Chapter 6. The Queen of Spades

________________________________________________
_ Chapter VI. The Queen of Spades

I am very fond of Esper Indiman, but there are times when he is positively unfit for human society. Last week, for instance, when for three days on end we did not exchange a single word, not even at dinner, where the amenities should come on at least with the walnuts. I grant you that humdrum wears upon the spirit, that the flatness of the daily road may be a harder thing to get over than even Mr. Bunyan's hill Difficulty, but for a man to surrender himself mind and body to solitaire argues weakness. Moreover, it was a ridiculous combination of the cards that Indiman invariably set himself to resolve; the chances were at least a hundred to one against the solitaire coming out, and, indeed, I never saw him get it but once. Under rather curious circumstances, too--but I won't anticipate; let us begin with the beginning of the adventure of the Queen of Spades.

You will remember that there was a mislaid letter whose possession had become a matter of supreme importance to a certain great person in Russia. The Countess Gilda (she of the Ninety-and-nine Kisses) had been on the point of obtaining the treasure, but the over-confidence of my friend Indiman, coupled with the blunders of a stupid detective, had brought about a premature explosion of the train. To Indiman, apologetic and remorseful, the Countess Gilda had vouchsafed a single pregnant utterance--"Wait for the third appearance of the Queen of Spades." This was his cue; let him make the most of it if he would repair the mischief that he had unwittingly done.

Now the opera, on the night preceding the Countess's departure for Europe, had been Tschaikowsky's "Queen of Spades"; the inference was inevitable that here was the first materialization of our mysterious heroine. That same evening we had encountered, at an Eighth Avenue ball, a masker whose costume had been designed upon the familiar model of the court-card in question; so much for number two. But Fortune had been almost too kind, and immediately upon this promising beginning she had withdrawn her smiles. For upward of a month nothing whatever had happened. As I have said, Indiman played solitaire and I smoked as much as I could. Dull work for all that it was the end of April, the height of the Easter season, and New York was at its gayest. A brilliant show--yes, and the same old one. Did you ever eat a quail a day for thirty days? Why not for three hundred or three thousand days, supposing that one is really fond of quail?

For the thirty-fifth consecutive time the solitaire failed to come out. Indiman gathered the cards, shuffled them with infinite precision, and handed them to me to cut. I did so. Indiman took the pack and flung it into the air; the cards fluttered in all directions, and one came sailing straight for my nose. I put up my hand and caught it--it was the Queen of Spades.

"Here is the lady for the fateful third time," I remarked, jestingly. But Indiman was nothing if not serious. He took the card from me and studied it attentively.

"Rather an interesting face, don't you think?" he said, musingly. "Somewhat Semitic in physiognomy, you notice; that comes from the almond-shaped eyes and the abnormally high arch of the brows. Would you know her in the actual flesh--say, on Broadway? Brunette, of course, jet-black hair banded a la Merode over the ears, a little droop at the corners of her mouth. Voila! The Queen of Spades. Let us go out and look for her."

"A proposition," I remarked, judicially, "that savors of the rankest lunacy. And yet, why not? The lady certainly made the advances; it is an equivalent to an invitation to call. Pity she doesn't put her address on her card."

"Hym!" coughed Indiman, delicately. "That is a difficulty. But not necessarily an insurmountable one. Let us consult the street directory, with minds open and unprejudiced, and our faith will be rewarded--doubt it not.

"We will pass over the numbered streets and avenues," continued Indiman. "I am not in the mood for mathematical subtleties, although there is much of virtue in the digit 9, as every adept knows. Names are our quest to-day, so listen to them as they run--Allen, Bleecker, Bayard, Dey, Division--now why Division, do you suppose? What was divided, and who got the lion's share?"

"A delicate allusion to some eighteenth-century graft," I suggested. "Consult the antiquaries."

"Oh, it's enough for our purpose that the division itself exists; it must lie below the 'barbed-wire fence,' somewhere across the line. To speak precisely, Division Street appears to start at Chatham Square, and it runs eastward to Grand Street. We will take the Third Avenue Elevated to Chatham Square, and then ask a policeman. Nothing could be more simple."

Descending the Elevated stairs, Division Street lay right before our eyes, and further inquiry was superfluous. Indiman's spirits had risen amazingly. "Why, it's only an elementary exercise," he said, smilingly. "Divide an East Side street by a pack of cards, and the quotient is the Queen of Spades; you simply cannot escape from the conclusion. Forward, then."

Now, Division Street IS something out of the ordinary, as down-town thoroughfares go. It is the principal highway to that remote Yiddish country whose capital is William H. Seward Square, and the entire millinery and feminine tailoring business of the lower East Side is centred at this its upper end. In the one short block from Chatham Square to Market Street there are twenty-seven millinery establishments--count them for yourself--and with one exception the other shops are devoted to the sale of cloaks and mantuas and tailor-made gowns. All on the eastward of the street, you notice. There is a dollar and a shilling side in Division Street, just as elsewhere.

Talk of Bond Street and Fifth Avenue! Where will you find twenty-seven millinery shops in an almost unbroken row? What a multiplied vista of delight for feminine eyes--hats, hats, hats, as far as the eye can reach. Black hats and white hats; red, blue, and greenery-yallery hats; weird creations so loaded with gimp and passementerie as to certainly weigh a pound or more; daring confections in gauze and feathers; parterres of exotic blooms such as no earthly garden ever held; hats with bows on 'em and hats with birds on 'em, and hats with beasts on 'em; hats that twitter and hats that squawk; hats of lordly velvet and hats of plebeian corduroy; felt hats, straw hats, chip hats; wide brim and narrow brim; skewered, beribboned, bebowed--finally, again, just hats, hats, hats, a phantasmagoria of primary colors and gewgaws and fallalerie pure and simple, before which the masculine brain fairly reels. But the woman contemplates the show with serenity imperturbable: the hat she wants is here somewhere, and it is only a matter of time and patience to find it.

There is always a Mont Blanc to overtop the lesser Alpine summits--a Koh-i-noor in whose splendor all inferior radiance is extinguished.

Indiman touched my elbow. "Look at that one," he murmured.

Now that WAS a hat. To describe it--but let me first bespeak the indulgence of my feminine readers. I am not an authority upon hats--most distinctly not; and I shall probably display my ignorance with the first word out of my mouth. But what matter. I am simply trying to tell of what these poor mortal eyes have seen.

In effect, then, the foundation of the hat appeared to be a black straw, with a wide, straight brim, the trimming being a gimcrackery sort of material whose name for the moment has escaped me. Suppose we call it barege, and let it go at that? The principal ornament was a large, red apple in wax, pierced by a German-silver arrow, but the really unique feature of the entire creation was the parasol-like fringe that depended from the edge of the brim, a continuous row of four-inch filaments upon which shining black beads were closely strung. An over-bold device, perhaps, but it certainly caught the eye; there was a barbaric suggestion in those strings of glittering beads that made one think of the Congo and of tomtoms beating brazenly in the moonlight. A hat that WAS a hat, as I have previously remarked, and Indiman and I gazed upon it with undisguised interest. It is hardly necessary to add that this particular hat had the place of honor in the shop-window, it being mounted upon the waxen model of a simpering lady with flaxen curls and a complexion incomparable. Assuredly, then, the pearl of the collection.

"L. Hernandez," said Indiman, reading the sign over the door. "Spanish Jew, I should say. Yes, and the Queen of Spades in person," he added, in an undertone, for L. Hernandez was standing in the open door-way of the shop and regarding us with a curious fixity of glance.

Now, through the summer-time it is the custom of the Division Street modistes to occupy seats placed on the sidewalk. In a business where competition is so strenuous one must be prepared to catch the customer on the hop. Even in winter the larger establishments will keep a scout on duty outside, and the lesser proprietor must, at least, cast an occasional eye to windward, if the balance of trade is to be preserved. Undoubtedly Madame Hernandez was taking a purely business observation, and we had chanced to fall within its focus.

The resemblance was, indeed, striking. There was the banded hair over the eyes, the slightly drooping mouth, the peculiar upspring of the eyebrow arch--the Queen of Spades in person, as Indiman had said. And this was her third appearance.

Indiman removed his hat with a sweep. "Madame," he said, with elaborate civility, "it is a beautiful day."

"What of it?" retorted L. Hernandez, ungraciously enough. "Or perhaps the sun isn't shining above Madison Square," she added, sarcastically. A strange voice this, raucous in quality and abnormally low in pitch.

"I haven't noticed," said Indiman, with undisturbed good-humor. "Alike upon the just and unjust, you know. Now if you will kindly allow me to pass--"

"What do you want in my shop?"

"I desire to purchase that hat," replied Indiman, and pointed to the atrocity in the window.

"It is not for sale."

"I am prepared to pay liberally for what strikes my fancy." He took out a roll of bills.

"The hat is not for sale."

"Madame," said Indiman, with the utmost suavity, "are you in business for your health?"

"I am."

"Oh, in that case--"

"You may come inside; it tires me to be on my feet for so long. To my sorrow I grow stout."

"It is an affliction," murmured Indiman, sympathetically. We followed her within. The shop was crammed from floor to ceiling with bandboxes arranged in three or four rows, and glazed presses, filled with feminine hats and bonnets, lined the walls. Near the window was a small counter, behind which Madame L. Hernandez immediately installed herself, and from this vantage-point she proceeded to inspect us with cool deliberation, fanning herself the while with a huge palm-leaf. "You wish to buy a hat?" she said, tentatively.

"That one," answered Indiman, stubbornly "--that hat on the model's head."

"Bah! Senor, it is fatiguing to fight, like children, with pillows in the dark. You want that Russian letter. Why not say so?"

For a full half-minute their eyes met in silent thrust and parry; it was to be a duel, then, and each was an antagonist to be respected.

"If it is a question of money--" said Indiman, slowly.

"It is not."

"Then I must take it where I find it."

"So it appears," answered L. Hernandez, placidly. "But you must first find it. Eh, my bold young man?"

"Be tranquil, madame--"

"I am tranquil. You are but wasting your time."

"I have it to spend in unlimited quantity. I am a solitaire-player."

"Oh, you play solitaire. How many variations do you know?"

"One hundred and thirty-five."

"I can count one hundred and forty-two."

"Including the 'Bridge'?"

"The famous 'Bridge'! Do you know it, then?"

"I learned it from a Polish gentleman in Belgrade."

"It is difficult."

"Enormously so. It may come out once in a hundred times."

Madame L. Hernandez produced a pack of cards from underneath the counter. "Will you oblige me, senor? I am anxious to see the play."

Indiman proceeded with the explanation. It was too intricate for me to follow. I could only understand that, with the solitaire properly resolved, the cards should finally divide themselves into four packs, headed respectively by the ace of clubs, king of diamonds, queen of spades, and knave of hearts. Indiman tried it twice, but the combination would not come out.

"We will try it again to-morrow," said Indiman, rising.

"With pleasure. Good-day, gentlemen. Mind the step."

As we walked towards Chatham Square a stout man joined us, a man with one ear noticeably larger than the other. "Mr. Indiman--" he began, deferentially.

"What, you, Brownson?"

"Yes, sir. I have an assignment on this job from the Central Office. I saw you coming out of L. Hernandez's just now. Smooth old bird, ain't it?"

"You on this case?" said Indiman, stupefied.

"Yes, sir. You see, the parties concerned finally determined to put it into our hands, and they'd have been enough sight better off if they'd done it in the beginning. Bless you! it's no great shakes of a lay-out. There's the letter--a single sheet of note-paper written in violet ink on one side only, and we know the party who has it up her sleeve. L. Hernandez--I don't mind saying it, seeing that you're also on. I'll do the trick within three days, or you can boil my head for a corned-beef dinner."

"Well, good luck to you, Brownson," said Indiman, absently. There was a cab-rank here in Chatham Square, and we drove up-town to the Utinam Club for a late luncheon. While we were waiting for our filet to be prepared Indiman wrote a brief note and had it despatched by messenger; it was addressed, as he showed me, to Madame L. Hernandez,--Division Street. "I'm not going to have that booby upset the apple-cart for a second time," he said, savagely. "Now we shall have to wait for at least three days."

This was on Monday; on Friday we presented ourselves again to Madame L. Hernandez. She received us politely, almost graciously; she sat in the great chair behind the counter, engaged in the truly feminine occupation of putting up her hair in curl-papers. A pad of stiff, white writing-paper lay on the counter before her, and from it she tore the strips as she needed them.

"I am tired of these bandeaux," she explained, smilingly. "My friends tell me that curls will become me infinitely better."

"Your friends have reason," acquiesced Indiman; "but tell me, madame, did you receive my note?"

"I did, senor, and I return you a thousand thanks. Ah, how these pigs of detectives have tortured me!--you would never believe it. Twice my apartments, at the back there, have been entered and ransacked from end to end; I even suffered the indignity of being personally searched by a dreadful newspaper woman who had answered my advertisement for 'Improvers Wanted.' Chloroformed in broad daylight in my own house!"

"But they didn't get the letter?"

"I was not born yesterday, senor."

"Good!" said Indiman, heartily. "What imbeciles policemen can be!"

"What, indeed! Behold, senor, I show you the ruin wrought by these swine. This way."

L. Hernandez rose, waddled stiffly to the back room, and threw open the door. "There!" she exclaimed, dramatically.

Evidently these were the lady's living apartments--a bed-chamber and a smaller room at the left, in which were a gas-range and some smaller culinary apparatus. It was plain that the intruders had made thorough work in their search. The carpet had been removed and the flooring partially torn up; the walls had been sounded for secret receptacles, the pictures stripped of their backing, and the chairs and bedstead pulled half to pieces. "Not a square inch of anything have they left unprobed by their accursed needles," said L. Hernandez, furiously. "It will take me a month, stiff as I am, to get things to rights."

"An outrage!" said Indiman, soothingly. "Shall we have a try at crossing the 'Bridge'?" And forthwith they sat down to the great solitaire with the utmost amity. But again it did not come out; the combinations were insoluble.

The next day we paid another visit to L. Hernandez.

"The curl-papers do not seem to be very effective," remarked Indiman, glancing at the familiar smooth bands of hair drawn straight down from the forehead and over the ears.

"Ah, these wretched bandeaux!" sighed madame; "they are intractable. I shall have to wear my curl-papers by day as well as by night. Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few minutes," and she disappeared into the back room, to shortly reappear with the rebellious bands tightly swathed in a dozen little rolls of twisted paper. "Again the impassable 'Bridge,'" she said, gayly, and the pair wrestled half a dozen times with the problem--of course, unsuccessfully.

On the following day the comedy was repeated.

"Madame," said Indiman, gravely, "you have again forgotten your curl-papers."

"Senor, my memory is undoubtedly failing; I go to repair the omission." Re-enter madame in curl-papers, and then the "Bridge" as before; da capo for a week on end.

"It seems impossible to get that accursed combination," said Indiman, and he threw down the cards. Madame L. Hernandez smiled, and there was a little silence.

"Madame," said Indiman.

"Senor."

"You are not treating me fairly. You have allowed those stupid detectives to search your apartments, and I demand an equal privilege."

"You shall have it, senor. I am going to make a complaint of the affair at Police Headquarters. Perhaps Senor Thorp will kindly accompany me?"

"Excellent! I will remain here, and if the letter is within these four walls I shall find it."

"My best wishes, senor."

I called a coach. Madame arrayed herself in a fur cloak and crowned herself, curl-papers and all, with that atrocious hat from the window stock, a grotesque figure of a woman in all conscience. But I had nerved myself for the ordeal, and we drove away amid the jeers and laughter of the street crowd. In an hour we returned. Indiman was placidly smoking and working on his solitaire.

"You were successful, senor?"

"No, but I have hopes."

"Ah! Well, good-day, gentlemen. Come again."

"Of course there was nothing," said Indiman to me as we drove home. "I even went through every bandbox."

"Yet you have hopes?"

"Yes."

It was the second day following, and we were calling again upon L. Hernandez. There was the usual badinage about the curl-papers, and madame retired to her private apartments, carefully closing the door behind her.

"Now!" said Indiman. Hastily he pulled forward a cheval-glass, placing it upon a particular spot and tilting the mirror to a certain exact angle. When finally it was adjusted to his satisfaction, he motioned to me to come and look. In the mirror was plainly visible a vertically reversed reflection of L. Hernandez. Standing in front of a long dressing-glass in her bedroom, she deliberately removed her chevelure in its entirety and tossed it on the table. It was a wig, then; but I was hardly prepared for the secret that it had concealed--for the close-cropped head, with its straw-colored hair, was unmistakably that of a man.

"Look! look!" whispered Indiman.

From a drawer L. Hernandez had taken a second wig already furnished with curl-papers; the adjustment took but a minute or two; the door opened, and she reappeared, ready for the inevitable solitaire.

On the way home that night Indiman stopped at Police Headquarters, but he did not see fit to make the nature of his inquiries known to me. On the subject of the apparition in the mirror, however, he was more communicative.

"As you know," he said, "the partition that divides madame's private apartments from the shop does not extend to the ceiling; there is a gap of some three feet. I had previously noticed the cheval-glass in the bedroom; it was a natural presumption that L. Hernandez would take her stand in front of it while engaged in making her toilet. Now this glass is tilted at a sharp angle, and consequently the reflection must be projected upward to a particular point on the ceiling. Supposing a small looking-glass to be fixed at this point, the rays impinging upon it will be cast downward and ON OUR SIDE OF THE PARTITION, for the angle of reflection is always equal to that of incidence. We have, therefore, only to place in position a second cheval-glass, arranged at the proper inclination, to obtain a reproduction of the original image, although, of course, it will appear to us as upside-down. I have only to add that the day you escorted madame to Police Headquarters I took the opportunity to fasten a small mirror on the ceiling, trusting that it would not be noticed. Nor was it; the trap worked perfectly--an optical siphon, as it may be called--and the secret was mine."

"And now?"

"Wait until to-morrow," said Indiman.

For the fiftieth time the game of solitaire was in progress, and on this occasion it seemed as though the combinations were actually coming out. Remember, that in the final fall of the cards it was necessary that they should be in four packs, headed by the ace of clubs, king of diamonds, queen of spades, and knave of hearts. Already the first two ranks had been completed; it all depended upon the disposition of the few remaining cards.

"The queen of spades is buried," said L. Hernandez, with a sneer. "You have failed again."

"I think not," replied Indiman, calmly. "I am sure that the last card is the knave of hearts." This was my cue. I stepped to the door and made an imperceptible signal to Brownson, who, with two other plain-clothes men, was lounging in a door-way across the street. They seemed eternally slow in obeying; I felt the muscles in my throat contracting with nervous excitement as I turned again to watch the solitaire.

But two cards remained to be played; they lay face downward upon the table. If the upper one were the queen of spades, the packets would be completed in their proper order and the solitaire would be made; if it were the knave of hearts, the game would again be lost. Slowly--oh, so slowly--Indiman turned the first card.

"Knave!" shouted L. Hernandez, exultingly. Then she stopped and went white. It was not the knave of hearts, but the queen of spades, and over it had been pasted a small carte-de-visite photograph--that of a man dressed in the coarse uniform of one of the Russian penal settlements. With lightning swiftness Indiman leaned forward and twitched the wig from L. Hernandez's head; the man himself sat there before our eyes.

Brownson and his bull-dogs stood at the door, revolvers in hand. But there was no need. The squat, ungainly figure had fallen forward upon the counter, crushing the horrible nightmare of a hat of which I have so often spoken, and which, quite by chance, as it seemed, had been lying there. Brownson sprang forward and raised the limp body. The red, waxen apple had been broken into a dozen pieces. Among them lay the fragments of a fragile glass phial, and the smell of almonds was in the air.

"Prussic acid," said Brownson, sententiously. "He wasn't the kind to be taken alive."

Indiman mechanically turned over the last card; it was the knave of hearts, and the famous solitaire of the "Bridge" had been made at last. He slipped the cards into his pocket and rose to go. "Brownson," he said, with a little catch in his voice, "I didn't think that it would come to this, but it had to be, I suppose. Have him put away decently, and send the account to me."

"Very good, sir. But ain't it a pity about that letter. However, we can take a good look now, and maybe we'll turn it up yet."

"Perhaps so," said Indiman.

"His real name was Gribedyoff, and he was implicated in the assassination of Prince Trapasky," said Indiman to me as we sat over our cigars that night. "A desperate fellow, one of the 'Blacks,' you know. I picked his picture out in a moment at Police Headquarters, after seeing his reflection in the mirror. I knew it was necessary to surprise him, and so I borrowed the photograph and used it to transmogrify the queen of spades card. Just for an instant he lost his nerve, but that was enough."

"But, as Brownson said, how about the letter?"

Indiman drew from his pocket the wig, to which the curl-papers were still attached. He unrolled one and showed it to me. I could see that the strip was written in French on one side of the paper and in violet ink. "It will be easy enough to piece it together again," he said. "Plain enough now, isn't it, why L. Hernandez cared not at all how often Brownson's men rummaged table-drawers and chair-seats. The letter was safe until the time should come to use it. Only it never came."

"I suppose you are going abroad?"

"I shall sail Thursday."

"And you will be gone how long?"

"That depends, doesn't it, upon the pleasure of that most gracious lady the Countess Gilda. I may be back in a fortnight, and in that case I will make an engagement with you. We will take a ride together on a trolley-car."

"Agreed," said I.

It was a warm afternoon in the middle of May, and I was lounging in the deserted common room of the Utinam Club when Esper Indiman walked in. We shook hands.

"You landed to-day?" I asked.

"Yes, by the Deutschland."

It was impossible for me to utter the inquiry that rose to my lips. Indiman hesitated just a trifle, then he went on:

"I delivered my letter to the Countess, and she was most obliged. She asked me to stay on, but I had a previous engagement to plead: you remember that I had agreed to go on a trolley-ride on or about this date?"

"I remember," I answered. "Let us interview Oscar, then, upon the subject of dinner; it will be cooler up at Thirty-fourth Street. Afterwards we will have our adventure on the trolley."

Well, we went and had our dinner, but, as you shall see, the trolley-ride had to be indefinitely postponed. We had started down Fifth Avenue, and near Madison Square we ran squarely into Indiman's cousin, George Estes. He was standing near a brilliantly illumined shop-window, and gazing intently at a small object that lay in the hollow of his hand.

"Oh, it's you," he said, absently. Then, with a little laugh, "What do you think of this?" He held out to us a small button fashioned of some semiprecious stone like Mexican opal; it glowed with an elusive reddish lustre.

"It looks almost alive," commented Indiman.

"The vital spark, eh? Well, you're not so far out, for it means a man's life."

"What is it, George?" asked Indiman, gravely.

"Not to-night, old chap. It may be a mistake--probably is. Or say that I was kidding you."

"That won't do, George. You've said both too much and too little. Cab there!" he called, and a hansom drew up to the curb.

"You'll excuse me, Thorp--a family affair." He motioned to the boy to enter; he obeyed, sulkily enough, and they drove off. _

Read next: Chapter 7. The Opal Button

Read previous: Chapter 5. The Ninety-and-nine Kisses

Table of content of Gates of Chance


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book