Kitabı oku: «The Place of Honeymoons», sayfa 3
She flung her wraps on the divan and put the roses in an empty bowl. The door opened softly, without noise. Next, she stopped before the mirror over the mantel, touched her hair lightly, detached the tiara of emeralds … and became as inanimate as marble. She saw another face. She never knew how long the interval of silence was. She turned slowly.
“Yes, it is I!” said the man.
Instantly she turned again to the mantel and picked up a magazine-revolver. She leveled it at him.
“Leave this room, or I will shoot.”
Courtlandt advanced toward her slowly. “Do so,” he said. “I should much prefer a bullet to that look.”
“I am in earnest.” She was very white, but her hand was steady.
He continued to advance. There followed a crash. The smell of burning powder filled the room. The Burmese gong clanged shrilly and whirled wildly. Courtlandt felt his hair stir in terror.
“You must hate me indeed,” he said quietly, as the sense of terror died away. He folded his arms. “Try again; there ought to be half a dozen bullets left. No? Then, good-by!” He left the apartment without another word or look, and as the door closed behind him there was a kind of finality in the clicking of the latch.
The revolver clattered to the floor, and the woman who had fired it leaned heavily against the mantel, covering her eyes.
“Nora, Nora!” cried a startled voice from a bedroom adjoining. “What has happened? Mon Dieu, what is it?” A pretty, sleepy-eyed young woman, in a night-dress, rushed into the room. She flung her arms about the singer. “Nora, my dear, my dear!”
“He forced his way in. I thought to frighten him. It went off accidentally. Oh, Celeste, Celeste, I might have killed him!”
The other drew her head down on her shoulder, and listened. She could hear voices in the lower hall, a shout of warning, a patter of steps; then the hall door slammed. After that, silence, save for the faint mellowing vibrations of the Burmese gong.
CHAPTER V
CAPTIVE OR RUNAWAY
At the age of twenty-six Donald Abbott had become a prosperous and distinguished painter in water-colors. His work was individual, and at the same time it was delicate and charming. One saw his Italian landscapes as through a filmy gauze: the almond blossoms of Sicily, the rose-laden walls of Florence, the vineyards of Chianti, the poppy-glowing Campagna out of Rome. His Italian lakes had brought him fame. He knew very little of the grind and hunger that attended the careers of his whilom associates. His father had left him some valuable patents – wash-tubs, carpet-cleaners, and other labor-saving devices – and the royalties from these were quite sufficient to keep him pleasantly housed. When he referred to his father (of whom he had been very fond) it was as an inventor. Of what, he rarely told. In America it was all right; but over here, where these inventions were unknown, a wash-tub had a peculiar significance: that a man should be found in his money through its services left persons in doubt as to his genealogical tree, which, as a matter of fact, was a very good one. As a boy his schoolmates had dubbed him “The Sweep” and “Suds,” and it was only human that he should wish to forget.
His earnings (not inconsiderable, for tourists found much to admire in both the pictures and the artist) he spent in gratifying his mild extravagances. So there were no lines in his handsome, boyish, beardless face; and his eyes were unusually clear and happy. Perhaps once or twice, since his majority, he had returned to America to prove that he was not an expatriate, though certainly he was one, the only tie existing between him and his native land being the bankers who regularly honored his drafts. And who shall condemn him for preferring Italy to the desolate center of New York state, where good servants and good weather are as rare as are flawless emeralds?
Half after three, on Wednesday afternoon, Abbott stared moodily at the weather-tarnished group by Dalou in the Luxembourg gardens – the Triumph of Silenus. His gaze was deceptive, for the rollicking old bibulous scoundrel had not stirred his critical sense nor impressed the delicate films of thought. He was looking through the bronze, into the far-away things. He sat on his own folding stool, which he had brought along from his winter studio hard by in the old Boul’ Miche’. He had arrived early that morning, all the way from Como, to find a thunderbolt driven in at his feet. Across his knees fluttered an open newspaper, the Paris edition of the New York Herald. All that kept it from blowing away was the tense if sprawling fingers of his right hand; his left hung limply at his side.
It was not possible. Such things did not happen these unromantic days to musical celebrities. She had written that on Monday night she would sing in La Bohème and on Wednesday, Faust. She had since vanished, vanished as completely as though she had taken wings and flown away. It was unreal. She had left the apartment in the Avenue de Wagram on Saturday afternoon, and nothing had been seen or heard of her since. At the last moment they had had to find a substitute for her part in the Puccini opera. The maid testified that her mistress had gone on an errand of mercy. She had not mentioned where, but she had said that she would return in time to dress for dinner, which proved conclusively that something out of the ordinary had befallen her.
The automobile that had carried her away had not been her own, and the chauffeur was unknown. None of the directors at the Opera had been notified of any change in the singer’s plans. She had disappeared, and they were deeply concerned. Singers were generally erratic, full of sudden indispositions, unaccountable whims; but the Signorina da Toscana was one in a thousand. She never broke an engagement. If she was ill she said so at once; she never left them in doubt until the last moment. Indecision was not one of her characteristics. She was as reliable as the sun. If the directors did not hear definitely from her by noon to-day, they would have to find another Marguerite.
The police began to move, and they stirred up some curious bits of information. A man had tried to bribe the singer’s chauffeur, while she was singing at the Austrian ambassador’s. The chauffeur was able to describe the stranger with some accuracy. Then came the bewildering episode in the apartment: the pistol-shot, the flight of the man, the astonished concierge to whom the beautiful American would offer no explanations. The man (who tallied with the description given by the chauffeur) had obtained entrance under false representations. He claimed to be an emissary with important instructions from the Opera. There was nothing unusual in this; messengers came at all hours, and seldom the same one twice; so the concierge’s suspicions had not been aroused. Another item. A tall handsome Italian had called at eleven o’clock Saturday morning, but the signorina had sent down word that she could not see him. The maid recalled that her mistress had intended to dine that night with the Italian gentleman. His name she did not know, having been with the signorina but two weeks.
Celeste Fournier, the celebrated young pianist and composer, who shared the apartment with the missing prima donna, stated that she hadn’t the slightest idea where her friend was. She was certain that misfortune had overtaken her in some inexplicable manner. To implicate the Italian was out of the question. He was well-known to them both. He had arrived again at seven, Saturday, and was very much surprised that the signorina had not yet returned. He had waited till nine, when he left, greatly disappointed. He was the Barone di Monte-Verdi in Calabria, formerly military attaché at the Italian embassy in Berlin. Sunday noon Mademoiselle Fournier had notified the authorities. She did not know, but she felt sure that the blond stranger knew more than any one else. And here was the end of things. The police found themselves at a standstill. They searched the hotels but without success; the blond stranger could not be found.
Abbott’s eyes were not happy and pleasant just now. They were dull and blank with the reaction of the stunning blow. He, too, was certain of the Barone. Much as he secretly hated the Italian, he knew him to be a fearless and an honorable man. But who could this blond stranger be who appeared so sinisterly in the two scenes? From where had he come? Why had Nora refused to explain about the pistol-shot? Any woman had a perfect right to shoot a man who forced his way into her apartment. Was he one of those mad fools who had fallen in love with her, and had become desperate? Or was it some one she knew and against whom she did not wish to bring any charges? Abducted! And she might be, at this very moment, suffering all sorts of indignities. It was horrible to be so helpless.
The sparkle of the sunlight upon the ferrule of a cane, extending over his shoulder, broke in on his agonizing thoughts. He turned, an angry word on the tip of his tongue. He expected to see some tourist who wanted to be informed.
“Ted Courtlandt!” He jumped up, overturning the stool. “And where the dickens did you come from? I thought you were in the Orient?”
“Just got back, Abby.”
The two shook hands and eyed each other with the appraising scrutiny of friends of long standing.
“You don’t change any,” said Abbott.
“Nor do you. I’ve been standing behind you fully two minutes. What were you glooming about? Old Silenus offend you?”
“Have you read the Herald this morning?”
“I never read it nowadays. They are always giving me a roast of some kind. Whatever I do they are bound to misconstrue it.” Courtlandt stooped and righted the stool, but sat down on the grass, his feet in the path. “What’s the trouble? Have they been after you?”
Abbott rescued the offending paper and shaking it under his friend’s nose, said: “Read that.”
Courtlandt’s eyes widened considerably as they absorbed the significance of the heading – “Eleonora da Toscana missing.”
“Bah!” he exclaimed.
“You say bah?”
“It looks like one of their advertising dodges. I know something about singers,” Courtlandt added. “I engineered a musical comedy once.”
“You do not know anything about her,” cried Abbott hotly.
“That’s true enough.” Courtlandt finished the article, folded the paper and returned it, and began digging in the path with his cane.
“But what I want to know is, who the devil is this mysterious blond stranger?” Abbott flourished the paper again. “I tell you, it’s no advertising dodge. She’s been abducted. The hound!”
Courtlandt ceased boring into the earth. “The story says that she refused to explain this blond chap’s presence in her room. What do you make of that?”
“Perhaps you think the fellow was her press-agent?” was the retort.
“Lord, no! But it proves that she knew him, that she did not want the police to find him. At least, not at that moment. Who’s the Italian?” suddenly.
“I can vouch for him. He is a gentleman, honorable as the day is long, even if he is hot-headed at times. Count him out of it. It’s this unknown, I tell you. Revenge for some imagined slight. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“How long have you known her?” asked Courtlandt presently.
“About two years. She’s the gem of the whole lot. Gentle, kindly, untouched by flattery… Why, you must have seen and heard her!”
“I have.” Courtlandt stared into the hole he had dug. “Voice like an angel’s, with a face like Bellini’s donna; and Irish all over. But for all that, you will find that her disappearance will turn out to be a diva’s whim. Hang it, Suds, I’ve had some experience with singers.”
“You are a blockhead!” exploded the younger man.
“All right, I am.” Courtlandt laughed.
“Man, she wrote me that she would sing Monday and to-night, and wanted me to hear her. I couldn’t get here in time for La Bohème, but I was building on Faust. And when she says a thing, she means it. As you said, she’s Irish.”
“And I’m Dutch.”
“And the stubbornest Dutchman I ever met. Why don’t you go home and settle down and marry? – and keep that phiz of yours out of the newspapers? Sometimes I think you’re as crazy as a bug.”
“An opinion shared by many. Maybe I am. I dash in where lunatics fear to tread. Come on over to the Soufflet and have a drink with me.”
“I’m not drinking to-day,” tersely. “There’s too much ahead for me to do.”
“Going to start out to find her? Oh, Sir Galahad!” ironically. “Abby, you used to be a sport. I’ll wager a hundred against a bottle of pop that to-morrow or next day she’ll turn up serenely, with the statement that she was indisposed, sorry not to have notified the directors, and all that. They do it repeatedly every season.”
“But an errand of mercy, the strange automobile which can not be found? The engagement to dine with the Barone? Celeste Fournier’s statement? You can’t get around these things. I tell you, Nora isn’t that kind. She’s too big in heart and mind to stoop to any such devices,” vehemently.
“Nora! That looks pretty serious, Abby. You haven’t gone and made a fool of yourself, have you?”
“What do you call making a fool of myself?” truculently.
“You aren’t a suitor, are you? An accepted suitor?” unruffled, rather kindly.
“No, but I would to heaven that I were!” Abbott jammed the newspaper into his pocket and slung the stool over his arm. “Come on over to the studio until I get some money.”
“You are really going to start a search?”
“I really am. I’d start one just as quickly for you, if I heard that you had vanished under mysterious circumstances.”
“I believe you honestly would.”
“You are an old misanthrope. I hope some woman puts the hook into you some day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky princesses give you the go-by?”
“You, too, Abby?”
“Oh, rot! Of course I never believed any of that twaddle. Only, I’ve got a sore head to-day. If you knew Nora as well as I do, you’d understand.”
Courtlandt walked on a little ahead of the artist, who looked up and down the athletic form, admiringly. Sometimes he loved the man, sometimes he hated him. He marched through tragedy and comedy and thrilling adventure with no more concern that he evinced in striding through these gardens. Nearly every one had heard of his exploits; but who among them knew anything of the real man, so adroitly hidden under unruffled externals? That there was a man he did not know, hiding deep down within those powerful shoulders, he had not the least doubt. He himself possessed the quick mobile temperament of the artist, and he could penetrate but not understand the poise assumed with such careless ease by his friend. Dutch blood had something to do with it, and there was breeding, but there was something more than these: he was a reversion, perhaps, to the type of man which had made the rovers of the Lowlands feared on land and sea, now hemmed in by convention, hampered by the barriers of progress, and striving futilely to find an outlet for his peculiar energies. One bit of knowledge gratified him; he stood nearer to Courtlandt than any other man. He had known the adventurer as a boy, and long separations had in nowise impaired the foundations of this friendship.
Courtlandt continued toward the exit, his head forward, his gaze bent on the path. He had the air of a man deep in thought, philosophic thought, which leaves the brows unmarred by those corrugations known as frowns. Yet his thoughts were far from philosophic. Indeed, his soul was in mad turmoil. He could have thrown his arms toward the blue sky and cursed aloud the fates that had set this new tangle at his feet. He longed for the jungles and some mad beast to vent his wrath upon. But he gave no sign. He had returned with a purpose as hard and grim as iron; and no obstacle, less powerful than death, should divert or control him. Abduction? Let the public believe what it might; he held the key to the mystery. She was afraid, and had taken flight. So be it.
“I say, Ted,” called out the artist, “what did you mean by saying that you were a Dutchman?”
Courtlandt paused so that Abbott might catch up to him. “I said that I was a Dutchman?”
“Yes. And it has just occurred to me that you meant something.”
“Oh, yes. You were talking of Da Toscana? Let’s call her Harrigan. It will save time, and no one will know to whom we refer. You said she was Irish, and that when she said a thing she meant it. My boy, the Irish are notorious for claiming that. They often say it before they see clearly. Now, we Dutchmen, – it takes a long time for us to make up our minds, but when we do, something has got to bend or break.”
“You don’t mean to say that you are going to settle down and get married?”
“I’m not going to settle down and get married, if that will ease your mind any.”
“Man, I was hoping!”
“Three meals a day in the same house, with the same woman, never appealed to me.”
“What do you want, one for each meal?”
“There’s the dusky princess peeking out again. The truth is, Abby, if I could hide myself for three or four years, long enough for people to forget me, I might reconsider. But it should be under another name. They envy us millionaires. Why, we are the lonesomest duffers going. We distrust every one; we fly when a woman approaches; we become monomaniacs; one thing obsesses us, everybody is after our money. We want friends, we want wives, but we want them to be attracted to us and not to our money-bags. Oh, pshaw! What plans have you made in regard to the search?”
Gloom settled upon the artist’s face. “I’ve got to find out what’s happened to her, Ted. This isn’t any play. Why, she loves the part of Marguerite as she loves nothing else. She’s been kidnaped, and only God knows for what reason. It has knocked me silly. I just came up from Como, where she spends the summers now. I was going to take her and Fournier out to dinner.”
“Who’s Fournier?”
“Mademoiselle Fournier, the composer. She goes with Nora on the yearly concert tours.”
“Pretty?”
“Charming.”
“I see,” thoughtfully. “What part of the lake; the Villa d’Este, Cadenabbia?”
“Bellaggio. Oh, it was ripping last summer. She’s always singing when she’s happy. When she sings out on the terrace, suddenly, without giving any one warning, her voice is wonderful. No audience ever heard anything like it.”
“I heard her Friday night. I dropped in at the Opera without knowing what they were singing. I admit all you say in regard to her voice and looks; but I stick to the whim.”
“But you can’t fake that chap with the blond mustache,” retorted Abbott grimly. “Lord, I wish I had run into you any day but to-day. I’m all in. I can telephone to the Opera from the studio, and then we shall know for a certainty whether or not she will return for the performance to-night. If not, then I’m going in for a little detective work.”
“Abby, it will turn out to be the sheep of Little Bo-Peep.”
“Have your own way about it.”
When they arrived at the studio Abbott telephoned promptly. Nothing had been heard. They were substituting another singer.
“Call up the Herald,” suggested Courtlandt.
Abbott did so. And he had to answer innumerable questions, questions which worked him into a fine rage: who was he, where did he live, what did he know, how long had he been in Paris, and could he prove that he had arrived that morning? Abbott wanted to fling the receiver into the mouth of the transmitter, but his patience was presently rewarded. The singer had not yet been found, but the chauffeur of the mysterious car had turned up … in a hospital, and perhaps by night they would know everything. The chauffeur had had a bad accident; the car itself was a total wreck, in a ditch, not far from Versailles.
“There!” cried Abbott, slamming the receiver on the hook. “What do you say to that?”
“The chauffeur may have left her somewhere, got drunk afterward, and plunged into the ditch. Things have happened like that. Abby, don’t make a camel’s-hair shirt out of your paint-brushes. What a pother about a singer! If it had been a great inventor, a poet, an artist, there would have been nothing more than a two-line paragraph. But an opera-singer, one who entertains us during our idle evenings – ha! that’s a different matter. Set instantly that great municipal machinery called the police in action; sell extra editions on the streets. What ado!”
“What the devil makes you so bitter?”
“Was I bitter? I thought I was philosophizing.” Courtlandt consulted his watch. Half after four. “Come over to the Maurice and dine with me to-morrow night, that is, if you do not find your prima donna. I’ve an engagement at five-thirty, and must be off.”
“I was about to ask you to dine with me to-night,” disappointedly.
“Can’t; awfully sorry, Abby. It was only luck that I met you in the Luxembourg. Be over about seven. I was very glad to see you again.”
Abbott kicked a broken easel into a corner. “All right. If anything turns up I’ll let you know. You’re at the Grand?”
“Yes. By-by.”
“I know what’s the matter with him,” mused the artist, alone. “Some woman has chucked him. Silly little fool, probably.”
Courtlandt went down-stairs and out into the boulevard. Frankly, he was beginning to feel concerned. He still held to his original opinion that the diva had disappeared of her own free will; but if the machinery of the police had been started, he realized that his own safety would eventually become involved. By this time, he reasoned, there would not be a hotel in Paris free of surveillance. Naturally, blond strangers would be in demand. The complications that would follow his own arrest were not to be ignored. He agreed with his conscience that he had not acted with dignity in forcing his way into her apartment. But that night he had been at odds with convention; his spirit had been that of the marauding old Dutchman of the seventeenth century. He perfectly well knew that she was in the right as far as the pistol-shot was concerned. Further, he knew that he could quash any charge she might make in that direction by the simplest of declarations; and to avoid this simplest of declarations she would prefer silence above all things. They knew each other tolerably well.
It was extremely fortunate that he had not been to the hotel since Saturday. He went directly to the war-office. The great and powerful man there was the only hope left. They had met some years before in Algiers, where Courtlandt had rendered him a very real service.
“I did not expect you to the minute,” the great man said pleasantly. “You will not mind waiting for a few minutes.”
“Not in the least. Only, I’m in a deuce of a mess,” frankly and directly. “Innocently enough, I’ve stuck my head into the police net.”
“Is it possible that now I can pay my debt to you?”
“Such as it is. Have you read the article in the newspapers regarding the disappearance of Signorina da Toscana, the singer?”
“Yes.”
“I am the unknown blond. To-morrow morning I want you to go with me to the prefecture and state that I was with you all of Saturday and Sunday; that on Monday you and your wife dined with me, that yesterday we went to the aviation meet, and later to the Odéon.”
“In brief, an alibi?” smiling now.
“Exactly. I shall need one.”
“And a perfectly good alibi. But I have your word that you are in nowise concerned? Pardon the question, but between us it is really necessary if I am to be of service to you.”
“On my word as a gentleman.”
“That is sufficient.”
“In fact, I do not believe that she has been abducted at all. Will you let me use your pad and pen for a minute?”
The other pushed over the required articles. Courtlandt scrawled a few words and passed back the pad.
“For me to read?”
“Yes,” moodily.
The Frenchman read. Courtlandt watched him anxiously. There was not even a flicker of surprise in the official eye. Calmly he ripped off the sheet and tore it into bits, distributing the pieces into the various waste-baskets yawning about his long flat desk. Next, still avoiding the younger man’s eye, he arranged his papers neatly and locked them up in a huge safe which only the artillery of the German army could have forced. He then called for his hat and stick. He beckoned to Courtlandt to follow. Not a word was said until the car was humming on the road to Vincennes.
“Well?” said Courtlandt, finally. It was not possible for him to hold back the question any longer.
“My dear friend, I am taking you out to the villa for the night.”
“But I have nothing…”
“And I have everything, even foresight. If you were arrested to-night it would cause you some inconvenience. I am fifty-six, some twenty years your senior. Under this hat of mine I carry a thousand secrets, and every one of these thousand must go to the grave with me, yours along with them. I have met you a dozen times since those Algerian days, and never have you failed to afford me some amusement or excitement. You are the most interesting and entertaining young man I know. Try one of these cigars.”
Precisely at the time Courtlandt stepped into the automobile outside the war-office, a scene, peculiar in character, but inconspicuous in that it did not attract attention, was enacted in the Gare de l’Est. Two sober-visaged men stood respectfully aside to permit a tall young man in a Bavarian hat to enter a compartment of the second-class. What could be seen of the young man’s face was full of smothered wrath and disappointment. How he hated himself, for his weakness, for his cowardice! He was not all bad. Knowing that he was being watched and followed, he could not go to Versailles and compromise her, uselessly. And devil take the sleek demon of a woman who had prompted him to commit so base an act!
“You will at least,” he said, “deliver that message which I have intrusted to your care.”
“It shall reach Versailles to-night, your Highness.”
The young man reread the telegram which one of the two men had given him a moment since. It was a command which even he, wilful and disobedient as he was, dared not ignore. He ripped it into shreds and flung them out of the window. He did not apologize to the man into whose face the pieces flew. That gentleman reddened perceptibly, but he held his tongue. The blare of a horn announced the time of departure. The train moved. The two men on the platform saluted, but the young man ignored the salutation. Not until the rear car disappeared in the hazy distance did the watchers stir. Then they left the station and got into the tonneau of a touring-car, which shot away and did not stop until it drew up before that imposing embassy upon which the French will always look with more or less suspicion.
