The Stolen Singer Part 3

It was like pulling teeth to get information out of him, but Jim applied the forceps.

The yacht had been lying out in the river for two weeks or more, possibly less; belonged to foreign parts; no one thereabouts knew who its owner was; nor its captain; nor its purpose in the harbor of New York. At last, quite gratuitously, the man volunteered a personal opinion. "Slippery boat in a gale--wouldn't trust her."

Hambleton walked smartly back, taking a look both at the yacht and the motor-car as he went. The yacht's nose pointed toward the Jersey sh.o.r.e; the car was creeping out of the dock. As he overtook the machine, he saw that it was in the hands of a mechanic in overalls and jumper. In answer to Hambleton's question as, to the owner of the car, the mechanic told him pleasantly to go to the devil, and for once the sight of a coin failed to produce any perceptible effect. But the major-general, waiting half a block away, was still in the humor of giving fatherly advice. He welcomed Jim heartily. "That's a hole I ain't got no use for. 'Ow'd you make out?"

"Well enough, for all present purposes. Can you undertake to do a job for me?"

"If it ain't nothing I'd have to arrest you for, I might consider it,"

he chuckled.

"I want you to go to the Laramie Club and tell Aleck Van Camp--got the name?--that Hambleton has gone off on the _Jeanne D'Arc_ and may not be back for some time; and he is to look after the _Sea Gull_."

"Hold on, young man; you're not going to do anything out of reason, as one might say?"

"Oh, no, not at all; most reasonable thing in the world. You take this money and be sure to get the message to Mr. Van Camp, will you? All right. Now tell me where I can find a tug-boat or a steam launch, quick."

"O'Leary, down at pier X--2--O has launches and everything else. All right, my son, Aleck Van Camp, at the Laramie. But you be good and don't drown yourself."

This last injunction, word for word in the manner of the pert Edith, touched Jimmy's humor. He laughed ringingly. His spirit was like a chime of bells on a week-day.

The hour which followed was one that James Hambleton found it difficult to recall afterward, with any degree of coherence; but at the time his movements were mathematically accurate, swift, effective. He got aboard a little steam tug and followed the yacht down the river and into the harbor. As she stood out into the roads and began to increase her speed, he directed the captain of the tug to steam forward and make as if to cross her bows. This would make the pilot of the yacht angry, but he would be forced to slow down a trifle. Jim watched long enough to see the success of his manoeuver, then went down into the cuddy which served as a cabin, took off most of his clothes, and looked to the fastenings of his money belt. Then he watched his chance, and when the tug was pretty nearly in the path of the yacht, he crept to the stern and dropped overboard.

CHAPTER IV

MR. VAN CAMP MAKES A CALL

Aleck Van Camp turned from the clerk's desk, rather relieved to find that Hambleton had not yet made his appearance. Aleck had an errand on his mind, and he reflected that Jim was apt to be impetuous and reluctant to await another man's convenience; at least, Jim wouldn't perceive that another man's convenience needed to be waited for; and Aleck had no mind to announce this errand from the housetops. It was not a business that pertained, directly, either to the _Sea Gull_ or to the coming cruise.

He made an uncommonly careful toilet, discarding two neckties before the operation was finished. When all was done the cravat presented a stuffed and warped appearance which was not at all satisfying, even to Aleck's uncritical eye; but the tie was the last of his supply and was, perhaps, slightly better than none at all.

Dinner at the club was usually a dull affair, and to Mr. Van Camp, on this Monday night, it seemed more stupid than ever. The club had been organized in the spirit of English clubs, with the unwritten by-law of absolute and inviolable privacy for the individual. No wild or woolly manners ever entered those decorous precincts. No slapping on the shoulder, no hail-fellow greetings, no chance dinner companionship ever dispelled the awful penumbra of privacy that surrounded even the humblest member. A man's eating and drinking, his coming or going, his living or dying, were matters only for club statistics, not for personal inquiry or notice.

The result of this habitual att.i.tude on the part of the members of the club and its servants was an atmosphere in which a cataleptic fit would scarcely warrant unofficial interference; much less would merely mawkish or absent-minded behavior attract attention. That was the function of the club--to provide sanctuary for personal whims and idiosyncrasies; of course, always within the boundaries of the code.

On the evening in question Mr. Van Camp did not actually become silly, but his manner lacked the poise and seriousness which sophisticated men are wont to bring to the important event of the day. He was as near being nervous as a Scotch-American Van Camp could be; and at the same time he felt an unwonted flow of life and warmth in his cool veins. He went so far as to make a remark to the waiter which he meant for an affable joke, and then wanted to kick the fellow for taking it so solemnly.

"You mind yourself, George, or they'll make you abbot of this monastery yet!" said Aleck, as George helped him on with his evening coat.

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," said George.

He left word at the office that in case any one called he was to be informed that Mr. Van Camp would return to the club for the night; then, in his silk hat and generally shining togs, he set forth to make a call.

He was no stranger to New York, and usually he took his cities as they came, with a matter-of-fact nonchalance. He would be as much at home on his second day in London as he had ever been in Lynn; or he would go from a friend's week-end house-party, where the habits of a Sybarite were forced on him, to a camp in the woods and pilot-bread fare, with an equal smoothness of temper and enjoyment. Since luxury made no impression on him, and hardship never blunted his own ideals of politeness or pleasure, no one ever knew which life he preferred.

Choosing to walk the fifteen or twenty squares to the Archangel apartment house, his destination, Van Camp looked about him, on this night of his arrival, with slightly quickened perceptions. He cast a mildly appreciative eye toward the picture disclosed here and there by the glancing lights, the chiaroscuro of the intersecting streets, the constantly changing vistas. For an unimpressionable man, he was rather wrought upon. Nevertheless, he entered the charming apartment whither he was bound with the detached and composed manner which society regards as becoming. A maid with a foreign accent greeted him. Yes, Mademoiselle Reynier was at home; Mr. Van Camp would find her in the drawing-room.

The stiff and unrelaxed manner with which Mr. Van Camp bowed to Miss Reynier a moment later was not at all indicative of the fairly respectable fever within his Scotch breast. Miss Reynier herself was pretty enough to cause quickened pulses. She was of n.o.ble height, evidently a woman of the world. She gave Mr. Van Camp her hand in a greeting mingled of European daintiness and American frankness. Her vitality and abounding interest in life were manifest.

"Ah, but you are very late. This is how you become smart all at once in your New York atmosphere! But pray be seated; and here are cigarettes, if you will. No? Very well; but tell me; has that amorphous gill-slit--oh, no, the _branchial lamella_--has it behaved itself and proved to be the avenue which shall lead you to fame?"

Mr. Van Camp stood silent through this flippant badinage, and calmly waited until Miss Reynier had settled herself. Then he thoughtfully turned the chair offered him so as to command a slightly better view of the corner where she sat, leaning against the old-rose cushions.

Finally, taking his own time, he touched off her greeting with his precise drawl.

"I'm not smart, as you call it, even in New York, though I try to be."

His eyes twinkled and his teeth gleamed in his wide smile. "If I were smart, I'd pa.s.s by your error in scientific nomenclature, but really I ought not to do it. If one can not be exact--"

"That's just what I say. If one can not be exact, why talk at all?"

Miss Reynier caught it up with high glee. She had a foreign accent, and an occasional twist of words which proved her to be neither American nor Englishwoman. "That's my principle," she insisted. "Leave other people in undisturbed possession of their hobbies, especially in conversation, and don't say anything if you can't say what you mean. But then, _you_ won't talk about your hobby; and if I have no one to inform me, how can I be exact? But I'm the meekest person alive; I'm so ready to learn."

Mr. Van Camp surveyed first the bantering, alluring eyes, then turned his gaze upon the soft luxuries about them.

"Are you ready to turn this bijou dream into a laboratory smelling of alcohol and fish? Are you ready to spend hours wading in mudbanks after specimens, or scratching in the sand under the broiling sun? Science does not consult comfort."

Miss Reynier's expression of quizzical teasing changed to one of rather thoughtful inquiry, as if she were estimating the man behind the scientist. Van Camp was of the lean, angular type, like Jim Hambleton.

He was also very manly and wholesome, but even in his conventional evening clothes there was something about him that was unconventional--a protesting, untamed element of character that resisted all rules except those prescribed by itself. He puzzled her now, as he had often puzzled her before; but if she made fun of his hobbies, she had no mind to make fun of the man himself. A cheerful, intelligent smile finally ended her contemplating moment.

"Oh, no; no digging in the sand for me. I'll take what science I get in another way--put up in predigested packages or bottled--any way but the fishy way. But please don't give me up. You shed a good deal of light on my mental darkness last winter in Egypt, and maybe I can improve still more." She suddenly turned with friendly, confidential manner toward Aleck, not waiting for replies to her remarks. "It's good to see you again! And I like it here better than in Egypt, don't you? Don't you think this apartment jolly?"

The shaded lamps made a pretty light over Miss Reynier's cream-colored silk flounces, over the delicate lace on her waist, over her glossy dark hair and spirited face. As Aleck contemplated that face, with its eager yet modest and womanly gaze, and the n.o.ble outline of her figure, he thought, with an unwonted flowering of imagination, that she was not unlike the Diana of cla.s.sic days. "A domestic Diana," he added in his mind. "She may love the woods and freedom, but she will always return to the hearth."

Aloud he said: "If you will permit me, Miss Reynier, I would like to inform you at once of the immediate object of my visit here. You must be well aware--" At this point Mr. Van Camp, who, true to his nature, was looking squarely in the face of his companion, of necessity allowed himself to be interrupted by Miss Reynier's lifted hand. She was looking beyond her visitor through the drawing-room door.

"Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Lloyd-Jones," announced the servant.

As Miss Reynier swept forward with outstretched hand to greet the new-comers, Van Camp fixed his eyes on his hostess with a mingled expression of masculine rage and submission. Whether he thought her too cordial toward the other men or too cool toward himself, was not apparent. Presently he, too, was shaking hands with the visitors, who were evidently old friends of the house. Madame Reynier, the aunt of mademoiselle, was summoned, and Van Camp was marooned on a sofa with Lloyd-Jones, who was just in from the West. Aleck found himself listening to an interminable talk about copper veins and silver veins, a new kind of a.s.saying instrument, and the good luck attendant upon the opening of Lloyd-Jones' new mine, the Liza Lu.

Aleck was the essence of courtesy to everything except sham, and was able to indicate a mild interest in Mr. Lloyd-Jones' mining affairs. It was sufficient. Lloyd-Jones turned sidewise on his end of the sofa, spread out plump, gesticulating hands, and poured upon him an eloquent torrent of fact, speculation and high-spirited enthusiasm concerning Idaho in general and the future of the Liza Lu in particular. More than that, by and by his cheerful, half-impudent manner threatened to turn poetic.

"It's great, living in the open out there," he went on, by this time including the whole company in his exordium. "You ride, or tramp, or dig rock all day; and at night you lie down under the clear stars, thankful for your blanket and your rock-bed and your camp-fire; and more than thankful if there's a bit of running water near by. It's a great life!"

Miss Reynier listened to him with eyes that were alternately puzzled and appreciative. It was a discourse that would have seemed to her much more natural coming from Aleck Van Camp; but then, Mr. Van Camp really did the thing--that sort of thing--and he rarely talked about it. It had probably been Mr. Lloyd-Jones' first essay in the world out of reach of his valet and a club c.o.c.ktail; and he was consequently impressed with his achievement. It was evident that Miss Reynier and the amateur miner were on friendly terms, though Aleck had not seen or heard of him before. He had hob-n.o.bbed with Mr. Chamberlain in London and on more than one scientific jaunt. The slightest flicker of jealous resentment gleamed in Aleck's eyes, but his speech was as slow and precise as ever.

"I was just trying to convince Miss Reynier that outdoor life has its peculiar joys," he said. "I was even now suggesting that she should dig, though not for silver. Does Mr. Lloyd-Jones' lucre seem more alluring than my little wriggly beasts, Miss Reynier?"

If Aleck meant this speech for a trap to force the young woman to indicate a preference, the trick failed, as it deserved to fail. Miss Reynier was able to play a waiting game.

"I couldn't endure either your mines or your mud-puddles. You are both absurd, and I don't understand how you ever get recruits for your hobbies. But come over and see this new engraving, Mr. Jones; it's an old-fashioned picture of your beloved Rhine."

Aleck, thus liberated from Mr. Lloyd-Jones and his mines, made his way across the room to Madame Reynier. The cunning of old Adam, was in his eye, but otherwise he was the picture of deferential innocence.

Madame Reynier liked Aleck, with his inoffensive Americanisms and unfailing kindliness; and with her friends she was frankness itself.

With two men on Miss Reynier's hands for entertainment, it seemed to Aleck unlikely that either one could make any alarming progress.

Besides, he was glad of a tete-a-tete with the chaperone.

Madame Reynier was a tall, straight woman, elderly, dressed entirely in black, with gaunt, aristocratic features and great directness of speech.

She had the fine kind of hauteur which forbids persons of this type ever to speak of money, of disease, of scandal, or of too intimate personalities; in Madame Reynier's case it also restrained her from every sort of exaggerated speech. She spoke English with some difficulty and preferred French.