The Key to Yesterday Part 22

For an instant, St. John hesitated awkwardly for an explanation.

"Yes," he said at last, a little lamely. "This canvas was cut down for framing, and the signature was thrown so close to the edge that the frame conceals the name." He paused, then added, quietly: "I have kept my promise of silence, but now--do you want to hear of _him_?"

She looked up--then shook her head, resolutely.

"No," she said.

CHAPTER XVI

Late one evening in the cafe beneath the Elysee Palace Hotel, a tall man of something like thirty-five, though aged to the seeming of a bit more, sat over his brandy and soda and the perusal of a packet of letters. He wore traveling dress, and, though the weather had hardly the bitterness to warrant it, a fur-trimmed great-coat fell across the empty chair at his side. It was not yet late enough for the gayety that begins with midnight, and the place was consequently uncrowded.

The stranger had left a taxicab at the door a few minutes before, and, without following his luggage into the office, he had gone directly to the cafe, to glance over his mail before being a.s.signed to a room.

The man was tall and almost lean. Had Steele entered the cafe at that moment, he would have rushed over to the seated figure, and grasped a hand with a feeling that his quest had ended, then, on second sight, he would have drawn back, incredulous and mystified. This guest lacked no feature that Robert Saxon possessed. His eyes held the same trace of the dreamer, though a close scrutiny showed also a hard glitter--his dreams were different. The hand that held the letter was marked front and back, though a narrow inspection would have shown the scar to be a bit more aggravated, more marked with streaked wrinkles about the palm. He and the American painter were as identical as models struck from one die in the lines and angles that make face and figure. Yet, in this man, there was something foreign and alien to Saxon, a difference of soul-texture. Saxon was a being of flesh, this man a statue of chilled steel.

The envelope he had just cast upon the table fell face upward, and the waiting _garcon_ could hardly help observing that it was addressed to Senor George Carter, care of a steams.h.i.+p agency in the _Rue Scribe_.

As Carter read the letter it had contained, his brows gathered first in great interest, then in surprise, then in greater interest and greater surprise.

"There has been a most strange occurrence here," said the writer, who dated his communication from Puerto Frio, and wrote in Spanish. "Just before the revolution broke, a man arrived who was called Robert A.

Saxon. He was obviously mistaken for you by the government and was taken into custody, but released on the interference of his minister.

The likeness was so remarkable that I was myself deceived and consequently astounded you should make so bold as to return. He, however, established a clean bill of health and that very fact has suggested to me an idea which I think will likewise commend itself to you, _amigo mio_. That I am speaking only from my sincere interest in you, you need not question when you consider that I have kept you advised through these years of matters here and have divulged to no soul your whereabouts. This man left at once, but the talk spread rapidly in confidential circles than an _Americano_ had come who was the double of yourself. Some men even contended that it was really you, and that it was you also who betrayed the plans of Vegas to the government, but that scandal is not credited. Most of those who are well informed know that the traitor was one whom we trusted, a man who in your day was on the side of the established government. That man is now in high influence by reason of playing the Judas, and it may be that he will make an effort to secure your extradition.

Embezzlement, you know, is not a political offense, and he still holds a score against you. You know to whom I refer. That is why I warn you.

You have a double and your double has a clean record. For a time if there is no danger of crossing tracks with him, I should advise that you be Senor Saxon instead of Senor Carter. This should be safe enough since Senor Saxon sailed on the day after his arrival for North America. I have the felicity to inscribe myself," etc., etc. ---- A dash served as a signature, but Carter knew the writing, and was satisfied. For a time, he sat in deep reverie, then, rising, took up his coat, and went to the door. His stride was precisely the stride of Robert Saxon.

At the desk above, he discussed apartments. Having found one that suited his taste, he signed the guest-card with the name of Robert Saxon, and inquired as to the hour of departure of trains for Calais on the following morning. He volunteered the information that he was leaving then for London. True to his word, on the next day he left the hotel in a taximeter cab which turned down the _Champs Elysees_.

When it was definitely settled that Duska and her aunt were to go to Europe, Steele conceived a modification of the plans, to which only after much argument and persuasion and even a touch of deception he won the girl's consent. The object of his amendment was secretly to give him a chance to arrive first on the scene, accomplish what he could of search, and be prepared with fore-knowledge to stand as a buffer between Duska and the first shock of any ill tidings. Despite his persistent optimism of argument, the man was far from confident.

The plan was that the two ladies should embark for Genoa, and go from there to Paris by rail, while he should economize days by hurrying over the northern ocean track. Duska chafed at the delay involved, but Steele found ingenious arguments. The tramp steamer, he declared, with its roundabout course, would be slow, and it would be better for him to be armed against their coming with such facts as he could gather, in order that he might be a more effective guide.

Possibly, he argued, the tramp s.h.i.+p had gone by way of the Madeiras, and might soon be in the harbor of Funchal. If she took the southerly track, she could go at once by a steamer that would give her a day there, and, armed with letters he would send to the consulate, this contingency could be probed, leaving him free to work at the other end. If he learned anything first, she would learn of it at once by wireless.

So, at last, he stood on a North River pier, and saw the girl waving her good-by across the rail, until the gap of churning water had widened and blurred the faces on the deck. Then, he turned and hastened to make his own final arrangements for sailing by the _Mauretania_ on the following day.

In Havre, he found himself utterly baffled. He haunted the water-front, and browbeat the agents, all to no successful end.

In Paris, matters seemed to bode no better results. He first exhausted the more probable points. Saxon's agent, the _commissaire de police_, the consulate, the hospitals--he even made a melancholy visit to the grewsome building where the morgue squats behind _Notre Dame_. Then he began the almost endless round of hotels. His "taxi" sped about through the swift, seemingly fluid currents of traffic, as a man in a hurry can go only in Paris, the frictionless. The town was familiar to him in most of its aspects, and he was able to work with the readiness and certainty of one operating in accustomed haunts, commanding the tongue and the methods. At last, he learned of the registry at the Elysee Palace Hotel. He questioned the clerk, and that functionary readily enough gave him the description of the gentleman who had so inscribed himself. It was a description of the man he sought. Steele fell into one grave error. He did not ask to see the signature itself.

"Where had Monsieur Saxon gone? To London. _Certainment_, he had taken all his luggage with him. No, he had not spoken of returning to Paris.

Yes, monsieur seemed in excellent health."

So, Steele turned his search to London, and in London found himself even more hopelessly mixed in baffling perplexity. He had learned only one thing, and that one thing filled him with vague alarm. Saxon had apparently been here. He had been to all seeming sane and well, and had given his own name. His conduct was inexplicable. It was inconceivable that he should have failed to communicate with Duska.

Steele cabled to America, thinking Saxon might have done so since their departure. Nothing had been heard at home.

Late in the afternoon on the day of his arrival in London, Steele went for a walk, hoping that before he returned some clew would occur to him, upon which he could concentrate his efforts. His steps wandered aimlessly along Pall Mall, and, after the usage of former habit, carried him to a club, where past experience told him he would meet old friends. But, at the club door, he halted, realizing that he did not want to meet men. He could think better alone. So, with his foot on the stone stairs, he wheeled abruptly, and went on to Trafalgar Square, where once more he halted, under the lions of the Nelson Column, and racked his brain for any thought or hint that might be followed to a definite end.

He stood with the perplexed air of a man without definite objective.

The square was well-nigh empty except for a few loiterers about the basins, and the view was clear to the elevation on the side where, at the cab-stand, waited a row of motor "taxis" and hansoms. The afternoon was bleak, and the solemn monotone of London was graver and more forbidding than usual.

Suddenly, his heart pounded with a violence that made his chest feel like a drum. With a sudden start, he called loudly, "Saxon! Hold on, Saxon!" then went at a run toward the cab-stand.

He had caught a fleeting and astounding vision. A man, with the poise and face that he sought, had just stepped into one of the waiting vehicles, and given an order to the driver. Even in his haste, Steele was too late to do anything more than take a second cab, and shout to the man on the box to follow the vehicle that had just left the curb.

As his "taxi" turned into the Strand, and slurred through the mud past the Cecil and the Savoy, he kept his eyes strained on the cab ahead, threading its way through the congested traffic, disappearing, dodging, reappearing, and taxing his gaze to the utmost. For a moment after they had both crowded into Fleet Street, he lost it, and, as he leaned forward, searching the jumble of traffic, his own vehicle came to a halt just opposite the Law Courts. He looked hastily out, to see the familiar shoulders of the man he followed disappearing beyond a street-door, under the swinging "Sign of the c.o.c.k."

Tossing a half-crown to the cabman, he followed up the stairs, and entered the room, where the tables were almost deserted. A group of men was sitting in one of the stalls, deep in converse, and, though two were hidden by the dividing part.i.tions, Steele saw the one figure he sought at the head of the table. The figure bent forward in conversation, and, while his voice was low and his words inaudible, the Kentuckian saw that the eyes were glittering with a hard, almost malevolent keenness. As he came hastily forward, he caught the voice: it was Saxon's voice, yet infinitely harder. The two companions were strangers of foreign aspect, and they were listening attentively, though one face wore a sullen scowl.

Steele came over, and dropped his hand on the shoulder of the man he had pursued.

"Bob!" he exclaimed, then halted.

The three faces looked up simultaneously, and in all was displeasure for the abrupt interruption of a conversation evidently intended for no outside ears. Each expression was blank and devoid of recognition, and, as the tall man rose to his feet, his face was blanker than the others.

Then, with the greater leisure for scrutiny, Steele realized his mistake. For a time, he stood dumfounded at the marvelous resemblance.

He knew without asking that this man was the double who had brought such a tangle into his friend's life. He bowed coldly.

"I apologize," he explained, shortly. "I mistook this gentleman for someone else."

The three men inclined their heads stiffly, and the Kentuckian, dejected by his sudden reverse from apparent success to failure, turned on his heel, and left the place. It had not, of course, occurred to him to connect the appearance of his snarler of Saxon's affairs with the name on the Paris hotel-list, and he was left more baffled than if he had known only the truth, in that he had been thrown upon a false trail.

The Kentuckian joined Mrs. Horton and her niece in Genoa on their arrival. As he met the hunger in the girl's questioning eyes, his heart sickened at the meagerness of his news. He could only say that Paris had divulged nothing, and that a trip to London had been equally fruitless of result. He did not mention the fact that Saxon had registered at the hotel. That detail he wished to spare her.

She listened to his report, and at its end said only, "Thank you," but he knew that something must be done. A woman who could let herself be storm-tossed by grief might ride safely out of such an affair when the tempest had beaten itself out, but she, who merely smiled more sadly, would not have even the relief that comes of surrender to tears.

At Milan, there was a wait of several hours. Steele insisted on the girl's going with him for a drive. At a picture-exhibition, they stopped.

"Somehow," said Steele, "I feel that where there are paintings there may be clews. Shall we go in?"

The girl listlessly a.s.sented, and they entered a gallery, which they found already well filled. Steele was the artist, and, once in the presence of great pictures, he must gnaw his way along a gallery wall as a rat gnaws its way through cheese, devouring as he went, seeing only that which was directly before him. The girl's eyes ranged more restlessly.

Suddenly, Steele felt her clutch his arm.

"George!" she breathed in a tense whisper. "George!"

He followed her impulsively pointed finger, and further along, as the crowd of spectators opened, he saw, smiling from a frame on the wall, the eyes and lips of the girl herself. Under the well-arranged lights, the figure stood out as though it would leave its fixed place on the canvas and mingle with the human beings below, hardly more lifelike than itself.

"The portrait!" exclaimed Steele, breathlessly. "Come, Duska; that may develop something."

As they anxiously approached, they saw above the portrait another familiar canvas; a landscape presenting a stretch of valley and checkered flat, with hills beyond, and a sky tuneful with the spirit of a Kentucky June.

Then, as they came near enough to read the labels, Steele drew back, startled, and his brows darkened with anger.

"My G.o.d!" he breathed.

The girl standing at his elbow read on a bra.s.s tablet under each frame, "Frederick Marston, pnxt."