A Bicycle of Cathay Part 16

"The only way to find out," she answered, "is to go and see."

Under a tree at the back of the house I found a young negro man, very warm and dusty, who handed me a letter, which, to my surprise, bore no address. "How do you know this is for me?" said I.

He was a good-natured looking fellow. "Oh, I know it's for you, sir,"

said he. "They told me at the little tavern--the Holly something--that I'd find you here. You're the gentleman that had a bicycle tire eat up by a bear, ain't you?"

I admitted that I was, and still, without opening the letter, I asked him, where it came from.

"That was given to me in New York, sir," said he, "by a Dago, one of these I-talians. He gave me the money to go to Blackburn Station in the cars, and then I walked over to the tavern. He said he thought I'd find you there, sir. He told me just what sort of a lookin' man you was, sir, and that letter is for you, and no mistake. He didn't know your name, or he'd put it on."

"Oh, it is from the owner of the bear," said I.

"Yes, sir," said the man, "that's him. He did own a bear--he told me--that eat up your tire."

I now tore open the blank envelope, and found it contained a letter on a single sheet, and in this was a folded paper, very dirty. The letter was apparently written in Italian, and had no signature. I ran my eye along the opening lines, and soon found that it would be a very difficult piece of business for me to read it. I was a fair French and German scholar, but my knowledge of Italian was due entirely to its relationship with Latin. I told the man to rest himself somewhere, and went to the house, and, finding Miss Edith, I informed her that I had a letter from the bear man, and asked her if she could read Italian.

"I studied the language at school," she said, "but I have not practised much. However, let us go into the library--there is a dictionary there--and perhaps we can spell it out."

We spread the open sheet upon the library-table, and laid the folded paper near by, and, sitting side by side, with a dictionary before us, we went to work. It was very hard work.

"I think," said my companion, after ten minutes' application, "that the man who sent you this letter writes Italian about as badly as we read it. I think I could decipher the meaning of his words if I knew what letters those funny scratches were intended to represent. But let us stick to it. After a while we may get a little used to the writing, and I must admit that I have a curiosity to know what the man has to say about his bear."

After a time the work became easier. Miss Edith possessed an acuteness of perception which enabled her to decipher almost illegible words by comparing them with others which were better written. We were at last enabled to translate the letter. The substance of it was as follows:

The writer came to New York on a ship. There was a man on the ship, an Italian man, who was very wicked. He did very wicked things to the writer. When he got to New York he kept on being wicked. He was so wicked that the writer made up his mind to kill him. He waited for him one night for two hours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DECIPHERING THE DAGO'S LETTERS]

At last the moment came. It was very dark, and the victim came, walking fast. The avenger sprang from a door-way and plunged his knife into the back of the victim. The man fell, and the moment he fell the writer of the letter knew that he was not the man he had intended to kill. The wicked man would not have been killed so easily. He turned over the man. He was dead. His eyes were used to the darkness, and he could see that he was the wrong man.

The coat of the murdered man had fallen open, and a paper showed itself in an inside pocket. The Italian waited only long enough to s.n.a.t.c.h this paper. He wanted to have something which had belonged to that poor, wrongly murdered man. After that he heard no more about the great mistake he had committed. He could not read the newspapers, and he asked n.o.body any questions. He put the paper away and kept it. He often thought he ought to burn the paper, but he did not do it. He was afraid. The paper had a name on it, and he was sure it was the name of the man he had killed. He thought as long as he kept the paper there was a chance for his forgiveness.

This was all four years ago. He worked hard, and after a while he bought a bear. When his bear ate up the India-rubber on my bicycle he was very much frightened, for he was afraid he might be sent to prison. But that was not the fright that made him run away.

When he talked to the boy and asked him the name of the keeper of the inn, and the boy told him what it was, the earth seemed to open and he saw h.e.l.l. The name was the name that was on the paper he had taken from the man he had killed by mistake, and this was his wife whose house he was staying at. He was seized with such a horror and such a fear that everything might be found out, and that he would be arrested, that he ran away to the railroad and took a train for New York.

He did not want his bear. He did not want to be known as the man who had been going about with a bear. One thing he wanted, and that was to get back to Italy, where he would be safe. He was going back very soon in a ship. He had changed his name. He could not be found any more.

But he knew his soul would never have any peace if he did not send the paper to the wife of the man he had made a mistake about. But he could not write a letter to her, so he sent it to me, for me to give her the paper and to tell her what he had written in the letter. He left America forever. n.o.body in this country would ever see him again.

He was gone. He was lost to all people in this country, but his soul felt better now that he had done that which would make the lady whose husband he had killed know how it had happened. The bear he would give to her. That was all that he could do for her.

There was no formal close to the letter; the writer had said what he had to say and stopped.

Miss Edith and I looked at each other. Her eyes had grown large and bright. "Now, shall we examine the paper?"

"I do not know that we have a right to do so," I said. I know my voice was trembling, for I was very much agitated. "That belongs to--to her!"

"I think," said Miss Edith, "that we ought to look at it. It is merely a folded paper. I do not think we ought to thrust information upon Mrs. Chester without knowing what it is. Perhaps the man made a mistake in the name. We may do a great deal of mischief if we do not know exactly what we are about." And so saying she took the paper and opened it.

It was nothing but a grocery bill, but it was made out to--G.o.dfrey Chester, Dr. Evidently it was for goods supplied to the inn. It was receipted.

For a few moments I said nothing, and then I exclaimed, in tones which made my companion gaze very earnestly at me: "I must go to her immediately! I must take these papers! She must know everything!"

"Excuse me," said Miss Edith, "but don't you think that something ought to be done about apprehending this man--this Italian? Let us go and question his messenger." We went out together, she carrying, tightly clasped, both the letter and the bill.

The black man could tell us very little. An Italian he had never seen before had given him the letter to take to Holly Sprig Inn, and give to the gentleman who had had his tire eaten by a bear. If the gentleman was not there, he was to ask to have it sent to him. That was everything he knew.

"Did the Italian give you money to go back with?" asked Miss Edith, and the man rather reluctantly admitted that he did.

"Well, you can keep that for yourself," said she, "and we'll pay your pa.s.sage back. But we would like you to wait here for a while. There may be some sort of an answer."

The man laughed. "'Taint no use sendin' no answer," said he; "I couldn't find that Dago again. They're all so much alike. He said he was goin' away on a ship. You see it was yesterday he gave me that letter. I 'spect he'll be a long way out to sea before I get back, even if I did know who he was and what ship he was goin' on. But if you want me to wait, I don't mind waitin'."

"Very good," said Miss Edith; "you can go into the kitchen and have something to eat." And, calling a maid, she gave orders for the man's entertainment.

"Now," said she, turning to me, "let us take a walk through the orchard. I want to talk to you."

"No," said I, "I can't talk at present. I must go immediately to the inn with those papers. It is right that not a moment should be lost in delivering this most momentous message which has been intrusted to me."

"But I must speak to you first," said she, and she walked rapidly towards the orchard. As she still held the papers in her hand, I was obliged to follow her.

CHAPTER XIV

MISS EDITH IS DISAPPOINTED

As soon as we had begun to walk under the apple-trees she turned to me and said: "I don't think you ought to take this letter and the bill to Mrs. Chester. It would not be right. There would be something cruel about it."

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed.

"Of course I do not know exactly the state of the case," she answered, "but I will tell you what I think about it as far as I know. You must not be offended at what I say. If I am a friend to anybody--and I would be ashamed if I were not a friend to you--I must tell him just what I think about things, and this is what I think about this thing: I ought to take these papers to Mrs. Chester. I know her well enough, and it is a woman who ought to go to her at such a time."

"That message was intrusted to me," I said. "Of course it was," she answered, "but the bear man did not know what he was doing. He did not understand the circ.u.mstances."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I DON'T THINK YOU OUGHT TO TAKE THIS LETTER'"]

"What circ.u.mstances?" I asked.

She gave me a look as if she were going to take aim at me and wanted to be sure of my position. Then she said: "Percy told us he thought you were courting Mrs. Chester. That was pure impertinence on his part, and perhaps what father said at the table was impertinence too, but I know he said it because he thought there might be something in Percy's chatter, and that you ought to understand how things stood.

Now, you may think it impertinence on my part if you choose, but it really does seem to me that you are very much interested in Mrs.

Chester. Didn't you intend to walk down to the Holly Sprig when you were starting out by yourself this morning?"

"Yes," said I, "I did."

"I thought so," she replied. "That, of course, was your own business, and what father said about her being unwilling to marry again need not have made any difference to you if you had chosen not to mind it. But now, don't you think, if you look at the matter fairly and squarely, it would be pretty hard on Mrs. Chester if you were to go down to her and make her understand that she really is a widow, and that now she is free to listen to you if you want to say anything to her? This may sound a little hard and cruel, but don't you think it is the way she would have to look at it?"