The Gates of Chance Part 4

"Well?"

"The secret is simple enough. He who is ready to receive, receives.

Love, fame, the shower of gold--they are in the air, and only waiting to be precipitated. I stand ready to be amused, and that same afternoon the Evening Post aims a blow at the Tammany 'Tiger' over the shoulder of Mr. Edward M. Shepard; I am in the mood adventurous, and instantly the shadow of a prodigy falls across my threshold; yea, though I live on upper West End Avenue. Do you remember this?" and he held out a small Yale latch-key.

"It is the one you picked up at Twenty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue last night."

"Precisely. Now a key, you observe, is intended to open something--in this case a door. What door? As though that mattered! Put on your rain-coat, my dear Thorp, and let us begin a little journey into the unknown. Fate will lead us surely, O unbelieving one, if you will but place your hand unresistingly in hers."

We left the house, and Indiman tossed a penny into the air. "Broadway, heads; Fourth Avenue, tails." Tails it was.

Arrived at Fourth Avenue, we stood waiting for a car. The first that came along was on its way up-town and we boarded it.

"Was it you who asked for a cross-town transfer at Twenty-ninth?"

inquired the conductor of Indiman a few minutes later, and Indiman nodded a.s.sent and took the transfer slips.

At Eighth Avenue the cross-town car was blocked by a stalled coal-cart.

We alighted and pa.s.sively awaited further directions from our esoteric guide. Quite an amusing game for a dull, rainy afternoon, and I felt grateful to Indiman for its invention.

The policeman on the corner was endeavoring to direct a very small boy with a very large bundle. "Up one block and turn east," he said, impressively. "I've told you that now three times."

I had a flash of inspiration. "Copper it," I cried.

"Right," said Indiman, soberly. We walked down one block to Twenty-eighth Street and then turned westward.

New York is a big city, and therefore ent.i.tled to present an occasional anomaly to the observant eye. And this particular section of Twenty-eighth Street is one of these departures from the normal, a block or two of respectable, even handsome houses set as an oasis in a dull and sordid neighborhood. How and why this should be does not matter; it is to be presumed that the people who live there are satisfied, and it is n.o.body else's business.

We walked on slowly, then, half-way down the block, Indiman stopped me.

"What did I tell you?" he whispered.

The house was of the English bas.e.m.e.nt type, and occupied two of the ordinary city lots; nothing particularly remarkable about that, and I said as much.

"But look again," insisted Indiman. I did so and saw a man standing at the door, evidently desirous of entering. Twice, while we stood watching him, he rang without result, and the delay annoyed him. He shook the door-k.n.o.b impatiently, and then fell to researching his pockets, an elaborate operation that consumed several minutes.

"Lost his latch-key," commented Indiman. He walked up the steps of the entrance porch. "You might try mine," he said, politely, and held out the key picked up the night before at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-seventh Street.

"Huh!" grunted the man, suspiciously, but he took the little piece of metal and inserted it into the slot of the lock. The door swung open.

Amazing, but what followed was even more incredible. The man stepped into the hall, but continued to hold the door wide open.

"You're coming in, I suppose," he said, surlily.

"Certainly," answered Indiman. "This way, Thorp," he called at me, and most unwillingly I obeyed. We pa.s.sed into the house and the door closed behind us. Our introducer turned up the gas in the old-fas.h.i.+oned hall chandelier, and favored us with a perfunctory stare. "New members, eh!"

he grunted, and turned away as though it were a matter of entire indifference to him. But Indiman spoke up quickly.

"Pardon me," he began, with the sweetest suavity. "I was afraid for the moment that we had got into the wrong place. This is the--" a delicately suggestive pause.

"The Utinam Club," supplied the other.

"Exactly," said Indiman, in a most relieved tone. "It IS the Utinam, Thorp," he continued, turning to me. Now I had not the smallest notion of what the Utinam Club might be, consequently I preserved a discreet silence. Indiman addressed himself again to our ungracious cicerone.

"A snug little box you have here, Mr, er--"

"Hoyt, sir--Colman Hoyt."

"Ah, yes--of North Pole fame. You are the man--"

"Who has led four expeditions to reach it, and failed as often. That is MY t.i.tle to fame. And also my qualification for members.h.i.+p in the Utinam Club," he added, grimly.

"Ah, yes--the discovery of the Pole. A unique and delightful idea in clubdom--eh, Thorp? To succeed--"

"No, sir; to FAIL," interrupted Mr. Hoyt, rudely. "What the devil do you suppose I am doing in this galley? You must be a very new member of the Utinam Club."

"To tell the truth, Mr. Hoyt," said Indiman, with an air of engaging frankness, "I have never, until this moment, even heard of the Utinam Club. But for all that I am convinced that I am about to become a member of it, and I may say the same for my friend, Mr. Thorp. Now, possibly you may be inclined to a.s.sist us."

Mr. Hoyt stared. "It's a pity, isn't it," he remarked, reflectively, "that our standard of eligibility doesn't conform to that of your impudence. Still, I won't say that it can't be done; this is a proprietary club, you know. You had better see Dr. Magnus."

"Dr. Magnus?"

"The proprietor of the Utinam Club. Here he comes now."

A slight, gray-haired man of fifty or there-abouts had entered the hall from the rear and immediately came forward to meet us. His eyes were the extraordinary feature of his face, piercingly brilliant and enormously magnified by the spectacles that he wore. The lenses of the latter were nearly an eighth of an inch thick and evidently of the highest power. Even with their aid his powers of vision seemed imperfect. On hearing the few words of explanation vouchsafed by the unamiable Mr. Hoyt, he drew from his pocket a second and third pair of gla.s.ses and deliberately added both to his original optical equipment.

I know that I felt like a fly under a microscope in facing that formidable battery of lenses. But the scrutiny seemed to satisfy him; he spoke courteously enough:

"Step into my office, gentlemen, and we will talk the matter over."

Mr. Colman Hoyt had departed without further formality, and we followed our host into the room adjoining the hall on the right. It looked like the study of a man of science; charts and globes and plaster-of-Paris casts were everywhere, while the far end of the apartment was occupied by a huge, flat-topped table covered with papers, test-tubes, and gla.s.s-slides. But even more remarkable than its contents was the room itself, and its singular architectural proportions at once engaged my attention.

As I have said, the house occupied two twenty-five-foot city lots, but the entrance and hall were at the extreme right as one looks outward towards the street, instead of being in the centre, as is usually the case. Consequently, the room in which we stood (being undivided by any interior part.i.tions) extended the full width of the house, less that of the entrance hall--forty feet, let us say, in round numbers. But its measurements in the other direction were barely ten feet, the apartment presenting the appearance of a long, low, and narrow gallery. At the back were a row of five windows taking light from the interior court-yard; in brief, the house, imposing in its dimensions from the street side, was little more than a mask of masonry extremely ill-adapted for human habitation, or, indeed, for any purpose. Stepping to one of the rear windows, I looked out, and then the reason for this extraordinary construction--or, rather, reconstruction--became apparent. The lot was of the usual depth of one hundred feet, and, being a double one, it had a width of fifty. A large building of gray stone occupied the farther end of this inside s.p.a.ce, the erection measuring about sixty feet in depth and extending the full width of the enclosure. That left a little less than thirty feet of court-yard between this back building and the one facing on the street, and it was evident that the rear of the original house had been sheared off bodily to provide for this singular readjustment in the owner's modus vivendi, only the party walls on either side being left standing. And these had been extended so as to enflank the building in the rear.

If I have made my description clear, it now will be understood that the facade of the original house was nothing more than a sh.e.l.l, a ten-foot screen whose princ.i.p.al office was to conceal the interior structure from curious eyes. Describing the latter more particularly, it should be noted that it was connected with the original house by a covered pa.s.sageway of brick running along one side of the court-yard and communicating with the hallway that led to the street door. Apparently, the rear building was three stories in height--I say apparently, for, being entirely dest.i.tute of windows, it was impossible to accurately deduce the number of its floors. Aesthetically, it made no pretensions, its only architectural feature being a domed roof of copper and a couple of chimney-stacks, from one of which a thin streak of vapor ascended. A chilling and depressing spectacle was that presented by the "House in the Middle of the Block," as I mentally christened it, and I speculated upon the strange offices to which it had been consecrated.

"The Utinam Club," answered my unspoken query. Dr. Magnus had advanced to my side and stood staring at me through his triple lenses. I started, involuntarily.

"There! there!" he said, soothingly. "I did not perceive that your attention was so entirely absorbed. I am honored by your interest--the Utinam Club, it is my hobby, sir, and one not altogether unworthy of the consideration of an intelligent man."

"I can quite understand that," said Indiman, who had joined us at the window. "There is a distinct stimulus to the imagination in the picture before us. And what a picture!--this eyeless, gray-faced, architectural monstrosity, crowned with squat, domelike head of coppery red, and set in that gigantic cadre of fifty-foot masonry! Superb! Magnificent!"

"The honor of your acquaintance--" began Dr. Magnus.

"In two words," interrupted Indiman, smilingly. He made a brief statement of the circ.u.mstances attendant upon the finding of the Yale latch-key, and the proprietor of the Utinam Club listened attentively.

"I have a pa.s.sion for the unique," concluded Indiman, "and the Utinam Club appears to possess claims of unusual merit in that direction. I own frankly that I am curious as to its object and qualifications for members.h.i.+p."

"They are quite simple," answered Dr. Magnus. "Indeed, the name of the club explains its raison d'etre--Utinam, a Latin e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n equivalent to our 'Would to Heaven!' or 'Would that I could be!' To be eligible for members.h.i.+p in the Utinam Club, one must have had a distinct object or ambition in life and then have failed to realize it."

"Ah, I begin to understand," murmured Indiman. "An extraordinary basis, indeed, for a social organization--the lame ducks, the n.o.ble army of the incapables, the gentlemen a main gauche! Pray go on; you interest me exceedingly."

"We have them all here," answered Dr. Magnus, smiling. "The unsuccessful author, the business bankrupt, the artist whose pictures have never reached the line. The touch-stone of failure, you see; the clubability (odious word!) of our members.h.i.+p is unimpeachable.