Chapter 12. The Adjuster of Averages

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_ Chapter XII. The Adjuster of Averages

It was on December 21st that Indiman took up his tenancy of the offices in the Barowsky Building. I should have been glad to have accompanied him, but he would not have it. It was the dealer's hand at bridge and must be played alone. And owing to the accident of a slight attack of grippe it was some ten days later before I was able to call upon him in his new quarters.

William H. Seward Square has its unique features. Lying in the heart of the East Side, it is outside the regular lines of north and south travel. There are thousands of otherwise well-informed New-Yorkers to whom its very name is unknown. And yet it is an important political centre, the capital of the Yiddish country, and the recipient of many special favors at the hands of a paternal municipality. There are still streets in the up-town districts whose pavement is the antiquated Belgian blocks or even cobble-stones, but none in Yiddishland; here everything is asphalted. You may trust the district leader to take care of his own.

A fine, stone building forms the principal architectural feature of the square on the west side. It contains the free baths and would be a credit to any part of the city. Most of the remaining space is given over to the children for a playground. There is a semi-enclosed gymnasium for the boys, hand-ball and tether-ball courts, a separate enclosure for the girls and smaller children--in a word, every form of amusement and exercise that is practicable in a public institution of comparatively limited area. The children enjoy it, too. They come in droves, and the swings and flying rings are in constant use.

It is like going to a foreign country. The shop signs, written in Hebrew characters, suggest a combination of horseshoes and carpet-tacks, and you may walk for blocks without hearing an English word spoken. Ask your whereabouts of a street boy and he will quite likely turn pale and edge away. He does not understand. You are an alien, a foreign devil.

The Barowsky Brothers' bank building is the show-place of the district. It is a staring white structure covered with gilt business signs and adorned with abortive minarets that give it an air distinctly Oriental. The entrance hall and the banking-rooms are sumptuous. They recall the Arabian Nights and the word-painting of a circus poster. Mirrors, gilding, mosaics--it is all a dream of luxury and impresses one with a realizing sense of the financial standing of the Barowsky Brothers. You must have a good front in the Yiddish country if you expect to handle other people's money.

Esper Indiman, adjuster of averages, occupied a suite of rooms on the fifth floor. I proceeded thither and found him in. We sat down and smoked amicably.

"How is business?" I asked. "Have you adjusted many averages to-day? And, by-the-way, I'm rather taken with the title of your new trade. 'Adjuster of averages'--there's an imposing note of omnipotence in the words."

"It's a perfectly legitimate occupation. You'll find it listed in the business directory."

"Of course, and never mind the details. I'm satisfied with its face value, a brevet of vice-gerency. God knows there are plenty of averages to be adjusted in this weary old world."

"Well, I may have some accounts to balance before I take down my sign," said Indiman, with a grim little smile. "I'm glad you came in to-day, Thorp; I've been wanting to have a talk with you."

"Fire away," I answered, flippantly.

"Come into the back room," and he led the way.

The suite ran through the building. There was a good-sized room facing on the square, fitted up with ordinary office furniture; back of that a bath-room, and then the rear office, which had been turned into a bachelor's living-room. There were bookcases, rugs, pictures, a big mahogany writing-table, an open fireplace, easy-chairs--everything to make life comfortable. "And the couch over there is my bed," concluded Indiman. "I'm pretty well fixed, you see."

"Decidedly so."

"Intellectual diversion in abundance; even the artistic element is not wholly wanting."

He stepped over to a table in the far corner; a phonographic machine of some kind stood upon it. Indiman touched a lever, and again I heard that unforgettable melody, "Ah, fors e lui," and in her voice--her voice! A cry escaped me. Indiman pushed me back into my chair. "Be good enough to listen," he said, and I obeyed.

"While you have been laid up," he began, "I have been amusing myself with a little theory building. I had taken the liberty to sequestrate the remarkable phonographic apparatus of your quondam friend Dr. Gonzales; in fact, I carried it away in the same carriage with your honorable self from the house of the Philadelphia 'quizzing-glass.' The police didn't notice--that was all.

"Dr. Gonzales was a genius, and his instrument is a revolution in phonographs--purity of tone, perfect enunciation, and all that. But the really interesting thing (to me as to you) was not the machine, but the records that it used. To whom belonged the voice that these little disks and cylinders so faithfully reproduced? It was a real woman who had poured the passion and sorrow of life into this insentient mechanism. And the medium had been sufficient; your heart had responded.

"You were my friend, and I could not be indifferent to aught that concerned you. We are, neither of us, sentimental, so the bare statement of the fact is sufficient. You were on your back, and so it was my part to go to work. I did.

"It is unprofitable business looking for a needle in a hay-stack when you can buy a packet of the best helix No. 8's at any shop for a nickel. But after spending a blank week interviewing the makers of phonographic records I began to feel doubtful of my economic theory. Nowhere could I find the slightest trace of this particular job of record-making. And then one day I ran across a chap named Hugens, who was in the business in a small way. His place was three blocks east of the Bowery, but I've forgotten the name of the cross street.

"It was the usual experience at first--no information--but something told me that the man was lying. Finally, I pretended to give up the inquiry and left the shop. It was after dark on a snowy January afternoon, and I started to walk over to the Madison Avenue cars. I dawdled along purposely so as to give the telephone time to get in its work, and the affair turned out exactly as I had foreseen. At Elm Street a couple of fellows jostled against me, and when the mix-up was over the parcel containing my two sample records was gone. That was all that had been wanted; my watch, pin, and money had not been touched.

"It was plain, then, that some one had an interest in preventing my tracing up these particular records. Not Hugens, of course, but his client, whoever he might be. Well, at least, it made the case more interesting--yes, and more promising. Two nights later the house in Madison Avenue was entered by second-story men while I was at dinner. But the records and repeating apparatus had been removed to the safe-deposit vaults, and my unknown opponent had drawn another blank.

"Getting exciting, wasn't it? And then for a month or more nothing happened. You continued to convalesce and I kept on thinking.

"This impersonal opposition--well, there had been something of the same sort once or twice before. You remember, in particular, the affair of the private letter-box. A devilish intelligence had been at work there, and some day, as I told you, the mystery would be cleared up.

"Then did we ever know who Mr. Aram Balencourt really was? An agent of the 'Forty'? Well, perhaps so, but I can't help thinking that there was always a bigger man behind him. The same conclusion would apply to the case of that poor wretch Grenelli in the affair of the Russia and the box of dynamite. Some one with brains pulled the strings to make all these marionettes dance.

"Finally, there was your own adventure with the amiable Dr. Gonzales. Did he ever remind you, even indefinitely, of some one else whom you had known? Think carefully. Well, it doesn't matter. I was deceived myself, and when I afterwards went to the Bellevue insane pavilion to make some inquiries I found that he had long since been discharged as cured.

"There was just one hypothesis--the existence somewhere of a strong and alert personality; a genius along mechanical and scientific lines; a creature of abnormally developed mentality and correspondingly defective ethical nature; an intelligence absolutely passionless and ruthless, playing the game entirely for its own sake, and equally indifferent to the end and to the means used to attain it--in other words, a monster. Quite an elaborate theory, you observe; but the difficulty was to fit it to the individual. Looking back on the problem, I accuse myself of being rather slow-witted. Right under my eyes and yet only an accident opened them.

"Well, you recall the night at the Utinam when we met Mr. Chivers and I accepted his very liberal proposition to become an adjuster of averages. Of course, it was a trap, but what connoisseur of the adventure grotesque could refuse such a bait? All I wanted to know was with whom I was expected to match wits.

"Of course, the thousand-dollar bills were counterfeits--stage money? Not at all; every one was as good as the gold it called for at the sub-treasury. Bribery? From whom and for what? Doubtless I should know later. As it happened, I found out a little ahead of time.

"You remember the incident of the honest cabman and the hieroglyphic letter which he turned over to me? Here it is, addressed, as you observe, to Mr. Chivers."

Indiman drew from a locked drawer in the big centre-table the long strip of bluish paper covered with its incomprehensible dashes. "One of the oldest of devices for secret writing," he remarked. "This slip of paper was originally wrapped about a cylinder of a certain diameter and the message traced upon it, and it can only be deciphered by rerolling it upon another cylinder of the same diameter. Easy enough to find the right one by the empiric method--I mean experiment. Once you recognize the fundamental character of the cryptogram the rest follows with ridiculous certainty. Behold!"

Indiman took a long, round, slender stick from the mantel-piece and proceeded to wrap the ribbon of bluish paper about it, touching both ends with paste to keep the slip in place. It read in part:

"He will not find the girl, but so long as those records remain in his possession the possibility continues to exist. I leave it with you to make the bargain, and if he is not altogether a fool he will be content with his ten thousand dollars, and Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers will be again without a tenant. Otherwise--and it is generally otherwise with these meddlers--there will have to be a new adjustment of averages--what a felicitous phrase!--and this, as usual, I will take upon myself. One way or the other, and, personally, I don't care a straw which it is."

The name signed to this curious epistle was David Magnus.

"Our Dr. Magnus of the Utinam," explained Indiman, but I hardly heard him. One overwhelming thought obscured everything else--there was a real Lady Allegra, after all. That was it--to find her, and I had the clew. I must go at once. But Indiman restrained me.

"Yes, that is precisely what I want you to do, only let us first understand the situation thoroughly. I intend remaining here during the progress of the investigation, and if anything should happen--"

"What do you mean?"

"Pleasant rooms, aren't they?" and he looked about him approvingly. "And yet three men have been found sitting dead in the particular chair that I am now occupying."

I only stared at him.

"No marks of violence," continued Indiman. "Nothing to indicate foul play; nothing, mind you. 'Dead by the visitation of God,' according to the coroner, but I should call it an 'adjustment of averages.' That is a felicitous phrase. I got my facts, by-the-way, from the janitor. He is rather proud of the affair Barowsky, as we may call it."

"A monster, indeed!" I exclaimed, warmly.

"Oh, we mustn't misjudge our good Dr. Magnus," said Indiman, indulgently. "I used the word 'monster' in a purely psychological sense. You can't call such a being immoral; he is simply unmoral."

"Not even a criminal lunatic."

"Certainly not. But I acknowledge that society would be justified in protecting itself from such a creature. And it will."

"But why should you remain here, exposed to danger?"

"My dear Thorp, I want to play the game. I'm sure it's one worthy of my best attention."

We argued it out for an hour or more, but Indiman was not to be moved from his position. So it came back to his original proposition. I was to take up the search on the outside for the Lady Allegra, and Indiman was to hold the fort at Nos. 13-15 Barowsky Chambers. I rose to go.

"You don't need these, do you?" he asked, a little doubtfully, picking up one of the phonographic cylinders. I shook my head. As though I could have forgotten the smallest inflection of that voice! So we parted.

It had resolved itself into the needle in a hay-stack, after all. Where was I to look and for what? A voice! "Vox et preterea nihil," to quote again that beloved Vergilian line. To the unprejudiced mind it would seem hopeless enough, and yet I never doubted for an instant but that I should find her. If a man is sure that the world holds the one woman intended for him he may be equally confident that their paths will somewhere, somehow, sometime intersect.

It was the middle of the musical season, and I attended everything from grand opera to music-hall. For the first and most obvious procedure was to assume that the Lady Allegra was a professional singer. Either that or in the very front rank of amateurs. As to the latter, I had always been more or less in with the musical set, and I knew of no one who came within a mile of filling my bill of particulars.

A professional, then, but not necessarily high up on the ladder. Merit may wait a long time for its due recognition. So I did not despise the humble field of vaudeville and of the continuous performance houses.

Week after week passed without result, and it was now the 1st of March. I saw Indiman every few days and the game dragged equally with him. Chivers had called half a dozen times, and was now openly negotiating for the possession of the phonographic cylinders. But Indiman fenced skilfully and kept him hanging on.

One night I was strolling through East Houston Street. A transparency caught my eye. It announced that a performance of high-class vaudeville was in progress. I paid my dime and entered.

A long, low-studded room, dim with tobacco-smoke and redolent of stale beer. At the far end a small stage with faded red hangings. The card read No. 7, and the programme informed me that the turn was "A Bouquet of Ballads." A slight, fair-haired girl appeared on the stage. Her cheeks were burning, and she kept her eyes fixed on the floor. The piano jangled, and she began her song, Schubert's "Linden-Tree." Her voice shook and quavered as she went on, but I knew it. I had found the Lady Allegra.

The audience listened indifferently. This sort of thing did not appeal to East Houston Street sensibilities, and there was no applause at the end. The girl essayed a few bars of her second number, a popular air in trivial waltz time, but with even poorer success. Then she broke down altogether and retired distressfully. Cat-calls and jeers, of course.

But one turn had been allotted to "Mavis," as she was called in the bill, and I assumed that she would shortly leave the place. I went outside and waited. Within ten minutes I saw her emerging from the performer's entrance, cloaked and deeply veiled. But I could not be mistaken. I stood stock-still like any fool as she passed close to me. What was I to do?

Then good-fortune smiled for once, and in gratitude for that surpassing indulgence I hereby relinquish all claim upon the lady for favors to come, now and forever. As the girl passed down the street a couple of pasty-faced young men stepped forward. I saw her stop and shrink away. A half-dozen steps and I had shoved in between them. The presumptuous youths sprawled to opposite points of the compass and I had drawn her hand through my arm. I could feel it tremble, but I carried her onward exultantly, masterfully. A man takes his own when he finds it. Then at the next street-lamp I stopped and released her. Within the circle of the light we stood and gazed into each other's eyes.

The Lady Allegra who was! It seems odd to think of her now as Alice Allaire--a pretty enough name but not particularly romantic. And when she changes it to Thorp, as she has just promised to do--But perhaps I am going a bit too fast. However, her story is simplicity itself.

My dear girl is an orphan, and six months ago she went to live with her guardian and uncle, David Magnus. But the situation quickly became intolerable. The attentions of the odious creature Olivers were openly encouraged by Dr. Magnus, and the child, although friendless and in a strange city, had no recourse but to run away. Surely, her voice would secure her a living! But the weeks passed and her store of money was running dangerously low. The Houston Street vaudeville had been the one chance that had offered, and she had hoped to make it good. But that first appearance had been her last. After the fiasco of which I had been a witness she had been discharged on the spot. We smile as we recall it now, but it had been a terrible catastrophe to contemplate at the time. What would you have done?

We went straight to Indiman, and he listened with close attention.

"You have property, then?" he asked.

Miss Allaire looked troubled. "There is money. I even think it must be a large estate. But I don't know; my uncle never spoke of my affairs."

"One of those cases where it is virtually impossible to prove anything," said Indiman to me. "Nevertheless, Magnus would be quite satisfied to have the absence of his niece made a permanent one--it saves the bother of making any explanations whatever."

"The phonographic records were the only clew," I observed. "At least he thought so."

"Yes, and consequently he has been working all this while to get them away from me. We're ready now to make a deal, but I'd like to know what stakes are on the table before playing a card."

"There was an ante of ten thousand dollars, you remember."

"Quite so. Well, Miss Allaire, if you are willing to have me play the partie in your behalf--"

"I could ask for nothing better," said the girl, quickly.

"Agreed, then. And, really, I think it is the only chance. Magnus is too clever a man not to have covered his tracks, and in an ordinary legal battle you would probably be worsted. But he doesn't want a fight if he can help it, and that is the club I propose to use. Now you'll have to go, for I expect Chivers at two."

I am glad that I glanced back for that last time as we left the room. Indiman was smiling, his head thrown back and his eyes aglow. The fight was on, and he was awaiting it as another man might his bride. To be remembered at one's best; I know I should wish that for myself.

A fortnight passed. I had not heard a word from Indiman, and I dared not intrude upon him without an invitation. I had taken Miss Allaire to the Margaret Louise Home for Women, but two weeks is the limit of residence there. What was to be done now? My own slender funds were exhausted and Alice had not a penny. So we did the wisest possible thing under the circumstances--or the most foolish, whichever you care to term it. An hour after we had been married I went down to Printing House Square and literally forced a city editor's hand for an assignment to general reportorial work. At least we should not starve. I informed Indiman by letter of the event, but received no reply.

On the afternoon of the 21st of March I was in the city room of the Planet. Mr. Dodge, the city editor, beckoned to me. He spoke quickly:

"Our representative at Police Headquarters has just telephoned that a man has been found dead in the Barowsky Brothers' bank building, and there's some yarn to the effect that he is the fourth to die alone in that particular office. Better go down and take a look at things. May be a good story in it."

So there was, but the Planet never published it; they accepted my resignation in lieu of an explanation.

I tried to think of indifferent matters as I hurried over to William H. Seward Square, but my heart kept pounding against my ribs. Could it be that Indiman--that he had lost the game?

There was the usual crowd of curiosity-mongers hanging about the bank building, and of course the police had taken charge. But the sergeant happened to be well disposed towards newsmen, and my Planet badge procured me instant admission to the scene of the tragedy. I passed into the back room. I could see the rigid figure sitting in the big chair. I forced myself to look at him squarely.

The dead man was David Magnus.

I went straight from William H. Seward Square to our boarding-house. A bulky package had just come for me through a special-delivery messenger. It contained negotiable securities to the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; also a half-dozen sheets of letter-paper in Indiman's handwriting. I transcribe the latter:

"Congratulations, my dear Thorp, on your marriage. They're a bit belated, I know, but I haven't been in the mood for writing of late. Moreover, I wanted to make sure of Mrs. Thorp's dowry. I enclose the proceeds of the campaign, and fancy that the settlement isn't so far out of the way. But then our good friend Magnus never expected that he would be called upon to pay it. Here's the story as I wrote it down from day to day.

"March 1. It's plain enough that Magnus has been embezzling the fortune of his niece, Miss Allaire. From what the girl could tell me of her late parent's mode of living I put them down as being comfortably off, if not rich. So I have intimated that I might consider an offer of fifty thousand dollars for the phonographic records in my safe-deposit vault. At least I will now draw the enemy's fire.

"March 3. Chivers has called and affects to regard my proposition as absurd. I have riposted by raising my price to seventy-five thousand dollars. He protested angrily, and I immediately made it one hundred thousand dollars.

"March 8. Five days of silence and then another call from Chivers. I met him with the statement that now I would not take less than one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. He seemed flurried and said that he would have to consult his principal. 'As you like,' I remarked, carelessly, 'but it will then cost you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.' Magnus is evidently alarmed and is wondering how much I really know.

"March 9. No word from the hostile camp. The inference is that I may now look for a move on my antagonists' part, 'Otherwise,' as he says in that precious note, 'there will have to be a new adjustment of averages.' Precisely.

"The position is probably a dangerous one, and I must take the obvious precautions. To begin with, I shall not leave these rooms until the affair is over, and I have made arrangements with an up-town restaurant to supply me with my meals in sealed vessels. I am thus insured against a street assault and poison. But all this is probably useless. The Magnus method of attack will be far more subtle.

"I have just written to Chivers that two hundred thousand dollars will now be necessary if he wants those phonographic records.

"March 11. I have had a talk with Louis, the janitor, about the Barowsky 'affairs.' Three men found dead in the big chair that faces the centre-table in my living-room. The date in every case was the 21st of March. If not an extraordinary coincidence there is food for reflection in this plain statement. It gives me ten clear days, and I can eat my dinner to-night in comparative comfort.

"March 12. I have assumed that the psychological moment is scheduled for March 21st, but both the direction and the nature of the blow are still unknown. I have made a minute examination of the rooms and all that they contain, but can discover nothing in the nature of a trap. There are no secret doors, no collapsing walls, no hidden tubes for the dissemination of poisonous vapors. My windows are not overlooked from any outside point of vantage, thus eliminating the silent bullet of the air-gun. In a word, the machinery of the melodrama seems to be entirely non-existent. And yet I know that unless I can get the end of the clew before the 21st of March I shall sit dead in the big chair over there, just as the three who have gone before me.

"March 18. Still no answer from Chivers. I have sent him a final communication fixing my price at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and saying that unless the proposition is accepted within three days further negotiations will be broken off.

"March 19. The offer is accepted. At noon on Friday, the 21st, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in negotiable securities will be placed in my hands, and I am to give in return an order on the safe-deposit company for the phonographic plates. But there is one paragraph in the letter that puzzles me. It reads:

"'My client will come in person on Friday to conclude the business, but only in the event of the day being bright and sunny. If rainy or cloudy you may expect him at a somewhat earlier hour on Saturday or the next clear day whichever it may be.'

"Now what does this mean? On the face of it, a disinclination on the part of an elderly gentleman to expose himself to these chill March winds. But Magnus is not very old, and he does not look in the least rheumatic.

"I have forgotten to mention the one peculiarity that I discovered in the furniture of my living-room. The big chair is immovably fixed to the floor, its heavy pivot-base being riveted down to an iron bed-plate. And the chair itself is not made of mahogany, as I had supposed, but of an unknown metallic alloy that simulates the wood very closely. Well, I was prepared for something like this.

"Another interesting point. The windows in the living-room face in a southerly direction, and the sun is now every day getting a little farther round, penetrating a little deeper, at every noon hour, into the room. On the 21st it will cross the line, and at least one ray will illumine a spot that for several months has not been touched by the direct sunlight. What spot?

"It is nearing twelve o'clock, and as I sit in the big chair I can see the bar of golden light creeping steadily onward. It reaches the chair, and half-way around the pivot-base. Then the heavenly clock begins its retrograde movement, and the ray of sunlight is forced to retreat. But to-morrow it will come a little farther, and so again on the day after.

"Around the sash in the big window the architect has inserted a row of glass bull's-eyes, a style of ornamentation suited to the semi-Oriental tastes of William H. Seward Square. I go up and examine them closely. They seem ordinary enough--but stop! The third from the bottom; it has a peculiar depth and clearness. It might very well be a lens--a burning-glass, to use the old-fashioned term. How close has the sun drawn to this particular bull's-eye? To-morrow I will take note.

"March 20. At high noon the sun has reached within a hair's-breadth of the third bull's-eye from the bottom. To-morrow it will surely shine through my suspect, and if the latter be a true lens it will concentrate, for several minutes, a high degree of heat at the particular spot upon which its rays are focussed. That spot I have found, by experiment, to be one of a series of small bosses set in the pivot-base of the big chair. I applied the flame of a match and immediately the metal boss began to soften. I understand now. The boss is made of a fusible alloy that melts at a certain prearranged temperature; it is simply a variation of the common safety plug used in all the systems of mechanical protection against fire. At noon to-morrow, March 21st, the rays of the sun will be concentrated by the lens in the window-sash and will fall upon this boss of fusible metal. The plug will melt, releasing a spring, let us say, and a train of action will be set in motion.

"The precise nature of that action I shall probably not discover. I incline to the belief that it is of an electrical nature. A connection is to be thereby established with one of the deadly currents that can be tapped for the asking here in New York. It may be objected that the men who died in the chair over there showed no external marks of death by electrical shock. But the autopsy, if it had been performed by Coroner Lunkhead, might have told a different story. Magnus is as good an electrician as he is a chemist, and he could easily rig up some kind of transformer reducing the power of the current just enough to paralyze the victim--death by a myriad of small shocks instead of one big one. Now it is plain why the spider will not come to spring his trap unless the sun shines on the 21st of March. If it doesn't, the play goes over to the next clear day, only that the curtain will rise a minute or so earlier in correspondence with the onward march of the sun-god, the executioner in the cast of our drama. Well, I have made my preparations to counter-check. To-morrow we shall see what we shall see.

"March 21. I have still an hour before the expressman will come for the clock-case, and I must take the opportunity to finish my notes. The dead man sits opposite me at the table, but that does not matter. There is plenty of room for us both.

"The day dawned clear and fine, and at ten o'clock the sun was shining brightly. He will come then.

"At eleven I began to wonder how Dr. Magnus proposes to witness my last agonies without risk of suspicion attaching to his precious self. If he is seen entering and leaving my room this morning he may be called upon for an explanation later. One cannot be too careful in playing the delicate role of the amateur assassin.

"But I have wronged my excellent friend. He has foreseen the difficulty and provided against it. At precisely half after eleven a couple of expressmen delivered what purported to be a clock-case at my outer office. It was addressed to me and I receipted for it without hesitation.

"'I understand that we are to call for it again at two o'clock,' said one of the men. 'That'll give you time to pack up the other clock?'

"'Very good,' said I.

"'And Mr. Gill said that you would set the case out on the landing if you had to leave the office before we got back. I'll put the receipt under the door.'

"'I understand,' I answered, carelessly. 'Get yourself some cigars,' and I slipped a half-dollar in the man's hand. He thanked me and withdrew. I sat down and waited.

"The lid of the case was removable from the inside. I watched the screws fall one after another to the floor. Then the lid followed, and Dr. Magnus stood before me. His eyes, distorted horribly by the extra powerful lenses of his spectacles, fixed me with a steady look. He came close as though to assure himself that there was no mistake. His face almost touched mine. He put on his second and third pair of glasses, and again I felt like the fly under the microscope.

"We did not go through the farce of exchanging salutations. This was war and we should both know it. It was now nearly noon and the sun was rapidly approaching the zenith. I led the way into the rear room.

"'Here are the securities,' said Magnus. I looked them over and announced myself as satisfied.

"'Kindly sit down and write me out an order on the safe-deposit company,' he went on, in rather a petulant tone. He was standing by the big chair. He bent forward as though to turn it in my direction.

"The psychological moment had come, but the trick was even easier than I had anticipated. Being in a stooping posture, he was partially off his balance. A sharp jerk at his coat-collar and he was seated in the big chair. He bit at my hand savagely as a dog snaps, but I had been too quick for him. Then a couple of turns of stout window-cord put everything secure.

"The man seemed dazed. He made no attempt to release himself. He did not even speak. But then his lips were dry. They opened and shut mechanically. His eyes, staring through their triple glasses, were turned towards the window. The sunlight, shining in full strength, was creeping steadily towards the row of bull's-eyes on the right of the sash. It lay in a broad, golden band on the polished floor.

"A decrepit fly crawled out of a crack and made feebly for the welcome warmth. The prisoner's feet were free and he advanced one of them slowly, stealthily towards the miserable insect, then smashed ruthlessly down upon it. In my turn I looked away, gazing steadily at the window and the sun beyond. A few minutes now and we would know.

"A little cloud no bigger than a man's hand. It was travelling directly towards the sun's disk. Suppose now that its veil obscured, at the final moment, the fatal ray. He saw it too. Together we watched it slowly drifting through the brilliant blue of the sky--a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

"The currents of air in the upper regions first accelerated and then retarded the progress of the vaporous island. It seemed to stop; then it hung for an instant directly on the lower limb of the great ball of light. A sensation of intolerable cold pervaded my entire body. Involuntarily I shut my eyes.

"I forced myself to look. The cloud had disappeared. Its imponderable essence had been absorbed into the clear ether as a drop of water sizzles into nothingness on a red-hot stove. The sunlight, shining through the third bull's-eye from the bottom, was instantly transformed into a single concentrated beam. The heat-ray impinged upon the boss of fusible metal. I saw the alloy begin to melt. I turned and ran into the other room.

"Twenty minutes of silence and then I re-entered. I was horribly afraid, but he sat there quiet and still. I unwound the cord and threw it out of the window. It was clouding over in earnest now. These March days are so changeable.

"It is close to two o'clock, and I must be getting ready to depart. I have set the clock-case out in the passageway, and the lids and screws are in readiness. The expressman will doubtless be punctual. He will carry the case down-stairs and load it on his wagon. I shall be delivered in due course at my destination. What is it to be? Well, I shall have plenty of time in which to reflect upon the possibilities of the journey that lies before me.

"One moment in which to seal up these notes, together with the bundle of securities. Fortunately, I have a special-delivery stamp in my pocket, and I can post the packet in the mail-chute. Best wishes, my dear Thorp, for the future happiness of yourself and your charming wife. You have now given a hostage to fortune and will no longer care to sail on uncertain seas. But the Wanderlust in my blood seems to be ineradicable. Again the gates of chance are opening before me and I am eager to enter in. Good-bye."

Here the record ends abruptly. And there has been no sequel. Not the slightest sound nor sign has been vouchsafed from the void. He who was Esper Indiman is gone, like a stone dropped into the gulf, and I have lost something that is not easily replaced--a friend. But since it is his wish, there is nothing more to be said. He may return--a message may come--

The gates of chance! Well, it is exactly a year and a day since that eventful afternoon when Esper Indiman's visiting-card was thrust into my unconscious hand. I have travelled along some strange ways in the course of that twelvemonth, and henceforth I shall be content to trudge along the common high-road of life. The gates of chance--for me they are closed forever. But I look over at my wife's dear face and know that it is better so.

[THE END]
Van Tassel Sutphen's Book: Gates of Chance

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