The Port of Adventure Part 4

Angela did not speak, and at once the girl made sure that she had hit upon the truth with her last words. The lovely lady was in black for her husband, to whom she must have been married when almost a child. "My name's Kate McGinnis, ma'am," she went quickly on, "and though I've got no recommendations in writin', because I thought to take a husband and not service, I can get a good word from the priest, and----"

"Your face tells me enough," Angela broke in. "I know you're a good girl, and that you'll be a comfort to me on the journey. But if you go, you mustn't expect to get out to Oregon immediately. I mean to travel to California, and I should like you to stay with me until I settle somewhere. Then I'll send you to the place where your _fiance_ lives."

"That's what I'd like best of anything," exclaimed Kate. "Tim ain't ready yet, but he will be soon--now the worry about payin' the big price of me railway ticket will be off our minds. Oh, but doesn't it seem too good to be true?"

"Why not say too good _not_ to be true?" asked Angela, whose optimism to-day was ready to triumph over past stumbling-blocks. "It's settled, then--if the hotel will let you off."

"I've giv' in me notice, miss--madam, I mean," replied the girl hastily.

"There's some things I don't think Tim would like about me bein' in a hotel, and I was lookin' out for a private place. Me time's up here day after to-morrow. But, oh, ma'am, there's a thing I haven't told ye--indade, 'twas because I forgot, not that I meant to desave. Maybe, when ye know what it is ye'll change yer mind about havin' me--and I couldn't blame ye."

Angela's clear eyes looked full into the clear eyes of the Irish girl. "I don't believe you can have anything to tell me which will make me want not to have you. Is it serious?"

"Yes, ma'am, very serious." Kate paused, swallowing heavily. "It's--it's a cat."

"A cat!" Angela burst out laughing. "How can a cat come between us?"

"A black cat, ma'am named Timmy after me own Tim, who give him to me, a kitten, three years ago, before he left the ould country. I promised be this and be that I'd niver part with the crature till Tim and me was made wan, and I niver have. Neither will I, if I have to starve. But I pay fur his kape in the hotel, out o' me wages, as if he was a Christian, and so he is, pretty near. There's nothin' he doesn't know; but I don't suppose ye'd allow him to travel in the trains--and I couldn't lave him."

To have a travelling cat, and a maid named McGinnis! The idea was preposterous, but Angela was in a mood to do preposterous things, and enjoy doing them. "I like you for your loyalty," she said, "and I shall like Timmy, too. Cats are misunderstood people. They can be splendid friends. And black cats are supposed to bring luck."

"I should love to have Timmy bring _you_ some, ma'am," said Kate. "Not that ye need it, of course."

"But I do," Angela answered. "As for you, I shall call you by your first name. Kate, as if you were a French maid. I like it better than McGinnis."

"Thank you, so do I, ma'am. But it's me Tim has the fine name, which he'll give me when the right time comes. It's Moriarty, and to my mind there's none with more music in it. Oh, if ye only knew how happy ye've made me! I was afraid me name would be as black in yer eyes as the cat, so that's why I broke it to ye gently, and now I'm rewarded for everything."

Angela laughed again. "I fancied I was all alone in the world," she said to herself, "and here I am collecting a family."

She had luncheon brought to her own sitting-room, when Kate had put away everything and gone. Quant.i.ties of flowers she ordered, too--American Beauty roses, which looked extraordinarily intelligent and companionable, she thought. Then, most of the afternoon she spent in poring over maps, planning what she called her "pilgrimage"; and a little before six she was ready to go down and buy her ticket West, at the travel bureau which, she heard, existed in the hotel. Afterward she meant to take a stroll, and see Fifth Avenue by sunset.

Not once since entering her rooms had she consciously remembered the "bronze statue." In the marble hall, however, she recalled him, and thought most likely he was out amusing himself and seeing New York. But no; there he was, sitting rather dejectedly in a large rocking-chair; and as her eyes found him, his found her. Instantly his whole aspect changed.

The statue came to life. His listless expression brightened to the puzzling intentness with which he had looked at her in the morning. As she pa.s.sed near him, on her way to the travel bureau, he got up and stood like a soldier at attention. Seeing this Angela went by quickly without seeming to glance at him, for she was afraid that he meant to speak, and she hoped that he would not, for she did not want to snub him. She need not have feared, however. He made no sign, but looked at her as if she were a pa.s.sing queen, for whom it was a man's duty and pleasure to get to his feet.

Angela would have bowed in recognition of the morning's courtesy, but dared not, lest after all he should be encouraged to speak; for his type was so new to her that she did not understand it in the least. It was, however, rather an agreeable mystery, and she saw him feature by feature, without appearing to lift her eyes. It was too bad that he had been foolish enough to discard his becoming costume of the morning for a conventional suit of clothes, which, it was painfully certain, he must have bought ready-made. The things did not fit too well, though they had probably cost a good deal, and they were astonishingly like advertis.e.m.e.nts of men's clothes which Angela had seen in American magazines on shipboard.

They did their best to give him his money's worth, by spoiling his splendid looks and turning him into something different from what nature had intended. His broad shoulders were increased in size by the padded cutaway coat, until they seemed out of proportion. His collar was an inch too high, and he was evidently wretched in it. Also he had the look in his eyes of a man whose boots are so tight that he wishes to die. His fancy waistcoat and maroon necktie must have been forced upon him by a ruthless salesman who would stop at no crime in the way of trade, and the consciousness of these atrocities and the largeness of his scarf-pin had reduced the poor fellow to the depths of gloom. In one hand he held a pair of yellowish kid gloves which hung limp and feeble, like the dead bodies of small animals, and on the floor near his feet, as if drawing attention to the brilliance of his patent-leather shoes, was the latest extravagance in silk hats.

"My spoilt statue!" Angela thought. "I believe he is as sorry for himself as I am for him. Who knows, though? Perhaps I'm mistaken, and he's as proud as Punch. In that case, I give him up!"

But she would not have believed any one who had told her that she, and she alone, was the cause of the tragic change. He had wished to appear well in her eyes, and had gone about it in the way that seemed best.

V

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT

Walking down Fifth Avenue, after buying tickets via Washington and New Orleans to Los Angeles, "Mrs. May" happened to see a poster advertising a recital by a violinist she had always contrived to miss. At once she decided to go; and as it was for that night, there was just time to hurry back to the hotel, dine, and dress. She was lucky enough to get a box, in which she sat hidden behind curtains, and the evening would have been a success if the carriage ordered to take her home had not been delayed by a slight accident. She had to wait for it, and was much later than she had expected to be in getting back to the hotel. Theatres were over; suppers were being eaten in the Louis Seize restaurant, into which Angela could see as she got into the lift; and upstairs shoes had already been put outside bedroom doors. In front of the one next her own, she saw two pairs which made her smile a little, for, though she could not be certain, she fancied that she recognized them. One pair was stout, unfashionable, made for country wear; the other looked several sizes smaller, glittered with the uncompromising newness of patent leather, and was ultra "smart" in shape.

"Poor statue!" she said to herself. "If they're his, how dreadfully the new ones must have hurt him!"

Then she went into her own room, where Kate presently came to undress her with affectionate if inexperienced hands.

Angela was still excited by all the events of the day, her first in her own country since childhood, and fancied that she would not be able to sleep. But soon she forgot everything and lay dead to the world, very still, very white in the light that stole through the window, very beautiful, drowned in the waves of her hair. Then, at last, she began to dream of Italy; that she was there; that she had never come away; and that there was no escape. She moaned faintly in her sleep, and roused herself enough to know that she was dreaming; tried to wake and succeeded, breathing hard after her fight to conquer the dream.

"It's not true!" she told herself, pressing her face caressingly against the pillow because it was an American pillow, not an Italian one in the Palazzo di Sereno, and because it made her feel safe.

So she lay for a minute or two, comforting herself with the thought that all bad and frightening things were left behind in the past, with a door, double-locked by a golden key, shut forever between it and her. Nothing disagreeable could happen now. And she was falling asleep once more, when a slight noise made her heart jump. Then she and her heart both kept very still, for it seemed that the noise was in the room, not far from her bed.

It came again, and Angela realized that it was at one of the two windows, both of which were open.

At her request, Kate had pulled the dark blinds halfway up, and Angela would have laughed at the suggestion that a thief could creep into a room on the twelfth story. Nevertheless, the night glow of the great city silhouetted the figure of a man black against the shining of the half-raised window-panes. It was kneeling on the wide stone sill outside, and slowly, with infinite caution, was pushing the heavy window-sash up higher, so that it might be possible to crawl underneath and slip into the room.

As she stared, incredulous at first, then driven to believe, Angela guessed how the seeming miracle had been performed. The man had crept along the cornice which belted the wall, on a level a few feet lower than the line of the window-sills. She remembered noticing this as one suddenly recalls some forgotten detail in a photograph. A clever thief might make the perilous pa.s.sage, helping himself along by one window-sill after another until he reached the one he wanted.

Angela turned sick, her first thought being of the immense drop from her window to the ground. "If he should fall!" were the words that sprang to her lips. Then she remembered that it would be better for her if he should fall. He meant to rob and perhaps to murder her. She ought to wish that he might slip. But she seemed to hear a crash, to see a sight of horror, and could not make the wish.

She lay motionless, her thoughts confused by the knocking of her heart. If she jumped out of bed and ran across the room to the telephone, the man could see her. Then, knowing that she was awake, and caution on his part unnecessary, he would fling up the window, jump in, and choke her into silence.

"What can I do?" she asked herself. In two or three minutes more the slow, stealthy lifting of the window-sash would be finished, and the thief would be in the room.

Her rings, and her gold bag with a good deal of money in it, lay on the dressing-table. If only he would be satisfied with these, she might lie still and let him act; but her watch was under the pillow, and her pearls were round her throat. The pearls were worth far more than the bag, and the black shadow out there must know that she had many things worth taking, or it would not be at her window now.

"What can I do?"

Suddenly she thought of a thing she could do; and without stopping to ask whether there were something else better, she leaned out of bed and knocked on the door between her room and the next. The door was fastened, but, rapping with one hand, with the other she slipped back the bolt.

"Quick--quick--help!" she called. "A thief is getting in at my window."

There was a faint click, the switching on of electric light, the swift pushing back of a bolt, and the door flew open. The shoes she had seen in the hall had told her the truth. It was the man she expected who stood for the fifth part of a second in the doorway of her darkened room, then, lithe and noiseless as an Indian, made for the window. The thief was taken completely by surprise. When Angela suddenly cried out, he had been in the act of letting himself down to the floor, by slipping under the window-sash, raised just high enough for him to squeeze through. He had half turned on the wide ledge, so as to get his legs through first and land on his knees; therefore, he was seized at a disadvantage. The most agile gymnast could not have pulled himself back from under the window-frame, balanced his body steadily again on the stone ledge outside, and have begun to crawl away toward safety, all in those few seconds before the cry and its answer. He did his snaky, practised best, but it was not quite good enough. The man from the next room was too quick for him, and he was caught like a rat in a trap.

Angela sat up in bed, watching. The thing did not seem real at all. It was but a scene in a play; the black figure, dragged along the floor like a parcel, then jerked to its feet to have both arms pinioned behind its back; and in a brief moment, with scarce a sound. The light from the next room let her see the two men clearly: the tall one in pajamas, as he must have sprung out of bed at her call: the little one in black, with a mask of c.r.a.pe or some thin material over the upper part of his face. Now, in the silent struggle, the mask had become disarranged, to show a small, light, pointed moustache. She recognized it, and knew in an instant why she had been thought worth robbing. This was the creature who had tried to pick up her gold bag; he had seen her rings, and perhaps had spied the pearls.

"Take care!" she gasped a warning. "He may have a revolver!" As she spoke, she sank back on the pillows, feeling suddenly limp and powerless, as she lay drowned in the long waves of hair that flowed round her like moonlight.

"The little sneak won't get to draw it if he has," said the tall man, in a tone so quiet that Angela was struck with surprise. It seemed wonderful that one who had just fought as he had could have kept control of breath and head. His voice did not even sound excited, though here was trembling. "Don't be scared," he went on. "The mean galoot! A prairie-dog could tear him to pieces."

"I'm not frightened--now," she answered. "Oh, thank you for coming. You've saved my life. Can't I help? I might go to the telephone and call----"

"No. Do nothing of the sort," her neighbour commanded. "There must be no ructions in your room. I'm going to take this thing to my quarters. The story'll be, he was getting into my window when I waked up and nabbed him."

"Oh!" exclaimed Angela, roused to understanding and appreciation. "For me, that would be good--but for you----"

"For me, it's all right, too. And you don't come on in this act, lady."

"He'll tell," she said.

"I guess not. Not unless he's in a hurry to see what it's like down where he goes next. If he so much as peeps while I'm in reach, I'll shake him till his spine sticks out of his head like a telegraph-pole. Or if he waits till he thinks I can't get at him, I'll scatter him over the landscape with my gun, if I fire across a court-room. He sees I'm the kind of man to keep my word." These threats were uttered in the same quiet voice, and the speaker went on in a different tone, "I'll tell you what you _can_ do, lady, if you don't mind. I hate to trouble you; but maybe 'twould be best for me not to try it with one hand, and him in the other.

If you'd slip into my room and push up the window nearest this way a few inches higher, it would bear me out better when I say he came through there."