The Music Master Part 6

"I suppose not," a.s.sented the fat man, "not to you; but our end of it rests on a commercial basis. We've laid out the money and we're ent.i.tled to be paid for it."

"But I have paid you already so much! I cannot afford more. For years I have hunted high and low for my wife and child through city after city for thousands upon thousands of miles. At last I came to you, and there have been months and months of weary waiting, hunting false clues; disappointments upon disappointments."

"I know, I know," nodded the senior partner. "That's part of the game."

"I have spent with you nearly all the money I have, and nothing has come of it. Every now and then you raise my hopes by saying you have found her. Then, when the news comes, you ask for more money and when I have given it, it is again a false clue."

"That ain't our fault!" observed the stout gentleman. "My partner follows a clue, and you can't blame him if it don't turn out exactly the right one. This fellow Ahlmann is an eel; that's what he is, an eel! But I think we've got him now, I'm almost sure!"

"You think?" eagerly inquired Von Barwig.

"Well, of course there's nothing absolutely sure, but this is the last report he's sent in. Seems to me to pretty well cover the case, but it's been a hard job. This fellow Ahlmann has completely covered his tracks."

"The child? She--she lives?"

"Oh, yes; yes!"

"And the mother?"

"I think he's located them all. I can't tell you for sure till I read the report again."

Von Barwig, his hands trembling with excitement, wrote a cheque for the amount required, and with breathless impatience awaited the information as to the whereabouts of his lost wife and child.

"They're in Chicago," said Hatch, taking up the cheque and scanning it.

"Both of them?" asked Von Barwig in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Both of them," repeated Hatch, conveniently remembering the detail without reading the report. "George, bring me Mr. Bailey's telegram in the Barwig case," and when George, a smart young office boy, brought the required doc.u.ments, he was quietly instructed by his employer to cash Von Barwig's cheque immediately.

"When will you go?" asked Mr. Hatch.

"As soon as possible."

"To-night?"

"Yes."

"Here's the address," and Mr. Hatch handed him a card. "You'll meet my partner there, 1120 State Avenue; he'll take you to the parties. Shall I get your railroad tickets?"

"No. I--I get them."

"It's twenty-six hours to Chicago; you'll need a Pullman ticket."

"Thank you; I get them."

"Well, just as you say. Good luck to you, Mr. Barwig."

"Thank you," said Von Barwig simply. He did not tell Mr. Hatch that he had nearly come to the end of his resources and that he would ride in the day car. Not that he felt ashamed of not being able to afford luxuries, but he instinctively resented making a confidant of a man like the senior partner of the firm of Hatch & Buckley.

As he walked rapidly toward Houston Street he found himself thinking for the first time since his arrival in America of the question of his future, but this question did not occupy his mind long. Like all his ideas on any subject other than that of his lost wife and child, it was forced into the background. As he neared his rooms in Houston Street his hopes began to rise; and the prospect of going to Chicago, the possibility of seeing his wife and child, began to work in his mind.

His heart began to beat tumultuously. This time his dream would come true, and in his mind's eye he clasped his little girl tightly to himself and rained kisses on her little upturned face. He even found it in his heart to forgive the mother; after all, she was the mother of his little one, that he could never forget.

As for Ahlmann, he could not picture him; his mind refused to conjure up a thought of the man. It seemed as if he were dead, and that Von Barwig was on his way to rescue the wife and child from some danger that threatened them. This work of rescue was the fulfilment of an ideal. Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of it! The senior partner of Hatch & Buckley had been quick to note this condition of mind and to reap the profits that came therefrom. Monomania means money, was a business axiom in that gentleman's office, but he had pumped the stream dry and Von Barwig was now at the end of his resources. By some strange process of thought, Von Barwig recognised this fact, but it seemed to him to mean that because his money had come to an end his search had also come to an end. The result of his trip to Chicago could not but be favourable, because he dared not think of its failure. So great is the influence of hope upon imagination that by the time Von Barwig reached his rooms he was already contemplating the possibility of keeping his wife and child there, at least until he could obtain better quarters for them. So, when he opened the door of his room, and found Jenny there polishing the bra.s.s andirons, he took more notice than usual of the little girl, and to her intense joy promised to bring her a box of candy from out West, where he told her he was going as he busied himself packing his handbag.

In a few hours Anton Von Barwig, his heart beating high in expectation, was seated in one of the day coaches of a fast Pennsylvania Railroad train on his way to Chicago.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "music master" can no longer pay rent for the piano.]

Chapter Six

Von Barwig had left New York with a light heart. Hope had ripened into expectation, and for the first time since his arrival in America, seven years since, he had felt something like a positive a.s.surance that this time his mission was going to result favourably. Hatch had a.s.sured him that his partner had positively found the missing wife and child; and Von Barwig had gradually allowed himself to think it possible, then probable, and finally he became almost certain of the successful result of his journey to Chicago.

As Jenny watched him pack his valise on the afternoon he left for Chicago, she had noticed that now and then his face beamed with happiness, the happiness of expected joy. And when he jokingly asked her how she would like to be his little girl, it made her, so happy that she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and cry on his shoulder. She felt that he was just the kind of father she would like to have, but the conversation didn't get very far, for Von Barwig had a train to catch and was too busy to hear the little girl's response to his question.

Jenny thought he was not quite in earnest, certainly not so deeply in earnest as she was. Her aunt did not quite understand her, and she needed some one to whom she could open her heart. She felt that Mr.

Von Barwig would listen to her little confidences and sympathise with her; perhaps even tell her his troubles. Young as the girl was, she felt that the man had suffered. She couldn't tell why, but her little heart had gone out to him in sympathy almost from the moment she saw him. How it was she could not have explained, but she loved him.

Jenny thought these things over long after Mr. Von Barwig had departed on his journey. It made her glad to think how happy he was when he left the house with his valise and umbrella, hurrying to catch the little bobtail car that wended its way across town to the Pennsylvania ferry.

So it came about that when Jenny, looking out of the window some few days later, saw him coming up the street slowly, disconsolately, almost dragging himself along, the little girl experienced a great shock. The man seemed to have changed altogether. It was the same dear Mr. Von Barwig, yes, but the eyes of love cannot be deceived; he looked older, and oh, so careworn and tired! She rushed to the door at once, to save him the trouble of finding his night key, and greeted him with affectionate inquiry. To her intense disappointment, he nodded absentmindedly to signify his appreciation of her act. The faint, ghost of a smile came over his face, but he did not look at her.

Silently he opened the door to his room and pa.s.sed into it without speaking, closing the door firmly behind him. Jenny's heart sank; she felt rather than knew that her friend was in trouble, for he did not pat her on the head or pinch her cheek as he had always done before when she opened the door for him.

Her inability to be of any service to him only added to the child's sorrow; tears came into her eyes as she stood looking at the closed door, for she felt completely shut out of his life. At supper that night, when her aunt asked her "what ailed her," and invited Mrs.

Mangenborn to look at "Jenny's long face," the child tried to laugh, failed completely, and burst into a flood of tears. Jenny could not have explained to herself the whys and wherefores of her tearful outburst, but the child could not forget poor Von Barwig's drawn, haggard face and its weary, hopeless expression.

"She's a queer child," commented Mrs. Mangenborn, when Jenny had gone to bed that night.

"Her father had blue blood," replied Miss Husted impressively, "and you always find hysterical natures in high-born families."

"I shouldn't wonder," agreed her friend; "something is wrong with the child, that's plain."

"What do you suppose it is," said Miss Husted, rather anxiously.

"Perhaps she's working up for an illness! Oh, dear," she went on, almost in tears, for shallow as she was herself, she loved the child deeply, "shall I send for a doctor? I think I'd better; I always feel safer with a doctor in the house."

"Wait till the morning," suggested Mrs. Mangenborn; "if anything's going to develop, you'll know what it is by then."

"Do you think anything will develop?" inquired Miss Husted, clutching Mrs. Mangenborn by the arm.

"I don't know for certain," replied her friend, "but it can't be much anyway, or I'd have seen it there," pointing to a pack of cards on the mantelpiece. "Wait a moment," she said suddenly, and then she knit her brows as if thinking very hard; "didn't the six of spades come out true? Yes, it did!" and she shook her head thoughtfully.

"I shan't feel comfortable till I go and see her," said Miss Husted, now thoroughly alarmed; and taking a lamp from a side table, the good lady went upstairs to look at her niece.

"That six of spades surely came out for something," muttered Mrs.

Mangenborn to herself. "Six is tragedy! Well, we must take what comes," she continued philosophically as she helped herself liberally to some chocolate caramels that Miss Husted had thoughtfully, or thoughtlessly, left on the table.

In the meantime, another tragedy of a very different sort was being enacted in the room on the parlor floor--the tragedy of the death of hope. For when Anton Von Barwig closed the door of his room on the evening of his return from Chicago, he closed it finally and forever upon hope, and gave himself up completely to dull, grim, sodden despair. Not only this, but he cursed himself for ever having hoped.