Rex Stout - 1917 - An Officer and a Lady Page 3

  I don’t know exactly how to describe my sensations when he finished. What good had it done me to spend most of my time in dark alleys and bum hotels? What good had it done me to throw away the advantages and perquisites of twelve years’ hard work and experience? What good had it done me to fill up with Henry Van Dyke and the Ladies’ Home Companion? What good had it done me if at the very end I was to have a young, timid innocent niece set right down in the same seat with me for a two hour-trip down the Hudson?

  All of which isn’t as foolish as it sounds. I know my weakness. Like Lord Darlington, I can resist everything except temptation.

  I felt that I had just one chance. There are nieces and nieces. As I packed my sample case I kept hoping that she would prove to be a second, or even a run of the mill.

  She wasn’t. She was the kind that comes in a case by itself, packed in cotton and invoiced separately. As I shook hands with her on the station platform I took a wild and despairing grip on my Lord Tennyson vow. Then I realized that I was gripping her hand even harder, and I dropped it and went over to the baggage room to read over the last letter from my wife. I got back just in time to help her on the train and shake hands with old man Marshall.

  We hadn’t gone a mile before she asked me to lay her coat up on the rack, and thanked me in that way that says: “I’m so glad you were here to do that for me.” Then I reversed the seat in front, and she put one foot up on it—the one next the window. It was only about half covered by a low, small, dainty pump, and the ankle and its surroundings were composed entirely of curves. She turned clear around in the seat and sat facing me. Her hair was a kind of reddish brown—different from any I’d ever seen—and it kept trying to crawl out from under her hat. Her eyes, big and brown, had a tender, friendly look that seemed willing to admit anything, and her mouth—

  Then I went to the other end of the car for a drink of water.

  The incidents of that two-hour ride are still sort of hazy in my memory. Of course for any ordinary man it would have been simple and easy, but all the time I had a remembrance of my previous record, my promises to my wife, and a perfume that blew over from the niece’s hair whirling around before me in a sort of Donnybrook Fair. I was afraid even to be polite, and I guess she had begun to think I was the original and only genuine clam. Then—this was about at Tarrytown—after trying hard for thirty minutes, I managed to say something about my wife.

  “Are you married?” said she, like that.

  I nodded. She looked at me interested for a minute, and then said:

  “Poor man!”

  “I don’t agree with your sentiment,” said I with some heat. “I’m the luckiest man in the world. The true state of happiness is—”

  “Freedom.” She shook her head again and laughed. “That’s why I intend to hold on to it as long as I can.”

  Than I thanked God I’d told her I was married. If I hadn’t, I never would have been able to pass by such a challenge as that. Even as it was I felt an awful longing to make her take it back. No man who thinks anything of his sex or has any self-respect can allow a woman to go around talking about freedom, especially when she’s pretty.

  “I hate to be personal,” she went on presently, “but can you see anything in this car, for instance, that is apt to make a girl long for a plain gold band and a six foot veil?”

  I turned and looked straight at her, and found her laughing at me. “Miss Robinson,” I said, “your uncle told me you were innocent and timid. If he could only—”

  “I am,” she interrupted. “I didn’t say a word till I discovered you were harmless.”

  Good God! I—Frank Keeler—harmless! And it was true. That was the worst of it. It was true. I turned away from her with a bitter smile, and began to wonder if she had any idea of my pace under an empty saddle. Then I went to the smoking car and sat there talking to myself clear to Grand Central Station.

  Her cousin lived up on Washington Heights, so it would have been quicker to get off at 125th Street, but I was too busy with my reflections to think about it. I managed to steer her through about four miles of scaffoldings and boardwalks, and I noticed it was just half-past two as we boarded a subway express for uptown. I counted on getting home by four.

  By the time we got off at 168th Street I was pretty well calmed down. Although it made me unhappy to realize that I’d just been forced to swallow a gross insult to my long training and unquestioned ability, and that all the rest of my life I’d be helpless in the face of the strongest provocation, I could yet remember with pride the day when “Frank” was a household word in a hundred towns. And I felt a kind of pity come over me as I looked at the niece and reflected that she’d never know what she’d missed.

  Consequently, I was feeling almost sad as we turned in a marble entrance on 168th Street, and told the elevator boy to take us to Robinson’s apartment.

  “They ain’t in,” said he, as if he was glad of it. “Gone out of town for a week.”

  They’d left four days before. He didn’t know where they’d gone. The niece and I sat down in the hall to talk it over.

  “Didn’t they know you were coming?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I was going to surprise them.”

  I remembered that I had planned a surprise too, so I couldn’t very well blame her. She said she didn’t want to go back to Poughkeepsie unless she had to, but she didn’t want to cause me any more bother. Of course I said she was anything but that. Then she said she had another cousin in New York, and she might go there.

  “Just the thing!” I cried. “Where does she live?”

  “Bath Beach,” replied the niece calmly, just as though she was stating a pleasant fact instead of a horrible dream.

  Well, there was only one thing to do. I didn’t stop to explain what I was about to suffer for her sake, nor what she was up against herself. I thought she’d find out soon enough.

  We took a subway express downtown again, got off at Brooklyn Bridge and with the help of three policemen and a cripple found an L train for Bath Beach. As we started out from the terminal I wondered if I would ever get back. Even a Harlem flat looks like a real home, sweet home to a man when he gets lost in the wilderness.

  We’d been under way about twenty minutes when the niece turned to me looking puzzled.

  “What place is this?” she asked. “It’s so—funny. It seems that I’ve seen it in a dream.”

  “It must have been a nightmare,” said I. “Don’t talk so loud. This is Brooklyn.”

  For miles and miles, and it seemed hours and hours, we sat there in silence, waiting for the end. Finally the guard called out “Bath Beach!” and we jumped off onto a pile of ashes and tin cans. Then, after waiting a quarter of an hour for a trolley car that didn’t come, we started off down the street.

  I gave a sigh of relief as I went up the steps of a brown and green two-story house and rang the bell. Almost immediately the door opened, and the niece started forward, then fell back again as she caught sight of the old dried up woman that looked through at her.

  “Is this Robinson’s?” I asked.

  “Naw,” she said. The door slammed in my face.

  I looked at the number over the door, then at the sign on the street corner, then at the niece. “This is 6123 Bath Avenue,” I said sternly.

  For answer she sat down on the porch step and began to cry. “I thought it was 6123,” she said between sobs.

  She got all right in a minute or two, and we started for the nearest drug store to look at a directory. Then she remembered that the Robinsons had moved down there only a few months ago, so the directory would be useless. She stopped and began to think.

  “It might have been 6132,” she said.

  I left her at the drug store, and tried 6132, 6312, 6321, 6231 and 6213. Then I got desperate and went about three miles down to 3261. Just to save time and paper, figure out for yourself how many combinations there are in that damnable figure. I got back to the drug store about six o’clock.

  “Nothing doing,” I said, as friendly as I could. “There’s no Robinsons in Bath Beach. There’s only one thing to do. Come home with me. My wife’ll be glad to have you.”

  The niece got ready to cry again. “But I can’t,” she said. “She doesn’t know me.”

  “I can introduce you, can’t I?” I demanded. “Unless you want to stay at a hotel.” But I could see she wouldn’t do that.

  She was silent for a minute; then, “I’m going back to Poughkeepsie,” she said. “When can I get a train?”

  I could see she meant it, and besides, I realized it was the best thing to do. So I didn’t waste any time in argument.

  On the trip back my spirits jumped a notch every time the wheels went round. It was a combination of relief and expectation that I can’t exactly define. I suppose I should have had a premonition, but I know I didn’t.

  At Grand Central we found out that the next train to Poughkeepsie was at 8:20. I looked at the niece. She was leaning against the window rail and seemed kind of limp.

  “That’s an hour,” she said, glancing at the clock.

  “Yes,” said I. “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?” She was gazing across the room in a kind of trance. Looking in the same direction I saw a big double door, and over the top the word “Restaurant.”

  Of course I should have thought of it sooner, but I’d been so darned busy looking for Robinsons I hadn’t had time for anything else.

  “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “We haven’t had anything to eat since morning!”

  “Yesterday,” she said. “I never eat breakfast.”

  Instinctively we started together for the big double doors. About halfway across I suddenly stopped. “Listen,” I said. “We have a full hour. Why not go to a g
ood place? It’s close.”

  “Anywhere,” said the niece. “But I don’t want to miss the train.”

  Why I chose Rector’s I don’t know. But I did. It was pretty well crowded but we found a table over on the Broadway side, and I ordered everything I could recognize.

  The companionship of the knife and fork has always appealed to me. I suppose that’s what made me feel so friendly; but there were other considerations. When two people go to Brooklyn together they are forever bound by a sort of mutual sympathy. Also, I felt grateful to her for going back to Poughkeepsie instead of coming home with me. So by the time we’d finished with the roast we were almost chummy. It had even got to the place where I was trying to show her the advantages of being married. When I got through she stretched a hand across the table to me.

  “Mr. Keeler,” she said, “I believe you. I really don’t know anything about it, but I’ll take your word for it. And after all your kindness to me, I’d like to congratulate the girl that was lucky enough to get you. I’d like to meet your wife.”

  Suddenly she stopped and looked up. So did I. Two women and a man had stopped on their way out and were looking down at us. It was my wife, her mother and her brother.

  If you expected to hear a good story, of course you’re disappointed. There isn’t even any use explaining to you that I’ve spent five months trying to explain it to my wife, and she won’t listen.

  I’ve been a Secret Sorrow, I’ve been a Faithful Husband, and I’ve been a Fool. As I hinted before, if you want to make me believe that Carrie Nation smashed a joint, you’ve got to show me the hole in the window.

  I’m going to give my wife just one more chance. I’m going to write it all out, have it typewritten, and maybe have it printed in a magazine. Then if she don’t believe it—well, the niece is still at Poughkeepsie, and as I said before, no man who has any self-respect can allow a pretty woman to go around talking about freedom.

  Annuncio’s Violin

  ANNUNCIO LAY PEACEFULLY SLEEPING in the shade of a scrub mesquite. Now and again a curious, errant mud dauber, adventure-bent, explored the mazes of his wavy, ebony hair, or viewed from the vantage point of nose or chin the offerings of the surrounding country. Anon, a giant, home-returning ant, holding aloft a world of stolen grain for winter use, crawled across the bare, hemp-sandaled feet. But Annuncio still dreamed on. In easy reach of his brown-fingered hand, which yet retained half-lovingly the aged bow lay, dusty on the earth, an old violin, whose gracious curves and simple elegance of form revealed the master workman’s craft. Annuncio’s grandsire himself knew little of its history or of how the instrument had come to them, save only that his own father had played him to sleep in childhood with the selfsame bow. And now Annuncio played and dreamed, and waked to play again upon its ancient strings the lullabies and love songs of his people.

  Within the low, thatch-roofed adobe house nearby, Eulalia began at last the preparation of their evening meal, humming low to herself as she ground the maize in the stone bowl and formed the cakes for baking. Eulalia was not as happy with her ardent wooing lover as she had thought to be. No poet she. To her, life meant more than dreaming through the sunny day and playing half-forgotten love songs to the tropic stars at night. Hers was the daily task of managing the little household cares, buying their scant supplies, and bargaining for all their simple, homely wrought apparel. And so it was that the wife had come to be the real ruler of the home, whom Annuncio indulged in every whim if only he might be allowed to dream and play. But poor Eulalia was not content with all this homage. She loved the bright mantillas of her richer sisters in the town, and gazed with longing that was not wholly free from envy at the coche and four white, prancing horses of Las Esperanzes’ mayor whenever that dignitary passed by on a visit to some neighboring ranch.

  The first cool evening breeze came wandering down from the mountain and wakened Annuncio. Sitting up, he raised the violin for an ante-supper melody. And while he played, slowly, unnoticed along the road approached a man, at once a gringo and a vaga-bundo. Attracted as much, perhaps, by the sweetness of the melody he heard as by the savory odor of tortillas coming from the house, the stranger left the highway and drew near the spot where Annuncio was sitting. With a single glance he appraised the ordinary surroundings of the peon’s home, but when his eyes, furtive and shifting, rested on the native’s violin, a new interest dawned in them.

  The tune ended, Annuncio rose, aware for the first time of the stranger’s presence. The latter showed a small coin and asked for supper and a place to sleep. Annuncio, eyeing with distrust the American’s ragged clothes and unkempt exterior, began to refuse his hospitality, when Eulalia, coming out to fetch her man, caught sight of the real and bade the gringo enter.

  The tortillas and frijoles eaten, Annuncio again took up his violin to play away the evening. The gringo listened for a space and then, turning to Annuncio, told him to bring the instrument close to the candle. Taking it from the reluctant hand of its owner, the gringo scrutinized the scratched and grimy case with half-concealed satisfaction. This done, he played, or rather wrenched from the unaccustomed strings, a few measures of Strauss’ waltz, and handing back to miserable Annuncio his ravaged pet, he said: “My friends, I am a lonely man. On my travels often I need the music to urge my tired feet. This little violin could help me much. I wish you to sell me it for company.”

  Annuncio at once and firmly demurred. Eulalia, the discontented, desired to know what the Señor would give. The Señor had but five pesos dos reales by him in silver, but this would scarce suffice to pay them for so great a boon, the life-long friendship of the violin, and so, the Señor would—ah, what cared he for gold, he wished for companionship—they had each other, but he went all alone—would give them for their charity to him, a lonely wayfarer, a lottery ticket sure to win the grand prize of 10,000 pesos, sold him by a friendly officer of the lottery Nacional whom he had saved from drowning but last month. This would he give to them, his friends.

  Annuncio thought of all the starry nights to come without the solace of a single melody, and sadly shook his head; Eulalia thought of all the glories of a coche and four white, prancing steeds, of soft laces, silver combs, and silken shawls, a house in town, servants—and smiling, nodded her assent.

  “And we will buy you many new violeens, all cherry red and shining,” whispered she to hesitating ’Nuncio, and so the bargain ended.

  The tenth of August came and early in the morning Eulalia rose to furbish up the threadbare jacket and breeches of ’Nuncio. Today began the new life, for was not the grand prize already theirs, waiting now in Esperanzes for the presentation of the winning ticket. Of a certainty. And so ’Nuncio was to trudge the ten hot, dusty miles on foot, but to return—ah, that triumphant march, had not Eulalia dreamed it over a dozen times? To return proudly borne back the weary way in a coche drawn by four white, prancing horses, even as the worthy corregidor of the town. The fertile brain of Eulalia had planned it all. They would destroy all vestige of their former poverty in one grand offering to the kindly gods of chance. Together they piled all their meager household goods—the shaky table, the rude chairs, and all the rest—into a little hillock beneath the center of the thatched roof. Their little store of maize and coffee, too, were placed thereon, and flung atop the heap lay whatever clothes they had other than those they wore. No single thing of all their former state would they retain. A little brush-wood fire smouldered without the door, and from this Eulalia, at first glimpse of returning coche and four, would take a brand and kindle that within. So they had planned and so it was to be.

  Two o’clock saw ’Nuncio, dusty and worn, enter the main street of Esperanzes, the Calle Alvarez. Easily he found the office of the Nacional and entered, smiling round the crowd of loiterers standing by the door. In one minute the prize would be his, and he the richest man in many kilometers around. He stepped to the desk and presented the worn, tattered ticket.

  “My ten thousand pesos, si gusta.”