His effort was to seem significant, but those things are apt to fail with me.

"Oh, I see. Well, that's a good idea, Solon, but you and Mrs. Potts are slow. Billy Durgin had the same idea last summer while the furniture was being unloaded. He took a good look at some of those old pieces, and he confided to me in strict secrecy that there were probably missing wills and rolls of banknotes hidden away in them. It seems that they're the kind that have secret drawers. Billy knows a case where a man touched a spring and found thirty thousand dollars in a secret drawer, 'and from there,' as Billy says, 'he fled to Australia.' So you can see it's been thought of. Of course I've never spoken of it, because I promised Billy not to,--but there's nothing in it."

"Bosh!" said Solon.

"Of course it's bosh. I could have told Billy that, but some way I always feel tender about his illusions. You may be sure I've learned enough of the Lansdale family to know that no member of it ever hid any real money--money that would _spend_--and there hasn't been a will missing for at least six generations."

"Bosh again!" said Solon. "It isn't secret drawers!"

"No? What then?"

"Well,--it's worse--and more of it."

"Is that all you have to say?" I asked as he stood up.

"Well, that's all I can say now. We must use common sense in these matters. But--Mrs. Potts has written!" With this cryptic utterance he stalked out.

There had been little need to caution me to secrecy. I was not tempted to speak. Had I known any debtor of Miss Caroline's who would have taken "Mrs. Potts has written" in payment of his account, it might have been otherwise.

CHAPTER XXI

LITTLE ARCADY IS GRIEVOUSLY SHAKEN

Mrs. Potts had written. I had Solon's word for it; but that which followed the writing will not cease within this generation or the next to be an affair of the most baffling mystery to our town folk. Me, also, it amazed; though my emotion was chiefly concerned with those gracious effects which the G.o.ds continued to manage from that apparently meaningless sojourn of J. Rodney Potts among us.

Superficially it was a thing of utter fortuity. Actually it was a masterpiece of cunning calculation, a thing which clear-visioned persons might see to bristle with intention on every side.

Years after that innocent encounter between an adventurous negro and an amiable human derelict in the streets of a far city,--those two atoms shaken into contact while the G.o.ds affected to be engaged with weightier matters,--the cultured widow of that derelict recalled the name of a gentleman in the East who was accustomed to buy tall clocks and fiddle-backed chairs, in her native New England, paying prices therefor to make one, in that conservative locality, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, almost.

Such was the cleverly devised circ.u.mstance that now intervened between my neighbor and an indigence distressing to think about. It was as if, in the game, a red four which one had neglected to "play up" should actually permit victory after an intricate series of disasters, by providing a temporary resting-place for a black trey, otherwise fatally obstructive, causing the player to marvel afresh at that last fateful but apparently chance shuffle.

A week after Mrs. Potts had written, the gentleman who received her letter registered as "Hyman Cohen, New York, N.Y.," at the City Hotel.

From his manner of speech when he inquired for the Lansdale home it was seen that he seemed to be a German.

When Miss Caroline received him a little later, he asked abruptly about furniture, and she, in some astonishment, showed him what she had, even to that crowded into dark rooms and out of use.

He examined it carelessly and remarked that it was the worst lot that he had ever seen.

This did not surprise Miss Caroline in the least, though she thought the gentleman's candor exceptional. Little Arcady's opinion, which she knew to tally with his, had always come to her more circuitously.

The strange gentleman then asked Miss Caroline, not too urbanely, if she had expected him to come all the way from New York to look at such cheap stuff. Miss Caroline a.s.sured him quite honestly that she had expected nothing of the sort, and intimated that her regret for his coming surpa.s.sed his own, even if it must remain more obscurely worded. She indicated that the interview was at an end.

The strange gentleman arose also, but as Clem was about to close the door after him, he offered Miss Caroline one hundred and fifty dollars for "the lot," observing again that it was worthless stuff, but that in "this business" a man had to take chances. Miss Caroline declined to notice this, having found that there was something in the gentleman's manner which she did not like, and he went down the path revealing annoyance in the shrug of his shoulders and the sidewise tilt of his head.

To Mrs. Lansdale's unaffected regret, and amazement as well, the gentleman returned the following morning to say that he was about to leave for New York, but that he would actually pay one hundred and seventy-eight dollars for the stuff. This was at least twenty-two dollars more than it could possibly be worth, but the gentleman had an unfortunate pa.s.sion for such things. Miss Caroline bowed, and called Clem as she left the room.

The gentleman returned the morning of the third day to close the deal.

He said he had missed his train on the previous day, and being a superst.i.tious man he regarded that as an augury of evil. Nevertheless he had resolved to take the stuff even at a price that was ruinous. He unfolded two hundred dollars in the presence of Clem, and wished to know if he might send a wagon at once. Clem brought back word from Miss Caroline, who had declined to appear, that the strange gentleman would oblige her by ceasing his remarkable intrusions. Whereupon the gentleman had said: "Oh, very _well_! Then I go!"

But he went no farther than the City Hotel; and here one may note a further contrivance of indirection on the part of our attending Fates.

From the evening train of that day the 'bus brought another strange gentleman, of an Eastern manner, but somewhat neater of dress than the first one and speaking with an accent much less obtrusive. This gentleman wrote "James Walsingham Price, N.Y.," on the register, called for a room with a bath, ordered "coffee and rolls" to be sent there at eight-thirty the next morning, and then asked to see the "dinner card."

After mine host, Jake Kilburn, had been made to understand what "dinner card" meant, he made Mr. James Walsingham Price understand that there was no dinner card. This being clear at last, the newcomer said: "Oh, _very_ well! Then just give my order to the head-waiter, will you--there's a good chap--a cup of consomme, a bit of fish, a bird of some sort, broiled, I fancy,--er--potatoes _au gratin_, a green salad of some kind,--serve that with the bird,--a piece of Camembert, if it's in good condition, any _entremet_ you have and a _demi-ta.s.se_. I'll mix the salad dressing myself, tell him,--oh, yes--and a pint of Chambertin if you've something you can recommend."

Billy Durgin, scrutinizing the newcomer in a professional way, told me afterwards that Jake Kilburn "batted his eyes" during this strange speech and replied to it, "like a man coming to"--"supper in twenty minutes," after which he pounded a bell furiously and then himself showed his new and puzzling guest to a room--but not a room "with a bath," be it understood, for a most excellent reason.

Billy Durgin was excited half an hour later by noting the behavior of the first strange gentleman from the East as his eyes fell upon this second. He threw both hands into the air, where they engaged in rapid horizontal shakings from his pliant wrists, and in hushed gutturals exclaimed, "My G.o.d, my G.o.d!" in his own fashion of speech, which was reproduced admirably for me by my informant. Billy was thus confirmed in his earlier belief that the first strange gentleman was a house-breaker badly wanted somewhere, and he now surmised that the newcomer must be a detective on his trail. But a close watch on their meeting, a little later in the evening, seemed to contradict this engaging hypothesis. The second stranger emerged from the dining room, where he had been served with supper, and as he shut the door of that banqueting hall, Billy, standing by, heard him, too, call upon his Maker. He called only once, but it was in a voice so full of feeling as to make Billy suspect that he was remembering something unpleasant.

At this point the newcomer had glanced up to behold the first strange gentleman, and Billy held his breath, expecting to witness a sensational capture. To his unspeakable disgust the supposed sleuth grinned affably at his supposed quarry and said: "Ah, Hyman! Is the stuff any good?"

"How did you find it out?" asked the first strange gentleman.

The other smiled winningly. "Why, I dropped into your place the other day, and that beautiful daughter-in-law of yours mentioned incidentally where you'd gone and what for. She's a good soul, Hyman, bright, and as chatty as she can be."

"Ach! That Malke! She goes back right off to De Lancey Street, where she belongs," said the first stranger, plainly irritated.

"How did you find the stuff, Hyman?"

"Have you et your supper yet?"

"Yes--'tisn't Kosher, is it? How did you find the stuff?"

"No, it ain't Kosher--nothing ain't Kosher!"

"It's a devilish sight worse, though. How did you find the stuff, Hyman?"

The one called Hyman here seemed to despair of putting off this query.

"No good! No good!--not a decent piece in the lot! I pledge you my word as a gentleman I wouldn't pay the freight on it to Fourth Avenue!" Billy remarked that the gentleman said "pletch" for pledge and "afanoo" for avenue.

The second stranger, hearing this, at once became strangely cheerful and insisted upon shaking hands with the first one.

"Fine, Hyman, fine! I'm delighted to hear you say so. Your words lift a load of doubt from my mind. It came to me in there just now that I might be incurring that supper for nothing but my sins!"

"Have your choke," said Hyman, a little bitterly.

"I have, Hyman, I have had my 'choke'!" said James Walsingham Price, with a glance of disrelish toward the dining room.

It seemed clear to Billy Durgin, who reported this interview to me in a manner of able realism, that these men were both crooks of the first water.

Billy at once polished his star and cleaned and oiled his new 32-caliber "bull-dog." The promise of work ahead for the right man loomed more brightly than ever before in his exciting career.

While I discussed with Miss Caroline, that evening, the unpleasant mystery of her late caller, there came a note from him by messenger. He offered six hundred and twenty-one dollars for her furniture, the sum being written in large letters, so that it had the effect of being shouted from the page. He further expressed a wish to close the deal within the half hour, as he must leave town on the night train.