The Drums of Jeopardy Part 12

Meanwhile, Captain Harrison of the Medical Corps entered the Conover apartment briskly.

"You old vagabond, what have you been up to? I beg pardon!"--as he saw Kitty emerge from behind Cutty's bulk.

"This is Miss Conover, Harrison."

"Very pleased, I'm sure. Luckily my case was in the coat room at the club. I took the liberty of telephoning for Miss Frances, who returned on the same s.h.i.+p with me. I concluded that your friend would need a nurse. Let me have a look at him."

Callously but lightly and skillfully the surgeon examined the battered head. "Escaped concussion by a hair, you might say. Probably had his cap on. That black eye, though, is an older affair. Who is he?"

"I suspect he's some political refugee. We don't know a thing about him otherwise. How soon can he be moved?"

"He ought to be moved at once and given the best of care."

"I can give him that in my eagle's nest. Harrison, this chap's life is in danger; and if we get him into my lofty diggings they won't be able to trace him. Not far from here there's a private hospital I know. It goes through from one street to the next. I know the doctor. We'll have the ambulance carry the patient there, but at the rear I'll have one of the office newspaper trucks. And after a little wait we'll shoot the stretcher into the truck. The police will not bother us. I've seen to that. I rather believe it falls in with some of my work. The main idea, of course, is to rid Miss Conover of any trouble."

"Just as you say," agreed the surgeon. "That's all I can do for the present. I'll run down to the entrance and wait for The nurse."

"Will he live?" asked Kitty.

"Of course he will. He is in good physical condition. Imagine he has simply been knocked out. Serious only if unattended. Your finding him probably saved him. Twelve hours will tell the story. May be on his feet inside a week. Still, it would be advisable to keep him in bed as long as possible. f.a.gged out, I should say, from that beard. I'll go down and wait for Miss Frances."

"And ring three times when you return," advised Cutty.

"All right. Did they try to strangle him or did he have something round his neck?"

"Hanged if I know."

"All out of the room now. I want it dark. Just as soon as the nurse arrives I'll return. Three rings." Harrison left the apartment.

Cutty spent a few minutes at the telephone, then he joined Kitty in the living room.

"Kitty, what was the stranger like?"

"Like a gorilla. He spoke English as if he had a cold."

Cutty scowled into s.p.a.ce. "Have a scar over an eyebrow?"

"Good gracious, I couldn't tell! Both his eyes were black and his nose banged dreadfully. Johnny Two-Hawks probably did it."

"Bully for Two-Hawks! Kitty, you're a marvel. Not a flivver from the start. And those slate-blue eyes of yours don't miss many things."

"Listen!" she interrupted, taking hold of his sleeve. "Hear it?"

"Only the Elevated."

"Tumpitum-tump! Tumpitum-tump! Cutty, you hypnotized me this afternoon with your horrid drums."

"The emeralds?" He managed to repress the start.

"I don't know what it is; drums, anyhow. Maybe it is the emeralds.

Something has been happening ever since you told me about them--the misery and evil that follow their wake."

"But the story goes that women are immune, Kitty."

"Nonsense! No woman is immune where a wonderful gem is concerned. And yet I've common sense and humour."

"And a lot more besides, Kitty. You're a raving, howling little beauty; and how you've remained out of captivity this long is a puzzler to me.

Haven't you got a beau somewhere?"

"No, Cutty. Perhaps I'm one of those who are quite willing to wait patiently. If the one I want doesn't come--why, I'll be a jolly, philosophical old maid. No seconds or culls for me, as the magazine editor says."

"Exactly what do you want?" Cutty was keenly curious, for some reason he could not define. He did not care for diamonds as stones; but he admired any personality that flashed differently from each new angle exposed.

"Oh, a man, among other things. I don't mean one of those G.o.dlike chromos in the frontispiece of popular novels. He hasn't got to be handsome. But he must be able to laugh when he's happy, when he's hurt.

I must be his business in life. He must know a lot about things I know.

I want a comrade who will come to me when he has a joke or an ache. A gay man and whimsical. The law can make any man a husband, but only G.o.d can make a good comrade."

"Kitty," said Cutty, his fine eyes sparkling, "I shan't have to watch over you so much as I thought. On the other hand, you have described me to a dot."

"Quite possibly. Vanity has its uses. It keeps us in contact with bathtubs and nice clothes. I imagine that you would make both husband and comrade; or you would have, twenty years ago"--without intentional cruelty. Wasn't Cutty fifty-two?

"Kitty, you've touched a vital point. It took those twenty years to make me companionable. Experience is something we must buy; it isn't left in somebody's will. Let us say that I possess all the necessary attributes save one."

"And what is that?"

"Youth, Kitty. And take the word of a senile old dotard, your young man, when you find him, will lack many of the attributes you require. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that these will develop as you jog along. The terrible pity of youth is that it has the habit of conferring these attributes rather than finding them. You put garlands on the heads of snow images, and the first glare of suns.h.i.+ne--pouf!"

"Cutty, I'm beginning to like you immensely"--smiling. "Perhaps women ought to have two husbands--one young and handsome and the other old and wise like yourself."

Cutty wished he were alone in order to a.n.a.lyze the stab. Old! When he knew that mentally and physically he could take and break a dozen Two-Hawks. Old! He had never thought himself that. Fifty-two years; they had piled up on him without his appreciation of the fullness of the score. And yet he was more than a match for any ordinary man of thirty in sinew and brain; and no man met the new morning with more zest than he himself met it. But to Kitty he was old! Lavender and oak leaves were being draped on his door k.n.o.b. He laughed.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Oh, because--Hark!"

The two of them ran to the bedroom door.

"Olga! Olga!" And then a guttural level jumble of sounds.

Kitty's quick brain reached out for a similitude--water rus.h.i.+ng over ragged boulders.

"Olga!" she whispered. "He is a Russian!"

"There are Serbian Olgas and Bulgarian Olgas and Rumanian Olgas.

Probably his sweetheart."

"The poor thing!"