The Port of Adventure Part 5

Angela sat up again, and reached out for her white silk dressing-gown, which lay across the foot of the bed. Wrapping it hastily round her, she ran into her neighbour's room. As she flashed by him, where he stood holding his captive, he thought more and more of his angel vision with the moonlight hair, and it seemed a strange, almost miraculous coincidence that he should behold it in real life, after describing his dreams to Carmen Gaylor.

"The nearest window," Angela repeated, respecting the man's shrewdness and presence of mind. The nearest window was the one to open, because the thief had come crawling along in that direction on the cornice, and soon it would be found out which room he had occupied, since he must be staying in the hotel.

She pushed up the heavy sash, already raised some inches, and turning, saw that the silent, sulky prisoner had been dragged in by her champion.

"Thank you, lady," said the latter, briskly. "Now, you just go back to sleep and forget this--cut it out. The rest's my business."

"But--how can I let you have all this trouble on your shoulders?"

stammered Angela. "You'll have to bear witness against him. There'll be a trial or something. You may be delayed, kept from doing things you want to do----"

"You can sure bet there's nothing on G.o.d's earth I want to do so much as keep a lady out of this business," her neighbour a.s.sured her. "Now go back to your room, please, and lock your door."

Their eyes met, and Angela felt herself thrill with admiration of this new type which had set her wondering. The forest creature turned into a man, was a man indeed!

"Good night, then," she said. "I can't thank you enough--for everything."

She flitted away, her small bare feet showing white and pink under the lace of night-dress and dressing-gown. She locked her door obediently, as she had been told, but she did not go back to bed, or try to forget. There was a big easy chair not far from the door she had just closed, and she subsided into it, limply, realizing that she had gone through a strenuous experience. Huddled there, a minute later she heard her neighbour's voice speaking through the telephone, and was consumed with curiosity as to how he was keeping the wriggling prisoner quiet.

"He must have contrived to tie the wretch somehow," she told herself. "Or perhaps he's strong enough to hold him with one hand. He's the sort of man who would always think of an expedient and know how to carry it out."

It seemed dreamlike, that such a scene as her imagination, pictured was really pa.s.sing in the next room, where all was so quiet save for the calm voice talking at the telephone, and Angela could not help listening anxiously, hoping to catch a few words.

After the first murmur at the telephone, through the thick mahogany door, there fell a silence more exciting to the listener than the indistinct sounds had been. Then suddenly there was a stirring, and the mumble of several heavy, hushed voices. After that, dead silence again, which remained unbroken. Evidently the police had been sent for; had come; had listened to the story of the attempted theft as told by the thief's captor. Angela was sure his version had not been contradicted, or she would certainly have heard a shot. The forest creature would have kept his word! But he had not been tempted; and the thief had been carried away.

Angela wondered whether her neighbour had gone too--or whether he remained in the next room, taking his own advice to her, and "trying to forget."

She would not be surprised if he were able to sleep quite calmly.

VI

WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED

Next morning Angela said nothing to Kate of what had happened in the night. Her thoughts were full of the affair, but since the true version was to be suppressed, it would be better to have no confidant. She asked, however, to see a morning paper, and when it came was disappointed to find no paragraph concerning the thief at the Hotel Valmont. She did not know anything about the making of newspapers, but took it for granted that the story had been too late for press, and became very eager to meet her neighbour, that she might hear all at first hand from him.

She pa.s.sed him hurriedly the day before, her head bent, because she was afraid he meant to speak, and she would have to snub him. But now the tables were turned. She dressed and went down early, making an excuse to glance over a quant.i.ty of magazines and papers in the big hall, hoping that he might appear. But he did not. It was almost, she told herself, as if he were punishing her for avoiding him yesterday, by paying her back in her own coin. Not that she believed he was really doing so. Yet it was extremely aggravating that he should keep out of the way. He ought to have understood that she would want to know what happened after the first chapter of the story was brought to a close by the shutting of the door.

Because she was waiting for him (whether she acknowledged this or not) and because he did not come, Angela thought of the man every moment, without being able to put him out of her mind. He had shown such astonishing tact as well as pluck last night, and was so good-looking, that his very lack of cultivation made him more interesting as a study. She would have liked to ask the hotel people about him; whence he came and what was his name; but, of course, she did nothing of the sort. All she did was to make various pretexts for lingering in the hall till nearly luncheon time; and then the arrival of evening papers partly explained to her mind the mystery of the man's absence. Also they made her a present of his name, and a few other personal items.

"Nick Hilliard of California Makes Hotel Thief Feel Small," was the heading of a conspicuous half-column which caught her eye.

The said thief, it seemed, was known to friends and enemies as "Officer Dutchy." He had "worked" with success in Chicago and the Middle West, but was a comparative stranger in New York. He "claimed" to have been an officer in the German army, but probably lied, though he had evidently been a soldier at one time. He had numerous aliases, and spoke with a German accent. His name appeared on the register of the Valmont as Count von Osthaven, and he admitted an attempt to enter the room occupied by Mr.

Hilliard, having reached it by a daring pa.s.sage along a stone cornice, from his own window, four rooms to the left, on the twelfth storey.

The case against "Officer Dutchy" would be an interesting one, as his previous career was--according to the reporter--full of "good stories."

Mr. Hilliard was hoping, however, that it might be hurried on and off, taking up as little time as possible, as he had use for every moment other than hanging about a court-room giving evidence. Born in New York, he had gone West while a boy, and had never since been in the East till a day or two ago, when he had arrived from the neighbourhood of Bakersfield, California, with the avowed intention of enjoying himself. Naturally he did not want to have his enjoyment curtailed by business.

Angela felt guilty. It was her fault that the poor young man's holiday was spoiled. She ought not to have let him take her burdens on his shoulders; but it was too late to repent now. She could not come forward and tell the real story, for that would do him harm, since it would differ from his version. She could atone only by showing her grat.i.tude in some way.

Because he came from California, she longed to show how friendly and kind she could be to a man of her father's country--a man worthy of that country and its traditions she began to think.

She lunched in a quiet corner of the restaurant; but Mr. Nickson Hilliard of California did not show himself, and at last Angela went up to her own rooms disappointed. Hardly had she closed the door, however, when a knock sent her flying to open it again. A bellboy had brought a note, and she sprang to the conclusion that it must be from Mr. Hilliard. He had found out her name, and had written to tell what had happened behind the closed door--the loose end of the story which the newspapers had not got, never would get, from any one concerned. But the bright pink of excitement and interest which had sprung to her face died away, as she opened the envelope and glanced down the first page of the letter, which was headed, "Doctor Beal's Nursing Home." She read:

Madam:

I am requested by Mr. Henry Morehouse of San Francisco to express his regret at not being able to meet your ship and offer his services as he hoped to do, at the request of his elder brother, Mr. James Morehouse, of the Fidelity Trust Bank, San Francisco. Mr.

H. Morehouse was coming East on law business, when his brother suggested that he make himself useful to you, and he was looking forward to doing so, having known the late Mr. Franklin Merriam. On starting, however, Mr. Morehouse was far from well, and found himself so much worse on reaching New York, that he was obliged to consult a doctor. The result was an immediate operation of appendicitis. This was performed successfully yesterday and Mr.

Morehouse feels strong enough to express (through me) his regret, wishing to explain why he failed, in case his brother may have let you know that he intended to meet you.

Yours faithfully,

N. Millar

(Nurse in Doctor Beal's Private Hospital).

Mr. James Morehouse (in whose bank there were funds for "Mrs. May") had not informed her of his brother's intentions, and though she was sorry to hear of the poor man's sufferings, she could not regret his failure to meet her at the ship. She did not wish to be helped, nor told how to see things, nor be personally conducted to California. She enjoyed being free, and vague, able to stop as long or as short a time as she liked on the way. She wanted to see only places which she _wanted_ to see, not places which she ought to want to see; for there was sure to be a difference.

Nevertheless, she wrote a gracious answer to the letter, and ordered flowers sent to Doctor Beal's Nursing Home, for Mr. Henry Morehouse. Then she proceeded to forget him, unconscious of the direct influence his illness was to have upon her future. She thought far more about Mr.

Nickson Hilliard, whom she had avoided yesterday, and who seemed to avoid her to-day. The fact that the letter which had brought colour to her face was from a strange, unwanted Mr. Morehouse, vexed the Princess unreasonably with Nickson Hilliard, who ought to have written, if he could not call, to tell his story; and when she heard nothing from him, saw nothing of him, it was in resentment that she left New York next morning.

Though it was entirely subconscious, the real thought in her mind was:

"Since he didn't choose to take the chance when he had it, now he shan't have it at all!"

For a woman of twenty-three is very young. It is annoying to be cut off in the midst of an adventure, by the hero of the adventure, when you have flattered yourself that the poor fellow was yearning to know you. If Angela was unjust to Hilliard she was not an isolated instance; for all women are unjust to all men, especially to those in whom they are beginning to take an interest. Angela did not know that she was interested in Nickson Hilliard, and would have laughed if any one had suggested the idea, from a personal point of view; but in her social reign as the Princess di Sereno, she had been a good deal spoiled--by every one except the Prince. Vaguely, and like a petted child, she had taken it for granted that all men were glad to be "nice" to her, and she thought the "forest creature" was showing himself a backwoods creature--rude and unenlightened.

Angela loved the sea, and chose to travel on it whenever she could. The trip from New York to New Orleans was even more interesting than she had expected from tales of her father's, for the ship steamed along the coast, in blue and golden weather, turning into the Gulf of Mexico after rounding the long point of Florida. Cutting the silk woof of azure, day by day, a great longing to be happy knocked at Angela's heart, like something unjustly imprisoned, demanding to be let out. She had never felt it so strongly before. It must be, she thought, the tonic of the air, which made her conscious of youth and life, eager to have things happen, and be in the midst of them. But Kate was a comfort, almost a friend. And Timmy the cat was a priceless treasure.

No town in America, perhaps, could have contrasted more sharply with New York than New Orleans. Angela felt this, even as the ship moved slowly along the great ca.n.a.l and slipped into the dark, turbid gold of the Mississippi River. The drowsy landscape on either side was Southern landscape, and among live-oaks draped with mourning flags of moss, and magnolia-trees gemmed with buds, there were planters' houses which seemed all roof and balcony. Buzzards flew up suddenly, out of rice-fields, as the ship rounded a curve--creatures big and long-legged as the storks of Holland and Algeria. The wharf, when the ship docked at last, was filled with bales of cotton, and it was as if all the negroes in America must have come down to meet the boat. She might have been walking into an old story of Cable's, in the days "befoh the wah."

Her idea had been to travel on to the West next day, but New Orleans held her. She had left the Old World eagerly for the New; but this bit of the Old, in the midst of the New, made her feel as if she had stumbled into an ancient Spanish court, in the middle of a modern skysc.r.a.per. The contrast was sharp as the impress of an old seal in new wax, and Angela loved it.

She liked her hotel, too, and said but half-heartedly each morning, "To-morrow I'll go on." With Kate for duenna, she wandered through streets which, though they had historic French names, reminded her more of Spain than of France, with their rows of balconies and glimpses of flowery patios paved with mossy stones, or cracked but still beautiful tiles. She made friends with an elderly French shopkeeper of the Vieux Carre, who looked as if carved out of ivory and yellowed with age. His business was the selling of curiosities; antique furniture brought in sailing ships from France when New Orleans was in the making; quaintly set jewels worn by famous beauties of the great old days; brocades and velvets which had been their ball dresses; books which had Andrew Jackson's name on yellow fly-leaves; weird souvenirs from the haunted house where terrible Madame Lalaurie tortured slaves to death; fetishes which had belonged to Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen; sticks and stones of the varnished house where Louis Philippe lived, and letters written by Nicholas Girod, who plotted to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and spirit him across the sea to New Orleans. The selling of these things, or rather the collecting of them, was the pleasure as well as the business of Monsieur Bienvenu, and he had stored in his mind as many legends of the old town as he had stored treasures in his low-browed, musky-smelling shop. Angela spent her mornings listening to his tales of slave-days, and always she bought something before she bade him _au revoir_, in the Parisian French which enchanted the old man.

"You light up my place, madame," he said; and insisted, with graceful gestures, that she should not pay for her collection of old miniatures, necklaces, gilded crystal bottles, illuminated books and ivory crucifixes, until the day fixed for her departure.

"Once you pay, madame, you may not come again," he smiled. "I am superst.i.tious. I will not take your money till the last moment."

On the third day, however, Angela decided that she must go. Her father's country called, with a voice she could hear above the music of the Southern town, the laughter of the pretty French girls and the chatter of black and brown babies who babbled a language which was neither French, Spanish, nor English, but a mixture of all. She bought more things of Monsieur Bienvenu, and also in other curiosity shops which she dared not mention to him, since his one failing was a bitter jealousy of rivals.

"Where is my gold bag, Kate? Have you got it?" she asked, when the moment came to pay a hundred dollars for two or three snuff-boxes, picked up in a place she had not visited until that day.

"No, ma'am, you had it on yer arm when I noticed last," said Kate, looking startled. "Fur all the saints, I hope ye haven't lost it!"

Angela, too, began to look anxious. Not only was her bag valuable--worth seven or eight hundred dollars--but all her money was in it, and a check-book she had brought out that morning, to pay Monsieur Bienvenu the rather large sum she owed him. Still, she was not greatly distressed. She had lost that gold bag so many times, had dropped it from her lap when she got up, left it in motor-cars, or lying on the floor in friends' houses, and always it had come back to her! She cheered herself, therefore by saying that to-day would be no exception.

"Let me think, where were we last, Kate?" she wondered. "The shop where I bought the lilac and silver stole, wasn't it?"