He was seated near the top end of Miss Buffum's table when I first saw his good-natured face with its twinkling eyes, high cheekbones and broad, white forehead in strong contrast to the wizened, almost sour, visage of our landlady. Up to the time of his coming every one had avoided that end, or had gradually shifted his seat, gravitating slowly toward the bottom, where the bank clerk, the college professor and I hobnobbed over our soup and boiled mutton.
It was his laugh that attracted my attention—the first that had come from the upper end of the table in the memory of the oldest boarder. Men talk of the first kiss, the first baby, the first bluebird in the spring, but to me, who have suffered and know, the first, sincere, hearty laugh, untrammelled and unlimited, that rings down the hide-bound table of a dismal boarding-house, carries with it a surprise and charm that outclasses them all. The effect on this occasion was like the opening of a window letting in a gust of pure air. Some of the more sensitive shivered at its freshness, and one woman raised her eyeglasses in astonishment, but all the rest craned their heads in the new boarder's direction, their faces expressing their enjoyment. As for Miss Buffum and the schoolmistress, they so far forgot themselves as to join audibly in the merriment.
What the secret of the man's power, or why the schoolteacher—who sat on Miss Buffum's right—should have become suddenly hilarious, or how Miss Buffum herself could be prodded or beguiled into smiles, no one at my end of the table could understand; and yet, as the days went by, it became more and more evident that not only were these two cold, brittle exteriors being slowly thawed out, but that every one else within the sound of his seductive voice was yielding to his influence. Stories that had lain quiet in our minds for months for lack of a willing or appreciative ear, or had been told behind our hands,—small pipings most of them of club and social gossip, now became public property, some being bowled along the table straight at the new boarder, who sent his own rolling back in exchange, his big, sonorous voice filling the room as he replied with accounts of his life in Poland among the peasants; of his experiences in the desert; of a shipwreck off the coast of Ceylon in which he was given up for lost; of a trip he made across the Russian steppes in a sleigh—each adventure ending in some strangely humorous situation which put the table in a roar.
None of these narratives, however, solved the mystery of his identity or of his occupation. All our good landlady knew was that he had driven up in a hack one afternoon, bearing a short letter of introduction from a former lodger—a man who had lived abroad for the previous ten years—introducing Mr. Norvic Bing; that after its perusal she had given him the second-story front room, at that moment empty—a fact that had greatly influenced her—and that he had at once moved in. His trunks—there were two of them—had, she remembered, been covered with foreign labels (and still were)—all of which could be verified by any one who had a right to know and who would take the trouble to inspect his room when he was out, which occurred every day between ten in the morning and six in the afternoon, and more often between six in the afternoon and ten the next morning. The slight additional information she possessed came from the former lodger's letter, which stated that the bearer, Mr. Norvic Bing, was a native of Denmark, that he was visiting America for the first time, and that, desiring a place where he could live in complete retirement, the writer had recommended Miss Buffum's house.
As to who he was in his own country—and he certainly must have been some one of importance, judging from his appearance—and what the nature of his business, these things did not concern the dear lady in the least. He was courteous, treated her with marked respect, was exceedingly agreeable, and had insisted—and this she stated was the one particular thing that endeared him to her—had insisted on paying his board a MONTH IN ADVANCE, instead of waiting until the thirty days had elapsed. His excuse for this unheard-of idiosyncrasy was that he might some day be suddenly called away, too suddenly even to notify her of his departure, and that he did not want either his belongings or his landlady's mind disturbed during his absence.
Miss Buffum's summing up of Bing's courtesy and affability was shared by every one at my end of the table, although some of them differed as regarded his origin and occupation.
"Looks more like an Englishman than a Dane," said the bank clerk; "although I don't know any Danes. But he's a daisy, anyhow, and ought to have his salary raised for being so jolly."
"I don't agree with you," rejoined the professor. "He is unquestionably a Scandinavian—you can see that in the high cheekbones and flat nose. He is evidently studying our people with a view of writing a book. Nothing else would persuade a man of his parts to live here. I lived in just such a place the winter I spent in Dresden. You want to get close to the people when you study their peculiarities. But whoever he is, or wherever he comes from, he is a most delightful gentleman—perfectly simple, and so sincere that it is a pleasure to hear him talk."
As for myself, I am ashamed to say that I did not agree with either the bank clerk or the professor. Although I admitted Mr. Bing's wide experience of men and affairs, and his marvellous powers of conversation, I could not divest myself of the conviction that underneath it all there lay something more than a mere desire to be either kindly or entertaining; in fact, that his geniality, though outwardly spontaneous, was really a cloak to hide another side of his nature—a fog into which he retreated—and that some day the real man would be revealed.
I made no mention of my misgivings to any of my fellow-boarders. My knowledge of men of his class—brilliant conversationalists with a world-wide experience to draw upon—was slight, and my grounds for doubting his sincerity were so devoid of proof that few persons would have considered them anything but the product of a disordered mind.
And yet I still held to my opinion.
I had caught something, I fancied, that the others had missed. It occurred one night after he had told a story and was waiting for the laugh to subside. Soon a strange, weary expression crept over his face—the same look that comes into the face of a clown who has been hurt in a tumble and who, while wrestling with the pain, still keeps his face a-grin. Suddenly, from out of his merry, smooth-shaven face, there came a flash from his eyes so searching, so keen, so suspicious, so entirely unlike the man we knew, so foreign to his mood at the moment, that I instantly thought of the burglar peering through the painted spectacles of the family portrait while he watched his unconscious victim counting his gold.
This conviction so possessed me that I found myself for days after peering into Bing's face, watching for its repetition—so much so that the professor asked me with a laugh:
"Has Mr. Bing hypnotized you as badly as he has the ladies? They hang on his every word. Curious study of the effect of mind on matter, isn't it?"
The second time I caught the strange flash was BEFORE he had told his story—when his admonitory glance—his polite way of compelling attention—was sweeping the table. In its course his eyes rested for an instant on mine, kindled with suspicion, and then there flashed from their depths a light that seemed to illuminate every corner of my brain. When I looked again his face was wreathed in smiles, his eyes sparkling with merriment. Instantly my doubts returned with redoubled force. What had he found in that instantaneous flash, I wondered? Had he read my thoughts, or had he, from his place behind the painted canvas, caught some expression on some victim's face which had roused his fears?
Then a delightful thing happened to me. I was but a young fellow trying to get a foothold in literature, who had never been out of his own country, and who spoke no tongue but his own; he was a man of the world, a traveller over the globe and speaking five languages.
"If you're not going out," he said, that same night, "come and have a smoke with me." This in his heartiest manner, laying his hand on my shoulder as he spoke. "You'll find me in my room. I've some books that may interest you, and we can continue our talk by my coal-fire. Come with me now."
We had had no special talk—none that I could remember. I recalled that I had asked him an irrelevant question after the flash had vanished, and that he had answered me in return—but no talk followed.
"I never invite any one up here," he began when we reached his room; "the place is so small" Here he closed the door, drew up the only armchair in the room and placed me in it—"but it is large enough for a place to crawl into and sleep—much larger, I can tell you, than I have had in many other parts of the world. I can write here, too, without interruption. What else do we want, really?—To be warm, to be fed and then to have some congenial spirits about us! I am quite happy, I assure you, with all those dear, good people downstairs. They are so kind, and they are so human, and they are all honest, each in his way, which is always refreshing to me. Most people, you know, are not honest." And he looked me over curiously.
I made no answer except to nod my assent. My eyes were wandering over the room in the endeavor to find something to confirm my suspicions—over the two trunks with their labels; over a desk littered, piled, crammed with papers; over the mantel, on which was spread a row of photographs, among them the portrait of a distinguished-looking woman with a child resting in her lap, and next to it that of a man in uniform.
"Yes—some of my friends across the sea." I had not asked him—he had read my mind. "This one you did not see—I keep it behind the others—three of them, like a little pair of steps—all I have left. The oldest is named Olga, and that little one in the middle, with the cap on her head—that is Pauline."
"Your children?"
"Yes."
"Where are they?"
"Oh, many thousand miles from here! But we won't talk about it. They are well and happy. And this one"—here he took down the photograph of the man in full uniform—"is the Grand Duke Vladimir. Yes, a soldierly-looking man—none of the others are like him. But come now, tell me of yourself—you have some one at home, too?"
I nodded my head and mentioned my mother and the others at home.
"No sweetheart yet? No?—You needn't answer—we all have sweethearts at your age—at mine it is all over. But why did you leave her? It is so hard to do that. Ah, yes, I see—to make your bread. And how do you do it?"
"I write."
He lowered his brows and looked at me under his lids.
"What sort of writing? Books? What is called a novel?"
"No—not yet. I work on special articles for the newspapers, and now and then I get a short story or an essay into one of the magazines."
He was replacing the pictures as I talked, his back to me. He turned suddenly and again sought my eye.
"Don't waste your time on essays or statistics. You will not succeed as a machine. You have imagination, which is a real gift. You also dream, which is another way of saying that you can invent. If you can add construction to your invention, you will come quite close to what they call genius. I saw all this in your face to-night; that is why I wanted to talk to you. So many young men go astray for want of a word dropped into their minds at the right time. As for me, all I know is statistics, and so I will never be a genius." And a light laugh broke from his lips. "Worse luck, too. I must exchange them for money. Look at this—I have been all day correcting the proofs."
With this he walked to his table—he had not yet taken a seat, although a chair was next to my own—and laid in my lap a roll of galley-proofs.
"It is the new encyclopaedia. I do the biographies, you see—principally of men and the different towns and countries. I have got down now to the R's—Richelieu—Rochambeau—" his fingers were now tracing the lines. "Here is Romulus, and here is Russia—I gave that half a column, and—dry work, isn't it? But I like it, for I can write here by my fire if I please, and all my other time is my own. You see they are signed 'Norvic Bing.' I insisted on that. These publishers are selfish sometimes, and want to efface a writer's personality, but I would not permit it, and so finally they gave in. But no more of that—one must eat, and to eat one must work, so why quarrel with the spade or the ground? See that you raise good crops—that is the best of all."
Then he branched off into a description of a ball he had attended some years before at the Tuileries—of the splendor of the interior; the rich costumes of the women; the blaze of decorations worn by the men; the graciousness of the Empress and the charm of her beauty—then of a visit he had made to the Exile a few months after he had reached Chiselhurst. Throwing up his hands he said: "A feeble old man with hollow eyes and a cracked voice. Oh, such a pity! For he was royal—although all Europe laughed."
When the time came for me to go—it was near midnight, to my astonishment—he followed me to the door, bidding me good-night with both hands over mine, saying I should come again when he was at leisure, as he had been that night—which I promised to do, adding my thanks for what I declared was the most delightful evening I had ever spent in my life.
And it had been—and with it there had oozed out of my mind every drop of my former suspicion. There was another side that he was hiding from us, but it was the side of tenderness for his children—for those he loved and from whom he was parted. I had boasted to myself of my intuition and had looked, as I supposed, deep into his heart, and all I found were three little faces. With this came a certain feeling of shame that I had been stupid enough to allow my imagination to run away with my judgment. Hereafter I would have more sense.
All that winter Bing was the life of the house. The days on which his seat was empty—off getting statistics for the encyclopaedia, I explained to my fellow-boarders, I being looked upon now as having special information owing to my supposed intimacy, although I had never entered his room since that night—on these days, I say, the table relapsed into its old-time dullness.
One night I found his card on my pin-cushion. I always locked my door myself when I left my room—had done so that night, I thought, but I must have forgotten it. Under his name was written: "Say good-by to the others."
I concluded, of course, that it was but for a few days and that he would return as usual, and hold out his two big generous hands to each one down the table, leaving a warmth behind him which they had not known since he last pressed their palms—and so on down until he reached Miss Buffum and the school-teacher, who would both rise in their seats to welcome him.
With the passing of the first week the good lady became uneasy; the board, as usual, had been paid in advance, but it was the man she missed. No one else could add the drop of oil to the machinery of the house, nor would it run smoothly without him.
At the end of the second week she rapped at my door and with trembling steps led me to Bing's room. She had opened it with her own pass-key—a liberty she never allowed any one to take except herself, and never then unless some emergency arose. It was empty of everything that belonged to him—had been for days. The room had been set in order and the bed had been made up by the maid the day he left and had not been slept in since. Trunks, books, manuscripts, photographs—all were gone—not a vestige of anything belonging to him was visible.
I stooped down and examined the grate. On the top of the dead coals lay a little heap of ashes—all that was left of a package of letters.
Five years passed. Times had changed with me. I had long since left my humble quarters at Miss Buffum's and now had two rooms in an uptown apartment-house. My field of work, too, had become enlarged. I had ceased to write for the Sunday papers and was employed on special articles for the magazines. This had widened my acquaintance with men and with life. Heretofore I had known the dark alleys and slums, the inside of station-houses, bringing me in contact with the police and with some of the detectives, among them Alcorn of the Central Office, a man who had sought me out of his own accord. Many of these trusted me and from them I gathered much of my material. Now I explored other fields. With the backing of the editor I often claimed seats at the opening of important conventions—not so much political as social and scientific; so, too, at many of the public dinners given to our own and distinguished foreign guests, would a seat be reserved for me, my object being the study of men when they were off their guard—reading their minds, finding out the man behind the mask, a habit I had never yet thrown off. Most men have some mental fad—this was mine. Sometimes my articles found an echo in a note written to me by the guests themselves; this would fill me with joy. Often I was criticised for the absurdity of my views.
On this occasion a great banquet was to be given to Prince Polinski, a nephew of the Czar and possible heir to the throne. The press had been filled with the detail of his daily life—of the dinners, teas and functions given by society in his honor; of his reception by the mayor, of his audience at the White House; of the men who guarded his person; of his "opinions," "impressions" and "views" on this, that and the other thing, but so far no one had dissected the man himself.
What our editor wanted was a minute analysis of the mind of a young Russian studied at close range. The occasion of the banquet was selected because I could then examine him at my leisure. The results were to be used by the editor in an article of his own, my memoranda being only so much padding.
When I entered and took up a position near the door where I could look him over, Delmonico's largest reception-room was crowded with guests: bankers, railroad presidents, politicians, officers of the army and navy, judges, doctors, and the usual collection of white shirt-fronts that fill the seats at a public dinner of this kind. The Prince was in the uniform of an officer of the Imperial Navy. He was heavily built and tall, with a swarthy face enlivened by a pointed mustache. The Russian Ambassador at his side was in full dress and wore a number of decorations: these two needed no pointing out. Some of the others were less distinguishable-among them a heavily-built man in evening-dress, with a full beard and mustache which covered his face almost to his eyes—soft and bushy as the hair on a Spitz dog and as black. With a leather apron and a broad-axe he would have passed at a masquerade for an executioner of the olden time. Despite this big beard, there was a certain bearing about the man—a certain elegance both of manner and gesture—talking with his hands, accentuating his sentences with outstretched fingers, lifting his shoulders in a shrug (I saw all this from across the room where I stood)—that showed clearly not only his high position, but his breeding. What position he held under the Prince I was, of course, unaware, but it must have been very close, for the big Russian kept him constantly at the royal side. I noted, too, that the Prince was careful to introduce him to many who were brought up to shake his hand.
When the procession was formed to march into the dining-hall, Polinski came first on the arm of the mayor; then followed a group of dignitaries, including the Ambassadors, the black-bearded man walking by the side of the Prince, who would now and then turn and address him.
My seat was against the wall opposite the dais, and knowing that I should have scant opportunity to study the Prince's face from where I sat, I edged my way along the side of the corridor, the crowd making progress difficult for him, but easy for me, as I crept close to the wall. When I reached the door opening into the banquet hall I took up a position just inside the jamb, so that I could get a full view of the Prince as he passed.
At this instant I became aware that a pair of broad shoulders were touching mine. Turning quickly, I found myself looking into the face of the bearded Russian. His eyes were fastened on mine, an inquiring, rather surprised look on his face, as if he was wondering at the bad manners of a man who would thrust himself ahead of a royal personage. For an instant the features were calm and impassive, then as he continued to look at me there flashed out of his eyes a search-light glance that shot straight through me.
It was Bing!
Bearded like a Cossack; more heavily built, solemn, dignified, elegant in carriage and demeanor, with not a trace of jollity about him—but Bing all the same! I could have sworn to it!
The flash burned for an instant; the eyes behind the canvas dodged back, then with a graceful wave of the hand he turned to the Ambassador who was now abreast of him and said in a voice so low that I caught the words but not the full tone:
"Isn't it a charming sight, your Excellency? There is nothing like the hospitality of these wonderful Americans." And the two passed into the brilliantly-lighted hall.
I made my way to my seat and sat thinking it over. That he had recognized me was without question; that he had ignored me was equally true—why, I could not tell.
For years I had made him one of my heroes. He had stood for cheerfulness, for contentment with one's lot, for consideration for another—and always a weaker brother. When his abrupt departure had been criticised by my fellow-boarders, I had stemmed the tide against him, dilating on his love for his children, on his loneliness away from them; on his simplicity, his common-sense, his desire to help even a young fellow like me who had no claim upon him. In return he had seen fit to treat me with contempt—I who would have been so proud to tell him how his advice had helped me and what progress I had made by following it.
The incident took such hold upon me that I found myself dissecting his mentality instead of that of the Great Personage in the public eye. As I analyzed my feelings I found that he had hurt my heart more than my pride. I would have been so glad to shake his hand—so glad to rejoice with him over his changed conditions—once the occupant of a front room in a cheap boarding-house, supporting himself by filling space in the columns of an encyclopaedia, and now the bosom friend of Princes and Ambassadors!
Then a doubt arose in my mind. WAS it Bing? Had I not made a mistake? How could a smooth-shaven Dane with blond hair transform himself into a swarthy Russian with the beard of a Cossack? There was, it is true, no change in the eyes or in the round head—in the whiteness and width of the forehead, or the breadth of the shoulders. All these I went over one by one as I watched him every now and then lean across the table and speak to some of the distinguished guests that surrounded him. The thing which puzzled me was his grave, sedate demeanor, dignified, almost austere at times. A man, I thought, might grow a beard and dye it, but how could he grow a different set of manners, how smother his jollity, how wipe out his spontaneous buoyancy?
No, it was not Bing! It was only my stupid self. I was always ready to find the mysterious and unnatural. I turned to the guest next me.
"Do you know who that man is on the dais," I asked; "the one all black and white, with the big beard?"
"Yes, one of the Prince's suite; some jaw-breaking name with an '-usski' on the end of it. He brought him with him; looks like a bull pup chewing a muff, doesn't he?"
I smiled at the comparison, but I was still in doubt.
When the banquet broke up I hurried out ahead of the others and posted myself at the top of the staircase leading down to the side door of the street. The Prince's carriage—an ordinary cab—was ordered to this door to escape the crowd and to avoid any delay. This I learned from my old friend Alcorn of the Central Office, who was in charge of the detectives at the dinner, and who in answer to my request said:
"Certainly I'll let you through. Come alone, and don't speak to me as you go by. I'll say you're one of us. The crowd thinks he's going out by the other door, and you can get pretty close to him."
The Prince came first, wrapped in furs—the black-bearded Russian at his side in overcoat, silk hat and white gloves. The Ambassador and the others had bidden them good-night at the top of the staircase.
Under Alcorn's direction I had placed myself just inside the street door where I could slip out behind the Prince and his black-bearded companion. As a last resort I determined to walk straight up to him and say: "You haven't forgotten me, Mr. Bing, have you?" If I had changed so as to need proof of my identity Alcorn would furnish it. Whatever his answer, his voice would solve my mystery.
He walked down the stairs with an easy, swinging movement, keeping a little behind the Prince; waited until Alcorn had opened the street door and with a nod of thanks followed Polinski out into the night. Once outside I shrank back into the shadow of the doorway and held my breath to catch his first spoken word—to the coachman—to the Prince—to any one who came in his way.
At this moment a man in a slouch hat and poorly dressed, a light cane under his arm, evidently a tramp, hurried across the street to hold the cab door. I edged nearer, straining my ears.
The Prince bent his head and stooped to enter the cab. The tramp leaned forward, shot up his right arm; there came a flash of steel, and the next instant the tramp lay writhing on the sidewalk, one hand twisted under his back, the other held in the viselike grip of the black-bearded man. Alcorn rushed past me, threw himself on the prostrate tramp, slipped a pair of handcuffs over his wrists, dragged him to his feet, and with one hand on his throat backed him into the shadow of the side door.
The Prince smiled and stepped into his carriage. The black-bearded man dusted his white gloves one on the other, gave an order in a low tone to the coachman, took his place beside his companion and the two drove off.
I stood out in the rain and tried to pull myself together. The rapidity of the attack; the poise and strength of the black-bearded Russian; the quickness with which Alcorn had risen to the occasion; the absence of all outcry or noise of any kind—no one but ourselves witnessing the occurrence—had taken my breath away. That an attack had been made on the life of the Prince, and that it had been frustrated by his friend, was evident. It was also evident that accosting a Prince on the sidewalk at night without previous acquaintance was a dangerous experiment. When I recovered my wits both Alcorn and the would-be assassin had disappeared. So had the cab.
Only two morning journals had an account of the affair; one dismissed it with a fling at the police for not protecting our guests from annoyance, and the other stated that a drunken tramp had demanded the price of a night's lodging from the Prince as he was leaving Delmonico's, and that a member of the Prince's suite had held the fellow until a policeman came along and took him to the station-house. Not a word of the murderous lunge, the flash of steel, the viselike grip of the black-bearded man or the click of the handcuffs.
That night I found Alcorn.
"Did that fellow try to stab the Prince?" I asked.
"Yes."
"With a knife?"
"No, a sword cane."
"The papers didn't say so."
"No, I didn't intend they should. Wouldn't have been pleasant reading for his folks in St. Petersburg. Besides, we haven't rounded up his gang yet."
"The Prince didn't seem to lose his nerve?" I asked.
"No, he isn't built that way."
"You know him, then?"
"Yes—been with him every day since he arrived."
"Who is the black-bearded man with him?"
"He is his intimate friend, Count Lovusski. Been all over the world together."
"Is Lovusski his ONLY name?" This seemed to be my chance.
Alcorn turned quickly and looked into my face.
"On the dead quiet, is it?"
"Yes, Alcorn, you can trust me."
"No—he's got half a dozen of 'em. In Paris in '70 he was Baron Germunde with estates in Hungary. Lived like a fighting-cock; knew everybody at the Palace and everybody knew him—stayed there all through the Franco-Prussian War. In London in '75 he was plain Mr. Loring, trying to raise money for a mine somewhere in Portugal—knew nobody but stockbrokers and bank presidents. In New York five years ago he was Mr. Norvic Bing, and worked on some kind of a dictionary; lived in a boarding-house on Union Square."
I could not conceal my delight.
"I knew I was right!" I cried, laying my hand on his arm. "I lived with him there a whole winter."
"Yes, he told me so. That's why I am telling you the rest of it." Alcorn was smiling, a curious expression lighting his face.
"And how came he to be such a friend of the Prince's?" I asked.
"He isn't his friend—isn't anybody's friend. He's a special agent of the Russian Secret Service."
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