The Gates of Chance Part 27

"Come into the back room," and he led the way.

The suite ran through the building. There was a good-sized room facing on the square, fitted up with ordinary office furniture; back of that a bath-room, and then the rear office, which had been turned into a bachelor's living-room. There were bookcases, rugs, pictures, a big mahogany writing-table, an open fireplace, easy-chairs--everything to make life comfortable. "And the couch over there is my bed," concluded Indiman. "I'm pretty well fixed, you see."

"Decidedly so."

"Intellectual diversion in abundance; even the artistic element is not wholly wanting."

He stepped over to a table in the far corner; a phonographic machine of some kind stood upon it. Indiman touched a lever, and again I heard that unforgettable melody, "Ah, fors e lui," and in her voice--her voice! A cry escaped me. Indiman pushed me back into my chair. "Be good enough to listen," he said, and I obeyed.

"While you have been laid up," he began, "I have been amusing myself with a little theory building. I had taken the liberty to sequestrate the remarkable phonographic apparatus of your quondam friend Dr.

Gonzales; in fact, I carried it away in the same carriage with your honorable self from the house of the Philadelphia 'quizzing-gla.s.s.' The police didn't notice--that was all.

"Dr. Gonzales was a genius, and his instrument is a revolution in phonographs--purity of tone, perfect enunciation, and all that. But the really interesting thing (to me as to you) was not the machine, but the records that it used. To whom belonged the voice that these little disks and cylinders so faithfully reproduced? It was a real woman who had poured the pa.s.sion and sorrow of life into this insentient mechanism. And the medium had been sufficient; your heart had responded.

"You were my friend, and I could not be indifferent to aught that concerned you. We are, neither of us, sentimental, so the bare statement of the fact is sufficient. You were on your back, and so it was my part to go to work. I did.

"It is unprofitable business looking for a needle in a hay-stack when you can buy a packet of the best helix No. 8's at any shop for a nickel. But after spending a blank week interviewing the makers of phonographic records I began to feel doubtful of my economic theory.

Nowhere could I find the slightest trace of this particular job of record-making. And then one day I ran across a chap named Hugens, who was in the business in a small way. His place was three blocks east of the Bowery, but I've forgotten the name of the cross street.

"It was the usual experience at first--no information--but something told me that the man was lying. Finally, I pretended to give up the inquiry and left the shop. It was after dark on a snowy January afternoon, and I started to walk over to the Madison Avenue cars. I dawdled along purposely so as to give the telephone time to get in its work, and the affair turned out exactly as I had foreseen. At Elm Street a couple of fellows jostled against me, and when the mix-up was over the parcel containing my two sample records was gone. That was all that had been wanted; my watch, pin, and money had not been touched.

"It was plain, then, that some one had an interest in preventing my tracing up these particular records. Not Hugens, of course, but his client, whoever he might be. Well, at least, it made the case more interesting--yes, and more promising. Two nights later the house in Madison Avenue was entered by second-story men while I was at dinner.

But the records and repeating apparatus had been removed to the safe-deposit vaults, and my unknown opponent had drawn another blank.

"Getting exciting, wasn't it? And then for a month or more nothing happened. You continued to convalesce and I kept on thinking.

"This impersonal opposition--well, there had been something of the same sort once or twice before. You remember, in particular, the affair of the private letter-box. A devilish intelligence had been at work there, and some day, as I told you, the mystery would be cleared up.

"Then did we ever know who Mr. Aram Balencourt really was? An agent of the 'Forty'? Well, perhaps so, but I can't help thinking that there was always a bigger man behind him. The same conclusion would apply to the case of that poor wretch Grenelli in the affair of the Russia and the box of dynamite. Some one with brains pulled the strings to make all these marionettes dance.

"Finally, there was your own adventure with the amiable Dr. Gonzales.

Did he ever remind you, even indefinitely, of some one else whom you had known? Think carefully. Well, it doesn't matter. I was deceived myself, and when I afterwards went to the Bellevue insane pavilion to make some inquiries I found that he had long since been discharged as cured.

"There was just one hypothesis--the existence somewhere of a strong and alert personality; a genius along mechanical and scientific lines; a creature of abnormally developed mentality and correspondingly defective ethical nature; an intelligence absolutely pa.s.sionless and ruthless, playing the game entirely for its own sake, and equally indifferent to the end and to the means used to attain it--in other words, a monster. Quite an elaborate theory, you observe; but the difficulty was to fit it to the individual. Looking back on the problem, I accuse myself of being rather slow-witted. Right under my eyes and yet only an accident opened them.

"Well, you recall the night at the Utinam when we met Mr. Chivers and I accepted his very liberal proposition to become an adjuster of averages. Of course, it was a trap, but what connoisseur of the adventure grotesque could refuse such a bait? All I wanted to know was with whom I was expected to match wits.

"Of course, the thousand-dollar bills were counterfeits--stage money?

Not at all; every one was as good as the gold it called for at the sub-treasury. Bribery? From whom and for what? Doubtless I should know later. As it happened, I found out a little ahead of time.

"You remember the incident of the honest cabman and the hieroglyphic letter which he turned over to me? Here it is, addressed, as you observe, to Mr. Chivers."

Indiman drew from a locked drawer in the big centre-table the long strip of bluish paper covered with its incomprehensible dashes. "One of the oldest of devices for secret writing," he remarked. "This slip of paper was originally wrapped about a cylinder of a certain diameter and the message traced upon it, and it can only be deciphered by rerolling it upon another cylinder of the same diameter. Easy enough to find the right one by the empiric method--I mean experiment. Once you recognize the fundamental character of the cryptogram the rest follows with ridiculous certainty. Behold!"

Indiman took a long, round, slender stick from the mantel-piece and proceeded to wrap the ribbon of bluish paper about it, touching both ends with paste to keep the slip in place. It read in part:

"He will not find the girl, but so long as those records remain in his possession the possibility continues to exist. I leave it with you to make the bargain, and if he is not altogether a fool he will be content with his ten thousand dollars, and Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers will be again without a tenant. Otherwise--and it is generally otherwise with these meddlers--there will have to be a new adjustment of averages--what a felicitous phrase!--and this, as usual, I will take upon myself. One way or the other, and, personally, I don't care a straw which it is."

The name signed to this curious epistle was David Magnus.

"Our Dr. Magnus of the Utinam," explained Indiman, but I hardly heard him. One overwhelming thought obscured everything else--there was a real Lady Allegra, after all. That was it--to find her, and I had the clew. I must go at once. But Indiman restrained me.

"Yes, that is precisely what I want you to do, only let us first understand the situation thoroughly. I intend remaining here during the progress of the investigation, and if anything should happen--"

"What do you mean?"

"Pleasant rooms, aren't they?" and he looked about him approvingly.

"And yet three men have been found sitting dead in the particular chair that I am now occupying."

I only stared at him.

"No marks of violence," continued Indiman. "Nothing to indicate foul play; nothing, mind you. 'Dead by the visitation of G.o.d,' according to the coroner, but I should call it an 'adjustment of averages.' That is a felicitous phrase. I got my facts, by-the-way, from the janitor. He is rather proud of the affair Barowsky, as we may call it."

"A monster, indeed!" I exclaimed, warmly.

"Oh, we mustn't misjudge our good Dr. Magnus," said Indiman, indulgently. "I used the word 'monster' in a purely psychological sense. You can't call such a being immoral; he is simply unmoral."

"Not even a criminal lunatic."

"Certainly not. But I acknowledge that society would be justified in protecting itself from such a creature. And it will."

"But why should you remain here, exposed to danger?"

"My dear Thorp, I want to play the game. I'm sure it's one worthy of my best attention."

We argued it out for an hour or more, but Indiman was not to be moved from his position. So it came back to his original proposition. I was to take up the search on the outside for the Lady Allegra, and Indiman was to hold the fort at Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers. I rose to go.

"You don't need these, do you?" he asked, a little doubtfully, picking up one of the phonographic cylinders. I shook my head. As though I could have forgotten the smallest inflection of that voice! So we parted.

It had resolved itself into the needle in a hay-stack, after all. Where was I to look and for what? A voice! "Vox et preterea nihil," to quote again that beloved Vergilian line. To the unprejudiced mind it would seem hopeless enough, and yet I never doubted for an instant but that I should find her. If a man is sure that the world holds the one woman intended for him he may be equally confident that their paths will somewhere, somehow, sometime intersect.

It was the middle of the musical season, and I attended everything from grand opera to music-hall. For the first and most obvious procedure was to a.s.sume that the Lady Allegra was a professional singer. Either that or in the very front rank of amateurs. As to the latter, I had always been more or less in with the musical set, and I knew of no one who came within a mile of filling my bill of particulars.

A professional, then, but not necessarily high up on the ladder. Merit may wait a long time for its due recognition. So I did not despise the humble field of vaudeville and of the continuous performance houses.

Week after week pa.s.sed without result, and it was now the 1st of March.

I saw Indiman every few days and the game dragged equally with him.

Chivers had called half a dozen times, and was now openly negotiating for the possession of the phonographic cylinders. But Indiman fenced skilfully and kept him hanging on.

One night I was strolling through East Houston Street. A transparency caught my eye. It announced that a performance of high-cla.s.s vaudeville was in progress. I paid my dime and entered.

A long, low-studded room, dim with tobacco-smoke and redolent of stale beer. At the far end a small stage with faded red hangings. The card read No. 7, and the programme informed me that the turn was "A Bouquet of Ballads." A slight, fair-haired girl appeared on the stage. Her cheeks were burning, and she kept her eyes fixed on the floor. The piano jangled, and she began her song, Schubert's "Linden-Tree." Her voice shook and quavered as she went on, but I knew it. I had found the Lady Allegra.

The audience listened indifferently. This sort of thing did not appeal to East Houston Street sensibilities, and there was no applause at the end. The girl essayed a few bars of her second number, a popular air in trivial waltz time, but with even poorer success. Then she broke down altogether and retired distressfully. Cat-calls and jeers, of course.

But one turn had been allotted to "Mavis," as she was called in the bill, and I a.s.sumed that she would shortly leave the place. I went outside and waited. Within ten minutes I saw her emerging from the performer's entrance, cloaked and deeply veiled. But I could not be mistaken. I stood stock-still like any fool as she pa.s.sed close to me.

What was I to do?

Then good-fortune smiled for once, and in grat.i.tude for that surpa.s.sing indulgence I hereby relinquish all claim upon the lady for favors to come, now and forever. As the girl pa.s.sed down the street a couple of pasty-faced young men stepped forward. I saw her stop and shrink away.