“I – but I told nobody,” she stammered.
By the look in her eyes he disbelieved her.
“Not even Max, this morning, before he offered that reward?” he asked shrewdly.
“Well – yes; I told him.”
“Max may have confided it to somebody else: these things spread. Or possibly Jane may have blabbed.”
“Oh, no,” she protested, but without conviction in her accents; “neither of them would be so foolish…”
“I’d find out, if I were you.”
“I shall. Meanwhile – this Miss Searle – where’s she stopping?”
“I can’t tell you – some hotel. It’ll be easy enough to find her in the morning.”
“Will you try?”
“Assuredly – the first thing.”
“Then – there appears to be nothing else to do but go home,” said the woman in a curiously subdued manner.
Without replying verbally, Staff took up her chiffon wrap and draped it over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” said she, moving toward the door. “Good night.”
“Oh,” he protested politely, “I must see you out.”
“It’s not necessary – I can find my way.”
“But only I know how to fix the front door.”
At the foot of the stairs, while he fumbled with the latch, doubting him, she spoke with some little hesitation.
“I presume,” she said stiffly – “I presume that this – ah – ends it.”
Staff opened the door an inch and held it so. “If by ‘it,’” he replied, “we mean the same thing – ”
“We do.”
“It does,” he asseverated with his twisted smile.
She delayed an instant longer. “But all the same,” she said hastily, at length, “I want that play.”
“My play?” he enquired with significant emphasis.
“Yes, of course,” she said sharply.
“Well, since I’m under contract with Max, I don’t well see how I can take it away from you. And besides, you’re the only woman living who can play it properly.”
“So good of you.” Her hand lay slim and cool in his for the fraction of an instant. “Good night,” she iterated, withdrawing it.
“Good night.”
As he let her out, Staff, glancing down at the waiting taxicab, was faintly surprised by the discovery that she had not come alone. A man stood in waiting by the door – a man in evening clothes: not Max but a taller man, more slender, with a better carriage. Turning to help Alison into the cab, the street lights threw his face in sharp relief against the blackness of the window; and Staff knew him.
“Arkroyd!” he said beneath his breath.
He closed the door and set the latch, suffering from a species of mild astonishment. His psychological processes seemed to him rather unique; he felt that he was hardly playing the game according to Hoyle. A man who has just broken with the woman with whom he has believed himself desperately in love naturally counts on feeling a bit down in the mouth. And seeing her drive off with one whom he has every right to consider in the light of a hated rival, he ought in common decency to suffer poignant pangs of jealousy. But Staff didn’t; he couldn’t honestly make himself believe that he was suffering in any way whatever. Indeed, the most violent emotion to which he was sensible was one of chagrin over his own infatuate myopia.
“Ass!” he called himself, slowly reascending the stairs. “You might ’ve seen this coming long ago, if you hadn’t wilfully chosen to be blind as a bat!”
Re-entering his study, he pulled up with a start and a cry of sincere amazement.
“Well, I’ll be damned!”
“Then why not lead a better life?” enquired Mr. Iff.
He was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, looking much like an exceptionally cruel caricature of himself. As he spoke, he slouched wearily over to the wing-chair Alison had recently occupied, and dropped into it like a dead weight.
He wore no hat. His clothing was in a shocking condition, damp, shapeless and shrunken to such an extent as to disclose exhibits of bony wrists and ankles almost immodestly generous. On his bird-like cranium the pale, smooth scalp shone pink through scanty, matted, damp blond locks. His face was drawn, pinched and pale. As if new to the light his baby-blue eyes blinked furiously. Round his thin lips hovered his habitual smile, semi-sardonic, semi-sheepish.
“Do you mind telling me how in thunder you got in here?” asked Staff courteously.
Iff waved a hand toward the bedroom.
“Fire-escape,” he admitted wearily. “Happened to see your light and thought I’d call. Hope I don’t intrude… Got anything to drink? I’m about all in.”
IX
A LIKELY STORY
“If I’m any judge, that’s no exaggeration.” Thus Mr. Staff after a moment’s pause which he utilised to look Mr. Iff over with a critical eye.
Mr. Iff wagged his head. “Believe me,” said he simply.
Staff fetched a decanter of Scotch and a glass, placing them on the table by Iff’s elbow, then turned away to get a siphon of charged water from the icebox. But by the time he was back a staggering amount of whiskey had disappeared from the decanter, a moist but empty glass stood beside it, and Mr. Iff was stroking smiling lips with his delicate, claw-like fingers. He discontinued this occupation long enough to wave the siphon away.
“Not for me,” he said tersely. “I’ve swallowed enough water this night to last me for the rest of my life – half of the North River, more or less; rather more, if you ask me.”
“What were you doing in the North River?”
“Swimming.”
This answer was evidently so adequate in Mr. Iff’s understanding that he made no effort to elaborate upon it; so that presently, growing impatient, Staff felt called upon to ask:
“Well? What were you swimming for?”
“Dear life,” said Iff – “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness: the incontestable birthright of every freeborn American citizen – if you must know.”
He relapsed into a reverie which seemed hugely diverting from the reminiscent twinkle in the little man’s eyes. From this he emerged long enough to remark: “That’s prime whiskey, you know… Thanks very much, I will.” And again fell silent, stroking his lips.
“I don’t want to seem to pry,” said Staff at length, with elaborate irony; “but in view of the fact that you’ve felt warranted in calling on me via the fire-escape at one A.M., it doesn’t seem unreasonable of me to expect some sort of an explanation.”
“Oh, very well,” returned Iff, with resignation. “What would you like to know?”
“Why did you disappear this morning – ?”
“Yesterday morning,” Iff corrected dispassionately.
“ – yesterday morning, and how?”
“Because the time seemed ripe for me to do my marvellous vanishing stunt. You see, I had a hunch that the dear captain would turn things over in his mind and finally determine not to accept my credentials at their face value. So I kind of stuck round the wireless room with my ears intelligently pricked forward. Sure enough, presently I heard the message go out, asking what about me and how so.”
“You mean you read the operator’s sending by ear?”
“Sure; I’ve got a telegrapher’s ear as long as a mule’s… Whereupon, knowing just about what sort of an answer ’d come through, I made up my mind to duck. And did.”
“But how – ?”
“That’d be telling, and telling would get somebody aboard the Autocratic into terrible bad trouble if it ever leaked out. I crawled in out of the weather – let it go at that. I wish,” said Mr. Iff soulfully, “those damn’ Pinkerton men had let it go at that. Once or twice I really thought they had me, or would have me the next minute. And they wouldn’t give up. That’s why I had to take to the water, after dark. My friend, who shall be nameless, lent me the loan of a rope and I shinned down and had a nice little swim before I found a place to crawl ashore. I assure you that the North River tastes like hell… O thank you; don’t mind if I do.”
“Then,” said Staff, watching the little man help himself on his own invitation – “Then you are Ismay!”
“Wrong again,” said Iff drearily. “Honest, it’s a real shame, the way you can’t seem to win any bets at all.”
“If you’re not Ismay, what made you hide?”
“Ah!” cried Iff admiringly – “shrewd and pertinent question! Now I’ll tell you, and you won’t believe me. Because – now pay strict attention – because we’re near-twins.”
“Who are twins?” demanded Staff staring.
“Him and me – Ismay and I-double-F. First cousins we are: his mother was my aunt. Worse and more of it: our fathers were brothers. They married the same day; Ismay and I were born in the same month. We look just enough alike to be mistaken for one another when we’re not together. That’s been a great help to him; he’s made me more trouble than I’ve time to tell you. The last time, I was pinched in his place and escaped a penitentiary sentence by the narrowest kind of a shave. That got my mad up, and I served notice on him to quit his foolishness or I’d get after him. He replied by cooking up a fine little scheme that almost laid me by the heels again. So I declared war and ’ve been camping on his trail ever since.”
He paused and twiddled his thumbs, staring reflectively at the ceiling. “I’m sure I don’t know why I bore myself telling you all this. What’s the use?”
“Never mind,” said Staff in an encouraging manner; he was genuinely diverted. “At worst it’s a worthy and uplifting – ah – fiction. Go on… Then you’re not a Secret Service man after all?”
“Nothing like that; I’m doing this thing on my own.”
“How about that forged paper you showed the captain?”
“Wasn’t forged – genuine.”
“Chapter Two,” observed Staff, leaning back. “It is a dark and stormy night; we are all seated about the camp-fire. The captain says: ‘Antonio, go to it.’”
“You are certainly one swell, appreciative audience,” commented Iff morosely. “Let’s see if I can’t get a laugh with this one: One of the best little things my dear little cousin does being to pass himself off as me, he got himself hired by the Treasury Department some years ago under the name of William Howard Iff. That helped him a lot in his particular line of business. But after a while he felt that it cramped his style, so he just faded noiselessly away – retaining his credentials. Then – while I was in Paris last week – he thought it would be a grand joke to send me that document with his compliments and the suggestion that it might be some help to me in my campaign for his scalp. That’s how I happened to have it.”
“That’s going some,” Staff admitted admiringly. “Tell me another one. If you’re Iff and not Ismay, what brought you over on the Autocratic?”
“Business of keeping an eye on my dearly beloved cousin,” said Iff promptly.
“You mean Ismay was on board, too?”
“’Member that undergrown waster with the red-and-grey Vandyke and the horn-rimmed pince nez, who was always mooning round with a book under his arm?”
“Yes…”
“That was Cousin Arbuthnot disguised in his own hair.”
“If that was so, why didn’t you denounce him when you were accused of stealing the Cadogan collar?”
“Because I knew he hadn’t got away with it.”
“How did you know?”
“At least I was pretty positive about it. You’ll have to be patient – and intelligent – if you want to understand and follow me back to Paris. The three of us were there: Ismay, Miss Landis, myself. Miss Landis was dickering with Cottier’s for the necklace, Ismay sticking round and not losing sight of her much of the time, I was looking after Ismay. Miss Landis buys the collar and a ticket for London; Ismay buys a ticket for London; I trail. Then Miss Landis makes another purchase – a razor, in a shop near the hotel where I happen to be loafing.”
“A razor!”
“That’s the way it struck me, too… Scene Two: Cockspur Street, London. I’m not sure what boat Miss Landis means to take; I’ve got a notion it’s the Autocratic, but I’m stalling till I know. You drift into the office, I recognise you and recall that you’re pretty thick with Miss Landis. Nothing more natural than that you and she should go home by the same steamer. Similarly – Ismay… Oh, yes, I understand it was pure coincidence; but I took a chance and filled my hand. After we’d booked and you’d strutted off, I lingered long enough to see Miss Landis drive up in a taxi with a whaling big bandbox on top of the cab. She booked right under my nose; I made a note of the bandbox…
“Then you came aboard with the identical bandbox and your funny story about how you happened to have it. I smelt a rat: Miss Landis hadn’t sent you that bandbox anonymously for no purpose. Then one afternoon – long toward six o’clock – I see Miss Landis’s maid come out on deck and jerk a little package overboard – package just about big enough to hold a razor. That night I’m dragged up on the carpet before the captain; I hear a pretty fairy tale about the collar disappearing while Jane was taking the bandbox back to your steward. The handbag is on the table, in plain sight; it isn’t locked – a blind man can see that; and the slit in its side has been made by a razor. I add up the bandbox and the razor and multiply the sum by the fact that the average woman will smuggle as quick as the average man will take a drink; and I’m Jeremiah Wise, Esquire.”
“That’s the best yet,” Staff applauded. “But – see here – why didn’t you tell what you knew, if you knew so much, when you were accused?”
Iff grimaced sourly. “Get ready to laugh. This is one you won’t fall for – not in a thousand years.”
“Shoot,” said Staff.
“I like you,” said Iff simply. “You’re foolish in the head sometimes, but in the main you mean well.”
“That’s nice of you – but what has it to do with my question?”
“Everything. You’re sweet on the girl, and I don’t wish to put a crimp in your young romance by showing her up in her true colours. Furthermore, you may be hep to her little scheme; I don’t believe it, but I know that, if you are, you won’t let me suffer for it. And finally, in the senility of my dotage I conned myself into believing I could bluff it out; at the worst, I could prove my innocence easily enough. But what I didn’t take into consideration was that I was laying myself open to arrest for impersonating an agent of the Government. When I woke up to that fact, the only thing I could see to do was to duck in out of the blizzard.”
Staff said sententiously: “Hmmm.…”
“Pretty thin – what?”
“In spots,” Staff agreed. “Still, I’ve got to admit you’ve managed to cover the canvas, even if your supply of paint was a bit stingy. One thing still bothers me: how did you find out I knew about the smuggling game?”
Iff nodded toward the bedroom. “I happened in – casually, as the saying runs – just as Miss Landis was telling on herself.”
Staff frowned.
“How,” he pursued presently, “can I feel sure you’re not Ismay, and, having guessed as accurately as you did, that you didn’t get at that bandbox aboard the ship and take the necklace?”
“If I were, and had, would I be here?”
“But I can’t understand why you are here!”
“It’s simple enough; I’ve any number of reasons for inviting myself to be your guest. For one, I’m wet and cold and look like a drowned rat; I can’t offer myself to a hotel looking like this – can I? Then I knew your address – you’ll remember telling me; and there’s an adage that runs ‘Any port in a storm.’ You’re going to be good enough to get my money changed – I’ve nothing but English paper – and buy me a ready-made outfit in the morning. Moreover, I’m after Ismay, and Ismay’s after the necklace; wherever it is, he will be, soon or late. Naturally I presumed you still had it – and so did he until within the hour.”
“You mean you think it was Ismay who broke into these rooms tonight?”
“You saw him, didn’t you? Man about my size, wasn’t he? Evening clothes? That’s his regulation uniform after dark. Beard and glasses – what?”
“I believe you’re right!” Staff rose excitedly. “I didn’t notice the glasses, but otherwise you’ve described him!”
“What did I tell you?” Iff helped himself to a cigarette. “By now the dirty dog’s probably raising heaven and hell to find out where Miss Searle has hidden herself.”
Staff began to pace nervously to and fro. “I wish,” he cried, “I knew where to find her!”
“Please,” Iff begged earnestly, “don’t let your sense of the obligations of a host interfere with your amusements; but if you’ll stop that Marathon long enough to find me a blanket, I’ll shed these rags and, by your good leave, curl up cunningly on yon divan.”
Staff paused, stared at the little man’s bland and guileless face, and shook his head helplessly, laughing.
“There’s no resisting your colossal gall,” he said, passing into the adjoining room to get bed-clothing for his guest.
“I admit it,” said Iff placidly.
As Staff returned, the telephone bell rang. In his surprise he paused with his arms full of sheets, blankets and pillows, and stared incredulously at his desk.
“What the deuce now?” he murmured.
“The quickest way to an answer to that,” suggested Iff blandly, “is there.” He indicated the telephone with an ample gesture. “Help yourself.”
Dropping his burden on the divan, Staff seated himself at the desk and took up the receiver.
“Hello?”
He started violently, recognising the voice that answered: “Mr. Staff?”
“Yes – ”
“This is Miss Searle.”
“I know,” he stammered; “I – I knew your voice.”
“Really?” The query was perfunctory. “Mr. Staff – I couldn’t wait to tell you – I’ve just got in from a theatre and supper party with some friends.”
“Yes,” he said. “Where are you?”
Disregarding his question, the girl’s voice continued quickly: “I wanted to see my hat and opened the bandbox. It wasn’t my hat – it’s the one you described – the one that – ”
“I know,” he interrupted; “I know all about that now.”
“Yes,” she went on hurriedly, unheeding his words. “I admired and examined it. It – there’s something else.”
“I know,” he said again; “the Cadogan collar.”
“Oh!” There was an accent of surprise in her voice. “Well, I’ve ordered a taxi, and I’m going to bring it to you right away. The thing’s too valuable – ”
“Miss Searle – ”
“I’m afraid to keep it here. I wanted to find out if you were up – that’s why I called.”
“But, Miss Searle – ”
“The taxi’s waiting now. I’ll be at your door in fifteen minutes.”
“But – ”
“Good-bye.”
He heard the click as she hung up the receiver; and nothing more. With an exclamation of annoyance he swung round from the desk.
“Somebody coming?” enquired Iff brightly.
Staff eyed him with overt distrust. “Yes,” he said reluctantly.
“Miss Searle bringing the evanescent collar, eh?”
Staff nodded curtly.
“Plagued nuisance,” commented Iff. “And me wanting to go to sleep the worst I ever did.”
“Don’t let this keep you up,” said Staff.
“But,” Iff remonstrated, “you can’t receive a lady in here with me asleep on your divan.”
“I don’t intend to,” Staff told him bluntly. “I’m going to meet the taxi at the door, get into it with her, and take that infernal necklace directly to Miss Landis, at her hotel.”
“The more I see of you,” said Mr. Iff, removing his coat, “the more qualities I discover in you to excite my admiration and liking. As in this instance when with thoughtfulness for my comfort” – he tore from his neck the water-soaked rag that had been his collar – “you combine a prudent, not to say sagacious foresight, whereby you plan to place the Cadogan collar far beyond my reach in event I should turn out to be a gay deceiver.”
By way of response, Staff found his hat and placed it handily on the table, went to his desk and took from one of its drawers a small revolver of efficient aspect, unloaded and reloaded it to satisfy himself it was in good working order – and of a sudden looked round suspiciously at Mr. Iff.
The latter, divested of his clothing and swathed in a dressing-gown several sizes too large for him, fulfilled his host’s expectations by laughing openly at these warlike preparations.
“I infer,” he said, “that you wouldn’t be surprised to meet up with Cousin Arbuthnot before sunrise.”
“I’m taking no chances,” Staff announced with dignity.
“Well, if you should meet him, and if you mean what you act like, and if that gun’s any good, and if you know how to use it,” yawned Mr. Iff, “you’ll do me a favour and save me a heap of trouble into the bargain. Good night.”
He yawned again in a most business-like way, lay down, pulled a blanket up round his ears, turned his back to the light and was presently breathing with the sweet and steady regularity of a perfectly sound and sincere sleeper.
To make his rest the more comfortable, Staff turned off all the lights save that on his desk. Then he filled a pipe and sat down to envy the little man. The very name of sleep was music in his hearing, just then.
The minutes lagged on leaden wings. There was a great hush in the old house, and the street itself was quiet. Once or twice Staff caught himself nodding; then he would straighten up, steel his will and spur his senses to attention, waiting, listening, straining to catch the sound of an approaching taxi. He seemed to hear every imaginable night noise but that: the crash and whine of trolleys, the footsteps of a scattered handful of belated pedestrians, the infrequent windy roar of trains on the Third Avenue L, empty clapping of horses’ hoofs on the asphalt … the yowl of a sentimental tomcat … a dull and distant grumble, vague, formless, like a long, unending roll of thunder down the horizon … the swish and sough of waters breaking away from the flanks of the Autocratic … and then, finally, like a tocsin, the sonorous, musical chiming of the grandfather’s clock in the corner.
He found himself on his feet, rubbing his eyes, with a mouth dry as paper, a thumping heart, and a vague sense of emptiness in his middle.
Had he napped – slept? How long?.. He stared, bewildered, groping blindly after his wandering wits…
The windows, that had been black oblongs in the illuminated walls, were filled with a cool and shapeless tone of grey. He reeled (rather than walked) to one of them and looked out.
The street below was vacant, desolate and uncannily silent, showing a harsh, unlovely countenance like the jaded mask of some sodden reveller, with bleary street-lamps for eyes – all mean and garish in the chilly dusk that foreruns dawn.
Hastily Staff consulted his watch.
Four o’clock!
It occurred to him that the watch needed winding, and he stood for several seconds twisting the stem-crown between thumb and forefinger while stupidly comprehending the fact that he must have been asleep between two and three hours.
Abruptly, in a fit of witless agitation, he crossed to the divan, caught the sleeper by the shoulder and shook him till he wakened – till he rolled over on his back, grunted and opened one eye.
“Look here!” said Staff in a quaver – “I’ve been asleep!”
“You’ve got nothing on me, then,” retorted Iff with pardonable asperity. “All the same – congratulations. Good night.”
He attempted to turn over again, but was restrained by Staff’s imperative hand.
“It’s four o’clock, and after!”
“I admit it. You might be good enough to leave a call for me for eleven.”
“But – damn it, man! – that cab hasn’t come – ”
“I can’t help that, can I?”
“I’m afraid something has happened to that girl.”
“Well, it’s too late to prevent it now – if so.”
“Good God! Have you no heart, man?” Staff began to stride distractedly up and down the room. “What am I to do?” he groaned aloud.
“Take unkie’s advice and go bye-bye,” suggested Iff. “Otherwise I’d be obliged if you’d rehearse that turn in the other room. I’m going to sleep if I have to brain you to get quiet.”
Staff stopped as if somebody had slapped him: the telephone bell was ringing again.
He flung himself across the room, dropped heavily into the chair and snatched up the receiver.
A man’s voice stammered drowsily his number.
“Yes,” he almost shouted. “Yes – Mr. Staff at the ’phone. Who wants me?”
“Hold the wire.”
He heard a buzzing, a click; then silence; a prolonged brrrrp and another click.
“Hello?” he called. “Hello?”
His heart jumped: the voice was Miss Searle’s.
“Mr. Staff?”
It seemed to him that he could detect a tremor in her accents, as if she were both weary and frightened.
“Yes, Miss Searle. What is it?”
“I wanted to reassure you – I’ve had a terrible experience, but I’m all right now – safe. I started – ”
Her voice ceased to vibrate over the wires as suddenly as if those same wires had been cut.
“Yes?” he cried after an instant. “Yes, Miss Searle? Hello, hello!”
There was no answer. Listening with every faculty at high tension, he fancied that he detected a faint, abrupt sound, like a muffled sob. On the heels of it came a click and the connection was broken.
In his anxiety and consternation he swore violently.
“Well, what’s the trouble?”
Iff stood at his side, now wide-awake and quick with interest. Hastily Staff explained what had happened.
“Yes,” nodded the little man. “Yes, that’d be the way of it. She had trouble, but managed to get to the telephone; then somebody grabbed her – ”
“Somebody! Who?” Staff demanded unreasonably.
“I don’t really know – honest Injun! But there’s a smell of garlic about it, just the same.”
“Smell of garlic! Are you mad?”
“Tush!” said Mr. Iff contemptuously. “I referred poetically to the fine Italian hand of Cousin Arbuthnot Ismay. Now if I were you, I’d agitate that hook until Central answers, and then ask for the manager and see if he can trace that call back to its source. It oughtn’t to be difficult at this hour, when the telephone service is at its slackest.”