Bunker Bean Part 10

"There's yours, Ed. You earned it all right, I'll say that. My! don't I wish I was up on that dope."

"You were the wise lady to send for me, Lizzie. You'd have killed him off right here. As it is, he'll come back. He's a clerk somewhere, drawing twenty-five a week or so. He ought to give up at least five of it every week; cigarette money, anyway. Anything loose in the house?"

"They's a couple bottles beer in the icebox. Gee! ain't he good, though!

If he only had the roll some has!"

In his little room far up under the hunched shoulders of the house, Bunker Bean sat reviewing his Karmic past. Over parts of it he shuddered. That crafty Venetian plotting to kill, trifling wickedly with the inlaid dagger; the brutal Roman, ruling by fear, cutting off heads!

And the blind poet! He would rather be Napoleon than a blind poet, if you came down to that. But the king, wise, humane, handsome, masterly, with a princess of rare beauty from Mesopotamia to be the mother of his three lovely children. That was a dazzling vision to behold, a life sane and proper, abounding in majesty both moral and material.

He sought to live over his long and peaceful but brilliant reign. Then he dwelt on his death and burial. They had made a mummy of him, of course. Somewhere that very night, at that very instant, his lifeless form reposed beneath the desert sands. Perhaps the face had changed but little during the centuries. He, Bunker Bean, lay there in royal robes, hands folded upon his breast, as lamenting subjects had left him.

And what did it mean to him now? He thought he saw. As King Ram-tah he had been _too_ peaceful. For all his stern and kingly bearing might he not have been a little timid--afraid of people now and then? And the Karmic law had swept him on and on into lives that demanded violence, the Roman warrior, the Venetian plotter, the Corsican usurper!

He saw that he must have completed one of those vast Karmic cycles. What he had supposed to be timidity was a natural reaction from Napoleonic bravado. Now he had finished the circle and was ready to become again his kingly self, his Ram-tah self--able, reliant, fearless.

He expanded his chest, erected his shoulders and studied himself in the gla.s.s: there was undoubted majesty in the glance. He vibrated with some fresh, strange power.

Yes; but what about to-morrow--out in the world? in daylight, pa.s.sing the policeman on the corner, down at the office? Would he remain a king in the presence of Breede, even in the lesser presence of Bulger, or of old Metzeger from whom he purposed to borrow seventeen dollars and seventy-nine cents? All right about being a king, but how were other people to know it? Well, he would have to make them feel it. He must know it himself, first; then impress it upon them.

But a sense of unreality was creeping back. It was almost better to remember the Napoleon past. There were books about that. He pictured again the dead Ram-tah in trappings of royalty. If he could only _see_ himself, and be sure. But that was out of the question. It was no good wis.h.i.+ng. After all, he was Bunker Bean, a poor thing who had to fly when Breede growled "Wantcha." He sat at his table, staring moodily into vacancy. He idly speculated about Breede's ragged moustache; he thought it had been blasted and killed by the words Breede spoke. A moment later he was conscious that he stared at an unopened letter on the table before him.

He took it up without interest, perceiving that it came from his Aunt Clara in Chicago. She would ask if he had yet joined the Y.M.C.A., and warn him to be careful about changing his flannels.

"Dear Bunker" [it began], "my own dear husband pa.s.sed to his final rest last Thursday at 5 p.m. He was cheerful to the last and did not seem to suffer much. The funeral was on Sat.u.r.day and was very beautiful and impressive. I did not notify you at the time as I was afraid the shock would affect you injuriously and that you might be tempted to make the long trip here to be with me. Now that you know it is all over, you can take it peacefully, as I am already doing. The life-insurance people were very nice about it and paid the claim promptly. I enclose the money which wipes out all but--"

He opened the double sheet. There were many more of the closely written lines, but he read no farther, for a check was folded there. His trembling fingers pulled the ends apart and his astounded eyes rested on its ornate face.

It was for ten thousand dollars.

At six minutes after eight the following evening the Countess Casanova, moved from her professional calm, hurriedly closed the sliding doors between the two rooms of her apartment and sprang to the telephone where she frantically demanded a number. The delay seemed interminable to her, but at last she began to speak.

"That you, Ed? F'r G.o.d's sake, beat it over here quick. That b.o.o.b las'

night is back here an' _he's got it_. I dunno--but something _big_, I tell you. He's actin' like a crazy man. Listen here! He wants t' know can you _locate_ it--see it lyin' there underground. Why, the mummy; yes. M-u-m-m-i-e. Yes, sure! He's afraid mebbe they already dug him up an' got him in a musee somewheres, but if it's still there he wants it.

Yes, sure thing, dontchu un'stand? _Wants_ it! How in--how can I tell?

That's up to you. Git here! Sure--fifty-fifty!"

Bean glanced up feverishly as the Countess reappeared. She was smoothing her hair and readjusting the set of the scarlet wrapper. Her own excitement was apparent.

"It's all right. I think he'll come, but it was a close call. He was jes' packin' his grip f'r Wash'n'ton. Got a telegraph from the Pres'dent to-day t' come at once. Of course he'll miss a big fee. The Pres'dent don't care f'r money when it's a question of gittin' th' right advice--"

"Oh, money!" murmured Bean, and waved a contemptuous hand.

His manner was not lost upon his hearer.

"Lots of money made in a hurry, these days," she suggested, "or got hold of some way--gits left to parties--thousand dollars, mebbe--two, three, four thousand?"

Again he performed the pus.h.i.+ng gesture, as if he were discommoded by money. He scarcely heard her voice.

The Countess did not venture another effort to appraise his wealth.

She fell silent, watching him. Bean gazed at a clean square on the wall-paper where a picture had once hung. Then the authoritative tread was again heard on the stairway, and again the Countess Casanova welcomed Professor Balthasar to her apartment. She expressed a polite regret for having annoyed him.

Professor Balthasar bestowed his s.h.i.+ny hat upon her, enveloped his equally s.h.i.+ny skull with the silken cap and a.s.sured her that his mission was to serve. Bean had not risen. He still stared at the wall.

"I'll jes' leave you alone with our friend here," said the Countess charmingly. The professor questioned her with a glance and she shook her head in response, yet her gesture as she vanished through the curtains was one of large encouragement.

The professor faced Bean and coughed slightly. Bean diverted his stare to the professor and seemed about to speak, but the other silenced him with a commanding forefinger.

"Not a word! I see it all. You impose your tremendous will upon me."

He took the chair facing Bean and began swiftly:

"I see the path over the desert. I stop beside a temple. Sand is all about. Beneath that temple is a stone sarcophagus. Within it lies the body of King Tam-rah--"

"Ram-tah!" corrected Bean gently.

"Did I not say Ram-tah?" pursued the seer. "There it has lain sealed for centuries, while all about it the tombs of other kings have been despoiled by curiosity hunters looking for objects of interest to place in their cabinets. But Ram-tah, last king of the pre-dynastic period, though others will tell you differently, but that's because he never got into history much, by reason of his uniformly gentlemanly conduct. He rests there to-day precisely as he was put. I see it all; I penetrate the heaped sands. At this moment the moon s.h.i.+nes upon the spot, and a night bird is calling to its mate in the mulberry tree near the northeast corner of the temple. I see it all. I am there! What is this?

What is this I get from you, my young friend?"

The professor seemed to c.o.c.k a psychic ear toward Bean.

"You want--ah, yes, I see what you want, but that, of course, humanly, would be impossible. Oh, quite impossible, quite, quite!"

"_Why_, if you're sure it's there?"

"My dear sir, you descend to the material world. I will talk to you now as one practical man to another. Simply because it would take more money than you can afford. The thing is practicable but too expensive."

"How do you know?"

"It is true, I do not know. My control warned me when I came here that your circ.u.mstances had been suddenly bettered. I withdraw the words. I do not know, but--you will pardon the bluntness--_can_ you afford it?"

"What'd it cost? That's what I want to know."

"Hum!" said the professor. He was unable to achieve more for a little time. He hum'd again.

"There's the labour and the risk," he ventured at last. "Of course my agents at Cairo--I have secret agents in every city on the globe--could proceed to the spot from my carefully worded directions. They could do the work of excavating. So far, so good! But they would have to work quietly and would be punished if discovered. Of course here and there they could bribe. Naturally, they would have to bribe, and that, as you are doubtless aware, requires money. Again, entering this port the custom-house officials would have to be bribed, and they've gone up in price the last few years. My control tells me that this mummy is one they've been looking hard for. It's about the only one they haven't found. The loss will be discovered and my men might be traced. It requires an enormous sum. Now, for instance, a thousand dollars"--he regarded Bean closely and was rea.s.sured--"a thousand dollars wouldn't any more than start the work. Two thousand"--his eyes were steadily upon Bean now--"would further it some. Three thousand might see it pretty well advanced. Four thousand, of course, would help still farther and five thousand"--he had seen the shadow of dismay creep over the face of his sitter--"five thousand, I _think_, might put the thing through."

Bean drew a long breath. The professor had correctly read the change in his face at "five thousand," but it had been a sudden fear that his whole ten thousand was not going to suffice for this prodigious operation.

"I can afford that," said Bean shortly. He hardly dared trust himself to say more. His emotion threatened to overcome him.

The professor suffered from the same danger. He, too, dared trust himself to say no more than the few necessary words.

"There must be a payment down," he said with forced coldness.