice. Mind you, I say the _intellectual_
society; a far different thing from the Society that spells itself with
a capital S."

"Why not of New York? There's intellectual society here."

"Yes; a trifle fussy and self-conscious, though. I should prefer a
society more reposeful. From this, again, I would go to the life of the
streets and byways of the city. And then, for the fourth phase, to the
direct contemplation of art--music, architecture, sculpture,
painting;--to haunting the great galleries, especially of Italy,
studying and copying the old masters. I have no desire to originate. I
should be satisfied, in the arts, rather to receive than to give; to be
audience and spectator; to contemplate and admire."

"Well, I hope you may have your wish yet," was all that Larcher
could say.

"I _should_ like to have just one whack at life before I finish,"
replied Davenport, gazing thoughtfully into the shadow beyond the
lamplight. "Just one taste of comparative happiness."

"Haven't you ever had even one?"

"I thought I had, for a brief season, but I was deceived." (Larcher
remembered the talk of an inconstant woman.) "No, I have never been
anything like happy. My father was a cold man who chilled all around
him. He died when I was a boy, and left my mother and me to poverty. My
mother loved me well enough; she taught me music, encouraged my
studies, and persuaded a distant relation to send me to the College of
Medicine and Surgery; but her life was darkened by grief, and the
darkness fell over me, too. When she died, my relation dropped me, and
I undertook to make a living in New York. There was first the struggle
for existence, then the sickening affair of that play; afterward,
misfortune enough to fill a dozen biographies, the fatal reputation of
ill luck, the brief dream of consolation in the love of woman, the
awakening,--and the rest of it."

He sighed wearily and turned, as if for relief from a bitter theme, to
the book in his hand. He read aloud, from the sonnet out of which they
had already been quoting:

'Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising--Haply I think on thee;
and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen
earth, sings hymns at Heaven's gate; For thy sweet love--'

He broke off, and closed the book. "'For thy sweet love,'" he repeated.
"You see even this unhappy poet had his solace. I used to read those
lines and flatter myself they expressed my situation. There was a silly
song, too, that she pretended to like. You know it, of course,--a little
poem of Frank L. Stanton's." He went to the piano, and sang softly, in a
light baritone:

     'Sometimes, dearest, the world goes wrong,
     For God gives grief with the gift of song,
     And poverty, too; but your love is more--'

Again he stopped short, and with a derisive laugh. "What an ass I was! As
if any happiness that came to Murray Davenport could be real or lasting!"

"Oh, never be disheartened," said Larcher. "Your time is to come; you'll
have your 'whack at life' yet."

"It would be acceptable, if only to feel that I had realized one or two
of the dreams of youth--the dreams an unhappy lad consoled himself with."

"What were they?" inquired Larcher.

"What were they not, that is fine and pleasant? I had my share of diverse
ambitions, or diverse hopes, at least. You know the old Lapland song, in
Longfellow:

     _'For a boy's will is the wind's will,
     And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"_




CHAPTER VI.


THE NAME OF ONE TURL COMES UP

A month passed. All the work in which Larcher had enlisted Davenport's
cooperation was done. Larcher would have projected more, but the
artist could not be pinned down to any definite engagement. He was
non-committal, with the evasiveness of apathy. He seemed not to care any
longer about anything. More than ever he appeared to go about in a dream.
Larcher might have suspected some drug-taking habit, but for having
observed the man so constantly, at such different hours, and often with
so little warning, as to be convinced to the contrary.

One cold, clear November night, when the tingle of the air, and the
beauty of the moonlight, should have aroused any healthy being to a sense
of life's joy in the matchless late autumn of New York, Larcher met his
friend on Broadway. Davenport was apparently as much absorbed in his
inner contemplations, or as nearly void of any contemplation whatever, as
a man could be under the most stupefying influences. He politely stopped,
however, when Larcher did.

"Where are you going?" the latter asked.

"Home," was the reply; thus amended the next instant: "To my room, that
is."

"I'll walk with you, if you don't mind. I feel like stretching my legs."

"Glad to have you," said Davenport, indifferently. They turned from
Broadway eastward into a cross-town street, high above the end of which
rose the moon, lending romance and serenity to the house-fronts. Larcher
called the artist's attention to it. Davenport replied by quoting,
mechanically:

"'With how slow steps, O moon, thou clim'st the sky,
How silently, and with how wan a face!'"

"I'm glad to see you out on so fine a night," pursued Larcher.

"I came out on business," said the other. "I got a request by telegraph
from the benevolent Bagley to meet him at his rooms. He received a 'hurry
call' to Chicago, and must take the first train; so he sent for me, to
look after a few matters in his absence."

"I trust you'll find them interesting," said Larcher, comparing his own
failure with Bagley's success in obtaining Davenport's services.

"Not in the slightest," replied Davenport.

"Then remunerative, at least."

"Not sufficiently to attract _me_," said the other.

"Then, if you'll pardon the remark, I really can't understand--"

"Mere force of habit," replied Davenport, listlessly. "When he summons, I
attend. When he entrusts, I accept. I've done it so long, and so often, I
can't break myself of the habit. That is, of course, I could if I chose,
but it would require an effort, and efforts aren't worth while at this
stage."

With little more talk, they arrived at the artist's house.

"If you talk of moonlight," said Davenport, in a manner of some
kindliness, "you should see its effect on the back yards, from my
windows. You know how half-hearted the few trees look in the daytime;
but I don't think you've seen that view on a moonlight night. The yards,
taken as a whole, have some semblance to a real garden. Will you come
up?"

Larcher assented readily. A minute later, while his host was seeking
matches, he looked down from the dark chamber, and saw that the
transformation wrought in the rectangular space of back yards had not
been exaggerated. The shrubbery by the fences might have sheltered
fairies. The boughs of the trees, now leafless, gently stirred. Even the
plain house-backs were clad in beauty.

When Larcher turned from the window, Davenport lighted the gas, but not
his lamp; then drew from an inside pocket, and tossed on the table,
something which Larcher took to be a stenographer's note-book, narrow,
thick, and with stiff brown covers. Its unbound end was confined by a
thin rubber band. Davenport opened a drawer of the table, and essayed
to sweep the book thereinto by a careless push. The book went too
far, struck the arm of a chair, flew open at the breaking of the
overstretched rubber, fell on its side by the chair leg, and disclosed a
pile of bank-notes. These, tightly flattened, were the sole contents of
the covers. As Larcher's startled eyes rested upon them, he saw that the
topmost bill was for five hundred dollars.

Davenport exhibited a momentary vexation, then picked up the bills, and
laid them on the table in full view.

"Bagley's money," said he, sitting down before the table. "I'm to place
it for him to-morrow. This sudden call to Chicago prevents his carrying
out personally some plans he had formed. So he entrusts the business to
the reliable Davenport."

"When I walked home with you, I had no idea I was in the company of so
much money," said Larcher, who had taken a chair near his friend.

"I don't suppose there's another man in New York to-night with so much
ready money on his person," said Davenport, smiling. "These are large
bills, you know. Ironical, isn't it? Think of Murray Davenport walking
about with twenty thousand dollars in his pocket."

"Twenty thousand! Why, that's just the amount you were--" Larcher checked
himself.

"Yes," said Davenport, unmoved. "Just the amount of Bagley's wealth that
morally belongs to me, not considering interest. I could use it, too, to
very good advantage. With my skill in the art of frugal living, I could
make it go far--exceedingly far. I could realize that plan of a
congenial life, which I told you of one night here. There it is; here am
I; and if right prevailed, it would be mine. Yet if I ventured to treat
it as mine, I should land in a cell. Isn't it a silly world?"

He languidly replaced the bills between the notebook covers, and put them
in the drawer. As he did so, his glance fell on a sheet of paper lying
there. With a curious, half-mirthful expression on his face, he took this
up, and handed it to Larcher, saying:

"You told me once you could judge character by handwriting. What do you
make of this man's character?"

Larcher read the following note, which was written in a small, precise,
round hand:

"MY DEAR DAVENPORT:--I will meet you at the place and time you suggest.
We can then, I trust, come to a final settlement, and go our different
ways. Till then I have no desire to see you; and afterward, still less.
Yours truly,

"FRANCIS TURL."

"Francis Turl," repeated Larcher. "I never heard the name before."

"No, I suppose you never have," replied Davenport, dryly. "But what
character would you infer from his penmanship?"

"Well,--I don't know." Put to the test, Larcher was at a loss. "An
educated person, I should think; even scholarly, perhaps. Fastidious,
steady, exact, reserved,--that's about all."

"Not very much," said Davenport, taking back the sheet. "You merely
describe the handwriting itself. Your characterization, as far as it
goes, would fit men who write very differently from this. It fits me,
for instance, and yet look at my angular scrawl." He held up a specimen
of his own irregular hand, beside the elegant penmanship of the note,
and Larcher had to admit himself a humbug as a graphologist.

"But," he demanded, "did my description happen to fit that particular
man--Francis Turl?"

"Oh, more or less," said Davenport, evasively, as if not inclined to give
any information about that person. This apparent disinclination increased
Larcher's hidden curiosity as to who Francis Turl might be, and why
Davenport had never mentioned him before, and what might be between the
two for settlement.

Davenport put Turl's writing back into the drawer, but continued to
regard his own. "'A vile cramped hand,'" he quoted. "I hate it, as I have
grown to hate everything that partakes of me, or proceeds from me.
Sometimes I fancy that my abominable handwriting had as much to do with
alienating a certain fair inconstant as the news of my reputed
unluckiness. Both coming to her at once, the combined effect was too
much."

"Why?--Did you break that news to her by letter?"

"That seems strange to you, perhaps. But you see, at first it didn't
occur to me that I should have to break it to her at all. We met abroad;
we were tourists whose paths happened to cross. Over there I almost
forgot about the bad luck. It wasn't till both of us were back in New
York, that I felt I should have to tell her, lest she might hear it first
from somebody else. But I shied a little at the prospect, just enough to
make me put the revelation off from day to day. The more I put it off,
the more difficult it seemed--you know how the smallest matter, even the
writing of an overdue letter, grows into a huge task that way. So this
little ordeal got magnified for me, and all that winter I couldn't brace
myself to go through it. In the spring, Bagley had use for me in his
affairs, and he kept me busy night and day for two weeks. When I got
free, I was surprised to find she had left town. I hadn't the least idea
where she'd gone; till one day I received a letter from her. She wrote as
if she thought I had known where she was; she reproached me with
negligence, but was friendly nevertheless. I replied at once, clearing
myself of the charge; and in that same letter I unburdened my soul of the
bad luck secret. It was easier to write it than speak it."

"And what then?"

"Nothing. I never heard from her again."

"But your letter may have miscarried,--something of that sort."

"I made allowance for that, and wrote another letter, which I registered.
She got that all right, for the receipt came back, signed by her father.
But no answer ever came from her, and I was a bit too proud to continue a
one-sided correspondence. So ended that chapter in the harrowing history
of Murray Davenport.--She was a fine young woman, as the world judges;
she reminded me, in some ways, of Scott's heroines."

"Ah! that's why you took kindly to the old fellow by the river. You
remember his library--made up entirely of Scott?"

"Oh, that wasn't the reason. He interested me; or at least his way of
living did."

"I wonder if he wasn't fabricating a little. These old fellows from the
country like to make themselves amusing. They're not so guileless."

"I know that, but Mr. Bud is genuine. Since that day, he's been home in
the country for three weeks, and now he's back in town again for a 'short
spell,' as he calls it."

"You still keep in touch with him?" asked Larcher, in surprise.

"Oh, yes. He's been very hospitable--allowing me the use of his room to
sketch in."

"Even during his absence?"

"Yes; why not? I made some drawings for him, of the view from his window.
He's proud of them."

Something in Davenport's manner seemed to betray a wish for reticence on
the subject of Mr. Bud, even a regret that it had been broached. This
stopped Larcher's inquisition, though not his curiosity. He was silent
for a moment; then rose, with the words:

"Well, I'm keeping you up. Many thanks for the sight of your moonlit
garden. When shall I see you again?"

"Oh, run in any time. It isn't so far out of your way, even if you don't
find me here."

"I'd like you to glance over the proofs of my Harlem Lane article. I
shall have them day after to-morrow. Let's see--I'm engaged for that day.
How will the next day suit you?"

"All right. Come the next day if you like."

"That'll be Friday. Say one o'clock, and we can go out and lunch
together."

"Just as you please."

"One o'clock on Friday then. Good night!"

"Good night!"

At the door, Larcher turned for a moment in passing out, and saw
Davenport standing by the table, looking after him. What was the
inscrutable expression--half amusement, half friendliness and
self-accusing regret--which faintly relieved for a moment the
indifference of the man's face?




CHAPTER VII.


MYSTERY BEGINS

The discerning reader will perhaps think Mr. Thomas Larcher a very dull
person in not having yet put this and that together and associated the
love-affair of Murray Davenport with the "romance" of Miss Florence
Kenby. One might suppose that Edna Hill's friendship for Miss Kenby, and
her inquisitiveness regarding Davenport, formed a sufficient pair of
connecting links. But the still more discerning reader will probably
judge otherwise. For Miss Hill had many friends whom she brought to
Larcher's notice, and Miss Kenby did not stand alone in his observation,
as she necessarily does in this narrative. Larcher, too, was not as fully
in possession of the circumstances as the reader. Nor, to him, were the
circumstances isolated from the thousands of others that made up his
life, as they are to the reader. Edna's allusion to Miss Kenby's
"romance" had been cursory; Larcher understood only that she had given
up a lover to please her father. Davenport's inconstant had abandoned
him because he was unlucky; Larcher had always conceived her as such a
woman, and so of a different type from that embodied in Miss Kenby. To
be sure, he knew now that Davenport's fickle one had a father; but so
had most young women. In short, the small connecting facts had no such
significance in his mind, where they were not grouped away from other
facts, as they must have in these pages, where their very presence
together implies inter-relation.

In his reports to Edna, a certain delicacy had made him touch lightly
upon the traces of Davenport's love-affair. He may, indeed, have guessed
that those traces were what she was most desirous to hear of. But a
certain manly allegiance to his sex kept him reticent on that point in
spite of all her questions. He did not even say to what motive Davenport
ascribed the false one's fickleness; nor what was Davenport's present
opinion of her. "He was thrown over by some woman whose name he never
mentions; since then he has steered clear of the sex," was what Larcher
replied to Edna a hundred times, in a hundred different sets of phrases;
and it was all he replied on the subject.

So matters stood until two days after the interview related in the
previous chapter. At the end of that interview, Larcher had said that
for the second day thereafter he was engaged; Hence he had appointed
the third day for his next meeting with Davenport. The engagement for
the second day was, to spend the afternoon with Edna Hill at a
riding-school. Upon arriving at the flat where Edna lived under the mild
protection of her easy-going aunt, he found Miss Kenby included in the
arrangement. To this he did not object; Miss Kenby was kind as well as
beautiful; and Larcher was not unwilling to show the tyrannical Edna
that he could play the cavalier to one pretty girl as well as to another.
He did not, however, manage to disturb her serenity at all during the
afternoon. The three returned, very merry, to the flat, in a state of the
utmost readiness for afternoon tea, for the day was cold and blowy. To
make things pleasanter, Aunt Clara had finished her tea and was taking a
nap. The three young people had the drawing-room, with its bright coal
fire, to themselves.

Everything was trim and elegant in this flat. The clear-skinned maid who
placed the tea things, and brought the muffins and cake, might have been
transported that instant from Mayfair, on a magic carpet, so neat was
her black dress, so spotless her white apron, cap, and cuffs, so clean
her slender hands.

"What a sweet place you have, Edna," remarked Florence Kenby, looking
around.

"So you've often said before, dear. And whenever you choose to make it
sweeter, for good, you've only got to move in."

Florence laughed, but with something very like a sigh.

"What, are you willing to take boarders?" said Larcher. "If that's the
case, put me down as the first applicant."

"Our capacity for 'paying guests' is strictly limited to one person, and
no gentlemen need apply. Two lumps, Flo dear?"

"Yes, please.--If only your restrictions didn't keep out poor father--"

"If only your poor father would consider your happiness instead of his
own selfish plans."

"Edna, dear! You mustn't."

"Why mustn't I?" replied Edna, pouring tea. "Truth's truth. He's your
father, but I'm your friend, and you know in your heart which of us would
do more for you. You know, and he knows, that you'd be happier, and have
better health, if you came to live with us. If he really loves you, why
doesn't he let you come? He could see you often enough. But I know the
reason; he's afraid you'd get out of his control; he has his own
projects. You needn't mind my saying this before Tom Larcher; he read
your father like a book the first time he ever met him."

Larcher, in the act of swallowing some buttered muffin, instantly looked
very wise and penetrative.

"I should think your father himself would be happier," said he, "if he
lived less privately and had more of men's society."

"He's often in poor health," replied Florence.

"In that case, there are plenty of places, half hotel, half sanatorium,
where the life is as luxurious as can be."

"I couldn't think of deserting him. Even if he--weren't altogether
unselfish about me, there would always be my promise."

"What does that matter--such a promise?" inquired Edna, between sips of
tea.

"You would make one think you were perfectly unscrupulous, dear," said
Florence, smiling. "But you know as well as I, that a promise is sacred."

"Not all promises. Are they, Tommy?"

"No, not all," replied Larcher. "It's like this: When you make a bad
promise, you inaugurate a wrong. As long as you keep that promise, you
perpetuate that wrong. The only way to end the wrong, is to break the
promise."

"Bravo, Tommy! You can't get over logic like that, Florence, dear, and
your promise did inaugurate a wrong--a wrong against yourself."

"Well, then, it's allowable to wrong oneself," said Florence.

"But not one's friends--one's true, disinterested friends. And as for
that other promise of yours--that _fearful_ promise!--you can't deny you
wronged somebody by that; somebody you had no right to wrong."

"It was a choice between him and my father," replied Florence, in a low
voice, and turning very red.

"Very well; which deserved to be sacrificed?" cried Edna, her eyes and
tone showing that the subject was a heating one. "Which was likely to
suffer more by the sacrifice? You know perfectly well fathers _don't_ die
in those cases, and consequently your father's hysterics _must_ have been
put on for effect. Oh, don't tell me!--it makes me wild to think of it!
Your father would have been all right in a week; whereas the other man's
whole life is darkened."

"Don't say that, dear," pleaded Florence, gently. "Men soon get over such
things."

"Not so awfully soon;--not sincere men. Their views of life are changed,
for all time. And _this_ man seems to grow more and more melancholy, if
what Tom says is true."

"What I say?" exclaimed Larcher.

The two girls looked at each other.

"Goodness! I _have_ given it away!" cried Edna.

"More and more melancholy?" repeated Larcher. "Why, that must be Murray
Davenport. Was he the--? Then you must be the--! But surely _you_
wouldn't have given him up on account of the bad luck nonsense."

"Bad luck nonsense?" echoed Edna, while Miss Kenby looked bewildered.

"The silly idea of some foolish people, that he carried bad luck with
him," Larcher explained, addressing Florence. "He sent you a letter about
it."

"I never got any such letter from him," said Florence, in wonderment.

"Then you didn't know? And that had nothing to do with your giving him
up?"

"Indeed it had not! Why, if I'd known about that--But the letter you
speak of--when was it? I never had a letter from him after I left town.
He didn't even answer when I told him we were going."

"Because he never heard you were going. He got a letter after you had
gone, and then he wrote you about the bad luck nonsense. There must
have been some strange defect in your mail arrangements."

"I always thought some letters must have gone astray and miscarried
between us. I knew he couldn't be so negligent. I'd have taken pains to
clear it up, if I hadn't promised my father just at that time--" She
stopped, unable to control her voice longer. Her lips were quivering.

"Speaking of your father," said Larcher, "you must have got a subsequent
letter from Davenport, because he sent it registered, and the receipt
came back with your father's signature."

"No, I never got that, either," said Florence, before the inference
struck her. When it did, she gazed from one to the other with a helpless,
wounded look, and blushed as if the shame were her own.

Edna Hill's eyes blazed with indignation, then softened in pity for her
friend. She turned to Larcher in a very calling-to-account manner.

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"I didn't think it was necessary. And besides, he never told me about
the letters till the night before last."

"And all this time that poor young man has thought Florence tossed him
over because of some ridiculous notion about bad luck?"

"Well, more or less,--and the general fickleness of the sex."

"General fick--! And you, having seen Florence, let him go on thinking
so?"

"But I didn't know Miss Kenby was the lady he meant. If you'd only told
me it was for her you wanted news of him--"

"Stupid, you might have guessed! But I think it's about time he had some
news of _her_. He ought to know she wasn't actuated by any such paltry,
childish motive."

"By George, I agree with you!" cried Larcher, with a sudden energy. "If
you could see the effect on the man, of that false impression, Miss
Kenby! I don't mean to say that his state of mind is entirely due to
that; he had causes enough before. But it needed only that to take away
all consolation, to stagger his faith, to kill his interest in life."

"Has it made him so bitter?" asked Florence, sadly.

"I shouldn't call the effect bitterness. He has too lofty a mind for
strong resentment. That false impression has only brought him to the
last stage of indifference. I should say it was the finishing touch to
making his life a wearisome drudgery, without motive or hope."

Florence sighed deeply.

"To think that he could believe such a thing of Florence," put in Edna.
"I'm sure _I_ couldn't. Could you, Tom?"

"When a man's in love, he doesn't see things in their true proportions,"
said Larcher, authoritatively. "He exaggerates both the favors and the
rebuffs he gets, both the kindness and the coldness of the woman. If he
thinks he's ill-treated, he measures the supposed cause by his
sufferings. As they are so great, he thinks the woman's cruelty
correspondingly great. Nobody will believe such good things of a woman
as the man who loves her; but nobody will believe such bad things if
matters go wrong."

"Dear, dear, Tommy! What a lot you know about it!"

But Miss Hill's momentary sarcasm went unheeded. "So I really think,
Miss Kenby, if you'll pardon me," Larcher continued, "that Murray
Davenport ought to know your true reason for giving him up. Even if
matters never go any further, he ought to know that you still--h'm--feel
an interest in him--still wish him well. I'm sure if he knew about your
solicitude--how it was the cause of my looking him up--I can see through
all that now--"

"I can never thank you enough--and Edna," said Florence, in a tremulous
voice.

"No thanks are due me," replied Larcher, emphatically. "I value his
acquaintance on its own account. But if he knew about this, knew your
real motives then, and your real feelings now, even if he were never to
see you again, the knowledge would have an immense effect on his life.
I'm sure it would. It would restore his faith in you, in woman, in
humanity. It would console him inexpressibly; would be infinitely sweet
to him. It would change the color of his view of life; give him hope and
strength; make a new man of him."

Florence's eyes glistened through her tears. "I should be so glad," she
said, gently, "if--if only--you see, I promised not to hold any sort of
communication with him."

"Oh, that promise!" cried Edna. "Just think how it was obtained. And
think about those letters that were stopped. If that alone doesn't
release you, I wonder what!"

Florence's face clouded with humiliation at the reminder.

"Moreover," said Larcher, "you won't be holding communication. The
matter has come to my knowledge fairly enough, through Edna's lucky
forgetfulness. I take it on myself to tell Davenport. I'm to meet him
to-morrow, anyhow--it looks as though it had all been ordained. I really
don't see how you can prevent me, Miss Kenby."

Florence's face threw off its cloud, and her conscience its scruples, and
a look of gratitude and relief, almost of sudden happiness, appeared.

"You are so good, both of you. There's nothing in the world I'd rather
have than to see him made happy."

"If you'd like to see it with your own eyes," said Larcher, "let me send
him to you for the news."

"Oh, no! I don't mean that. He mustn't know where to find me. If he came
to see me, I don't know what father would do. I've been so afraid of
meeting him by chance; or of his finding out I was in New York."

Larcher understood now why Edna had prohibited his mentioning the Kenbys
to anybody. "Well," said he, "in that case, Murray Davenport shall be
made happy by me at about one o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

"And you shall come to tea afterward and tell us all about it," cried
Edna. "Flo, you _must_ be here for the news, if I have to go in a hansom
and kidnap you."

"I think I can come voluntarily," said Florence, smiling through her
tears.

"And let's hope this is only the beginning of matters, in spite of any
silly old promise obtained by false pretences! I say, we've let our tea
get cold. I must have another cup." And Miss Hill rang for fresh hot
water.

The rest of the afternoon in that drawing-room was all mirth and
laughter; the innocent, sweet laughter of youth enlisted in the generous
cause of love and truth against the old, old foes--mercenary design,
false appearance, and mistaken duty.

Larcher had two reasons for not going to his friend before the time
previously set for his call. In the first place he had already laid out
his time up to that hour, and, secondly, he would not hazard the
disappointment of arriving with his good news ready, and not finding his
friend in. To be doubly sure, he telegraphed Davenport not to forget the
appointment on any account, as he had an important disclosure to make.
Full of his revelation, then, he rang the bell of his friend's
lodging-house at precisely one o'clock the next day.

"I'll go right up to Mr. Davenport's room," he said to the negro boy at
the door.

"All right, sir, but I don't think you'll find Mr. Davenport up there,"
replied the servant, glancing at a brown envelope on the hat-stand.

Larcher saw that it was addressed to Murray Davenport. "When did that
telegram come?" he inquired.

"Last evening."

"It must be the one I sent. And he hasn't got it yet! Do you mean he
hasn't been in?"

Heavy slippered footsteps in the rear of the hall announced the coming
of somebody, who proved to be a rather fat woman in a soiled wrapper,
with tousled light hair, flabby face, pale eyes, and a worried but kindly
look. Larcher had seen her before; she was the landlady.

"Do you know anything about Mr. Davenport?" she asked, quickly.

"No, madam, except that I was to call on him here at one o'clock."

"Oh, then, he may be here to meet you. When did you make that
engagement?"

"On Tuesday, when I was here last! Why?--What's the matter?"

"Tuesday? I was in hopes you might 'a' made it since. Mr. Davenport
hasn't been home for two days!"

"Two days! Why, that's rather strange!"

"Yes, it is; because he never stayed away overnight without he either
told me beforehand or sent me word. He was always so gentlemanly about
saving me trouble or anxiety."

"And this time he said nothing about it?"

"Not a word. He went out day before yesterday at nine o'clock in the
morning, and that's the last we've seen or heard of him. He didn't carry
any grip, or have his trunk sent for; he took nothing but a parcel
wrapped in brown paper."

"Well, I can't understand it. It's after one o'clock now--If he doesn't
soon turn up--What do you think about it?"

"I don't know what to think about it. I'm afraid it's a case of
mysterious disappearance--that's what I think!"




CHAPTER VIII.


MR. LARCHER INQUIRES

Larcher and the landlady stood gazing at each other in silence. Larcher
spoke first.

"He's always prompt to the minute. He may be coming now."

The young man went out to the stoop and looked up and down the street.
But no familiar figure was in sight. He turned back to the landlady.

"Perhaps he left a note for me on the table," said Larcher. "I have the
freedom of his room, you know."

"Go up and see, then. I'll go with you."

The landlady, in climbing the stairs, used a haste very creditable in a
person of her amplitude. Davenport's room appeared the same as ever.
None of his belongings that were usually visible had been packed away or
covered up. Books and manuscript lay on his table. But there was nothing
addressed to Larcher or anybody else.

"It certainly looks as if he'd meant to come back soon," remarked the
landlady.

"It certainly does." Larcher's puzzled eyes alighted on the table drawer.
He gave an inward start, reminded of the money in Davenport's possession
at their last meeting. Davenport had surely taken that money with him on
leaving the house the next morning. Larcher opened his lips, but
something checked him. He had come by the knowledge of that money in a
way that seemed to warrant his ignoring it. Davenport had manifestly
wished to keep it a secret. It was not yet time to tell everything.

"Of course," said Larcher, "he might have met with an accident."

"I've looked through the newspapers yesterday, and to-day, but there's
nothing about him, or anybody like him. There was an unknown man knocked
down by a street-car, but he was middle-aged, and had a black mustache."

"And you're positively sure Mr. Davenport would have let you know if he'd
meant to stay away so long?"

"Yes, sir, I am. Especially that morning he'd have spoke of it, for he
met me in the hall and paid me the next four weeks' room rent in
advance."

"But that very fact looks as if he thought he mightn't see you for some
time."

"No, because he's often done that. He'll come and say, 'I've got a little
money ahead, Mrs. Haze, and I might as well make sure of a roof over me
for another month.' He knew I gener'ly--had use for money whenever it
happened along. He was a kind-hearted--I mean he _is_ a kind-hearted man.
Hear me speakin' of him as if--What's that?"

It was a man's step on the stairs. With a sudden gladness, Larcher turned
to the door of the room. The two waited, with smiles ready. The step came
almost to the threshold, receded along the passage, and mounted the
flight above.

"It's Mr. Wigfall; he rooms higher up," said Mrs. Haze, in a dejected
whisper.

The young man's heart sank; for some reason, at this disappointment, the
hope of Davenport's return fled, the possibility of his disappearance
became certainty. The dying footsteps left Larcher with a sense of chill
and desertion; and he could see this feeling reflected in the face of
the landlady.

"Do you think the matter had better be reported to the police?" said
she, still in a lowered voice.

"I don't think so just yet. I can't say whether they'd send out a general
alarm on my report. The request must come from a near relation, I
believe. There have been hoaxes played, you know, and people frightened
without sufficient cause."

"I never heard that Mr. Davenport had any relations. I guess they'd send
out an alarm on my statement. A hard-workin' landlady ain't goin' to make
a fuss and get her house into the papers just for fun."

"That's true. I'm sure they'd take your report seriously. But we'd better
wait a little while yet. I'll stay here an hour or two, and then, if he
hasn't appeared, I'll begin a quiet search myself. Use your own judgment,
though; it's for you to see the police if you like. Only remember, if a
fuss is made, and Mr. Davenport turns up all right with his own reasons
for this, how we shall all feel."

"He'd be annoyed, I guess. Well, I'll wait till you say. You're the only
friend that calls here regular to see him. Of course I know how a good
many single men are,--that lives in rooms. They'll stay away for days at
a time, and never notify anybody, and nobody thinks anything about it.
But Mr. Davenport, as I told you, isn't like that. I'll wait, anyhow,
till you think it's time. But you'll keep coming here, of course?"

"Yes, indeed, several times a day. He might turn up at any moment. I'll
give him an hour and a half to keep this one o'clock engagement. Then,
if he's still missing, I'll go to a place where there's a bare chance
he might be. I've only just now thought of it."

The place he had thought of was the room of old Mr. Bud. Davenport had
spoken of going there often to sketch. Such a queer, snug old place might
have an attraction of its own for the man. There was, indeed, a chance--a
bare chance--of his having, upon a whim, prolonged a stay in that place
or its neighborhood. Or, at least, Mr. Bud might have later news of him
than Mrs. Haze had.

That good woman went back to her work, and Larcher waited alone in the
very chair where Davenport had sat at their last meeting. He recalled
Davenport's odd look at parting, and wondered if it had meant anything
in connection with this strange absence. And the money? The doubt and
the solitude weighed heavily on Larcher's mind. And what should he say
to the girls when he met them at tea?

At two o'clock his impatience got the better of him. He went
down-stairs, and after a few words with Mrs. Haze, to whom he promised
to return about four, he hastened away. He was no sooner seated in an
elevated car, and out of sight of the lodging-house, than he began to
imagine his friend had by that time arrived home. This feeling remained
with him all the way down-town. When he left the train, he hurried to the
house on the water-front. He dashed up the narrow stairs, and knocked at
Mr. Bud's door. No answer coming, he knocked louder. It was so silent in
the ill-lighted passage where he stood, that he fancied he could hear the
thump of his heart. At last he tried the door; it was locked.

"Evidently nobody at home," said Larcher, and made his way down-stairs
again. He went into the saloon, where he found the same barkeeper he had
seen on his first visit to the place.

"I thought I might find a friend of mine here," he said, after ordering a
drink. "Perhaps you remember--we were here together five or six weeks
ago."

"I remember all right enough," said the bar-keeper. "He ain't here now."

"He's been here lately, though, hasn't he?"

"Depends on what yuh call lately. He was in here the other day with old
man Bud."

"What day was that?"

"Let's see, I guess it was--naw, it was Monday, because it was the day
before Mr. Bud went back to his chickens. He went home Toosdy, Bud did."

It was on Tuesday night that Larcher had last beheld Davenport. "And so
you haven't seen my friend since Monday?" he asked, insistently.

"That's what I said."

"And you're sure Mr. Bud hasn't been here since Tuesday?"

"That's what I said."

"When is Mr. Bud coming back, do you know?"

"You can search _me,_" was the barkeeper's subtle way of disavowing all
knowledge of Mr. Bud's future intentions.

Back to the elevated railway, and so up-town, sped Larcher. The feeling
that his friend must be now at home continued strong within him until he
was again upon the steps of the lodging-house. Then it weakened somewhat.
It died altogether at sight of the questioning eyes of the negro. The
telegram was still on the hat-stand.

"Any news?" asked the landlady, appearing from the rear.

"No. I was hoping you might have some."

After saying he would return in the evening, he rushed off to keep his
engagement for tea. He was late in arriving at the flat.

"Here he is!" cried Edna, eagerly. Her eyes sparkled; she was in high
spirits. Florence, too, was smiling. The girls seemed to have been in
great merriment, and in possession of some cause of felicitation as yet
unknown to Larcher. He stood hesitating.

"Well? Well? Well?" said Edna. "How did he take it? Speak. Tell us your
good news, and then we'll tell you ours." Florence only watched his face,
but there was a more poignant inquiry in her silence than in her friend's
noise.

"Well, the fact is," began Larcher, embarrassed, "I can't tell you any
good news just yet. Davenport couldn't keep his engagement with me
to-day, and I haven't been able to see him."

"Not able to see him?" Edna exclaimed, hotly. "Why didn't you go and
find him? As if anything could be more important! That's the way with
men--always afraid of intruding. Such a disappointment! Oh, what an
unreliable, helpless, futile creature you are, Tom!"

Stung to self-defence, the helpless, futile creature replied:

"I wasn't at all afraid of intruding. I did go trying to find him; I've
spent the afternoon doing that."

"A woman would have managed to find out where he was," retorted Edna.

"His landlady's a woman," rejoined Larcher, doggedly, "and she hasn't
managed to find out."

"Has she been trying to?"

"Well--no," stammered Larcher, repenting.

"Yes, she has!" said Edna, with a changed manner. "But what for? Why is
she concerned? There's something behind this, Tom--I can tell by your
looks. Speak out, for heaven's sake! What's wrong?"

A glance at Florence Kenby's pale face did not make Larcher's task easier
or pleasanter.

"I don't think there's anything seriously wrong. Davenport has been away
from home for a day or two without saying anything about it to his
landlady, as he usually does in such cases. That's all."

"And didn't he send you word about breaking the engagement with you?"
persisted Edna.

"No. I suppose it slipped his mind."

"And neither you nor the landlady has any idea where he is?"

"Not when I saw her last--about half an hour ago."

"Well!" ejaculated Edna. "That _is_ a mysterious disappearance!"

The landlady had used the same expression. Such was Larcher's mental
observation in the moment's silence that followed,--a silence broken by
a low cry from Florence Kenby.

"Oh, if anything has happened to him!"

The intensity of feeling in her voice and look was something for which
Larcher had not been prepared. It struck him to the heart, and for a time
he was without speech for a reassuring word. Edna, though manifestly awed
by this first full revelation of her friend's concern for Davenport,
undertook promptly the office of banishing the alarm she had helped to
raise.

"Oh, don't be frightened, dear. There's nothing serious, after all. Men
often go where business calls them, without accounting to anybody. He's
quite able to take care of himself. I'm sure it isn't as bad as Tom
says."

"As I say!" exclaimed Larcher. "_I_ don't say it's bad at all. It's your
own imagination, Edna,--your sudden and sensational imagination. There's
no occasion for alarm, Miss Kenby. Men often, as Edna says--"

"But I must make sure," interrupted Florence. "If anything _is_ wrong,
we're losing time. He must be sought for--the police must be notified."

"His landlady--a very good woman, her name is Mrs. Haze--spoke of that,
and she's the proper one to do it. But we decided, she and I, to wait
awhile longer. You see, if the police took up the matter, and it got
noised about, and Davenport reappeared in the natural order of
things--as of course he will--why, how foolish we should all feel!"

"What do feelings of that sort matter, when deeper ones are concerned?"

"Nothing at all; but I'm thinking of Davenport's feelings. You know how
he would hate that sort of publicity."

"That must be risked. It's a small thing compared with his safety. Oh, if
you knew my anxiety!"

"I understand, Miss Kenby. I'll have Mrs. Haze go to police headquarters
at once. I'll go with her. And then, if there's still no news, I'll go
around to the--to other places where people inquire in such cases."

"And you'll let me know immediately--as soon as you find out anything?"

"Immediately. I'll telegraph. Where to? Your Fifth Avenue address?"

"Stay here to-night, Florence," put in Edna. "It will be all right,
_now_."

"Very well. Thank you, dear. Then you can telegraph here, Mr. Larcher."

Her instant compliance with Edna's suggestion puzzled Larcher a little.

"She's had an understanding with her father," said Edna, having noted
his look. "She's a bit more her own mistress to-day than she was
yesterday."

"Yes," said Florence, "I--I had a talk with him--I spoke to him about
those letters, and he finally--explained the matter. We settled many
things. He released me from the promise we were talking about yesterday."

"Good! That's excellent news!"

"It's the news we had ready for you when you brought us such a
disappointment," bemoaned Edna.

"It's news that will change the world for Davenport," replied Larcher.
"I _must_ find him now. If he only knew what was waiting for him, he
wouldn't be long missing."

"It would be too cruel if any harm befell him"--Florence's voice quivered
as she spoke--"at this time, of all times. It would be the crowning
misfortune."

"I don't think destiny means to play any such vile trick, Miss Kenby."

"I don't see how Heaven could allow it," said Florence, earnestly.

"Well, he's simply _got_ to be found. So I'm off to Mrs. Haze. I can
go tea-less this time, thank you. Is there anything I can do for you
on the way?"

"I'll have to send father a message about my staying here. If you would
stop at a telegraph-office--"

"Oh, that's all right," broke in Edna. "There's a call-box down-stairs.
I'll have the hall-boy attend to it. You mustn't lose a minute, Tom."

Miss Hill sped him on his way by going with him to the elevator. While
they waited for that, she asked, cautiously:

"Is there anything about this affair that you were afraid to say before
Florence?"

A thought of the twenty thousand dollars came into his head; but again
he felt that the circumstance of the money was his friend's secret, and
should be treated by him--for the present, at least--as non-existent.

"No," he replied. "I wouldn't call it a disappearance, if I were you. So
far, it's just a non-appearance. We shall soon be laughing at ourselves,
probably, for having been at all worked up over it.--She's a lovely girl,
isn't she? I'm half in love with her myself."

"She's proof against your charms," said Edna, coolly.

"I know it. What a lot she must think of him! The possibility of harm
brings out her feelings, I suppose. I wonder if you'd show such concern
if _I_ were missing?"

"I give it up. Here's the elevator. Good-by! And don't keep us in
suspense. You're a dear boy! _Au revoir!_"

With the hope of Edna's approval to spur him, besides the more unselfish
motives he already possessed, Larcher made haste upon the business. This
time he tried to conquer the expectation of finding Davenport at home;
yet it would struggle up as he approached the house of Mrs. Haze. The
same deadening disappointment met him as before, however; and was
mirrored in the landlady's face when she saw by his that he brought no
news.

Mrs. Haze had come up from preparations for dinner. Hers was a house in
which, the choice being "optional," sundry of the lodgers took their
rooms "with board." Important as was her occupation, at the moment, of
"helping out" the cook by inducing a mass of stale bread to fancy itself
disguised as a pudding, she flung that occupation aside at once, and
threw on her things to accompany Larcher to police headquarters. There
she told all that was necessary, to an official at a desk,--a big,
comfortable man with a plenitude of neck and mustache. This gentleman,
after briefly questioning her and Larcher, and taking a few illegible
notes, and setting a subordinate to looking through the latest entries
in a large record, dismissed the subject by saying that whatever was
proper to be done _would_ be done. He had a blandly incredulous way with
him, as if he doubted, not only that Murray Davenport was missing, but
that any such person as Murray Davenport existed to _be_ missing; as if
he merely indulged his visitors in their delusion out of politeness; as
if in any case the matter was of no earthly consequence. The subordinate
reported that nothing in the record for the past two days showed any
such man, or the body of any such man, to have come under the all-seeing
eye of the police. Nevertheless, Mrs. Haze wanted the assurance that an
investigation should be started forthwith. The big man reminded her that
no dead body had been found, and repeated that all proper steps would be
taken. With this grain of comfort as her sole satisfaction, she returned
to her bread pudding, for which her boarders were by that time waiting.

When the big man had asked the question whether Davenport was accustomed
to carry much money about with him, or was known to have had any
considerable sum on his person when last seen, Larcher had silently
allowed Mrs. Haze to answer. "Not as far as I know; I shouldn't think
so," she had said. He felt that, as Davenport's absence was still so
short, and might soon be ended and accounted for, the situation did not
yet warrant the disclosure of a fact which Davenport himself had wished
to keep private. He perceived the two opposite inferences which might be
made from that fact, and he knew that the police would probably jump at
the inference unfavorable to his friend. For the present, he would guard
his friend from that.

Larcher's work on the case had just begun. For what was to come he
required the fortification of dinner. Mrs. Haze had invited him to dine
at her board, but he chose to lose that golden opportunity, and to eat
at one of those clean little places which for cheapness and good cooking
together are not to be matched, or half-matched, in any other city in
the world. He soon blessed himself for having done so; he had scarcely
given his order when in sauntered Barry Tompkins.

"Stop right here," cried Larcher, grasping the spectacled lawyer and
pulling him into a seat. "You are commandeered."

"What for?" asked Tompkins, with his expansive smile.

"Dinner first, and then--"

"All right. Do you give me _carte blanche_ with the bill of fare? May I
roam over it at my own sweet will? Is there no limit?"

"None, except a time limit. I want you to steer me around the hospitals,
station-houses, morgue, _et cetera_. There's a man missing. You've made
those rounds before."

"Yes, twice. When poor Bill Southford jumped from the ferry-boat; and
again when a country cousin of mine had knockout drops administered to
him in a Bowery dance-hall. It's a dismal quest."

"I know it, but if you have nothing else on your hands this evening--"

"Oh, I'll pilot you. We never know when we're likely to have
search-parties out after ourselves, in this abounding metropolis. Who's
the latest victim of the strenuous life?"

"Murray Davenport!"

"What! is he occurring again?"

Larcher imparted what it was needful that Tompkins should know. The two
made an expeditious dinner, and started on their long and fatiguing
inquiry. It was, as Tompkins had said, a dismal quest. Those who have
ever made this cheerless tour will not desire to be reminded of the
experience, and those who have not would derive more pain than pleasure
from a recital of it. The long distances from point to point, the
rebuffs from petty officials, the difficulty in wringing harmless
information from fools clad in a little brief authority, the mingled
hope and dread of coming upon the object of the search at the next place,
the recurring feeling that the whole fatiguing pursuit is a wild goose
chase and that the missing person is now safe at home, are a few features
of the disheartening business. The labors of Larcher and Tompkins
elicited nothing; lightened though they were by the impecunious lawyer's
tact, knowledge, and good humor, they left the young men dispirited and
dead tired. Larcher had nothing to telegraph Miss Kenby. He thought of
her passing a sleepless night, waiting for news, the dupe and victim of
every sound that might herald a messenger. He slept ill himself, the
short time he had left for sleep. In the morning he made a swift
breakfast, and was off to Mrs. Haze's. Davenport's room was still
untenanted, his bed untouched; the telegram still lay unclaimed in the
hall below.

Florence and Edna were prepared, by the absence of news during the night,
for Larcher's discouraged face when he appeared at the flat in the
morning. Miss Kenby seemed already to have fortified her mind for an
indefinite season of anxiety. She maintained an outward calm, but it was
the forced calm of a resolution to bear torture heroically. She had her
lapses, her moments of weakness and outcry, her periods of despair,
during the ensuing days,--for days did ensue, and nothing was seen or
heard of the missing one,--but of these Larcher was not often a witness.
Edna Hill developed new resources as an encourager, a diverter, and an
unfailing optimist in regard to the outcome. The girls divided their time
between the flat and the Kenby lodgings down Fifth Avenue. Mr. Kenby was
subdued and self-effacing when they were about. He wore a somewhat meek,
cowed air nowadays, which was not without a touch of martyrdom. He
volunteered none but the most casual remarks on the subject of
Davenport's disappearance, and was not asked even for those. His
diminution spoke volumes for the unexpected force of personality
Florence must have shown in that unrelated interview about the letters,
in which she had got back her promise.

The burden of action during those ensuing days fell on Larcher. Besides
regular semi-diurnal calls on the young ladies and at Mrs. Haze's house,
and regular consultations of police records, he made visits to every
place he had ever known Davenport to frequent, and to every person he
had ever known Davenport to be acquainted with. Only, for a time Mr.
Bagley had to be excepted, he not having yet returned from Chicago.

It appeared that the big man at police headquarters had really caused
the proper thing to be done. Detectives came to Mrs. Haze's house and
searched the absent man's possessions, but found no clue; and most of
the newspapers had a short paragraph to the effect that Murray
Davenport, "a song-writer," was missing from his lodging-house. Larcher
hoped that this, if it came to Davenport's eye, though it might annoy
him, would certainly bring word from him. But the man remained as silent
as unseen. Was there, indeed, what the newspapers call "foul play"? And
was Larcher called upon yet to speak of the twenty thousand dollars? The
knowledge of that would give the case an importance in the eyes of the
police, but would it, even if the worst had happened, do any good to
Davenport? Larcher thought not; and held his tongue.

One afternoon, in the week following the disappearance,--or, as Larcher
preferred to call it, non-appearance,--that gentleman, having just sat
down in a north-bound Sixth Avenue car, glanced over the first page of
an evening paper--one of the yellow brand--which he had bought a minute
before. All at once he was struck in the face, metaphorically speaking,
by a particular set of headlines. He held his breath, and read the
following opening paragraph:

"The return of George A. Bagley from Chicago last night puts a new phase
on the disappearance of Murray Davenport, the song-writer, who has not
been seen since Wednesday of last week at his lodging-house,--East----th
Street. Mr. Bagley would like to know what became of a large amount of
cash which he left with the missing man for certain purposes the
previous night on leaving suddenly for Chicago. He says that when he
called this morning on brokers, bankers, and others to whom the money
should have been handed over, he found that not a cent of it had been
disposed of according to orders. Davenport had for some years frequently
acted as a secretary or agent for Bagley, and had handled many thousands
of dollars for the latter in such a manner as to gain the highest
confidence."

There was a half-column of details, which Larcher read several times over
on the way up-town. When he entered Edna's drawing-room the two girls
were sitting before the fire. At the first sight of his face, Edna
sprang to her feet, and Florence's lips parted.

"What is it?" cried Edna. "You've got news! What is it?"

"No. Not any news of _his_ whereabouts."

"What of, then? It's in that paper."

She seized the yellow journal, and threw her glance from headline to
headline. She found the story, and read it through, aloud, at a rate of
utterance that would have staggered the swiftest shorthand writer.

"Well! What do you think of _that_?" she said, and stopped to take
breath.

"Do you think it is true?" asked Florence.

"There is some reason to believe it is!" replied Larcher, awkwardly.

Florence rose, in great excitement. "Then this affair _must_ be cleared
up!" she cried. "For don't you see? He may have been robbed--waylaid for
the money--made away with! God knows what else can have happened! The
newspaper hints that he ran away with the money. I'll never believe that.
It must be cleared up--I tell you it _must_!"

Edna tried to soothe the agitated girl, and looked sorrowfully at
Larcher, who could only deplore in silence his inability to solve the
mystery.




CHAPTER IX.


MR. BUD'S DARK HALLWAY

A month passed, and it was not cleared up. Larcher became hopeless of
ever having sight or word of Murray Davenport again. For himself, he
missed the man; for the man, assuming a tragic fate behind the mystery,
he had pity; but his sorrow was keenest for Miss Kenby. No description,
nothing but experience, can inform the reader what was her torment of
mind: to be so impatient of suspense as to cry out as she had done, and
yet perforce to wait hour after hour, day after day, week after week,
in the same unrelieved anxiety,--this prolonged torture is not to be told
in words. She schooled herself against further outcries, but the evidence
of her suffering was no less in her settled look of baffled expectancy,
her fits of mute abstraction, the start of her eyes at any sound of bell
or knock. She clutched back hope as it was slipping away, and would not
surrender uncertainty for its less harrowing follower, despair. She had
resumed, as the probability of immediate news decreased, her former way
of existence, living with her father at the house in lower Fifth Avenue,
where Miss Hill saw her every day except when she went to see Miss Hill,
who denied herself the Horse Show, the football games, and the opera for
the sake of her friend. Larcher called on the Kenbys twice or thrice a
week, sometimes with Edna, sometimes alone.

There was one possibility which Larcher never mentioned to Miss Kenby
in discussing the case. He feared it might fit too well her own secret
thought. That was the possibility of suicide. What could be more
consistent with Davenport's outspoken distaste for life, as he found it,
or with his listless endurance of it, than a voluntary departure from it?
He had never talked suicide, but this, in his state of mind, was rather
an argument in favor of his having acted it. No threatened men live
longer, as a class, than those who have themselves as threateners. It was
true, Larcher had seen in Davenport's copy of Keats, this passage marked:

"... for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death."

But an unhappy man might endorse that saying without a thought of
possible self-destruction. So, for Davenport's very silence on that way
of escape from his tasteless life, Larcher thought he might have taken
it.

He confided this thought to no less a person than Bagley, some weeks
after the return of that capitalist from Chicago. Two or three times,
meeting by chance, they had briefly discussed the disappearance, each
being more than willing to obtain whatever light the other might be able
to throw on the case. Finally Bagley, to whom Larcher had given his
address, had sent for him to call at the former's rooms on a certain
evening. These rooms proved to be a luxurious set of bachelor apartments
in one of the new tall buildings just off Broadway. Hard wood, stamped
leather, costly rugs, carved furniture, the richest upholstery, the art
of the old world and the inventiveness of the new, had made this a
handsome abode at any time, and a particularly inviting one on a cold
December night. Larcher, therefore, was not sorry he had responded to
the summons. He found Bagley sharing cigars and brandy with another man,
a squat, burly, middle-aged stranger, with a dyed mustache and the dress
and general appearance of a retired hotel-porter, cheap restaurant
proprietor, theatre doorkeeper, or some such useful but not interesting
member of society. This person, for a time, fulfilled the promise of
his looks, of being uninteresting. On being introduced to Larcher as Mr.
Lafferty, he uttered a quick "Howdy," with a jerk of the head, and
lapsed into a mute regard of tobacco smoke and brandy bottle, which he
maintained while Bagley and Larcher went more fully into the Davenport
case than they had before gone together. Larcher felt that he was being
sounded, but he saw no reason to withhold anything except what related
to Miss Kenby. It was now that he mentioned possible suicide.

"Suicide? Not much," said Bagley. "A man _would_ be a chump to turn on
the gas with all that money about him. No, sir; it wasn't suicide. We
know that much."

"You _know_ it?" exclaimed Larcher.

"Yes, we know it. A man don't make the preparations he did, when he's
got suicide on his mind. I guess we might as well put Mr. Larcher on,
Lafferty, do you think?"

"Jess' you say," replied Mr. Lafferty, briefly.

"You see," continued Bagley to Larcher, "I sent for you, so's I could
pump you in front of Lafferty here. I'm satisfied you've told all you
know, and though that's absolutely nothing at all--ain't that so,
Lafferty?"

"Yep,--nothin' 'tall."

"Though it's nothing at all, a fair exchange is no robbery, and I'm
willing for you to know as much as I do. The knowledge won't do you any
good--it hasn't done me any good--but it'll give you an insight into your
friend Davenport. Then you and his other friends, if he's got any, won't
roast me because I claim that he flew the coop and not that somebody did
him for the money. See?"

"Not exactly."

"All right; then we'll open your eyes. I guess you don't happen to know
who Mr. Lafferty here is, do you?"

"Not yet."

"Well, he's a central office detective." (Mr. Lafferty bore Larcher's
look of increased interest with becoming modesty.) "He's been on this
case ever since I came back from Chicago, and by a piece of dumb luck,
he got next to Davenport's trail for part of the day he was last seen.
He'll tell you how far he traced him. It's up to you now, Lafferty.
Speak out."

Mr. Lafferty, pretending to take as a good joke the attribution of his
discoveries to "dumb luck," promptly discoursed in a somewhat thick but
rapid voice.

"On the Wednesday morning he was las' seen, he left the house about nine
o'clock, with a package wrapt in brown paper. I lose sight of'm f'r a
couple 'f hours, but I pick'm up again a little before twelve. He's still
got the same package. He goes into a certain department store, and buys
a suit o' clothes in the clothin' department; shirts, socks, an'
underclothes in the gents' furnishin' department; a pair o' shoes in the
shoe department, an' s'mother things in other departments. These he has
all done up in wrappin'-paper, pays fur 'em, and leaves 'em to be called
fur later. He then goes an' has his lunch."

"Where does he have his lunch?" asked Bagley.

"Never mind where he has his lunch," said Mr. Lafferty, annoyed. "That's
got no bearin' on the case. After he has his lunch, he goes to a certain
big grocer's and provision dealer's, an' buys a lot o' canned meats and
various provisions,--I can give you a complete list if you want it."

This last offer, accompanied by a movement of a hand to an inner pocket,
was addressed to Bagley, who declined with the words, "That's all right.
I've seen it before."

"He has these things all done up in heavy paper, so's to make a dozen'r
so big packages. Then he pays fur 'em, an' leaves 'em to be called fur.
It's late in the afternoon by this time, and comin' on dark. Understand,
he's still got the 'riginal brown paper package with him. The next thing
he does is, he hires a cab, and has himself druv around to the department
store he was at before. He gets the things he bought there, an' puts 'em
on the cab, an' has himself druv on to the grocer's an' provision
dealer's, an' gets the packages he bought there, an' has them put _in_
the cab. The cab's so full o' his parcels now, he's only got just room
fur himself on the back seat. An' then he has the hackman drive to a
place away down-town."

Mr. Lafferty paused for a moment to wet his throat with brandy and
water. Larcher, who had admired the professional mysteriousness shown
in withholding the names of the stores for the mere sake of reserving
something to secrecy, was now wondering how the detective knew that the
man he had traced was Murray Davenport. He gave voice to his wonder.

"By the description, of course," replied Mr. Lafferty, with disgust at
Larcher's inferiority of intelligence. "D'yuh s'pose I'd foller a man's
trail as fur as that, if everything didn't tally--face, eyes, nose,
height, build, clo'es, hat, brown paper parcel, everything?"

"Then it's simply marvellous," said Larcher, with genuine astonishment,
"how you managed to get on his track, and to follow it from place to
place."

"Oh, it's my business to know how to do them things," replied Mr.
Lafferty, deprecatingly.

"Your business!" said Bagley. "Dumb luck, I tell you. Can't you see how
it was?" He had turned to Larcher. "The cabman read of Davenport's
disappearance, and putting together the day, and the description in the
papers, and the queer load of parcels, goes and tells the police.
Lafferty is put on the case, pumps the cabman dry, then goes to the
stores where the cab stopped to collect the goods, and finds out the
rest. Only, when he comes to tell the story, he tells the facts not in
their order as he found them out, but in their order as they occurred."

"You know all about it, Mr. Bagley," said Lafferty, taking refuge in
jocular irony. "You'd ought 'a' worked up the case yourself."

"You left Davenport being driven down-town," Larcher reminded the
detective.

"Yes, an' that about lets me out. The cabman druv 'im to somewhere on
South Street, by the wharves. It was dark by that time, and the driver
didn't notice the exact spot--he just druv along the street till the man
told him to stop, that was his orders,--an' then the man got out, took
out his parcels, an' carried them across the sidewalk into a dark
hallway. Then he paid the cabman, an' the cabman druv off. The last the
cabman seen of 'im, he was goin' into the hallway where his goods were,
an' that's the last any one seen of 'im in New York, as fur as known.
Prob'ly you've got enough imagination to give a guess what became of him
after that."

"No, I haven't," said Larcher.

"Jes' think it over. You can put two and two together, can't you? A new
outfit o' clo'es, first of all. Then a stock o' provisions. To make it
easier, I'll tell yuh this much: they was the kind o' provisions people
take on yachts, an' he even admitted to the salesman they was for that
purpose. And then South Street--the wharves; does that mean ships? Does
the whole business mean a voyage? But a man don't have to stock up extry
food if he's goin' by any regular steamer line, does he? What fur, then?
And what kind o' ships lays off South Street? Sailin' ships; them that
goes to South America, an' Asia, and the South Seas, and God knows where
all. Now do you think you can guess?"

"But why would he put his things in a hallway?" queried Larcher.

"To wait fur the boat that was to take 'em out to the vessel late at
night. Why did he wait fur dark to be druv down there? You bet, he was
makin' his flittin' as silent as possible. He'd prob'ly squared it with
a skipper to take 'im aboard on the dead quiet. That's why there ain't
much use our knowin' what vessels sailed about that time. I _do_ know,
but much good we'll get out o' that. What port he gets off at, who'll
ever tell? It'll be sure to be in a country where we ain't got no
extradition treaty. And when this particular captain shows up again at
this port, innocent enough _he'll_ be; _he_ never took no passenger
aboard in the night, an' put 'im off somewheres below the 'quator. I
guess Mr. Bagley can about consider his twenty thousand to the bad,
unless his young friend takes a notion to return to his native land
before he's got it all spent."

"And that's your belief?" said Larcher to Bagley, "--that he went to some
other country with the money?"

"Absconded," replied the ready-money man. "Yes; there's nothing else to
believe. At first I thought you might have some notion where he was;
that's what made me send for you. But I see he left you out of his
confidence. So I thought you might as well know his real character.
Lafferty's going to give the result of his investigation to the newspaper
men, anyhow. The only satisfaction I can get is to show the fellow up."

When Larcher left the presence of Bagley, he carried away no definite
conclusion except that Bagley was an even more detestable animal than he
had before supposed. If the man whom Lafferty had traced was really
Davenport, then indeed the theory of suicide was shaken. There remained
the possibility of murder or flight. The purchases indeed seemed to
indicate flight, especially when viewed in association with South Street.
South Street? Why, that was Mr. Bud's street. And a hallway? Mr. Bud's
room was approached through a hallway. Mr. Bud had left town the day
before that Wednesday; but if Davenport had made frequent visits there
for sketching, was it not certain that he had had access to the room in
Mr. Bud's absence? Larcher had knocked at that room two days after the
Wednesday, and had got no answer, but this was no evidence that Davenport
might not have made some use of the room in the meanwhile. If he had made
use of it, he might have left some trace, some possible clew to his
subsequent movements. Larcher, thinking thus on his way from Bagley's
apartment-house, resolved to pay another visit to Mr. Bud's quarters
before saying anything about Bagley's theory to any one.

He was busy the next day until the afternoon was well advanced. As soon
as he got free, he took himself to South Street; ascended the dark stairs
from the hallway, and knocked loudly at Mr. Bud's door. There was no more
answer than there had been six weeks before; nothing to do but repair to
the saloon below. The same bartender was on duty.

"Is Mr. Bud in town, do you know?" inquired Larcher, having observed the
usual preliminaries to interrogation.

"Not to my knowledge."

"When was he here last?"

"Not for a long time. 'Most two months, I guess."

"But I was here five or six weeks ago, and he'd been gone only three days
then."

"Then you know more about it than I do; so don't ast me."

"He hasn't been here since I was?"

"He hasn't."

"And my friend who was here with me the first time--has he been here
since?"

"Not while I've been."

"When is Mr. Bud likely to be here again?"

"Give it up. I ain't his private secretary."

Just as Larcher was turning away, the street door opened, and in walked a
man with a large hand-bag, who proved to be none other than Mr. Bud
himself.

"I was just looking for you," cried Larcher.

"That so?" replied Mr. Bud, cheerily, grasping Larcher's hand. "I just
got into town. It's blame cold out." He set his hand-bag on the bar,
saying to the bartender, "Keep my gripsack back there awhile, Mick, will
yuh? I got to git somethin' into me 'fore I go up-stairs. Gimme a plate
o' soup on that table, an' the whisky bottle. Will you join me, sir? Two
plates o' soup, an' two glasses with the whisky bottle. Set down, set
down, sir. Make yourself at home."

Larcher obeyed, and as soon as the old man's overcoat was off, and the
old man ready for conversation, plunged into his subject.

"Do you know what's become of my friend Davenport?" he asked, in a low
tone.

"No. Hope he's well and all right. What makes you ask like that?"

"Haven't you read of his disappearance?"

"Disappearance? The devil! Not a word! I been too busy to read the
papers. When was it?"

"Several weeks ago." Larcher recited the main facts, and finished thus:
"So if there isn't a mistake, he was last seen going into your hallway.
Did he have a key to your room?"

"Yes, so's he could draw pictures while I was away. My hallway? Let's
go and see."

In some excitement, without waiting for partiallars, the farmer rose
and led the way out. It was already quite dark.

"Oh, I don't expect to find him in your room," said Larcher, at his
heels. "But he may have left some trace there."

Mr. Bud turned into the hallway, of which the door was never locked till
late at night. The hallway was not lighted, save as far as the rays of a
street-lamp went across the threshold. Plunging into the darkness with
haste, closely followed by Larcher, the old man suddenly brushed against
some one coming from the stairs.

"Excuse _me_" said Mr. Bud. "I didn't see anybody. It's all-fired dark in
here."

"It _is_ dark," replied the stranger, and passed out to the street.
Larcher, at the words of the other two, had stepped back into a corner
to make way. Mr. Bud turned to look at the stranger; and the stranger,
just outside the doorway, turned to look at Mr. Bud. Then both went their
different directions, Mr. Bud's direction being up the stairs.

"Must be a new lodger," said Mr. Bud. "He was comin' from these stairs
when I run agin 'im. I never seen 'im before."

"You can't truly say you saw him even then," replied Larcher, guiding
himself by the stair wall.

"Oh, he turned around outside, an' I got the street-light on him. A
good-lookin' young chap, to be roomin' on these premises."

"I didn't see his face," replied Larcher, stumbling.

"Look out fur yur feet. Here we are at the top."

Mr. Bud groped to his door, and fumblingly unlocked it. Once inside his
room, he struck a match, and lighted one of the two gas-burners.

"Everything same as ever," said Mr. Bud, looking around from the centre
of the room. "Books, table, chairs, stove, bed made up same's I left
it--"

"Hello, what's this?" exclaimed Larcher, having backed against a hollow
metallic object on the floor and knocked his head against a ropey,
rubbery something in the air.

"That's a gas-heater--Mr. Davenport made me a present of it. It's
convenienter than the old stove. He wanted to pay me fur the gas it
burned when he was here sketchin', but I wouldn't stand fur that."

The ropey, rubbery something was the tube connecting the heater with the
gas-fixture.

"I move we light 'er up, and make the place comfortable; then we can talk
this matter over," continued Mr. Bud. "Shet the door, an' siddown."

Seated in the waves of warmth from the gas-stove, the two went into the
details of the case.

Larcher not withholding the theory of Mr. Lafferty, and even touching
briefly on Davenport's misunderstanding as to Florence Kenby.

"Well," said Mr. Bud, thoughtfully, "if he reely went into a hallway in
these parts, it would prob'ly be the hallway he was acquainted with. But
he wouldn't stay in the hallway. He'd prob'ly come to this room. An' he'd
no doubt bring his parcels here. But one thing's certain: if he did that,
he took 'em all away again. He might 'a' left somethin' in the closet, or
under the bed, or somewheres."

A search was made of the places named, as well as of drawers and
wash-stand, but Mr. Bud found no additions to his property. He even
looked in the coal-box,--and stooped and fished something out, which he
held up to the light. "Hello, I don't reco'nize this!"

Larcher uttered an exclamation. "He _has_ been here! That's the note-book
cover the money was in. He had it the night before he was last seen. I
could swear to it."

"It's all dirty with coal-dust," cautioned Mr. Bud, as Larcher seized it
for closer examination.

"It proves he's been here, at least. We've got him traced further than
the detective, anyhow."

"But not so very fur, at that. What if he was here? Mind, I ain't
a-sayin' one thing ur another,--but if he _was_ contemplatin' a voyage,
an' had fixed to be took aboard late at night, what better place to wait
fur the ship's boat than just this here?"

"But the money must have been handled here--taken out of this cover, and
the cover thrown away. Suppose somebody _had_ seen him display that money
during the day; _had_ shadowed him here, followed him to this room, taken
him by surprise?"

"No signs of a struggle, fur as I c'n see."

"But a single blow with a black-jack, from behind, would do the
business."

"An' what about the--remains?"

"The river is just across the street. This would occur at night,
remember."

Mr. Bud shook his head. "An' the load o' parcels--what 'ud become o'
them?"

"The criminal might convey them away, too, at his leisure during the
night. They would be worth something."

Evidently to test the resourcefulness of the young man's imagination, Mr.
Bud continued, "But why should the criminal go to the trouble o' removin'
the body from here?"

"To delay its discovery, or create an impression of suicide if it were
found," ventured Larcher, rather lamely. "The criminal would naturally
suppose that a chambermaid visited the room every day."

"The criminal 'ud risk less by leavin' the body right here; an' it don't
stand to reason that, after makin' such a haul o' money, he'd take any
chances f'r the sake o' the parcels. No; your the'ry's got as much agin'
it, as the detective's has fur it. It's built on nothin' but random
guesswork. As fur me, I'd rather the young man did get away with the
money,--you say the other fellow'd done him out o' that much, anyhow.
I'd rather that than somebody else got away with him."

"So would I--in the circumstances," confessed Larcher.

Mr. Bud proposed that they should go down to the saloon and "tackle the
soup." Larcher could offer no reason for remaining where they were. As
they rose to go, the young man looked at his fingers, soiled from the
coal-dust on the covers.

"There's a bath-room on this floor; we c'n wash our hands there," said
Mr. Bud, and, after closing up his own apartment, led the way, by the
light of matches, to a small cubicle at the rear of the passage, wherein
were an ancient wood-encased bathtub, two reluctant water-taps, and other
products of a primitive age of plumbing. From this place, discarding the
aid of light, Mr. Bud and his visitor felt their way down-stairs.

"Yes," spoke Mr. Bud, as they descended in the darkness, "one 'ud almost
imagine it was true about his bein' pursued with bad luck. To think of
the young lady turnin' out staunch after all, an' his disappearin' just
in time to miss the news! That beats me!"

"And how do you suppose the young lady feels about it?" said Larcher. "It
breaks my heart to have nothing to report, when I see her. She's really
an angel of a girl."

They emerged to the street, and Mr. Bud's mind recurred to the stranger
he had run against in the hallway. When they had reseated themselves in
the saloon, and the soup had been brought, the old man said to the
bartender:

"I see there's a new roomer, Mick?"

"Where?" asked Mick.

"In the house here. Somewheres up-stairs."

"If there is, he's a new one on me," said Mick, decidedly.

"What? _Ain't_ there a new roomer come in since I was here last?"

"No, sir, there ain't there."

"Well, that's funny," said Mr. Bud, looking to Larcher for comment. But
Larcher had no thought just then for any subject but Davenport, and to
that he kept the farmer's attention during the rest of their talk. When
the talk was finished, simultaneously with the soup, it had been agreed
that Mr. Bud should "nose around" thereabouts for any confirmation of
Lafferty's theory, or any trace of Davenport, and should send for Larcher
if any such turned up.

"I'll be in town a week ur two," said the old man, at parting. "I
been kep' so long up-country this time, 'count o' the turkey
trade--Thanksgivin' and Chris'mas, y'know. I do considerable in poultry."

But some days passed, and Larcher heard nothing from Mr. Bud. A few of
the newspapers published Detective Lafferty's unearthings, before Larcher
had time to prepare Miss Kenby for them. She hailed them with gladness as
pointing to a likelihood that Davenport was alive; but she ignored all
implications of probable guilt on his part. That the amount of Bagley's
loss through Davenport was no more than Bagley's rightful debt to
Davenport, Larcher had already taken it on himself delicately to inform
her. She had not seemed to think that fact, or any fact, necessary to her
lover's justification.




CHAPTER X.


A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

Meanwhile Larcher was treated to an odd experience. One afternoon, as
he turned into the house of flats in which Edna Hill lived, he chanced
to look back toward Sixth Avenue. He noticed a pleasant-looking,
smooth-faced young man, very erect in carriage and trim in appearance,
coming along from that thoroughfare. He recalled now that he had observed
this same young man, who was a stranger to him, standing at the corner of
his own street as he left his lodgings that morning; and again sauntering
along behind him as he took the car to come up-town. Doubtless, thought
he, the young man had caught the next car, and, by a coincidence, got off
at the same street. He passed in, and the matter dropped from his mind.

But the next day, as he was coming out of the restaurant where he usually
lunched, his look met that of the same neat, braced-up young man, who was
standing in the vestibule of a theatre across the way. "It seems I am
haunted by this gentleman," mused Larcher, and scrutinized him rather
intently. Even across the street, Larcher was impressed anew with the
young man's engagingness of expression, which owed much to a whimsical,
amiable look about the mouth.

Two hours later, having turned aside on Broadway to greet an
acquaintance, his roving eye fell again on the spruce young man, this
time in the act of stepping into a saloon which Larcher had just passed.
"By George, this _is_ strange!" he exclaimed.

"What?" asked his acquaintance.

"That's the fifth time I've seen the same man in two days. He's just gone
into that saloon."

"You're being shadowed by the police," said the other, jokingly. "What
crime have you committed?"

The next afternoon, as Larcher stood on the stoop of the house in lower
Fifth Avenue, and glanced idly around while waiting for an answer to his
ring, he beheld the young man coming down the other side of the avenue.
"Now this is too much," said Larcher to himself, glaring across at the
stranger, but instantly feeling rebuked by the innocent good humor that
lurked about the stranger's mouth. As the young man came directly
opposite, without having apparently noticed Larcher, the latter's
attention was called away by the coming of the servant in response to
the bell. He entered the house, and, as he awaited the announcement of
his name to Miss Kenby, he asked himself whether this haunting of his
footsteps might indeed be an intended act. "Do they think I may be in
communication with Davenport? and _are_ they having me shadowed? That
would be interesting." But this strange young man looked too intelligent,
too refined, too superior in every way, for the trade of a shadowing
detective. Besides, a "shadow" would not, as a rule, appear on three
successive days in precisely the same clothes and hat.

And yet, when Larcher left the house half an hour later, whom did he see
gazing at the display in a publisher's window near by, on the same side
of the street, but the young man? Flaring up at this evidence to the
probability that he was really being dogged, Larcher walked straight to
the young man's side, and stared questioningly at the young man's
reflection in the plate glass. The young man glanced around in a casual
manner, as at the sudden approach of a newcomer, and then resumed his
contemplation of the books in the window. The amiability of the young
man's countenance, the quizzical good nature of his dimpled face,
disarmed resentment. Feeling somewhat foolish, Larcher feigned an
interest in the show of books for a few seconds, and then went his way,
leaving the young man before the window. Larcher presently looked back;
the young man was still there, still gazing at the books. Apparently he
was not taking further note of Larcher's movements. This was the end of
Larcher's odd experience; he did not again have reason to suppose himself
followed.

The third time Larcher called to see Miss Kenby after this, he had not
been seated five minutes when there came a gentle knock at the door.
Florence rose and opened it.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Kenby," said a very masculine, almost husky
voice in the hall; "these are the cigars I was speaking of to your
father. May I leave them?"

"Oh, come in, come in, Mr. Turl," called out Miss Kenby's father himself
from the fireside.

"Thank you, no; I won't intrude."

"But you must; I want to see you," Mr. Kenby insisted, fussily getting
to his feet.

Larcher asked himself where he had heard the name of Turl. Before his
memory could answer, the person addressed by that name entered the room
in a politely hesitating manner, bowed, and stood waiting for father
and daughter to be seated. He was none other than the smooth-faced,
pleasant-looking young man with the trim appearance and erect attitude.
Larcher sat open-eyed and dumb.

Mr. Kenby was for not only throwing his attention entirely around the
newcomer, but for snubbing Larcher utterly forthwith; seeing which,
Florence took upon herself the office of introducing the two young men.
Mr. Turl, in resting his eyes on Larcher, showed no consciousness of
having encountered him before. They were blue eyes, clear and soft, and
with something kind and well-wishing in their look. Larcher found the
whole face, now that it was animated with a sense of his existence,
pleasanter than ever. He found himself attracted by it; and all the
more for that did he wonder at the young man's appearance in the house
of his acquaintances, after those numerous appearances in his wake in
the street.

Mr. Kenby now took exclusive possession of Mr. Turl, and while those two
were discussing the qualities of the cigars, Larcher had an opportunity
of asking Florence, quietly:

"Who is your visitor? Have you known him long?"

"Only three or four days. He is a new guest in the house. Father met
him in the public drawing-room, and has taken a liking to him."

"He seems likeable. I was wondering where I'd heard the name. It's not a
common name."

No, it was not common. Florence had seen it in a novel or somewhere, but
had never before met anybody possessing it. She agreed that he seemed
likeable,--agreed, that is to say, as far as she thought of him at all,
for what was he, or any casual acquaintance, to a woman in her state of
mind?

Larcher regarded him with interest. The full, clear brow, from which the
hair was tightly brushed, denoted intellectual qualities, but the rest
of the face--straight-bridged nose, dimpled cheeks, and quizzical
mouth--meant urbanity. The warm healthy tinge of his complexion, evenly
spread from brow to chin, from ear-tip to ear-tip, was that of a social
rather than bookish or thoughtful person. He soon showed his civility by
adroitly contriving to include Florence and Larcher in his conversation
with Mr. Kenby. Talk ran along easily for half an hour upon the shop
windows during the Christmas season, the new calendars, the picture
exhibitions, the "art gift-books," and such topics, on all of which Mr.
Turl spoke with liveliness and taste. ("Fancy my supposing this man a
detective," mused Larcher.)

"I've been looking about in the art shops and the old book stores," said
Mr. Turl, "for a copy of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, as it was
called. You know, of course,--engravings from the Boydell collection of
Shakespearean paintings. It was convenient to have them in a volume. I'm
sorry it has disappeared from the shops. I'd like very much to have
another look through it."

"You can easily have that," said Larcher, who had impatiently awaited a
chance to speak. "I happen to possess the book."

"Oh, indeed? I envy you. I haven't seen a copy of it in years."

"You're very welcome to see mine. I wouldn't part with it permanently,
of course, but if you don't object to borrowing--"

"Oh, I wouldn't deprive you of it, even for a short time. The value of
owning such a thing is to have it always by; one mayn't touch it for
months, but, when the mood comes for it, there it is. I never permit
anybody to lend me such things."

"Then if you deprive me of the pleasure of lending it, will you take the
trouble of coming to see it?" Larcher handed him his card.

"You're very kind," replied Turl, glancing at the address. "If you're
sure it won't be putting you to trouble. At what time shall I be least
in your way?"

"I shall be in to-morrow afternoon,--but perhaps you're not free till
evening."

"Oh, I can choose my hours; I have nothing to do to-morrow afternoon."

("Evidently a gentleman of leisure," thought Larcher.)

So it was settled that he should call about three o'clock, an appointment
which Mr. Kenby, whose opinion of Larcher had not changed since their
first meeting, viewed with decided lack of interest.

When Larcher left, a few minutes later, he was so far under the spell of
the newcomer's amiability that he felt as if their acquaintance were
considerably older than three-quarters of an hour.

Nevertheless, he kept ransacking his memory for the circumstances in
which he had before heard the name of Turl. To be sure, this Turl might
not be the Turl whose name he had heard; but the fact that he _had_ heard
the name, and the coincidences in his observation of the man himself,
made the question perpetually insistent. He sought out Barry Tompkins,
and asked, "Did you ever mention to me a man named Turl?"

"Never in a state of consciousness," was Tompkins's reply; and an equally
negative answer came from everybody else to whom Larcher put the query
that day.

He thought of friend after friend until it came Murray Davenport's turn
in his mental review. He had a momentary feeling that the search was
warm here; but the feeling succumbed to the consideration that Davenport
had never much to say about acquaintances. Davenport seemed to have put
friendship behind him, unless that which existed between him and Larcher
could be called friendship; his talk was not often of any individual
person.

"Well," thought Larcher, "when Mr. Turl comes to see me, I shall find,
out whether there's anybody we both know. If there is, I shall learn more
of Mr. Turl. Then light may be thrown on his haunting my steps for three
days, and subsequently turning up in the rooms of people I visit."

The arrival of Mr. Turl, at the appointed hour the next afternoon,
instantly put to rout all doubts of his being other than he seemed. In
the man's agreeable presence, Larcher felt that to imagine the
coincidences anything _but_ coincidences was absurd.

The two young men were soon bending over the book of engravings, which
lay on a table. Turl pointed out beauties of detail which Larcher had
never observed.

"You talk like an artist," said Larcher.

"I have dabbled a little," was the reply. "I believe I can draw, when put
to it."

"You ought to be put to it occasionally, then."

"I have sometimes thought of putting myself to it. Illustrating, I mean,
as a profession. One never knows when one may have to go to work for a
living. If one has a start when that time comes, so much the better."

"Perhaps I might be of some service to you. I know a few editors."

"Thank you very much. You mean you would ask them to give me work to
illustrate?"

"If you wished. Or sometimes the text and illustrations may be done
first, and then submitted together. A friend of mine had some success
with me that way; I wrote the stuff, he made the pictures, and the
combination took its chances. We did very well. My friend was Murray
Davenport, who disappeared. Perhaps you've heard of him."

"I think I read something in the papers," replied Turl. "He went to
South America or somewhere, didn't he?"

"A detective thinks so, but the case is a complete mystery," said
Larcher, making the mental note that, as Turl evidently had not known
Davenport, it could not be Davenport who had mentioned Turl. "Hasn't
Mr. Kenby or his daughter ever spoken of it to you?" added Larcher,
after a moment.

"No. Why should they?" asked the other, turning over a page of the
volume.

"They knew him. Miss Kenby is very unhappy over his disappearance."

Did a curious look come over Mr. Turl's face for an instant, as he
carefully regarded the picture before him? If it did, it passed.

"I've noticed she has seemed depressed, or abstracted," he replied. "It's
a pity. She's very beautiful and womanly. She loved this man, do you
mean?"

"Yes. But what makes it worse, there was a curious misunderstanding on
his part, which would have been removed if he hadn't disappeared. That
aggravates her unhappiness."

"I'm sorry for her. But time wears away unhappiness of that sort."

"I hope it will in this case--if it doesn't turn it to joy by bringing
Davenport back."

Turl was silent, and Larcher did not continue the subject. When the
visitor was through with the pictures, he joined his host at the
fire, resigning himself appreciatively to one of the great, handsome
easy-chairs--new specimens of an old style--in which Larcher indulged
himself.

"A pleasant place you have here," said the guest, while Larcher was
bringing forth sundry bottles and such from a closet which did duty as
sideboard.

"It ought to be," replied Larcher. "Some fellows in this town only sleep
in their rooms, but I work in mine."

"And entertain," said Turl, with a smile, as the bottles and other things
were placed on a little round table at his elbow. "Here's variety of
choice. I think I'll take some of that red wine, whatever it is, and a
sandwich. I require a wet day for whisky. Your quarters here put me out
of conceit with my own."

"Why, you live in a good house," said Larcher, helping himself in turn.

"Good enough, as they go; what the newspapers would call a 'fashionable
boarding-house.' Imagine a fashionable boarding-house!" He smiled. "But
my own portion of the house is limited in space. In fact, at present I
come under the head of hall-bedroom young men. I know the hall-bedroom
has supplanted the attic chamber of an earlier generation of budding
geniuses; but I prefer comfort to romance."

"How did you happen to go to that house?"

"I saw its advertisement in the 'boarders wanted' column. I liked the
neighborhood. It's the old Knickerbocker neighborhood, you know. Not much
of the old Knickerbocker atmosphere left. It's my first experience as a
'boarder' in New York. I think, on the whole, I prefer to be a 'roomer'
and 'eat out.' I have been a 'paying guest' in London, but fared better
there as a mere 'lodger.'"

"You're not English, are you?"

"No. Good American, but of a roving habit. American in blood and
political principles; but not willing to narrow my life down to the
resources of any one country. I was born in New York, in fact, but of
course before the era of sky-scrapers, multitudinous noises, and
perpetual building operations."

"I thought there was something of an English accent in your speech now
and then."

"Very probably. When I was ten years old, my father's business took us
to England; he was put in charge of the London branch. I was sent to a
private school at Folkestone, where I got the small Latin, and no Greek
at all, that I boast of. Do you know Folkestone? The wind on the cliffs,
the pine-trees down their slopes, the vessels in the channel, the faint
coast of France in clear weather? I was to have gone from there to one
of the universities, but my mother died, and my father soon after,--the
only sorrows I've ever had,--and I decided, on my own, to cut the
university career, and jump into the study of pictorial art. Since then,
I've always done as I liked."

"You don't seem to have made any great mistakes."

"No. I've never gone hunting trouble. Unlike most people who are doomed
to uneventful happiness, I don't sigh for adventure."

"Then your life has been uneventful since you jumped into the study of
art?"

"Entirely. Cast always in smooth and agreeable lines. I studied first in
a London studio, then in Paris; travelled in various parts of Europe and
the United States; lived in London and New York; and there you are. I've
never had to work, so far. But the money my father left me has gone--I
spent the principal because I had other expectations. And now this other
little fortune, that I meant to use frugally, is in dispute. I may be
deprived of it by a decision to be given shortly. In that case, I shall
have to earn my mutton chops like many a better man."

"You seem to take the prospect very cheerfully."

"Oh, I shall be fortunate. Good fortune is my destiny. Things come my
way. My wants are few. I make friends easily. I have to make them easily,
or I shouldn't make any, changing my place so often. A new place, new
friends. Even when I go back to an old place, I rather form new
friendships that chance throws in my way, than hunt up the old ones.
I must confess I find new friends the more interesting, the more suited
to my new wants. Old friends so often disappoint on revisitation. You
change, they don't; or they change, you don't; or they change, and you
change, but not in the same ways. The Jones of yesterday and the Brown
of yesterday were eminently fitted to be friends; but the Jones of
to-day and the Brown of to-day are different men, through different
experiences, and don't harmonize. Why clog the present with the past?"

As he sipped his wine and ate his sandwich, gazing contentedly into the
fire the while, Mr. Turl looked the living justification of his
philosophy.




CHAPTER XI.


FLORENCE DECLARES HER ALLEGIANCE

During the next few weeks, Larcher saw much of Mr. Turl. The Kenbys,
living under the same roof, saw even more of him. It was thus inevitable
that Edna Hill should be added to his list of new acquaintances. She
declared him "nice," and was not above trying to make Larcher a little
jealous. But Turl, beyond the amiability which he had for everybody, was
not of a coming-on disposition. Sometimes Larcher fancied there was the
slightest addition of tenderness to that amiability when Turl regarded,
or spoke to, Florence Kenby. But, if there was, nobody need wonder at it.
The newcomer could not realize how permanently and entirely another image
filled her heart. It would be for him to find that out--if his feelings
indeed concerned themselves with her--when those feelings should take
hope and dare expression. Meanwhile it was nobody's place to warn him.

If poor Davenport's image remained as living as ever in Florence Kenby's
heart, that was the only place in New York where it did remain so. With
Larcher, it went the course of such images; occupied less and less of his
thoughts, grew more and more vague. He no longer kept up any pretence of
inquiry. He had ceased to call at police headquarters and on Mrs. Haze.
That good woman had his address "in case anything turned up." She had
rented Davenport's room to a new lodger; his hired piano had been removed
by the owners, and his personal belongings had been packed away unclaimed
by heir or creditor. For any trace of him that lingered on the scene of
his toils and ponderings, the man might never have lived at all.

It was now the end of January. One afternoon Larcher, busy at his
writing-table, was about to light up, as the day was fading, when he was
surprised by two callers,--Edna Hill and her Aunt Clara.

"Well, this is jolly!" he cried, welcoming them with a glowing face.

"It's not half bad," said Edna, applying the expression to the room. "I
don't believe so much comfort is good for a young man."

She pointed her remark by dropping into one of the two great chairs
before the fire. Her aunt, panting a little from the ascent of the
stairs, had already deposited her rather plump figure in the other.

"But I'm a hard-working young man, as you can see," he replied, with a
gesture toward the table.

"Is that where you grind out the things the magazines reject?" asked
Edna. "Oh, don't light up. The firelight is just right; isn't it,
auntie?"

"Charming," said Aunt Clara, still panting. "You must miss an elevator
in the house, Mr. Larcher."

"If it would assure me of more visits like this, I'd move to where there
was one. You can't imagine how refreshing it is, in the midst of the
lonely grind, to have you come in and brighten things up."

"We're keeping you from your work, Tommy," said Edna, with sudden
seriousness, whether real or mock he could not tell.

"Not a bit of it. I throw it over for the day. Shall I have some tea
made for you? Or will you take some wine?"

"No, thanks; we've just had tea."

"I think a glass of wine would be good for me after that climb,"
suggested Aunt Clara. Larcher hastened to serve her, and then brought a
chair for himself.

"I just came in to tell you what I've discovered," said Edna. "Mr. Turl
is in love with Florence Kenby!"

"How do you know?" asked Larcher.

"By the way he looks at her, and that sort of thing. And she knows it,
too--I can see that."

"And what does she appear to think about it?"

"What would she think about it? She has nothing against him; but of
course it'll be love's labor lost on his side. I suppose he doesn't know
that yet, poor fellow. All she can do is to ignore the signs, and avoid
him as much as possible, and not hurt his feelings. It's a pity."

"What is?"

"That she isn't open to--new impressions,--you know what I mean. He's an
awfully nice young man, so tall and straight,--they would look so well
together."

"Edna, you amaze me!" said Larcher. "How can you want her to be
inconstant? I thought you were full of admiration for her loyalty to
Davenport."

"So I was, when there was a tangible Davenport. As long as we knew he was
alive, and within reach, there was a hope of straightening things out
between them. I'd set my heart on accomplishing that."

"I know you like to play the goddess from the machine," observed Larcher.

"She's prematurely given to match-making," said Aunt Clara, now restored
to her placidity.

"Be good, auntie, or I'll make a match between you and Mr. Kenby,"
threatened Edna. "Well, now that the best we can hope for about Davenport
is that he went away with another man's money--"

"But I've told you the other man morally owed him that much money."

"That won't make it any safer for him to come back to New York. And you
know what's waiting for him if he does come back, unless he's got an
awfully good explanation. And as for Florence's going to him, what chance
is there now of ever finding out where he is? It would either be one of
those impossible countries where there's no extradition, or a place where
he'd always be virtually in hiding. What a horrid life! So I think if she
isn't going to be miserable the rest of her days, it's time she tried to
forget the absent."

"I suppose you're right," said Larcher.

"So I came in to say that I'm going to do all I quietly can to distract
her thoughts from the past, and get her to look around her. If I see
any way of preparing her mind to think well of Mr. Turl, I'll do it. And
what I want of you is not to discourage him by any sort of hints or
allusions--to Davenport, you understand."

"Oh, I haven't been making any. I told him the mere fact, that's all. I'm
neither for him nor against him. I have no right to be against him--and
yet, when I think of poor Davenport, I can't bring myself to be for Turl,
much as I like him."

"All right. Be neutral, that's all I ask. How is Turl getting on with his
plan of going to work?"

"Oh, he has excellent chances. He's head and shoulders above the ruck of
black-and-white artists. He makes wonderfully good comics. He'll have no
trouble getting into the weeklies, to begin with."

"Is it settled yet, about that money of his in dispute?"

"I don't know. He hasn't spoken of it lately."

"He doesn't seem to care much. I'm going to do my little utmost to keep
Florence from avoiding him. I know how to manage. I'm going to reawaken
her interest in life in general, too. She's promised to go for a drive
with me to-morrow. Do you want to come along?"

"I jump at the chance--if there's room."

"There'll be a landau, with a pair. Aunt Clara won't come, because Mr.
Kenby's coming, and she doesn't love him a little bit."

"Neither do I, but for the sake of your society--"

"All right. I'll get the Kenbys first, and pick you up here on the way
to the park. You can take Mr. Kenby off our hands, and leave me free to
cheer up Florence."

This assignment regarding Mr. Kenby had a moderating effect on Larcher's
pleasure, both at that moment and during the drive itself. But he gave
himself up heroically to starting the elder man on favorite topics, and
listening to his discourse thereon. He was rewarded by seeing that Edna
was indeed successful in bringing a smile to her friend's face now and
then. Florence was drawn out of her abstracted air; she began to have
eyes for the scenes around her. It was a clear, cold, exhilarating
afternoon. In the winding driveways of the park, there seemed to be more
than the usual number of fine horses and pretty women, the latter in
handsome wraps and with cheeks radiant from the frosty air. Edna was
adroit enough not to prolong the drive to the stage of numbness and
melancholy. She had just ordered the coachman to drive home, when the
rear of the carriage suddenly sank a little and a wheel ground against
the side. Edna screamed, and the driver stopped the horses. People came
running up from the walks, and the words "broken axle" went round.

"We shall have to get out," said Larcher, leading the way. He instantly
helped Florence to alight, then Edna and Mr. Kenby.

"Oh, what a nuisance!" cried Edna. "We can't go home in this carriage, of
course."

"No, miss," said the driver, who had resigned his horses to a park
policeman, and was examining the break. "But you'll be able to pick up a
cab in the avenue yonder. I'll send for one if you say so."

"What a bore!" said Edna, vexatiously.

Several conveyances had halted, for the occupants to see what the trouble
was. From one of them--an automobile--a large, well-dressed man strode
over and greeted Larcher with the words:

"How are you? Had an accident?"

It was Mr. Bagley. Larcher briefly answered, "Broken axle."

"Well," said Edna, annoyed at being the centre of a crowd, "I suppose
we'd better walk over to Fifth Avenue and take a cab."

"You're quite welcome to the use of my automobile for your party," said
Bagley to Larcher, having swiftly inspected the members of that party.

As Edna, hearing this, glanced at Bagley with interest, and at Larcher
with inquiry, Larcher felt it was his cue to introduce the newcomer. He
did so, with no very good grace. At the name of Bagley, the girls
exchanged a look. Mr. Kenby's manner was gracious, as was natural toward
a man who owned an automobile and had an air of money.

"I'm sorry you've had this break-down," said Bagley, addressing the
party collectively. "Won't you do me the honor of using my car? You're
not likely to find an open carriage in this neighborhood."

"Thank you," said Edna Hill, chillily. "We can't think of putting you
out."

"Oh, you won't put _me_ out. There's nobody but me and the chauffeur. My
car holds six people. I can't allow you to go for a carriage when mine's
here waiting. It wouldn't be right. I can set you all down at your homes
without any trouble."

During this speech, Bagley's eyes had rested first on Edna, then on Mr.
Kenby, and finally, for a longer time, on Florence. At the end, they went
back to Mr. Kenby, as if putting the office of reply on him.

"Your kindness is most opportune, sir," said Mr. Kenby, mustering
cordiality enough to make up for the coldness of the others. "I'm not at
my best to-day, and if I had to walk any distance, or wait here in the
cold, I don't know what would happen."

He started at once for the automobile, and there was nothing for the
girls to do, short of prudery or haughtiness, but follow him; nor for
Larcher to do but follow the girls.

Bagley sat in front with the chauffeur, but, as the car flew along, he
turned half round to keep up a shouting conversation with Mr. Kenby. His
glance went far enough to take in Florence, who shared the rear seat with
Edna. The spirits of the girls rose in response to the swift motion, and
Edna had so far recovered her merriment by the time her house was
reached, as to be sorry to get down. The party was to have had tea in her
flat; but Mr. Kenby decided he would rather go directly home by
automobile than wait and proceed otherwise. So he left Florence to
the escort of Larcher, and remained as Mr. Bagley's sole passenger.

"That was _the_ Mr. Bagley, was it?" asked Florence, as the three young
people turned into the house.

"Yes," said Larcher. "I ought to have got rid of him, I suppose. But
Edna's look was so imperative."

"I didn't know who he was, then," put in Edna.

"But after all, there was no harm in using his automobile."

"Why, he as much as accused Murray Davenport of absconding with his
money," said Florence, with a reproachful look at Edna.

"Oh, well, he couldn't understand, dear. He only knew that the money and
the man were missing. He could think of only one explanation,--men like
that are so unimaginative and businesslike. He's a bold, coarse-looking
creature. We sha'n't see anything more of him."

"I trust not," said Larcher; "but he's one of the pushful sort. He
doesn't know when he's snubbed. He thinks money will admit a man
anywhere. I'm sorry he turned up at that moment."

"So am I," said Florence, and added, explanatorily, "you know how ready
my father is to make new acquaintances, without stopping to consider."

That her apprehension was right, in this case, was shown three days
later, when Edna, calling and finding her alone, saw a bunch of great
red roses in a vase on the table.

"Oh, what beauties!" cried Edna.

"Mr. Bagley sent them," replied Florence, quickly, with a helpless,
perplexed air. "Father invited him to call."

"H'm! Why didn't you send them back?"

"I thought of it, but I didn't want to make so much of the matter. And
then there'd have been a scene with father. Of course, anybody may send
flowers to anybody. I might throw them away, but I haven't the heart to
treat flowers badly. _They_ can't help it."

"Does Mr. Bagley improve on acquaintance?"

"I never met such a combination of crudeness and self-assurance. Father
says it's men of that sort that become millionaires. If it is, I can
understand why American millionaires are looked down on in other
countries."

"It's not because of their millions, it's because of their manners,"
said Edna. "But what would you expect of men who consider money-making
the greatest thing in the world? I'm awfully sorry if you have to be
afflicted with any more visits from Mr. Bagley."

"I'll see him as rarely as I can. I should hate him for the injuries he
did Murray, even if he were possible otherwise."

When Edna saw Larcher, the next time he called at the flat, she first
sent him into a mood of self-blame by telling what had resulted from
the introduction of Bagley. Then, when she had sufficiently enjoyed his
verbal self-chastisement, she suddenly brought him around by saying:

"Well, to tell the truth, I'm not sorry for the way things have turned
out. If she has to see much of Bagley, she can't help comparing him with
the other man they see much of,--I mean Turl, not you. The more she
loathes Bagley, the more she'll look with relief to Turl. His good
qualities will stand out by contrast. Her father will want her to
tolerate Bagley. The old man probably thinks it isn't too late, after
all, to try for a rich son-in-law. Now that Davenport is out of the way,
he'll be at his old games again. He's sure to prefer Bagley, because
Turl makes no secret about his money being uncertain. And the best thing
for Turl is to have Mr. Kenby favor Bagley. Do you see?"

"Yes. But are you sure you're right in taking up Turl's cause so
heartily? We know so little of him, really. He's a very new acquaintance,
after all."

"Oh, you suspicious wretch! As if anybody couldn't see he was all right
by just looking at him! And I thought you liked him!"

"So I do; and when I'm in his company I can't doubt that he's the best
fellow in the world. But sometimes, when he's not present, I remember--"

"Well, what? What do you remember?"

"Oh, nothing,--only that appearances are sometimes deceptive, and that
sort of thing."

In assuming that Bagley's advent on the scene would make Florence more
appreciative of Turl's society, Edna was right. Such, indeed, was the
immediate effect. Mr. Kenby himself, though his first impression that
Turl was a young man of assured fortune had been removed by the young
man's own story, still encouraged his visits on the brilliant theory
that Bagley, if he had intentions, would be stimulated by the presence
of a rival. As Bagley's visits continued, it fell out that he and Turl
eventually met in the drawing-room of the Kenbys, some days after Edna
Hill's last recorded talk with Larcher. But, though they met, few words
were wasted between them. Bagley, after a searching stare, dismissed the
younger man as of no consequence, because lacking the signs of a
money-grabber; and the younger man, having shown a moment's curiosity,
dropped Bagley as beneath interest for possessing those signs. Bagley
tried to outstay Turl; but Turl had the advantage of later arrival and
of perfect control of temper. Bagley took his departure, therefore, with
the dry voice and set face of one who has difficulty in holding his
wrath. Perceiving that something was amiss, Mr. Kenby made a pretext to
accompany Bagley a part of his way, with the design of leaving him in a
better humor. In magnifying his newly discovered Bagley, Mr. Kenby
committed the blunder of taking too little account of Turl; and thus
Turl found himself suddenly alone with Florence.

The short afternoon was already losing its light, and the glow of the
fire was having its hour of supremacy before it should in turn take
second place to gaslight. For a few moments Florence was silent, looking
absently out of the window and across the wintry twilight to the rear
profile of the Gothic church beyond the back gardens. Turl watched her
face, with a softened, wistful, perplexed look on his own. The ticking
of the clock on the mantel grew very loud.

Suddenly Turl spoke, in the quietest, gentlest manner.

"You must not be unhappy."

She turned, with a look of surprise, a look that asked him how he knew
her heart.

"I know it from your face, your demeanor all the time, whatever you're
doing," he said.

"If you mean that I seem grave," she replied, with a faint smile, "it's
only my way. I've always been a serious person."

"But your gravity wasn't formerly tinged with sorrow; it had no touch of
brooding anxiety."

"How do you know?" she asked, wonderingly.

"I can see that your unhappiness is recent in its cause. Besides, I have
heard the cause mentioned." There was an odd expression for a moment on
his face, an odd wavering in his voice.

"Then you can't wonder that I'm unhappy, if you know the cause."

"But I can tell you that you oughtn't to be unhappy. No one ought to
be, when the cause belongs to the past,--unless there's reason for
self-reproach, and there's no such reason with you. We oughtn't to
carry the past along with us; we oughtn't to be ridden by it, oppressed
by it. We should put it where it belongs,--behind us. We should sweep
the old sorrows out of our hearts, to make room there for any happiness
the present may offer. Believe me, I'm right. We allow the past too
great a claim upon us. The present has the true, legitimate claim. You
needn't be unhappy. You can forget. Try to forget. You rob
yourself,--you rob others."

She gazed at him silently; then answered, in a colder tone: "But you
don't understand. With me it isn't a matter of grieving over the past.
It's a matter of--of absence."

"I think," he said, so very gently that the most sensitive heart could
not have taken offence, "it is of the past. Forgive me; but I think you
do wrong to cherish any hopes. I think you'd best resign yourself to
believe that all is of the past; and then try to forget."

"How do you know?" she cried, turning pale.

Again that odd look on his face, accompanied this time by a single
twitching of the lips and a momentary reflection of her own pallor.

"One can see how much you cared for him," was his reply, sadly uttered.

"Cared for him? I still care for him! How do you know he is of the past?
What makes you say that?"

"I only--look at the probabilities of the case, as others do, more calmly
than you. I feel sure he will never come back, never be heard of again in
New York. I think you ought to accustom yourself to that view; your whole
life will be darkened if you don't."

"Well, I'll not take that view. I'll be faithful to him forever. I
believe I shall hear from him yet. If not, if my life is to be darkened
by being true to him, by hoping to meet him again, let it be darkened!
I'll never give him up! Never!"

Pain showed on Turl's countenance. "You mustn't doom yourself--you
mustn't waste your life," he protested.

"Why not, if I choose? What is it to you?"

He waited a moment; then answered, simply, "I love you."

The naturalness of his announcement, as the only and complete reply to
her question, forbade resentment. Yet her face turned scarlet, and when
she spoke, after a few moments, it was with a cold finality.

"I belong to the absent--entirely and forever. Nothing can change my
hope; or make me forget or want to forget."

Turl looked at her with the mixture of tenderness and perplexity which
he had shown before; but this time it was more poignant.

"I see I must wait," he said, quietly.

There was a touch of anger in her tone as she retorted, with an impatient
laugh, "It will be a long time of waiting."

He sighed deeply; then bade her good afternoon in his usual courteous
manner, and left her alone. When the door had closed, her eyes followed
him in imagination, with a frown of beginning dislike.




CHAPTER XII.


LARCHER PUTS THIS AND THAT TOGETHER

Two or three days after this, Turl dropped in to see Larcher,
incidentally to leave some sketches, mainly for the pleasanter passing of
an hour in a gray afternoon. Upon the announcement of another visitor,
whose name was not given, Turl took his departure. At the foot of the
stairs, he met the other visitor, a man, whom the servant had just
directed to Larcher's room. The hallway was rather dark as the incomer
and outgoer passed each other; but, the servant at that instant lighting
the gas, Turl glanced around for a better look, and encountered the
other's glance at the same time turned after himself. Each halted, Turl
for a scarce perceptible instant, the other for a moment longer. Then
Turl passed out, the servant having run to open the door; and the new
visitor went on up the stairs.

The new visitor found Larcher waiting in expectation of being either
bored or startled, as a man usually is by callers who come anonymously.
But when a tall, somewhat bent, white-bearded old man with baggy black
clothes appeared in the doorway, Larcher jumped up smiling.

"Why, Mr. Bud! This _is_ a pleasant surprise!"

Mr. Bud, from a somewhat timid and embarrassed state, was warmed into
heartiness by Larcher's welcome, and easily induced to doff his overcoat
and be comfortable before the fire. "I thought, as you'd gev me your
address, you wouldn't object--" Mr. Bud began with a beaming countenance;
but suddenly stopped short and looked thoughtful. "Say--I met a young man
down-stairs, goin' out."

"Mr. Turl probably. He just left me. A neat-looking, smooth-faced young
man, smartly dressed."

"That's him. What name did you say?"

"Turl."

"Never heard the name. But I've seen that young fellow somewhere. It's
funny: as I looked round at 'im just now, it seemed to me all at wunst as
if I'd met that same young man in that same place a long time ago. But
I've never been in this house before, so it couldn't 'a' been in that
same place."

"We often have that feeling--of precisely the same thing having happened
a long time ago. Dickens mentions it in 'David Copperfield.' There's a
scientific theory--"

"Yes, I know, but this wasn't exactly that. It was, an' it wasn't. I'm
dead sure I did reely meet that chap in some such place. An' a funny
thing is, somehow or other you was concerned in the other meeting like
you are in this."

"Well, that's interesting," said Larcher, recalling how Turl had once
seemed to be haunting his footsteps.

"I've got it!" cried Mr. Bud, triumphantly. "D'yuh mind that night you
came and told me about Davenport's disappearance?--and we went up an'
searched my room fur a trace?"

"And found the note-book cover that showed he had been there? Yes."

"Well, you remember, as we went into the hallway we met a man comin' out,
an' I turned round an' looked at 'im? That was the man I met just now
down-stairs."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure's I'm settin' here. I see his face that first time by the light o'
the street-lamp, an' just now by the gaslight in the hall. An' both times
him and me turned round to look at each other. I noticed then what a
good-humored face he had, an' how he walked with his shoulders back. Oh,
that's the same man all right enough. What yuh say his name was?"

"Turl--T-u-r-l. Have you ever seen him at any other time?"

"Never. I kep' my eye peeled fur 'im too, after I found there was no new
lodger in the house. An' the funny part was, none o' the other roomers
knew anything about 'im. No such man had visited any o' them that
evening. So what the dickens _was_ he doin' there?"

"It's curious. I haven't known Mr. Turl very long, but there have been
some strange things in my observation of him, too. And it's always seemed
to me that I'd heard his name before. He's a clever fellow--here are some
comic sketches he brought me this afternoon." Larcher got the drawings
from his table, and handed them to Mr. Bud. "I don't know how good these
are; I haven't examined them yet."

The farmer grinned at the fun of the first picture, then read aloud the
name, "F. Turl."

"Oh, has he signed this lot?" asked Larcher. "I told him he ought to.
Let's see what his signature looks like." He glanced at the corner of the
sketch; suddenly he exclaimed: "By George, I've seen that name!--and
written just like that!"

"Like as not you've had letters from him, or somethin'."

"Never. I'm positive this is the first of his writing I've seen since
I've known him. Where the deuce?" He shut his eyes, and made a strong
effort of memory. Suddenly he opened his eyes again, and stared hard at
the signature. "Yes, sir! _Francis_ Turl--that was the name. And who do
you think showed me a note signed by that name in this very
handwriting?"

"Give it up."

"Murray Davenport."

"Yuh don't say."

"Yes, I do. Murray Davenport, the last night I ever saw him. He asked me
to judge the writer's character from the penmanship. It was a note about
a meeting between the two. Now I wonder--was that an old note, and had
the meeting occurred already? or was the meeting yet to come? You see,
the next day Davenport disappeared."

"H'm! An' subsequently this young man is seen comin' out o' the hallway
Davenport was seen goin' into."

"But it was several weeks subsequently. Still, it's odd enough. If there
was a meeting _after_ Davenport's disappearance, why mightn't it have
been in your room? Why mightn't Davenport have appointed it to occur
there? Perhaps, when we first met Turl that night, he had gone back there
in search of Davenport--or for some other purpose connected with him."

"H'm! What has this Mr. Turl to say about Davenport's disappearance?"

"Nothing. And that's odd, too. He must have been acquainted with
Davenport, or he wouldn't have written to him about a meeting. And yet
he's left us under the impression that he didn't know him.--And then
his following me about!--Before I made his acquaintance, I noticed him
several times apparently on my track. And when I _did_ make his
acquaintance, it was in the rooms of the lady Davenport had been in
love with. Turl had recently come to the same house to live, and her
father had taken him up. His going there to live looks like another
queer thing."

"There seems to be a hull bunch o' queer things about this Mr. Turl. I
guess he's wuth studyin'."

"I should think so. Let's put these queer things together in
chronological order. He writes a note to Murray Davenport about a meeting
to occur between them; some weeks later he is seen coming from the place
Murray Davenport was last seen going into; within a few days of that, he
shadows the movements of Murray Davenport's friend Larcher; within a few
more days he takes a room in the house where Murray Davenport's
sweetheart lives, and makes her acquaintance; and finally, when
Davenport is mentioned, lets it be assumed that he didn't know the man."

"And incidentally, whenever he meets Murray Davenport's other friend, Mr.
Bud, he turns around for a better look at him. H'm! Well, what yuh make
out o' all that?"

"To begin with, that there was certainly something between Turl and
Davenport which Turl doesn't want Davenport's friends to know. What do
_you_ make out of it?"

"That's all, so fur. Whatever there was between 'em, as it brought Turl
to the place where Davenport disappeared from knowledge, we ain't takin'
too big chances to suppose it had somethin' to do with the disappearance.
This Turl ought to be studied; an' it's up to you to do the studyin', as
you c'n do it quiet an' unsuspected. There ain't no necessity o' draggin'
in the police ur anybody, at this stage o' the game."

"You're quite right, all through. I'll sound him as well as I can. It'll
be an unpleasant job, for he's a gentleman and I like him. But of course,
where there's so much about a man that calls for explanation, he's a fair
object of suspicion. And Murray Davenport's case has first claim on me."

"If I were you, I'd compare notes with the young lady. Maybe, for all
you know, she's observed a thing or two since she's met this man. Her
interest in Davenport must 'a' been as great as yours. She'd have sharp
eyes fur anything bearin' on his case. This Turl went to her house to
live, you say. I should guess that her house would be a good place to
study him in. She might find out considerable."

"That's true," said Larcher, somewhat slowly, for he wondered what Edna
would say about placing Turl in a suspicious light in Florence's view.
But his fear of Edna's displeasure, though it might overcloud, could not
prohibit his performance of a task he thought ought to be done. He
resolved, therefore, to consult with Florence as soon as possible after
first taking care, for his own future peace, to confide in Edna.

"Between you an' the young lady," Mr. Bud went on, "you may discover
enough to make Mr. Turl see his way clear to tellin' what he knows about
Davenport. Him an' Davenport may 'a' been in some scheme together. They
may 'a' been friends, or they may 'a' been foes. He may be in Davenport's
confidence at the present moment; or he may 'a' had a hand in gettin' rid
o' Davenport. Or then again, whatever was between 'em mayn't 'a' had
anything to do with the disappearance; an' Turl mayn't want to own up to
knowin' Davenport, for fear o' bein' connected with the disappearance.
The thing is, to get 'im with his back to the wall an' make 'im deliver
up what he knows."

Mr. Bud's call turned out to have been merely social in its motive.
Larcher took him to dinner at a smart restaurant, which the old man
declared he would never have had the nerve to enter by himself; and
finally set him on his way smoking a cigar, which he said made him feel
like a Fi'th Avenoo millionaire. Larcher instantly boarded an up-town
car, with the better hope of finding Edna at home because the weather had
turned blowy and snowy to a degree which threatened a howling blizzard.
His hope was justified. With an adroitness that somewhat surprised
himself, he put his facts before the young lady in such a non-committal
way as to make her think herself the first to point the finger of
suspicion at Turl. Important with her discovery, she promptly ignored her
former partisanship of that gentleman, and was for taking Florence
straightway into confidence. Larcher for once did not deplore the
instantaneous completeness with which the feminine mind can shift about.
Edna despatched a note bidding Florence come to luncheon the next day;
she would send a cab for her, to make sure.

The next day, in the midst of a whirl of snow that made it nearly
impossible to see across the street, Florence appeared.

"What is it, dear?" were almost her first words. "Why do you look
so serious?"

"I've found out something. I mus'n't tell you till after luncheon. Tom
will be here, and I'll have him speak for himself. It's a very
delicate matter."

Florence had sufficient self-control to bide in patience, holding her
wonder in check. Edna's portentous manner throughout luncheon was enough
to keep expectation at the highest. Even Aunt Clara noticed it, and had
to be put off with evasive reasons. Subsequently Edna set the elderly
lady to writing letters in a cubicle that went by the name of library, so
the young people should have the drawing-room to themselves. Readers who
have lived in New York flats need not be reminded, of the skill the
inmates must sometimes employ to get rid of one another for awhile.

Larcher arrived in a wind-worn, snow-beaten condition, and had to stand
before the fire a minute before he got the shivers out of his body or the
blizzard out of his talk. Then he yielded to the offered embrace of an
armchair facing the grate, between the two young ladies.

Edna at once assumed the role of examining counsel. "Now tell Florence
all about it, from the beginning."

"Have you told her whom it concerns?" he asked Edna.

"I haven't told her a word."

"Well, then, I think she'd better know first"--he turned to
Florence--"that it concerns somebody we met through her--through you,
Miss Kenby. But we think the importance of the matter justifies--"

"Oh, that's all right," broke in Edna. "He's nothing to Florence. We're
perfectly free to speak of him as we like.--It's about Mr. Turl, dear."

"Mr. Turl?" There was something eager in Florence's surprise, a more than
expected readiness to hear.

"Why," said Larcher, struck by her expression, "have _you_ noticed
anything about his conduct--anything odd?"

"I'm not sure. I'll hear you first. One or two things have made me
think."

"Things in connection with somebody we know?" queried Larcher.

"Yes."

"With--Murray Davenport?"

"Yes--tell me what you know." Florence's eyes were poignantly intent.

Larcher made rapid work of his story, in impatience for hers. His
relation deeply impressed her. As soon as he had done, she began, in
suppressed excitement:

"With all those circumstances--there can be no doubt he knows something.
And two things I can add. He spoke once as if he had seen me in the
past;--I mean before the disappearance. What makes that strange is, I
don't remember having ever met him before. And stranger still, the other
thing I noticed: he seemed so sure Murray would never come back"--her
voice quivered, but she resumed in a moment: "He _must_ know something
about the disappearance. What could he have had to do with Murray?"

Larcher gave his own conjectures, or those of Mr. Bud--without credit to
that gentleman, however. As a last possibility, he suggested that Turl
might still be in Davenport's confidence. "For all we know," said
Larcher, "it may be their plan for Davenport to communicate with us
through Turl. Or he may have undertaken to keep Davenport informed about
our welfare. In some way or other he may be acting for Davenport,
secretly, of course."

Florence slowly shook her head. "I don't think so," she said.

"Why not?" asked Edna, quickly, with a searching look. "Has he been
making love to you?"

Florence blushed. "I can hardly put it as positively as that," she
answered, reluctantly.

"He might have undertaken to act for Davenport, and still have fallen in
love," suggested Larcher.

"Yes, I daresay, Tom, you know the treachery men are capable of," put in
Edna. "But if he did that--if he was in Davenport's confidence, and yet
spoke of love, or showed it--he was false to Davenport. And so in any
case he's got to give an account of himself."

"How are we to make him do it?" asked Larcher.

Edna, by a glance, passed the question on to Florence.

"We must go cautiously," Florence said, gazing into the fire. "We don't
know what occurred between him and Murray. He may have been for Murray;
or he may have been against him. They may have acted together in bringing
about his--departure from New York. Or Turl may have caused it for his
own purposes. We must draw the truth from him--we must have him where
he can't elude us."

Larcher was surprised at her intensity of resolution, her implacability
toward Turl on the supposition of his having borne an adverse part toward
Davenport. It was plain she would allow consideration for no one to stand
in her way, where light on Davenport's fate was promised.

"You mean that we should force matters?--not wait and watch for other
circumstances to come out?" queried Larcher.

"I mean that we'll force matters. We'll take him by surprise with what
we already know, and demand the full truth. We'll use every advantage
against him--first make sure to have him alone with us three, and then
suddenly exhibit our knowledge and follow it up with questions. We'll
startle the secret from him. I'll threaten, if necessary--I'll put the
worst possible construction on the facts we possess, and drive him to
tell all in self-defence." Florence was scarlet with suppressed energy
of purpose.

"The thing, then, is to arrange for having him alone with us," said
Larcher, yielding at once to her initiative.

"As soon as possible," replied Florence, falling into thought.

"We might send for him to call here," suggested Edna, who found the
situation as exciting as a play. "But then Aunt Clara would be in the
way. I couldn't send her out in such weather. Tom, we'd better come to
your rooms, and you invite him there."

Larcher was not enamored of that idea. A man does not like to invite
another to the particular kind of surprise-party intended on this
occasion. His share in the entertainment would be disagreeable enough at
best, without any questionable use of the forms of hospitality. Before he
could be pressed for an answer, Florence came to his relief.

"Listen! Father is to play whist this evening with some people up-stairs
who always keep him late. So we three shall have my rooms to
ourselves--and Mr. Turl. I'll see to it that he comes. I'll go home now,
and give orders requesting him to call. But you two must be there when he
arrives. Come to dinner--or come back with me now. You will stay all
night, Edna."

After some discussion, it was settled that Edna should accompany
Florence home at once, and Larcher join them immediately after dinner.
This arranged, Larcher left the girls to make their excuses to Aunt
Clara and go down-town in a cab. He had some work of his own for the
afternoon. As Edna pressed his hand at parting, she whispered,
nervously: "It's quite thrilling, isn't it?" He faced the blizzard again
with a feeling that the anticipatory thrill of the coming evening's
business was anything but pleasant.




CHAPTER XIII.


MR. TURL WITH HIS BACK TO THE WALL

The living arrangements of the Kenbys were somewhat more exclusive than
those to which the ordinary residents of boarding-houses are subject.
Father and daughter had their meals served in their own principal room,
the one with the large fireplace, the piano, the big red easy chairs, and
the great window looking across the back gardens to the Gothic church.
The small bedchamber opening off this apartment was used by Mr. Kenby.
Florence slept in a rear room on the floor above.

The dinner of three was scarcely over, on this blizzardy evening, when
Mr. Kenby betook himself up-stairs for his whist, to which, he had
confided to the girls, there was promise of additional attraction in the
shape of claret punch, and sundry pleasing indigestibles to be sent in
from a restaurant at eleven o'clock.

"So if Mr. Turl comes at half-past eight, we shall have at least three
hours," said Edna, when Florence and she were alone together.

"How excited you are, dear!" was the reply. "You're almost shaking."

"No, I'm not--it's from the cold."

"Why, I don't think it's cold here."

"It's from looking at the cold, I mean. Doesn't it make you shiver to see
the snow flying around out there in the night? Ugh!" She gazed out at the
whirl of flakes illumined by the electric lights in the street between
the furthest garden and the church. They flung themselves around the
pinnacles, to build higher the white load on the steep roof. Nearer, the
gardens and trees, the tops of walls and fences, the verandas and
shutters, were covered thick with snow, the mass of which was ever
augmented by the myriad rushing particles.

Edna turned from this scene to the fire, before which Florence was
already seated. The sound of an electric door-bell came from the hall.

"It's Tom," cried Edna. "Good boy!--ahead of time." But the negro man
servant announced Mr. Bagley.

A look of displeasure marked Florence's answer. "Tell him my father is
not here--is spending the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence."

"Mr. Bagley!--he _must_ be devoted, to call on such a night!" remarked
Edna, when the servant had gone.

"He calls at all sorts of times. And his invitations--he's forever
wanting us to go to the theatre--or on his automobile--or to dine at
Delmonico's--or to a skating-rink, or somewhere. Refusals don't
discourage him. You'd think he was a philanthropist, determined to give
us some of the pleasures of life. The worst of it is, father sometimes
accepts--for himself."

Another knock at the door, and the servant appeared again. The gentleman
wished to know if he might come in and leave a message with Miss Kenby
for her father.

"Very well," she sighed. "Show him in."

"If he threatens to stay two minutes, I'll see what I can do to make it
chilly," volunteered Edna.

Mr. Bagley entered, red-faced from the weather, but undaunted and
undauntable, and with the unconscious air of conferring a favor on Miss
Kenby by his coming, despite his manifest admiration. Edna he took
somewhat aback by barely noticing at all.

He sat down without invitation, expressed himself in his brassy voice
about the weather, and then, instead of confiding a message, showed a
mind for general conversation by asking Miss Kenby if she had read an
evening paper.

She had not.

"I see that Count What's-his-name's wedding came off all the same, in
spite of the blizzard," said Mr. Bagley. "I s'pose he wasn't going to
take any chances of losing his heiress."

Florence had nothing to say on this subject, but Edna could not
keep silent.

"Perhaps Miss What-you-call-her was just as anxious to make sure of her
title--poor thing!"

"Oh, you mustn't say that," interposed Florence, gently. "Perhaps they
love each other."

"Titled Europeans don't marry American girls for love," said Edna.
"Haven't you been abroad enough to find out that? Or if they ever do,
they keep that motive a secret. You ought to hear them talk, over there.
They can't conceive of an American girl being married for anything _but_
money. It's quite the proper thing to marry one for that, but very bad
form to marry one for love."

"Oh, I don't know," said Bagley, in a manner exceedingly belittling to
Edna's knowledge, "they've got to admit that our girls are a very
charming, superior lot--with a few exceptions." His look placed Miss
Kenby decidedly under the rule, but left poor Edna somewhere else.

"Have they, really?" retorted Edna, in opposition at any cost. "I know
some of them admit it,--and what they say and write is published and
quoted in this country. But the unfavorable things said and written in
Europe about American girls don't get printed on this side. I daresay
that's the reason of your one-sided impression."

Bagley looked hard at the young woman, but ventured another play for the
approval of Miss Kenby:

"Well, it doesn't matter much to me what they say in Europe, but if they
don't admit the American girl is the handsomest, and brightest, and
cleverest, they're a long way off the truth, that's all."

"I'd like to know what you mean by _the_ American girl. There are all
sorts of girls among us, as there are among girls of other nations:
pretty girls and plain ones, bright girls and stupid ones, clever girls
and silly ones, smart girls and dowdy girls. Though I will say, we've got
a larger proportion of smart-looking, well-dressed girls than any other
country. But then we make up for that by so many of us having frightful
_ya-ya_ voices and raw pronunciations. As for our wonderful cleverness,
we have the assurance to talk about things we know nothing of, in such a
way as to deceive some people for awhile. The girls of other nations
haven't, and that's the chief difference."

Bagley looked as if he knew not exactly where he stood in the argument,
or exactly what the argument was about; but he returned to the business
of impressing Florence.

"Well, I'm certain Miss Kenby doesn't talk about things she knows nothing
of. If all American girls were like her, there'd be no question which
nation had the most beautiful and sensible women."

Florence winced at the crude directness. "You are too kind," she said,
perfunctorily.

"As for me," he went on, "I've got my opinion of these European gentlemen
that marry for money."

"We all have, in this country, I hope," said Edna; "except, possibly, the
few silly women that become the victims."

"I should be perfectly willing," pursued Bagley, magnanimously, watching
for the effect on Florence, "to marry a girl without a cent."

"And no doubt perfectly able to afford it," remarked Edna, serenely.

He missed the point, and saw a compliment instead.

"Well, you're not so far out of the way there, if I do say it myself," he
replied, with a stony smile. "I've had my share of good luck. Since the
tide turned in my affairs, some years ago, I've been a steady winner.
Somehow or other, nothing seems able to fail that I go into. It's really
been monotonous. The only money I've lost was some twenty thousand
dollars that a trusted agent absconded with."

"You're mistaken," Florence broke in, with a note of indignation that
made Bagley stare. "He did not abscond. He has disappeared, and your
money may be gone for the present. But there was no crime on his part."

"Why, do you know anything about it?" asked Bagley, in a voice subdued by
sheer wonder.

"I know that Murray Davenport disappeared, and what the newspapers said
about your money; that is all."

"Then how, if I may ask, do you know there wasn't any crime intended? I
inquire merely for information." Bagley was, indeed, as meek as he could
be in his manner of inquiry.

"I _know_ Murray Davenport," was her reply.

"You knew him well?"

"Very well."

"You--took a great interest in him?"

"Very great."

"Indeed!" said Bagley, in pure surprise, and gazing at her as if she
were a puzzle.

"You said you had a message for my father," replied Florence, coldly.

Bagley rose slowly. "Oh, yes,"--he spoke very dryly and looked very
blank,--"please tell him if the storm passes, and the snow lies, I wish
you and he would go sleighing to-morrow. I'll call at half-past two."

"Thank you; I'll tell him."

Bagley summoned up as natural a "good night" as possible, and went. As he
emerged from the dark rear of the hallway to the lighter part, any one
who had been present might have seen a cloudy red look in place of the
blank expression with which he had left the room. "She gave me the dead
freeze-out," he muttered. "The dead freeze-out! So she knew Davenport!
and cared for the poverty-stricken dog, too!"

Startled by a ring at the door-bell, Bagley turned into the common
drawing-room, which was empty, to fasten his gloves. Unseen, he heard
Larcher admitted, ushered back to the Kenby apartment, and welcomed by
the two girls. He paced the drawing-room floor, with a wrathful frown;
then sat down and meditated.

"Well, if he ever does come back to New York, I won't do a thing to him!"
was the conclusion of his meditations, after some minutes.

Some one came down the stairs, and walked back toward the Kenby rooms.
Bagley strode to the drawing-room door, and peered through the hall, in
time to catch sight of the tall, erect figure of a man. This man knocked
at the Kenby door, and, being bidden to enter, passed in and closed it
after him.

"That young dude Turl," mused Bagley, with scorn. "But she won't freeze
him out, I'll bet. I've noticed he usually gets the glad hand, compared
to what I get. Davenport, who never had a thousand dollars of his own at
a time!--and now this light-weight!--compared with _me_ I--I'd give
thirty cents to know what sort of a reception this fellow does get."

Meanwhile, before Turl's arrival, but after Larcher's, the
characteristics of Mr. Bagley had undergone some analysis from Edna Hill.

"And did you notice," said that young lady, in conclusion, "how he simply
couldn't understand anybody's being interested in Davenport? Because
Davenport was a poor man, who never went in for making money. Men of the
Bagley sort are always puzzled when anybody doesn't jump at the chance of
having their friendship. It staggers their intelligence to see
impecunious Davenports--and Larchers--preferred to them."

"Thank you," said Larcher. "I didn't know you were so observant. But
it's easy to imagine the reasoning of the money-grinders in such cases.
The satisfaction of money-greed is to them the highest aim in life; so
what can be more admirable or important than a successful exponent of
that aim? They don't perceive that they, as a rule, are the dullest of
society, though most people court and flatter them on account of their
money. They never guess why it's almost impossible for a man to be a
money-grinder and good company at the same time."

"Why is it?" asked Florence.

"Because in giving himself up entirely to money-getting, he has to
neglect so many things necessary to make a man attractive. But even
before that, the very nature that made him choose money-getting as the
chief end of man was incapable of the finer qualities. There _are_
charming rich men, but either they inherited their wealth, or made it in
some high pursuit to which gain was only an incident, or they are
exceptional cases. But of course Bagley isn't even a fair type of the
regular money-grinder--he's a speculator in anything, and a boor compared
with even the average financial operator."

This sort of talk helped to beguile the nerves of the three young people
while they waited for Turl to come. But as the hands of the clock neared
the appointed minute, Edna's excitement returned, and Larcher found
himself becoming fidgety. What Florence felt could not be divined, as she
sat perfectly motionless, gazing into the fire. She had merely sent up a
request to know if Mr. Turl could call at half-past eight, and had
promptly received the desired answer.

In spite of Larcher's best efforts, a silence fell, which nobody was able
to break as the moment arrived, and so it lasted till steps were heard in
the hall, followed by a gentle rap on the door. Florence quickly rose and
opened. Turl entered, with his customary subdued smile.

Before he had time to notice anything unnatural in the greeting of
Larcher and Miss Hill, Florence had motioned him to one of the chairs
near the fire. It was the chair at the extreme right of the group, so far
toward a recess formed by the piano and a corner of the room that, when
the others had resumed their seats, Turl was almost hemmed in by them and
the piano. Nearest him was Florence, next whom sat Edna, while Larcher
faced him from the other side of the fireplace.

The silence of embarrassment was broken by the unsuspecting visitor, with
a remark about the storm. Instead of answering in kind, Florence, with
her eyes bearing upon his face, said gravely:

"I asked you here to speak of something else--a matter we are all
interested in, though I am far more interested than the others. I want to
know--we all want to know--what has become of Murray Davenport."

Turl's face blenched ever so little, but he made no other sign of being
startled. For some seconds he regarded Florence with a steady inquiry;
then his questioning gaze passed to Edna's face and Larcher's, but
finally returned to hers.

"Why do you ask me?" he said, quietly. "What have I to do with Murray
Davenport?"

Florence turned to Larcher, who thereupon put in, almost apologetically:

"You were in correspondence with him before his disappearance, for
one thing."

"Oh, was I?"

"Yes. He showed me a letter signed by you, in your handwriting. It was
about a meeting you were to have with him."

Turl pondered, till Florence resumed the attack.

"We don't pretend to know where that particular meeting occurred. But we
do know that you visited the last place Murray Davenport was traced to in
New York. We have a great deal of evidence connecting you with him about
the time of his disappearance. We have so much that there would be no use
in your denying that you had some part in his affairs."

She paused, to give him a chance to speak. But he only gazed at her with
a thoughtful, regretful perplexity. So she went on:

"We don't say--yet--whether that part was friendly,
indifferent,--or evil."

The last word, and the searching look that accompanied it, drew a swift
though quiet answer:

"It wasn't evil, I give you my word."

"Then you admit you did have a part in his disappearance?" said
Larcher, quickly.

"I may as well. Miss Kenby says you have evidence of it. You have
been clever--or I have been stupid.--I'm sorry Davenport showed you
my letter."

"Then, as your part was not evil," pursued Florence, with ill-repressed
eagerness, "you can't object to telling us about him. Where is he now?"

"Pardon me, but I do object. I have strong reasons. You must excuse me."

"We will not excuse you!" cried Florence. "We have the right to
know--the right of friend-ship--the right of love. I insist. I will not
take a refusal."

Apprised, by her earnestness, of the determination that confronted him,
Turl reflected. Plainly the situation was a most unpleasant one to him. A
brief movement showed that he would have liked to rise and pace the
floor, for the better thinking out of the question; or indeed escape from
the room; but the impulse was checked at sight of the obstacles to his
passage. Florence gave him time enough to thresh matters out in his mind.
He brought forth a sigh heavy with regret and discomfiture. Then, at
last, his face took on a hardness of resolve unusual to it, and he spoke
in a tone less than ordinarily conciliating:

"I have nothing now to do with Murray Davenport. I am in no way
accountable for his actions or for anything that ever befell him. I have
nothing to say of him. He has disappeared, we shall never see him again;
he was an unhappy man, an unfortunate wretch; in his disappearance there
was nothing criminal, or guilty, or even unkind, on anybody's part. There
is no good in reviving memories of him; let him be forgotten, as he
desired to be. I assure you, I swear to you, he will never reappear,--and
that no good whatever can come of investigating his disappearance. Let
him rest; put him out of your mind, and turn to the future."

To his resolved tone, Florence replied with an outburst of
passionate menace:

"I _will_ know! I'll resort to anything, everything, to make you speak.
As yet we've kept our evidence to ourselves; but if you compel us, we
shall know what to do with it."

Turl let a frown of vexation appear. "I admit, that would put me out.
It's a thing I would go far to avoid. Not that I fear the law; but to
make matters public would spoil much. And I wouldn't make them public,
except in self-defence if the very worst threatened me. I don't think
that contingency is to be feared. Surmise is not proof, and only proof is
to be feared. No; I don't think you would find the law able to make me
speak. Be reconciled to let the secret remain buried; it was what Murray
Davenport himself desired above all things."

"Who authorized you to tell _me_ what Murray Davenport desired? He would
have desired what I desire, I assure you! You sha'n't put me off with a
quiet, determined manner. We shall see whether the law can force you to
speak. You admit you would go far to avoid the test."

"That's because I shouldn't like to be involved in a raking over of the
affairs of Murray Davenport. To me it would be an unhappy business, I do
admit. The man is best forgotten."

"I'll not have you speak of him so! I love him! and I hold you
answerable to me for your knowledge of his disappearance. I'll find a way
to bring you to account!"

Her tearful vehemence brought a wave of tenderness to his face, a quiver
to his lips. Noting this, Larcher quickly intervened:

"In pity to a woman, don't you think you ought to tell her what you know?
If there's no guilt on your part, the disclosure can't harm you. It will
end her suspense, at least. She will be always unhappy till she knows."

"She will grow out of that feeling," said Turl, still watching her
compassionately, as she dried her eyes and endeavored to regain her
composure.

"No, she won't!" put in Edna Hill, warmly. "You don't know her. I must
say, how any man with a spark of chivalry can sit there and refuse to
divulge a few facts that would end a woman's torture of mind, which she's
been undergoing for months, is too much for me!"

Turl, in manifest perturbation, still gazed at Florence. She fixed her
eyes, out of which all threat had passed, pleadingly upon him.

"If you knew what it meant to me to grant your request," said he, "you
wouldn't make it."

"It can't mean more to you than this uncertainty, this dark mystery, is
to me," said Florence, in a broken voice.

"It was Davenport's wish that the matter should remain the closest
secret. You don't know how earnestly he wished that."

"Surely Davenport's wishes can't be endangered through _my_ knowledge of
any secret," Florence replied, with so much sad affection that Turl was
again visibly moved. "But for the misunderstanding which kept us apart,
he would not have had this secret from me. And to think!--he disappeared
the very day Mr. Larcher was to enlighten him. It was cruel! And now you
would keep from me the knowledge of what became of him. I have learned
too well that fate is pitiless; and I find that men are no less so."

Turl's face was a study, showing the play of various reflections. Finally
his ideas seemed to be resolved. "Are we likely to be interrupted here?"
he asked, in a tone of surrender.

"No; I have guarded against that," said Florence, eagerly.

"Then I'll tell you Davenport's story. But you must be patient, and let
me tell it in my own way, and you must promise--all three--never to
reveal it; you'll find no reason in it for divulging it, and great
reason for keeping it secret."

On that condition the promise was given, and Turl, having taken a
moment's preliminary thought, began his account.




CHAPTER XIV.


A STRANGE DESIGN

"Perhaps," said Turl, addressing particularly Florence, "you know already
what was Murray Davenport's state of mind during the months immediately
before his disappearance. Bad luck was said to attend him, and to fall on
enterprises he became associated with. Whatever were the reasons, either
inseparable from him, or special in each case, it's certain that his
affairs did not thrive, with the exception of those in which he played
the merely mechanical part of a drudge under the orders, and for the
profit, of Mr. Bagley. As for bad luck, the name was, in effect,
equivalent to the thing itself, for it cut him out of many opportunities
in the theatrical market, with people not above the superstitions of
their guild; also it produced in him a discouragement, a
self-depreciation, which kept the quality of his work down to the level
of hopeless hackery. For yielding to this influence; for stooping, in his
necessity, to the service of Bagley, who had wronged him; for failing to
find a way out of the slough of mediocre production, poor pay, and
company inferior to him in mind, he began to detest himself.

"He had never been a conceited man, but he could not have helped
measuring his taste and intellect with those of average people, and he
had valued himself accordingly. Another circumstance had forced him to
think well of himself. On his trip to Europe he had met--I needn't say
more; but to have won the regard of a woman herself so admirable was
bound to elevate him in his own esteem. This event in his life had roused
his ambition and filled him with hope. It had made him almost forget, or
rather had braced him to battle confidently with, his demon of reputed
bad luck. You can imagine the effect when the stimulus, the cause of
hope, the reason for striving, was--as he believed--withdrawn from him.
He assumed that this calamity was due to your having learned about the
supposed shadow of bad luck, or at least about his habitual failure. And
while he did this injustice to you, Miss Kenby, he at the same time found
cause in himself for your apparent desertion. He felt he must be
worthless and undeserving. As the pain of losing you, and the hope that
went with you, was the keenest pain, the most staggering humiliation, he
had ever apparently owed to his unsuccess, his evil spirit of fancied
ill-luck, and his personality itself, he now saw these in darker colors
than ever before; he contemplated them more exclusively, he brooded on
them. And so he got into the state I just now described.

"He was dejected, embittered, wearied; sick of his way of livelihood,
sick of the atmosphere he moved in, sick of his reflections, sick of
himself. Life had got to be stale, flat, and unprofitable. His
self-loathing, which steadily grew, would have become a maddening torture
if he hadn't found refuge in a stony apathy. Sometimes he relieved this
by an outburst of bitter or satirical self-exposure, when the mood found
anybody at hand for his confidences. But for the most part he lived in a
lethargic indifference, mechanically going through the form of earning
his living.

"You may wonder why he took the trouble even to go through that form. It
may have been partly because he lacked the instinct--or perhaps the
initiative--for active suicide, and was too proud to starve at the
expense or encumbrance of other people. But there was another cause,
which of itself sufficed to keep him going. I may have said--or given the
impression--that he utterly despaired of ever getting anything worth
having out of life. And so he would have, I dare say, but for the
not-entirely-quenchable spark of hope which youth keeps in reserve
somewhere, and which in his case had one peculiar thing to sustain it.

"That peculiar thing, on which his spark of hope kept alive, though its
existence was hardly noticed by the man himself, was a certain idea which
he had conceived,--he no longer knew when, nor in what mental
circumstances. It was an idea at first vague; relegated to the cave of
things for the time forgotten, to be occasionally brought forth by
association. Sought or unsought, it came forth with a sudden new
attractiveness some time after Murray Davenport's life and self had grown
to look most dismal in his eyes. He began to turn it about, and develop
it. He was doing this, all the while fascinated by the idea, at the time
of Larcher's acquaintance with him, but doing it in so deep-down a region
of his mind that no one would have suspected what was beneath his
languid, uncaring manner. He was perfecting his idea, which he had
adopted as a design of action for himself to realize,--perfecting it to
the smallest incidental detail.

"This is what he had conceived: Man, as everybody knows, is more or less
capable of voluntary self-illusion. By pretending to himself to believe
that a thing is true--except where the physical condition is concerned,
or where the case is complicated by other people's conduct--he can give
himself something of the pleasurable effect that would arise from its
really being true. We see a play, and for the time make ourselves believe
that the painted canvas is the Forest of Arden, that the painted man is
Orlando, and the painted woman Rosalind. When we read Homer, we make
ourselves believe in the Greek heroes and gods. We _know_ these
make-believes are not realities, but we _feel_ that they are; we have the
sensations that would be effected by their reality. Now this
self-deception can be carried to great lengths. We know how children
content themselves with imaginary playmates and possessions. As a gift,
or a defect, we see remarkable cases of willing self-imposition. A man
will tell a false tale of some exploit or experience of his youth until,
after years, he can't for his life swear whether it really occurred or
not. Many people invent whole chapters to add to their past histories,
and come finally to believe them. Even where the _knowing_ part of the
mind doesn't grant belief, the imagining part--and through it the feeling
part--does; and, as conduct and mood are governed by feeling, the effect
of a self-imposed make-believe on one's behavior and disposition--on
one's life, in short--may be much the same as that of actuality. All
depends on the completeness and constancy with which the make-believe is
supported.

"Well, Davenport's idea was to invent for himself a new past history; not
only that, but a new identity: to imagine himself another man; and, as
that man, to begin life anew. As he should imagine, so he would feel and
act, and, by continuing this course indefinitely, he would in time
sufficiently believe himself that other man. To all intents and purposes,
he would in time become that man. Even though at the bottom of his mind
he should always be formally aware of the facts, yet the force of his
imagination and feeling would in time be so potent that the man he coldly
_knew_ himself to be--the actual Murray Davenport--would be the stranger,
while the man he _felt_ himself to be would be his more intimate self.
Needless to say, this new self would be a very different man from the old
Murray Davenport. His purpose was to get far away from the old self, the
old recollections, the old environment, and all the old adverse
circumstances. And this is what his mind was full of at the time when
you, Larcher, were working with him.

"He imagined a man such as would be produced by the happiest conditions;
one of those fortunate fellows who seem destined for easy, pleasant paths
all their lives. A habitually lucky man, in short, with all the
cheerfulness and urbanity that such a man ought to possess. Davenport
believed that as such a man he would at least not be handicapped by the
name or suspicion of ill-luck.

"I needn't enumerate the details with which he rounded out this new
personality he meant to adopt. And I'll not take time now to recite the
history he invented to endow this new self with. You may be sure he made
it as happy a history as such a man would wish to look back on. One
circumstance was necessary to observe in its construction. In throwing
over his old self, he must throw over all its acquaintances, and all the
surroundings with which it had been closely intimate,--not cities and
public resorts, of course, which both selves might be familiar with, but
rooms he had lived in, and places too much associated with the old
identity of Murray Davenport. Now the new man would naturally have made
many acquaintances in the course of his life. He would know people in the
places where he had lived. Would he not keep up friendships with some of
these people? Well, Davenport made it that the man had led a shifting
life, had not remained long enough in one spot to give it a permanent
claim upon him. The scenes of his life were laid in places which
Davenport had visited but briefly; which he had agreeable recollections
of, but would never visit again. All this was to avoid the necessity of a
too definite localizing of the man's past, and the difficulty about old
friends never being reencountered. Henceforth, or on the man's beginning
to have a real existence in the body of Davenport, more lasting
associations and friendships could be formed, and these could be
cherished as if they had merely supplanted former ones, until in time a
good number could be accumulated for the memory to dwell on.

"But quite as necessary as providing a history and associations for the
new self, it was to banish those of the old self. If the new man should
find himself greeted as Murray Davenport by somebody who knew the latter,
a rude shock would be administered to the self-delusion so carefully
cultivated. And this might happen at any time. It would be easy enough to
avoid the old Murray Davenport's haunts, but he might go very far and
still be in hourly risk of running against one of the old Murray
Davenport's acquaintances. But even this was a small matter to the
constant certainty of his being recognized as the old Murray Davenport by
himself. Every time he looked into a mirror, or passed a plate-glass
window, there would be the old face and form to mock his attempt at
mental transformation with the reminder of his physical identity.
Even if he could avoid being confronted many times a day by the
reflected face of Murray Davenport, he must yet be continually brought
back to his inseparability from that person by the familiar effect of the
face on the glances of other people,--for you know that different faces
evoke different looks from observers, and the look that one man is
accustomed to meet in the eyes of people who notice him is not precisely
the same as that another man is accustomed to meet there. To come to the
point, Murray Davenport saw that to make his change of identity really
successful, to avoid a thousand interruptions to his self-delusion, to
make himself another man in the world's eyes and his own, and all the
more so in his own through finding himself so in the world's, he must
transform himself physically--in face and figure--beyond the recognition
of his closest friend--beyond the recognition even of himself. How was it
to be done?

"Do you think he was mad in setting himself at once to solve the problem
as if its solution were a matter of course? Wait and see.

"In the old fairy tales, such transformations were easily accomplished by
the touch of a wand or the incantation of a wizard. In a newer sort of
fairy tale, we have seen them produced by marvellous drugs. In real life
there have been supposed changes of identity, or rather cases of dual
identity, the subject alternating from one to another as he shifts from
one to another set of memories. These shifts are not voluntary, nor is
such a duality of memory and habit to be possessed at will. As Davenport
wasn't a 'subject' of this sort by caprice of nature, and as, even if he
had been, he couldn't have chosen his new identity to suit himself, or
ensured its permanency, he had to resort to the deliberate exercise of
imagination and wilful self-deception I have described. Now even in those
cases of dual personality, though there is doubtless some change in
facial expression, there is not an actual physical transformation such as
Davenport's purpose required. As he had to use deliberate means to work
the mental change, so he must do to accomplish the physical one. He must
resort to that which in real life takes the place of fairy wands, the
magic of witches, and the drugs of romance,--he must employ Science and
the physical means it afforded.

"Earlier in life he had studied medicine and surgery. Though he had never
arrived at the practice of these, he had retained a scientific interest
in them, and had kept fairly well informed of new experiments. His
general reading, too, had been wide, and he had rambled upon many curious
odds and ends of information. He thus knew something of methods employed
by criminals to alter their facial appearance so as to avoid recognition:
not merely such obvious and unreliable devices as raising or removing
beards, changing the arrangement and color of hair, and fattening or
thinning the face by dietary means,--devices that won't fool a close
acquaintance for half a minute,--not merely these, but the practice of
tampering with the facial muscles by means of the knife, so as to alter
the very hang of the face itself. There is in particular a certain
muscle, the cutting of which, and allowing the skin to heal over the
wound, makes a very great alteration of outward effect. The result of
this operation, however, is not an improvement in looks, and as
Davenport's object was to fabricate a pleasant, attractive countenance,
he could not resort to it without modifications, and, besides that, he
meant to achieve a far more thorough transformation than it would
produce. But the knowledge of this operation was something to start with.
It was partly to combat such devices of criminals, that Bertillon
invented his celebrated system of identification by measurements. A
slight study of that system gave Davenport valuable hints. He was
reminded by Bertillon's own words, of what he already knew, that the skin
of the face--the entire skin of three layers, that is, not merely the
outside covering--may be compared to a curtain, and the underlying
muscles to the cords by which it is drawn aside. The constant drawing of
these cords, you know, produces in time the facial wrinkles, always
perpendicular to the muscles causing them. If you sever a number of these
cords, you alter the entire drape of the curtain. It was for Davenport to
learn what severances would produce, not the disagreeable effect of the
operation known to criminals, but a result altogether pleasing. He was to
discover and perform a whole complex set of operations instead of the
single operation of the criminals; and each operation must be of a
delicacy that would ensure the desired general effect of all. And this
would be but a small part of his task.

"He was aware of what is being done for the improvement of badly-formed
noses, crooked mouths, and such defects, by what its practitioners call
'plastic surgery,' or 'facial' or 'feature surgery.' From the 'beauty
shops,' then, as the newspapers call them, he got the idea of changing
his nose by cutting and folding back the skin, surgically eliminating
the hump, and rearranging the skin over the altered bridge so as to
produce perfect straightness when healed. From the same source came the
hint of cutting permanent dimples in his cheeks,--a detail that fell
in admirably with his design of an agreeable countenance. The dimples
would be, in fact, but skilfully made scars, cut so as to last. What
are commonly known as scars, if artistically wrought, could be made to
serve the purpose, too, of slight furrows in parts of the face where
such furrows would aid his plan,--at the ends of his lips, for
instance, where a quizzical upturning of the corners of the mouth could
be imitated by means of them; and at other places where lines of mirth
form in good-humored faces. Fortunately, his own face was free from
wrinkles, perhaps because of the indifference his melancholy had taken
refuge in. It was, indeed, a good face to build on, as actors say in
regard to make-up.

"But changing the general shape of the face--the general drape of the
curtain--and the form of the prominent features, would not begin to
suffice for the complete alteration that Davenport intended. The hair
arrangement, the arch of the eyebrows, the color of the eyes, the
complexion, each must play its part in the business. He had worn his hair
rather carelessly over his forehead, and plentiful at the back of the
head and about the ears. Its line of implantation at the forehead was
usually concealed by the hair itself. By brushing it well back, and
having it cut in a new fashion, he could materially change the
appearance of his forehead; and by keeping it closely trimmed behind, he
could do as much for the apparent shape of his head at the rear. If the
forehead needed still more change, the line of implantation could be
altered by removing hairs with tweezers; and the same painful but
possible means must be used to affect the curvature of the eyebrows. By
removing hairs from the tops of the ends, and from the bottom of the
middle, he would be able to raise the arch of each eyebrow noticeably.
This removal, along with the clearing of hair from the forehead, and
thinning the eyelashes by plucking out, would contribute to another
desirable effect. Davenport's eyes were what are commonly called gray. In
the course of his study of Bertillon, he came upon the reminder that--to
use the Frenchman's own words--'the gray eye of the average person is
generally only a blue one with a more or less yellowish tinge, which
appears gray solely on account of the shadow cast by the eyebrows, etc.'
Now, the thinning of the eyebrows and lashes, and the clearing of the
forehead of its hanging locks, must considerably decrease that shadow.
The resultant change in the apparent hue of the eyes would be helped by
something else, which I shall come to later. The use of the tweezers on
the eyebrows was doubly important, for, as Bertillon says, 'no part of
the face contributes a more important share to the general expression of
the physiognomy, seen from in front, than the eyebrow.' The complexion
would be easy to deal with. His way of life--midnight hours,
abstemiousness, languid habits--had produced bloodless cheeks. A summary
dosing with tonic drugs, particularly with iron, and a reformation of
diet, would soon bestow a healthy tinge, which exercise, air, proper
food, and rational living would not only preserve but intensify.

"But merely changing the face, and the apparent shape of the head, would
not do. As long as his bodily form, walk, attitude, carriage of the head,
remained the same, so would his general appearance at a distance or when
seen from behind. In that case he would not be secure against the
disillusioning shock of self-recognition on seeing his body reflected in
some distant glass; or of being greeted as Murray Davenport by some
former acquaintance coming up behind him. His secret itself might be
endangered, if some particularly curious and discerning person should go
in for solving the problem of this bodily resemblance to Murray Davenport
in a man facially dissimilar. The change in bodily appearance, gait, and
so forth, would be as simple to effect as it was necessary. Hitherto he
had leaned forward a little, and walked rather loosely. A pair of the
strongest shoulder-braces would draw back his shoulders, give him
tightness and straightness, increase the apparent width of his frame,
alter the swing of his arms, and entail--without effort on his part--a
change in his attitude when standing, his gait in walking, his way of
placing his feet and holding his head at all times. The consequent
throwing back of the head would be a factor in the facial alteration,
too: it would further decrease the shadow on the eyes, and consequently
further affect their color. And not only that, for you must have noticed
the great difference in appearance in a face as it is inclined forward or
thrown back,--as one looks down along it, or up along it. This accounts
for the failure of so many photographs to look like the people they're
taken of,--a stupid photographer makes people hold up their faces, to get
a stronger light, who are accustomed ordinarily to carry their faces
slightly averted.

"You understand, of course, that only his entire _appearance_ would have
to be changed; not any of his measurements. His friends must be unable to
recognize him, even vaguely as resembling some one they couldn't 'place.'
But there was, of course, no anthropometric record of him in existence,
such as is taken of criminals to ensure their identification by the
Bertillon system; so his measurements could remain unaffected without
the least harm to his plan. Neither would he have to do anything to his
hands; it is remarkable how small an impression the members of the body
make on the memory. This is shown over and over again in attempts to
identify bodies injured so that recognition by the face is impossible.
Apart from the face, it's only the effect of the whole body, and that
rather in attitude and gait than in shape, which suggests the identity to
the observer's eye; and of course the suggestion stops there if not borne
out by the face. But if Davenport's hands might go unchanged, he decided
that his handwriting should not. It was a slovenly, scratchy degeneration
of the once popular Italian script, and out of keeping with the new
character he was to possess. The round, erect English calligraphy taught
in most primary schools is easily picked up at any age, with a little
care and practice; so he chose that, and found that by writing small he
could soon acquire an even, elegant hand. He would need only to go
carefully until habituated to the new style, with which he might defy
even the handwriting experts, for it's a maxim of theirs that a man who
would disguise his handwriting always tries to make it look like that of
an uneducated person.

"There would still remain the voice to be made over,--quite as important
a matter as the face. In fact, the voice will often contradict an
identification which the eyes would swear to, in cases of remarkable
resemblance; or it will reveal an identity which some eyes would fail to
notice, where time has changed appearances. Thanks to some out-of-the-way
knowledge Davenport had picked up in the theoretic study of music and
elocution, he felt confident to deal with the voice difficulty. I'll come
to that later, when I arrive at the performance of all these operations
which he was studying out; for of course he didn't make the slightest
beginning on the actual transformation until his plan was complete and
every facility offered. That was not till the last night you saw him,
Larcher,--the night before his disappearance.

"For operations so delicate, meant to be so lasting in their effect, so
important to the welfare of his new self, Davenport saw the necessity of
a perfect design before the first actual touch. He could not erase
errors, or paint them over, as an artist does. He couldn't rub out
misplaced lines and try again, as an actor can in 'making up.' He had
learned a good deal about theatrical make-up, by the way, in his contact
with the stage. His plan was to use first the materials employed by
actors, until he should succeed in producing a countenance to his
liking; and then, by surgical means, to make real and permanent the sham
and transient effects of paint-stick and pencil. He would violently
compel nature to register the disguise and maintain it.

"He was favored in one essential matter--that of a place in which to
perform his operations with secrecy, and to let the wounds heal at
leisure. To be observed during the progress of the transformation would
spoil his purpose and be highly inconvenient besides. He couldn't lock
himself up in his room, or in any new lodging to which he might move, and
remain unseen for weeks, without attracting an attention that would
probably discover his secret. In a remote country place he would be more
under curiosity and suspicion than in New York. He must live in comfort,
in quarters which he could provision; must have the use of mirrors, heat,
water, and such things; in short, he could not resort to uninhabited
solitudes, yet must have a place where his presence might be unknown to a
living soul--a place he could enter and leave with absolute secrecy. He
couldn't rent a place without precluding that secrecy, as investigations
would be made on his disappearance, and his plans possibly ruined by the
intrusion of the police. It was a lucky circumstance which he owed to
you, Larcher,--one of the few lucky circumstances that ever came to the
old Murray Davenport, and so to be regarded as a happy augury for his
design,--that led him into the room and esteem of Mr. Bud down on the
water-front.

"He learned that Mr. Bud was long absent from the room; obtained his
permission to use the room for making sketches of the river during his
absence; got a duplicate key; and waited until Mr. Bud should be kept
away in the country for a long enough period. Nobody but Mr. Bud--and
you, Larcher--knew that Davenport had access to the room. Neither of you
two could ever be sure when, or if at all, he availed himself of that
access. If he left no traces in the room, you couldn't know he had been
there. You could surmise, and might investigate, but, if you did that, it
wouldn't be with the knowledge of the police; and at the worst, Davenport
could take you into his confidence. As for the rest of the world, nothing
whatever existed, or should exist, to connect him with that room. He need
only wait for his opportunity. He contrived always to be informed of Mr.
Bud's intentions for the immediate future; and at last he learned that
the shipment of turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas would keep the old
man busy in the country for six or seven weeks without a break. He was
now all ready to put his design into execution."




CHAPTER XV.


TURL'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

"On the very afternoon," Turl went on, "before the day when Davenport
could have Mr. Bud's room to himself, Bagley sent for him in order to
confide some business to his charge. This was a customary occurrence,
and, rather than seem to act unusually just at that time, Davenport went
and received Bagley's instructions. With them, he received a lot of
money, in bills of large denomination, mostly five-hundreds, to be placed
the next day for Bagley's use. In accepting this charge, or rather in
passively letting it fall upon him, Davenport had no distinct idea as to
whether he would carry it out. He had indeed little thought that evening
of anything but his purpose, which he was to begin executing on the
morrow. As not an hour was to be lost, on account of the time necessary
for the healing of the operations, he would either have to despatch
Bagley's business very quickly or neglect it altogether. In the latter
case, what about the money in his hands? The sum was nearly equal to
that which Bagley had morally defrauded him of.

"This coincidence, coming at that moment, seemed like the work of fate.
Bagley was to be absent from town a week, and Murray Davenport was about
to undergo a metamorphosis that would make detection impossible. It
really appeared as though destiny had gone in for an act of poetic
justice; had deliberately planned a restitution; had determined to
befriend the new man as it had afflicted the old. For the new man would
have to begin existence with a very small cash balance, unless he
accepted this donation from chance. If there were any wrong in accepting
it, that wrong would not be the new man's; it would be the bygone Murray
Davenport's; but Murray Davenport was morally entitled to that much--and
more--of Bagley's money. To be sure, there was the question of breach of
trust; but Bagley's conduct had been a breach of friendship and common
humanity. Bagley's act had despoiled Davenport's life of a hundred times
more than this sum now represented to Bagley.

"Well, Davenport was pondering this on his way home from Bagley's rooms,
when he met Larcher. Partly a kind feeling toward a friend he was about
to lose with the rest of his old life, partly a thought of submitting the
question of this possible restitution to a less interested mind, made him
invite Larcher to his room. There, by a pretended accident, he contrived
to introduce the question of the money; but you had no light to volunteer
on the subject, Larcher, and Davenport didn't see fit to press you. As
for your knowing him to have the money in his possession, and your
eventual inferences if he should disappear without using it for Bagley,
the fact would come out anyhow as soon as Bagley returned to New York.
And whatever you would think, either in condemnation or justification,
would be thought of the old Murray Davenport. It wouldn't matter to the
new man. During that last talk with you, Davenport had such an impulse of
communicativeness--such a desire for a moment's relief from his
long-maintained secrecy--that he was on the verge of confiding his
project to you, under bond of silence. But he mastered the impulse; and
you had no sooner gone than he made his final preparations.

"He left the house next morning immediately after breakfast, with as few
belongings as possible. He didn't even wear an overcoat. Besides the
Bagley money, he had a considerable sum of his own, mostly the result of
his collaboration with you, Larcher. In a paper parcel, he carried a few
instruments from those he had kept since his surgical days, a set of
shaving materials, and some theatrical make-up pencils he had bought the
day before. He was satisfied to leave his other possessions to their
fate. He paid his landlady in advance to a time by which she couldn't
help feeling that he was gone for good; she would provide for a new
tenant accordingly, and so nobody would be a loser by his act.

"He went first to a drug-store, and supplied himself with medicines of
tonic and nutritive effect, as well as with antiseptic and healing
preparations, lint, and so forth. These he had wrapped with his parcel.
His reason for having things done up in stout paper, and not packed as
for travelling, was that the paper could be easily burned afterward,
whereas a trunk, boxes, or gripsacks would be more difficult to put out
of sight. Everything he bought that day, therefore, was put into
wrapping-paper. His second visit was to a department store, where he got
the linen and other articles he would need during his seclusion,--sheets,
towels, handkerchiefs, pajamas, articles of toilet, and so forth. He
provided himself here with a complete ready-made 'outfit' to appear in
immediately after his transformation, until he could be supplied by
regular tailors, haberdashers, and the rest. It included a hat, shoes,
everything,--particularly shoulder braces; he put those on when he came
to be fitted with the suit and overcoat. Of course, nothing of the old
Davenport's was to emerge with the new man.

"Well, he left his purchases to be called for. His paper parcel,
containing the instruments, drugs, and so forth, he thought best to
cling to. From the department store he went to some other shops in the
neighborhood and bought various necessaries which he stowed in his
pockets. While he was eating luncheon, he thought over the matter of the
money again, but came to no decision, though the time for placing the
funds as Bagley had directed was rapidly going by, and the bills
themselves were still in Davenport's inside coat pocket. His next
important call was at one of Clark & Rexford's grocery stores. He had
got up most carefully his order for provisions, and it took a large part
of the afternoon to fill. The salesmen were under the impression that he
was buying for a yacht, a belief which he didn't disturb. His parcels
here made a good-sized pyramid. Before they were all wrapped, he went
out, hailed the shabbiest-looking four-wheeled cab in sight, and was
driven to the department store. The things he had bought there were put
on the cab seat beside the driver. He drove to the grocery store, and
had his parcels from there stowed inside the cab, which they almost
filled up. But he managed to make room for himself, and ordered the man
to drive to and along South Street until told to stop. It was now quite
dark, and he thought the driver might retain a less accurate memory of
the exact place if the number wasn't impressed on his mind by being
mentioned and looked for.

"However that may have been, the cab arrived at a fortunate moment, when
Mr. Bud's part of the street was deserted, and the driver showed no great
interest in the locality,--it was a cold night, and he was doubtless
thinking of his dinner. Davenport made quick work of conveying his
parcels into the open hallway of Mr. Bud's lodging-house, and paying the
cabman. As soon as the fellow had driven off, Davenport began moving his
things up to Mr. Bud's room. When he had got them all safe, the door
locked, and the gas-stove lighted, he unbuttoned his coat and his eye
fell on Bagley's money, crowding his pocket. It was too late now to use
it as Bagley had ordered. Davenport wondered what he would do with it,
but postponed the problem; he thrust the package of bills out of view,
behind the books on Mr. Bud's shelf, and turned to the business he had
come for. No one had seen him take possession of the room; no eye but
the cabman's had followed him to the hallway below, and the cabman would
probably think he was merely housing his goods there till he should go
aboard some vessel in the morning.

"A very short time would be employed in the operations themselves. It was
the healing of the necessary cuts that would take weeks. The room was
well enough equipped for habitation. Davenport himself had caused the
gas-stove to be put in, ostensibly as a present for Mr. Bud. To keep the
coal-stove in fuel, without betraying himself, would have been too great
a problem. As for the gas-stove, he had placed it so that its light
couldn't reach the door, which had no transom and possessed a shield for
the keyhole. For water, he need only go to the rear of the hall, to a
bath-room, of which Mr. Bud kept a key hung up in his own apartment.
During his secret residence in the house, Davenport visited the bath-room
only at night, taking a day's supply of water at a time. He had first
been puzzled by the laundry problem, but it proved very simple. His
costume during his time of concealment was limited to pajamas and
slippers. Of handkerchiefs he had provided a large stock. When the towels
and other articles did require laundering, he managed it in a wash-basin.
On the first night, he only unpacked and arranged his things, and slept.
At daylight he sat down before a mirror, and began to design his new
physiognomy with the make-up pencils. By noon he was ready to lay aside
the pencils and substitute instruments of more lasting effect. Don't
fear, Miss Hill, that I'm going to describe his operations in detail.
I'll pass them over entirely, merely saying that after two days of work
he was elated with the results he could already foresee upon the healing
of the cuts. Such pain as there was, he had braced himself to endure. The
worst of it came when he exchanged knives for tweezers, and attacked his
eyebrows. This was really a tedious business, and he was glad to find
that he could produce a sufficient increase of curve without going the
full length of his design. In his necessary intervals of rest, he
practised the new handwriting. He was most regular in his diet, sleep,
and use of medicines. After a few days, he had nothing left to do, as far
as the facial operations were concerned, but attend to their healing. He
then began to wear the shoulder-braces, and took up the matter of voice.

"But meanwhile, in the midst of his work one day,--his second day of
concealment, it was,--he had a little experience that produced quite as
disturbing a sensation in him as Robinson Crusoe felt when he came
across the footprints. While he was busy in front of his mirror, in the
afternoon, he heard steps on the stairs outside. He waited for them, as
usual, to pass his door and go on, as happened when lodgers went in and
out. But these steps halted at his own door, and were followed by a
knock. He held his breath. The knock was repeated, and he began to fear
the knocker would persist indefinitely. But at last the steps were heard
again, this time moving away. He then thought he recognized them as
yours, Larcher, and he was dreadfully afraid for the next few days that
they might come again. But his feeling of security gradually returned.
Later, in the weeks of his sequestration in that room, he had many little
alarms at the sound of steps on the stairs and in the passages, as people
went to and from the rooms above. This was particularly the case after he
had begun the practice of his new voice, for, though the sound he made
was low, it might have been audible to a person just outside his door.
But he kept his ear alert, and the voice-practice was shut off at the
slightest intimation of a step on the stairs.

"The sound of his voice-practice probably could not have been heard many
feet from his door, or at all through the wall, floor, or ceiling. If it
had been, it would perhaps have seemed a low, monotonous, continuous
sort of growl, difficult to place or identify.

"You know most speaking voices are of greater potential range than their
possessors show in the use of them. This is particularly true of American
voices. There are exceptions enough, but as a nation, men and women, we
speak higher than we need to; that is, we use only the upper and middle
notes, and neglect the lower ones. No matter how good a man's voice is
naturally in the low register, the temptation of example in most cases is
to glide into the national twang. To a certain extent, Davenport had done
this. But, through his practice of singing, as well as of reading verse
aloud for his own pleasure, he knew that his lower voice was, in the
slang phrase, 'all there.' He knew, also, of a somewhat curious way of
bringing the lower voice into predominance; of making it become the
habitual voice, to the exclusion of the higher tones. Of course one can
do this in time by studied practice, but the constant watchfulness is
irksome and may lapse at any moment. The thing was, to do it once and for
all, so that the quick unconscious response to the mind's order to speak
would be from the lower voice and no other. Davenport took Mr. Bud's
dictionary, opened it at U, and recited one after another all the words
beginning with that letter as pronounced in 'under.' This he did through
the whole list, again and again, hour after hour, monotonously, in the
lower register of his voice. He went through this practice every day,
with the result that his deeper notes were brought into such activity as
to make them supplant the higher voice entirely. Pronunciation has
something to do with voice effect, and, besides, his complete
transformation required some change in that on its own account. This was
easy, as Davenport had always possessed the gift of imitating dialects,
foreign accents, and diverse ways of speech. Earlier in life he had
naturally used the pronunciation of refined New Englanders, which is
somewhat like that of the educated English. In New York, in his
association with people from all parts of the country, he had lapsed into
the slovenly pronunciation which is our national disgrace. He had only to
return to the earlier habit, and be as strict in adhering to it as in
other details of the well-ordered life his new self was to lead.

"As I said, he was provided with shaving materials. But he couldn't cut
his own hair in the new way he had decided on. He had had it cut in the
old fashion a few days before going into retirement, but toward the end
of that retirement it had grown beyond its usual length. All he could do
about it was to place himself between two mirrors, and trim the longest
locks. Fortunately, he had plenty of time for this operation. After the
first two or three weeks, his wounds required very little attention each
day. His vocal and handwriting exercises weren't to be carried to excess,
and so he had a good deal of time on his hands. Some of this, after his
face was sufficiently toward healing, he spent in physical exercise,
using chairs and other objects in place of the ordinary calisthenic
implements. He was very leisurely in taking his meals, and gave the
utmost care to their composition from the preserved foods at his
disposal. He slept from nightfall till dawn, and consequently needed no
artificial light. For pure air, he kept a window open all night, being
well wrapped up, but in the daytime he didn't risk leaving open more than
the cracks above and below the sashes, for fear some observant person
might suspect a lodger in the room. Sometimes he read, renewing an
acquaintance which the new man he was beginning to be must naturally have
made, in earlier days, with Scott's novels. He had necessarily designed
that the new man should possess the same literature and general knowledge
as the bygone Davenport had possessed. For already, as soon as the
general effect of the operations began to emerge from bandages and
temporary discoloration, he had begun to consider Davenport as
bygone,--as a man who had come to that place one evening, remained a
brief, indefinite time, and vanished, leaving behind him his clothes and
sundry useful property which he, the new man who found himself there,
might use without fear of objection from the former owner.

"The sense of new identity came with perfect ease at the first bidding.
It was not marred by such evidences of the old fact as still remained.
These were obliterated one by one. At last the healing was complete;
there was nothing to do but remove all traces of anybody's presence in
the room during Mr. Bud's absence, and submit the hair to the skill of a
barber. The successor of Davenport made a fire in the coal stove,
starting it with the paper the parcels had been wrapped in; and feeding
it first with Davenport's clothes, and then with linen, towels, and other
inflammable things brought in for use during the metamorphosis. He made
one large bundle of the shoes, cans, jars, surgical instruments,
everything that couldn't be easily burnt, and wrapped them in a sheet,
along with the dead ashes of the conflagration in the stove. He then made
up Mr. Bud's bed, restored the room to its original appearance in every
respect, and waited for night. As soon as access to the bath-room was
safe, he made his final toilet, as far as that house was concerned, and
put on his new clothes for the first time. About three o'clock in the
morning, when the street was entirely deserted, he lugged his
bundle--containing the unburnable things--down the stairs and across the
street, and dropped it into the river. Even if the things were ever
found, they were such as might come from a vessel, and wouldn't point
either to Murray Davenport or to Mr. Bud's room.

"He walked about the streets, in a deep complacent enjoyment of his new
sensations, till almost daylight. He then took breakfast in a market
restaurant, after which he went to a barber's shop--one of those that
open in time for early-rising customers--and had his hair cut in the
desired fashion. From there he went to a down-town store and bought a
supply of linen and so forth, with a trunk and hand-bag, so that he could
'arrive' properly at a hotel. He did arrive at one, in a cab, with bag
and baggage, straight from the store. Having thus acquired an address, he
called at a tailor's, and gave his orders. In the tailor's shop, he
recalled that he had left the Bagley money in Mr. Bud's room, behind the
books on the shelf. He hadn't yet decided what to do with that money, but
in any case it oughtn't to remain where it was; so he went back to Mr.
Bud's room, entering the house unnoticed.

"He took the money from the cover it was in, and put it in an inside
pocket. He hadn't slept during the previous night or day, and the effects
of this necessary abstinence were now making themselves felt, quite
irresistibly. So he relighted the gas-stove, and sat down to rest awhile
before going to his hotel. His drowsiness, instead of being cured, was
only increased by this taste of comfort; and the bed looked very
tempting. To make a long story short, he partially undressed, lay down on
the bed, with his overcoat for cover, and rapidly succumbed.

"He was awakened by a knock at the door of the room. It was night, and
the lights and shadows produced by the gas-stove were undulating on the
floor and walls. He waited till the person who had knocked went away; he
then sprang up, threw on the few clothes he had taken off, smoothed down
the cover of the bed, turned the gas off from the stove, and left the
room for the last time, locking the door behind him. As he got to the
foot of the stairs, two men came into the hallway from the street. One of
them happened to elbow him in passing, and apologized. He had already
seen their faces in the light of the street-lamp, and he thanked his
stars for the knock that had awakened him in time. The men were Mr. Bud
and Larcher."

Turl paused; for the growing perception visible on the faces of Florence
and Larcher, since the first hint of the truth had startled both, was now
complete. It was their turn for whatever intimations they might have to
make, ere he should go on. Florence was pale and speechless, as indeed
was Larcher also; but what her feelings were, besides the wonder shared
with him, could not be guessed.




CHAPTER XVI.


AFTER THE DISCLOSURE

The person who spoke first was Edna Hill. She had seen Turl less often
than the other two had, and Davenport never at all. Hence there was no
great stupidity in her remark to Turl:

"But I don't understand. I know Mr. Larcher met a man coming through that
hallway one night, but it turned out to be you."

"Yes, it was I," was the quiet answer. "The name of the new man, you see,
was Francis Turl."

As light flashed over Edna's face, Larcher found his tongue to express a
certain doubt: "But how could that be? Davenport had a letter from you
before he--before any transformation could have begun. I saw it the night
before he disappeared--it was signed Francis Turl."

Turl smiled. "Yes, and he asked if you could infer the writer's
character. He wondered if you would hit on anything like the character
he had constructed out of his imagination. He had already begun
practical experiments in the matter of handwriting alone. Naturally some
of that practice took the shape of imaginary correspondence. What could
better mark the entire separateness of the new man from the old than
letters between the two? Such letters would imply a certain brief
acquaintance, which might serve a turn if some knowledge of Murray
Davenport's affairs ever became necessary to the new man's conduct. This
has already happened in the matter of the money, for example. The name,
too, was selected long before the disappearance. That explains the
letter you saw. I didn't dare tell this earlier in the story,--I feared
to reveal too suddenly what had become of Murray Davenport. It was best
to break it as I have, was it not?"

He looked at Florence wistfully, as if awaiting judgment. She made an
involuntary movement of drawing away, and regarded him with something
almost like repulsion.

"It's so strange," she said, in a hushed voice. "I can't believe it. I
don't know what to think."

Turl sighed patiently. "You can understand now why I didn't want to tell.
Perhaps you can appreciate what it was to me to revive the past,--to
interrupt the illusion, to throw it back. So much had been done to
perfect it; my dearest thought was to preserve it. I shall preserve it,
of course. I know you will keep the secret, all of you; and that you'll
support the illusion."

"Of course," replied Larcher. Edna, for once glad to have somebody's lead
to follow, perfunctorily followed it. But Florence said nothing. Her mind
was yet in a whirl. She continued to gaze at Turl, a touch of bewildered
aversion in her look.

"I had meant to leave New York," he went on, watching her with cautious
anxiety, "in a very short time, and certainly not to seek any of the
friends or haunts of the old cast-off self. But when I got into the
street that night, after you and Mr. Bud had passed me, Larcher, I fell
into a strong curiosity as to what you and he might have to say about
Davenport. This was Mr. Bud's first visit to town since the
disappearance, so I was pretty sure your talk would be mainly about that.
Also, I wondered whether he would detect any trace of my long occupancy
of his room. I found I'd forgot to bring out the cover taken from the
bankbills. Suppose that were seen, and you recognized it, what theories
would you form? For the sake of my purpose I ought to have put curiosity
aside, but it was too keen; I resolved to gratify it this one time only.
The hallway was perfectly dark, and all I had to do was to wait there
till you and Mr. Bud should come out. I knew he would accompany you
down-stairs for a good-night drink in the saloon when you left. The
slightest remark would give me some insight into your general views of
the affair. I waited accordingly. You soon came down together. I stood
well out of your way in the darkness as you passed. And you can imagine
what a revelation it was to me when I heard your talk. Do you remember?
Davenport--it couldn't be anybody else--had disappeared just too soon to
learn that 'the young lady'--so Mr. Bud called her--had been true, after
all! And it broke your heart to have nothing to report when you saw her!"

"I do remember," said Larcher. Florence's lip quivered.

"I stood there in the darkness, like a man stunned, for several minutes,"
Turl proceeded. "There was so much to make out. Perhaps there had been
something going on, about the time of the disappearance, that I--that
Davenport hadn't known. Or the disappearance itself may have brought out
things that had been hidden. Many possibilities occurred to me; but the
end of all was that there had been a mistake; that 'the young lady' was
deeply concerned about Murray Davenport's fate; and that Larcher saw her
frequently.

"I went out, and walked the streets, and thought the situation over. Had
I--had Davenport--(the distinction between the two was just then more
difficult to preserve)--mistakenly imagined himself deprived of that
which was of more value than anything else in life? had he--I--in
throwing off the old past, thrown away that precious thing beyond
recovery? How precious it was, I now knew, and felt to the depths of my
soul, as I paced the night and wondered if this outcome was Fate's last
crudest joke at Murray Davenport's expense. What should I do? Could I
remain constant to the cherished design, so well-laid, so painfully
carried out, and still keep my back to the past, surrendering the
happiness I might otherwise lay claim to? How that happiness lured me! I
couldn't give it up. But the great design--should all that skill and
labor come to nothing? The physical transformation of face couldn't be
undone, that was certain. Would that alone be a bar between me and the
coveted happiness? My heart sank at this question. But if the
transformation should prove such a bar, the problem would be solved at
least. I must then stand by the accomplished design. And meanwhile, there
was no reason why I should yet abandon it. To think of going back to the
old unlucky name and history!--it was asking too much!

"Then came the idea on which I acted. I would try to reconcile the
alternatives--to stand true to the design, and yet obtain the happiness.
Murray Davenport should not be recalled. Francis Turl should remain, and
should play to win the happiness for himself. I would change my plans
somewhat, and stay in New York for a time. The first thing to do was to
find you, Miss Kenby. This was easy. As Larcher was in the habit of
seeing you, I had only to follow him about, and afterward watch the
houses where he called. Knowing where he lived, and his favorite resorts,
I had never any difficulty in getting on his track. In that way, I came
to keep an eye on this house, and finally to see your father let himself
in with a door-key. I found it was a boarding-house, took the room I
still occupy, and managed very easily to throw myself in your father's
way. You know the rest, and how through you I met Miss Hill and Larcher.
In this room, also, I have had the--experience--of meeting Mr. Bagley."

"And what of his money?" asked Florence.

"That has remained a question. It is still undecided. No doubt a third
person would hold that, though Bagley morally owed that amount, the
creditor wasn't justified in paying himself by a breach of trust. But the
creditor himself, looking at the matter with feeling rather than
thought, was sincere enough in considering the case at least debatable.
As for me, you will say, if I am Francis Turl, I am logically a third
person. Even so, the idea of restoring the money to Bagley seems against
nature. As Francis Turl, I ought not to feel so strongly Murray
Davenport's claims, perhaps; yet I am in a way his heir. Not knowing what
my course would ultimately be, I adopted the fiction that my claim to
certain money was in dispute--that a decision might deprive me of it. I
didn't explain, of course, that the decision would be my own. If the
money goes back to Bagley, I must depend solely upon what I can earn. I
made up my mind not to be versatile in my vocations, as Davenport had
been; to rely entirely on the one which seemed to promise most. I have to
thank you, Larcher, for having caused me to learn what that was, in my
former iden--in the person of Murray Davenport. You see how the old and
new selves will still overlap; but the confusion doesn't harm my sense of
being Francis Turl as much as you might imagine; and the lapses will
necessarily be fewer and fewer in time. Well, I felt I could safely fall
back on my ability as an artist in black and white. But my work should be
of a different line from that which Murray Davenport had followed--not
only to prevent recognition of the style, but to accord with my new
outlook--with Francis Turl's outlook--on the world. That is why my work
has dealt with the comedy of life. That is why I elected to do comic
sketches, and shall continue to do them. It was necessary, if I decided
against keeping the Bagley money, that I should have funds coming in
soon. What I received--what Davenport received for illustrating your
articles, Larcher, though it made him richer than he had often found
himself, had been pretty well used up incidentally to the transformation
and my subsequent emergence to the world. So I resorted to you to
facilitate my introduction to the market. When I met you here one day, I
expressed a wish that I might run across a copy of the Boydell
Shakespeare Gallery. I knew--it was another piece of my inherited
information from Davenport--that you had that book. In that way I drew an
invitation to call on you, and the acquaintance that began resulted as I
desired. Forgive me for the subterfuge. I'm grateful to you from the
bottom of my heart."

"The pleasure has been mine, I assure you," replied Larcher, with a
smile.

"And the profit mine," said Turl. "The check for those first three
sketches I placed so easily through you came just in time. Yet I hadn't
been alarmed. I felt that good luck would attend me--Francis Turl was
born to it. I'm confident my living is assured. All the same, that Bagley
money would unlock a good store of the sweets of life."

He paused, and his eyes sought Florence's face again. Still they found no
answer there--nothing but the same painful difficulty in knowing how to
regard him, how to place him in her heart.

"But the matter of livelihood, or the question of the money," he resumed,
humbly and patiently, "wasn't what gave me most concern. You will
understand now--Florence"--his voice faltered as he uttered the
name--"why I sometimes looked at you as I did, why I finally said what
I did. I saw that Larcher had spoken truly in Mr. Bud's hallway that
night: there could be no doubt of your love for Murray Davenport. What
had caused your silence, which had made him think you false, I dared
not--as Turl--inquire. Larcher once alluded to a misunderstanding, but it
wasn't for me--Turl--to show inquisitiveness. My hope, however, now was
that you would forget Davenport--that the way would be free for the
newcomer. When I saw how far you were from forgetting the old love, I was
both touched and baffled--touched infinitely at your loyalty to Murray
Davenport, baffled in my hopes of winning you as Francis Turl. I should
have thought less of you--loved you less--if you had so soon given up the
unfortunate man who had passed; and yet my dearest hopes depended on your
giving him up. I even urged you to forget him; assured you he would never
reappear, and begged you to set your back to the past. Though your
refusal dashed my hopes, in my heart I thanked you for it--thanked you in
behalf of the old self, the old memories which had again become dear to
me. It was a puzzling situation,--my preferred rival was my former self;
I had set the new self to win you from constancy to the old, and my
happiness lay in doing so; and yet for that constancy I loved you more
than ever, and if you had fallen from it, I should have been wounded
while I was made happy. All the time, however, my will held out against
telling you the secret. I feared the illusion must lose something if it
came short of being absolute reality to any one--even you. I'm afraid I
couldn't make you feel how resolute I was, against any divulgence that
might lessen the gulf between me and the old unfortunate self. It seemed
better to wait till time should become my ally against my rival in your
heart. But to-night, when I saw again how firmly the rival--the old
Murray Davenport--was installed there; when I saw how much you
suffered--how much you would still suffer--from uncertainty about his
fate, I felt it was both futile and cruel to hold out."

"It _was_ cruel," said Florence. "I have suffered."

"Forgive me," he replied. "I didn't fully realize--I was too intent on
my own side of the case. To have let you suffer!--it was more than cruel.
I shall not forgive myself for that, at least."

She made no answer.

"And now that you know?" he asked, in a low voice, after a moment.

"It is so strange," she replied, coldly. "I can't tell what I think. You
are not the same. I can see now that you are he--in spite of all your
skill, I can see that."

He made a slight movement, as if to take her hand. But she drew back,
saying quickly:

"And yet you are not he."

"You are right," said Turl. "And it isn't as he that I would appear. I am
Francis Turl--"

"And Francis Turl is almost a stranger to me," she answered. "Oh, I see
now! Murray Davenport is indeed lost--more lost than ever. Your design
has been all too successful."

"It was _his_ design, remember," pleaded Turl. "And I am the result of
it--the result of his project, his wish, his knowledge and skill. Surely
all that was good in him remains in me. I am the good in him, severed
from the unhappy, and made fortunate."

"But what was it in him that I loved?" she asked, looking at Turl as if
in search of something missing.

He could only say: "If you reject me, he is stultified. His plan
contemplated no such unhappiness. If you cause that unhappiness, you so
far bring disaster on his plan."

She shook her head, and repeated sadly: "You are not the same."

"But surely the love I have for you--that is the same--the old love
transmitted to the new self. In that, at least, Murray Davenport survives
in me--and I'm willing that he should."

Again she vainly asked: "What was it in him that I loved--that I still
love when I think of him? I try to think of you as the Murray Davenport I
knew, but--"

"But I wouldn't have you think of me as Murray Davenport. Even if I
wished to be Murray Davenport again, I could not. To re-transform myself
is impossible. Even if I tried mentally to return to the old self, the
return would be mental only, and even mentally it would never be
complete. You say truly the old Murray Davenport is lost. What was it you
loved in him? Was it his unhappiness? His misfortune? Then, perhaps, if
you doom me to unhappiness now, you will in the end love me for my
unhappiness." He smiled despondently.

"I don't know," she said. "It isn't a matter to decide by talk, or even
by thought. I must see how I feel. I must get used to the situation. It's
so strange as yet. We must wait." She rose, rather weakly, and supported
herself with the back of a chair. "When I'm ready for you to call, I'll
send you a message."

There was nothing for Turl to do but bow to this temporary dismissal, and
Larcher saw the fitness of going at the same time. With few and rather
embarrassed words of departure, the young men left Florence to the
company of Edna Hill, in whom astonishment had produced for once the
effect of comparative speechlessness.

Out in the hall, when the door of the Kenby suite had closed behind them,
Turl said to Larcher: "You've had a good deal of trouble over Murray
Davenport, and shown much kindness in his interest. I must apologize for
the trouble,--as his representative, you know,--and thank you for the
kindness."

"Don't mention either," said Larcher, cordially. "I take it from your
tone," said Turl, smiling, "that my story doesn't alter the friendly
relations between us."

"Not in the least. I'll do all I can to help the illusion, both for the
sake of Murray Davenport that was and of you that are. It wouldn't do for
a conception like yours--so original and bold--to come to failure. Are
you going to turn in now?"

"Not if I may go part of the way home with you. This snow-storm is worth
being out in. Wait here till I get my hat and overcoat."

He guided Larcher into the drawing-room. As they entered, they came face
to face with a man standing just a pace from the threshold--a bulky man
with overcoat and hat on. His face was coarse and red, and on it was a
look of vengeful triumph.

"Just the fellow I was lookin' for," said this person to Turl. "Good
evening, Mr. Murray Davenport! How about my bunch of money?"

The speaker, of course, was Bagley.




CHAPTER XVII.


BAGLEY SHINES OUT

"I beg pardon," said Turl, coolly, as if he had not heard aright.

"You needn't try to bluff _me_," said Bagley. "I've been on to your game
for a good while. You can fool some of the people, but you can't fool me.
I'm too old a friend, Murray Davenport."

"My name is Turl."

"Before I get through with you, you won't have any name at all. You'll
just have a number. I don't intend to compound. If you offered me my
money back at this moment, I wouldn't take it. I'll get it, or what's
left of it, but after due course of law. You're a great change artist,
you are. We'll see what another transformation'll make you look like.
We'll see how clipped hair and a striped suit'll become you."

Larcher glanced in sympathetic alarm at Turl; but the latter seemed
perfectly at ease.

"You appear to be laboring under some sort of delusion," he replied.
"Your name, I believe, is Bagley."

"You'll find out what sort of delusion it is. It's a delusion that'll go
through; it's not like your _ill_usion, as you call it--and very ill
you'll be--"

"How do you know I call it that?" asked Turl, quickly. "I never spoke of
having an illusion, in your presence--or till this evening."

Bagley turned redder, and looked somewhat foolish.

"You must have been overhearing," added Turl.

"Well, I don't mind telling you I have been," replied Bagley, with
recovered insolence.

"It isn't necessary to tell me, thank you. And as that door is a thick
one, you must have had your ear to the keyhole."

"Yes, sir, I had, and a good thing, too. Now, you see how completely
I've got the dead wood on you. I thought it only fair and
sportsmanlike"--Bagley's eyes gleamed facetiously--"to let you know
before I notify the police. But if you can disappear again before I do
that, it'll be a mighty quick disappearance."

He started for the hall, to leave the house.

Turl arrested him by a slight laugh of amusement. "You'll have a simple
task proving that I am Murray Davenport."

"We'll see about that. I guess I can explain the transformation well
enough to convince the authorities."

"They'll be sure to believe you. They're invariably so credulous--and
the story is so probable."

"You made it probable enough when you told it awhile ago, even though I
couldn't catch it all. You can make it as probable again."

"But I sha'n't have to tell it again. As the accused person, I sha'n't
have to say a word beyond denying the identity. If any talking is
necessary, I shall have a clever lawyer to do it."

"Well, I can swear to what I heard from your own lips."

"Through a keyhole? Such a long story? so full of details? Your having
heard it in that manner will add to its credibility, I'm sure."

"I can swear I recognize you as Murray Davenport."

"As the accuser, you'll have to support your statement with the testimony
of witnesses. You'll have to bring people who knew Murray Davenport. What
do you suppose they'll swear? His landlady, for instance? Do you think,
Larcher, that Murray Davenport's landlady would swear that I'm he?"

"I don't think so," said Larcher, smiling.

"Here's Larcher himself as a witness," said Bagley.

"I can swear I don't see the slightest resemblance between Mr. Turl and
Murray Davenport," said Larcher.

"You can swear you _know_ he is Murray Davenport, all the same."

"And when my lawyer asks him _how_ he knows," said Turl, "he can only
say, from the story I told to-night. Can he swear that story is true, of
his own separate knowledge? No. Can he swear I wasn't spinning a yarn for
amusement? No."

"I think you'll find me a difficult witness to drag anything out of," put
in Larcher, "if you can manage to get me on the stand at all. I can take
a holiday at a minute's notice; I can even work for awhile in some other
city, if necessary."

"There are others,--the ladies in there, who heard the story," said
Bagley, lightly.

"One of them didn't know Murray Davenport," said Turl, "and the other--I
should be very sorry to see her subjected to the ordeal of the
witness-stand on my account. I hardly think you would subject her to it,
Mr. Bagley,--I do you that credit."

"I don't know about that," said Bagley. "I'll take my chances of showing
you up one way or another, just the same. You _are_ Murray Davenport,
and I know it; that's pretty good material to start with. Your story has
managed to convince _me_, little as I could hear of it; and I'm not
exactly a 'come-on' as to fairy tales, at that--"

"It convinced you as I told it, and because of your peculiar sense of the
traits and resources of Murray Davenport. But can you impart that sense
to any one else? And can you tell the story as I told it? I'll wager you
can't tell it so as to convince a lawyer."

"How much will you wager?" said Bagley, scornfully, the gambling spirit
lighting up in him.

"I merely used the expression," said Turl. "I'm not a betting man."

"I am," said Bagley. "What'll you bet I can't convince a lawyer?"

"I'm not a betting man," repeated Turl, "but just for this occasion I
shouldn't mind putting ten dollars in Mr. Larcher's hands, if a lawyer
were accessible at this hour."

He turned to Larcher, with a look which the latter made out vaguely as a
request to help matters forward on the line they had taken. Not quite
sure whether he interpreted correctly, Larcher put in:

"I think there's one to be found not very far from here. I mean Mr.
Barry Tompkins; he passes most of his evenings at a Bohemian resort near
Sixth Avenue. He was slightly acquainted with Murray Davenport, though.
Would that fact militate?"

"Not at all, as far as I'm concerned," said Turl, taking a bank-bill from
his pocket and handing it to Larcher.

"I've heard of Mr. Barry Tompkins," said Bagley. "He'd do all right. But
if he's a friend of Davenport's--"

"He isn't a friend," corrected Larcher. "He met him once or twice in my
company for a few minutes at a time."

"But he's evidently your friend, and probably knows you're Davenport's
friend," rejoined Bagley to Larcher.

"I hadn't thought of that," said Turl. "I only meant I was willing to
undergo inspection by one of Davenport's acquaintances, while you told
the story. If you object to Mr. Tompkins, there will doubtless be some
other lawyer at the place Larcher speaks of."

"All right; I'll cover your money quick enough," said Bagley, doing so.
"I guess we'll find a lawyer to suit in that crowd. I know the place
you mean."

Larcher and Bagley waited, while Turl went upstairs for his things. When
he returned, ready to go out, the three faced the blizzard together. The
snowfall had waned; the flakes were now few, and came down gently; but
the white mass, little trodden in that part of the city since nightfall,
was so thick that the feet sank deep at every step. The labor of walking,
and the cold, kept the party silent till they reached the place where
Larcher had sought out Barry Tompkins the night he received Edna's first
orders about Murray Davenport. When they opened the basement door to
enter, the burst of many voices betokened a scene in great contrast to
the snowy night at their backs. A few steps through a small hallway led
them into this scene,--the tobacco-smoky room, full of loudly talking
people, who sat at tables whereon appeared great variety of bottles and
glasses. An open door showed the second room filled as the first was. One
would have supposed that nobody could have heard his neighbor's words for
the general hubbub, but a glance over the place revealed that the noise
was but the composite effect of separate conversations of groups of three
or four. Privacy of communication, where desired, was easily possible
under cover of the general noise.

Before the three newcomers had finished their survey of the room,
Larcher saw Barry Tompkins signalling, with a raised glass and a grinning
countenance, from a far corner. He mentioned the fact to his companions.

"Let's go over to him," said Bagley, abruptly. "I see there's room
there."

Larcher was nothing loath, nor was Turl in the least unwilling. The
latter merely cast a look of curiosity at Bagley. Something had indeed
leaped suddenly into that gentleman's head. Tompkins was manifestly not
yet in Turl's confidence. If, then, it were made to appear that all was
friendly between the returned Davenport and Bagley, why should
Tompkins, supposing he recognized Davenport upon Bagley's assertion,
conceal the fact?

Tompkins had managed to find and crowd together three unoccupied chairs
by the time Larcher had threaded a way to him. Larcher, looking around,
saw that Bagley had followed close. He therefore introduced Bagley first;
and then Turl. Tompkins had the same brief, hearty handshake, the same
mirthful grin--as if all life were a joke, and every casual meeting were
an occasion for chuckling at it--for both.

"I thought you said Mr. Tompkins knew Davenport," remarked Bagley to
Larcher, as soon as all in the party were seated.

"Certainly," replied Larcher.

"Then, Mr. Tompkins, you don't seem to live up to your reputation as a
quick-sighted man," said Bagley.

"I beg pardon?" said Tompkins, interrogatively, touched in one of
his vanities.

"Is it possible you don't recognize this gentleman?" asked Bagley,
indicating Turl. "As somebody you've met before, I mean?"

"Extremely possible," replied Tompkins, with a sudden curtness in his
voice. "I do _not_ recognize this gentleman as anybody I've met before.
But, as I never forget a face, I shall always recognize him in the future
as somebody I've met to-night." Whereat he grinned benignly at Turl, who
acknowledged with a courteous "Thank you."

"You never forget a face," said Bagley, "and yet you don't remember this
one. Make allowance for its having undergone a lot of alterations, and
look close at it. Put a hump on the nose, and take the dimples away, and
don't let the corners of the mouth turn up, and pull the hair down over
the forehead, and imagine several other changes, and see if you don't
make out your old acquaintance--and my old friend--Murray Davenport."

Tompkins gazed at Turl, then at the speaker, and finally--with a
wondering inquiry--at Larcher. It was Turl who answered the inquiry.

"Mr. Bagley is perfectly sane and serious," said he. "He declares I am
the Murray Davenport who disappeared a few months ago, and thinks you
ought to be able to identify me as that person."

"If you gentlemen are working up a joke," replied Tompkins, "I hope I
shall soon begin to see the fun; but if you're not, why then, Mr. Bagley,
I should earnestly advise you to take something for this."

"Oh, just wait, Mr. Tompkins. You're a well-informed man, I believe. Now
let's go slow. You won't deny the possibility of a man's changing his
appearance by surgical and other means, in this scientific age, so as
almost to defy recognition?"

"I deny the possibility of his doing such a thing so as to defy
recognition by _me_. So much for your general question. As to this
gentleman's being the person I once met as Murray Davenport, I can only
wonder what sort of a hoax you're trying to work."

Bagley looked his feelings in silence. Giving Barry Tompkins up, he said
to Larcher: "I don't see any lawyer here that I'm acquainted with. I was
a bit previous, getting let in to decide that bet to-night."

"Perhaps Mr. Tompkins knows some lawyer here, to whom he will introduce
you," suggested Turl.

"You want a lawyer?" said Tompkins. "There are three or four here. Over
there's Doctor Brady, the medico-legal man; you've heard of him, I
suppose,--a well-known criminologist."

"I should think he'd be the very man for you," said Turl to Bagley.
"Besides being a lawyer, he knows surgery, and he's an authority on the
habits of criminals."

"Is he a friend of yours?" asked Bagley, at the same time that his eyes
lighted up at the chance of an auditor free from the incredulity of
ignorance.

"I never met him," said Turl.

"Nor I," said Larcher; "and I don't think Murray Davenport ever did."

"Then if Mr. Tompkins will introduce Mr. Larcher and me, and come away at
once without any attempt to prejudice, I'm agreed, as far as our bet's
concerned. But I'm to be let alone to do the talking my own way."

Barry Tompkins led Bagley and Larcher over to the medico-legal
criminologist--a tall, thin man in the forties, with prematurely gray
hair and a smooth-shaven face, cold and inscrutable in expression--and,
having introduced and helped them to find chairs, rejoined Turl. Bagley
was not ten seconds in getting the medico-legal man's ear.

"Doctor, I've wanted to meet you," he began, "to speak about a remarkable
case that comes right in your line. I'd like to tell you the story, just
as I know it, and get your opinion on it."

The criminologist evinced a polite but not enthusiastic willingness to
hear, and at once took an attitude of grave attention, which he kept
during the entire recital, his face never changing; his gaze sometimes
turned penetratingly on Bagley, sometimes dropping idly to the table.

"There's a young fellow in this town, a friend of mine," Bagley went on,
"of a literary turn of mind, and altogether what you'd call a queer Dick.
He'd got down on his luck, for one reason and another, and was dead sore
on himself. Now being the sort of man he was, understand, he took the
most remarkable notion you ever heard of." And Bagley gave what Larcher
had inwardly to admit was a very clear and plausible account of the whole
transaction. As the tale advanced, the medico-legal expert's eyes
affected the table less and Bagley's countenance more. By and by they
occasionally sought Larcher's with something of same inquiry that those
of Barry Tompkins had shown. But the courteous attention, the careful
heeding of every word, was maintained to the end of the story.

"And now, sir," said Bagley, triumphantly, "I'd like to ask what you
think of that?"

The criminologist gave a final look at Bagley, questioning for the last
time his seriousness, and then answered, with cold decisiveness: "It's
impossible."

"But I know it to be true!" blurted Bagley.

"Some little transformation might be accomplished in the way you
describe," said the medico-legal man. "But not such as would insure
against recognition by an observant acquaintance for any appreciable
length of time."

"But surely you know what criminals have done to avoid identification?"

"Better than any other man in New York," said the other, simply, without
any boastfulness.

"And you know what these facial surgeons do?"

"Certainly. A friend of mine has written the only really scientific
monograph yet published on the art they profess."

"And yet you say that what my friend has done is impossible?"

"What you say he has done is quite impossible. Mr. Tompkins, for
example, whom you cite as having once met your friend and then failed to
recognize him, would recognize him in ten seconds after any
transformation within possibility. If he failed to recognize the man you
take to be your friend transformed, make up your mind the man is
somebody else."

Bagley drew a deep sigh, curtly thanked the criminologist, and rose,
saying to Larcher: "Well, you better turn over the stakes to your
friend, I guess."

"You're not going yet, are you?" said Larcher.

"Yes, sir. I lose this bet; but I'll try my story on the police just the
same. Truth is mighty and will prevail."

Before Bagley could make his way out, however, Turl, who had been
watching him, managed to get to his side. Larcher, waving a good-night to
Barry Tompkins, followed the two from the room. In the hall, he handed
the stakes to Turl.

"Oh, yes, you win all right enough," admitted Bagley. "My fun will
come later."

"I trust you'll see the funny side of it," replied Turl, accompanying him
forth to the snowy street. "You haven't laughed much at the little
foretaste of the incredulity that awaits you."

"Never you mind. I'll make them believe me, before I'm through." He had
turned toward Sixth Avenue. Turl and Larcher stuck close to him.

"You'll have them suggesting rest-cures for the mind, and that sort of
thing," said Turl, pleasantly.

"And the newspapers will be calling you the Great American Identifier,"
put in Larcher.

"There'll be somebody else as the chief identifier," said Bagley, glaring
at Turl. "Somebody that knows it's you. I heard her say that much."

"Stop a moment, Mr. Bagley." Turl enforced obedience by stepping in
front of the man and facing him. The three stood still, at the corner,
while an elevated train rumbled along overhead. "I don't think you
really mean that. I don't think that, as an American, you would really
subject a woman--such a woman--to such an ordeal, to gain so little.
Would you now?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Despite his defiant look, Bagley had weakened a bit.

"I can't imagine your doing it. But if you did, my lawyer would have to
make you tell how you had heard this wonderful tale."

"Through the door. That's easy enough."

"We could show that the tale couldn't possibly be heard through so thick
a door, except by the most careful attention--at the keyhole. You would
have to tell my lawyer why you were listening at the keyhole--at the
keyhole of that lady's parlor. I can see you now, in my mind's eye,
attempting to answer that question--with the reporters eagerly awaiting
your reply to publish it to the town."

Bagley, still glaring hard, did some silent imagining on his own part. At
last he growled:

"If I do agree to settle this matter on the quiet, how much of that money
have you got left?"

"If you mean the money you placed in Murray Davenport's hands before he
disappeared, I've never heard that any of it has been spent. But isn't it
the case that Davenport considered himself morally entitled to that
amount from you?"

Bagley gave a contemptuous grunt; then, suddenly brightening up, he said:
"S'pose Davenport _was_ entitled to it. As you ain't Davenport, why, of
course, you ain't entitled to it. Now what have you got to say?"

"Merely, that, as you're not Davenport, neither are you entitled to it."

"But I was only supposin'. I don't admit that Davenport was entitled
to it. Ordinary law's good enough for me. I just wanted to show you
where you stand, you not bein' Davenport, even if he had a right to
that money."

"Suppose Davenport had given me the money?"

"Then you'd have to restore it, as it wasn't lawfully his."

"But you can't prove that I have it, to restore."

"If I can establish any sort of connection between you and Davenport, I
can cause your affairs to be thoroughly looked into," retorted Bagley.

"But you can't establish that connection, any more than you can convince
anybody that I'm Murray Davenport."

Bagley was fiercely silent, taking in a deep breath for the cooling of
his rage. He was a man who saw whole vistas of probability in a moment,
and who was correspondingly quick in making decisions.

"We're at a deadlock," said he. "You're a clever boy, Dav,--or Turl, I
might as well call you. I know the game's against me, and Turl you shall
be from now on, for all I've ever got to say. I did swear this evening to
make it hot for you, but I'm not as hot myself now as I was at that
moment. I'll give up the idea of causing trouble for you over that money;
but the money itself I must have."

"Do you need it badly?" asked Turl.

"_Need_ it!" cried Bagley, scorning the imputation. "Not me! The loss of
it would never touch me. But no man can ever say he's done me out of that
much money, no matter how smart he is. So I'll have that back, if I've
got to spend all the rest of my pile to get it. One way or another, I'll
manage to produce evidence connecting you with Murray Davenport at the
time he disappeared with my cash."

Turl pondered. Presently he said: "If it were restored to you,
Davenport's moral right to it would still be insisted on. The restoration
would be merely on grounds of expediency."

"All right," said Bagley.

"Of course," Turl went on, "Davenport no longer needs it; and certainly
_I_ don't need it."

"Oh, don't you, on the level?" inquired Bagley, surprised.

"Certainly not. I can earn a very good income. Fortune smiles on me."

"I shouldn't mind your holding out a thousand or two of that money when
you pay it over,--say two thousand, as a sort of testimonial of my
regard," said Bagley, good-naturedly.

"Thank you very much. You mean to be generous; but I couldn't accept
a dollar as a gift, from the man who wouldn't pay Murray Davenport
as a right."

"Would you accept the two thousand, then, as Murray Davenport's
right,--you being a kind of an heir of his?"

"I would accept the whole amount in dispute; but under that, not a cent."

Bagley looked at Turl long and hard; then said, quietly: "I tell you
what I'll do with you. I'll toss up for that money,--the whole amount. If
you win, keep it, and I'll shut up. But if I win, you turn it over and
never let me hear another word about Davenport's right."

"As I told you before, I'm not a gambling man. And I can't admit that
Davenport's right is open to settlement."

"Well, at least you'll admit that you and I don't agree about it. You
can't deny there's a difference of opinion between us. If you want to
settle that difference once and for ever, inside of a minute, here's your
chance. It's just cases like this that the dice are good for. There's a
saloon over on that corner. Will you come?"

"All right," said Turl. And the three strode diagonally across
Sixth Avenue.

"Gimme a box of dice," said Bagley to the man behind the bar, when they
had entered the brightly lighted place.

"They're usin' it in the back room," was the reply.

"Got a pack o' cards?" then asked Bagley.

The barkeeper handed over a pack which had been reposing in a cigar-box.

"I'll make it as sudden as you like," said Bagley to Turl. "One cut
apiece, and highest wins. Or would you like something not so quick?"

"One cut, and the higher wins," said Turl.

"Shuffle the cards," said Bagley to Larcher, who obeyed. "Help yourself,"
said Bagley to Turl. The latter cut, and turned up a ten-spot. Bagley
cut, and showed a six.

"The money's yours," said Bagley. "And now, gentlemen, what'll you have
to drink?"

The drinks were ordered, and taken in silence. "There's only one thing
I'd like to ask," said Bagley thereupon. "That keyhole business--it
needn't go any further, I s'pose?"

"I give you my word," said Turl. Larcher added his, whereupon Bagley
bade the barkeeper telephone for a four-wheeler, and would have taken
them to their homes in it. But they preferred a walk, and left him
waiting for his cab.

"Well!" exclaimed Larcher, as soon as he was out of the saloon. "I
congratulate you! I feared Bagley would give trouble. But how easily he
came around!"

"You forget how fortunate I am," said Turl, smiling. "Poor Davenport
could never have brought him around."

"There's no doubting your luck," said Larcher; "even with cards."

"Lucky with cards," began Turl, lightly; but broke off all at once, and
looked suddenly dubious as Larcher glanced at him in the electric light.




CHAPTER XVIII.


FLORENCE

The morning brought sunshine and the sound of sleigh-bells. In the
wonderfully clear air of New York, the snow-covered streets dazzled the
eyes. Never did a town look more brilliant, or people feel more blithe,
than on this fine day after the long snow-storm.

"Isn't it glorious?" Edna Hill was looking out on the shining white
gardens from Florence's parlor window. "Certainly, on a day like this, it
doesn't seem natural for one to cling to the past. It's a day for
beginning over again, if ever there are such days." Her words had
allusion to the subject on which the two girls had talked late into the
night. Edna had waited for Florence to resume the theme in the morning,
but the latter had not done so yet, although breakfast was now over.
Perhaps it was her father's presence that had deterred her. The incident
of the meal had been the arrival of a note from Mr. Bagley to Mr. Kenby,
expressing the former's regret that he should be unavoidably prevented
from keeping the engagement to go sleighing. As Florence had forgotten to
give her father Mr. Bagley's verbal message, this note had brought her in
for a quantity of paternal complaint sufficient for the venting of the
ill-humor due to his having stayed up too late, and taken too much
champagne the night before. But now Mr. Kenby had gone out, wrapped up
and overshod, to try the effect of fresh air on his headache, and of
shop-windows and pretty women on his spirits. Florence, however, had
still held off from the all-important topic, until Edna was driven to
introduce it herself.

"It's never a day for abandoning what has been dear to one,"
replied Florence.

"But you wouldn't be abandoning him. After all, he really is the
same man."

"But I can't make myself regard him as the same. And he doesn't regard
himself so."

"But in that case the other man has vanished. It's precisely as if he
were dead. No, it's even worse, for there isn't as much trace of him as
there would be of a man that had died. What's the use of being faithful
to such an utterly non-existent person? Why, there isn't even a grave, to
put flowers on;--or an unknown mound in a distant country, for the
imagination to cling to. There's just nothing to be constant to."

"There are memories."

"Well, they'll remain. Does a widow lose her memories of number one when
she becomes Mrs. Number Two?"

"She changes the character of them; buries them out of sight; kills them
with neglect. Yes, she is false to them."

"But your case isn't even like that. In these peculiar circumstances the
old memories will blend with the new.--And, dear me! he is such a nice
man! I don't see how the other could have been nicer. You couldn't find
anybody more congenial in tastes and manners, I'm sure."

"I can't make you understand, dear. Suppose Tom Larcher went away for a
time, and came back so completely different that you couldn't see the old
Tom Larcher in him at all. And suppose he didn't even consider himself
the same person you had loved. Would you love him then as you do now?"

Edna was silenced for a moment; but for a moment only. "Well, if he came
back such a charming fellow as Turl, and if he loved me as much as Turl
loves you, I could soon manage to drop the old Tom out of my mind. But of
course, you know, in my heart of hearts, I wouldn't forget for a moment
that he really was the old Tom."

The talk was interrupted by a knock at the door. The servant gave the
name of Mr. Turl. Florence turned crimson, and stood at a loss.

"You can't truly say you're out, dear," counselled Edna, in an undertone.

"Show him in," said Florence.

Turl entered.

Florence looked and spoke coldly. "I told you I'd send a message when I
wished you to call."

He was wistful, but resolute. "I know it," he said. "But love doesn't
stand on ceremony; lovers are importunate; they come without
bidding.--Good morning, Miss Hill; you mustn't let me drive you away."

For Edna had swished across the room, and was making for the hall.

"I'm going to the drawing-room," she said, airily, "to see the
sleighs go by."

In another second, the door slammed, and Turl was alone with Florence. He
took a hesitating step toward her.

"It's useless," she said, raising her hand as a barrier between them. "I
can't think of you as the same. I can't see _him_ in you. I should have
to do that before I could offer you his place. All that I can love now
is the memory of him."

"Listen," said Turl, without moving. "I have thought it over. For your
sake, I will be the man I was. It's true, I can't restore the old face;
but the old outlook on life, the old habits, the old pensiveness, will
bring back the old expression. I will resume the old name, the old set of
memories, the old sense of personality. I said last night that a
resumption of the old self could be only mental, and incomplete even so.
But when I said that, I had not surrendered. The mental return can be
complete, and must reveal itself more or less on the surface. And the old
love,--surely where the feeling is the same, its outer showing can't be
utterly new and strange."

He spoke with a more pleading and reverent note than he had yet used
since the revelation. A moist shine came into her eyes.

"Murray--it _is_ you!" she whispered.

"Ah!--sweetheart!" His smile of the utmost tenderness seemed more of a
kind with sadness than with pleasure. It was the smile of a man deeply
sensible of sorrow--of Murray Davenport,--not that of one versed in good
fortune alone--not that which a potent imagination had made habitual to
Francis Turl.

She gave herself to his arms, and for a time neither spoke. It was she
who broke the silence, looking up with tearful but smiling eyes:

"You shall not abandon your design. It's too marvellous, too successful;
it has been too dear to you for that."

"It was dear to me when I thought I had lost you. And since then, the
pride of conceiving and accomplishing it, the labor and pain, kept it
dear to me. But now that I am sure of you, I can resign it without a
murmur. From the moment when I decided to sacrifice it, it has been
nothing to me, provided I could only regain you."

"But the old failure, the old ill luck, the old unrewarded drudgery,--no,
you sha'n't go back to them. You shall be true to the illusion--we shall
be true to it--I will help you in it, strengthen you in it! I needed only
to see the old Murray Davenport appear in you one moment. Hereafter you
shall be Francis Turl, the happy and fortunate! But you and I will have
our secret--before the world you shall be Francis Turl--but to me you
shall be Murray Davenport, too--Murray Davenport hidden away in Francis
Turl. To me alone, for the sake of the old memories. It will be another
tie between us, this secret, something that is solely ours, deep in our
hearts, as the knowledge of your old self would always have been deep in
yours if you hadn't told me. Think how much better it is that I share
this knowledge with you; now nothing of your mind is concealed from me,
and we together shall have our smile at the world's expense."

"For being so kind to Francis Turl, the fortunate, after its cold
treatment of Murray Davenport, the unlucky," said Turl, smiling. "It
shall be as you say, sweetheart. There can be no doubt about my good
fortune. It puts even the old proverb out. With me it is lucky in love as
well as at cards."

"What do you mean, dear?"

"The Bagley money--"

"Ah, that money. Listen, dear. Now that I have some right to speak, you
must return that money. I don't dispute your moral claim to it--such
things are for you to settle. But the danger of keeping it--"

"There's no longer any danger. The money is mine, of Bagley's own free
will and consent. I encountered him last night. He is in my secret now,
but it's safe with him. We cut cards for the money, and I won. I hate
gambling, but the situation was exceptional. He hoped that, once the
matter was settled by the cards, he should never hear a word about it
again. As he hadn't heard a word of it from me--Davenport--for years,
this meant that his own conscience had been troubling him about it all
along. That's why he was ready at last to put the question to a toss-up;
but first he established the fact that he wouldn't be 'done' out of the
money by anybody. I tell you all this, dear, in justice to the man; and
so, exit Bagley. As I said, my secret--_our_ secret--is safe with him. So
it is, of course, with Miss Hill and Larcher. Nobody else knows it,
though others besides you three may have suspected that I had something
to do with the disappearance."

"Only Mr. Bud."

"Larcher can explain away Mr. Bud's suspicions. Larcher has been a good
friend. I can never be grateful enough--"

A knock at the door cut his speech short, and the servant announced
Larcher himself. It had been arranged that he should call for Edna's
orders. That young lady had just intercepted him in the hall, to prevent
his breaking in upon what might be occurring between Turl and Miss Kenby.
But Florence, holding the door open, called out to Edna and Larcher to
come in. Something in her voice and look conveyed news to them both, and
they came swiftly. Edna kissed Florence half a dozen times, while Larcher
was shaking hands with Turl; then waltzed across to the piano, and for a
moment drowned the outside noises--the jingle of sleigh-bells, and the
shouts of children snowballing in the sunshine--with the still more
joyous notes of a celebrated march by Mendelssohn.

THE END.









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