 CHAPTER 4 The iteration of the name Belsharmion smote upon John Fenton's ears like the ringing of a bell far away in some secret chamber of his mind behind some locked door. Why should that name excite him? He did not know. It seemed to be vaguely familiar, but he could place it nowhere in his memory. He was puzzling over it when his attention was called to the next speaker of the evening, then suddenly a new thought excited him. The man addressed by the president was a cross-eyed, coarse-faced individual who by the cut of his coat and the battered top hat on the back of his head was indubitably a cab-driver. Suddenly Fenton's mind went back to the Octoroon's story. She had been pursued by a cross-eyed cabman. Could this be the man? Fenton listened eagerly to see if anything in his speech would confirm this surmise. This is a perfectly true story the cabman was saying. Stop there, the president thundered. If a story is funny it's not true, and if it's true it's not funny. That principle has been proved in this club beyond paradventure. Cut out this I KNEW THE MAN THAT DIED stuff. We want no true stories here. We want good ones. Wherever a good story travels, there's always some fool who wants to tack it on to some maternal aunt of his, and ten to one he actually believes what he says. All good stories come from Herodotus, and the best we can do is to cut him over to a nineteen hundred and eleven model, touch him up with rouge and powder, and send him out as the latest. No man can invent a good story, but he can improve a poor one. No true tale is fit to tell. The naked truth must be adorned. Peter Stowe, the pigeon fancier, awoke from his doze. Well, is this a browning club or not? he asked sleepily. Why not play ball? I second the motion, said the chauffeur. The president nodded and the cab driver shifted his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other and began. The sleepy bridegroom. It was a funny story how young Michael Carnarvon got married. I never heard of such a wedding in my life. You see, young Carnarvon was really what you might call roped in. The shoe-felt girl was a manicure, working in the hotel persimmon, and from the day she laid eyes on him she began to wire things up to marry him. I suppose all women do that one way or another. She'd done it by listening instead of talking. When he began to call on her, she lived over on Charles Street with her mother. She kept him talking about himself till he thought she was the cleverest girl in New York, which in some ways she was. But with playing the innocent sympathetic, keeping her mother out of the way, and padlocking her temper, which was something savage, she got him going till he popped the question. She certainly managed it great. Carnarvon's folks was wild when they heard about the engagement. But by this time he was deaf and blind to the fact that the shoe-felt girl was only after his money, and had the reputation, around Chelsea Village, of being a regular Rocky Mountain catamount when she got mad. Lord, it must have been a strain for that girl to hold her tongue sometimes. But she never boiled over till after the wedding. You'd have thought she was half-witted almost. She was so tame when Carnarvon was around. But Lord, how her mother used to catch it when he left the flat, and her mother could put up a pretty good jaw-fight, too. Well three days before the wedding, Carnarvon had to work like a donkey engine to get his business straightened up, so he could get off on his honeymoon. He was at the office night and day working himself to a frazzle. In that time he hadn't slept more than three or four hours, all told, and on the morning of his marriage he was about as near all in as a man can be, and keep awake. In fact he couldn't keep awake, and that was the trouble. They tell me that last four-noon he was practically walking and talking in his sleep. Black coffee didn't do no good at all, for he'd been living on it for a week, practically. He dictated his letters, staggering up and down the room, and every time he sat down at the desk to sign his name to him, the typewriter had to stick hat-pins into him to wake him up. He took snuff to make him sneeze. He washed his face in cold water every ten minutes. He kept the windows wide open, everything he could think of to brace him up. But he just naturally got drowsier and drowsier every minute. They was things that simply had to be done, if he was going to get off next day. And so he kept to it till late in the afternoon. So dopey he couldn't talk American. Blub-blub was about all he could say. It was something awful. These clerks implored him to let them finish up. But he didn't dare trust them, so he stuck to the ship. At six o'clock he was like a living corpse, half blind with sleep, yawning continually and having to be hauled up off the floor every five minutes. He was living on sheer nerve. Blind staggers was nothing to it. But he left to go home, declining help from the boys, and, of course, owing to ructions in his family, not likely to get much assistance when he did get there. Well, on the way home he dropped in at a drug-store for a dose of something, Strychnia or some such stuff, to brace him up through the ceremony. After that he didn't care, just so long as he made good with the minister. How he asked for the dope I don't know. He must have said something about sleeping, I suppose. But anyway the clerk thought he wanted a sleeping-draft, and he gave him what turned out to be a twenty-percent solution of morphine. See? There he was, hardly able to see straight anyway, with a double dose of dope on top of it. He took a cab home, and the driver had to pry him out of the seat when they got there. He crawled upstairs wondering how he was ever going to make it that evening. His medicine didn't seem to help much, so he took another swig at it. How he ever got his clothes on, his man can't exactly explain. It was a job for an undertaker, not a valet. But after a regular nightmare of it, Carnarvon started for the shoe-felt flat. He didn't dare take a cab this time for fear he'd be found asleep, and they think he was drunk. So he walked. It must have been horrible. Most of the time he staggered along with his eyes shut, hoping he'd run into somebody, who'd punch him in the head, or give him a good kick to wake him up. No such luck. Well he got to the shoe-felt flat somehow, and just before going in he emptied the bottle in hopes it would carry him through the ceremony. That last dose made him feel as if he was living inside a blanket soaked in molasses, with his arms and legs tied. That man was game. He just got in, and that was about all, for he stumbled on the first rug, fell feet down on the floor, and began to snore. Mrs. shoe-felt picked him up, and she and Nanny lugged him into a bedroom, and tried to wake him up. By this time he was just muttering to himself something like, I don't give a durn for anything. I'm tired of swimming through jelly, blub, blub, blub. I want to lay down and die decent. Of course they thought he was drunk. What else was they to think? But so long as she was safely spliced to him, Nanny didn't care. She was determined not to make a miss of it, and as soon as she was Mrs. Michael Conarvon, she knew she'd give him a tongue-lashing that would sober him up. So they slapped wet towels at his face, stepped on his toes, tickled the soles of his feet, used a few needles, brushed up his hair backwards, and dragged him in to greet the friends of the family. Wow! He tried to crawl on his hands and knees, but they wouldn't have it. Everybody thought it was a disgrace, but he was rich, and that always explains a lot. After he was introduced to the minister, he melted down into a chair, shut his eyes, and opened his mouth. Nanny pinched him good. He got up in a kind of trance, fell into Mother's shoe-felt's sister's lap, stepped into the rubber-plant, upset a table full of wedding presents, and then the old lady decided to hurry things and get the agony over. How she induced the minister to do the job, I don't know. Perhaps it was the hundred-dollar bill Conarvon had in his best pocket did the trick. Anyway, they propped him up on each side and one behind, and the parson done his act. Everybody present swore afterwards that they heard him say, I will, and as soon as it was over he collapsed, and they laid him out on a sofa and covered him up with a tablecloth while Nanny changed her clothes. The guests went into the dining room to feed and drink his health. Now whether it was the champagne young Conarvon had paid for, or just the natural tendency of wedding guests to play the goat, I don't know. But anyway they fixed up a joke on the happy pair. There was one cut up there, a rising young plumber he was, named O Square, the first I knew of the thing. He come round to my stand and wanted to hire my hack. It was him what put me on to the whole thing. He was fairly busting with it. He offered me twenty dollars for the use of my cab and my hat and overcoat, and I surrendered. Naturally I followed round the corner to see the fun. He sent away the taxi cab Conarvon had waiting, and went upstairs to see if all was ready. The rest of them had everything fixed. They got young Conarvon downstairs, holding him up the way you do a drunk, and they rammed him into the cab. Then they brought down Nanny, who was beginning to talk. Lord, you ought to have heard her remarks. They was something bloodthirsty. The guests only screamed and laughed at her. O Square got on the box. We all tied up the trunks with ribbons, and off they went, Nanny's language dripping out of that cab like a leaky watering-cart. O Square brought back my cab toward one o'clock next morning. He didn't say nothing, but I heard afterward that he dumped them out. Conarvon, dead asleep. Nanny fighting mad, and the trunks covered with old boots and white ribbons on a little cross-road in the middle of Van Cortlandt Park. That was his idea of a joke. What happened after that, I don't know, except that a week afterward Michael Conarvon brought suit for the annulment of his marriage on the grounds that he was asleep during the ceremony. The cross-eyed cabman paused and felt in his inside coat pocket. If you don't believe it, he remarked, Look at this thing here. I found it tucked into a nook in the seat-cushion of my cab, when I cleaned her out the next day. He held up a locket, heart-shaped, with a star of white stones. It flashed like a handful of sparks in that smoky, dusty room. I ain't sure it was Conarvon's wedding present to his wife he explained. It wasn't never advertised for. And so I never said nothing about it. You know us cab-drivers has got to have some perquisites. The suspicions which had arisen in Fenton's mind at first sight of the cross-eyed cab-driver were confirmed long before the story was finished. As it progressed, Fenton was amazed at the man's audacity in weaving in point after point the facts of the Octoroon's narrative. The sleepy bridegroom could, of course, be none other than the dead fair Gordon Brewster, the picture which the cabbie had seen as he watched from a nearby corner was almost the identical one the Octoroon had described, the tragic truth disguised in this comedy recital. As chorus after chorus of guffaws applauded the tale, Fenton wondered at the cleverness of the man who was, no doubt, adapting some old narrative to fit the needs of his case. At sight of the locket, however, Fenton's thoughts took a new turn. The ornament had a mystery of its own connected in some incomprehensible way with his own life. He had but a glimpse of it, as it was displayed, but he was sure there was no mistake. It was exactly the same as the one he recalled, first during that half-forgotten scene on the ferry-boat, when he was a mere child, afterward in the O'Shea's tenement, after they had come to New York. What did it mean? How did the cabbie really get it? There was only one possible answer. Undoubtedly it was one of the Brewster jewels, spilled out of the traveling bag, as the Octoroon had said, while the dead body was being driven to Seventy-Second Street. If so, the cabbie's suspicions of queer work must have gained ground. He had, perhaps, already communicated with the police. At any rate Fenton now had a double reason for wanting to gain possession of it, and he was determined that at the first opportunity he would attempt to get it. He would watch his chance. With all this flashing through his mind it did not take him long to perceive that he could not safely tell his own story before the driver. Once he was connected with the jewels, the cabbie would be on his track. He determined, therefore, to invent some fantastic tale anything would do, which might rescue him from his embarrassing dilemma. The cabman's story suggested a plot. It was vague, but he relied upon inspiration for some amusing narrative. His mind was already busy upon the fiction, when he was called upon for his contribution to the evening's entertainment. We have with us tonight, said the President, impressively, hooray from the circle of auditors, a newcomer to our glorious midst. As an amateur liar we expect little, and yet the gentleman's costume warrants some hope of amusement. He turned to Fenton. Now bear legs. You can spiel your tale. What's all this about being robbed of seventeen million dollars worth of diamonds, anyway? Make it short, for we're getting tired. And don't spare the ginger. You need to be waked up. Already? Fire away! He sat down. Everyone looked at Fenton, and laughed again. He did not, in truth, present a very dignified aspect. The blood and egg yolk had dried upon his shins, and he had brushed some of the dirt from his coat. But there was excuse enough for mirth. He looks like a bum-highland scavenger, was the chauffeur's comment. Fenton invoked the muse of comedy, and rose to his feet. Of course that yarn about the stolen millions was all a bluff. I wanted to get away quick, and when you hear my lively tale, you'll understand why I didn't care to explain just how many different kinds of a fool I was to our friend the aged pigeon charmer here. It was bad enough as it was, but I see you're all good fellows, and perhaps if I throw myself wide open you may be moved to help me out. The fact is, also, that the cavi's story is just enough like mine, to encourage me to go ahead and tell the truth. He was proud of himself. Already he had made an impression. From the looks of the men he knew he had his audience, and it inspired him. He gave free reign to imagination, therefore, and warming gradually to his lie. He began the story. The three weddings. I am going to be married tonight. A few fellows will help me out. That will explain why I touch lightly on parts of the narrative. I haven't much time to lose. If I'm to capture my blushing bride, the Pride of Harlem, a lady you'll excuse me for denominating Miss Daisy Peach. The name doesn't matter, for I expect it to be Howitch by 12 1 tomorrow morning. My name's Claude Kensington Van Prule Howitch. Age 21. Alright, skip the love-it-for-sight stuff. Skip the coy proposal and lovers' quarrels. Skip the violets and confectionary. Most all men make love alike. Every chap thinks his chicken is a bird of paradise. The only difference is, I know mine is. The story, therefore, boils down to a question of too much mother-in-law before marriage. By too much I merely insinuate that she was too much for me. Why? She wanted Daisy to marry six-foot-of-blonde Englishman with a decorated name. Call him the Honorable Audranon Mud. That'll do fine. Daisy, being foolish about me, said nay, nay, and set the date for our nuptials. In fact, she named the day three times. Let's take them chronologically, which, being interpreted, o' grave and reverend seniors, means each by one. Wedding No. 1 Parson Ready Four million guests of the bride arrived. Presence set out, labeled and guarded by detectives in the billiard room, house decorated, floral arch, orange blossoms, galore, potted plants, orchids, little sisters in silk-voil, carrying baskets of rose-leaves to walk on. In short, everything but the happy groom, which was me, who was fighting his way into an elephant's dress-suit many miles away. No wedding bells for her. Puzzle! Here's the answer. Wedding was to be at nine. My best man, thinking me sane, sober, and responsible, had promised to call at eight with a taxi. At six-thirty, as I thought, I began to dress for the execution. Now though I may not look it in my present war-paint, I keep a valet, or rather I share him with four other chaps. Up to date, that valet had been an expert, but at seven o'clock he began to go crazy. One, spilt a bottle of mucilage inside my union-suit. You know, no man wants to wear another kind of skin. Two, couldn't find a clean suit, Valet had to hike out and buy one. And Flannels was all he could find, and me to be married at nine. Three, upset the ink all over my king-of-broadway dress-shirt. Found every other white shirt was three sizes too small. Never had been before. Again to the haberdasher's. Haberdasher closed. Had to put on a soft silk arrangement, like the leading man in a musical comedy. Four, laid down my dress-coat on some sticky fly-paper we had there to catch early crop of mosquitoes. Five, went to telephone and found the thing was struck deaf and dumb. I was furious by this time. Paranoic. Ready to chew glass and spit blood. You may wonder why I didn't tumble before this. And suspect my valet. I suppose it was because I was dreaming of my beauteous bride. Anyway, it wasn't till I sent him out to a friend to borrow a black suit that I began to think anything. Then I went out to the elevator-boy and asked the time. It was nine twenty-five. That blasted menial had put back my watch, and all the clocks an hour and a half. Well, by that time I was seeing red. I went down the hall and pounded at every door, begging for a dress-suit. Nobody at home, or only shocked females who barricaded the entrance. At last I found a Dutchman who let me in, and offered me a suit he had owned for thirteen years. I took it to my place and got into it. I wrapped it around me, so to speak. I got lost in it. Fit it would have fitted a dinosaurus better. It flapped and waved about me. I looked like the last potato in the sack. But it was my last hope, and in that mass of black broadcloth I made my appearance at the mansion de Peach. To find every guest gone, the old man swearing mad, mother-in-law to be, calm as an iceberg, and my daisy in tears. How I squared myself, I don't know. I sent Miss Peach all the violets in the world, and we postponed the wedding for a week. I promised to be careful. When I got back I found my valet waiting as cool as a marble top table. I promised not to murder him if he'd tell me exactly why he did it. What do you think? Honorable Mudd had tipped him one hundred dollars to queer me for the festivity. Well, it was worth knowing. Somewhere around the conspiracy I smelled my mother-in-law, but I couldn't follow up the trail. Wedding number two. No valet this time, you bet. My best man on guard, buttoning me up and giving good advice, turning to central for the time every ten minutes. I was all ready to start at eight o'clock when the bell rang like an alarm clock. We didn't hurry, and bing! The door was nearly blown in. Best man opens the door, enter a hoity-toity chorus girl, made up for leading Anjanu, and one big, big, bull-necked policeman. That's him, says Tootsie Footlights, and the cop lays a fist like a ham on my shoulder. What do you think? Tootsie sprang a song about my having stolen six hundred dollars and banged her eye at Jack's two nights before. Said we were engaged, but it was all off, and arrest him, Mr. Officer. He's handsome, but he's false. Protests from yours affectionately. Heep big talk from best man. No go. Officer MacUgly shows a warrant for my arrest. I'm properly identified, and if I want to go to the station in a taxi I can. Otherwise he'll call for the patrol. I tried to coax him with a fifty, but it wouldn't work. My best man flew loose on a search for bail, and I made the journey to jail. The sergeant winked when I told the marriage story. I telephoned. I'd arrive at the Peach Palace in a minute, but before we raised the hundred dollars bail, the wedding was a fizzle. Simultaneously Tootsie Footlights wired in. She'd found the ring inside one of her rats, and she wouldn't prosecute. Who was Tootsie? Hired by honorable mud, of course, like the Vallet. She came round afterward, and told me all about it, giggling, and tried to get me to take her out to dinner. She had a nerve like a frog. No? Yes? Such are the petted favourites of the mimic world. The next day I got a session of live-wire talk from Daisy Peach that gave me the shivers. See here, Claude, she says, I'm getting tired of getting married on the installment plan. I know that Ma and Mr. Mud are trying to queer you, but if you can't beat a pink Englishman out on a game like this, I'll be darned if I don't marry the Britain, for he's the cleverest man of the two. I like you, Claude, and in times of peace you seem to make good. But the war is on, and I'm going to marry the victor. We'll get married on the 30th of April, and I'll give you this last chance. I am aware that Mr. Mud may have cooked up a good one this time to put you out of business, but if you can't defend yourself after being warned, you're no good to me as a husband. I can't use that kind. So I'll give you till midnight to show up. When the clock strikes twelve, if you're not visible to the naked eye, I'll become Mrs. Mud, and begin to train for high society in Surrey and that townhouse in Park Lane. Goodbye, boyo, I'll always be a sister if he wins. But I do hope you won't be lost in the shuffle again. Wedding No. 3 All goes well till 6 p.m. of the fatal day, today. I had laid in three dress suits, a small gents furnishing shop, a couple of welterweight thugs from Casey's, and my best man and I each had a magazine pistol ready. At 6 the telephone bell rings and Ma Peach croons out her siren song. Daisy, she said, had cold toes over something. Would I come right over to see her, or else the match would be off. She had sent the limousine. See the game? Yes? No? What could I do? Disobey the summons of the Queen of the Solar System? My brave, sweet Daisy-Kins? Not so. I fell for it. Out I walked through my barricades, jumped into the limousine. The minute I was in, two large adult men jumped in after me, one on each side. I had no time to put up a fight before they got to my nose with chloroform. And well, I woke up in our friend's pigeon ranch. With my trousers gone. A quick finish? By Juno, yes. Now, gents, I put it to you. Are you going to allow me to lose a 26 carat bride at the last moment for want of five cents in a pair of trousers? Seriously, my friends, I'm in a hole. I ask you, man to man, help me out. I can make it yet. Are you willing to stand for me or not? If you ever were married, you know how nervous a man is. I believe, honest, I have a temperature of 104 this blessed minute. For Cupid's sake, give me a lift. If I had a hat I'd pass it around. I only need pants and a taxi. What do you say?" Fenton paused and looked anxiously around at the members of the Liars Club. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 The reporter of the item How John Fenton achieved a pair of trousers and attempted a sultan's battery unsuccessfully, but was rescued by a chubby scribbler. There was an instant's hush when Fenton finished. This charm and personality had carried his hearers along with absorbed attention. But he had little practice in impromptu romances, and his tale could scarcely convince the crowd of men before him, who were used to all manner of picturesque narratives. So as Fenton sat down, a gust of laughter applauded him. They had been well entertained by his freak of fancy, but not enough to contribute the funds. He had hoped might be his reward. He made another tentative appeal, but a cynical laugh was his only answer, and the company began to break. Men rose and yawned, started to look for their hats, and began talking with one another. The President came forward and laid his massive hand on Fenton's shoulder. Very good, lad. You nearly got us going, and that's no joke for a beginner. We'll have to have you round again. Nothing like new blood. Well good night, kid. Come round whenever you feel like hitting the pipe. But how the devil am I to get out of here, Fenton asked anxiously. I can't go this way. If I can't borrow any money, I might at least get a pair of trousers. Oh, I guess Garrosh will fix you up all right, said the President, easily, and he turned away and began to turn out the lamps. The cab driver had already come and joined them. I got an old pair of overalls, if that'll do you any good, he suggested. Then jumped at the proposal, for indeed it would enable him to kill two birds with one stone. If he could get the cab driver alone, he was determined to gain the locket, and when he might restore it to its owner, and then discover if possible the secret of his old memories of the trinket. He accepted Garrosh's offer, therefore, and after farewells to those of the club who had not already gone, he left and went down a flight of stairs with the cabbie. He had already measured his man with his eye. Garrosh was a gin-soaked, obese wreck, and Fenton felt sure of being able to overcome him in a fair fight. He watched carefully, and knew that the driver had slipped the locket into a lower-vest pocket. It should be easy to gain possession of it. First, however, the overalls must be secured. They went down into a stable next door, now teneted only by a few sorry nags, and two disreputable-looking cabs. It was lit by an oil lamp on a bracket. Garrosh went to a locker in the rear, beside a small door in the wall, and drew out the garment. The overalls were a brown denim, streaked with oil and spotted with dirt, but they would at least cover his bare shins. Fenton drew them on, watching the man sharply. When he was clad, he maneuvered toward a wagon-stave that was lying on the floor, seized it, and whirled suddenly upon the cab driver. Now then, he exclaimed harshly, give me that locket. It's mine. Garrosh looked up at him through bleary eyes. Well, you son of a plumber, he ejaculated, and then, with remarkable agility and force, his foot shot out, caught his opponent in the diaphragm. And Fenton dropped, doubled up, with the wind knocked out of him. Before he could recover, the cabbie had fallen on him, and was throttling him. He began to punch with fervor. Fenton saw stars, then everything went black. He opened his eyes to find Richmond, the chubby reporter who had been ejected from the club, sitting on a keg, watching him curiously. Fenton sat up on the floor, and looked groggily about. The cabman was lying a few feet from him, supine, with his eyes shut, evidently knocked out. The reporter smiled. Couda savant, he said. That cabbie must have come from Paris. Dirty low trick. How do you feel? Fenton rose, stretched his arms and legs, and then, recollecting his object, turned to the cabman, and felt quickly in his greasy vest pockets. In one was a large nickel watch, the other was empty. I've got it, remarked the reporter. Fenton sized him up and took a step forward. Give it to me. What? I've got it, of course. You say you've got it. Fenton realized now how foolish he had ever been to speak of the robbery. He resolved to humor the reporter till he could get rid of him. That story about the stolen jewels was all a joke, he added. It was no joke, son. I'm not a fool. But what about the locket? That locket, said Fenton, has something queer to do with me. I don't know just what. There's something mysterious about it, and I want it. I don't know who it belongs to, but I know I have a better right to it than you have. As for the robbery, if you want to believe in it, you may. But I won't tell you anything about it. In which case, I keep the locket, said the reporter. And now what are you going to do in that rig? I'm going to borrow a quarter from you to get uptown with. Right all right, but you'll have to earn it. Now I'll tell you what I'll do. I've got to fool around for a half hour or so, looking for a girl a few blocks from here. Now I don't care to hang round in the slums alone, and if you'll stay with me, I'll give you a dollar for car fare and the locket to boot when the deed is did. All I want is your name and address. Otherwise, I follow you till I find out for myself. All right, my name is John Fenton, and I live at 69 West 127th Street. We'll see. If you don't mind, I'll corroborate that. Have you anything to prove it? Fenton pulled a letter from his pocket which showed the truth of his confession. Looks all right to me, said Richmond, and he wrote it down on his cuff. Then he looked at the cabbie. I see our cross-eyed friend is stirring in his sleep. Let's get out of here pronto and go where we can talk. Don't do anything foolish like running away, though, and remember that I used to be the featherweight champion of the Rosebud Social and Outing Club. By this time they were walking rapidly away from the stable, proceeding toward Canal Street. To emphasize his warning, the reporter had taken Fenton by the arm. Now see here, son, he went on. You're already somewhat in my debt. That pirate would have gouged your eyes out in another minute if I hadn't been in ambush. You've got a story, and I want it. Give up what you know, and I'll return the jewelry, or else there's nothing doing. He stopped under a lamppost, and looked Fenton over deliberately. His words were coercive, but his eyes twinkled with good nature. You'll have to keep it, then, unless I can get it away from you," said Fenton gloomily. I don't see that the story's any of your business. All news is my business. I represent the people of New York who have a right to know what's going on, especially when it's as queer as you hinted at. When I saw you up there, they all thought that yarn about a jewel robbery was a bluff. I knew well enough it wasn't. I don't know what story you told, finally, but I'll bet it wasn't the right one. So when they bounced me, I hung around to see what you'd do. Murder was the last thing I expected, and even now, if you've lost seven million worth of diamonds, more or less, I failed to see how it is worth your while to jump this cabbage as to get back one gold locket set with rhinestones. To the casual debutante, it doesn't seem to be worth the risk. Makes this request. Put me on to the story. At present I'm out on another assignment, but I may be able to work on both. What are you afraid of? If you want, honestly, to get your fortune back, I may be able to help you. If you know anything, you know that a good reporter can beat any detective in the Central Office, and I'm the star of the morning item. The fact is, said Fenton, I've given my word of honour not to tell. Ah, said the reporter, compounding a felony. All right, then, I'll tell you what I'll do. One last proposition, going, going, gone. I've got to hang round Eldridge Street to catch a girl who ought to be due there pretty soon, according to my tip. My paper wants her, and also I have some important news to give her. I've got to break a sad tale. We reporters get queer jobs. Now if you'll come along with me, decent, while I wait for her. I'll stake you to a cab afterward, and you can get uptown for your pants. Meanwhile, I keep this locket as an evidence of good faith. It's your bail till I get ready to go after you professionally. That's the best I can do. While we wait, I'll enliven the vigil. By his pretty little tale of middle-class life, as you ever heard in the papers, Fenton reluctantly consented. He was not anxious to become conspicuous by attacking the reporter, much as he wanted the locket. And Richmond's proposition seemed the easiest way of getting uptown. They walked along Canal Street, therefore, and turned into Eldridge Street. In the middle of the block, Richmond turned Fenton up to a pair of tenement house steps that commanded a view of both sidewalks. They sat down, perched a little above the dirty pavement, where the submerged tenth, traded, played, or promenaded in front of them, keeping his quick eye alert upon the passers-by. Richmond produced a roll of vanna-cigarettes, and lighting one from the other, smoked them in a chain, as he narrated his tale. The middle-class girl. Take it from Eald Top. The bromidic center of New York City is situated at the corner of Broadway and 90th Street. That's where Mr. Middle Class lives. Call him a bromide, a Philistine, or a man in the street. He's bound to have his nine-room apartment and bath, somewhere thereabouts. Mr. Average Man is a broker. He owns an $1,800 motor-car, and hunts in the Adirondacks, or up in Maine, two weeks every fall. His wife is a good-looking middle-aged woman in black satin, with the gray spots in her hair, modestly touched up. She plays bridge, and has a manicure masseuse come in every Friday or so. There's one son, whose seldom leaves Broadway at night, and who is putting up margins during his lunch-hour, and always getting stung. Such was the baker-menage, business and theaters and bridge, and an occasional dance. But Miss Baker, Bessie Baker, was the lovely duckling in this family of male and female hens. At thirteen Bessie changed her name to Elizabeth, did up her hair, turned her skirts, and began to open her eyes to the fact that she was hopelessly middle-class, and doomed to marry an insurance agent if she didn't look sharp. Thence to a small flat on 126th Street, a baby, and a gossiping life across the dumbwaiter of the next apartment, Elizabeth had aspirations and began to make plans for Bryn Mawr. She went through high school, Pa was strong for the public schools, and no nonsense about swell seminary life, and was just about to try for the entrance examinations. When a flurry in P.D. and Q. put Father Baker in a hole and zip, the university education was out of the game for poor Elizabeth. Did the old man care? Not so. He never took much to the idea of making high-brow of Bessie. He thought it would spoil her chances for matrimony. You know the old idea. But the girl was really terribly cut up. Middle-class society was beginning to get on her nerves. All she heard talked was bridge and business, theaters and tees, from morning till night. In her world, romance was unknown. Nobody ever eloped. Nobody ever did anything great or criminal. Girls grew up, had children, and died without ever knowing an adventure. Men had mysterious vices. She knew of them as shameful, sordid acts that could never attract her. But to her vision, gents were always well-dressed, gloved and caned, paying silly compliments, talking bosh and sending violets. What was over the other side of the wall, which surrounded her, that was what she wanted to know. She knew no millionaires, and no paupers, not even a suffragette. No friend of hers ever got into the papers. No girl had a secret she could not and did not babble to all her friends. In her world, the fairyland of science was unknown, the charm of philosophy unheard of. Literature was confined to the fifteen-cent magazines and art to the thirty-five. And there was a great big world outside her door, a world brilliant with blood, brutality, crime, poverty, suffering, private yachts, divorces, and luxury. She had never been south of twenty-third Street. She had never seen the water except from Riverside Drive. Oh, for a man who could explain Nietzsche to her. Oh, for a man who knew the difference between de Mopassant and Balzac. Can you tell why Mendel has superseded Darwin? No more could Bessie. What was pragmatism? Who were these new post-impressionists? She read of in skimpy paragraphs in Scribner's. How could intelligent men and women perceive charm in Debussy's discords? Yes, she had been abroad with her mother and Badeker. But they had to stay indoors every night in Paris. They had never seen an anarchist or a slum or a tea-taster or a live poet. Now a girl who had something to do with the Delancey Street Settlement House happened to meet Bessie at a toy tea one day, and when the two got together for four minutes, Bessie's horizon moved north, south, east, and west ten degrees. The little middle-class girl discovered that while she and her ilk wandered through the desert of culture, far from both the upper and the lower strata of society, the prince and the pauper foregathered at wonderful houses in the Perlews, and communed with each other at close range. She heard of university extension courses, of celebrated men who lectured to shop-girls, of artists who made music, of socialist millionaires who married working-girls, exhibitions of paintings and books and classes and clubs, and political economy and sometimes W and Y, and Bessie dreamed a dream. How she made the break and got away, I don't know. She didn't tell me, but from what I saw of her I knew that her will was stronger than the old man's, and her mother merely fainted away when Bessie packed her suitcase. Was it the socialist millionaire story that reconciled them finally? All I know is that Bessie Baker moved down to Rivington Street, and got a job rolling cigars in a little tobacco factory at six dollars a week. She roomed with two Jew-girls over a delicatessen shop, and spent every night making hay with the social advantages presented by the Delancey Street social settlement. Nobody knew that she wasn't a poor girl, and so she was allowed to mix with millionaires and philosophers and high society ladies in visiting whose-whose to her heart's content. Perhaps you think I'm exaggerating. But if I could describe one week of her new existence, you'd see how much fussy her life was on the east side than in Philistia. There were automobile rides to the residences of wealthy patrons on Long Island. There were boxes at the opera for the sweatshop girls. They were even taken to the horse-show. That first week Bessie met Patarevsky. She held the basin while he dipped his twenty-five thousand dollar hands into warm water before doing his stunt, and her eyes were within four feet of his facile fingers while he played his own minuet. Henry James, when he called and gave a talk on the metaphysics of rhetoric, she almost ate him alive. She was one of thirteen women, wage-workers who dined with a Prince of Bulgaria, then studying American sociology. Then she got to know the swami Gechachabanda so well he told her his real name. Say, you ought to have seen Bessie dancing with President Roosevelt at a shirt-waste ball, and meanwhile she was learning to speak in double negatives and rubbing burnt matches into her fingernails for local color, building out her pompadour, and wearing brass rings so as not to be caught as a middle-class impostor in that ineffable mixture of extremes. Nobody ever suspected that she worked because she liked it. By means of a few choice-solicisms she had butted into the most exclusive circles of brains and fashion and wealth. She was clever all right. I'm for Bessie, strong. Meanwhile she was working, and working plenty. She made cigars so much faster than the Yiddish girls in the factory that she got into trouble, and the foreman had to rescue her. For the first time in her life she saw a man knocked down. The foreman did it to a chap who called her a scab, and then she realized that her blood was as red as a squawze. The foreman took a fancy to her after that, and used to sit on the steps of the tenement where she lived and talked to her till midnight. He was a Russian, and had been in the fighting-organization of the revolutionists all through the campaign of Five. He explained the theory of the terror he told of shooting behind barricades, of the manufacture of bombs, of plots, conspiracies, heroes and martyrs of Fifteen, spies and assassinations, and gore, till she gripped his wrist and gasped for breath. He had killed men, he had seen men hanged, he had worked in the Siberian mines, and had had five escapes from prison. Life was opening up big for poor little Elizabeth of West 90th Street. Meanwhile, she rolled stogies by day, and by night she put on a hand-washed shirt-waste and did high society at the settlement. Celebrities came and went. Lectures and musicals exemplified to her all that was finest and best in modern culture. Just watch Elizabeth, the president of a club of eighty women who did things. They fought for a public playground and got it. They shut up thirteen saloons. They established a self-supporting day-nursery. They gave a fair, and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Billion was on the same committee as Elizabeth Baker. Didn't this beat life as lived at the corner of 90th and Broadway? Elizabeth drank the intellectual life to the dregs, and listened spellbound to the foreman's prophecies of the Great Social Revolution. Then, just like in the Yellow Papers, came the millionaire socialist. He lectured. He spent his money on bronze photographs, barry lions, and trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He started equality leagues and cooperative consumer federations. He contributed to the settlement magazine, fraternized with the working class, and at last he met Bessie Baker. He rang the bell. Her time had come. When Mrs. Baker, up at 90th Street, anxiously waiting for news from the front, heard of it, she was measured for a forty-dollar tailor-made corset and an acreage hat, and began to make a study how the mother-in-law of a millionaire ought to eat asparagus. She cut a few old outworn friends and began to study restaurant French. At last realized that Bessie had made good. The socialist millionaire was a rather effeminate youth, who wore soft collars and black winds or ties, glib-spoken and so frightfully anxious to be a working man, that he laid bricks in overalls on his country-place. The wall had to be pulled down and rebuilt, but Tolstoy's precepts had been obeyed. From the moment he set eyes on Elizabeth Baker, any woman could have seen what was coming. He haunted her, discussed propaganda, the materialistic conception of history, the child labor law, and the adulteration of milk. He made love, sterilized with philosophy, and for a month or so they engineered a precarious courtship in the committee-rooms of the settlement house, in the subway, and in chilly art galleries. And then he proposed. I'd like to have heard it. The man was dead in earnest. He was quite fond of Bessie, but marriage was mainly an opportunity for cooperatively managing a higher life for the welfare of the race. He believed in eugenics. Well, Bessie had about forgotten her high school English by this time. She made a wild effort to adivise back to the idiom of 90th Street, but her fascinating life in a cigar shop had accustomed her to the speech of those who really live. She was actually human at last. I'm sorry, Mr. Seymour," she said,--"it's tough on you to throw you down. But when I marry my husband, he's got to be something more than a mere theory. I've seen all kinds now. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, and I know what's good. Me and the foreman Petrovsky's going to hitch up and have a cigar factory of our own after Christmas. Take it from me. She's the only white man in the world." The reporter rose, yawned, and pulled out his watch. 10.15. Yes. Fate moves in a mysterious way her wonders to perform, etc., etc. It just shows that water will reach its own level. Elizabeth Petrovsky is going to be the Joan of Arc of the labour movement. No, Mrs. Baker didn't show up at the wedding. I hear the family has moved to Philadelphia to live down the disgrace. But you ought to have seen Bessie, the pride of the ghetto, in cotton lace and silk-aline, as happy as a queen at last. It was she who gave me the tip about this Bel-Sharmian affair. Bel-Sharmian? Fenton was on his feet at a bound. Would you mind telling me who the devil Bel-Sharmian is? I've been hearing about her all the evening. You have? It was the reporter now who was eager. What have you heard about her? There was little enough for Fenton to tell, except that the name had come to him, repeated time after time, often enough to arouse his curiosity. He mentioned the fortune-teller's prediction, the chauffeur's story, and the magazine mention he had found. The reporter was disappointed. I thought I told you she was the girl I was trailing, he explained. There's a big story broken tonight, and she's wanted, bad. But what is Bel-Sharmian doing down in this part of town, Fenton asked, puzzled. Oh, she's got the sociological bug or something, too. Why, it was Miss Sharmian told Elizabeth Baker about how the other half lives and all that. I knew she was interested in settlements and so on, and so I hiked down here and chased up the social uplifters. I got a tip that she was living along here somewhere under an assumed name, and gets home about half past ten. That's why I wanted to wait. If she doesn't show up by eleven, you can have my best breaches. He suddenly darted back into the doorway, pulling Fenton with him. By Jove I believe that's her now, he whispered. Fenton saw a young lady approaching, walking briskly toward them. She was quietly clad in gray, and neither her carriage nor her costume were those of a working girl. There was a street lamp in front of the entrance to the tenement house, and as she approached it, she was more and more clearly illuminated. Something about her face struck him clearly, as if he half recognized it. Then just before the shadow of the lamp blotted it out, his heart suddenly stopped beating. It was the girl of the photograph. It was the girl of his dream. It was the girl with the level-eye brows, the whimsical smile. It is Miss Charmian by Jiminy, the reporter exclaimed, and he advanced toward her. The girl appeared to catch the words, for she turned with a quick glance at the two young men. Her eyes fell upon Fenton, and rested there for a moment with an expression of surprised interest. Her glance met his, and in that instant a flash almost of recognition seemed to pass between them. Then Richmond approached and accosted her. She answered without stopping, and, still speaking to her, he walked along by her side. In another minute the two, conversing with animation, Miss Charmian, showing eager interest, had turned the corner and were gone. CHAPTER VI The sweet at the plaza, how John Fenton encountered a friendly gentleman, and was given the possession of his home, and of the lady who appeared there in tears. There he was, therefore, alone, without a scent in his pockets, without a hat, without anything to pawn for his fair uptown. In dirty brown overalls, he had not even the locket, to gain which he had taken so desperate a risk. But worse, far worse than all that, he had lost his only chance of finding the girl whose picture had for four months exercised so potent an effect upon his heart. He knew now, from that one glance at her face, that he was in love with her. All that he had read into her features, during his lonely hours of communion with the portrait, he had seen, living and charming and pecan and kissable, as she paused under the lamp. And now she was gone again into the night, into the mystery. Their paths had crossed once. Would they cross again? When? He wandered along with this thought, up to the bowery, where at the curb beside a taxi-cab he saw a large, well-dressed man in a shaggy overcoat and silk hat lighting a cigar. Instantly Fenton awoke to his mission and the necessity for getting uptown. The octaroon and the caretaker should be notified as soon as possible of the loss of the diamonds. He walked up and touched the gentleman's arm just as he was about to enter the cab. Before Fenton could speak, the man threw him an angry look. See here, said Fenton. I'm not a beggar. I've just had an accident, that's all, and I want to get uptown. I have an assent on me. The man looked him up and down through his eyeglasses, then began to laugh. Well, he said, that's a new story on me. What's the little game? As I said, Fenton insisted, I've got to get up to Harlem, where I can get some money and a hat and a pair of trousers. Will you give me a lift or not? Then the gentleman looked him over, pulling his long black moustache, the while. His face was handsome and genial, a type of the affable, experienced man about town. Finally he laughed and said, Well, I'll take a chance. I'm only going up as far as the plaza, but you can come along if you want to. Jump in. They entered the cab and it started off uptown. The stranger still eyed Fenton interestedly. Bunkoed? He asked finally. By this time Fenton had learned discretion. Oh, no. A rather poor practical joke, that's all. A lot of my fool friends got me drunk. My wedding day, you know. That's why I'm in a joyous hurry. The explanation went as it had gone before, and again the stranger laughed. Oh, if that's the case, he said, I guess I can fix you up. Come up to my place and I'll give you a hat and a pair of trousers, anyway. Make it a whole suit, if you like. That coat of yours is hardly fit for a marriage ceremony. Fenton played his part, thanked the man effusively, and the trip was made uptown with considerable friendly conversation. The man's name he learned was Sprule. He was married, but his wife was out of town and not expected home till to-morrow. Sprule had just finished up a big business deal and was off for a three-months trip on another as soon as he could pack his grip at the plaza and get away. He had an easy good nature, a facile manner, and had evidently seen much of the world. But in spite of his jokes and glib stories, Fenton noticed that Mr. Sprule had something serious on his mind. Was it his intended trip to South America on business? Why then should he keep such a sharp lookout to right and left, as the cab drove rapidly up Fifth Avenue, once when the cab was forced to stop because of a block near 34th Street? Sprule grew visibly nervous and cursed under his breath. At the plaza hotel he jumped out, gave a quick look around, told the chauffeur to wait, and motioned to Fenton to follow. As he entered the elevator, Fenton caught in the tail of his eye a man coming into the hotel. Where had he seen him before? As the elevator stopped at the tenth floor he placed him. The man in the shepherd's plaid suit he had noticed at Sheffield Hall. It was queer. On the Fifth Avenue side, Sprule opened a door with a key he took from his pocket. Fenton entered with him. They found themselves in the private hall of the suite, already lighted, and Sprule led the way to a small bedroom, opened a closet, and took out a suit of gray tweeds and a derby hat. Here you are, he said. Get into these, and you can return them when you have time. No hurry about it. They belong to my man, and I think they'll fit you well enough. Not much of a wedding suit, but I guess the blushing bride won't care. Now excuse me a minute, that confounded telephone bell's ringing. He left Fenton and walked to the end of the hall and into a parlor. Here his voice could be heard speaking, though the words could not be distinguished. Fenton began to take off his overalls, looking about the room with curiosity. It seemed to have been used by Sprule's valet. A few flashy pictures had been pinned to the walls. Photographs of race horses, actresses, and flying machines were stuck about the mirror. Fenton, getting into the tweed trousers, walked to the glass. Upon the dresser was a business card reading, Mallory Mining and Investment Company, St. Paul Building, New York. He was half-dressed when Sprule came in, looking anxious. See here, he said, I've had an important call, and I've got to get downtown in a hurry. Do you mind if I leave you here? You can just shut the door when you're dressed. I guess I can trust you. Fenton stared at him in amazement. What? Leave me here all alone in your apartment? A stranger? Sure, said Sprule. You're all right. I know faces pretty well, and I'll take a chance that you're honest. Anyway, I got to go right away. I can be ready in a minute, said Fenton. I can't wait a minute. It'll be all right. Good-bye! In cramming on his top hat and lighting a cigar, Sprule waved his hand and disappeared. Fenton, left alone, stood for a while in wonder, and slowly finished dressing and finally looked about. As he had entered the private hall, the suite showed by its furnishings evidences of wealth, luxury, taste. How could the proprietor trust him there alone? It was too much for him. At any rate, he would leave as soon as possible before anything happened. Perhaps it was some clever trick to accuse him of theft, or worse. It looked bad. He had just opened the door of the chamber to make his exit. When he heard a key turn in the door to the corridor, instantly he drew back, almost closed the door, and listened. Somebody came in. Then he heard sobbing, a woman's heart-broken voice. She passed into the parlor at the end of the hall. The electric lights were turned on. The weeping kept on continuously, now rising in hysterical bursts of agony, now falling into low convulsive sobs. What was he to do? Leave silently, unperceived? But he might be caught in the act. For a while he hesitated, then he sat down on a chair to think. Suddenly he sprang up. Steps were coming down the hall. He heard the clack of heels upon the parketry. Then before he could think what to do, his door was slowly opened, and a woman came in, still weeping, caught sight of him, and stood still staring. Her lips parted, her blue eyes dewy with tears. She was a lady of some thirty years, tall and beautiful, blonde with masses of fluffy yellow hair, under an enormous white beaver hat, picturesque with white plumes. Her mouth was curved in a tremulous bow, and little white teeth sparkled deliciously. As she stood there, framed in the opening of the door, all in white broadcloth, touched at the neck and wrists with white fur, she looked like some sudden, delightful apparition come to haunt him. But great as was his surprise, hers was evidently greater, forbidding, for a moment, her speech. She stood with a smallish black leather case in her hand, looking at him. I beg your pardon, Fenton began, in embarrassment. But Mr. Sprule left me here to put on these clothes he lent me. Who? She stammered. Why, Mr. Sprule, your husband, I presume, is he not? My name is Mrs. Elkhurst. I don't see what you're doing here. I don't understand. And she backed into the hall, still staring as if frightened of him. He said he lived here, a large gentleman with a black moustache and a red face. He wore glasses. Oh! She gave a little cry and covered her face with her hands. The package she had been holding dropped to the floor. He lent me this suit, as by an accident I had injured mine. She was sobbing again. He said his wife wouldn't be back till to-morrow. Where has he gone, she demanded, turning to him, her face suddenly set, hard and stern. He was called away on urgent business. He had a telephone call. I don't know from whom. Without replying, the lady turned, ran into an adjoining chamber, and Fenton could hear her pulling open drawers, opening and shutting doors, searching here and there. He waited a few minutes, uncertain what to do. When, looking down, he saw on the floor the package she had dropped. The case had opened, and half in and half out of it lay a string of brilliant red stones, shining like hot coals of fire. He bent down and was picking up the necklace when she burst out of the room. Disregarding Fenton, she walked unsteadily to the end of the hall and into the parlor. He followed her, awkwardly enough, the necklace dangling from his hand, to find her with her head on her arms, sitting at a bull-secretary. Fenton approached her with misgivings. Here's something you dropped, he said, and placed the jewels upon the table. Then distressed at her emotion, he added, Can't you tell me what the matter is? Of course I am a stranger to you, but fate seems to have led me here. And perhaps it was that I might help you. I wish I might do something, if you could trust me. She threw up her head and dashed away the tears, then looked at him with her brows knitted. Fenton saw that she held, crushed between her fingers, a letter. Who are you, she asked? For a moment Fenton hesitated. At first his impulse was to confide in her. But the events of the night had made him cautious. He told him therefore only his name and business, and of his meeting with Sprule on the Bowery. The mention of the man renewed her distress. She rose, walked up and down a moment, then returned to him as if decided upon something. It is good of you to offer to help me, she said. But I am afraid my trouble is past mending. You look kind and honest. I believe that you have told me the truth. You must believe the same of me, for I am going to tell you my story. You will see that I have good enough cause for tears. She took the ruby necklace and sat down on a huge couch. As she told her story, she fingered the jewels nervously, pausing to control herself from time to time, as her emotions swept over her like a storm. The twenty-seven drops of blood. We have to pay for everything in this world. Everything. Even when we think we've paid there's more, and still more. I thought I had paid for this necklace, paid in blood and tears. But I've had to pay again and again. And still it isn't paid for. I wonder when it will be over, and the score crossed off. You have heard of kleptomania? No doubt you've often smiled and thought it a polite name for common theft. It isn't. Oh, believe me, it isn't. It isn't a mere habit, either. It's a disease. It's one of the hardest things in the world to cure. Ask any alienist. All the same I have cured myself. But, God, what a fight, night and day, day and night for years, before I won. It cost me years of struggle. My sufferings have been indescribable. But I persisted against all kinds of temptation. But even then I knew I would never have won but for my love for a man. And now. But let me begin at the beginning. I want you to understand. My family is one of the best known, and most highly respected, in Philadelphia. I have had everything—youth, beauty, wealth, education, social position. You wouldn't think it possible for such a girl to go wrong, would you? And yet somehow it is usually just such persons who have this disease. Why is it? I don't know. Some subtle perversity in human nature, some complex reaction to environment. Well it doesn't matter. Psychologists seem to know little about this abnormal condition. I've talked to all the authorities on nervous disorders—Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Prince, everybody of any fame. I've tried Maul and the English authorities, the sol-petrière people in Paris, hypnotists, even theosophists, and Christian scientists. They simply don't know anything about it. My own theory is that it's a form of dissociated personality, a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde duality, struggling in one for the mastery. Perhaps it's a form of insanity. I don't know. Nobody knows. It's a curious thing, kleptomania. Oh, it's interesting enough to one outside of it. I can talk about it now. One of its peculiar features is that one becomes so extraordinarily sly. There seems to be a sympathetic intellectual stimulus that sharpens one's faculties wonderfully. One's mind has, while one has the obsession, a touch of genius. It is like degeneracy. We can scarcely tell cause from effect. There's a vicious circle. One can't tell whether mental keenness produces the desire to steal, or the desire to steal educates one's wits. The point is, one becomes clever at it. I know now positively how great criminals think, how they plot and contrive, how they stake their brains against law and order. I know how they develop, how they progress. Their first amateurish schemes are intricate and complicated. It isn't till later in life that they achieve the more daringly simple crimes which succeed by their very audacity. Have you read Poe's Perloined Letter? You know, the man who hid a valuable letter in plain sight? That's the sort of acumen we have, the best of us, those who have developed a special sense for it. A craft. A refined cunning. You hear of the arrest of ordinary shoplifters every day, but my kind is seldom caught. They can't be detected. They are inspired by something too sapient, shrewd, acute. Well, the first time, let's see, I was about eighteen. I was visiting an old school friend in the south. She had a scotch cairn gorm, one of those common brutesches, with colored stones you can buy in any shop in Edinburgh, for ten shillings. Somehow it attracted my fancy. You see, it seems to be characteristic of Armenia to be fascinated by objects, without regard to their intrinsic value. I've stolen things I'd never think of using. Burnt matches, old newspapers, toothbrushes even. When the fatal impulse comes, one has to steal, that's all. I've risked my reputation for a birch bark napkin ring. That's the way we are. The cairn gorm lay on Ethel's dressing table. She and I were in the room, with a colored maid. When neither was looking, I took the brooch and hid it in my dress. I waited till the maid had gone, and then I asked for it. The maid was accused, and when she denied all knowledge of it, poor girl, was dismissed. She had been with the family all her life. Wasn't it awful? But it was curious how little it affected me. There's some sort of moral opium it distills. One doesn't care what wretchedness or injustice one inflicts. Oh, it's hideous. So it went on, year after year, the stealing. Sometimes in shops, sometimes in the houses of my friends, in public buildings, anywhere the fit seized me. I took everything my mania fancied. Often I threw the things away as soon as I had secured them. Sometimes I replaced them. You have no idea what queer vagaries one has. How one will wait for days, weeks, for a chance to act. The obsession is, for the time being, the most important thing in one's life. But there's one thing you must understand and believe. It was only one particular detail that was wrong with my moral sense. Not a general perversion. It's like paranoia, it seems to have nothing to do with other parts of one's morality. One can be kind, pure, temperate, unselfish in everything else. In everything that doesn't bear on this special act. You're a man, and you must perceive how such a thing can be. Haven't you known dissipated men who are generous and loyal? If a man is selfish, he's usually bad all over. But if he is a drunkard, he can still be affectionate. So I hope you won't think of me then as wholly vile. I stole in this freakish way because I was irresistibly impelled to. But otherwise I think I was as good as any woman could be. Indeed knowing my fault, I tried the harder to make my life better in other ways. Have you ever heard that sometimes when a man's shot, they don't remove the bullet? If it lodges in a part where there's no danger or inconvenience, they let it stay and a cyst is formed around it, so that it is completely surrounded, and it can't poison the system. While this thing seemed like that with me, it seemed to be apart from my normal moral sense. But a moral sore can't really heal like that, I suppose. It's always malignant. It has to be cut out or it grows. Well this trait did grow. I took more and more. I became more cunning. I have never been caught or even suspected to this day. I grew bolder with every success, bolder but never reckless. Every move was thawed out like a game of chess. Then came the Necklace Affair. That was the climax. A year ago I was in Paris with my mother. We had many acquaintances in the best circles. In the Sorbonne, in the Academy, in the Deputies, in the old noblesse of the Faux-Bours Saint-Germain. One of my best friends was the Contessa d'Escarpi, a Roman lady of an old Italian family. She had a little necklace of rubies. Here it is. Pretty, isn't it? Yet I always think of it as twenty-seven drops of blood. That necklace I had to have. I knew I should try for it. Knew I should get it. Knew I should not be discovered in the theft. I did succeed. Here it is. Have you examined it? The stones are small, but flawless. It is exquisitely designed. Seventeenth-century workmanship. It is worth, I should say, about forty thousand dollars. But I have never worn it, scarcely even looked at it since I got it. All my pleasure was in the winning of it. It cost me nothing, I thought. Nothing? God! The cost was terrific. Listen. Because of my theft two sisters became estranged. An ambitious and talented young naval lieutenant shot himself. Oh! He was so handsome. So splendid. A half-dozen family servants lost their places and could never find other employment. All this I knew, but I didn't care. Can you imagine it? I didn't care. It was as if I were drugged. All I thought was, the necklace is mine. You must loathe me now, but you must hear me out. I want you to know to what degradation I had fallen. How lost I was. How hopeless. How pitiful. I want you to see what I had to climb out of. I got out of the country with it. All sorts of rewards were offered for it. Numberless detectives put on the search, and I sailed for home. When I passed through the custom-house, I hid it in my hair. You should have seen me look that young inspector in the eye. I had a sort of insolence. I was so sure of myself. I'm sure all great criminals must feel that sense of power. It's wonderful, exhilarating. It's like the courage of a brave soldier under fire. Nothing could possibly harm me, I was sure. It was as if I dealt in potent magic. So I got home with my mother. Poor mother, if she only knew. Strange, one can never tell the most important things in our lives. To one's best friends. One lies only to those one loves. Then I met a man. The man of all the world for me. The only human being who could ever change me. Love has a strange alchemy one can't explain. Why try to explain it? One is attracted, or one is repelled in spite of oneself. Schopenhauer calls it the spirit of the race, seeking reincarnation. I prefer the poetic interpretation. For me, romance. Never mind. Anyway, I fell in love immediately, desperately. Love is a terrible thing. It took hold of me. To me, Herbert was perfect. All that was best and finest of manhood. I thought of him almost as one thinks of the great heroes of history. Washington. Goethe. Alexander. He was my Bonnie Prince Charlie. My king could do no wrong. And so, as soon as I found my heart was gone. I got my first real sight of my mania. I saw the horrible thing it had become. I felt as if I were a leper. If he had found me out, I would have died of shame. And later, when I saw that he actually loved me, it was wonderful. I spent night after night weeping at the impossibility of my ever marrying him. For to me he was as spotlessly pure and honorable as a god. And I was unworthy to be his wife. So when he proposed, I refused him. When he wanted to know my reason, I couldn't tell. Then he began to make love to me, so ardently, that I was alternately delirious with joy and tortured with horrible remorse. It was unbearable. One night he swept me off my feet, and I accepted him. Oh, in my heart I promised myself, at the same time, that I would never marry him till I had cast out the devil that was possessing me. It seemed so easy at the time. His strength seemed to make me strong. I felt that the inspiration of his love and trust would exalt my will. Wait! Can you imagine a young man who has sewn his wild oats, converted and taking holy orders, and feeling sure that nothing could ever tempt him again? That was how I felt. I felt that my love would change my whole character in a single day. Things aren't so easy as that in this world. We have to pay, always we have to pay. We have to pay again and again. I suppose you have never taken morphine, or opium, or cocaine. I hope not. But you must have heard what a fight it is. How terribly difficult it is to stop the habit. It isn't impossible, though, why, one time I took cocaine steadily every day for two months. I just had to see if my will was diseased, too, if I had any strength at all left in me. Shaw, I stopped in a day. I laughed at it. It was nothing. But this thing was different. It had grown like a monster in me. I was so in its power that, to keep my fingers from anything I craved, well, can you refrain from drinking when you're thirsty? It was like that, worse, a thousand times worse. I fought at night and day, though. I was determined to win, for his sake. I fought it as one fights a terrible nightmare. For a long time I made no headway. I stole things, even while I was with him. Can you imagine anything more horrible? For how I loved him, it was damnable. Then one day I was nearly caught. I had slipped a red Morocco-bound book into my moth, at a house where I was calling for the first time. I dropped my moth. By a queer chance it fell on end, and stood on the floor, curiously upright. He bent down to pick it up for me. I was just a second too quick for him. How my heart beat. He would certainly have seen the book. I couldn't have explained it, possibly. It would have ended everything. So I redoubled my efforts to cure myself by sheer will. I went scarcely anywhere, and never alone. I had pockets put in my coat, and kept my hands in them. I schooled myself to think every minute, to be on my guard incessantly. Well I improved rapidly after that. When I had taken nothing for six months, I set the day for the wedding. That was a happy time. My only bugbear was the necklace. You've been wondering why I had not already returned it. It was impossible. Even had I been able to go abroad, I knew of no safe way of returning it. Had I sent it, it would surely have been traced. Think it over, as I did, through many a sleepless night, and you'll see how difficult it would have been. There were the customs again, the post office authorities, to suspect and examine any package. The express company's invoice. There was the danger of theft. But the scarpes were travelling in the Far East. I didn't even know their address. The only thing I could do was to wait for my chance. I had no one to trust. No one, I dared tell. After we were married, I kept the necklace hidden in a secret compartment of my jewel chest. I dreamed of it all through my honeymoon. The most delicious honeymoon any bride ever spent, except for that. That was six months ago. Now it seems six years. Ah, well, when I first met Herbert, I thought he was a broker. Everyone thinks that now, except those few that know. But after I was married, he confessed to me that he was a detective. He told me he was employed by several big corporations, had a large salary, to work on especially difficult or delicate cases. His value depended upon people not knowing his real occupation. Passing as a broker, he could go into the best society, and no one suspected him. It was a shock to me at first, but I got used to it. Now that I had recovered from my mania, my spirits went up sky high. It was like getting my youth back again. I was like a young girl. How Herbert used to laugh at my spirits. I was free now, to love him freely, as wildly as I wished. I let myself go. No woman was ever so proud of her husband. And I was proud of myself, too. Why shouldn't I be? I had conquered as desperate and evil as any woman ever fought. But there was still the necklace, twenty-seven drops of blood. A detective is a dangerous person to attempt to hide a thing from. I was mortally afraid he would discover my secret. We went everywhere. I had a wide acquaintance. Baltimore, Washington, New York. Herbert went with me. He seemed to like the dinners, the musicals, dances, teas, bridge parties. I was proud of him. Everybody liked him. He was a social success. He never refused an invitation unless his duties called him away. Sometimes he had to be absent for a week or so at a time, and, of course, owing to the nature of his profession, he could tell me nothing of his affairs. Occasionally he was unexpectedly out all night. Except for these absences and the necklace, I was gloriously happy. Herbert was still a lover more than a husband. He gave me presents often. A week ago an old vassar friend of mine came to me with such a pathetic story. It's her private affair, and I can't tell it to you. It doesn't matter, anyway, except that, for a particular reason, she was most anxious to make an impression at a dance in New Haven. Her whole future was at stake. She was awfully hard up. She had nothing, and asked me to help her. So I lent her a gown, gloves, and a few things like that. She was so pathetically grateful and happy that, just before she left, I thought of the necklace, and carried away by my sympathy I offered it to her for the dance. At first she didn't want the responsibility of it. She refused, but I could see that she was crazy to wear it. It was the finishing touch to her costume, so I insisted and she took it away. I was glad, after all. The necklace had caused so much suffering that it seemed to me it was right to use it for once, to make someone happy. Last night, when my husband came home, I felt something was wrong. You know a woman gets things. I didn't feel right near him. I can't express it in any other way. There was some constraint about him I had never felt before. I simply got something near him, and it made me fearfully nervous, depressed, but outwardly he was the same as ever, and my first impression wore off a little. Then when he said he had a present for me, I was all right again, and hated myself for thinking anything sinister. The reaction carried me into high spirits. I loved him more than ever. I thought him the purest and the best. Oh, how I tried to make up for my momentary injustice! A present! He had such an adorable way of presenting things. It made them vastly more valuable. I buzzed round him like a hummingbird in my delight. He took a package out of his pocket and handed it to me, after I had paid him in kisses. I was as happily impatient as a child. I snapped the string, laughing, tore off the paper, opened the little leather case. This necklace was inside. My necklace, which I had lent my friend a few days before, twenty-seven drops of blood. I suppose I must have thanked him somehow. I may have kissed him again with that horrible thing in my hand. Women are strange creatures. The most ignorant woman can become a great actress under the stress of emotion. The ages have taught us to defend ourselves. Some maternal instinct inspires us. But what I did, or what I said, I don't know. It seems so long ago, and it was only last night. I think he suspected nothing. I remember that I pleaded a headache, and got off to my room somehow, locked the door, and went to bed. He knocked later and said, Good night, girly. It comes back to me now, but at the time I hardly realized it. The ruby necklace, my brain whirled with it. It was the most horrible night I had ever spent. What did it mean? Oh, I went over and over it, till I thought I should go mad. Had he discovered my secret? Had he had a similar necklace made? I thought of every explanation except the right one. This morning I found I couldn't stand it unless I learned the truth immediately. When he left, I told him I was going to visit a friend in Poughkeepsie overnight. He said he might be gone himself when I returned. We parted as we had never parted before. Something horrible was between us. I thought at the time that he felt it too. Now I know he did. I took the first train to New Haven. On the way there a fearful thought came to me. You know, I told you we used to visit together? Well I recalled that soon after my marriage we spent a weekend with some friends in Wilmington. A few days afterward, burglars entered the house and stole considerable jewelry and silverware. Nobody thought anything of it till another home was robbed in Richmond, shortly after we had been there. Then they began to call me a hoodoo and laugh at me. It was a good joke for a while, especially as it happened once or twice later. I thought of it only as a queer coincidence. Now as I recalled the facts, the idea grew like wildfire. It burned me up. I couldn't stand the suspense. It seemed as if I pushed the train all the way to New Haven. I found my little friend in tears. Oh, I suppose you have guessed what I never suspected. Her house had been robbed the day after the dance and the necklace was gone. I was the wife of a burglar, or at least my husband was the associate of burglars. The man for whom I had fought my fight, for whom I had won, the man whose love inspired me, was a criminal. You can imagine my situation. I had to comfort my friend, who was almost distracted at the loss of the necklace, and I had it in my purse all the time. I had to tell her I was sure it would be found. I had to leave her with that burden on her conscience, knowing that she would probably work her fingers off trying to make up the loss to me. How could I tell her the truth? What could I say? I could only hope some time to arrange it, so that the thing might seem to be recovered. I left her with a broken heart. Well, mine was breaking too. Then on the way back to New York, I began to see things more plainly. My love pleaded for him. After all, was he much worse than I? He was a thief, but had not I been a thief myself for ten years? I had fought for my own salvation and won. Couldn't I fight for his and win also? My love came back in a great flood. I determined to save him. I almost rejoiced at the opportunity it would give me of showing how much I loved him. Wasn't it my duty? What a wife should do? The thought uplifted me. Nonetheless, when I entered the door here, and saw all the old familiar sights, the place where I had been so happy, I couldn't help breaking down and crying. I thought it was all over for ever. The secrecy, the pain, the struggle, the danger. But I nerved myself, and determined to go on through with that and worse, if necessary, for Herbert's sake. And God willing, I would win him back as I had won myself. Well, you must have heard me crying. Do you know what stopped my tears? What was too deep? Oh, far too deep for tears? On my dressing-table I found a note, saying that he had left me forever. John Fenton confronted a second time that night with a woman's broken heart. Do not what to say. Mrs. Elkers arose deliberately, with a hard-set face, and replaced the ruby necklace in the case. Then she shrugged her shoulders and turned to him. You understand now why I think of those stones as drops of blood. Well, what shall I do? That's the question. Of course I can arrange to have the necklace found. To say it is, without publicity, or else my friend's life will be ruined also. But what about my husband? I can't think of him as a burglar, Fenton said. It seems impossible. He was so good-natured, so refined. He had so much charm. Oh, it was precisely that which made him useful, said Mrs. Elkhurst. Of course he did none of the actual work himself. He didn't have that kind of skill. I've been thinking it over, and I've come to the conclusion that he must have merely located the jewels or whatever they were after. Don't you see? That's why he was so willing to visit at my friend's houses. I can remember now that he used sometimes to excuse himself when we were all downstairs, and run up for a handkerchief or something like that for an excuse he was looking about. I have no doubt that he watched outside, too, while the house was being entered. Do you know any others of the gang? Fenton asked. I suspect only one. An Irishman. He came once or twice here to see Herbert. But my husband always managed to keep me away from him. An Irishman. Fenton immediately thought of Mangas O'Shea. A rough, ugly-looking man with little reddish eyes and black broken teeth. I think his name was Nallory. Fenton jumped up and ran back to the room where he had changed his clothes. Returning with the business card he had seen on the Valet's bureau, he handed it to Mrs. Elkhurst. Do you know anything about that, he asked? She looked at it and knit her brows. Look in the telephone book, she said, finally, and see what the number is. I think it's, let's see, a queer number. Looking like Wall 9991, I heard my husband call it up. Fenton picked up the telephone directory and found it. Wall 9191, he read. Yes, I think that's it. And now I remember overhearing Herbert talking about some diamonds once or twice. Perhaps it is the headquarters of his gang. I believe it will pay investigating at any rate. Fenton arose as if to go. Investigating what do you mean, said Mrs. Elkhurst. Are you? You're not a detective. She grew pale. Fenton narrated the incidents that had made that night for him one long, extravagant adventure. The tale was so incredible that he was almost ashamed to tell it, but the lady's interest was keen and deep. When he came to the mango-so-she part of his story, she frowned and knotted. Ah, she said, when he had finished. That settles it. And I can see now what happened. Herbert and Nallory, or O'Shea, as you call him, have undoubtedly been on the track of the jewels, watching their chants. How they ever suspected the octarune had them, I can't see. But the rest is easy. Once having followed her, and seen you, they suspected that she had given them to you for safekeeping. I would eliminate the cross-eyed cabman entirely. He probably stumbled on to a part of the thing accidentally, and was only trying for blackmail. Still the gang may have got hold of him, too. When they took you to the pigeon loft, Herbert stayed outside on the watch, and perhaps he was given a few of the smaller stones to raise ready money upon at some pawn-shop. It's the more likely, because, of late, my husband has been complaining of being hard up. I remember he said he had bought the ruby necklace on credit. At the time I was too excited to wonder at that. What can we do? If I cannot reform my husband, I can at least try to prevent his crime from being successful. It seems to me I must do that. There is nothing you can do that I see, said Fenton. But as for me, I am determined to follow them up right away. I doubt if I can do anything against them, for the gang must be clever and desperate. But I can at least try. Now I am into this plot, I am going to do what I can. The first thing is to get hold of the octarune and report. He took up the telephone and called up the King William Hotel. No Miss Green was registered there. That puzzled and worried him. But he got after much talk with information. The number of the flint flat at 146th Street, though there was no answer to the phone. He hung up the receiver and discussed. Well, he said, I must get downtown immediately. What shall you do? I am going to my mother in Philadelphia, the first thing in the morning, she said. I am going to tell her everything. I hope it will not break her heart. But oh, I am so lonely. After Fenton had pressed her hand, bid her good-bye, and walked to the door, he turned back to look at her. She was sitting at the table, with her head bowed in her hands, sobbing. End of chapter 6