The Man Who Couldn't Sleep Part 23

Then he had letters, six of them from some very decent people in London. One of them was a bishop."

"Did you verify those?"

"Across the Atlantic, Witter? It really didn't seem worth while!"

"And it's lucky for him you didn't!"

"Why?"

"Because they're forgeries, every one of them!"

"What ground have you for thinking that?" asked the solemn Van Tuyl.

"I don't think it--I know it. And, I imagine, I can tell you the name of the man who forged them for him."

"Well, what is it?"

"A worthy by the name of Turk McMeekin."

Van Tuyl sat up with a heavy purpose on his honest and unimaginative face.

"We've had a nice lot of this mystery, Witter, but we've got to get to the end of it. Tell me what you know, everything, and I'll have him in here and face him with it. Now, what is there beside the Turk McMeekin item?"

"Not yet!" murmured Beatrice Van Tuyl warningly, as Wilkins and his mask-like face advanced into the room.

I had the feeling, as he served us with one of those delectable ices which make even the epicureanism of the Cyrenaics tame in retrospect, that we were deliberately conspiring against our own well-being, that we were dethroning our own peace of mind. We were sitting there scheming to undo the agency whose sole function was to minister to our delights. And I could not help wondering why, if the man was indeed what I suspected, he chose to follow the most precarious and the most ill-paid of all professions. I found it hard to persuade myself that behind that stolid blue-white mask of a face could flicker any wayward spirit of adventure--and yet without that spirit my whole case was a card house of absurdities.

I noticed that for the first time Beatrice Van Tuyl's own eyes dwelt with a quick and searching look on her servant's immobile face. Then I felt her equally searching gaze directed at me. I knew that my failure to make good would meet with scant forgiveness. She would demand knowledge, even though it led to the discovery of the volcano's imminence. And after so much smoke it was plainly my duty to show where the fire lay.

I seized the conversation by the tail, as it were, and dragged it back into the avenues of inconsequentiality. We sat there, the three of us, actually making talk for the sake of a putty-faced servant. I noticed, though, that as he rounded the table he repeatedly fell under the quickly questioning gaze of both his master and mistress. I began to feel like an Iago who had willfully polluted a dovecote of hitherto unshaken trust. It became harder and harder to keep up my pretense of artless good humor. Time was flying, and nothing had as yet been found out.

"Now," demanded Van Tuyl, when the room was once more empty, "what are you sure of?"

"I'm sure of nothing," I had to confess.

"Then what do you propose doing?" was the somewhat arctic inquiry.

I glanced up at the wall where Ezekiah Van Tuyl, the worthy founder of the American branch of the family, frowned reprovingly down at me over his swathing black stock.

"I propose," was my answer, "having your great grandfather up there let us know whether I am right or whether I am wrong."

And as Wilkins stepped into the room I rose from the table, walked over to the heavy-framed portrait, and lifted it from its hook. I held it there, with a pretense of studying the face for a moment or two. Then I placed my table napkin on a chair, mounted it, and made an unsuccessful effort to rehang the portrait.

"If you please, Wilkins," I said, still holding the picture flat against the wall.

"A little higher," I told him, as I strained to loop the cord back over its hook. I was not especially successful at this, because at the time my eyes were directed toward the hands of the man holding up the picture.

His position was such that the sleeves of his black service coat were drawn away from the white and heavy-boned wrists. And there, before my eyes, across the flexor cords of the right wrist was a wide and ragged scar at least three inches in length.

I returned to my place at the dinner table. Van Tuyl, by this time, was gazing at me with both resentment and wonder.

"Shall we have coffee up-stairs?" his wife asked with unruffled composure. I could see her eye meet her husband's.

"Here, please," I interpolated.

"We'll have coffee served here," Beatrice Van Tuyl said to her butler.

"Very good, madam," he answered.

I wondered, as I watched him cross the room, if he suspected anything.

I also wondered how hare-brained the man and woman seated at the table thought me.

"Listen," I said, the moment we were alone; "have you a servant here you can trust, one you can trust implicitly?"

"Of course," answered my hostess.

"Who is it?"

"Wilkins," was the answer.

"Not counting Wilkins?"

"Well, I think I can also trust my maid Felice--unless you know her better than I do."

I could afford to ignore the thrust.

"Then I'd advise you to send her up to look over your things at once."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because now I know this man Wilkins is a criminal of the worst type!"

"You know it?"

"Yes, I know it as well as I know I'm sitting at this table. And I can prove it."

"How?" demanded Van Tuyl.

"I'll show you how in a very few moments. And, on second thoughts, I'd have that maid Felice bring what you regard as valuable right to this dining-room--I mean your jewels and things."

"But this sounds so silly," demurred my still reluctant hostess.

"It won't sound half so silly as a Tiffany advertis.e.m.e.nt of a reward and no questions asked."

Beatrice Van Tuyl intercepted a footman and sent him off for the maid Felice. A moment later Wilkins was at our side quietly serving the _cafe noir_ in tiny gold-lined cups.

"This method of mine for identifying the real pearl, as you will see,"

I blandly went on, "is a very simple one. You merely take a match end and dip it in clear water. Then you let a drop of water fall on the pearl. If the stone is an imitation one the water-drop will spread and lie close to the surface. If the stone is genuine the drop will stand high and rounded, like a globe of quicksilver, and will shake with the minute vibrations which pa.s.s through any body not in perfect equilibrium."