Chapter 1. The Gentleman's Visiting-Card

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_ Chapter I. The Gentleman's Visiting-Card

The card that had been thrust into my hand had pencilled upon it, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at a quarter before eight this evening." Below, in copper-plate, was engraved the name, Mr. Esper Indiman.

It was one of those abnormally springlike days that New York sometimes experiences at the latter end of March, days when negligee shirts and last summer's straw hats make a sporadic appearance, and bucolic weather prophets write letters to the afternoon papers abusing the sun-spots. Really, it was hot, and I was anxious to get out of the dust and glare; it would be cool at the club, and I intended dining there. The time was half-past six, the height of the homeward rush hours, and, as usual, there was a jam of vehicles and pedestrians at the Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street crossing. The subway contractors were still at work here, and the available street space was choked with their stagings and temporary footwalks. The inevitable consequent was congestion; here were two of the principal thoroughfares of the city crossing each other at right angles, and with hardly enough room, at the point of intersection, for the traffic of one. The confusion grew worse as the policemen and signalmen stationed at the crossing occasionally lost their heads; every now and then a new block would form, and several minutes would elapse before it could be broken. In all directions long lines of yellow electric cars stood stalled, the impatient passengers looking ahead to discover the cause of the trouble. A familiar enough experience to the modern New-Yorker, yet it never fails to exasperate him afresh.

The impasse looked hopeless when I reached the scene. A truck loaded with bales of burlap was on the point of breaking down at the crossing, and it was a question of how to get it out of the way in the shortest possible time consistent with the avoidance of the threatened catastrophe. Meanwhile, the jam of cars and trucks kept piling up until there was hardly space for a newsboy to worm his way from one curb to another, and the crowd on the street corners began to grow restive. They do these things so much better in London.

Now, I detest being in the mob, and I was about to back my way out of the crowd and seek another route, even if a roundabout one. But just then the blockade was partially raised, an opening presented itself immediately in front of me, and I was forced forward willy-nilly. Arrived at the other side of the street, I drew out of the press as quickly as possible, and it was then that I discovered Mr. Indiman's carte de visite tightly clutched in my left hand. Impossible to conjecture how it had come there, and my own part in the transaction had been purely involuntary; the muscles of the palm had closed unconsciously upon the object presented to it, just as does a baby's. "Mr. Esper Indiman--and who the deuce may he be?"

The club dining-room was full, but Jeckley hailed me and offered me a seat at his table. I loathe Jeckley, and so I explained politely that I was waiting for a friend, and should not dine until later.

"Well, then, have a cocktail while I am finishing my coffee," persisted the beast, and I was obliged to comply.

"I had to feed rather earlier than usual," explained Jeckley.

"Yes," I said, not caring in the least about Mr. Jeckley's hours for meals.

"You see I'm doing the opening at the Globe to-night, and I must get my Wall Street copy to the office before the theatre. And what do you think of that by way of an extra assignment?" He took a card from his pocket-book and tossed it over. It was another one of Mr. Esper Indiman's calling-cards, and scrawled in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at eight o'clock this evening."

Jeckley was lighting his cigar, and so did not observe my start of surprise. Have I said that Jeckley was a newspaper man? One of the new school of journalism, a creature who would stick at nothing in the manufacture of a sensation. The Scare-Head is his god, and he holds nothing else sacred in heaven and earth. He would sacrifice--but perhaps I'm unjust to Jeckley; maybe it's only his bounce and flourish that I detest. Furthermore, I'm a little afraid of him; I don't want to be written up.

"Esper Indiman," I read aloud. "Don't know him."

"Ever heard the name?" asked Jeckley.

I temporized. "It's unfamiliar, certainly."

Jeckley looked gloomy. "Nobody seems to know him," he said. "And the name isn't to be found in the directory, telephone-book, or social register."

Wonderful fellows, these newspaper men; I never should have thought of going for Mr. Indiman like that.

"But why and wherefore?" I asked, cautiously.

"A mystery, my son. The card was shoved into my hand not half an hour ago."

"Where?"

"At Twenty-third and Fourth. There were a lot of people around, and I haven't the most distant notion of the guilty party."

"What does it mean?"

Jeckley shook his head. "What will you do about it?"

"I will make the call, of course."

"Of course!"

"There maybe a story there--who knows. Besides, it's directly on my way to the Globe, and the curtain is not until eight-thirty. Tell you what, old man; come along with me and see the thing to a finish. Fate leads a card--Mr. Esper Indiman's--and we'll play the second hand; what do you say?"

I declined firmly. God forbid that I should be featured, along with the other exhibits in the case, on the first page of to-morrow's Planet.

"So," he assented, indifferently, and pushed his chair back. "Well, I must push along--Lord! there's that copy--the old man will have it in for me good and plenty if I don't get it down in time. Adios!" He disappeared, and I let him depart willingly enough. Later on I went up to the library for a smoke--no fear of encountering any Jeckleys there, and, in fact, the room was entirely deserted. I looked at my watch; it was ten minutes after seven, and that gave me a quarter of an hour in which to think it over. Should I accept Mr. Indiman's invitation to call?

I looked around for an ash-tray, and, seeing one on the big writing-table in the centre of the room, I walked over to it.

There were some bits of white lying in the otherwise empty tray--the fragments of a torn-up visiting-card. A portion of the engraved script caught my eye, "Indi--"

It was not difficult to piece together the bits of pasteboard, for I knew pretty well what I should find. Completed, the puzzle read, "Mr. Esper Indiman," and in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at half-past seven this evening."

So there were three of us--if not more. Rather absurd this assignment of a separate quarter of an hour to each interview--quite as though Mr. Indiman desired to engage a valet and we were candidates for the position. Evidently, an eccentric person, but it's a queer world anyhow, as most of us know. There's my own case, for example. I'm supposed to be a gentleman of leisure and means. Leisure, certainly, but the means are slender enough, and proceeding in a diminishing ratio. That's the penalty of having been born a rich man's son and educated chiefly in the arts of riding off at polo and thrashing a single-sticker to windward in a Cape Cod squall. But I sha'n't say a word against the governor, God bless him! He gave me what I thought I wanted, and it wasn't his fault that an insignificant blood-clot should beat him out on that day of days--the corner in "R. P." It was never the Chicago crowd that could have downed him--I'm glad to remember that.

Well, there being only the two of us, it didn't matter so much; it wasn't as though there were a lot of helpless womenfolk to consider. After the funeral and the settlement with the creditors there was left--I'm ashamed to say how little, and, anyway, it's no one's business; the debts were paid. What is a man to do, at thirty-odd, who has never turned his hand to anything of use? The governor's friends? Well, they didn't know how bad things were, and I couldn't go to them with the truth and make them a present of my helpless, incompetent self.

And so for the last two years I've been sticking it out in a hall bedroom, just west of the dead-line. I have a life membership in the club--what a Christmas present that has turned out to be!--and twice in the week I dine there. As for the rest of it, never mind--there are things which a man can do but of which he doesn't care to speak.

The future? Ah, you can answer that question quite as well as I. Now I had calculated that, at my present rate of expenditure, I could hold out until Easter, but there have been contingencies. To illustrate, I had my pocket picked yesterday morning. Amusing--isn't it?--that it should have been my pocket--my pocket!

Fortunately I have stacks of clothes and some good pearl shirt-studs, and I continue to present a respectable appearance. I shall always do that, I think. I don't like the idea of the pawn-shop and the dropping down one degree at a time. If, in the end, it shall be shown clearly that the line is to be crossed, I shall walk over it quietly and as a man should; I object to the indecency of being dragged or carried across. What line do I mean? I don't know that I could tell you clearly. What is in your own mind? There IS a line.

At half after seven I left the club, and exactly a quarter of an hour later I stood opposite the doorway of No. 4020 Madison Avenue. A tall man was descending the steps; I recognized Bingham, a member of my club, and recalled the torn-up visiting-card that I had found in the library. So Bingham was one of us.

Now I don't know Bingham, except by sight, and I shouldn't have cared to stop and question him, anyway. But I caught one glimpse of his face as he hurried away, and it looked gray under the electrics. Call it the effect of the arc light, if you like; he was hurrying, certainly, and it struck me that it was because he was anxious to get away.

Many are the motives that send men into adventurous situations, but there is at least one among them that is compelling--hunger. I have said that I had gone to the club for dinner; I did not say that I got it. To be honest, I had hoped for an invitation--charity, if you insist upon it. But I had been unfortunate. None of my particular friends had chanced to be around, and Jeckley's cocktail had been the only hospitality proffered me. You remember that my pocket had been picked yesterday morning, and since then--well, I had eaten nothing. I might have signed the dinner check, you say. Quite true, but I shall probably be as penniless on the first of the month as I am to-day, and then what? Too much like helping one's self from a friend's pocket.

So it was just a blind, primeval impulse that urged me on. This Mr. Indiman had chosen to fish in muddy waters, and his rashness but matched my necessity. A host must expect to entertain his guests. I walked up the steps and rang the bell.

Instantly the door opened, and a most respectable looking serving-man confronted me.

"Mr. Indiman will see you presently," he said, before I had a chance to get out a word. "This way, sir."

The house was of the modern American basement type, and I was ushered into a small reception-room on the right of the entrance hall. "Will you have the Post, sir? Or any of the illustrated papers? Just as you please, sir; thank you."

The man withdrew, and I sat looking listlessly about me, for the room, while handsomely furnished, had an appearance entirely commonplace.

Five and ten minutes passed, and I began to grow impatient. I remembered that Jeckley's appointment had been for eight o'clock, and for obvious considerations I did not wish that he should find me waiting here. It was eight o'clock now, and I would abide Mr. Indiman's lordly pleasure no longer. I rose to go; the electric bell sounded.

I could hear Jeckley's high-pitched voice distinctly; he seemed to be put out about something; he spoke impatiently, even angrily.

"But this is 4020 Madison Avenue, isn't it? Mr. Indiman--I was asked to call--Mr. Jeckley, of the Planet."

"Must be some mistake, sir," came the answer. "This is No. 4020, but there's no Mr. Inkerman--"

"Indiman, not Inkerman--Mr. Esper Indiman. Look at the card."

"Never heard the name, sir."

"What! Well, then, who does live here?"

"Mr. Snell, sir. Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell. But he's at dinner, and I couldn't disturb him."

"Humph!" I fancy that Jeckley swore under his breath as he turned to go. Then the outer door was closed upon him.

It was a relief, of course, to be spared the infliction of Mr. Jeckley's society, but I could not but admit that the situation was developing some peculiarities. Eliminating the doubtful personality of Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell, who was this Mr. Esper Indiman, whose identity had been so freely admitted to me and so explicitly denied to Jeckley? The inference was obvious that Jeckley had failed to pass the first inspection test, and so had been turned down without further ceremony. This reflection rather amused me; I forgot about the incivility to which I was being subjected in the long wait, and began to be curious about the game itself. What next?

At a quarter after eight, and then again at half after, there were inquiries at the door for Mr. Indiman. To each caller the answer was returned that no Mr. Indiman was known at No. 4020 Madison Avenue, and that Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell could not be disturbed at his dinner.

There was no caller at the next quarter, and none again at nine o'clock. The series had, therefore, come to an end, and I remained the sole survivor--of and for what?

I dare say that my nerves had been somewhat weakened by my two days' fast, or else it was the effect of Jeckley's cocktail on an otherwise empty stomach. Whatever the cause, I suddenly became conscious that I was passing into a state of high mental tension; I wanted to scream, to beat impotently upon the air; Jeckley would have put it that I was within an ace of flying off the handle.

A deafening clash of clanging metal smote my ears. It should have been the finishing touch, and it was, but not after the fashion that might have been expected. As though by magic, the horrible tension relaxed; my nerves again took command of the situation; I felt as cool and collected as at any previous moment in my life.

In the centre of the room stood a heavy table of some East-Indian wood--teak, I think, they call it. I could have sworn that there was nothing whatever upon this table when I entered the room; now I saw three objects lying there. I walked up and examined them. As they lay towards me, the first was a ten-thousand-dollar bill, the second a loaded revolver, caliber .44, the third an envelope of heavy white paper directed to me, Winston Thorp. The letter was brief and formal; it read:

"Mr. Indiman presents his compliments to Mr. Thorp and requests the honor of his company at dinner, Tuesday, March the thirtieth, at nine o'clock.

"4020 Madison Avenue."

Dishonor, death, and dinner--a curious trio to choose between. Yet to a man in my present position each of them appealed in its own way, and I'm not ashamed to confess it. Perhaps the choice I made may seem inevitable, but what if you had seen Bingham's face as I did, with the arc light full upon it? It was the remembrance of that which made me hesitate; twice I drew my hand away and looked at the money and the pistol.

Through the open door came a ravishing odor, that of a filet a la Chateaubriand; the purely animal instincts reasserted themselves, and I picked up the gardenia blossom that lay beside the letter and stuck it into the button-hole of my dinner-jacket. I looked down at the table, and it seemed to me that the ten-thousand-dollar note and the pistol had disappeared. But what of that, what did anything matter now; I was going to dine--to dine!

I walked up-stairs, guided by that delicious, that heavenly odor, and entered the dining-room in the rear, without the smallest hesitation. At one end of the table sat a man of perhaps forty years of age. An agreeable face, for all of the tired droop about the mouth and the deep lines in the forehead; it could light up, too, upon occasion, as I was soon to discover. For the present I did not bother myself with profitless conjectures; that entrancing filet, displayed in a massive silver cover, stood before him; I could not take my eyes from it.

My host, for such he evidently was, rose and bowed with great politeness.

"You must pardon me," he said, "for sitting down; but, as my note said, I dine at nine. I will have the shell-fish and soup brought on."

"I should prefer to begin with the filet," I said, decidedly.

A servant brought me a plate; my hand trembled, but I succeeded in helping myself without spilling the precious sauce; I ate.

"There are three conditions of men who might be expected to accept the kind of invitation which has brought me the honor of your company," remarked my host as we lit our cigarettes over the Roman punch. "To particularize, there is the curious impertinent, the merely foolish person, and the man in extremis rerum. Now I have no liking for the dog-faced breed, as Homer would put it, and neither do I suffer fools gladly. At least, one of the latter is not likely to bother me again." He smiled grimly, and I thought of Bingham's face of terror.

"I found my desperate man in you, my dear Mr. Thorp, shall we drink to our better acquaintance?" I bowed, and we drank.

"The precise nature of your misfortune does not concern me," he continued, airily. "It is sufficient that we are of the same mind in our attitude towards the world--'to shake with Destiny for beers,' is it not?

"One may meet with many things on the highway of life--poverty, disease, sorrow, treacheries. These are disagreeable, I admit, but they are positive; one may overcome or, at least, forget them. But suppose you stand confronting the negative of existence; the highway is clear, indeed, but how interminable its vista, its straight, smooth, and intolerably level stretch. That road is mine.

"Yes; I have tried the by-paths. Once I was shanghaied; twice I have been marooned and by my own men. That last amused me--a little. I was the second man to arrive at Bordeaux in the Paris-Madrid race of 1903; during the Spanish-American war I acted as a spy for the United States government in Barcelona.

"I made the common mistake of confounding the unusual with the interesting. Romance is a shy bird, and not to be hunted with a brass band. Where is the heart of life, if not at one's elbow? At the farthest, one has only to turn the corner of the street. It is useless to look for prodigies in the abyss, but every stream has its straws that float; I have determined to watch and follow them.

"I want a companion, and so I advertised after my own fashion. I selected you, tentatively, from the mob; later on I made the test more complete. But you have no boutonniere; allow me."

He took a spray of orchid from the silver bowl in the centre of the table and handed it to me.

I protested: "I have my gardenia--" I looked at my button-hole and it was gone.

Mr. Indiman smiled. "Let me confess," he said. "You recall the abnormal tension of your nerves as you sat waiting in my reception-room. Merely the effect produced by a mixture of certain chemical gases turned on from a tap under my hand. Then the crash of a brazen gong; it is what the scientists call 'massive stimulation,' resolving super-excitation into partial hypnosis.

"Once I had you in the hypnotic condition, the rest was simple enough. I had only to suggest to your mind the three objects on the table, and you saw them. The bank-note, the revolver--they were as immaterial as the gardenia that no longer adorns your button-hole.

"I did not attempt to influence your choice among the three, as that would have destroyed the value of the test to me. But, as I had hoped, you accepted my invitation to dinner. Frankly, now, I am curious--why?"

"That is very simple," I answered. "I had not eaten anything for two days, and I detected the odor of that exquisite filet. Not the slightest ethical significance in the choice, as you see."

Esper Indiman laughed. "I should have kept my pantry door closed. But it does not matter; I am satisfied. Shall we go into the library for coffee?"

Directly opposite the door of the latter apartment stood an easel holding an unframed canvas. A remarkable portrait--little as I know about pictures, I could see that clearly enough. A three-quarter length of a woman wearing a ducal coronet and dressed in a magnificent costume of red velvet.

"Lely's 'Red Duchess,'" remarks my host, carelessly. "You may have seen it in the Hermitage at Petersburg."

I looked at the picture again. Why should this masterpiece not have been properly mounted and glazed? The edges of the canvas were jagged and uneven, as though it had been cut from its frame with a not oversharp knife. We sat down to our coffee and liqueurs.

As I awake in the narrow quarters of my hall bedroom I am inclined to believe that the occurrences of the preceding night were only the phantasms of a disordered digestion; where had I eaten that Welsh rabbit? The morning paper had been thrown over the transom, and, following my usual custom, I reached for it and began reading. Among the foreign despatches I note this paragraph dated St. Petersburg:

"The famous portrait of the Duchess of Lackshire, by Sir Peter Lely, better known as the 'Red Duchess,' has disappeared from the gallery of the Hermitage. It is now admitted that it must have been stolen, cut bodily from its frame and carried away. The theft took place several months ago, but the secret has just become public property. The absence of the picture from its accustomed place had, of course, been noted, but it was understood that it had been removed for cleaning. An enormous reward is to be offered for information leading to its recovery."

There is also a letter for me which I had not noticed until now. It was from Indiman, and it read:

"Dear Thorp,--Dine with me to-night at half after eight. I noticed that you were rather taken with my 'Red Duchess'; we will ask the lady to preside over our modest repast, and you can then gaze your fill upon her. Faithfully, E. I."

Of course, I intend to accept the invitation. _

Read next: Chapter 2. The Red Duchess


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