Quick Action.

by Robert W. Chambers.

PREFACE

Always animated by a desire to contribute in a small way toward scientific investigation, the author offers this humble volume to a more serious audience than he has so far ventured to address.

For all those who have outgrown the superficial amus.e.m.e.nt of mere fiction this volume, replete with purpose, is written in hopes that it may stimulate students to original research in certain obscure realms of science, the borderlands of which, hitherto, have been scarcely crossed.

There is perhaps no division of science as important, none so little understood, as the science of Crystal Gazing.

A vast field of individual research opens before the earnest, patient, and sober minded investigator who shall study the subject and discover those occult laws which govern the intimate relations between crystals, playing cards, cigarettes, soiled pink wrappers, and the Police.

Amor nihil est celerius!

QUICK ACTION

I

There was a new crescent moon in the west which, with the star above it, made an agreeable oriental combination.

In the haze over bay and river enough rose and purple remained to veil the awakening glitter of the monstrous city sprawling supine between river, sound, and sea. And its incessant monotone pulsated, groaning, dying, ceaseless, interminable in the light-shot depths of its darkening streets.

The sky-drawing-room windows of the Countess Athalie were all wide open, but the only light in the room came from a crystal sphere poised on a tripod. It had the quality and l.u.s.tre of moon-light, and we had never been able to find out its source, for no electric wires were visible, and one could move the tripod about the room.

The crystal sphere itself appeared to be luminous, yet it remained perfectly transparent, whatever the source of its silvery phosph.o.r.escence.

At any rate, it was the only light in the room except the dulled glimmer of our cigarettes, and its mild, mysterious light enabled us to see one another as through a gla.s.s darkly.

There were a number of men there that evening. I don't remember, now, who they all were. Some had dined early; others, during the evening, strolled away into the city to dine somewhere or other, drifting back afterward for coffee and sweetmeats and cigarettes in the sky-drawing-room of the Countess Athalie.

As usual the girl was curled up by the open window among her silken cushions, one smooth little gem-laden hand playing with the green jade G.o.d, her still dark eyes, which slanted a little, fixed dreamily upon infinite distance--or so it always seemed to us.

Through the rusty and corrugated arabesques of the iron balcony she could see, if she chose, the yellow flare where Sixth Avenue crossed the shabby street to the eastward. Beyond that, and parallel, a brighter glow marked Broadway. Further east street lamps stretched away into converging perspective, which vanished to a point in the faint nebular radiance above the East River.

All this the Countess Athalie could see if she chose. Perhaps she did see it. We never seemed to know just what she was looking at even when she turned her dark eyes on us or on her crystal sphere cradled upon its slender tripod.

But the sphere seemed to understand, for sometimes, under her still gaze, it clouded magnificently like a black opal--another thing we never understood, and therefore made light of.

"They have placed policemen before several houses on this street,"

remarked the Countess Athalie.

Stafford, tall and slim in his evening dress, relieved her of her coffee cup.

"Has anybody bothered you?" he asked.

"Not yet."

Young Duane picked up a pack of cards at his elbow and shuffled them, languidly.

"Where is the Ace of Diamonds, Athalie?" he asked.

"Any card you try to draw will be the Ace of Diamonds," replied the girl indifferently.

"Can't I escape drawing it?"

"No."

We all turned and looked at Duane. He quickly spread the pack, fan-shaped, backs up. After a moment's choosing he drew a card, looked at it, held it up for us to see. It was the Ace of Diamonds.

"Would you mind trying that again, Athalie?" I asked. And Duane replaced the card and shuffled the pack.

"But it's gone, now," said the girl.

"I replaced it in the pack," explained Duane.

"No, you gave it to me," she said.

We all smiled. Duane searched through the pack in his hands, once, twice; then he laughed. The girl held up one empty hand. Then, somehow or other, there was the Ace of Diamonds between her delicate little thumb and forefinger.

She held it a moment or two for our inspection; then, curving her wrist, sent it scaling out into the darkness. It soared away above the street, tipped up, and describing an aerial ellipse, returned straight to the balcony where she caught it in her fingers.

Twice she did this; but the third time, high in the air, the card burst into violet flame and vanished.

"That," remarked Stafford, "is one thing which I wish to learn how to do."

"Two hundred dollars," said the Countess Athalie, "--in two lessons; also, your word of honour."

"Monday," nodded Stafford, taking out a note-book and making a memorandum, "--at five in the afternoon."

"Monday and Wednesday at five," said the girl, lighting a cigarette and gazing dreamily at nothing.

From somewhere in the room came a voice.

"Did they ever catch that crook, Athalie?"

"Which?"

"The Fifty-ninth Street safe-blower?"