Chambers Robert William
Quick Action

XXII

This picture is not concerned with his destination. Or even whether he ever got there.

But it is very directly concerned with George Z. Green, and the direction he took when he parted from his old school friend.

As he walked up town he said to himself, "Bunk!" several times. After a few moments he fished out his watch.

"I know I'm an ass," he said to himself, "but I'll take a chance. I'll give myself exactly ten minutes to continue making an ass of myself. And if I see the faintest symptom of Romance – if I notice anything at all peculiar and unusual in any person or any thing during the next ten minutes, I won't let it get away – believe me!"

He walked up Broadway instead of Fifth Avenue. After a block or two he turned west at hazard, crossed Sixth Avenue and continued.

He was walking in one of the upper Twenties – he had not particularly noticed which. Commercial houses nearly filled the street, although a few old-time residences of brownstone still remained. Once well-to-do and comfortable homes, they had degenerated into chop sueys, boarding houses, the abodes of music publishers, artificial flower makers, and mediums.

It was now a shabby, unkempt street, and Green already was considering it a hopeless hunting ground, and had even turned to retrace his steps toward Sixth Avenue, when the door of a neighbouring house opened and down the shabby, brownstone stoop came hurrying an exceedingly pretty girl.

Now, the unusual part of the incident lay in the incongruity of the street and the girl. For the street and the house out of which she emerged so hastily were mean and ignoble; but the girl herself fairly radiated upper Fifth Avenue from the perfectly appointed and expensive simplicity of hat and gown to the obviously aristocratic and dainty face and figure.

"Is she a symptom?" thought Green to himself. "Is she an element? That is sure a rotten looking joint she came out of."

Moved by a sudden and unusual impulse of intelligence, he ran up the brownstone stoop and read the dirty white card pasted on the façade above the door bell.

THE PRINCESS ZIMBAMZIM

TRANCE MEDIUM. FORTUNES

Taken aback, he looked after the pretty girl who was now hurrying up the street as though the devil were at her dainty heels.

Could she be the Princess Zimbamzim? Common sense rejected the idea, as did the sudden jerk of soiled lace curtains at the parlour window, and the apparition of a fat lady in a dingy, pink tea-gown. That must be the Princess Zimbamzim and the pretty girl had ventured into these purlieus to consult her. Why?

"This is certainly a symptom of romance!" thought the young man excitedly. And he started after the pretty girl at a Fifth Avenue amble.

He overtook and passed her at Sixth Avenue, and managed to glance at her without being offensive. To his consternation, she was touching her tear-stained eyes with her handkerchief. She did not notice him.

What could be the matter? With what mystery was he already in touch?

Tremendously interested he fell back a few paces and lighted a cigarette, allowing her to pass him; then he followed her. Never before in his life had he done such a scandalous thing.

On Broadway she hailed a taxi, got into it, and sped uptown. There was another taxi available; Green took it and gave the driver a five dollar tip to keep the first taxi in view.

Which was very easy, for it soon stopped at a handsome apartment house on Park Avenue; the girl sprang out, and entered the building almost running.

For a moment George Z. Green thought that all was lost. But the taxi she had taken remained, evidently waiting for her; and sure enough, in a few minutes out she came, hurrying, enveloped in a rough tweed travelling coat and carrying a little satchel. Slam! went the door of her taxi; and away she sped, and Green after her in his taxi.

Again the chase proved to be very short. Her taxi stopped at the Pennsylvania Station; out she sprang, paid the driver, and hurried straight for the station restaurant, Green following at a fashionable lope.

She took a small table by a window; Green took the next one. It was not because she noticed him and found his gaze offensive, but because she felt a draught that she rose and took the table behind Green, exactly where he could not see her unless he twisted his neck into attitudes unseemly.

He wouldn't do such things, being really a rather nice young man; and it was too late for him to change his table without attracting her attention, because the waiter already had brought him whatever he had ordered for tea – muffins, buns, crumpets – he neither knew nor cared.

So he ate them with jam, which he detested; and drank his tea and listened with all his ears for the slightest movement behind him which might indicate that she was leaving.

Only once did he permit himself to turn around, under pretense of looking for a waiter; and he saw two blue eyes still brilliant with unshed tears and a very lovely but unhappy mouth all ready to quiver over its toast and marmalade.

What on earth could be the matter with that girl? What terrible tragedy could it be that was still continuing to mar her eyes and twitch her sensitive, red lips?

Green, sipping his tea, trembled pleasantly all over as he realised that at last he was setting his foot upon the very threshold of Romance. And he determined to cross that threshold if neither good manners, good taste, nor the police interfered.

And what a wonderful girl for his leading lady! What eyes! What hair! What lovely little hands, with the gloves hastily rolled up from the wrist! Why should she be unhappy? He'd like to knock the block off any man who —

Green came to himself with a thrill of happiness: her pretty voice was sounding in exquisite modulations behind him as she asked the waiter for m-more m-marmalade.

In a sort of trance, Green demolished bun after bun. Normally, he loathed the indigestible. After what had seemed to him an interminable length of time, he ventured to turn around again in pretense of calling a waiter.

Her chair was empty!

At first he thought she had disappeared past all hope of recovery; but the next instant he caught sight of her hastening out toward the ticket boxes.

Flinging a five-dollar bill on the table, he hastily invited the waiter to keep the change; sprang to his feet, and turned to seize his overcoat. It was gone from the hook where he had hung it just behind him.

Astonished, he glanced at the disappearing girl, and saw his overcoat over her arm. For a moment he supposed that she had mistaken it for her own ulster, but no! She was wearing her own coat, too.

A cold and sickening sensation assailed the pit of Green's stomach. Was it not a mistake, after all? Was this lovely young girl a professional criminal? Had she or some of her band observed Green coming out of the bank and thrusting a fat wallet into the inside pocket of his overcoat?

He was walking now, as fast as he was thinking, keeping the girl in view amid the throngs passing through the vast rotunda.

When she stopped at a ticket booth he entered the brass railed space behind her.

She did not appear to know exactly where she was going, for she seemed by turns distrait and agitated; and he heard her ask the ticket agent when the next train left for the extreme South.

Learning that it left in a few minutes, and finding that she could secure a stateroom, she took it, paid for it, and hastily left without a glance behind her at Green.

Meanwhile Green had very calmly slipped one hand into the breast pocket of his own overcoat, where it trailed loosely over her left arm, meaning to extract his wallet without anybody observing him. The wallet was not there. He was greatly inclined to run after her, but he didn't. He watched her depart, then:

"Is there another stateroom left on the Verbena Special?" he inquired of the ticket agent, coolly enough.

"One. Do you wish it?"

"Yes."

The ticket agent made out the coupons and shoved the loose change under the grille, saying:

"Better hurry, sir. You've less than a minute."

He ran for his train and managed to swing aboard just as the coloured porters were closing the vestibules and the train was in motion.

A trifle bewildered at what he had done, and by the rapidity with which he had done it, he sank down in the vacant observation car to collect his thoughts.

He was on board the Verbena Special – the southern train-de-luxe – bound for Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Verbena Inlet, or Miami – or for Nassau, Cuba, and the remainder of the West Indies – just as he chose.

He had no other luggage than a walking-stick. Even his overcoat was in possession of somebody else. That was the situation that now faced George Z. Green.

But as the train emerged from the river tube, and he realised all this, he grew calmer; and the calmer he grew the happier he grew.

He was no longer on the threshold of Romance; he had crossed it, and already he was being whirled away blindly into the Unusual and the Unknown!

Exultingly he gazed out of the windows upon the uninspiring scenery of New Jersey. A wonderful sense of physical lightness and mental freedom took delightful possession of him. Opportunity had not beckoned him in vain. Chance had glanced sideways at him, and he had recognised the pretty flirt. His was certainly some brain!

And now, still clinging to the skirts of Chance, he was being whisked away, pell mell, headlong toward Destiny, in the trail of a slender, strange young girl who had swiped his overcoat and who seemed continually inclined to tears.

The incident of the overcoat no longer troubled him. That garment of his was not unlike the rough travelling coat she herself wore. And it might have been natural to her, in her distress of mind and very evident emotion, to have seized it by mistake and made off with it, forgetting that she still wore her own.

Of course it was a mistake pure and simple. He had only to look at the girl and understand that. One glance at her sweet, highbred features was sufficient to exonerate her as a purloiner of gentlemen's garments.

Green crossed his legs, folded his arms, and reflected. The overcoat was another and most important element in this nascent Romance.

The difficulty lay in knowing how to use the overcoat to advantage in furthering and further complicating a situation already delightful.

Of course he could do the obvious: he could approach her and take off his hat and do the well-bred and civil and explain to her the mistake.

But suppose she merely said: "I'm sorry," handed over his coat, and continued to read her magazine. That would end it. And it mustn't end until he found out why she had emerged with tears in her beautiful eyes from the abode of the Princess Zimbamzim.

Besides, he was sure of getting his coat, his wallet, and its contents. His name and address were in the wallet; also both were sewed inside the inner pocket of the overcoat.

What would ultimately happen would be this: sooner or later she'd come to, wake up, dry her pretty eyes, look about, and find that she had two overcoats in her possession.

It would probably distress her dreadfully, particularly when she discovered the wallet and the money. But, wherever she was going, as soon as she reached there she'd send overcoat and money back to his address – doubtless with a pretty and contrite note of regret.

Yes, but that wouldn't do! What good would the overcoat and the money be to him, if he were South and she shipped them North? And yet he was afraid to risk an abrupt ending to his Romance by explaining to her the mistake.

No; he'd merely follow her for the present. He couldn't help it very well, being aboard the same train. So it would not be difficult to keep his eye on her as well as his overcoat, and think out at his leisure how best to tend, guard, cherish, and nourish the delicate and unopened bud of Romance.

Meanwhile, there were other matters he must consider; so he wrote out a telegram to Washington ordering certain necessary articles to be brought aboard the Verbena Special on its arrival there. The porter took charge of it.

That night at dinner he looked for the girl in vain. She did not enter the dining-car while he was there. Haunting the corridors afterward he saw no sign of her anywhere until, having received his necessaries in a brand new travelling satchel, and on his way to his stateroom, he caught a glimpse of her, pale and agitated, in conversation with the porter at her partly opened door.

She did not even glance at him as he entered his stateroom, but he could not avoid hearing what she was saying because her enunciation was so exquisitely distinct.

"Porter," she said in her low, sweet voice, "I have, somehow, made a very dreadful mistake somewhere. I have a man's overcoat here which does not belong to me. The cloth is exactly like the cloth of my own travelling ulster, and I must have forgotten that I had mine on when I took this."

"Ain't de gemman abohd de Speshul, Miss?" inquired the porter.

"I'm afraid not. I'm certain that I must have taken it in the station restaurant and brought it aboard the train."

"Ain't nuff'n in de pockets, is dey?" asked the porter.

"Yes; there's a wallet strapped with a rubber band. I didn't feel at liberty to open it. But I suppose I ought to in order to find out the owner's name if possible."

"De gemman's name ain't sewed inside de pocket, is it, Miss?"

"I didn't look," she said.

So the porter took the coat, turned it inside out, explored the inside pocket, found the label, and read:

"Snipps Brothers: December, 1913. George Z. Green."

A stifled exclamation from the girl checked him. Green also protruded his head cautiously from his own doorway.

The girl, standing partly in the aisle, was now leaning limply against the door-sill, her hand pressed convulsively to her breast, her face white and frightened.

"Is you ill, Miss?" asked the porter anxiously.

"I – no. Z – what name was that you read?"

"George Z. Green, Miss – "

"It – it can't be! Look again! It can't be!"

Her face was ashen to the lips; she closed her eyes for a second, swayed; then her hand clutched the door-sill; she straightened up with an effort and opened her eyes, which now seemed dilated by some powerful emotion.

"Let me see that name!" she said, controlling her voice with an obvious effort.

The porter turned the pocket inside out for her inspection. There it was:

"George Z. Green: 1008-1/2 Fifth Avenue, New York."

"If you knows de gemman, Miss," suggested the porter, "you all kin take dishere garmint back yo'se'f when you comes No'th."

"Thank you… Then – I won't trouble you… I'll – I'll ta-t-take it back myself – when I go North."

"I kin ship it if you wishes, Miss."

She said excitedly: "If you ship it from somewhere South, he – Mr. Green – would see where it came from by the parcels postmark on the express tag – wouldn't he?"

"Yaas, Miss."

"Then I don't want you to ship it! I'll do it myself… How can I ship it without giving Mr. Green a clue – " she shuddered, " – a clue to my whereabouts?"

"Does you know de gemman, Miss?"

"No!" she said, with another shudder, – "and I do not wish to. I – I particularly do not wish ever to know him – or even to see him. And above all I do not wish Mr. Green to come South and investigate the circumstances concerning this overcoat. He might take it into his head to do such a thing. It – it's horrible enough that I have – that I actually have in my possession the overcoat of the very man on whose account I left New York at ten minutes' notice – "

Her pretty voice broke and her eyes filled.

"You – you don't understand, porter," she added, almost hysterically, "but my possession of this overcoat – of all the billions and billions of overcoats in all the world – is a t-terrible and astounding b-blow to me!"

"Is – is you afeard o' dishere overcoat, Miss?" inquired the astonished darkey.

"Yes!" she said. "Yes, I am! I'm horribly afraid of that overcoat! I – I'd like to throw it from the train window, but I – I can't do that, of course! It would be stealing – "

Her voice broke again with nervous tears:

"I d-don't want the coat! And I can't throw it away! And if it's shipped to him from the South he may come down here and investigate. He's in New York now. That's why I am on my way South! I – I want him to remain in New York until – until all – d-danger is over. And by the first of April it will be over. And then I'll come North – and bring him his coat – "

The bewildered darkey stared at her and at the coat which she had unconsciously clutched to her breast.

"Do you think," she said, "that M-Mr. Green will need the coat this winter? Do you suppose anything would happen to him if he doesn't have it for a while – pneumonia or anything? Oh!" she exclaimed in a quivering voice, "I wish he and his overcoat were at the South Pole!"

Green withdrew his head and pressed both palms to his temples. Could he trust his ears? Was he going mad? Holding his dizzy head in both hands he heard the girl say that she herself would attend to shipping the coat; heard the perplexed darkey take his leave and go; heard her stateroom door close.

Seated in his stateroom he gazed vacantly at the couch opposite, so completely bewildered with his first over-dose of Romance that his brain seemed to spin like a frantic squirrel in a wheel, and his thoughts knocked and jumbled against each other until it truly seemed to him that all his senses were fizzling out like wet firecrackers.

What on earth had he ever done to inspire such horror in the mind of this young girl?

What terrible injury had he committed against her or hers that the very sound of his name terrified her – the mere sight of his overcoat left her almost hysterical?

Helplessly, half stupefied, he cast about in his wrecked mind to discover any memory or record of any injury done to anybody during his particularly blameless career on earth.

In school he had punched the noses of several schoolmates, and had been similarly smitten in return. That was the extent of physical injury ever done to anybody.

Of grave moral wrong he knew he was guiltless. True, he had frequently skinned the assembly at convivial poker parties. But also he had often opened jacks only to be mercilessly deprived of them amid the unfeeling and brutal laughter of his companions. No, he was not guilty of criminal gambling.

Had he ever done a wrong to anybody in business? Never. His firm's name was the symbol for probity.

He dashed his hands to his brow distractedly. What in Heaven's name had he done to fill the very soul of this young girl with fear and loathing? What in the name of a merciful Providence had he, George Z. Green, banker and broker, ever done to drive this young and innocent girl out of the City of New York!

To collect and marshal his disordered thoughts was difficult but he accomplished it with the aid of cigarettes. To a commonplace intellect there is no aid like a cigarette.

At first he was inclined to believe that the girl had merely mistaken him for another man with a similar name. George Z. Green was not an unusual name.

But his address in town was also written inside his coat pocket; and she had read it. Therefore, it was painfully evident to him that her detestation and fear was for him.

What on earth had inspired such an attitude of mind toward himself in a girl he had seen for the first time that afternoon? He could not imagine. And another strange feature of the affair was that she had not particularly noticed him. Therefore, if she entertained such a horror of him, why had she not exhibited some trace of it when he was in her vicinity?

Certainly she had not exhibited it by crying. He exonerated himself on that score, for she had been on the verge of tears when he first beheld her hurrying out of the parlours of the Princess Zimbamzim.

It gradually became plain to him that, although there could be no doubt that this girl was afraid of him, and cordially disliked him, yet strangely enough, she did not know him by sight.

Consequently, her attitude must be inspired by something she had heard concerning him. What?

He puffed his cigarette and groaned. As far as he could remember, he had never harmed a fly.