The Lure of the Mask, Harold MacGrath [best beach reads of all time .txt] 📗

/> They drank. Hillard set down his glass; Merrihew refilled his.

"The whole story, Jack, details and all; no half-portions."

Hillard told the yarn simply, omitting nothing essential. He even added that for three weeks he had been the author of the personal inquiry as to the whereabouts of one Madame Angot. More than that, he was the guilty man who had set the club by the ears.

"I don't know, Dan, but this has taken so strong a hold on me that I shan't forget it soon. Imagine it yourself. Oh, but she could sing! I am a man not to be held in the leash of an adventure like this; but she held me. How? By the hope that one day I might see her face, with no veil of mystery to hold her off at arm's length."

Merrihew was greatly excited. He was for ordering a second bottle, but Hillard stayed him.

"By George! And you are sure that it was at the Sandfords'?"

"I am positive. But there is a puzzle that I have failed to solve: Sandford's cable and the caretaker's declaration. I know that I was in that house. I ran across a stein which I had given Sandford. I have inquired of the police; they had been requested to watch the house in the absence of the owner. The patrolman says that he has seen no light in the house since the family sailed for Africa. I sleep soundly; never have nightmares. And yet, but for her letters and the fact that Giovanni heard her sing under my window, I might almost believe I've been dreaming. It is no dream; but it begins to look as if I were the victim of some fine hoax."

"And Sandford mixed up in it," supplemented Merrihew.

"Sandford and I are good friends, but we are not so intimate that he'd take the pains to work out a hoax of this magnitude. It did not originate with him, and his wife is altogether out of the picture. If I had only seen her face, I might have forgotten all about her in a few days. But the mask, the charm, the mystery! I can't get her out of my thoughts; I am irrational in all I do; an absolute failure in the office."

"It is more than a hoax, in my opinion. Wait till Sandford returns and finds his silver gone!"

Hillard started.

"And his gold-plate," continued Merrihew, pleased with the idea. "My boy, that's what it is; the best dodge I ever heard of. But how did they get into the house, she and her maid? It will make a good story for the Sunday papers. You won't be in it, unless she ropes you in as an accomplice. That would be rich!"

"I'm a romantic ass!" Hillard sighed. Leddy Lightfinger! If this turned out to be the case, he would never trust a human being again; he would take to breeding dogs.

"Let's take that ride on the horses," Merrihew urged. "That'll clear your brain of this sentimental fog."

"No!" Hillard struck his hands together. "I've a better idea than that, and it has just come to me. I shall go to Italy in March, and you, my boy, shall go with me."

"Impossible! Why, I'm all but broke." Merrihew shook his head decidedly.

"I'll take you as a companion. I'm a sick man, Dan. I'm likely to jump overboard if some one isn't watching me every minute."

"I'd like to go, Jack; Heaven and earth, but I should! But I can't possibly go to Italy with a letter of credit no more than twenty-five hundred, and that's all there is in the exchequer at present."

"Between such friends as we are-"

"That racket won't work. I could not take a moment's peace if I did not feel independent. Supposing I wanted to come home and you didn't, or you did and I didn't? No, Jack; nothing to it that way." And Merrihew was right.

"But I'm not going to give it to you!" Hillard protested. He was determined to break down Merrihew's objections if it took all night. "I am going to lend it to you."

"And could I ever pay you back if I accepted the loan?" humorously. "You'll have to invent some other scheme."

"There's Monte Carlo; you might pull down a tidy sum," said the tempter.

"That's the way, you beggar; hit me on the soft side." But Merrihew was still obdurate. To go to Europe was out of the question.

"Now listen to reason, Dan. If you wait for the opportunity to go to Europe, you'll wait in vain. You must make the opportunity. One must have youth to enjoy Italy thoroughly. The desire to go becomes less and less as one grows older. Besides, it completes every man's education; it broadens his charity and smooths down the rough edges of his conceit. I'll put the proposition in a way you can't possibly get round. You've simply got to go. You will always have that thousand, so don't worry about that. You have twenty-five hundred on hand, you say. With that you can see Italy like a prince for three months. I know the tongue and the country; I know what you would want to see, what to avoid, where to stop."

"What's the proposition?" Merrihew drained the bottle.

"This: I'll agree to take not a penny more than twenty-five hundred myself. We'll go on equal terms. Why," confidently, "besides living like a prince, you'll have four hundred to throw away at roulette. Boy, you have never seen Italy; therefore you do not know what beauty is. When we eventually land at Bellaggio, on Lake Como, and I take your lily-white hand in mine and lead you up to the terrace of Villa Serbelloni, and order tea, then you will realize that you have only begun to live. Gardens, towering Alps, the green Lecco on one side and the green Como on the other; and Swiss champagne at a dollar-forty the quart! Eh?"

Merrihew produced his black cigar. This matter needed some deep reflection, and could not be determined offhand. The ash turned white on the end of the cigar before he replied.

"If you weren't Irish, you'd just naturally be Dago," he said with a laugh. "But it isn't fair to shoot me up this way, with flowery speeches."

"And then, besides all these things," Hillard added, "there's Kitty Killigrew, singing her heart out to a people who can't understand a word she's singing. Kitty Killigrew!"

"Can it be done for twenty-five hundred?"

"He's melting!" murmured Hillard jubilantly. "He's melting!"

"For a small amount I'd punch your head!" Merrihew chewed his cigar with subdued fierceness. He knew very well that he was destined to go to Europe. Kitty Killigrew, who had promised to mail the route they were to play, and hadn't!

"It is written, Dan, that you shall go with me. Think of running into the theater and seeing Kitty! I begin to like the music of that name."

"We'll settle this argument right here and now." Merrihew drew out a coin. "Call it!" he cried recklessly.

"Heads!"

The coin flickered in the light, fell, and proved that all money is perverse, by rolling under the davenport upon which they were sitting. An amusing hunt followed. They ran their hands over the floor, turned the rug, pulled out the davenport and looked behind, burnt innumerable matches, and finally rang for the attendant. The situation was explained, and he procured a candle. He was ultimately successful.

"Here it is, sir."

"Don't touch it!" warned Hillard.

"What is it, head or tail?" asked Merrihew weakly.

"Heads, sir," said the attendant, picking up the coin and offering it to the owner.

"Keep it," said Merrihew generously, even sadly. He never got up a game of chance that he did not get the worst of it. And now, Italy! All that way from home! "Boy, bring up a bottle of '96."

"Dan!"

"You be still," said Merrihew savagely. "You've roped me in nicely, and I'm game to go; but I'll have that bottle if I have to drink it all alone."

But he did not drink it all alone. Hillard was too wise to permit that. Merrihew might wish to add a few hundred to his letter of credit, via the card-room.

"And the Lady in the Mask?" asked Merrihew, as they at length stood up, preparatory to going down-stairs.

"I must relegate her to the fog she came out of. But it would be a frightful thing if-if-" He hesitated to form the words.

But Merrihew had no such scruple. "If the silver and plate were missing when the Sandfords return?"

"Oh, bosh! It's all some joke, and I'm the butt of it. She was in that house by the same authority she rode the horse."

"A woman of that sort would have no difficulty in hoodwinking the stablemen," declared Merrihew, certain that he had solved the riddle.

"And so you add forgery? Not a shred of my romance left!" Hillard spoke jestingly, but like a man who covers up a sudden twinge of pain.

"We'll know all about it in the fall. And ten to one, my theory will be the correct one."

"That's better. I have some hope now. You never won a bet in all your life."

"I know it; but this may be the one time. By the way, received a postal from Kitty this morning. From Gibraltar. Fine trip. Visited the gun-galleries and the antique furniture shops. Says no sign of prima donna as yet, but believes her to be on board. O'Mally's on the water-wagon. But Kitty aggravates me."

"What has she done now-refused you by Marconigraph?"

"No; but she promised me her address."

"Address her care Cook's, Florence, Rome, Venice. It's the popular mail-box of Europe; and if she has given them the address, they will forward."

"That helps considerably. I'm glad there's one Cook which can be relied on."

"In the morning I'll arrange for passage. We'll try the Celtic."

"I'll leave the business end of the trip to you."

"The first Saturday in March, then, if we can get booking. That will be in less than two weeks."

"I'm game. Shall I pack up my riding-breeches?"

"Prepare for everything except automobiles."

"Bah! I wouldn't take one as a gift."

"You couldn't afford to, if what I hear about them is true. Though you might be able to sell the gift and wipe out that thousand."

"Hang the thousand! I had almost forgotten it again."

In the lobby of the club, as they were about to enter the coat-room, Hillard ran into one of several gentlemen issuing.

"Pardon me," he said, stepping aside.

"Non un importa!" said the stranger with a graceful wave of the hands.

Hillard looked quickly into the gentleman's face. "I am clumsy," he said in Italian.

Then the other stared at him, and smiled. For a moment there was a brief tableau, in which each took the other's measure and noted the color of the eyes. The man was an exceedingly handsome Italian, for all that a scar ran from his check to his chin. It was all over in a moment; and Hillard and Merrihew proceeded to the street.

"Handsome duffer," was Merrihew's comment. "But you never can tell a man by his looks. Gaze on me, for instance. I'm a good example of handsome is as handsome does." He was growing merry.

"Go home!" Hillard slapped