Maurice Thompson
Eleven Possible Cases
THE CHEATED JULIET
BY Q
Extracted from the Memoirs of a Retired Burglar
The house in question was what Peter the Scholar (who corrects my proof-sheets) calls one of the rusinurby sort – the front facing a street and the back looking over a turfed garden with a lime tree or two, a laburnum, and a lawn-tennis court marked out, its white lines plain to see in the starlight. At the end of the garden a door, painted dark green, led into a narrow lane between high walls, where, if two persons met, one had to turn sideways to let the other pass. The entrance to this lane was cut in two by a wooden post about the height of your hip, and just beyond this, in the high road, George was waiting for us with the dog-cart.
We had picked the usual time – the dinner-hour. It had just turned dark, and the church-clock, two streets away, was chiming the quarter after eight, when Peter and I let ourselves in by the green door I spoke of and felt along the wall for the gardener's ladder that we knew was hanging there. A simpler job there never was. The bedroom window we had marked on the first-floor stood right open to the night air; and inside there was the light of a candle or two flickering, just as a careless maid will leave them after her mistress has gone down to dinner. To be sure there was a chance of her coming back to put them out; but we could hear her voice going in the servants' hall as we lifted the ladder and rested it against the sill.
"She's good for half a hour yet," Peter whispered, holding the ladder while I began to climb; "but if I hear her voice stop, I'll give the signal to be cautious."
I went up softly, pushed my head gently above the level of the sill, and looked in.
It was a roomy place with a great half-tester bed, hung with curtains, standing out from the wall on my right. The curtains were of chintz, a dark background with flaming red poppies sprawling over it; and the further curtain hid the dressing-table, and the candles upon it and the jewel-case that I confidently hoped to stand upon it also. A bright Brussels carpet covered the floor, and the wall-paper, I remember – though for the life of me I can't tell why – was a pale grey ground, worked up to imitate watered silk, with sprigs of gilt honeysuckle upon it.
I looked round and listened for half a minute. The house was still as death up here – not a sound in the room or in the passages beyond. With a nod to Peter to hold the ladder firm I lifted one leg over the sill, then the other, dropped my feet carefully upon the thick carpet and went quickly round the bed to the dressing-table.
But at the corner, and as soon as ever I saw round the chintz curtain, my knees gave way, and I put out a hand towards the bed-post.
Before the dressing-table, and in front of the big glass, in which she could see my white face, was an old lady seated.
She wore a blaze of jewels and a low gown out of which rose the scraggiest neck and shoulders I have ever looked on. Her hair was thick with black dye and fastened with a diamond star. The powder between the two candles showed on her cheek-bones like flour on a miller's coat. Chin on hand, she was gazing steadily into the mirror before her, and even in my fright I had time to note that a glass of sherry and a plate of rice and curry stood at her elbow, among the rouge-pots and powder-puffs.
While I stood stock still and pretty well scared out of my wits, she rose, still staring at my image in the glass, folded her hands modestly over her bosom, and spoke in a deep tragical voice —
"The Prince!"
Then, facing sharply round, she held out her thin arms.
"You have come – at last?"
There wasn't much to say to this except that I had. So I confessed it. Even with the candles behind her I could see her eyes glowing like a dog's, and an uglier poor creature this world could scarcely show.
"Is the ladder set against the window?"
"Since you seem to know, ma'am," said I, "it is."
"Ah, Romeo! Your cheeks are ruddy – your poppies are too red."
"Then I'm glad my colour's come back; for, to tell the truth, you did give me a turn, just at first. You were looking out for me, no doubt – "
"My Prince!" – She stretched out her arms again, and being pretty well at my wits' end I let her embrace me. "It has been so long," she said. "Oh, the weary while! And they ill-treat me here. Where have you been, all this tedious time?"
I wasn't going to answer that, you may be sure. It appeared to me that 'twas my right to ask questions rather than stand there answering them.
"If they've been ill-treating you, ma'am," said I, "they shall answer for it."
"My love!"
"Yes, ma'am. Would it be taking a liberty if I asked their names?"
"There is Gertrude – "
"Gertrude's hash is as good as settled, ma'am."
I checked Gertrude off on my thumb.
" – that's my niece."
For a moment I feared I'd been a little too prompt. But she went on —
"And next there's Henry; and the children – who have more than once made faces at me; and Phipson."
"Phipson's in it too?"
"You know her?"
"Don't I?" It surprised me a trifle to find that Phipson was a female.
"Three times to-night she pulled my hair, and the rice she brought me – look at it! all stuck together and sodden."
"Phipson shall pay for it with her blood."
"My hero – my darling! Don't spare Phipson. She screams bitterly if a pin is stuck into her. I did it once. Stick her all over with pins."
By this I'd begun to guess what was pretty near the truth – that I was talking with a mad aunt of the family below, and that the game was in my hands if I played it with decent care. So I brought her to face the important question.
"Look here," I said, "all this shall be done when you are out of their hands. At present I'm running a considerable risk in braving these persecutors of yourn. Dearest madam, the ladder's outside and the carriage waiting. Hadn't we better elope at once?"
She gave a sob, and fell on my shoulders.
"Oh, is it true – is it true? Pinch me, that I may awake if this is but a happy dream!"
"You are ready?"
"This moment."
"There's just one other little matter, ma'am – your jewels. You won't leave them to your enemies, I suppose?"
This was the dangerous moment, and I felt a twitch of the nerves as I watched her face to see how she would take the suggestion. But the poor silly soul turned up her eyes to mine, all full of tears and confidence.
"Dearest, I am old, old. Had you come earlier, my beauty had not wanted jewels to set it off. But now I must wear them to look my best – as your bride."
She hid her face in her hands for a second, then turned to the dressing-table, lifted her jewel-case and put it into my hands.
"I am ready," she repeated: "let us be quick and stealthy as death."
She followed me to the window and looking out, drew back.
"What horrible, black depths!"
"It's as easy," said I, "as pie. You could do it on your head; look here – ," I climbed out first and helped her, setting her feet on the rungs.
We went down in silence, I choking with laughter all the way at the sight of Peter below, who was looking with his mouth open and his lips too weak to meet on the curses and wonderment that rose up from the depths of him. When I touched turf and handed him the jewel-case, he took it like a man in a trance.
We put the ladder back into its place and stole over the turf together. But outside the garden-door Peter could stand no more of it —
"I've a fire-arm in my pocket," whispered he, pulling up, "and I'm going to fire it off to relieve my feelings if you don't explain here and now. Who, in pity's name, is she?"
"You mug – she's the Original Sleeping Beauty. I'm eloping with her, and you've got her jewels."
"Pardon me, Jem," he says in his gentlemanly way, "if I don't quite see. Are you taking her off to melt her or marry her? For how to get rid of her else – "
The poor old creature had halted, too, three paces ahead of us, and waited while we whispered, with the moonlight, that slanted down into the lane, whitening her bare neck and flashing in her jewels.
"One moment," I said, and stepped forward to her. "You had better take off those ornaments here, my dear, and give them to my servant to take care of. There's a carriage waiting for us at the end of the lane, and when he has stowed them under the seat we can climb in and drive off – "
"To the end of the world – to the very rim of it, my hero."
She pulled the gems from her ears, hair, and bosom, and handed them to Peter, who received them with a bow. Next she searched in her pocket and drew out a tiny key. Peter unlocked the case, and having carefully stowed the diamonds inside, locked it again, handed back the key, touched his hat, and walked off towards the dog-cart.
"My dearest lady," I began, as soon as we were alone between the high walls, "if the devotion of a life – "
Her bare arm crept into mine. "There is but a little time left for us in which to be happy. Year after year I have marked off the almanack: day by day I have watched the dial. I saw my sisters married, and my sisters' daughters; and still I waited. Each had a man to love her and tend her, but none had such a man as I would have chosen. There were none like you, my Prince."
"No, I daresay not."
"Oh, but my heart is not so old! Take my hand – it is firm and strong; touch my lips – they are burning – "
A low whistle sounded at the top of the lane. As I took her hands I pushed her back, and turning, ran for my life. I suppose that, as I ran, I counted forty before her scream came, and then the sound of her feet pattering after me.
She must have run like a demon; for I was less than ten yards ahead when Peter caught my wrist and pulled me up on to the back-seat of the dog-cart. And before George could set the horse going her hand clutched at the flap on which my feet rested. It missed its grasp, and she never got near enough again. But for half a minute I looked into that horrible face following us and working with silent rage; and for half a mile at least I heard the patter of her feet in the darkness behind. Indeed, I can hear it now.
THE MYSTIC KREWE
BY MAURICE THOMPSON
CHAPTER I
About seventy years ago a young man of strong physique and prepossessing appearance arrived at New Orleans. He had come from New York, of which city he was a native, and had brought with him a considerable sum of money, supplemented by a letter of introduction to Judge Favart de Caumartin, who was then at the flood tide of his fame.
It would not be fair to call our young man ("our hero" would be the good old phrase) an adventurer, without taking pains to qualify the impression that might be produced. Hepworth Coleman had his own way of looking at life. Fifty years later he would have been a tragedian – probably a famous one, but the conditions were not favorable to awakening histrionic ambition at the time when his character, his tastes, his ambition should have been forming. What he saw that was most fascinating to him had no distinct form; it lay along the south-western horizon, a dreamy, mist-covered something not unlike the confines of romance.
Hepworth Coleman was rich, and what was, perhaps, a greater misfortune, he had no living kinsfolk for whom he cared or who cared for him. Practically speaking, he was alone in the world: moreover, he had an imagination. Scott's novels, Byron's poetry, the French romances, and I know not what else of the sort, had been his chief reading. For physical recreation he had turned to fencing and pistol practice. When I add that he was but twenty-two and unmarried, the rest might be guessed, but Coleman was not a young man of the world in the worst sense – he had not turned to evil sources of dissipation. Healthy, vigorous, full of spirit, he nevertheless had sentimental longings as indefinite as they were persistent.
Youth is the spring time when "Longen folk to gon on pilgrimages," as old Chaucer words it, and it would be hard to find the young man who has not felt the vaguely outlined yet irresistible desire to wander, to go over the horizon into a strange, new world. Hepworth Coleman, when he was taken with this longing, felt no restraint cast around him. He was absolutely free, had all the means necessary – why should he not go where he pleased? If it seems strange that he should have been attracted to New Orleans rather than to the Old World, we must remember what New Orleans was in 1820. No other city, not even Paris, could at that time compare with it as a center of genuine romance, nor was this romance unmixed with lawlessness of the most picturesque kind. Money poured into it from a hundred sources more or less illegitimate, besides the streams of wealth produced by cotton, sugar, and rice industries. Gambling was indeed a fine art, duelling appeared more a pastime than anything else, and what went on in the gilded halls and melody-filled salles may be imagined, I suppose, though, I do not care to cast a glance that way.
Hepworth Coleman had heard much of the gay city, of its warm, odorous atmosphere, its hospitality, its social charm, the smack of reckless romance in all its ways. Somehow the desire to go there got hold of his imagination and he went.
The letter to Judge Favart de Caumartin was given to Coleman by his banker, who in handing it to him said:
"I don't know the Judge personally, never saw him; but he has done a lot of business through us. He is very rich, evidently very influential, and certainly will be of use to you. I feel that I can take the liberty of sending you to him, because – well, he is under many obligations to the bank, and is likely to want many more large favors. I fancy that you'll find him a trifle eccentric, but enthusiastically hospitable. A creole of the creoles I judge him to be, and a representative of the nabobs."
Young Coleman considered himself lucky to carry with him a document that would give him introduction to a person so renowned as Judge Favart de Caumartin, of whom he had been recently reading a good deal owing to a duel fought between the Judge and one Colonel Sam Smith, of the United States army, in which the latter had been killed. The duel had brought out history from which it appeared that Judge Favart de Caumartin had fought before, not once only, but many times, and always to the death of his antagonist. Along with these facts were disclosed numerous picturesque details of the Judge's past life, with more than hints that in his young days he had been a pirate or something of the sort. The account also made the most of his wealth, his almost reckless liberality, his eccentricity, and, most of all, the air of mystery which still hung over his business operations.
All this was rich food for an imagination already thoroughly saturated with the spirit of romantic adventure, and during the voyage from New York to New Orleans Hepworth Coleman found deep satisfaction in anticipating what he felt was in store for him. In every fiber of his frame he felt the assurance that he was on the way to new and strange experiences.
His banker had sent a letter to precede his arrival by a few days, asking a friend to secure suitable apartments for Mr. Hepworth Coleman, gentleman, the consequence being that a dark young man, small but well-built and handsome, met him at the landing to conduct him to his suit of elegant rooms on Royal Street.
"Is you Meestu Coleman, sah?" inquired this young stranger in a musical and respectful tone of voice. "I look fo' zat ma' at prayson."
"Yes, sir, that is my name," said Coleman briskly, at the same time he showed by his look that he would like to know whom he was meeting.
"Varee glad you come, Meestu Coleman; varee glad, sah, indeed. Got your rooms all prepare fo' you, sah. Yes, sah, zey is beautifu' an' sharming rooms."
"Thank you; I am much indebted. Are you the gentleman to whom Mr. Cartwright, the banker, wrote in my behalf?"
"Nah, sah, not any banker write to me; I been told to meet you at zis place at prayson. Happy to see you. Mist Coleman; varee happy."
There was an elegant carriage at hand waiting for our friend. A negro driver in livery and a small black footman stood by.
Coleman entered the vehicle, followed closely by the young creole who had met him on the landing. He saw his baggage hoisted into a little wagon to come after the carriage.
For some reason not exactly explained this whole proceeding affected Coleman peculiarly; he felt a sort of vague uneasiness, as if he were passing into an atmosphere of mystery, if not of danger.
As he was whirled through the narrow streets he caught glimpses of queer tile-covered houses with curious hanging galleries. High walls and gloomy courts flanked these, and here and there a dusky palm or a bright orange tree flung up its foliage. Blooming magnolia clumps filled the air with a heavy, languid odor.
But what most attracted the attention of Coleman was a company of four or five young men dressed like dandies, swaggering along on one of the banquettes (sidewalks) and singing a drinking song at the top of their voices. One of these hilarious fellows made a lasting impression on our young friend's imagination. He was a tall, olive-skinned, handsome man, apparently about twenty-five, strikingly dressed in a plaid coat, a vest of red and black velvet, gray trousers, and a profusely ruffled shirt. Evidently he was the leading spirit of the party. At all events he was somewhat in front, with his black cap set well back on his shapely head, while his jet black hair fell in shining curls over his strong shoulders. He was shouting forth the French drinking carol in a voice as sweet as it was loud, and at the same time waving in the air a small cane. The entire group looked the worse for wine, their faces flushed and their eyes brilliant.
"Who is that strange-looking man in front?" inquired Coleman of his creole companion, as they passed them by.
"Zat ge'man ees ze goozh Favart de Caumartin," was the answer that fairly startled the interrogator.
Coleman actually grew red in the face and exclaimed:
"That Judge Favart de Caumartin! Surely, sir, you are mistaken."
"Beg pahdon, sah, zat ees Monsieur le Juge Favart de Caumartin. I him know varee well myself at prayson."
Coleman turned and stared back through the window at the strutting youthful figure leading the noisy rout.
How could that be the celebrated duellist, the guardian pirate!
"It cannot be," he muttered aloud. "It is impossible."
"Varee well, Meestu Coleman," said the young Creole dryly; "but I mus' inqui yo' pahdon, sah. Monsieur le Juge Favart de Caumartin ees to me well acquainted. I wemark to you, sah, zat zare ees not any mistake."
"Oh certainly, sir; I beg a thousand pardons!" exclaimed Coleman, pulling himself together and seeing his breach of etiquette. "Of course you were right; but I was so surprised to see the Judge looking so young. I had supposed he was an aged man. I am astonished."
"Oh, Monsieur le Juge ees not so young – not so varee – hees hair not much gray." While they were still discussing this matter the carriage stopped in front of a square, heavy-looking house, which, painted a dull red and projecting its upper gallery over the banquette, flung out on either side a heavy brick wall on whose top was a jagged dressing of broken bottles and jags. It looked more like a convent than like an apartment-house.
Hepworth Coleman found his suit of rooms admirable in every respect, large, airy, luxuriously furnished. His creole conductor parted with him at the door without giving his name or address and without any explanation whatever of his connection with the matter of securing these elegant apartments or with making his arrival easy and pleasant.
Some silent and obsequious negro servants were at hand to do his bidding; but he soon dismissed them; while he flung himself upon a sofa and lit his pipe. Altogether incomprehensible to him were the suggestions of secrecy and mystery connected with his reception; scarcely less so was the youthful, nay, boyish appearance of Judge Favart de Caumartin.
As if the mysterious atmosphere meant to continue growing denser, it was while he lay along the luxuriant scarlet sofa, smoking, resting, and meditating, that a beautiful girl came and stood for a moment in the doorway of his chamber. She blushed sweetly at sight of him, recoiled violently, and then slipped swiftly away, leaving behind her a rustle of fine stuff, a sparkle of rare jewels, and a lingering bouquet of violets and roses.
Coleman felt the delicious shock of her magnetic beauty thrill through him. A sort of shimmering outline of her body wavered or appeared to waver in the door after she had gone, so dazzling had been the effect of her fresh, pure, flower-like, yet intensely human, beauty. He heard her feet tap swiftly and lightly along the hall. Involuntarily and with unpardonable curiosity he sprang up and, hurrying to the door, looked out, but she was not in sight. For the first time in his life, he felt his heart beating unnaturally.