The Gates of Chance Part 13

"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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 impa.s.sable '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-gla.s.s, 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-gla.s.s 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 part.i.tion 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-gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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-gla.s.s to be fixed at this point, the rays impinging upon it will be cast downward and ON OUR SIDE OF THE PARt.i.tION, for the angle of reflection is always equal to that of incidence. We have, therefore, only to place in position a second cheval-gla.s.s, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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."