O^A^rvv^ #*<?
The TRACER of LOST PERSONS
WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
THE RECKONING
IOLE
Cardigan
The Maid at Arms •Lorraine Maids of Paradise Ashes of Empire The Red Republic The King in Yellow A Maker of Moons A King and a Few Dukes
The Conspirators The Cambric Mask The Haunts of Men Outsiders
A Young Man in a Hurry The Mystery of Choice In Search of the Un known In the Quarter
FOR CHILDREN
Mountain-Land
Forest-Land Orchard Land
River-Land Outdoorland
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
The TRACER of LOST PERSONS
By R. W. Chambers
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK MCMVI
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
Published June, 1906
TO
MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM A. HALL
56759?
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PACING PAGK
•'"Then in charity say that word ! ' " Frontispiece
(<<l am sure of it,' said the Tracer of Lost
Persons" 48
ft e Standing there . . . looking at me with
such strange beautiful eyes ' ' . . 90
" ( This is atrocious ! ' she murmured, halting
to confront him" . . ... .... 170
" e As though . . . scarcely sound asleep as
yet'" . . 198
(( ' Would you mind sitting here for a few mo ments ? ' " . 264
For the harmony of the world, like that of a harp, is made up of discords.
— HERACLITUS.
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
CHAPTER I
HE was thirty-three, agreeable to look at, equipped with as much culture and intelligence as is tolerated east of Fifth Avenue and west of Madison. He had a couple of elaborate rooms at the Lenox Club, a larger income than seemed to be good for him, and no profession. It follows that he was a pessimist before breakfast. Besides, it's a bad thing for a man at thirty-three to come to the conclusion that he has seen all the most at tractive girls in the world and that they have been vastly overrated. So, when a club servant with gilt buttons on his coat tails knocked at the door, the invitation to enter was not very cordial. He of the buttons knocked again to take the edge off before he entered; then opened the door and un burdened himself as follows :
" Mr. Gatewood, sir, Mr. Kerns's compliments, 1
THE -PHACER OF LQST PERSONS
and wishes 'to •'tnbfr if :'e :niay ?ave 'is coffee served at your tyble, sir."
Gatewood, before the mirror, gave a vicious twist to his tie, inserted a pearl scarf pin, and re garded the effect with gloomy approval.
" Say to Mr. Kerns that I am — flattered," he replied morosely ; " and tell Henry I want him."
"'Enry, sir? Yes, sir."
The servant left; one of the sleek club valets came in, softly sidling.
" Henry ! "
"Sir?"
" I'll wear a white waistcoat, if you don't object."
The valet laid out half a dozen.
" Which one do you usually wear when I'm away, Henry? Which is your favorite? "
"Sir?"
" Pick it out and don't look injured, and don't roll up your eyes. I merely desire to borrow it for one day."
" Very good, sir."
" And, Henry, hereafter always help yourself to my best cigars. Those I smoke may injure you. I've attempted to conceal the keys, but you will, of course, eventually discover them under that loose tile on the hearth."
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Yes, sir; thanky V sir,"; returned ''^the' '-valet
gravely.
" And— Henry ! "
" Sir ? " with martyred dignity.
" When you are tired of searching for my oli- vine and opal pin, just find it, for a change. I'd like to wear that pin for a day or two if it would not inconvenience you."
" Very good, sir ; I will 'unt it hup, sir."
Gatewood put on his coat, took hat and gloves from the unabashed valet, and sauntered down to the sunny breakfast room, where he found Kerns inspecting a morning paper and leisurely consuming grapefruit with a cocktail on the side.
" Hullo," observed Kerns briefly.
" I'm not on the telephone," snapped Gatewood.
" I beg your pardon ; how are you, dear friend?"
" 7 don't know how I am," retorted Gatewood irritably ; " how the devil should a man know how he is?"
" Everything going to the bowwows, as usual, dear friend? "
"As usual. Oh, read your paper, Tommy! You know well enough I'm not one of those tail- wagging imbeciles who wakes up in the morning
THE TRACER OF 'LOST PERSONS
singih-g : like- u 'halfwitted -lurk. Why should I, with this taste in my mouth, and the laundress using vitriol, and Henry sneering at my cigars ? " He yawned and cast his eyes toward the ceiling. " Besides, there's too much gilt all over this club ! There's too much everywhere. Half the world is stucco, the rest rococo. Where's that Martini I bid for?"
Kerns, undisturbed, applied himself to cocoa and toasted muffins. Grapefruit and an amber- tinted accessory were brought for the other and sampled without mirth. However, a little later Gatewood said : " Well, are you going to read your paper all day? "
" What you need," said Kerns, laying the paper aside, " is a job — any old kind would do, dear friend."
" I don't want to make any more money."
" I don't want you to. I mean a job where you'd lose a lot and be scared into thanking Heaven for carfare. You9 re a nice object for the breakfast table ! "
" Bridge. I will be amiable enough by noon time."
' Yes, you're endurable by noon time, as a rule. When you're forty you may be tolerated after five o'clock ; when you're fifty your wife and children
4
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
might even venture to emerge from the cellar after dinner "
"Wife!"
" I said wife," replied Kerns, as he calmly watched his man.
He had managed it well, so far, and he was wise enough not to overdo it. An interval of silence was what the situation required.
" I wish I had a wife," muttered Gatewood after a long pause.
" Oh, haven't you said that every day for five years ? Wife ! Look at the willing assortment of dreams playing Sally Waters around town. Isn't this borough a bower of beauty — a flowery thicket where the prettiest kind in all the world grow under glass or outdoors? And what do you do? You used to pretend to prowl about inspecting the yearly crop of posies, growling, cynical, dissatis fied ; but you've even given that up. Now you only point your nose skyward and squall for a mate, and yowl mournfully that you never have seen your ideal. / know you"
" I never have seen my ideal," retorted Gate- wood sulkily, " but I know she exists — somewhere between heaven and Hoboken."
' You're sure, are you? "
" Oh, Pm sure. And, rich or poor, good or bad, 5
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
she was fashioned for me alone. That's a theory of mine ; you needn't accept it ; in fact, it's none of your business, Tommy."
" All the same," insisted Kerns, " did you ever consider that if your ideal does exist somewhere, it is morally up to you to find her? "
" Haven't I inspected every debutante for ten years? You don't expect me to advertise for an ideal, do you — object, matrimony? "
Kerns regarded him intently. " Now, I'm go ing to make a vivid suggestion, Jack. In fact, that's why I subjected myself to the ordeal of breakfasting with you. It's none of my business, as you so kindly put it, but— shall I suggest something? "
"Go ahead," replied Gatewood, tranquilly lighting a cigarette. " I know what you'll say."
" No, you don't. Firstly, you are having such a good time in this world that you don't really enjoy yourself — isn't that so? "
" I— well I— well, let it go at that."
" Secondly, with all your crimes and felonies, you have one decent trait left: you really would like to fall in love. And I suspect you'd even marry."
'There are grounds," said Gatewood guard edly, " for your suspicions. Et apres? "
6
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS " Good. Then there's a way ! I know ':
" Oh, don't tell me you * know a girl,' or any thing like that !" began Gatewood sullenly. " I've heard that before, and I won't meet her."
" I don't want you to ; I don't know anybody. All I desire to say is this : I do know a way. The other day I noticed a sign on Fifth Avenue :
KEEN & CO.
TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS
It was a most extraordinary sign; and having a little unemployed imagination I began to specu late on how Keen & Co. might operate, and I won dered a little, too, that the conditions of life in this city could enable a firm to make a living by devoting itself exclusively to the business of hunt ing up missing people."
Kerns paused, partly to light a cigarette, partly for diplomatic reasons.
"What has all this to do with me?" inquired Gatewood curiously; and diplomacy scored one.
" Why not try Keen & Co.? "
"Try them? Why? I haven't lost anybody, have I?"
" You haven't precisely lost anybody, but the fact remains that you can't -find somebody" re- 2 7
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
turned Kerns coolly. " Why not employ Keen & Co. to look for her?"
" Look for whom, in Heaven's name? "
" Your ideal."
" Look for — for my ideal ! Kerns, you're crazy. How the mischief can anybody hunt for somebody who doesn't exist ? "
'' You say that she does exist."
" But I can't prove it, man."
" You don't have to ; it's up to Keen & Co. to prove it. That's why you employ them."
" What wild nonsense you talk ! Keen & C$. might, perhaps, be able to trace the concrete, but how are they going to trace and find the abstract ? "
" She isn't abstract ; she is a lovely, healthy, and youthful concrete object — if, as you say, she does exist."
" How can I prove she exists? "
" You don't have to ; they do that."
" Look here," said Gatewood almost angrily, " do you suppose that if I were ass enough to go to these people and tell them that I wanted to find my ideal '
"Don't tell them that!"
" But how "
" There is no necessity for going into such 8
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
trivial details. All you need say is : ' I am very anxious to find a young lady ' — and then describe her as minutely as you please. Then, when they locate a girl of that description they'll notify you ; you will go, judge for yourself whether she is the one woman on earth — and, if disappointed, you need only shake your head and murmur : ' Not the same ! ' And it's for them to find another."
" I won't do it ! " said Gatewood hotly.
" Why not ? At least, it would be amusing. You haven't many mental resources, and it might occupy you for a week or two."
Gatewood glared.
" You have a pleasant way of putting things this morning, haven't you ? "
"I don't want to be pleasant: I want to jar you. Don't I care enough about you to breakfast with you? Then I've a right to be pleasantly un pleasant. I can't bear to watch your mental and spiritual dissolution — a man like you, with all your latent ability and capacity for being nobody in particular — which is the sort of man this nation needs. Do you want to turn into a club-window gazer like Van Bronk? Do you want to become another Courtlandt Allerton and go rocking down the avenue — a grimacing, tailor-made sepulcher? — the pompous obsequies of a dead intellect? —
9
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
a funeral on two wavering legs, carrying the corpse of all that should be deathless in a man? Why, Jack, I'd rather see you in bankruptcy — I'd rather see you trying to lead a double life in a single flat on seven dollars and a half a week — I'd almost rather see you every day at breakfast than have it come to that !
"Wake up and get jocund with life! Why, you could have all good citizens stung to death if you chose. It isn't that I want you to make money ; but I want you to worry over somebody besides yourself — not in Wall Street — a pool and its money are soon parted. But in your own home, where a beautiful wife and seven angel children have you dippy and close to the ropes ; where the housekeeper gets a rake off, and the cook is red headed and comes from Sligo, and the butler's cousin will bear watching, and the chauffeur is a Frenchman, and the coachman's uncle is a Harlem vet, and every scullion in the establishment lies, drinks, steals, and supports twenty satiated rela tives at your expense. That would mean the mak ing of you ; for, after all, Jack, you are no genius —you're a plain, non-partisan, uninspired, clean- built, wholesome citizen, thank God! — the sort whose unimaginative mission is to pitch in with eighty-odd millions of us and, like the busy coral 10
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
creatures, multiply with all your might, and make this little old Republic the greatest, biggest, finest article that an overworked world has ever yet put up ! ... Now you can call for help if you choose."
Gatewood's breath returned slowly. In an in timacy of many years he had never suspected that sort of thing from Kerns. That is why, no doubt, the opinions expressed by Kerns stirred him to an astonishment too innocent to harbor anger or chagrin.
And when Kerns stood up with an unembar rassed laugh, saying, " I'm going to the office ; see you this evening ? " Gatewod replied rather vacantly : " Oh, yes ; I'm dining here. Good-by, Tommy."
Kerns glanced at his watch, lingering. " Was there anything you wished to ask me, Jack? " he inquired guilelessly.
" Ask you? No, I don't think so."
" Oh ; I had an idea you might care to know where Keen & Co. were to be found."
" That," said Gatewood firmly, " is foolish."
" I'll write the address for you, anyway," re joined Kerns, scribbling it and handing the card to his friend.
Then he went down the stairs, several at a time, 11
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
eased in conscience, satisfied that he had done his duty by a friend he cared enough for to breakfast with.
" Of course," he ruminated as he crawled into a hansom and lay back buried in meditation — " of course there may be nothing in this Keen & Co. business. But it will stir him up and set him thinking ; and the longer Keen & Co. take to hunt up an imaginary lady that doesn't exist, the more anxious and impatient poor old Jack Gatewood will become, until he'll catch the fever and go can tering about with that one fixed idea in his head. And," added Kerns softly, " no New Yorker in his right mind can go galloping through these five boroughs very long before he's roped, tied, and marked by the ' only girl in the world ' — the only girl — if you don't care to turn around and look at another million girls precisely like her. O Lord ! — precisely like her ! "
Here was a nice exhorter to incite others to matrimony.
CHAPTER II
MEANWHILE, Gatewood was walking along Fifth Avenue, more or less soothed by the May sunshine. First, he went to his hatters, looked at straw hats, didn't like them, protested, and bought one, wish ing he had strength of mind enough to wear it home. But he hadn't. Then he entered the huge white marble palace of his jeweler, left his watch to be regulated, caught a glimpse of a girl whose hair and neck resembled the hair and neck of his ideal, sidled around until he discovered that she was chewing gum, and backed off, with a bitter smile, into the avenue once more.
Every day for years he had had glimpses of girls whose hair, hands, figures, eyes, hats, car riage, resembled the features required by his ideal ; there always was something wrong somewhere. And, as he strolled moodily, a curious feeling of despair seized him — something that, even in his most sentimental moments, even amid the most unexpected disappointment, he had never before experienced.
" I do want to love somebody! " he found him- 13
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
self saying half aloud ; " I want to marry ; I — " He turned to look after three pretty children with their maids — " I want several like those — several ! — seven — ten — I don't care how many ! I want a house to worry me, just as Tommy described it ; I want to see the same girl across the breakfast table — or she can sip her cocoa in bed if she de sires " A slow, modest blush stole over his
features; it was one of the nicest things he ever did. Glancing up, he beheld across the way a white sign, ornamented with strenuous crimson lettering :
KEEN & CO.
TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS
The moment he discovered it, he realized he had been covertly hunting for it ; he also realized that he was going to climb the stairs. He hadn't quite decided what he meant to do after that; nor was his mind clear on the matter when he found him self opening a door of opaque glass on which was printed in red:
KEEN & CO.
He was neither embarrassed nor nervous when he found himself in a big carpeted anteroom where a negro attendant bowed him to a seat and 14
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
took his card ; and he looked calmly around to see what was to be seen.
Several people occupied easy chairs in various parts of the room — an old woman very neatly dressed, clutching in her withered hand a photo graph which she studied and studied with tear- dimmed eyes; a young man wearing last year's most fashionable styles in everything except his features: and soap could have aided him there; two policemen, helmets resting on their knees ; and, last of all, a rather thin child of twelve, staring open-mouthed at everybody, a bundle of soiled clothing under one arm. Through an open door he saw a dozen young women garbed in black, with white cuffs and collars, all rattling away steadily at typewriters. Every now and then, from some hidden office, a bell rang decisively, and one of the girls would rise from her machine and pass noise lessly out of sight to obey the summons. From time to time, too, the darky servant with marvel ous manners would usher somebody through the room where the typewriters were rattling, into the unseen office. First the old woman went — shakily, clutching her photograph ; then the thin child with the bundle, staring at everything; then the two fat policemen, in portentous single file, helmets in their white-gloved hands, oiled hair glistening. 15
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Gatewood's turn was approaching; he waited without any definite emotion, watching newcomers enter to take the places of those who had been summoned. He hadn't the slightest idea of what he was to say; nor did it worry him. A curious sense of impending good fortune left him pleas antly tranquil ; he picked up, from the silver tray on the table at his elbow, one of the firm's business cards, and scanned it with interest:
KEEN & CO.
TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS
Keen $• Co. are prepared to locate the whereabouts of anybody on earth. No charges will be made unless the person searched for is found.
Blanks on application.
WESTREL KEEN, Manager.
" Mistuh Keen will see you, suh," came a per suasive voice at his elbow ; and he rose and followed the softly moving colored servant out of the room, through a labyrinth of demure young women at their typewriters, then sharply to the right and into a big, handsomely furnished office, where a sleepy-looking elderly gentleman rose from an armchair and bowed. There could not be the 16
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
slightest doubt that he was a gentleman; every movement, every sound he uttered, settled the fact.
"Mr. Keen?"
"Mr. Gatewood? " — with a quiet certainty which had its charm. " This is very good of you."
Gatewood sat down and looked at his host. Then he said : " I'm searching for somebody, Mr. Keen, whom you are not likely to find."
" I doubt it," said Keen pleasantly.
Gatewood smiled. " If," he said, " you will un dertake to find the person I cannot find, I must ask you to accept a retainer."
" We don't require retainers," replied Keen. " Unless we find the person sought for, we make no charges, Mr. Gatewood."
" I must ask you to do so in my case. It is not fair that you should undertake it on other terms. I desire to make a special arrangement with you. Do you mind? "
"What arrangement had you contemplated?" inquired Keen, amused.
" Only this : charge me in advance exactly what you would charge if successful. And, on the other hand, do not ask me for detailed information —I mean, do not insist on any information that I decline to give. Do you mind taking up such 17
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
an extraordinary and unbusinesslike proposition, Mr. Keen?"
The Tracer of Lost Persons looked up sharply :
" About how much information do you decline to give, Mr. Gatewood? "
" About enough to incriminate and degrade," replied the young man, laughing.
The elderly gentleman sat silent, apparently buried in meditation. Once or twice his pleasant steel-gray eyes wandered over Gatewood as an ex pert, a connoisseur, glances at a picture and as similates its history, its value, its artistic merit, its every detail in one practiced glance.
" I think we may take up this matter for you, Mr. Gatewood," he said, smiling his singularly agreeable smile.
" But — but you would first desire to know something about me — would you not? "
Keen looked at him : " You will not mistake me —you will consider it entirely inoffensive — if I say that I know something about you, Mr. Gate- wood? "
" About me? How can you ? Of course, there is the social register and the club lists and all that "
"And many, many sources of information which are necessary in such a business as this, Mr. Gate- 18
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
wood. It is a necessity for us to be almost as well informed as our clients' own lawyers. I could pay you no sincerer compliment than to undertake your case. I am half inclined to do so even with out a retainer. Mind, I haven't yet said that I will take it."
" I prefer to reg'ilate any possible indebtedness in advance," said Gatewood.
" As you wish," replied the older man, smiling. " In that case, suppose you draw your check " (he handed Gatewood a fountain pen as the young man fished a check-book from his pocket) — " your check for — well, say for $5,000, to the order of Keen & Co."
Gatewood met his eye without wincing; he was in for it now; and he was always perfectly game. He had brought it upon himself; it was his own proposition. Not that he would have for a mo ment considered the sum as high — or any sum ex orbitant — if there had been a chance of success; one cannot compare and weigh such matters. But how could there be any chance for success ?
As he slowly smoothed out the check and stub, pen poised, Keen was saying : " Of course, we should succeed sooner or later — if we took up your case. We might succeed to-morrow — to-day. That would mean a large profit for us. But we 19
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
might not succeed to-day, or next month, or even next year. That would leave us little or no profit ; and, as it is our custom to go on until we do suc ceed, no matter how long it may require, you see, Mr. Gatewood, I should be taking all sorts of chances. It might even cost us double your re tainer before we found her "
" Her ? How did — why do you say ' her ' ? "
" Am I wrong? " asked Keen, smiling.
" No — you are right."
The Tracer of Lost Persons sank into abstrac tion again. Gatewood waited, hoping that his case might be declined, yet ready to face any music started at his own request.
" She is young," mused Keen aloud, " very beautiful and accomplished. Is she wealthy ? " He looked up mildly.
Gatewood said : " I don't know — the truth is I don't care " And stopped.
"O-ho!" mused Keen slowly. " I— think— I understand. Am I wrong, Mr. Gatewood, in sur mising that this young lady whom you seek is, in your eyes, very — I may say ideally gifted? "
" She is my ideal," replied the young man, coloring.
" Exactly. And — her general allure? "
"Charming!"
20
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Exactly ; but to be a trifle more precise — if you could give me a sketch, an idea, a mere outline delicately tinted, now. Is she more blond than brunette?"
« Yes — but her eyes are brown. I — I insist on that."
" Why should you not ? You know her ; I don't," said Keen, laughing. " I merely wished to form a mental picture. . . . You say her hair is
-is-
" It's full of sunny color ; that's all I can say."
" Exactly — I see. A rare and lovely combina tion with brown eyes and creamy skin, Mr. Gate- wood. I fancy she might be, perhaps, an inch or two under your height? "
" Just about that. Her hands should be — are beautiful "
" Exactly. The ensemble is most vividly por trayed, Mr. Gatewood; and — you have intimated that her lack of fortune — er — we might almost say her pecuniary distress — is more than compen sated for by her accomplishments, character, and very unusual beauty. . . . Did I so understand you, Mr. Gatewood?"
" That's what I meant, anyhow," he said, flushing up.
"You did mean it?"
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"I did: I do."
" Then we take your case, Mr. Gatewood. . . . No haste about the check, my dear sir — pray con sider us at your service."
But Gatewood doggedly filled in the check and handed it to the Tracer of Lost Persons.
" I wish you happiness," said the older man in a low voice. " The lady you describe exists ; it is for us to discover her."
"Thank you," stammered Gatewood, astounded.
Keen touched an electric button; a moment later a young girl entered the room.
" Miss Southerland, Mr. Gatewood. Will you be kind enough to take Mr. Gatewood's dictation in Room 19?"
For a second Gatewood stared — as though in the young girl before him the ghost of his ideal had risen to confront him — only for a second; then he bowed, matching her perfect acknowledg ment of his presence by a bearing and courtesy which must have been inbred to be so faultless.
And he followed her to Room 19.
What had Keen meant by saying, " The lady you describe exists ! " Did this remarkable elderly gentleman suspect that it was to be a hunt for an ideal? Had he deliberately entered into such a bargain ? Impossible !
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
His disturbed thoughts reverted to the terms of the bargain, the entire enterprise, the figures on his check. His own amazing imbecility appalled him. What idiocy ! What sudden madness had seized him to entangle himself in such unheard-of negotiations! True, he had played bridge until dawn the night before, but, on awaking, he had discovered no perceptible hold-over. It must have been sheer weakness of intellect that per mitted him to be dominated by the suggestions of Kerns. And now the game was on: the jack declared, cards dealt, and his ante was up. Had he openers?
Room 19, duly labeled with its number on the opaque glass door, contained a desk, a table and typewriter, several comfortable chairs, and a win dow opening on Fifth Avenue, through which the eastern sun poured a stream of glory, washing curtain, walls, and ceiling with palest gold.
And all this time, preoccupied with new impres sions and his own growing chagrin, he watched the girl who conducted him with all the unconscious assurance and grace of a young chatelaine pass ing through her own domain under escort of a distinguished guest.
When they had entered Room 19, she half turned, but he forestalled her and closed the door, 3 23
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
and she passed before him with a perceptible in clination of her finely modeled head, seating her self at the desk by the open window. He took an armchair at her elbow and removed his gloves, looking at her expectantly.
CHAPTER III
" THIS is a list of particular and general ques tions for you to answer, Mr. Gatewood," she said, handing him a long slip of printed matter. ' The replies to such questions as you are able or willing to answer you may dictate to me." The beauty of her modulated voice was scarcely a surprise — no woman who moved and carried herself as did this tall young girl in black and white could reasonably be expected to speak with less distinc tion — yet the charm of her voice, from the mo ment her lips unclosed, so engrossed him that the purport of her speech escaped him.
"Would you mind saying it once more?" he asked.
She did so; he attempted to concentrate his attention, and succeeded sufficiently to look as though some vestige of intellect remained in him. He saw her pick up a pad and pencil ; the contour and grace of two deliciously fashioned hands ar rested his mental process once more.
" I beg your pardon," he said hastily ; " what were you saying, Miss Southerland? " 25
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Nothing, Mr. Gatewood. I did not speak." And he realized, hazily, that she had not spoken — that it was the subtle eloquence of her youth and loveliness that had appealed like a sudden voice — a sound faintly exquisite echoing his own thought of her.
Troubled, he looked at the slip of paper in his hand ; it was headed :
SPECIAL DESCRIPTION BLANK (Form K)
And he read it as carefully as he was able to — the curious little clamor of his pulses, the dazed sense of elation, almost of expectation, distracting his attention all the time.
" I wish you would read it to me," he said ; " that would give me time to think up answers."
" If you wish," she assented pleasantly, swing ing around toward him in her desk chair. Then she crossed one knee over the other to support the pad, and, bending above it, lifted her brown eyes. She could have done nothing in the world more distracting at that moment.
" What is the sex of the person you desire to find, Mr. Gatewood?"
" Her sex? I — well, I fancy it is feminine."
She wrote after " Sex " the words " She is 26
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
probably feminine " ; looked at him absently, glanced at what she had written, flushed a little, rubbed out the " she is probably," wondering why a moment's mental wandering should have com mitted her to absurdity.
" Married? " she asked with emphasis.
" No," he replied, startled ; then, vexed, " I beg your pardon — you mean to ask if she is married ! "
" Oh, I didn't mean you, Mr. Gatewood ; it's the next question, you see " — she held out the blank toward him. " Is the person you are looking for married ? "
" Oh, no ; she isn't married, either — at least— - I trust — not — because if she is I don't want to find her ! " he ended, entangled in an explanation which threatened to involve him deeper than he desired. And, looking up, he saw the beautiful brown eyes regarding him steadily. They reverted to the paper at once, and the white fingers sent the pencil flying.
" He trusts that she is unmarried, but if she is (underlined) married he doesn't want to find her," she wrote.
" That," she explained, " goes under the head of ' General Remarks ' at the bottom of the page " — she held it out, pointing with her pencil. He nodded, staring at her slender hand. 27
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Age?" she continued, setting the pad firmly on her rounded, yielding knee and looking up at him.
"Age? Well, I — as a matter of fact, I could only venture a surmise. You know," he said ear nestly, " how difficult it is to guess ages, don't you, Miss Southerland ? "
" How old do you think she is ? Could you not hazard a guess — judging, say, from her appear ance ? "
" I have no data — no experience to guide me." He was becoming involved again. " Would you, for practice, permit me first to guess your age, Miss Southerland?"
" Why — yes — if you think that might help you to guess hers."
So he leaned back in his armchair and consid ered her a very long time — having a respectable excuse to do so. Twenty times he forgot he was looking at her for any purpose except that of dis interested delight, and twenty times he remem bered with a guilty wince that it was a matter of business.
" Perhaps I had better tell you," she sug gested, her color rising a little under his scru tiny.
" Is it eighteen? Just her age! " 28
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Twenty-one, Mr. Gatewood — and you said you didn't know her age."
" I have just remembered that I thought it might be eighteen; but I dare say I was shy three years in her case, too. You may put it down at twenty-one."
For the slightest fraction of a second the brown eyes rested on his, the pencil hovered in hesitation. Then the eyes fell, and the moving fingers wrote.
"Did you write 'twenty-one'?" he inquired carelessly.
" I did not, Mr. Gatewood."
"What did you write?"
"I wrote: 'He doesn't appear to know much about her age.' '
" But I do know "
" You said " They looked at one another
earnestly.
" The next question," she continued with com posure, " is : ' Date and place of birth? ' Can you answer any part of that question? "
"I trust I may be able to — some day. . . . What are you writing? "
"I'm writing: 'He trusts he may be able to, some day.' Wasn't that what you said? "
"Yes, I did say that. I— I'm not perfectly sure what I meant by it." 29
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
She passed to the next question :
"Height?"
" About five feet six," he said, fascinated gaze on her.
"Hair?"
" More gold than brown — full of — er — gleams " She looked up quickly; his eyes re verted to the window rather suddenly. He had been looking at her hair.
" Complexion? " she continued after a shade of hesitation.
" It's a sort of delicious mixture — bisque, tinted
with a pinkish bloom — ivory and rose " He
was explaining volubly, when she began to shake her head, timing each shake to his words.
" Really, Mr. Gatewood, I think you are hope lessly vague on that point — unless you desire to convey the impression that she is speckled."
" Speckled ! " he repeated, horrified. " Why, I am describing a woman who is my ideal of beauty "
But she had already gone to the next question :
"Teeth?"
" P-p-perf ect p-p-pearls ! " he stammered. The laughing red mouth closed like a flower at dusk, veiling the sparkle of her teeth.
Was he trying to be impertinent? Was he de- 30
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
liberately describing her? He did not look like that sort of man ; yet why was he watching her so closely, so curiously at every question? Why did he look at her teeth when she laughed?
" Eyes ? " Her own dared him to continue what, coincidence or not, was plainly a description of herself.
" B-b-b " He grew suddenly timorous,
hesitating, pretending to a perplexity which was really a healthy scare. For she was frown ing.
" Curious I can't think of the color of her eyes," he said; " is— isn't it?"
She coldly inspected her pad and made a cor rection; but all she did was to rub out a comma and put another in its place. Meanwhile, Gate- wood, chin in his hand, sat buried in profound thought. " Were they blue?" he murmured to himself aloud, " or were they brown? Blue begins with a b and brown begins with a b. I'm con vinced that her eyes began with a b. They were not, therefore, gray or green, because," he added in a burst of confidence, " it is utterly impossible to spell gray or green with a b!"
Miss Southerland looked slightly astonished.
" All you can recollect, then, is that the color of her eyes began with the letter b? " 31
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" That is absolutely all I can remember ; but I think they were — brown."
" If they were brown they must be brown now," she observed, looking out of the window.
" That's true ! Isn't it curious I never thought of that? What are you writing? "
" Brown," she said, so briefly that it sounded something like a snub.
" Mouth ? " inquired the girl, turning a new leaf on her pad.
" Perfect. Write it : there is no other term fit to describe its color, shape, its sensitive beauty, its What did you write just then? "
" I wrote, ' Mouth, ordinary.' "
" I don't want you to ! I want "
" Really, Mr. Gatewood, a rhapsody on a girl's mouth is proper in poetry, but scarcely germane to the record of a purely business transaction. Please answer the next question tersely, if you don't mind: ' Figure? ' "
" Oh, I do mind ! I can't ! Any poem is much too brief to describe her figure "
" Shall we say ' Perfect '? " asked the girl, rais ing her brown eyes in a glimmering transition from vexation to amusement. For, after all, it could be only a coincidence that this young man should be describing features peculiar to herself.
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Couldn't you write, ' Venus-of-Milo-like ' ? " he inquired. " That is laconic."
" I could — if it's true. But if you mean it for praise — I — don't think any modern woman would be flattered."
" I always supposed that she of Milo had an ideal figure," he said, perplexed.
She wrote, " A good figure." Then, propping her rounded chin on one lovely white hand, she glanced at the next question :
"Hands?"
" White, beautiful, rose-tipped, slender yet softly and firmly rounded "
" How can they be soft and firm, too, Mr. Gate- wood? " she protested; then, surprising his guilty eyes fixed on her hands, hastily dropped them and sat up straight, level-browed, cold as marble. Was he deliberately being rude to her?
33
CHAPTER IV
As a matter of fact, he was not. Too poor in imagination to invent, on the spur of the moment, charms and qualities suited to his ideal, he had, at first unconsciously, taken as a model the girl be fore him ; quite unconsciously and innocently at first — then furtively, and with a dawning percep tion of the almost flawless beauty he was secretly plagiarizing. Aware, now, that something had annoyed her ; aware, too, at the same moment that there appeared to be nothing lacking in her to satisfy his imagination of the ideal, he began to turn redder than he had ever turned in all his life.
Several minutes of sixty seconds each ensued before he ventured to stir a finger. And it was only when she bent again very gravely over her pad that he cautiously eased a cramped muscle or two, and drew a breath — a long, noiseless, deep and timid respiration. He realized the enormity of what he had been doing — how close he had come to giving unpardonable offense by drawing a per fect portrait of her as the person he desired to find through the good offices of Keen & Co. 34
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
But there was no such person — unless she had a double: for what more could a man desire than the ideal traits he had been able to describe only by using her as his inspiration.
When he ventured to look at her, one glance was enough to convince him that she, too, had noticed the parallel — had been forced to recognize her own features in the portrait he had constructed of an ideal. And she had caught him in absent-minded contemplation of the hands he had been describ ing. He knew that his face was the face of a guilty man.
" What is the next question ? " he stammered, eager to answer it in a manner calculated to allay her suspicions.
" The next question ? " She glanced at the list, then with a voice of velvet which belied the eyes, clear as frosty brown pools in November : " The next question requires a description of her feet."
" Feet ! Oh — they — they're rather large — — why, her feet are enormous, I believe "
She looked at him as though stunned ; suddenly a flood of pink spread, wave on wave, from the white nape of her neck to her hair; she bent low over her pad and wrote something, remaining in that attitude until her face cooled.
" Somehow or other I've done it again ! " he 35
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
thought, horrified. " The best thing I can do is to end it and go home."
In his distress he began to hedge, saying : " Of course, she is rather tall and her feet are in some sort of proportion — in fact, they are perfectly symmetrical feet "
Never in his life had he encountered a pair of such angrily beautiful eyes. Speech stopped with a dry gulp.
" We now come to ' General Remarks,' " she said in a voice made absolutely steady and emo tionless. " Have you any remarks of that de scription to offer, Mr. Gatewood? "
" I'm willing to make remarks," he said, " if I only knew what you wished me to say."
She mused, eyes on the sunny window, then looked up. " Where did you last see her? "
" Near Fifth Avenue."
"And what street?"
He named the street.
" Near here ? "
" Rather," he said timidly.
She ruffled the edges of her pad, wrote some thing and erased it, bit her scarlet upper lip, and frowned.
" Out of doors, of course? "
" No ; indoors," he admitted furtively. 36
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
She looked up with a movement almost nervous.
" Do you dare — I mean, care — to be more concise? "
" I would rather not," he replied in a voice from which he hoped he had expelled the tremors of alarm.
" As you please, Mr. Gatewood. And would you care to answer any of these other questions: Who and what are or were her parents? Give all particulars concerning all her relatives. Is she employed or not? What are her social, financial, and general circumstances? Her character, per sonal traits, aims, interests, desires? Has she any vices? Any virtues? Talents? Ambitions? Ca prices? Fads? Are you in love with her? Is "
" Yes," he said, " I am."
" Is she in love with you? "
" No ; she hates me — I'm afraid."
" Is she in love with anybody ? "
" That is a very difficult "
The girl wrote : " He doesn't know," with a sat isfaction apparently causeless.
" Is she a relative of yours, Mr. Gatewood? " very sweetly.
" No, Miss Southerland," very positively.
" You — you desire to marry her — you say ? " 37
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" I do. But I didn't say it."
She was silent ; then :
" What is her name ? " in a low voice which started several agreeable thrills chasing one an other over him.
" I — I decline to answer," he stammered.
" On what grounds, Mr. Gatewood? "
He looked her full in the eyes ; suddenly he bent forward and gazed at the printed paper from which she had been apparently reading.
" Why, all those questions you are scaring me with are not there ! " he exclaimed indignantly. " You are making them up ? "
" I — I know, but " — she was flushing furiously — " but they are on the other forms — some of them. Can't you see you are answering 6 Form K '? That is a special form "
" But why do you ask me questions that are not on Form K?"
" Because it is my duty to do all I can to secure evidence which may lead to the discovery of the person you desire to find. I — I assure you, Mr. Gatewood, this duty is not — not always agreeable — and some people make it harder still."
Gatewood looked out of the window. Various emotions — among them shame, mortification, cha grin — pervaded him, and chased each other along
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
his nervous system, coloring his neck and ears a fiery red for the enlightenment of any observer.
"I — I did not mean to offend you," said the girl in a low voice — such a gently regretful voice that Gatewood swung around in his chair.
" There is nothing I would not be glad to tell you about the woman I have fallen in love with," he said. " She is overwhelmingly lovely ; and — when I dare — I will tell you her name and where I first saw her — and where I saw her last — if you desire. Shall I?"
" It would be advisable. When will you do this?"
" When I dare."
" You — you don't dare — now ? "
" No . . . not now."
She absently wrote on her pad : " He doesn't dare tell me now." Then, with head still bent, she lifted her mischief -making, trouble-breeding brown eyes to his once more.
" I am to come here, of course, to consult you? " he asked dizzily.
" Mr. Keen will receive you "
" He may be busy."
" He may be," she repeated dreamily.
« So— I'll ask for you."
" We could write you, Mr. Gatewood." 4 39
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
He said hastily : " It's no trouble for me to come ; I walk every morning."
" But there would be no use, I think, in your coming very soon. All I — all Mr. Keen could do
for a while would be to report progress "
4 That is all I dare look for : progress — for the present."
During the time that he remained — which was not very long — neither of them spoke until he arose to take his departure.
" Good-by, Miss Southerland. I hope you may find the person I have been searching for."
" Good-by, Mr. Gatewood. ... I hope we shall ; . . . but I— don't— know."
And, as a matter of fact, she did not know ; she was rather excited over nothing, apparently ; and also somewhat preoccupied with several rather dis turbing emotions the species of which she was in terested in determining. But to label and cata logue each of these emotions separately required privacy and leisure to think — and she also wished to look very earnestly at the reflection of her own face in the mirror of her own chamber. For it is a trifle exciting — though but an innocent coinci dence — to be compared, feature by feature, to a young man's ideal. As far as that went, she ex celled it, too ; and, as she stood by the desk, alone, 40
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
gathering up her notes, she suddenly bent over and lifted the hem of her gown a trifle — sufficient to reassure herself that the dainty pair of shoes she wore, would have baffled the efforts of any Venus ever sculptured. And she was perfectly right.
" Of course," she thought to herself, " his ideal runaway hasn't enormous feet. He, too, must have been struck with the similarity between me and his ideal, and when he realized that I also noticed it, he was frightened by my frown into say ing that her feet were enormous. How silly ! . . . For I didn't mean to frighten him. . . . He frightened me — once or twice — I mean he irri tated me — no, interested me, is what I do mean. . . . Heigho ! I wonder why she ran away ? I wonder why he can't find her? . . . It's — it's silly to run away from a man like that. . . . Heigho! . . . She doesn't deserve to be found; There is nothing to be afraid of — nothing to alarm any body in a man like that."
So she gathered up her notes and walked slowly out and across to the private office of the Tracer of Lost Persons.
" Come in," said the Tracer when she knocked. He was using the telephone; she seated herself rather listlessly beside the window, where spring 41
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
sunshine lay in gilded patches on the rug and spring breezes stirred the curtains. She was a little tired, but there seemed to be no good reason why. Yet, with the soft wind blowing on her cheek, the languor grew ; she rested her face on one closed hand, shutting her eyes.
When they opened again it was to meet the fixed gaze of Mr. Keen.
" Oh — I beg your pardon ! "
'There is no need of it, child. Be seated. Never mind that report just now." He paced the length of the room once or twice, hands clasped behind him ; then, halting to confront her :
''What sort of a man is this young Gate- wood? "
"What sort, Mr. Keen? Why— I think he is the — the sort — that "
"I see that you don't think much of him," said Keen, laughing.
" Oh, indeed I did not mean that at all ; I mean that he appeared to be — to be "
"Rather a cad?"
" Why, no ! " she said, flushing up. " He is absolutely well-bred, Mr. Keen."
6 You received no unpleasant impression of him?"
" On the contrary ! " she said rather warmly — 42
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
for it hurt her sense of justice that Keen should so misjudge even a stranger in whom she had no personal interest.
" You think he looks like an honest man? " "Honest?" She was rosy with annoyance. " Have you any idea that he is dishonest? " "Have you?"
" Not the slightest," she said with emphasis. " Suppose a man should set us hunting for a person who does not exist— on our terms, which are no payment unless successful? Would that be honest? " asked Keen gravely. "Did— did he do that?" " No, child." " I knew he couldn't do such a thing ! "
" No, he er — couldn't, because I wouldn't
allow it— not that he tried to! " added Keen has tily as the indignant brown eyes sparkled omi nously. " Really, Miss Southerland, he must be all you say he is, for he has a stanch champion to vouch for him."
"All I say he is? I haven't said anything about him ! "
Mr. Keen nodded. " Exactly. Let us drop him for a moment. . . . Are you perfectly well, Miss Southerland?" " Why, yes."
43
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" I'm glad of it. You are a trifle pale ; you seem to be a little languid. . . . When do you take your vacation ? "
" You suggested May, I believe," she said wist fully.
The Tracer leaned back in his chair, joining the tips of his fingers reflectively.
" Miss Southerland," he said, " you have been with us a year. I thought it might interest you to know that I am exceedingly pleased with you."
She colored charmingly.
"But," he added, "I'm terribly afraid we're going to lose you."
"Why?" she asked, startled.
" However," he continued, ignoring her half- frightened question with a smile, " I am going to promote you — for faithful and efficient service."
"O-h!"
" With an agreeable increase of salary, and new duties which will take you into the open air. . . . You ride?"
" I— I used to before "
" Exactly ; before you were obliged to earn
your living. Please have yourself measured for
habit and boots this afternoon. I shall arrange
for horse, saddle, and groom. You will spend
44
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
most of your time riding in the Park — for the present."
" But — Mr. Keen — am I to be one of your agents — a sort of detective? "
Keen regarded her absently, then crossed one leg over the other.
" Read me your notes," he said with a smile.
She read them, folded them, and he took them from her, thoughtfully regarding her.
" Did you know that your mother and I were children together ? " he asked.
" No ! " She stared. " Is that why you sent for me that day at the school of stenography ? "
" That is why. . . . When I learned that my playmate — your mother — was dead, is it not rea sonable to suppose that I should wish her daughter to have a chance ? "
Miss Southerland looked at him steadily.
" She was like you — when she married. ... I never married. . . . Do you wonder that I sent for you, child ? "
Nothing but the clock ticking there in the sunny room, and an old man staring into two dimmed brown eyes, and the little breezes at the open window whispering of summers past.
" This young man, Gatewood," said the Tracer, clearing his voice of its hoarseness — " this young 45
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
man ought to be all right, if I did not misjudge his father — years ago, child, years ago. And he
is all right " He half turned toward a big
letter-file; "his record is clean, so far. The trouble with him is idleness. He ought to marry."
" Isn't he trying to? " she asked.
" It looks like it. Miss Southerland, we must find this woman ! "
4 Yes, but I don't see how you are going to — on such slight information "
"Information! Child, I have all I want — all I could desire." He laughed, passing his hands over his gray hair. "We are going to find the girl he is in love with before the week ends ! "
" Do you really think so? " she exclaimed.
;< Yes. But you must do a great deal in this case."
" I ? "
" feictly."
" And — and what am I to do? "
" Ride in the Park, child ! And if you see Mr. Gatewood, don't you dare take your eyes off him for one moment. Watch him; observe everything he does. If he should recognize you and speak to you, be as amiable to him as though it were not by my orders."
46
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Then — then I am to be a detective!" she faltered.
The Tracer did not appear to hear her. He took up the notes, turned to the telephone, and began to send out a general alarm, reading the description of the person whom Gatewood had described. The vast, intricate and delicate ma chinery under his control was being set in motion all over the Union.
" Not that I expect to find her outside the bor ough of Manhattan," he said, smiling, as he hung up the receiver and turned to her; "but it's as well to know how many types of that species exist in this Republic, and who they are — in case any other young man comes here raving of brown eyes and 6 gleams ' in the hair."
Miss Southerland, to her own intense consterna tion, blushed.
" I think you had better order that habit at once," said the Tracer carelessly.
"Tell me, Mr. Keen," she asked tremulously, " am I to spy upon Mr. Gatewood ? And report to you? . . . For I simply cannot bear to do
" Child, you need report nothing unless you de sire to. And when there is something to report, it will be about the woman I am searching for. 47
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Don't you understand? I have already located her. You will find her in the Park. And when you are sure she is the right one— and if you care to report it to me — I shall be ready to listen. . . . I am always ready to listen to you."
" But — I warn you, Mr. Keen, that I have per fect faith in the honor of Mr. Gatewood. I know that I could have nothing unworthy to report."
" I am sure of it," said the Tracer of Lost Per sons, studying her with eyes that were not quite clear. " Now, I think you had better order that habit. . . . Your mother sat her saddle perfectly. . . . We rode very often — my lost playmate and I."
He turned, hands clasped behind his back, ab sently pacing the room, backward, forward, there in the spring sunshine. Nor did he notice her lin gering, nor mark her as she stole from the room, brown eyes saddened and thoughtful, wondering, too, that there should be in the world so much room for sorrow.
48
I am sure of it/ said the Tracer of Lost Persons."
CHAPTER V
GATEWOOD, burdened with restlessness and gnawed by curiosity, consumed a week in prowl ing about the edifice where Keen & Co. carried on an interesting profession.
His first visit resulted merely in a brief inter view with Mr. Keen, who smilingly reported progress and suavely bowed him out. He looked about for Miss Southerland as he was leaving, but did not see her.
On his second visit he mustered the adequate courage to ask for her, and experienced a curi ously sickly sensation when informed that Miss Southerland was no longer employed in the bureau of statistics, having been promoted to an outside position of great responsibility. His third visit proved anything but satisfactory. He sidled and side-stepped for ten minutes before he dared ask Mr. Keen where Miss Southerland had gone. And when the Tracer replied that, considering the business he had undertaken for Mr. Gatewood, he really could not see why Mr. Gatewood should in- 49
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
terest himself concerning the whereabouts of Miss Southerland, the young man had nothing to say, and escaped as soon as possible, enraged at him self, at Mr. Keen, and vaguely holding the entire world guilty of conspiracy.
He had no definite idea of what he wanted, ex cept that his desire to see Miss Southerland again seemed out of all proportion to any reasonable motive for seeing her. Occasional fits of disgust with himself for what he had done were varied with moody hours of speculation. Suppose Mr. Keen did find his ideal? What of it? He no longer wanted to see her. He had no use for her. The savor of the enterprise had gone stale in his mouth; he was by turns worried, restless, melan choly, sulky, uneasy. A vast emptiness pervaded his life. He smoked more and more and ate less and less. He even disliked to see others eat, par ticularly Kerns.
And one exquisite May morning he came down to breakfast and found the unspeakable Kerns im mersed in grapefruit, calm, well balanced, and bland.
"How-de-dee, dear friend?" said that gen tleman affably. "Any news from Cupid this beautiful May morning? "
" No ; and I don't want any," returned Gate- 50
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
wood, sorting his mail with a scowl and waving away his fruit.
" Tut, tut ! Lovers must be patient. Dearie will be found some day "
" Some day," snarled Gatewood, " I shall de stroy you, Tommy."
" Naughty ! Naughty ! " reflected Kerns, pen sively assaulting the breakfast food. " Lovey must TIO £ worry ; Dovey shall be found, and all will be joy and gingerbread. ... If you throw that orange I'll run screaming to the governors. Aren't you ashamed — just because you're in a love tantrum ! "
" One more word and you get it ! "
" May I sing as I trifle with this frugal fare, dear friend? My heart is so happy that I should love to warble a few wild notes "
He paused to watch his badgered victim dispose of a Martini.
" I wonder," he mused, " if you'd like me to tell you what a cocktail before breakfast does to the lining of your stomach? Would you? "
" No. I suppose it's what the laundress does to my linen. What do I care? "
" Don't be a short sport, Jack."
" Well, I don't care for the game you put me up against. Do you know what has happened? " 51
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"I really don't, dear friend. The Tracer of Lost Persons has not found her — has he? "
" He says he has," retorted Gatewood sullenly, pulling a crumpled telegram from his pocket and casting it upon the table. " I don't want to see her; I'm not interested. I never saw but one girl in my life who interested me in the slightest ; and she's employed to help in this ridiculous search."
Kerns, meanwhile, had smoothed out the tele gram and was intently perusing it:
"John Gatewood, Lenox Club, Fifth Avenue:
" Person probably discovered. Call here as soon as possible. W. KEEN."
" What do you make of that ? " demanded Gate- wood hoarsely.
" Make of it? Why, it's true enough, I fancy. Go and see, and if it's she, be hers ! "
" I won't ! I don't want to see any ideal ! I don't want to marry. Why do you try to make me marry somebody ? "
" Because it's good for you, dear friend. Otherwise you'll go to the doggy-dogs. You don't realize how much worry you are to me."
" Confound it! Why don't you marry? Why
didn't I ask you that when you put me up to all
this foolishness ? What right have you
52
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Tut, friend ! 7 know there's no woman alive fit to wed me and spend her life in stealing kisses from me. / have no ideal. You have an ideal."
"I haven't!"
" Oh, yes, dear friend, there's a stub in your check book to prove it. You simply bet $5,000 that your ideal existed. You've won. Go and be her joy and sunshine."
" I'll put an end to this whole business," said Gatewood wrathf ully, " and I'll do it now ! "
" Bet you that you're engaged within the week ! " said Kerns with a placid smile.
The other swung around savagely : " What will you bet, Tommy? You may have what odds you please. I'll make you sit up for this."
" I'll bet you," answered Kerns, deliberately, " an entire silver dinner service against a saddle horse for the bride."
"That's a fool bet!" snapped Gatewood. " What do you mean ? "
" Oh, if you don't care to "
" What do I want of a silver service? But, all right ; I'll bet you anything."
" She'll want it," replied Kerns significantly, booking the bet. " I may as well canter out to Tiffany's this morning, I fancy. . . . Where are you going, Jack? "
53
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" To see Keen and confess what an ass I've been ! " returned Gatewood sullenly, striding across the breakfast room to take his hat and gloves from the rack. And out he went, mad all over.
On his way up the avenue he attempted to formulate the humiliating confession which al ready he shrank from. But it had to be done. He simply could not stand the prospect of being no tified month after month that a lady would be on view somewhere. It was like going for a fitting; it was horrible. Besides, what use was it ? Within a week or two an enormous and utterly inexplicable emptiness had yawned before him, revealing life as a hollow delusion. He no longer cared.
Immersed in bitter reflection, he climbed the familiar stairway and sent his card to Mr. Keen, and in due time he was ushered into the presence of the Tracer of Lost Persons.
" Mr. Keen," he began, with a headlong desire to get it over and be done with it, " I may as well tell you how impossible it is for you, or anybody, to find that person I described "
Mr. Keen raised an expostulatory hand, smiling indulgence.
" It is more than possible, Mr. Gatewood, more than probable; it is almost an accomplished fact. 54
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
In other words, I think I may venture to congratu late you and say that she is found."
" Now, how can she be found, when there isn't- "
" Mr. Gatewood, the magician will always wave his magic wand for you and show you his miracles for the price of admission. But for that price he does not show you how he works his miracles," said Keen, laughing.
" But I ought to tell you," persisted Gatewood, " that it is utterly impossible you should find the person I wished to discover, because she "
" I can only prove that you are wrong," smiled Keen, rising from his easy chair.
" Mr. Keen," said the young man earnestly, " I have been more or less of a chump at times. One of those times was when I came here on this er rand. All I desire, now, is to let the matter rest as it is. I am satisfied, and you have lost nothing. Nor have you found anything or anybody. You think you have, but you haven't. I do not wish you to continue the search, or to send me any fur ther reports. I want to forget the whole miserable matter — to be free — to feel myself freed from any obligations to that irritating person I asked you to find."
The Tracer regarded him very gravely. 5 55
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Is that your wish, Mr. Gatewood? I can scarcely credit it."
" It is. I've been a fool ; I simply want to stop being one if anybody will permit it."
" And you decline to attempt to identify the very beautiful person we have discovered to be the individual for whom you asked us to search? "
" I do. She may be beautiful ; but I know well enough she can't compare with — some one."
" I am sorry," said Keen thoughtfully. " We take so much pride in these matters. When one of my agents discovered where this person was, I was rather — happy; for I have taken a peculiar personal interest in your case. However "
" Mr. Keen," said Gatewood, " if you could un derstand how ashamed and mortified I am at my own conduct "
Keen gazed pensively out of the window. " I also am sorry; Miss Southerland was to have re ceived a handsome bonus for her discovery "
"Miss S-S-S-S-outherland!"
" .Exactly ; without quite so many *S"s," said Keen, smiling.
"Did she discover that — that person?" ex claimed the young man, startled.
" She thinks she has. I am not sure she is cor rect ; but I am absolutely certain that Miss South- 56
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
erland could eventually discover the person you were in search o£. It seems a little hard on her— just on the eve of success — to lose. But that can't be helped now."
Gatewood, more excited and uncomfortable than he had ever been in all his life, watched Keen intently.
" Too bad, too bad," muttered the Tracer to himself. "The child needs the encouragement. It meant a thousand dollars to her— He
shrugged his shoulders, looked up, and, as though rather surprised to see Gatewood still there, smiled an impersonal smile and offered his hand in adieu. Gatewood winced.
" Could I — I see Miss Southerland? " he asked. " I am afraid not. She is at this moment fol lowing my instructions to — but that cannot in terest you now "
" Yes, it does ! — if you don't mind. Where is she? I — I'll take a look at the person she discov ered ; I will, really."
"Why, it's only this: I suspected that you might identify a person whom I had reason to believe was to be found every morning riding in the Park. So Miss Southerland has been riding there every day. Yesterday she came here,
greatly excited "
57
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Yes — yes — go on ! "
Keen gazed dreamily at the sunny window. " She thought she had found your — er — the per son. So I said you would meet her on the bridle
path, near — but that's of no interest now "
" Near where? " demanded Gatewood, suppress ing inexplicable excitement. And as Keen said nothing: "I'll go; I want to go, I really do! Can't — can't a fellow change his mind? Oh, I know you think I'm a lunatic, and there's plenty of reason, too ! "
Keen studied him calmly. " Yes, plenty of rea son, plenty of reason, Mr. Gatewood. But do you suppose you are the only one? I know another who was perfectly sane two weeks ago."
The young man waited impatiently ; the Tracer paced the room, gray head bent, delicate, wrinkled hands clasped loosely behind his bent back.
" You have horses at the Whip and Spur Club," he said abruptly. " Suppose you ride out and see how close Miss Southerland has come to solving our problem."
Gatewood seized the offered hand and wrung it with a fervor out of all reason ; and it is curious that the Tracer of Lost Persons did not appear to be astonished.
" You're rather impetuous — like your father," 58
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
he said slowly, "I knew him; so I've ventured to trust his son — even when I heard how aimlessly he was living his life. Mr. Gatewood! May I ask you something — as an old friend of your father?"
The young man nodded, subdued, perplexed, scarcely understanding.
" It's only this : If you do find the woman you could love — in the Park — to-day — come back to me some day and let me tell you all those foolish, trite, tiresome things that I should have told a son of mine. I am so old that you will not take Offense — yOU will not mind listening to me, or for getting the dull, prosy things I say about the curse of idleness, and the habits of cynical think ing, and the perils of vacant-minded indulgence. You will forgive me — and you will forget me. That will be as it should be. Good-by."
Gatewood, sobered, surprised, descended the stairs and hailed a hansom.
59
CHAPTER VI
ALL the way to the Whip and Spur Club he sat buried in a reverie from which, at intervals, he started, aroused by the heavy, expectant beating of his own pulses. But what did he expect, in Heaven's name? Not the discovery of a woman who had never existed. Yet his excitement and impatience grew as he watched the saddling of his horse; and when at length he rode out into the sunshine and cantered through the Park entrance, his sense of impending events and his expectancy amounted to a fever which colored his face at tractively.
He saw her almost immediately. Her horse was walking slowly in the dappled shadows of the new foliage; she, listless in her saddle, sometimes watching the throngs of riders passing, at mo ments turning to gaze into the woodland vistas where, over the thickets of flowering shrubbery, orioles and robins sped flashing on tinted wings from shadow to sun, from sun to shadow. But she looked up as he drew bridle and wheeled his mount 60
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
beside her; and, "Oh!" she said, flushing in recognition.
"I have missed you terribly," he said quietly. It was dreamy weather, even for late spring: the scent of lilacs and mock-orange hung heavy as incense along the woods. Their voices uncon sciously found the key to harmonize with it all.
She said : " Well, I think I have succeeded. In a few moments she will be passing. I do not know her name ; she rides a big roan. She is very beau tiful, Mr. Gatewood."
He said : " I am perfectly certain we shall find her. I doubted it until now. But now I know." " Oh-h, but I may be wrong," she protested. " No ; you cannot be." She looked up at him.
" You can have no idea how happy you make me," he said unsteadily.
« But — I — but I may be all wrong — dreadfully wrong ! "
" Y-es ; you may be, but I shall not be. For do you know that I have already seen her in the Park?"
"When?" she demanded incredulously, then turned in the saddle, repeating: "Where? Did she pass ? How perfectly stupid of me ! And was she the — the right one? " 61
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" She is the right one. . . . Don't turn : I have seen her. Ride on: I want to say something — if I can."
" No, no," she insisted. " I must know whether I was right "
" You are right — but you don't know it yet. . . . Oh, very well, then ; we'll turn if you insist." And he wheeled his mount as she did, riding at her bridle again.
" How can you take it so coolly — so indiffer ently?" she said. "Where has that woman — where has she gone? . . . Never mind; she must turn and pass us sooner or later, for she lives up town. What are you laughing at, Mr. Gate- wood ? " — in annoyed surprise.
" I am laughing at myself. Oh, I'm so many kinds of a fool — you can't think how many, and it's no use ! "
She stared, astonished; he shook his head.
" No, you don't understand yet. But you will. Listen to me: this very beautiful lady you have discovered is nothing to me ! "
" Nothing — to you ! " she faltered. Two pink spots of indignation burned in her cheeks. " How — how dare you say that ! — after all that has been done — all that you have said. You said you loved her; you did say so — to me! " 62
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" I don't love her now."
" But you did ! " Tears of pure vexation started; she faced him, eye to eye, thoroughly incensed.
" What sort of man are you? " she said under her breath. " Your friend Mr. Kerns is wrong. You are not worth saving from yourself."
" Kerns ! " he repeated, angry and amazed. " What the deuce has Kerns to do with this affair?"
She stared, then, realizing her indiscretion, bit her lip, and spurred forward. But he put his horse to a gallop, and they pounded along in silence. In a little while she drew bridle and looked around coldly, grave with displeasure.
" Mr. Kerns came to us before you did. He said you would probably come, and he begged us to strain every effort in your behalf, because, he said, your happiness absolutely depended upon our finding for you the woman you were seeking. . . . And I tried — very hard — and now she's found. You admit that — and now you say "
" I say that one of these balmy summer days I'll assassinate Tommy Kerns ! " broke in Gate- wood. " What on earth possessed that prince of butters-in to go to Mr. Keen ? "
" To save you from yourself ! " retorted the
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
girl in a low, exasperated voice. " He did not say what threatened you; he is a good friend for a man to have. But we soon found out what you were— a man well born, well bred, full of brilliant possibility, who was slowly becoming an idle, cyni cal, self-centered egoist — a man who, lacking the lash of need or the spur of ambition, was degen erating through the sheer uselessness and inanity of his life. And, oh, the pity of it ! For Mr. Keen and I have taken a — a curiously personal interest in you — in your case. I say, the pity of it ! "
Astounded, dumb under her stinging words, he rode beside her through the brilliant sunshine, wheeled mechanically as she turned her horse, and rode north again.
" And now — now ! " she said passionately, " you turn on the woman you loved ! Oh, you are not worth it ! "
" You are quite right," he said, turning very white under her scorn. " Almost all you have said is true enough, I fancy. I amount to nothing ; I am idle, cynical, selfish. The emptiness of such a life requires a stimulant; even a fool abhors a vacuum. So I drink — not so very much yet — but more than I realize. And it is close enough to a habit to worry me. . . . Yes, almost all you say is true ; Kerns knows it ; I know it — now that you 64
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
have told me. You see, he couldn't tell me, because I should not have believed him. But I believe you
all you say, except one thing. And that is only
a glimmer of decency left in me — not that I make any merit of it. No, it is merely instinctive. For I have not turned on the woman I loved."
Her face was pale as her level eyes met him :
" You said she was nothing to you. . . . Look there! Do you see her? Do you see? "
Her voice broke nervously as he swung around to stare at a rider bearing down at a gallop — a woman on a big roan, tearing along through the spring sunshine, passing them with wind-flushed cheeks and dark, incurious eyes, while her power ful horse carried her on, away through the quiv< ering light and shadow of the woodland vista.
"Is that the person?"
" Y-es," she faltered. " Was I wrong? "
" Quite wrong, Miss Southerland."
« But — but you said you had seen her here this morning ! "
" Yes, I have."
" Did you speak to her before you met me? "
" No — not before I met you."
" Then you have not spoken to her. Is she still herein the Park?"
" Yes, she is still here." 65
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
The girl turned on him excitedly : " Do you mean to say that you will not speak to her ? "
" I had rather not "
" And your happiness depends on your speak ing? "
" Yes."
" Then it is cowardly not to speak."
" Oh, yes, it is cowardly. ... If you wish me to speak to her I will. Shall I? "
" Yes. . . . Show her to me."
" And you think that such a man as I am has a right to speak of love to her ? "
" I — we believe it will be your salvation. Mr. Kerns says you must marry her to be happy. Mr. Keen told me yesterday that it only needed a word from the right woman to put you on your mettle. . . . And — and that is my opinion."
" Then in charity say that word ! " he breathed, bending toward her. " Can't you see? Can't you understand? Don't you know that from the mo ment I looked into your eyes I loved you ? "
" How — how dare you ! " she stammered, crim soning.
"God knows," he said wistfully. " I am a coward. I don't know how I dared. Good- by. . . ."
He walked his horse a little way, then launched 66
Then in charity say that word ! ' '
[Page 66]
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
him into a gallop, tearing on and on, sun, wind, trees swimming, whirling like a vision, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, save the leaden pound ing of his pulse and the breathless, terrible tight ening in his throat.
When he cleared his eyes and looked around he was quite alone, his horse walking under the trees and breathing heavily.
At first he laughed, and the laugh was not pleasant. Then he said aloud : " It is worth hav ing lived for, after all ! " — and was silent. And again : " I could expect nothing ; she was perfectly right to side-step a fool. . . . And such a fool ! "
The distant gallop of a horse, dulled on the soft soil, but coming nearer, could not arouse him from the bitter depths he had sunk in ; not even when the sound ceased beside him, and horse snorted recog nition to horse. It was only when a light touch rested on his arm that he looked up heavily, caught his breath.
" Where is the other — woman ? " she gasped.
" There never was any other." . « You said "
" I said I loved my ideal. I did not know she existed — until I saw you."
" Then — then we were searching for "
" A vision. But it was your face that haunted 67
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
me. . . . And I am not worth it, as you say. And I know it, ... for you have opened my eyes."
He drew bridle, forcing a laugh. " I cut a sorry figure in your life ; be patient ; I am going out of it now." And he swung his horse. At the same moment she did the same, making a demi- tour and meeting him halfway, confronting him.
" Do you — you mean to ride out of my life without a word ? " she asked unsteadily.
" Good-by." He offered his hand, stirring his horse forward; she leaned lightly over and laid both hands in his. Then, her face surging in color, she lifted her beautiful dark eyes to his as the horses approached, nearer, nearer, until, as they passed, flank brushing flank, her eyes fell, then closed as she swayed toward him, and clung, her young lips crushed to his.
There was nobody to witness it except the birds and squirrels — nobody but a distant mounted po liceman, who almost fainted away in his saddle.
Oh, it was awful, awful! Apparently she had been kissed speechless, for she said nothing. The man fool did all the talking, incoherently enough, but evidently satisfactory to her, judging from the way she looked at him, and blushed and blushed, and touched her eyes with a bit of cam bric at intervals.
68
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
All the policeman heard as they passed him was : " I'm going to give you this horse, and Kerns is to give us our silver ; and what do you think, my darling?"
"W-what?"
But they had already passed out of earshot; and in a few moments the shady, sun-flecked bridle path was deserted again save for the birds and squirrels, and a single mounted policeman, rigid, wild eyed, twisting his mustache and breathing hard.
69
CHAPTER VII
THE news of Gatewood's fate filled Kerns with a pleasure bordering upon melancholy. It was his work; he had done it; it was good for Gatewood too — time for him to stop his irresponsible cruise through life, lower sail, heave to, set his signals, and turn over matters to this charming pilot.
And now they would come into port together and anchor somewhere east of Fifth Avenue — which, Kerns reflected, was far more proper a place for Gatewood than somewhere east of Suez, where young men so often sail.
And yet, and yet there was something melan choly in the pleasure he experienced. Gatewood was practically lost to him. He knew what might be expected from engaged men and newly married men. Gatewood's club life was ended — for a while ; and there was no other man with whom he cared to embark for those brightly lighted harbors twin kling east of Suez across the metropolitan wastes.
" It's very generous of me to get him married,"
he said frequently to himself, rather sadly. " I
did it pretty well, too. It only shows that women
have no particular monopoly in the realms of
70
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
diplomacy and finesse; in fact, if a man really chooses to put his mind to such matters, he can make it no trumps and win out behind a bum ace and a guarded knave."
He was pleased with himself. He followed Gate- wood about explaining how good he had been to him. An enthusiasm for marrying off his friends began to germinate within him ; he tried it on Dar- rell, on Barnes, on Yates, but was turned down and severely stung.
Then one day Harren of the Philippine Scouts turned up at the club, and they held a determined reunion until daylight, and they told each other all about it all and what upper-cuts life had handed out to them since the troopship sailed.
And after the rosy glow had deepened to a more gorgeous hue in the room, and the electric lights had turned into silver pinwheels ; and after they had told each other the story of their lives, and the last siphon fizzed impotently when urged beyond its capacity, Kerns arose and extended his hand, and Harren took it. And they executed a song resembling " Auld Lang Syne."
" Ole man," said Kerns reproachfully, " there's one thing you have been deuced careful not to mention, and that is about what happened to you
three years ago "
6 71
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Steady ! " said Harren ; " there is nothing to tell, Tommy."
" Nothing? "
" Nothing. I never saw her again. I never shall."
Kerns looked long and unsteadily upon his friend; then very gravely fumbled in his pocket and drew forth the business card of Westrel Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons.
" That," he said, " will be about all." And he bestowed the card upon Harren with magnificent condescension.
And about five o'clock the following afternoon Harren found the card among various effects of his, scattered over his dresser.
It took him several days to make up his mind to pay any attention to the card or the suggestion it contained. He scarcely considered it seriously even when, passing along Fifth Avenue one sunny afternoon, he chanced to glance up and see the sign
KEEN & CO. TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS
staring him in the face.
He continued his stroll, but that evening, upon mere impulse, he sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Keen.
72
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
The next morning's mail brought a reply and an appointment for an interview on Wednesday week. Harren tossed the letter aside, satisfied to let the matter go, because his leave expired on Tuesday, and the appointment was impossible.
On Sunday, however, the melancholy of the de serted club affected his spirits. A curious desire to see this Tracer of Lost Persons seized him with a persistence unaccountable. He slept poorly, haunted with visions.
On Monday he went to see Mr. Keen. It could do no harm ; it was too late to do either harm or good, for his leave expired the next day at noon.
The business of Keen & Co., Tracers of Lost Persons, had grown to enormous proportions ; ap pointments for a personal interview with Mr. Keen were now made a week in advance, so when young Harren sent in his card, the gayly liveried negro servant came back presently, threading his way through the waiting throng with pomp and cir cumstance, and returned the card to Harren with the date of appointment rewritten in ink across the top. The day named was Wednesday. On Tues day Harren's leave expired.
" That won't do," said the young man brusquely ; " I must see Mr. Keen to-day. I wrote last week for an appointment." 73
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
The liveried darky was polite but obdurate.
" Dis here am de 'pintment, suh," he explained persuasively.
" But I want to see Mr. Keen at once," insisted Harren.
" Hit ain't no use, suh," said the darky respect fully; " dey's mi'ions an' mi'ions ob gemmen jess a-settin' roun' an' waitin' foh Mistuh Keen. In dis here perfeshion, suh, de fustest gemman dat has a 'pintment is de fustest gemman dat kin see Mistuh Keen. You is a military gemman yohse'f, Cap'm Harren, an' you is aware dat precedence am de rigger."
The bronzed young man smiled, glanced at the date of appointment written on his card, which also bore his own name followed by the letters U. S. A., then his amused gray eyes darkened and he glanced leisurely around the room, where a dozen or more assorted people sat waiting their turns to interview Mr. Keen: all sorts and condi tions of people — smartly gowned women, an anx ious-browed business man or two, a fat German truck driver, his greasy cap on his knees, a surly policeman, and an old Irishwoman, wearing a shawl and an ancient straw bonnet. Harren's eyes reverted to the darky.
" You will explain to Mr. Keen," he said, " that 74
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
I am an army officer on leave, and that I am obliged to start for Manila to-morrow. This is my excuse for asking an immediate interview ; and if it's not a good enough excuse I must cancel this appointment, that is all."
The darky stood, irresolute, inclined to argue, but something in the steel-gray eyes of the man set him in involuntary motion, and he went away once more with the young man's message. Harren turned and walked back to his seat. The old woman with the faded shawl was explaining volubly to a handsomely gowned woman beside her that she was looking for her boy, Danny; that her name was Mrs. Regan, and that she washed for the aris tocracy of Hunter's Point at a liberal price per dozen, using no deleterious substances in the suds as Heaven was her witness.
The German truck driver, moved by this confi dence, was stirred to begin an endless account of his domestic misfortunes, and old Mrs. Regan, be coming impatient, had already begun to interrupt with an account of Regan's recent hoisting on the wings of a premature petard, when the dark serv ant reappeared.
" Mistuh Keen will receive you, suh," he whis pered, leading the way into a large room where dozens of attractive young girls sat very busily 75
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
engaged at typewriting machines. Door after door they passed, all numbered on the ground- glass panes, then swung to the right, where the darky bowed him into a big, handsomely furnished room flooded with the morning sun. A tall, gray man, faultlessly dressed in a gray frock suit and wearing white spats, turned from the breezy, open window to inspect him; the lean, well groomed, rather lank type of gentleman suggesting a re tired colonel of cavalry; unmistakably well bred from the ends of his drooping gray mustache to the last button on his immaculate spats.
" Captain Harren ? " he said pleasantly.
"Mr. Keen?"
They bowed. Young Harren drew from his pocket a card. It was the business card of Keen & Co., and, glancing up at Mr. Keen, he read it aloud, carefully:
KEEN & CO.
TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS
Keen & Co. are prepared to locate the
whereabouts of anybody on earth.
No charges will be made unless
the person searched for
is found. Blanks on Application.
WESTREL KEEN, Manager. 76
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Harren raised his clear, gray eyes. " I assume this statement to be correct, Mr. Keen ? "
" You may safely assume so," said Mr. Keen, smiling.
" Does this statement include all that you are prepared to undertake? "
The Tracer of Lost Persons inspected him coolly. " What more is there, Captain Harren ? I undertake to find lost people. I even undertake to find the undiscovered ideals of young people who have failed to meet them. What further field would you suggest?" Harren glanced at the card which he held in his gloved hand ; then, very slowly, he re-read, " the whereabouts of anybody on earth," accenting the last two words deliber ately as he encountered Keen's piercing gaze again.
"Well?" asked Mr. Keen laughingly, "is not that sufficient? Our clients could scarcely expect us to invade heaven in our search for the vanished."
" There are other regions," said Harren.
" Exactly. Sit down, sir. There is a row of bookcases for your amusement. Please help your self while I clear decks for action."
Harren stood fingering the card, his gray eyes lost in retrospection ; then he sauntered over to 77
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
the bookcases, scanning the titles. The Searcher for Lost Persons studied him for a moment or two, turned, and began to pace the room. After a moment or two he touched a bell. A sweet-faced young girl entered ; she was gowned in black and wore a white collar, and cuffs turned back over her hands.
4 Take this memorandum," he said. The girl picked up a pencil and pad, and Mr. Keen, still pacing the room, dictated in a quiet voice as he walked to and fro :
" Mrs. Regan's Danny is doing six months in Butte, Montana. Break it to her as mercifully as possible. He is a bad one. We make no charge. The truck driver, Becker, can find his wife at her mother's house, Leonia, New Jersey. Tell him to be less pig-headed or she'll go for good some day. Ten dollars. Mrs. M., No. 36001, can find her missing butler in service at 79 Vine Street, Hart ford, Connecticut. She may notify the police whenever she wishes. His portrait is No. 170529, Rogues' Gallery. Five hundred dollars. Miss K. (No. 3679) may send her letter, care of Cisneros & Co., Rio, where the person she is seeking has gone into the coffee business. If she decides that she really does love him, he'll come back fast enough. Two hundred and fifty dollars. Mr. W. 78
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
(No. 3620) must go to the morgue for further information. His repentance is too late; but he can see that there is a decent burial. The charge : one thousand dollars to the Florence Mission. You may add that we possess his full record."
The Tracer paused and waited for the stenogra pher to finish. When she looked up : " Who else is waiting? " he asked.
The girl read over the initials and numbers.
" Tell that policeman that Kid Conroy sails on the Carania to-morrow. Fifty dollars. There is nothing definite in the other cases. Report prog ress and send out a general alarm for the cashier inquired for by No. 3608. You will find details in vol. xxxix under B."
"Is that all, Mr. Keen?"
"Yes. I'm going to be very busy with" — turning slowly toward Harren — " with Captain Harren, of the Philippine Scouts, until to-morrow — a very complicated case, Miss Borrow, involv ing cipher codes and photography '
79
CHAPTER VIII
HARREN started, then walked slowly to the cen ter of the room as the pretty stenographer passed out with a curious level glance at him.
" Why do you say that photography plays a part in my case? " he asked.
"Doesn't it?"
" Yes. But how "
" Oh, I only guessed it," said Keen with a smile. " I made another guess that your case involved a cipher code. Does it? "
4 Y-es," said the young man, astonished, " but I don't see "
" It also involves the occult," observed Keen calmly. " We may need Miss Borrow to help us."
Almost staggered, Harren stared at the Tracer out of his astonished gray eyes until that gentle man laughed outright and seated himself, motion ing Harren to do likewise.
" Don't be surprised, Captain Harren," he said. " I suppose you have no conception of our busi ness, no realization of its scope — its network of information bureaus all over the civilized world, its 80
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
myriad sources of information, the immensity of its delicate machinery, the endless data and the in finitesimal details we have at our command. You, of course, have no idea of the number of people of every sort and condition who are in our employ, of the ceaseless yet inoffensive surveillance we maintain. For example, when your letter came last week I called up the person who has charge of the army list. There you were, Kenneth Har- ren, Captain Philippine Scouts, with the date of your graduation from West Point. Then I called up a certain department devoted to personal de tail, and in five minutes I knew your entire history. I then touched another electric button, and in a minute I had before me the date of your arrival in New York, your present address, and " —he looked up quizzically at Harren— " and several items of general information, such as your pecu liar use of your camera, and the list of books on Psychical Phenomena and Cryptograms which you
have been buying "
Harren flushed up. " Do you mean to say that I have been spied upon, Mr. Keen ? "
" No more than anybody else who comes to us as a client. There was nothing offensive in the sur veillance." He shrugged his shoulders and made a deprecating gesture. " Ours is a business, my 81
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
dear sir, like any other. We, of course, are obliged to know about people who call on us. Last week you wrote me, and I immediately set every wheel in motion ; in other words, I had you under observation from the day I received your letter to this very moment."
"You learned much concerning me?" asked Harren quietly.
" Exactly, my dear sir."
" But," continued Harren with a touch of mal ice, " you didn't learn that my leave is up to morrow, did you ? "
" Yes, I learned that, too."
>4 Then why did you give me an appointment for the day after to-morrow?" demanded the young man bluntly.
The Tracer looked him squarely in the eye. " Your leave is to be extended," he said.
"What?"
" Exactly. It has been extended one week."
" How do you know that? "
" You applied for extension, did you not? "
" Yes," said Harren, turning red, " but I don't see how you knew that I "
"By cable?"
" Y-yes."
" There's a cablegram in your rooms at this 82
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
very moment," said the Tracer carelessly. " You have the extension you desired. And now, Cap tain Harren," with a singularly pleasant smile, " what can I do to help you to a pursuit of that true happiness which is guaranteed for all good citizens under our Constitution?"
Captain Harren crossed his long legs, dropping one knee over the other, and deliberately surveyed his interrogator.
" I really have no right to come to you," he said slowly. " Your prospectus distinctly states that Keen & Co. undertake to find live people, and I don't know whether the person I am seeking is alive or — or "
His steady voice faltered; the Tracer watched him curiously.
" Of course, that is important," he said. " If she is dead — — "
" She! "
" Didn't you say ' she,' Captain? "
" No, I did not."
" I beg your pardon, then, for anticipating you," said the Tracer carelessly.
" Anticipating ? How do you know it is not a man I am in search of? " demanded Harren.
" Captain Harren, you are unmarried and have no son ; you have no father, no brother, no sister. 83
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Therefore I infer — several things — for example, that you are in love."
"I? In love?"
" Desperately, Captain."
" Your inferences seem to satisfy you, at least," said Harren almost sullenly, " but they don't sat isfy me — clever as they appear to be."
" Exactly. Then you are not in love? "
" I don't know whether I am or not."
" I do," said the Tracer of Lost Persons.
" Then you know more than I," retorted Harren sharply.
" But that is my business — to know more than you do," returned Mr. Keen patiently. " Else why are you here to consult me ? " And as Harren made no reply : " I have seen thousands and thou sands of people in love. I have reduced the super ficial muscular phenomena and facial sympto matic aspect of such people to an exact science founded upon a schedule approximating the Ber- tillon system of records. And," he added, smiling, " out of the twenty-seven known vocal variations your voice betrays twenty-five unmistakable symp toms; and out of the sixteen reflex muscular symptoms your face has furnished six, your hands three, your limbs and feet six. Then there are
other superficial symptoms '
64
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Good heavens ! " broke in Harren ; " how can you prove a man to be in love when he himself doesn't know whether he is or not? If a man isn't in love no Bertillon system can make him so ; and if a man doesn't know whether or not he is in love, who can tell him the truth? "
" I can," said the Tracer calmly. "What! When I tell you I myself don't know?"
" That," said the Tracer, smiling, " is the final and convincing symptom. You don't know. / know because you don't know. That is the easiest way to be sure that you are in love, Captain Har ren, because you always are when you are not sure. You'd know if you were not in love. Now, my dear sir, you may lay your case confidently before me."
Harren, unconvinced, sat frowning and biting his lip and twisting his short, crisp mustache which the tropical sun had turned straw color and curly.
" I feel like a fool to tell you," he said. " I'm not an imaginative man, Mr. Keen ; I'm not fan ciful, not sentimental. I'm perfectly healthy, perfectly normal — a very busy man in my pro fession, with no time and no inclination to fall in love."
85
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Just the sort of man who does it," commented Keen. " Continue."
Harren fidgeted about in his chair, looked out of the window, squinted at the ceiling, then straightened up, folding his arms with sudden determination.
" I'd rather be boloed than tell you," he said. "Perhaps, after all, I am a lunatic; perhaps I've had a touch of the Luzon sun and don't know it."
" I'll be the judge," said the Tracer, smiling.
" Very well, sir. Then I'll begin by telling you that I've seen a ghost."
'There are such things," observed Keen quietly.
" Oh, I don't mean one of those fabled sheeted creatures that float about at night; I mean a phantom — a real phantom — in the sunlight — standing before my very eyes in broad day ! . . . Now do you feel inclined to go on with my case, Mr. Keen?"
" Certainly," replied the Tracer gravely. " Please continue, Captain Harren."
" All right, then. Here's the beginning of it :
Three years ago, here in New York, drifting
along Fifth Avenue with the crowd, I looked up
to encounter the most wonderful pair of eyes that
86
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
I ever beheld — that any living man ever beheld! The most — wonderfully — beautiful "
He sat so long immersed in retrospection that the Tracer said : " I am listening, Captain," and the Captain woke up with a start.
" What was I saying ? How far had I pro ceeded? "
" Only to the eyes."
" Oh, I see ! The eyes were dark, sir, dark and lovely beyond any power of description. The hair was also dark — very soft and thick and — er — wavy and dark. The face was extremely youthful, and ornamental to the uttermost verges of a beauty so exquisite that, were I to attempt to formulate for you its individual attractions, I should, I fear, transgress the strictly rigid bounds of that reticence which becomes a gentleman in complete possession of his senses."
" Exactly," mused the Tracer.
" Also," continued Captain Harren, with grow ing animation, " to attempt to describe her figure would be utterly useless, because I am a practical man and not a poet, nor do I read poetry or in dulge in futile novels or romances of any descrip tion. Therefore I can only add that it was a figure, a poise, absolutely faultless, youthful, beautiful, erect, wholesome, gracious, graceful, 7 87
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
charmingly buoyant and — well, I cannot describe her figure, and I shall not try."
" Exactly ; don't try."
" No," said Harren mournfully, " it is use less " ; and he relapsed into enchanted retrospec tion.
" Who was she? " asked Mr. Keen softly.
" I don't know."
" You never again saw her? "
" Mr. Keen, I — I am not ill-bred, but I sim ply could not help following her. She was so b-b-beautiful that it hurt; and I only wanted to look at her; I didn't mind being hurt. So I walked on and on, and sometimes I'd pass her and sometimes I'd let her pass me, and when she wasn't looking I'd look — not offensively, but just because I couldn't help it. And all the time my senses were humming like a top and my heart kept jumping to get into my throat, and I hadn't a notion where I was going or what time it was or what day of the week. She didn't see me ; she didn't dream that I was looking at her ; she didn't know me from any of the thousand silk-hatted, frock-coated men who passed and repassed her on Fifth Avenue. And when she went into St. Berold's Church, I went, too, and I stood where I could see her and where she couldn't see me. It was like a touch of the 88
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Luzon sun, Mr. Keen. And then she came out and got into a Fifth Avenue stage, and I got in, too. And whenever she looked away I looked at her — without the slightest offense, Mr. Keen, until, once, she caught my eye "
He passed an unsteady hand over his forehead.
" For a moment we looked full at one another," he continued. " I got red, sir ; I felt it, and I couldn't look away. And when I turned color like a blooming beet, she began to turn pink like a rose bud, and she looked full into my eyes with such a wonderful purity, such exquisite innocence, that I — I never felt so near — er — heaven in my life ! No, sir, not even when they ambushed us at Manoa Wells — but that's another thing — only it is part of this business."
He tightened his clasped hands over his knee until the knuckles whitened.
" That's my story, Mr. Keen," he said crisply.
"All of it?"
Harren looked at the floor, then at Keen: " No, not all. You'll think me a lunatic if I tell you all."
" Oh, you saw her again ? "
" N-never ! That is "
"Never?"
" Not in—in the flesh." 89
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Oh, in dreams?"
Harren stirred uneasily. " I don't know what you call them. I have seen her since — in the sun light, in the open, in my quarters in Manila, standing there perfectly distinct, looking at me with such strange, beautiful eyes —
" Go on," said the Tracer, nodding.
" What else is there to say ? " muttered Harren.
" You saw her — or a phantom which resembled her. Did she speak?"
" No."
" Did you speak to her ? "
" N-no. Once I held out my — my arms."
"What happened?"
" She wasn't there," said Harren simply.
"She vanished?"
" No — I don't know. I — I didn't see her any more."
"Didn't she fade?"
" No. I can't explain. She — there was only myself in the room."
" How many times has she appeared to you ? "
" A great many times."
" In your room? "
'* Yes. And in the road under a vertical sun ; in the forest, in the paddy fields. I have seen her passing through the hallway of a friend's house — 90
Standing there . . . looking at me with such strange beautiful eyes
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
turning on the stair to look back at me! I saw her standing just back of the firing-line at Manoa Wells when we were preparing to rush the forts, and it scared me so that I jumped forward to draw her back. But — she wasn't there, Mr. Keen. . . .
" On the transport she stood facing me on deck one moonlit evening for five minutes. I saw her in 'Frisco; she sat in the Pullman twice between Denver and this city. Twice in my room at the Vice-Regent she has sat opposite me at midday, so clear, so beautiful, so real that — that I could
scarcely believe she was only a — a " He
hesitated.
" The apparition of her own subconscious self," said the Tracer quietly. " Science has been forced to admit such things, and, as you know, we are on the verge of understanding the alphabet of some of the unknown forces which we must some day reckon with."
Harren, tense, a trifle pale, gazed at him earnestly.
" Do you believe in such things ? "
" How can I avoid believing? " said the Tracer. " Every day, in my profession, we have proof of the existence of forces for which we have as yet no explanation — or, at best, a very crude one. I have had case after case of premonition ; case after case 91
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
of dual and even multiple personality ; case after case where apparitions played a vital part in the plot which was brought to me to investigate. I'll tell you this, Captain : I, personally, never saw an apparition, never was obsessed by premonitions, never received any communications from the outer void. But I have had to do with those who un doubtedly did. Therefore I listen with all serious ness and respect to what you tell me."
" Suppose," said Harren, growing suddenly red, " that I should tell you I have succeeded in photographing this phantom."
The Tracer sat silent. He was astounded, but he did not betray it.
" You have that photograph, Captain Har ren?"
" Yes."
"Where is it?"
" In my rooms."
" You wish me to see it ? "
Harren hesitated. " I — there is — seems to be — something almost sacred to me in that photo graph. . . . You understand me, do you not? Yet, if it will help you in finding her—
"Oh," said the Tracer in guileless astonish ment, "you desire to find this young lady. Why?"
92
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Harren stared. "Why? Why do I want to find her ? Man, I — I can't live without her ! "
" I thought you were not certain whether you really could be in love."
The hot color in the Captain's bronzed cheeks mounted to his hair.
" Exactly," purred the Tracer, looking out of the window. " Suppose we walk around to your rooms after luncheon. Shall we? "
Harren picked up his hat and gloves, hesitat ing, lingering on the threshold. " You don't think she is — a — dead? " he asked unsteadily.
" No," said Mr. Keen, « I don't."
" Because," said Harren wistfully, " her appa rition is so superbly healthy and — and glowing with youth and life "
" That is probably what sent it half the world over to confront you," said the Tracer gravely; " youth and life aglow with spiritual health. I think, Captain, that she has been seeing you, too, during these three years, but probably only in her dreams — memories of your encounters with her subconscious self floating over continents and oceans in a quest of which her waking intelligence is innocently unaware."
The Captain colored like a schoolboy, lingering at the door, hat in hand. Then he straightened up 93
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
to the full height of his slim but powerful figure.
" At three? " he inquired bluntly.
" At three o'clock in your room, Hotel Vice- Regent. Good morning, Captain."
" Good morning," said Harren dreamily, and walked away, head bent, gray eyes lost in retro spection, and on his lean, bronzed, attractive face an afterglow of color wholly becoming.
CHAPTER IX
WHEN the Tracer of Lost Persons entered Cap tain Barren's room at the Hotel Vice-Regent that afternoon he found the young man standing at a center table, pencil in hand, studying a sheet of paper which was covered with letters and figures.
The two men eyed one another in silence for a moment, then Harren pointed grimly to the con fusion of letters and figures covering dozens of scattered sheets lying on the table.
" That's part of my madness," he said with a short laugh. " Can you make anything of such lunatic work ? "
The Tracer picked up a sheet of paper covered with letters of the alphabet and Roman and Arabic numerals. He dropped it presently and picked up another comparatively blank sheet, on which were the following figures:
I23456789O
He studied it for a while, then glanced inter rogatively at Harren.
95
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" It's nothing," said Harren. " I've been grop ing for three years — but it's no use. That's lunatics' work." He wheeled squarely on his heels, looking straight at the Tracer. " Do you think I've had a touch of the sun ? "
" No," said Mr. Keen, drawing a chair to the table. " Saner men than you or I have spent a lifetime over this so-called Seal of Solomon." He laid his finger on the two symbols —
xx
Then, looking across the table at Harren : " What," he asked, " has the Seal of Solomon to do with your case? "
" She— " muttered Harren, and fell silent.
The Tracer waited ; Harren said nothing.
" Where is the photograph? "
Harren unlocked a drawer in the table, hesi tated, looked strangely at the Tracer.
" Mr. Keen," he said, " there is nothing on earth I hold more sacred than this. There is only one thing in the world that could justify me in showing it to a living soul — my — my desire to find— her "
" No," said Keen coolly, " that is not enough to justify you — the mere desire to find the living 96
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
original of this apparition. Nothing could jus tify your showing it unless you love her."
Harren held the picture tightly, staring full at the Tracer. A dull flush mounted to his forehead, and very slowly he laid the picture before the Tracer of Lost Persons.
Minute after minute sped while the Tracer bent above the photograph, his finely modeled features absolutely devoid of expression. Harren had drawn his chair beside him, and now sat leaning forward, bronzed cheek resting in his hand, star ing fixedly at the picture.
"When was this — this photograph taken?" asked the Tracer quietly.
" The day after I arrived in New York. I was here, alone, smoking my pipe and glancing over the evening paper just before dressing for dinner. It was growing rather dark in the room; I had not turned on the electric light. My camera lay on the table — there it is! — that kodak. I had taken a few snapshots on shipboard; there was one film left."
He leaned more heavily on his elbow, eyes fixed upon the picture.
"It was almost dark," he repeated. "I laid aside the evening paper and stood up, thinking about dressing for dinner, when my eyes happened 97
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
to fall on the camera. It occurred to me that I might as well unload it, let the unused film go, and send the roll to be developed and printed; and I
picked up the camera "
" Yes," said the Tracer softly. " I picked it up and was starting toward the window where there remained enough daylight to
see by "
The Tracer nodded gently. " Then I saw her ! " said Harren under his breath.
"Where?"
6 There — standing by that window. You can see the window and curtain in the photograph." The Tracer gazed intently at the picture. " She looked at me," said Harren, steadying his voice. " She was as real as you are, and she stood there, smiling faintly, her dark, lovely eyes meet ing mine."
"Did you speak?" " No."
" How long did she remain there ? " " I don't know — time seemed to stop — the world — everything grew still. . . . Then, little by little, something began to stir under my stunned senses — that germ of misgiving, that dreadful doubt of my own sanity. ... I scarcely 98
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
knew what I was doing when I took the photo graph; besides, it had grown quite dark, and I could scarcely see her." He drew himself erect with a nervous movement. " How on earth could I have obtained that photograph of her in the darkness ? " he demanded.
"N-rays," said the Tracer coolly. "It has been done in France."
" Yes, from living people, but "
" What the N-ray is in living organisms, we must call, for lack of a better term, the subaura in the phantom."
They bent over the photograph together. Presently the Tracer said : " She is very, very beautiful?"
Barren's dry lips unclosed, but he uttered no sound.
" She is beautiful, is she not? " repeated the Tracer, turning to look at the young man.
" Can you not see she is ? " he asked impatiently.
" No," said the Tracer.
Harren stared at him.
" Captain Harren," continued the Tracer, " I can see nothing upon this bit of paper that resem bles in the remotest degree a human face or figure."
Harren turned white.
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Not that I doubt that you can sec it," pursued the Tracer calmly. "I simply repeat that I see absolutely nothing on this paper ex cept a part of a curtain, a window pane, and — and "
"What! for God's sake!" cried Harren hoarsely.
" I don't know yet. Wait ; let me study it."
" Can you not see her face, her eyes ? Don't you see that exquisite slim figure standing there by the curtain ? " demanded Harren, laying his shak ing finger on the photograph. " Why, man, it is as clear, as clean cut, as distinct as though the picture had been taken in sunlight ! Do you mean to say that there is nothing there — that I am crazy ? "
"No. Wait."
" Wait ! How can I wait when you sit staring at her picture and telling me that you can't see it, but that it is doubtless there? Are you deceiving me, Mr. Keen ? Are you trying to humor me, try ing to be kind to me, knowing all the while that
I'm crazy "
"Wait, man! You are no more crazy than I am. I tell you that I can see something on the
window pane "
He suddenly sprang up and walked to the win- 100
THE TRACER OF LOV 7
dow, leaning close and esamiViing il>o gla-1*. Ha • ren followed and laid his hand lightly over the pane.
" Do you see any marks on the glass ? " de manded Keen.
Harren shook his head.
" Have you a magnifying glass ? " asked the Tracer.
Harren pointed back to the table, and they re turned to the photograph, the Tracer bending over it and examining it through the glass.
"All I see," he said, still studying the photo graph, " is a corner of a curtain and a win dow on which certain figures seem to have been cut. . . . Look, Captain Harren, can you see them?"
" I see some marks — some squares."
" You can't see anything written on that pane — as though cut by a diamond? "
" Nothing distinct."
" But you see her ? "
" Perfectly."
"In minute detail?"
" Yes."
The Tracer thought a moment : " Does she wear a ring? "
" Yes ; can't you see ? " 101
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Drawit fwvme.".
They seated themselves side by side, and Harren drew a rough sketch of the ring which he insisted was so plainly visible on her hand:
" Oh," observed the Tracer, " she wears the Seal of Solomon on her ring."
Harren looked up at him. " That symbol has haunted me persistently for three years," he said. " I have found it everywhere — on articles that I buy, on house furniture, on the belts of dead ladrones, on the hilts of creeses, on the funnels of steamers, on the headstalls of horses. If they put a laundry mark on my linen it's certain to be this !
If I buy a box of matches the sign is on it. Why, I've even seen it on the brilliant wings of trop ical insects. It's got on my nerves. I dream about it."
" And you buy books about it and try to work out its mystical meaning? " suggested the Tracer, smiling.
But Barren's gray eyes were serious. He said: " She never comes to me without that symbol some where about her. ... I told you she never spoke
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
to me. That is true ; yet once, in a vivid dream of her, she did speak. I — I was almost ashamed to tell you of that."
" Tell me."
"A — a dream? Do you wish to know what I dreamed? "
" Yes — if it was a dream."
" It was. I was asleep on the deck of the Min- dmao, dead tired after a fruitless hike. I dreamed she came toward me through a young woodland all lighted by the sun, and in her hands she held masses of that wild flower we call Solomon's Seal. And she said — in the voice I know must be like hers : ' If you could only read ! If you would only understand the message I send you ! It is every where on earth for you to read, if you only would ! '
" I said : ' Is the message in the seal ? Is that the key to it?'
" She nodded, laughing, burying her face in the flowers, and said:
" ' Perhaps I can write it more plainly for you some day ; I will try very, very hard.'
" And after that she went away — not swiftly— for I saw her at moments far away in the woods ; but I must have confused her with the glimmering shafts of sunlight, and in a little while the wood- 8 103
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
land grew dark and I woke with the racket of a Colt's automatic in my ears."
He passed his sun-bronzed hand over his face, hesitated, then leaned over the photograph once more, which the Tracer was studying intently through the magnifying glass.
" There is something on that window in the pho tograph which I'm going to copy," he said. " Please shove a pad and pencil toward me."
Still examining the photograph through the glass which he held in his right hand, Mr. Keen picked up the pencil and, feeling for the pad, began very slowly to form the following series of symbols :
"What on earth are you doing?" muttered Captain Harren, twisting his short mustache in perplexity.
104
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" I am copying what I see through this magni fying glass written on the window pane in the photograph," said the Tracer calmly. "Can't you see those marks ? "
« I — I do now ; I never noticed them before par ticularly — only that there were scratches there." When at length the Tracer had finished his work he sat, chin on hand, examining it in silence. Presently he turned toward Harren, smiling.
"Well?" inquired the younger man impa tiently ; " do those scratches representing Solo mon's Seal mean anything? "
" It's the strangest cipher I ever encountered," said Mr. Keen—" the strangest I ever heard of. I have seen hundreds of ciphers — hundreds — se cret codes of the State Department, secret mili tary codes, elaborate Oriental ciphers, symbols used in commercial transactions, symbols used by criminals and every species of malefactor. And every one of them can be solved with time and patience and a little knowledge of the subject. But this" — he sat looking at it with eyes half closed — " this is too simple." "Simple!"
" Very. It's so simple that it's baffling." " Do you mean to say you are going to be able to find a meaning in squares and crosses ? " 105
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" I — I don't believe it is going to be so very difficult to translate them."
" Great guns ! " said the Captain. " Do you mean to say that you can ultimately translate that cipher?"
The Tracer smiled. " Let's examine it for repe titions first. Here we have this symbol
repeated five times. It's likely to be the letter E.
I think " His voice ceased; for a quarter of
an hour he pored over the symbols, pencil in hand, checking off some, substituting a letter here and there.
" No," he said ; " the usual doesn't work in this case. It's an absurdly simple cipher. I have a notion that numbers play a part in it — you see where these crossed squares are bracketed — those must be numbers requiring two figures
He fell silent again, and for another quarter of an hour he remained motionless, immersed in the problem before him, Harren frowning at the paper over his shoulder.
106
CHAPTER X
" COME ! " said the Tracer suddenly ; " this won't do. There are too few symbols to give us a key ; too few repetitions to furnish us with any key basis. Come, Captain, let us use our intel lects; let us talk it over with that paper lying there between us. It's a simple cipher — a child ishly simple one if we use our wits. Now, sir, what I see repeated before us on this sheet of paper is merely one of the forms of a symbol known as Solomon's Seal. The symbol is, as we see, repeated a great many times. Every seal
has been dotted or crossed on some one of the lines composing it ; some seals are coupled with brackets and armatures."
" What of it? " inquired Harren vacantly.
" Well, sir, in the first place, that symbol
is supposed to represent the spiritual and material,
as you know. What else do you know about it? "
107
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Nothing. I bought a book about it, but made nothing of it."
" Isn't it supposed," asked Mr. Keen, " to con tain within itself the nine numerals, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and even the zero symbol? "
" I believe so."
" Exactly. Here's the seal
Now I'll mark the one, two, and three by crossing the lines, like this:
one,
^ {X] two, [g] three,
Now, eliminating all lines not crossed there remains the one, ^ the two, ^ the three,
And here is the entire series :
IZZ47A7X7
and the zero — I
A sudden excitement stirred Harren; he leaned over the paper, gazing earnestly at the cipher; the Tracer rose and glanced around the room as though in search of something.
" Is there a telephone here? " he asked.
"For Heaven's sake, don't give this up just 108
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
yet," exclaimed Harren. "These things mean numbers; don't you see? Look at that!" point ing to a linked pair of seals,
" That means the number nineteen ! You can form it by using only the crossed lines of the seal
Don't you see, Mr. Keen? "
"Yes, Captain Harren, the cipher is, as you say, very plain ; quite as easy to read as so much handwriting. That is why I wish to use your tele phone — at once, if you please."
" It's in my bedroom ; you don't mind if I go on working out this cipher while you're telephoning? " " Not in the least," said the Tracer blandly. He walked into the Captain's bedroom, closing the door behind him ; then he stepped over to the tele phone, unhooked the receiver, and called up his own headquarters.
" Hello. This is Mr. Keen. I want to speak to Miss Borrow."
In a few moments Miss Borrow answered : " I am here, Mr. Keen."
" Good. Look up the name Inwood. Try New 109
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
York first — Edith Inwood is the name. Look sharp, please ; I am holding the wire."
He held it for ten full minutes ; then Miss Bor- row's low voice called him over the wire.
" Go ahead," said the Tracer quietly.
" There is only one Edith Inwood in New York, Mr. Keen — Miss Edith Inwood, graduate of Bar nard, 1902 — left an orphan 1903 and obliged to support herself — became an assistant to Professor Boggs of the Museum of Inscriptions. Is con sidered an authority upon Arabian cryptograms. Has written a monograph on the Herati symbol — a short treatise on the Swastika. She is twenty- four years of age. Do you require further details?"
" No," said the Tracer ; " please ring off."
Then he called up General Information. " I want the Museum of Inscriptions. Get me their number, please." After a moment : " Is this the Museum of Inscriptions ? "
" Is Professor Boggs there? " " Is this Professor Boggs? "
" Could you find time to decipher an inscription for me at once? "
110
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Of course I know you are extremely busy, but have you no assistant who could do it? "
" What did you say her name is ? Miss Inwood? "
" Oh ! And will the young lady translate the inscription at once if I send a copy of it to her by messenger? "
" Thank you very much, Professor. I will send a messenger to Miss Inwood with a copy of the inscription. Good-by."
He hung up the receiver, turned thoughtfully, opened the door again, and walked into the sunlit living room.
" Look here ! " cried the Captain in a high state of excitement. " I've got a lot of numbers out of it already."
" Wonderful ! " murmured the Tracer, looking over the young man's broad shoulders at a sheet of paper bearing these numbers:
9— 14— 5— 22— 5— 18— 19— 1—23 — 25— -15 —21—2—21—20—15—14—3—5—9 — 12 — 15 —22—5—25—15—21—5—4—9—20—8—9—
" Marvelous ! " repeated the Tracer, smiling. Ill
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Now what do you suppose those numbers can stand for?"
" Letters ! " announced the Captain trium phantly. •' Take the number nine, for example. The ninth letter in the alphabet is I ! Mr. Keen, suppose we try writing down the letters according to that system ! "
" Suppose we do," agreed the Tracer gravely.
So, counting under his breath, the young man set down the letters in the following order, not attempting to group them into words:
INEVERSAWYOUBUTONCEILOVEYOUEDI THINWOOD.
Then he leaned back, excited, triumphant.
" There you are ! " he said ; " only, of course, it makes no sense." He examined it in silence, and gradually a hopeless expression effaced the anima tion. " How the deuce am I going to separate that mass of letters into words ? " he muttered.
" This way," said the Tracer, smilingly taking the pencil from his fingers, and he wrote : I — NEVER — SAW — YOU — BUT — ONCE. I - LOVE — YOU. EDITH INWOOD.
Then he laid the pencil on the table and walked to the window.
Once or twice he fancied that he heard inco-
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
herent sounds behind him. And after a while he turned, retracing his steps leisurely. Captain Harren, extremely pink, stood tugging at his short mustache and studying the papers on the desk.
" Well? " inquired the Tracer, amused.
The young man pointed to the translation with unsteady finger. " W-what on earth does that mean ? " he demanded shakily. " Who is Edith In wood? W-what on earth does that cryptogram mean on the window pane in the photograph? How did it come there? It isn't on my window pane, you see ! "
The Tracer said quietly : " That is not a pho tograph of your window."
"What!"
" No, Captain. Here ! Look at it closely through this glass. There are sixteen small panes in that sash ; now count the panes in your window — eight! Besides, look at that curtain. It is made of some figured stuff like chintz. Now, look at your own curtain yonder! It is of plain velour."
" But — but I took that photograph ! She stood there — there by that very window ! "
The Tracer leaned over the photograph, exam ining it through the glass. And, studying it, he 113
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
said : " Do you still see her in this photograph, Captain Harren ? "
" Certainly. Can you not see her ? "
" No," murmured the Tracer, " but I see the window which she really stood by when her phan tom came here seeking you. And that is suffi cient. Come, Captain Harren, we are going out together."
The Captain looked at him earnestly ; something in Mr. Keen's eyes seemed to fascinate him.
" You think that — that it's likely we are g-going to see — her I " he faltered.
" If I were you," mused the Tracer of Lost Persons, joining the tips of his lean fingers medi tatively — " If I were you I should wear a silk hat and a frock coat. It's — it's afternoon, anyhow," he added deprecatingly, " and we are liable to make a call."
Captain Harren turned like a man in a dream and entered his bedroom. And when he emerged he was dressed and groomed with pathetic precision.
" Mr. Keen," he said, " I— I don't know why I am d-daring to hope for all s-sorts of things. Nothing you have said really warrants it. But somehow I'm venturing to cherish an absurd notion that I may s-see her."
" Perhaps," said the Tracer, smiling. 114
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Mr. Keen ! You wouldn't say that if — if there was no chance, would you? You wouldn't dash a fellow's hopes "
" No, I wouldn't," said Mr. Keen. " I tell you frankly that I expect to find her."
"To-day?"
"We'll see," said Mr. Keen guardedly. "Come, Captain, don't look that way ! Courage, sir ! We are about to execute a turning movement ; but you look like a Russian general on his way to the south front."
Harren managed to laugh; they went out, side by side, descended the elevator, and found a cab at the porte-cochere. Mr. Keen gave the direc tions and followed the Captain into the cab.
" Now," he said, as they wheeled south, " we are first going to visit the Museum of Inscriptions and have this cipher translation verified. Here is the cipher as I copied it. Hold it tightly, Captain; we've only a few blocks to drive."
Indeed they were already nearly there. The hansom drew up in front of a plain granite build ing wedged in between some rather elaborate pri vate dwelling-houses. Over the door were letters of dull bronze:
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF INSCRIPTIONS 115
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
and the two men descended and entered a wide marble hall lined with glass-covered cabinets con taining plaster casts of various ancient inscrip tions and a few bronze and marble originals. Several female frumps were nosing the exhibits.
An attendant in livery stood in the middle dis tance. The Tracer walked over to him. " I have an appointment to consult Miss Inwood," he whispered.
" This way, sir," nodded the attendant, and the Tracer signaled the Captain to follow.
They climbed several marble stairways, crossed a rotunda, and entered a room — a sort of library. Beyond was a door which bore the inscription:
ASSISTANT CURATOR
" Now," said the Tracer of Lost Persons in a low voice to Captain Harren, " I am going to ask you to sit here for a few minutes while I interview the assistant curator. You don't mind, do you? "
" No, I don't mind," said Harren wearily, " only, when are we going to begin to search for— her ? "
" Very soon — I may say extremely soon," said Mr. Keen gravely. " By the way, I think I'll take that sheet of paper on which I copied the cipher. Thank you. I won't be long." 116
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
The attendant had vanished. Captain Harren sat down by a window and gazed out into the late afternoon sunshine. The Tracer of Lost Persons, treading softly across the carpeted floor, ap proached the sanctuary, turned the handle, and walked in, carefully closing the door behind him.
There was a young girl seated at a desk by an open window ; she looked up quietly as he entered, then rose leisurely.
"Miss Inwood?"
" Yes."
She was slender, dark-eyed, dark-haired — a lovely, wholesome young creature, gracious and graceful. And that was all — for the Tracer of Lost Persons could not see through the eyes of Captain Harren, and perhaps that is why he was not able to discern a miracle of beauty in the pretty girl who confronted him — no magic and matchless marvel of transcendent loveliness — only a quiet, sweet-faced, dark-eyed young girl whose features and figure were attractive in the manner that youth is always attractive. But then it is a gift of the gods to see through eyes anointed by the gods.
The Tracer touched his gray mustache and bowed; the girl bowed very sweetly.
" You are Mr. Keen," she said ; " you have an inscription for me to translate." 117
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" A mystery for young eyes to interpret," he said, smiling. " May I sit here — and tell my story before I show you my inscription? "
"Please do," she said, seating herself at her desk and facing him, one slender white hand sup porting the oval of her face.
The Tracer drew his chair a little forward. " It is a curious matter," he said. " May I give you a brief outline of the details ? "
" By all means, Mr. Keen."
" Then let me begin by saying that the inscrip tion of which I have a copy was probably scratched upon a window pane by means of a diamond."
" Oh ! Then — then it is not an ancient inscrip tion, Mr. Keen."
" The theme is ancient — the oldest theme in the world — love! The cipher is old — as old as King Solomon." She looked up quickly. The Tracer, apparently engrossed in his own story, went on with it. " Three years ago the young girl who wrote this inscription upon the window pane of her — her bedroom, I think it was — fell in love. Do you follow me, Miss In wood ? "
Miss Inwood sat very still — wide, dark eyes fixed on him.
" Fell in love," repeated the Tracer musingly, " not in the ordinary way. That is the point, you 118
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
see. No, she fell in love at first sight ; fell in love with a young man whom she never before had seen, never again beheld — and never forgot. Do you still follow me, Miss Inwood? "
She made the slightest motion with her lips.
" No," mused the Tracer of Lost Persons, " she never forgot him. I am not sure, but I think she sometimes dreamed of him. She dreamed of him awake, too. Once she inscribed a message to him, cutting it with the diamond in her ring on the window pane "
A slight sound escaped from Miss Inwood's lips. 66 1 beg your pardon," said the Tracer, " did you say something? "
The girl had risen, pale, astounded, incredulous.
"Who are you?" she faltered. "What has this — this story to do with me ? "
" Child," said the Tracer of Lost Persons, " the Seal of Solomon is a splendid mystery. All of heaven and earth are included within its symbol. And more, more than you dream of, more than I dare fathom; and I am an old man, my child — old, alone, with nobody to fear for, nothing to dread, not even the end of all — because I am ready for that, too. Yet I, having nothing on earth to dread, dare not fathom what that symbol may mean, nor what vast powers it may exert on life. 9 119
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
God knows. It may be the very signet of Fate itself; the sign manual of Destiny."
He drew the paper from his pocket, unrolled it, and spread it out under her frightened eyes.
" That! " she whispered, steadying herself blindly against the arm he offered. She stood a moment so, then, shuddering, covered her eyes with both hands. The Tracer of Lost Persons looked at her, turned and opened the door.
" Captain Harren ! " he called quietly. Har- ren, pacing the anteroom, turned and came for ward. As he entered the door he caught sight of the girl crouching by the window, her face hidden in her hands, and at the same moment she dropped her hands and looked straight at him.
" You ! " she gasped.
The Tracer of Lost Persons stepped out, clos ing the door. For a moment he stood there, tall, gaunt, gray, staring vacantly into space.
" She was beautiful — when she looked at him," he muttered.
For another minute he stood there, hesitating, glancing backward at the closed door. Then he went away, stooping slightly, his top hat held close against the breast of his tightly buttoned frock coat.
120
CHAPTER XI
DURING his first year of wedded bliss, Gatewood cut the club. When Kerns wanted to see him he had to call like other people or, like other people, accept young Mrs. Gatewood's invitations.
" Why," said Gatewood scornfully, " should I, thirty-four years of age and safely married, go to a club? Why should I, at my age, idle with a lot of idlers and listen to stuffy stories from stuffier individuals? Do you think that stale tobacco smoke, and the idiotically reiterated click of billiard balls, and the vacant stare of the fash ionably brainless, and the meaningless exchange of banalities with the intellectually aimless have any attractions for me ? "
Mrs. Gatewood raised her pretty eyes in silence ; Kerns returned her amused gaze rather blankly.
" Clubs ! " sniffed Gatewood. " What are clubs but pretexts for wasting time? What mental, what spiritual stimulus can a man expect to find in a club? Why, Kerns, when I look back a year and think what I was, and when I look at you and think what you still are "
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" John," said Mrs. Gatewood softly.
"Oh, he knows it!" insisted her husband, " don't you, Tommy? You know the sort of life you're leading, don't you? You know what a miserable, aimless, selfish, unambitious, pitiable existence an unmarried man leads who lives at his club ; don't you ? "
" Certainly," said Kerns, blinking into the smil ing gaze of Mrs. Gatewood.
" Then why don't you marry ? "
But Kerns had risen and was making his adieus with cheerful decision ; and Mrs. Gatewood was laughing as she gave him her slender hand.
" Now I know a girl— ' began Gatewood ; but his wife was still speaking to Kerns, so he circled around them, politely suppressing the ex citement of a sudden idea struggling for utter ance.
Mrs. Gatewood was saying : " I do wish John would go to his clubs occasionally. Because a man is married is no reason for his losing touch with his clubs "
" I know a girl," broke in Gatewood excitedly, laying his arm on Kerns's to detain him; but Kerns slid sideways through the door with a smile so noncommittal that Mrs. Gatewood laughed again and, linking her arm in her husband's, faced 122
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
partly toward him. This maneuver, and the slightest pressure of her shoulder, obliged her husband to begin a turning movement, so that Kerns might reasonably make his escape in the middle of Gatewood's sentence ; which he did with nimble and circumspect agility.
" I — I know a " began Gatewood desper ately, twisting his head over his shoulder, only to hear the deadened patter of his friend's feet over the velvet stair carpet and the subdued clang of the front door.
" Isn't it extraordinary ? " he said to his wife. " I've been trying to tell Tommy, every time he comes here, about a girl I know— just the very girl he ought to marry ; and something prevents him from listening every time."
The attractive young matron beside him turned her face so that her eyes were directly in line with his.
" Did you ever know any people named Man ners ? " she asked. "No. Why?"
" You never knew a girl named Marjorie Man ners, did you, John ? "
"No. What about her?"
" You never heard Mr. Kerns speak of her, did you, dear? "
123
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" No, never. Tommy doesn't talk about girls." " You never heard him speak of a Mrs. Stan ley?"
" Never. Who are these two women? " " One and the same, dear. Marjorie Man ners married an Englishman named Stanley six years ago. Do you happen to recollect that Mr. Kerns took his vacation in England six years ago? "
"Yes. What of it? "
" He crossed to Southampton with Marjorie and her mother. He didn't know she was going over to be married, and she didn't tell him. She wrote to me about it, though. I was in school at Farmington; she left school to marry — a mere child of eighteen, undeveloped for her age, thin, almost scrawny, with pipe-stem arms and neck, red hair, a very sweet, full-lipped mouth, and gray eyes that were too big for her face."
"Well," said Gatewood with a short laugh, "what about it? You don't think Kerns fell in love with an insect of that genus, do you? "
" Yes, I do," smiled Mrs. Gatewood.
"Nonsense. Besides, what of it? She's mar ried, you say."
" Her husband died of enteric at Ladysmith. She wrote me. She has never remarried. Think
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
of it, John — in all these years she has never re married ! "
" Oh ! " said Gatewood pityingly ; " do you really suppose that Tommy Kerns has been nurs ing a blighted affection all these years without ever giving me an inkling? Besides, men don't do that ; men don't curl up and blight. Besides, men don't take any stock in big-eyed, flat-chested, red headed pipe stems. Why do you think that Kerns ever cared for her ? "
" I know he did."
" How do you know it? "
u From Marjorie's letters."
" The conceited kid ! Well, of all insufferable nerve! A man like Kerns — a man — one of the finest, noblest characters — spiritually, intellectu ally, physically — a practically faultless specimen of manhood ! And a red-headed, spindle-legged— Oh, my ! Oh, fizz ! Dearest, men don't worship a cage of bones with an eighteen-year-old soul in it — like a nervous canary pecking out at the world ! "
" She created a furor in England," observed his wife, smiling.
" Oh, I dare say she might over there. Besides, she's doubtless fattened up since then. But if you suppose for one moment that Tommy could even
remember a girl like that "
125
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Mrs. Gatewood smiled again — the wise, sweet smile of a young matron in whom her husband's closest friend had confided. And after a moment or two the wise smile became more thoughtful and less assured ; for that very day the Tracer of Lost Persons had called on her to inquire about a Mrs. Stanley — a new client of his who had recently bought a town house in East Eighty-third Street and a country house on Long Island ; and who had applied to him to find her fugitive butler and a pint or two of family jewels. And, after her talk with the Tracer of Lost Persons, Mrs. Gatewood knew that her favorite among all her husband's friends, Mr. Kerns, would never of his own volition go near that same Marjorie Manners who had flirted with him to the very perilous verge before she told him why she was going to England — and who, now a widow, had returned with her five- year-old daughter to dwell once more in the city of her ancestors.
Kerns had said very simply : " She has spoiled women for me — all except you, Mrs. Gatewood. And if Jack hadn't married you —
" I understand, Mr. Kerns. I'm awfully sorry."
" Don't feel sorry ; only, if you can, call Jack off. He's been perfectly possessed to marry me to somebody ever since he married you. And if 126
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
I told him why I don't care to consider the matter he wouldn't believe me — he'd spend his life in try ing to bring me around. Besides, I couldn't ever tell him about — Marjorie Manners. Anyhow, nothing on earth could ever induce me to look at her again. . . . You say she is now a widow? " " Yes, Mr. Kerns, and very beautiful." " Never again," muttered Kerns. " Never ! She was homely enough when I asked her to marry me. I don't want to see her ; I don't want to know what she looks like. I'm glad she has changed so I wouldn't recognize her, for that means the end of it all — the final elimination of the girl I remem ber on the ship. ... It was probably a sort of diseased infatuation, wasn't it, Mrs. Gatewood? Think of it ! A few days on shipboard and — and I asked her to marry me ! ... I don't blame her, after all, for letting me dangle. It was an excel lent opportunity for her to study a rare species of idiot. She was justified and I am satisfied. Only, do call Jack off with a hint or two."
" I shall try," said young Mrs. Gatewood thoughtfully — very thoughtfully, for already every atom and fiber of her femininity was aroused in behalf of these two estranged young people whom Providence certainly had not meant to put asunder.
CHAPTER XII
" NOTHING," said Gatewood firmly, " can make me believe that Kerns ought not to marry some body ; and I'm never going to let up on him until he does. I'll bet I could fix him for life if I called in the Tracer to help me. Isn't it extraordinary how Kerns has kept out of it all these years ? "
The attractive girl beside him turned her face once more so that her clear, sweet eyes were di rectly in line with his.
" It is extraordinary," she said seriously. " I think you ought to drop in at the club some day when you can corner him and bully him."
" I don't want to go to the club," said the infatuated man.
"Why, dear?"
He looked straight at her and she flushed pret tily, while a tint of color touched his own face. Which was very nice of him. So she didn't say what she was going to say — that it would be per haps better for them both if he practiced on her an artistic absence now and then. Younger in 128
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
years, she was more mature than he. She knew. But she was too much in love with him to salt their ambrosia with common sense or suggest economy in their use of the nectar bottle.
However, the gods attend to that, and she knew they would, and she let them. So one balmy eve ning late in May, when the new moon's ghost floated through the upper haze, and the golden Diana above Manhattan turned flame color, and the electric lights began to glimmer along Fifth Avenue, and the first faint scent of the young summer freshened the foliage in square and park, Kerns, stopping at the club for a moment, found Gatewood seated at the same window they both were wont to haunt in earlier and more flippant days.
" Are you dining here? " inquired Kerns, push ing the electric button with enthusiasm. " Well, that's the first glimmer of common sense you've betrayed since you've been married ! "
" Dining here ! " repeated Gatewood. " I should hope not ! I am j ust going home "
" He's thoroughly cowed," commented Kerns ; " every married man you meet at the club is just going home." But he continued to push the button, nevertheless.
Gatewood leaned back in his chair and gazed 129
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
about him, nose in the air. " What a life ! " he observed virtuously. " It's all I can do to stand it for ten minutes. You're here for the evening, I suppose? " he added pityingly.
" No," said Kerns ; " I'm going uptown to Billy Lee's house to get my suit case. His family are out of town, and he is at Seabright, so he let me camp there until the workmen finish papering my rooms upstairs. I'm to lock up the house and send the key to the Burglar Alarm Company to-night. Then I go to Boston on the 12.10. Want to come? There'll be a few doing."
" To Boston ! What for? "
" Contracts ! We can go out to Cambridge when I've finished my business. There'll be etwas doing."
" Can't you ever recover from being an under graduate? " asked Gatewood, disgusted.
" Well — is there anything the matter with a man getting next to a little amusement in life? " asked Kerns. " Do you object to my being happy ? "
"Amusement? You don't know how to amuse yourself. You don't know how to be happy. Here you sit, day after day, swallowing Mar tinis He paused to finish his own, then re sumed : " Here you sit, day after day, intel- 130
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
lectually stultified, unemotionally ignorant of the
higher and better life ':
" No, I don't. I've a book upstairs that tells all about that. I read it when I have hold overs »
" Kerns, I wish to speak seriously. I've had it on my mind ever since I married. May I speak frankly?"
" Well, when I come back from Boston :"
" Because I know a girl," interrupted Gate- wood — " wait a moment, Tommy ! " — as Kerns rose and sauntered toward the door — " you've plenty of time to catch your train and be civil, too ! I mean to tell you about that girl, if you'll listen."
Kerns halted and turned upon his friend a pair of eyes, unwinking in their placid intelligence.
" I was going to say that I know a girl," con tinued Gatewood, " who is just the sort of a girl you "
" No, she isn't ! " said Kerns, wheeling to re sume his progress toward the cloakroom.
"Tom!"
Kerns halted.
" You're a fine specimen ! " commented Gate- wood scornfully. " You spent the best years of your life in persuading me to get married, and the 131
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
first time I try to do the same for you, you make for the tall timber ! "
" I know it," admitted Kerns, unashamed ; " I'm bashful. I'm a chipmunk for shyness, so I'll say good night "
" Come back," said Gatewood coldly.
" But my suit case —
"You left it at the Lee's, didn't you? Well, you've time enough to go there, get it, make your train, and listen to me, too. Look here, Kerns, have you any of the elements of decency about you?"
" No," said Kerns, " not a single element." He seated himself defiantly in the club window facing Gatewood and began to button his gloves. When he had finished he settled his new straw hat more comfortably on his head, and, leaning forward and balancing his malacca walking stick across his knees, gazed at Gatewood with composure.
" Crank up ! " he said pleasantly ; " I'm going in less than three minutes." He pushed the elec tric knob as an afterthought, and when the gilt buttons of the club servant glimmered through the dusk, " Two more," he explained briskly. After a few moments' silence, broken by the tinkle of ice in thin glassware, Gatewood leaned forward, menacing his friend with an impressive forefinger:
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Did you or didn't you once tell me that a decent citizen ought to marry ? "
" I did, dear friend."
"Did I or didn't I do it?"
" In the words of the classic, you done it," ad mitted Kerns.
" Was I or wasn't I going to the devil before I had the sense to marry ? " persisted Gatewood.
" You was ! You was, dear friend ! " said Kerns with enthusiasm. " You had almost went there ere I appeared and saved you."
" Then why shouldn't you marry and let me save you ? "
" But I'm not going to the bowwows. I'm all right. I'm a decent citizen. I awake in the rosy dawn with a song on my lips ; I softly whistle rag time as I button my collar; I warble a few de licious vagrant notes as I part my sparse hair; I'm not murderous before breakfast; I go down town, singing, to my daily toil ; I fish for fat contracts in Georgia marble ; I return uptown im mersed in a holy cairn and the evening paper. I offer myself a cocktail ; I bow and accept ; I dress for dinner with the aid of a rascally valet, but — do I swear at him? No, dear friend; I say, 4 Henry, I have known far, far worse scoundrels than you. Thank you for filling up my bay rum 133
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
with water. Bless you for wearing my imported hosiery ! I deeply regret that my new shirts do not fit you, Henry ! ' And my smile is a benedic tion upon that wayward scullion. Then, dear friend, why, why do you desire to offer me up upon the altar of unrest? What is a little wifey to me or I to any wifey? "
" Because," said Gatewood irritated, " you offered me up. I'm happy and I want you to be — you great, hulking, self-satisfied symbol of supreme self-centered selfishness "
" Oh, splash ! " said Kerns feebly.
"Yes, you are. What do you do all day? Grub for money and study how to make life agree able to yourself! Every minute of the day you are occupied in having a good time ! You've ad mitted it! You wake up singing like a fool canary ; you wear imported hosiery ; you've made a soft, warm wallow for yourself at this club, and here you bask your life away, waddling down town to nail contracts and cut coupons, and uptown to dinners and theaters, only to return and sprawl here in luxury without one sin gle thought for posterity. Your crime is race suicide ! "
" I— my— what ! "
" Certainly. Some shirk taxes, some jury duty.
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
You shirk fatherhood, and all its happy and sacred obligations ! You deny posterity ! You strike a blow at it ! You flout it ! You menace the future of this Republic! Your inertia is a crime against the people ! Instead of pro bono publico your motto is pro bono tempo — for a good time! And, dog Latin or not, it's the truth, and our great President "
" Splash ! " said Kerns, rising.
" I've a good mind," said Gatewood indig nantly, " to put the Tracer of Lost Persons on your trail. He'd rope you and tie you in record time!"
Kerns's smile was a provocation.
" I'll do it, too ! " added Gatewood, losing his temper, " if you dare give me the chance."
" Seriously," inquired Kerns, delighted, " do you think your friend, Mr. Keen, could en compass my matrimony against my better sense and the full enjoyment of my unimpaired mental faculties?"
" Didn't he — fortunately for me — force me into matrimony when I had never seen a woman I would look at twice? Didn't you put him up to it? Very well, why can't I put him on your trail then? Why can't he do the same for
you?"
10 135
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Try it, dear friend," retorted Kerns cour teously.
" Do you mean that you are not afraid? Do you mean you give me full liberty to set him on you? And do you realize what that means? No, you don't ; for you haven't a notion of what that man, Westrel Keen, can accomplish. You haven't the slightest idea of the machinery which he con trols with a delicacy absolutely faultless; with a perfectly terrifying precision. Why, man, the Pinkerton system itself has become merely a detail in the immense complexity of the system of con trol which the Tracer of Lost Persons exercises over this entire continent. The urban police, the State constabulary of Pennsylvania, the rural sys tems of surveillance, the Secret Service, all munici pal, provincial, State, and national organizations form but a few strands in the universal web he has woven. Custom officials, revenue officers, the mili tia of the States, the army, the navy, the personnel of every city, State, and national legislative bodies form interdependent threads in the mesh he is master of ; and, like a big beneficent spider, he sits in the center of his web, able to tell by the slightest tremor of any thread exactly where to begin investigations ! "
Flushed, earnest, a trifle out of breath with his 136
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
own eloquence, Gatewood waved his hand to indi cate a Ciceronian period, adding, as Kerns's in credulous smile broadened : " Say splash again, and I'll put you at his mercy ! "
" Ker-splash ! dear friend," observed Kerns pleasantly. " If a man doesn't want to marry, the army, the navy, the Senate, the white wings, and the great White Father at Washington can't make him."
" I tell you I want to see you happy ! " said Gatewood angrily.
" Then gaze upon me. I'm it ! "
" You're not ! You don't know what hap piness is."
"Don't I? Well, I don't miss it, dear friend -"
" But if you've never had it, and therefore don't miss it, it's time somebody found some real happiness for you. Kerns, I simply can't bear to see you missing so much happiness '
"Why grieve?"
" Yes, I will ! I do grieve — in spite of your grinning skepticism and your bantering attitude. See here, Tom ; I've started about a thousand times to say that I knew a girl "
" Do you want to hear that splash again ? "
Gatewood grew madder. He said : " I could 137
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
easily lay your case before Mr. Keen and have you in love and married and happy whether you like it or not!"
" If I were not going to Boston, my son, I should enjoy your misguided efforts," returned Kerns blandly.
" Your going to Boston makes no difference. The Tracer of Lost Persons doesn't care where you go or what you do. If he starts in on your case, Tommy, you can't escape."
"You mean he can catch me now? Here? At my own club ? Or on the public highway ? Or on the classic Boston train ? "
" He could. Yes, I firmly believe he could land you before you ever saw the Boston State House. I tell you he can work like lightning, Kerns. I know it; I am so absolutely convinced of it that I — I almost hesitate "
" Don't feel delicate about it," laughed Kerns ; " you may call him on the telephone while I go uptown and get my suit case. Perhaps I'll come back a blushing bridegroom ; who knows ? "
" If you'll wait here I'll call him up now," said Gatewood grimly.
" Oh, very well. Only I left my suit case in Billy's room, and it's full of samples of Georgia marble, and I've got to get it to the train." 138
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" You've plenty of time. If you'll wait until I talk to Mr. Keen I'll dine with you here. Will you?"
" What? Dine in this abandoned joint with an outcast like me? Dear friend, are you dippy this lovely May evening? "
" I'll do it if you'll wait. Will you? And I'll bet you now that I'll have you in love and sprint ing toward the altar before we meet again at this club. Do you dare bet ? "
" The terms of the wager, kind friend ? " drawled Kerns, delighted ; and he fished out a note book kept for such transactions.
" Let me see," reflected Gatewood ; " you'll need a silver service when you're married. . . . Well, say, forks and spoons and things against an im ported trap gun — twelve-gauge, you know."
" Done. Go and telephone to your friend, Mr. Keen." And Kerns pushed the electric button with a jeering laugh, and asked the servant for a dinner card
139
CHAPTER XIII
GATEWOOD, in the telephone booth, waited impa tiently for Mr. Keen; and after a few moments the Tracer of Lost Persons' agreeable voice sounded in the receiver.
" It's about Mr. Kerns," began Gatewood ; " I want to see him happy, and the idiot won't be. Now, Mr. Keen, you know what happiness you and he brought to me! You know what sort of an idle, selfish, aimless, meaningless life you saved me from? I want you to do the same for Mr. Kerns. I want to ask you to take up his case at once. Be sides, I've a bet on it. Could you attend to it at once ? "
" To-night? " asked the Tracer, laughing.
" Why — ah — well, of course, that would be im possible. I suppose —
" My profession is to overcome the impossible, Mr. Gatewood. Where is Mr. Kerns ? "
" Here, in this club, defying me and drinking cocktails. He won't get married, and I want you to make him do it."
140
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Where is he spending the evening?" asked the Tracer, laughing again.
" Why, he's been stopping at the Danforth Lees' in Eighty-third Street until the workmen at the club here finish putting new paper on his walls. The Lees are out of town. He left his suit case at their house and he's going up to get it and catch the 12.10 train for Boston."
" He goes from the Lenox Club to the residence of Mr. W. Danforth Lee, East Eighty-third Street, to get a suit case," repeated the Tracer. "Is that correct?"
" Yes."
" What is in the suit case? "
" Samples of that new marble he's quarrying in Georgia."
" Is it an old suit case ? Has it Mr. Kerns's initials on it ? "
" Hold the wire ; I'll find out."
And Gatewood left the telephone and walked into the great lounging room, where Kerns sat twirling his stick and smiling to himself.
" All over, dear friend? " inquired Kerns, start ing to rise. " I've, ordered a corking dinner."
" Wait ! " returned Gatewood ominously. " What sort of a suit case is that one you're going after ? "
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" What sort? Oh, just an ordinary "
"Is it old or new?"
"Brand new. Why?"
" Is your name on it ? "
" No ; why ? Would that thicken the plot, dear friend? Or is the Tracer foiled, ha ! ha ! "
Gatewood turned on his heel, went back to the telephone, and, carefully shutting the door of the booth, took up the receiver.
" It's a new suit case, Mr. Keen," he said ; " no initials on it — just an ordinary case."
" Mr. Lee's residence is 38 East Eighty-third Street, between Madison and Fifth, I believe."
" Yes," replied Gatewood.
" And the family are out of town ? "
" Yes."
" Is there a caretaker there ? "
" No ; Mr. Kerns camped there. When he leaves to-night he will send the key to the Burglar Alarm Company."
" Very well. Please hold the wire for a while."
For ten full minutes Gatewood sat gleefully cuddling the receiver against his ear. His faith in Mr. Keen was naturally boundless ; he believed that whatever the Tracer attempted could not result in failure. He desired nothing in the world so ardently as to see Kerns safely married. His
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
own happiness may have been the motive power which had set him in action in behalf of his friend — that and a certain indefinable desire to practice a species of heavenly revenge, of grateful retalia tion upon the prime mover and collaborateur, if not the sole author, of his own wedded bliss. Kerns had made him happy.
"And I'm hanged if I don't pay him off and make him happy, too ! " muttered Gatewood. " Does he think I'm going to sit still and see him go tearing and gyrating about town with no re sponsibility, no moral check to his evolutions, no wholesome home duties to limit his acrobatics, no wife to clip his wings ? It's time he had somebody to report to; time he assumed moral burdens and spiritual responsibilities. A man is just as happy when he is certain where he is going to sleep. A man can find just as much enjoyment in life when he feels it his duty to account for his movements. I don't care whether Kerns is comparatively happy or not — there's nothing either sacred or holy in that kind of happiness, and I'm not going to endure the sort of life he likes any longer ! "
Immersed in moral reflections, inspired by af fectionate obligations to violently inflict happiness upon Kerns, the minutes passed very agreeably 143
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
until the amused voice of the Tracer of Lost Per sons sounded again in the receiver. "Mr. Gatewood?" " Yes, I am here, Mr. Keen." " Do you really think it best for Mr. Kerns to fall in love?"
"I do, certainly!" replied Gatewood with emphasis.
" Because," continued the Tracer of Lost Per sons, " I see little chance for him to do otherwise if I take up this case. Fate itself, in the shape of a young lady, is already on the way here in a railroad train."
" Good ! Good ! " exclaimed Gatewood. " Don't let him escape, Mr. Keen ! I beg of you to take up his case ! I urge you most seriously to do so. Mr. Kerns is now exactly what I was a year ago — an utterly useless member of the community — a typical bachelor who lives at his clubs, shirking the duties of a decent citizen."
" Exactly," said the Tracer. " Do you insist that I take this case? That I attempt to trace and find for Mr. Kerns a sort of happiness he himself has never found? "
" I implore you to do so, Mr. Keen." " Exactly. If I do— if I carry it out as it has been arranged — or rather as the case seems to
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
have already arranged itself, for it is rather a simple matter, I fancy — I do not exactly see how Mr. Kerns can avoid experiencing a — ahem — a tender sentiment for the very charming young lady whom I — and chance — have designed for him as a partner through life."
" Excellent ! Splendid ! " shouted Gatewood through the telephone. " Can I do anything to aid you in this ? "
" Yes," replied the Tracer, laughing. " If you can keep him amused for an hour or two before he goes after his suit case it might make it easier for me. This young lady is due to arrive in New York at eight o'clock — a client of mine — coming to con sult me. Her presence plays an important part in Mr. Kerns's future. I wish you to detain Mr. Kerns until she is ready to receive him. But of this he must know nothing. Good-by, Mr. Gate- wood, and would you be kind enough to present my compliments to Mrs. Gatewood? "
" Indeed I will ! We never can forget what you have done for us. Good-by."
" Good-by, Mr. Gatewood. Try to keep Mr. Kerns amused for two or three hours. Of course, if you can't do this, there are other methods I may employ — a dozen other plans already partly out lined in my mind; but the present plan, which 145
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
accident and coincidence make so easy, is likely to work itself out to your entire satisfaction within a few hours. We are already weaving a web around Mr. Kerns ; we already have taken exclusive charge of his future movements after he leaves the Lenox Club. I do not believe he can escape us, or his charming destiny. Good night ! "
Gatewood, enchanted, hung up the receiver. Song broke softly from his lips as he started in search of Kerns ; his step was springy, buoyant — a sort of subdued and modest prance.
" Now," he said to himself, " Tommy must take out his papers. The time is ended when he can issue letters of marque to himself, hoist sail, square away, and go cruising all over this metrop olis at his own sweet will."
146
CHAPTER XIV
IN the meanwhile, at the other end of the wire, Mr. Keen, the Tracer of Lost Persons, was pre paring to trace for Mr. Kerns, against that gen tleman's will, the true happiness which Mr. Kerns had never been able to find for himself.
He sat in his easy chair within the four walls of his own office, inspecting a line of people who stood before him on the carpet forming a single and attentive rank. In this rank were five men: a policeman, a cab driver, an agent of the tele phone company, an agent of the electric company, and a reformed burglar carrying a kit of his trade tools.
The Tracer of Lost Persons gazed at them, meditatively joining the tips of his thin fingers.
" I want the number on 36 East Eighty-third Street changed to No. 38, and the number 38 re placed by No. 36," he said to the policeman. " I want it done at once. Get a glazier and go up there and have it finished in an hour. Mrs. Kenna, caretaker at No. 36, is in my pay ; she will not in terfere. There is nobody in No. 38: Mr. Kerns 147
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
leaves there to-night and the Burglar Alarm Com pany takes charge to-morrow."
And, turning to the others: "You," nodding at the reformed burglar, " know your duty. Mike ! " to the cab driver, " don't miss Mr. Kerns at the Lenox Club. If he calls you before eleven, drive into the park and have an accident. And you," to the agent of the telephone company, " will sever all telephone connection in Mrs. Stan ley's house ; and you," to the official of the electric company, " will see that the circuit in Mrs. Stan ley's house is cut so that no electric light may be lighted and no electric bell sound."
The Tracer of Lost Persons stroked his gray mustache thoughtfully. "And that," he ended, " will do, I think. Good night."
He rose and stood by the door as the policeman headed the solemn file which marched out to their duty ; then he looked at his watch, and, as it was already a few minutes after eight, he called up No. 36 East Eighty-third Street, and in a moment more had Mrs. Stanley on the wire.
" Good evening," he said pleasantly. " I sup pose you have just arrived from Rosylyn. I may be a little late — I may be very late, in fact, so I called you up to say so. And I wished to say another thing; to ask you whether your servants 148
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
could recollect ever having seen a young man about the place, a rather attractive young man with excellent address and manners, five feet eleven inches, slim but well built, dark hair, dark eyes, and dark mustache, offering samples of Georgia marble for sale."
" Really, Mr, Keen," replied a silvery voice, " I have heard them say nothing about such an in dividual. If you will hold the wire I will ask my maid." And, after a pause : " No, Mr. Keen, my maid cannot remember any such person. Do you think he was a confederate of that wretched butler of mine ? "
" I am scarcely prepared to say that ; in fact," added Mr. Keen, " I haven't the slightest idea that this young man could have been concerned in any thing of that sort. Only, if you should ever by any chance see such a man, detain him if possible until you can communicate with me; detain him by any pretext, by ruse, by force if you can, only detain him until I can get there. Will you do this?"
" Certainly, Mr. Keen, if I can. Please describe him again ? "
Mr. Keen did so minutely.
" You say he sells Georgia marble by samples, which he carries in a suit case ? " 149
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" He says that he has samples of Georgia mar ble in his suit case," replied the Tracer cautiously. " It might be well, if possible, to see what he has in his suit case."
" I will warn the servants as soon as I return to Rosylyn. When may I expect you this evening, Mr. Keen?"
" It is impossible to say, Mrs. Stanley. If I am not there by midnight I shall try to call next morning."
So they exchanged civil adieus ; the Tracer hung up his receiver and leaned back in his chair, smiling to himself.
" Curious," he said, " that chance should have sent that pretty woman to me at such a time. . . . Kerns is a fine fellow, every inch of him. It hit him hard when he crossed with her to Southamp ton six years ago ; it hit him harder when she married that Englishman. I don't wonder he never cared to marry after that brief week of her society ; for she is just about the most charming woman I have ever met — red hair and all. . . . And if quick action is what is required, it's well to break the ice between them at once with a dreadful misunderstanding."
150
CHAPTER XV
THE dinner that Kerns had planned for himself and Gatewood was an ingenious one, cunningly contrived to discontent Gatewood with home fare and lure him by its seductive quality into frequent revisits to the club which was responsible for such delectable wines and viands.
A genial glow already enveloped Gatewood and pleasantly suffused Kerns. From time to time they held some rare vintage aloft, squinting through the crystal-imprisoned crimson with deep content.
" Not that my word is necessarily the last word concerning Burgundy," said Gatewood modestly ; " but I venture to doubt that any club in America can match this bottle, Kerns."
" Now, Jack," wheedled Kerns, " isn't it pleas ant to dine here once in a while ? Be frank, man ! Look about at the other tables — at all the pleas ant, familiar faces — the same fine fellows, bless 'em — the same smoky old ceiling, the same bum portraits of dead governors, the same old stag 11 151
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
heads on the wall. Now, Jack, isn't it mighty pleasant, after all? Be a gentleman and ad mit it ! "
"Y-yes," confessed Gatewood, "it's all right for me once in a while, because I know that I am presently going back to my own home — a jolly lamplit room and the prettiest girl in Manhattan curled up in an armchair "
" You're fortunate," said Kerns shortly. And for the first time there remained no lurking mock ery in his voice; for the first time his retort was tinged with bitterness. But the next instant his eyes glimmered with the same gay malice, and the unbelieving smile twitched at his clean-cut lips, and he raised his hand, touching the short ends of his mustache with that careless, amused cynicism which rather became him.
" All that you picture so entrancingly is for bidden the true believer," he said; and began to repeat :
" ' O weaver ! weave the flowers of Feraghan Into the fabric that thy birth began ; Iris, narcissus, tulips cloud-band tied, These thou shalt picture for the eye of Man ; Henna, Herati, and the Jhelums tide In Sarraband and Saruk be thy guide, And the red dye of Ispahan beside 152
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
The checkered Chinese fret of ancient gold ; — So heed the ban, old as the law is old, Nor weave into thy warp the laughing face, Nor limb, nor body, nor one line of grace, Nor hint, nor tint, nor any veiled device Of Woman who is barred from Paradise ! ' '
" A nice sentiment ! " said Gatewood hotly.
" Can't help it ; you see I'm forbidden to mon key with the eternal looms or weave the forbidden into the pattern of my life."
Gatewood sat silent for a moment, then looked up at Kerns with something so closely akin to a grin that his friend became interested in its scarcely veiled significance, and grinned in reply.
" So you really expect that your friend, Mr. Keen, is going to marry me to somebody, nolens volens? " asked Kerns.
" I do. That's what I dream of, Tommy."
" My poor friend, dream on ! "
" I am. Tommy, you're lost ! I mean you're as good as married now ! "
"You think so?"
"I know it! There you sit, savoring your Burgundy, idling over a cigar, happy, care free, fancy free, at liberty, as you believe, to roam off anywhere at any time and continue the eternal hunt for pleasure ! That's what you think ! Ha ! 153
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
Tommy, I know better! That's not the sort of man 7 see sitting on the same chair where you are now sprawling in such content! I see a doomed man, already in the shadow of the altar, wasting his time unsuspiciously while Chance comes whirl ing into the city behind a Long Island locomotive, and Fate, the footman, sits outside ready to fol low him, and Destiny awaits him no matter what he does, what he desires, where he goes, wherever he turns to-night! Destiny awaits him at his journey's end! "
" Very fine," said Kerns admiringly. " Too bad it's due to the Burgundy."
" Never mind what my eloquence is due to," re torted Gatewood, " the fact remains that this is probably your last bachelor dinner. Kerns, old fellow ! Here's to her ! Bless her ! I — I wish sin cerely that we knew who she is and where to send those roses. Anyway, here's to the bride ! "
He stood up very gravely and drank the toast, then, reseating himself, tapped the empty glass gently against the table's edge until it broke.
4 You are certainly doing your part well," said Kerns admiringly. Then he swallowed the re mainder of his Burgundy and looked up at the club clock.
"Eleven," he said with regret. "I've about 154
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
time to go to Eighty-third Street, get my suit case, and catch my train at 125th Street." To a servant he said, " Call a hansom," then rose and sauntered downstairs to the cloakroom, where presently both men stood, hatted and 'gloved, swinging their sticks.
" That was a fool bet you made," began Kerns ; " Fll release you, Jack."
" Sorry, but I must insist on holding you," re plied Gatewood, laughing. " You're going to your doom. Come on ! I'll see you as far as the cab door."
They walked out, and Kerns gave the cabby the street and number and entered the hansom.
" Now," said Gatewood, " you're in for it ! You're done for! You can't help yourself! I've won my twelve-gauge trap gun already, and I'll have to set you up in table silver, anyway, so it's an even break. You're all in, Tommy! The Tracer is on your trail ! "
In the beginning of a flippant retort Kerns ex perienced a curious sensation of hesitation. Some thing in Gatewood's earnestness, in his jeering assurance and delighted certainty, made him, for one moment, feel doubtful, even uncomfortable.
" What nonsense you talk," he said, recovering his equanimity. " Nothing on earth can prevent 155
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
me driving to 38 East Eighty-third Street, get ting my luggage, arfti taking the Boston express. Your Tracer doesn't intend to stop my hansom and drag me into a cave, does he? You haven't put knock-outs into that Burgundy, have you? Then what in the dickens are you laughing at ? "
But Gatewood, on the sidewalk under the lamp light, was still laughing as Kerns drove away, for he had recognized in the cab driver a man he had seen in Mr. Kern's office, and he knew that the Tracer of Lost Persons had Kerns already well in hand.
The hansom drove on through the summer darkness between rows of electric globes drooping like huge white moon flowers from their foliated bronze stalks, on up the splendid avenue, past the great brilliantly illuminated hotels, past the white cathedral, past clubs and churches and the palaces of the wealthy ; on, on along the park wall edged by its double rows of elms under which shadowy forms moved — lovers strolling in couples.
" Pooh," sniffed Kerns, " the whole world has gone love mad, and I'm the only sane man left."
But he leaned back in his cab and fell a-thinking
of a thin girl with red hair and great gray eyes
— a thin, frail creature, scarcely more than a
child, who had held him for a week in a strange
156
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
sorcery only to release him with a frightened smile, leaving her indelible impression upon his life forever.
And, thinking, he looked up, realizing that the cab had stopped in East Eighty-third Street before one of a line of brownstone houses, all ex ternally alike.
Then he leaned out and saw that the house number was thirty-eight. That was the number of the Lees' house ; he descended, bade the cabman await him, and, producing his latch key, started up the steps, whistling gayly.
But he didn't require his key, for, as he reached the front door, he found, to his surprise and con cern, that it swung partly open — just a mere crack.
" The mischief ! " he muttered ; " could I have failed to close it? Could anybody have seen it and crept in ? "
He entered the hallway hastily and pressed the electric knob. No light appeared in the sconces.
" What the deuce ! " he murmured ; " something wrong with the switch ! " And he hurriedly lighted a match and peered into the darkness. By the vague glimmer of the burning match he could distinguish nothing. He listened intently, tried the electric switch again without success. The 157
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
match burned his fingers and he dropped it, watch ing the last red spark die out in the darkness.
Something about the shadowy hallway seemed unfamiliar; he went to the door, stepped out on the stoop, and looked up at the number on the transom. It was thirty-eight ; no doubt about the house. Hesitating, he glanced around to see that his hansom was still there. It had disappeared.
" What an idiot that cabman is ! " he exclaimed, intensely annoyed at the prospect of lugging his heavy suit case to a Madison Avenue car and traveling with it to Harlem.
He looked up and down the dimly lighted street; east, an electric car glided down Madison Avenue; west, the lights of Fifth Avenue glim mered against the dark foliage of the Park. He stood a moment, angry at the desertion of his cab man, then turned and reentered the dark hall, closing the door behind him.
Up the staircase he felt his way to the first landing, and, lighting a match, looked for the electric button.
" Am I crazy, or was there no electric button in this hall? " he thought. The match burned low ; he had to drop it. Perplexed, he struck another match and opened the door leading into the front room, and stood on the threshold a moment, look- 158
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
ing about him at the linen-shrouded furniture and pictures. This front room, closed for the summer, he had not before entered, but he stepped in now, poking about for any possible intruder, lighting match after match.
" I suppose I ought to go over this confounded house inch by inch," he murmured. " What could have possessed me to leave the front door ajar this morning? "
For an instant he thought that perhaps Mrs. Nolan, the woman who came in the morning to make his bed, might have left the door open, but he knew that couldn't be so, because he always waited for her to finish her work and leave before he went out. So either he must have left the door open, or some marauder had visited the house — was perhaps at that moment in the house! And it was his duty to find out.
" I'd better be about it, too," he thought sav agely, " or I'll never make my train."
He struck his last match, looked around, and, seeing gas jets among the clustered electric bulbs of the sconces, tried to light one and succeeded.
He had left his suit case in the passageway be tween the front and rear rooms, and now, cau tiously, stick in hand, he turned toward the dim corridor leading to the bedroom. There was his 159
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
suit case, anyway ! He picked it up and started to push open the door of the rear room ; but at the same time, and before he could lay his hand on the knob, the door before him opened suddenly in a flood of light/and a woman stood there, dark against the gas-lit glare, a pistol waveringly ex tended in the general direction of his head.
160
CHAPTER XVI
«GooD heavens!" he said, appalled, and dropped his suit case with a crash.
«W-what are you d-doing ' She con trolled her voice and the wavering weapon with an effort. " What are you doing in this house? "
" Doing? In this house? " he repeated, his eyes protruding in the direction of the unsteady pistol muzzle. " What are you doing in this house-— if you don't mind saying ! "
« i_l m-must ask you to put up your hands," she said. " If you move I shall certainly s-shoot off this pistol."
« It will go off, anyway, if you handle it like that ! " he said, exasperated. " What do you mean by pointing it at me ? "
« I mean to fire it off in a few moments if you don't raise your hands above your head ! '
He looked at the pistol; it was new and shiny; he looked at the athletic young figure silhouetted against the brilliant light.
" Well, if you make a point of it, of course." 161
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
He slowly held up both hands, higher, then higher still. "Upon my word!" he breathed. " Held up by a woman ! " And he said aloud, bit terly: "No doubt you have assistance close at hand."
" No doubt," she said coolly. " What have you been packing into that valise? "
"P-packing into what? Oh, into that suit case? That is my suit case."
" Of course it is," she said quietly, " but what have you inside it? "
" Nothing you or your friends would care for," he said meaningly.
" I must be the judge of that," she retorted. " Please open that suit case."
" How can I if my hands are in the air? " he expostulated, now intensely interested in the nov elty of being held up by this graceful and vaguely pretty silhouette.
' You may lower your arms to unpack the suit case," she said.
" I — I had rather not if you are going to keep me covered with your pistol."
" Of course I shall keep you covered. Unpack your booty at once ! " « My— what ? " " Booty."
162
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
"Madam, do you take me for a thief? Have you, by chance, entered the wrong house? I — I cannot reconcile your voice with what I am forced to consider you — a housebreaker "
" We will discuss that later. Unpack that bag ! " she insisted.
« But — but there is nothing in it except sam ples of marble "
" What ! " she exclaimed nervously. " What did you say ? Samples of marble ? "
" Marble, madam ! Georgia marble ! "
" Oh ! So you are the young man who goes about pretending to peddle Georgia marble from samples! Are you? The famous marble man I have heard of."
" I? Madam, I don't know what you mean ! "
" Come ! she said scornfully ; " let me see the contents of that suit case. I — I am not afraid of you; I am not a bit afraid of you. And I shall catch your accomplice, too."
" Madam, you speak like an honest woman ! You must have managed to enter the wrong house. This is number thirty-eight, where I live."
" It is number thirty-six ; my house ! "
" But I know it is number thirty-eight ; Mr. Lee's house," he protested hopefully. " This is some dreadful mistake."
163
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
" Mr. Lee's house is next door," she said. " Do you not suppose I know my own house? Besides, I have been warned against a plausible young man who pretends he has Georgia marble to sell "
' There is a dreadful mistake somewhere," he in sisted. " Please p-p-put up your p-pistol and aid me to solve it. I am no robber, madam. I thought at first that you were. I'm living in Mr. Lee's house, No. 38 East Eighty-third Street, and I've looked carefully at the number over the door of this house and the number is thirty-eight, and the street is East Eighty-third. So I naturally con clude that I am in Mr. Lee's house."