A Fool and His Money Part 57

Very thoughtfully I strode along beside him. Would I be serving the Countess ill or well by selling the place to Tarnowsy? It was _her_ whim, of course, and it was a foolish one.

"Suppose that he offered you twice what you are to pay me for the place," said I, struck by a sudden thought.

He laughed easily. "You will not, it seems, acquit me of cupidity, Mr.

Smart. I should not sell to him under any consideration. That is final.

Take it or leave it."

By this time we were in the rooms once occupied by the Countess. He glanced about the apartment carelessly.

"Deserted, I observe," he remarked with a queer smile.

My heart almost stood still. "Eh? What do you mean?"

"If I am not mistaken, these are the rooms once occupied by your valet's wife. Am I right?"

I steadied myself. "She has gone away," I said. "Couldn't stand the climate."

"I see," said he, but he was still smiling. "How does your valet stand it?"

"Nicely," said I, with a conscious blush.

"I mean the separation, of course."

"Certainly. He is used to it."

"Isn't it rather odd that he should still think she is here, in the castle?"

"Does he?" I murmured.

"I inquired for her when I encountered him downstairs. He said she was quite well this morning, except for a headache."

"She is subject to headaches, I believe," said I, with the utmost nonchalance. He lifted his right eyebrow slightly, but said no more on the subject.

A pile of rubbish lay heaped in one corner of the room, swept up and left there by the big Schmicks to await the spring house cleaning season I presume. Tarnowsy at first eyed the heap curiously, then rather intently. Suddenly he strode across the room and gingerly rooted among the odds and ends with the toe of his highly polished boot.

To my horror a dilapidated doll detached itself and rolled out upon the floor,--a well-remembered treasure of Rosemary's and so unique in appearance that I doubt if there was another in the world like it.

Indeed, I have a distinct recollection of being told that the child's father had painted in the extraordinary features and had himself decorated the original flaxen locks with singular stripes of red and white and blue, a sardonic tribute to the home land of her mother.

I turned away as he stooped and picked up the soiled, discarded effigy.

When next I looked at him, out of the corner of my eye, he was holding the doll at arm's length and staring at it with a fixed gaze. I knew that he recognised it. There could be no doubt in his mind as to the ident.i.ty of that tell-tale object. My heart was thumping fiercely.

An instant later he rejoined me, but not a word did he utter concerning the strange discovery he had made. His face was set and pallid, and his eyes were misty. Involuntarily I looked to see if he had the doll in his hand, and in that glance observed the bulging surface of his coat pocket.

In silence we stood there awaiting the reappearance of Saks, who had gone into one of the adjoining rooms. I confess that my hand trembled as I lighted a fresh cigarette. He was staring moodily at the floor, his hands clasped behind his back. Something smacking of real intelligence ordered me to hold my tongue. I smoked placidly, yet waited for the outburst. It did not come. It never came. He kept his thoughts, his emotions to himself, and for that single display of restraint on his part I shall always remember him as a true descendant of the n.o.bility.

We tramped down the long flights of stairs side by side, followed by the superfluous Mr. Saks, who did all of the talking. He was, I think, discoursing on the extraordinary ability of ancient builders, but I am not absolutely certain. I am confident Tarnowsy did not hear a word the fellow said.

In my study we found p.o.o.pend.y.k.e and the two strangers.

"Have you made out the papers?" demanded the Count harshly. An ugly gleam had come to his eyes, but he did not direct it toward me. Indeed, he seemed to avoid looking at me at all.

"Yes, Count Tarnowsy," said the lawyer. "They are ready for the signatures."

"Perhaps Mr. Smart may have reconsidered his offer to sell," said Tarnowsy. "Let him see the contracts."

"I have not reconsidered," I said quietly.

"You may sign here, Mr. Smart," said the notary, as he gave me the doc.u.ment, a simple contract, I found.

"Jasper t.i.tus will offer more than I can afford to pay," said the Count. "Please do not feel that I am taking an unfair advantage of you. I am absolutely certain that he wants to buy this place for--his granddaughter, a descendant of barons."

The significance of this remark was obvious, and it was the nearest he ever came to uttering the conviction that had been formed in that illuminating five minutes upstairs. If he suspected,--and I think he did,--he preferred not to ask the questions that must have been searing his curious brain. It was a truly wonderful demonstration of self-restraint. I would have given much to have been able to read his innermost thoughts, to watch the perplexed movements of his mind.

"Schloss Rothhoefen is yours, Count Tarnowsy," said I. "It is for you to say whether his whim shall be gratified."

His lips twitched. I saw his hand touch the bulging coat-pocket with a swift, pa.s.sing movement.

"Will you be good enough to sign, Mr. Smart?" he said coldly. He glanced at his watch. "My time is valuable. When can you give possession?"

"The day the deed is transferred."

"That will be in less than three days. I have satisfied myself that the t.i.tle is clear. There need be no delay."

We signed the contract after I had requested p.o.o.pend.y.k.e to read it aloud to me. It called for the payment of fifty thousand kronen, or a little over two thousand pounds sterling, at the time of signing.

His lawyer handed me a package of crisp banknotes and asked me to count them. I did so deliberately, the purchaser looking on with a sardonic smile.

"Correct," said I, laying the package on the table. He bowed very deeply.

"Are you satisfied, Mr. Smart, that there are no counterfeits among them?" he inquired with polite irony. Then to his lawyer: "Take the gentleman's receipt for the amount in the presence of witnesses. This is a business transaction, not a game of chance." It was the insult perfect.

As he prepared to take his departure, he a.s.sumed an insinuating air of apology, and remarked to me:

"I owe you an apology, Mr. Smart. There was a time when I did you an injustice. I suspected you of keeping your mistress here. Pray forgive my error."

Five days later I was snugly ensconced in the ducal suite at the Bristol, overlooking the Kartnerring-stra.s.se, bereft of my baronial possessions but not at all sorry. My romance had been short-lived. It is one thing to write novels about mediaeval castles and quite another thing to try to write a novel in one of them. I trust I may never again be guilty of such arrant stupidity as to think that an American-born citizen can become a feudal baron by virtue of his dollars and cents, any more than an American-born girl can hope to be a real, dyed-in-the-wool countess or d.u.c.h.ess because some one needs the money more than she does. It would be quite as impossible, contrariwise, to transform a n.o.ble duke into a plain American citizen, so there you are, even up.

My plans were made. After a fortnight in Vienna, I expected to go west to London for the autumn, and then back to New York. Strange to relate, I was homesick. Never before had my thoughts turned so restlessly, so wistfully to the haunts of my boyhood days. I began to long for the lights of Broadway (which I had scornfully despised in other days), and the gay peac.o.c.kery of Fifth Avenue at four in the afternoon. It seemed to me that nowhere in all the world was life so joyous and blithe and worth while as in "old New York"; nowhere were the theatres so attractive, nowhere such restaurants. Even, in retrospect, the subway looked alluring, and as for the Fifth Avenue stages they were too beautiful for words. Ah, what a builder of unreal things a spell of homesickness may become if one gives it half a chance!

As for Schloss Rothhoefen, I had it on excellent authority (no less a person than Conrad Schmick himself) that barely had I shaken the dust of the place from myself before the new master put into execution a most extraordinary and incomprehensible plan of reconstruction. In the first place, he gave all the servants two weeks' notice, and then began to raze the castle from the bottom upward instead of the other way round, as a sensible person might have been expected to do. He was knocking out the walls in the cellars and digging up the stone floors with splendid disregard for that ominous thing known as a cataclysm.

The grave question in the minds of the servants was whether the usual and somewhat mandatory two weeks' notice wouldn't prove a trifle too long after all. In fact, Hawkes, with an inspiration worthy of an office boy, managed to produce a sick grand-mother and got away from the place at the end of one week, although having been paid in full for two.

The day on which I left for Paris still saw Tarnowsy at work with his masons, heroically battering down the walls of the grim old stronghold, and I chuckled to myself. It was quite evident that he hadn't found the hiding place up to that time.

After several days in Paris, I took myself off to London. I was expecting letters at Claridge's, where I always take rooms, not because I think it is the best hotel in London but because I am, to some extent, a creature of habit. My mother took me to Claridge's when I was a boy and I saw a wonderful personage at the door whom I was pleased to call the King. Ever since then I have been going to Claridge's and while my first king is dead there is one in his place who bids fair to live long, albeit no one shouts encouragement to him. He wears the most gorgeous b.u.t.tons I've ever seen, and I doubt if King Solomon himself could have been more regal. Certainly not Nebuchadnezzar. He works from seven in the morning until seven at night, and he has an imperial scorn for anything smaller than half a sovereign.

There were many letters waiting there for me, but not one from the Countess Aline. I had encouraged the hope that she might write to me; it was the least she could do in return for all that I had done for her, notwithstanding my wretched behaviour on the last day of our a.s.sociation. While I had undoubtedly offended in the most flagrant manner, still my act was not unpardonable. There was tribute, not outrage in my behaviour.

p.o.o.pend.y.k.e fidgeted a good deal with the scanty results of my literary labours, rattling the typed pages in a most insinuating way. He oiled his machine with accusative frequency, but I failed to respond. I was in no mood for writing. He said to me one day: