A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Kakuzo Okakura - "The Book of Tea"

an adult. - "Baartock, by Lewis Roth (C)1989"

Edith Wharton - "The Glimpses of the Moon"

Johann Wolfgang Goethe - "Italienische Reise Teil 2"

The Drums Of Jeopardy

H >> Harold MacGrath >> The Drums Of Jeopardy




Suddenly Hawksley felt young, revivified, free. He had arrived.
Surmounting indescribable hazards and hardships he walked the
pavement of New York. In an hour the mutable quicksands of a great
city would swallow him forever. Free! He wanted to stroll about,
peer into shop windows, watch the amazing electric signs, dally;
but he still had much to accomplish.

He searched for a telephone sign. It was necessary that he find
one immediately. He had once spent six weeks in and about this
marvellous city, and he had a vague recollection of the
blue-and-white enamel signs. Shortly he found one. It was a
pay station in the rear of a news and tobacco shop.

He entered a booth, but discovered that he had no five-cent pieces
in his purse. He hurried out to the girl behind the cigar stand.
She was exhibiting a box of cigars to a customer, who selected
three, paid for them, and walked away. Hawksley, boiling with
haste to have his affair done, flung a silver coin toward the girl.

"Five-cent pieces!"

"Will you take them with you or shall I send them?" asked the girl,
earnestly.

"I beg pardon!"

"Any particular kind of ribbon you want the box tied with?"

"I beg your pardon!" repeated Hawksley, harried and bewildered.
"But I'm in a hurry - "

"Too much of a hurry to leave out the bark when you ask a favour?
I make change out of courtesy. And you all bark at me Nickel!
Nickel! as if that was my job."

"A thousand apologies!" - contritely.

"And don't make it any worse by suggesting a movie after supper.
My mother never lets me go out after dark."

"I rather fancy she's quite sensible. Still, you seem able to
take care of yourself. I might suggest -"

"With that black eye? Nay, nay! I'll bet somebody's brother gave
it to you."

"Venus was not on that occasion in ascendancy. Thank you for the
change." Hawksley swung on his heel and reentered the booth.

A great weariness oppressed him. A longing, almost irresistible,
came to him to go out and cry aloud: "Here I am! Kill me! I am
tired and done!" For he had recognized the purchaser of the cigars
as one of the men who had left the 125th Street Station at the same
time as he. He remembered distinctly that this man had been in a
hurry. Perhaps the whole dizzy affair was reacting upon his
imagination psychologically and turning harmless individuals into
enemies.

"Hello!" said a man's voice over the wire.

"Is Mr. Rathbone there?"

"Captain Rathbone is with his regiment at Coblenz, sir."

"Coblenz?"

"Yes, sir. I do not expect his return until near midsummer, sir.
Who is this talking?"

"Have you opened a cable from Yokohama?"

"This is Mr. Hawksley!" The voice became excited.

"Oh, sir! You will come right away. I alone understand, sir. You
will remember me when you see me. I'm the captain's butler, sir
- Jenkins. He cabled back to give you the entire run of the house
as long as you desired it. He advised me to notify you that he had
also prepared his banker against your arrival. Have your luggage
sent here at once, sir. Dinner will be at your convenience."

Hawksley's body relaxed. A lump came into his throat. Here was a
friend, anyhow, ready to serve him though he was thousands of miles
away.

When he could trust himself to speak he said: "Sorry. It will be
impossible to accept the hospitality at present. I shall call in
a few days, however, to establish my identity. Thank you. Good
evening."

"Just a moment, sir. I may have an important cable to transmit to
you. It would be wise to leave me your address, sir."

Hawksley hesitated a moment. After all, he could trust this perfect
old servant, whom he remembered. He gave the address.

As he came out of the booth the girl stretched forth an arm to
detain him. He stopped.

"I'm sorry I spoke like that," she said. "But I'm so tired! I've
been on my feet all day, and everybody's been barking and growling;
and if I'd taken in as many nickels as I've passed out in change the
boss would be rich."

"Give me a dozen of those roses there." She sold flowers also.
"The pink ones. How much?" he asked.

"Two-fifty."

He laid down the money. "Never mind the box. They are for you.
Good evening."

The girl stared at the flowers as Ali Baba must have stared at the
cask with rubies.

"For me!" she whispered. "For nothing!"

Her eyes blurred. She never saw Hawksley again; but that was of
no importance. She had a gentle deed to put away in the lavender
of recollection.

Outside Hawksley could see nothing of the man who had bought the
cigars. At any rate, further dodging would be useless. He would
go directly to his destination. Old Gregor had sent him a duplicate
key to the apartment. He could hide there for a day or two; then
visit Rathbone's banker at his residence in the night to establish
his identity. Gregor could be trusted to carry the wallet and the
pouch to the bank. Once these were walled in steel half the battle
would be over. He would have nothing to guard thereafter but his
life. He laughed brokenly. Nothing but the clothes he stood in.
He never could claim the belongings he had been forced to leave in
that hotel back yonder. But there was loyal old Gregor. Somebody
would be honestly glad to see him. The poor old chap! Astonishing,
but of late he was always thinking in English.

He hailed the first free taxicab he saw, climbed in, and was driven
downtown. He looked back constantly. Was he followed? There was
no way of telling. The street was alive with vehicles tearing
north and south, with frequent stoppage for the passage of those
racing east and west. The destination of Hawksley's cab was an
old-fashioned apartment house in Eightieth Street.

Gregor would have a meal ready; and it struck Hawksley forcibly
that he was hungry, that he had not touched food since the night
before. Gregor, valeting in a hotel, pressing coats and trousers
and sewing on buttons! Groggy old world, wasn't it? Gregor,
pressing the trousers of the hoi polloi! Gregor, who could have
sent New York mad with that old Stradivarius of his! But Gregor
was wise. Safety for him lay in obscurity; and what was more
obscure than a hotel valet?

He did not seek the elevator but mounted the first flight of stairs.
He saw two doors, one on each side of the landing. He sought one,
stooped and peered at the card over the bell. Conover. Gregor's
was opposite. Having a key he did not knock but unlocked the door
and stepped into the dark hall.

"Stefani Gregor?" he called, joyously. "Stefani, my old friend, it
is I!"

Silence. But that was understandable. Either Gregor had not
returned from his labours or he was out gathering the essentials
for the evening meal. Judging from the variety of odours that swam
the halls of this human warren many suppers were in the process of
making, and the top flavour was garlic. He sniffed pleasurably.
Not that the smell of garlic quickened his hunger. It merely sent
his thought galloping backward a score of years. He saw Stefani
Gregor and a small boy in mountain costume footing it sturdily
along the dizzy goat paths of the rugged hills; saw the two sitting
on some ruddy promontory and munching black bread rubbed with garlic.
Ambrosia! His mother's horror, when she smelt his breath - as if
garlic had not been one of her birthrights! His uncle, roaring out
in his bull's voice that black bread and garlic were good for little
boys' stomachs, and made the stuff of soldiers. Black bread and
garlic and the Golden Age!

After he had flooded the hall with light he began a tour of
inspection. The rooms were rather bare but clean and orderly.
Here and there were items that kept the homeland green in the
recollection. He came to the bedroom last. He hesitated for a
moment before opening the door. The lights told him why Gregor had
not greeted his entering
hail.

The overturned reading lamp, the broken chair, the letters and
papers strewn about the floor, the rifled bureau drawers - these
things spoke plainly enough. Gregor was a prisoner somewhere in
this vast city; or he was dead.

Hawksley stood motionless for a space. And he must remain here at
least for a night and a day! He would not dare risk another hotel.
He could, of course, go to the splendid Rathbone place; but it would
not be fair to invite tragedy across that threshold.

A ball of crushed paper at his feet attracted his attention. He
kicked it absently, followed and picked it up, his thought on other
things. He was aimlessly smoothing it out when an English word
caught his eye. English! He smoothed the crumpled sheet and read:

If you find this it is the will of God. I have been watched
for several days, and am now convinced that they have always
known I was here but were leaving me alone for some unknown
purpose. I roll this ball because anything folded and left
in a conspicuous place would be useless should they come for
me. I understand. It is you, poor boy. They are watching
me in hopes of catching you, and I've no way to warn you not
to come here. It was after I sent you the key that I learned
the truth. God bless you and guard you!
STEFANI.


Hawksley tore the note into scraps. Food and sleep. He walked
toward the kitchen, musing. What an odd mixture he was!
Superficially British, with the British outlook; and yet filled with
the dancing blood of the Latin and the cold, phlegmatic blood of the
Slav. He was like a schoolmaster with two students too big for him
to handle. Always the Latin was dispossessing the Slav or the Slav
was ousting the Latin. With fatalistic confidence that nevermore
would he look upon the kindly face of Stefani Gregor, alive, he went
in search of food.

Not a crust did he find. In the ice-chest there was a bottle of
milk - soured. Hungry; and not a crumb! And he dared not go out
in search of food. No one had observed his entrance to the
apartment, but it was improbable that such luck would attend
him a second time.

He returned to the bedroom. He did not turn on the light because
a novel idea had blossomed unexpectedly - a Latin idea. There might
be food on some window ledge. He would leave payment. He proceeded
to the window, throwing up both it and the curtain, and looked out.
Ripping! There was a fire escape.

As he slipped a leg over the sill a golden square sprang into
existence across the way. Immediately he forgot his foraging
instincts. In a moment he was all Latin, always susceptible to the
enchantment
of beauty.

The distance across the court was less than forty feet. He could
see the girl quite plainly as she set about the preparation of her
evening meal. He forgot his danger, his hunger, his code of ethics,
which did not permit him to gaze at a young woman through a window.

Alone. He was alone and she was alone. A novel idea popped into
his head. He chuckled; and the sound of that chuckle in his ears
somehow brought back his resolve to carry on, to pass out, if so he
must, fighting. He would knock on yonder window and ask the
beautiful lady slavey for a bit of her supper!



CHAPTER IV


Kitty Conover had inherited brains and beauty, and nothing else but
the furniture. Her father had been a famous reporter, the admiration
of cubs from New York to San Francisco; handsome, happy-go-lucky,
generous, rather improvident, and wholly lovable. Her mother had
been a comedy actress noted for her beauty and wit and extravagance.
Thus it will be seen that Kitty was in luck to inherit any furniture
at all.

Kitty was twenty-four. A body is as old as it is, but a brain is as
old as the facts it absorbs; and Kitty had absorbed enough facts to
carry her brain well into the thirties.

Conover had been dead twenty years; and Kitty had scarcely any
recollections of him. Improvident as the run of newspaper writers
are, Conover had fulfilled one obligation to his family - he had kept
up his endowment policies; and for eighteen years the insurance had
taken care of Kitty and her mother, who because of a weak ankle had
not been able to return to the scenes of her former triumphs. In
1915 this darling mother, whom Kitty loved to idolatry, had passed on.

There was enough for the funeral and the cleaning up of the bills;
but that was all. The income ceased with Mrs. Conover's demise.
Kitty saw that she must give up writing short stories which nobody
wanted, and go to work. So she proceeded at once to the newspaper
office where her father's name was still a tradition, and applied
for a job. It was frankly a charity job, but Kitty was never to
know that because she fell into the newspaper game naturally; and
when they discovered her wide acquaintance among theatrical
celebrities they switched her into the dramatic department, where
she had astonishing success as a raconteur. She was now assistant
dramatic editor of the Sunday issue, and her pay envelope had four
crisp ten-dollar notes in it each Monday.

She still remained in the old apartment; sentiment as much as
anything. She had been born in it and her happiest days had been
spent there. She lived alone, without help, being one of that
singular type of womanhood that is impervious to the rust of
loneliness. Her daily activities sufficed the gregarious
instincts, and it was often a relief to move about in silence

Among other things Kitty had foresight. She had learned that a
little money in the background was the most satisfying thing in
existence. So many times she and her mother had just reached the
insurance check, with grumbling bill collectors in the hall, that
she was determined never to be poor. She had to fight constantly
her love of finery inherited from her mother, and her love of good
times inherited from her father. So she established a bank account,
and to date had not drawn a check against it; which speaks well for
her will power, an attribute cultivated, not inherited.

Kitty was as pleasing to the eye as a basket of fruit. Her beauty
was animated. There was an expression in her eyes and on her lips
that spoke of laughter always on tiptoe. An enviable inheritance,
this, the desire to laugh, to be searching always for a vent to
laughter; it is something money cannot buy, something not to be
cultivated; a true gift of the gods. This desire to laugh is found
invariably in the tender and valorous; and Kitty was both. Brown
hair with running threads of gold that was always catching light;
slate-blue eyes with heavy black fringe-Irish; colour that waxed
and waned; and a healthy, shapely body. Topped by a sparkling
intellect these gifts made Kitty desirable of men.

Kitty had no beau. After the adolescent days beaux ceased to
interest her. This would indicate that she was inclined toward
suffrage. Nothing of the kind. Intensely romantic, she determined
to await the grand passion or go it alone. No experimental
adventures for her. Be assured that she weighed every new man she
met, and finding some flaw discarded him as a matrimonial
possibility. Besides, her unusual facilities to view and judge
men had shown her masculine phases the average woman would have
discovered only after the fatal knot was tied. She did not suspect
that she was romantical. She attributed her wariness to common
sense.

If there is one place where a pretty young woman may labour without
having to build a wall of liquid air about her to fend off amatory
advances that place is the editorial room of a great metropolitan
daily. One must have leisure to fall in love; and only the office
boys could assemble enough idle time to call it leisure.

Her desk faced Burlingame's; and Burlingame was the dramatic editor,
a scholar and a gentleman. He liked to hear Kitty talk, and often
he lured her into the open; and he gathered information about
theatrical folks that was outside even his wide range of knowledge.

A drizzly fog had hung over New York since morning. Kitty was
finishing up some Sunday special. Burlingame was reading proofs.
All day theatrical folks had been in and out of this little
ten-by-twelve cubby-hole; and now there would be quiet.

But no. The door opened and an iron-gray head intruded.

"Will I be in the way?"

"Lord, no!" cried Burlingame, throwing down his proofs. "Come along
in, Cutty."

The great war correspondent came in and sat down, sighing gratefully.

Cutty was a nickname; he carried and smoked - everywhere they would
permit him - the worst-looking and the worst-smelling pipe in
Christendom. You may not realize it, but a nickname is a round-about
Anglo-Saxon way of telling a fellow you love him. He was Cutty, but
only among his dear intimates, mind you; to the world at large, to
presidents, kings, ambassadors, generals, and capitalists he is
known by another name. You will find it on the roster of the Royal
Geographical; on the title page of several unique books on travel,
jewels, and drums; in magazines and newspapers; on the membership
roll of the Savage in London and the Lambs in New York. But you will
not find it in this story; because it would not be fair to set his
name against the unusual adventures that crossed his line of life
with that of the young man who wore the tobacco pouch suspended from
his neck.

Tall, bony, graceful enough except in a chair, where his angles
became conspicuous; the ruddy, weather-bitten complexion of a
deep-sea sailor, and a sailor man's blue eye; the brow of a thinker
and the mouth of a humourist. Men often call another man handsome
when a woman knows they mean manly. Among men Cutty was handsome.

Kitty considerately rose and gathered up her manuscript.

"No, no, Kitty! I'd rather talk to you than Burly, here. You're
always reminding me of that father of yours. Best comrade I ever
had. You laugh just like him. Did your mother ever tell you that
old Cutty is your godfather?"

"Good gracious!"

"Fact. I told your dad I'd watch over you."

"And a fat lot of watching you've done to date," jeered Burlingame.

"Couldn't help that. But I can be on the job until I return to the
Balkans."

Kitty laughed joyously and sat down, perhaps a little thrilled. She
had always admired Cutty from afar, shyly. Once in a blue moon he
had in the old days appeared for tea; and he and Mrs. Conover would
spend the balance of the afternoon discussing the lovable qualities
of Tommy Conover. Kitty had seen him but twice during the war.

"Every so often," began Cutty, "I have to find listeners. Fact. I
used to hate crowds, listeners; but those ten days in an open boat,
a thousand miles from anywhere, made me gregarious. I'm always
wanting company and hating to go to bed, which is bad business for
a man of fifty-two." Cutty's ship had been torpedoed.

To Kitty, with his tired eyes and weather-bitten face, his bony,
gangling body, he had the appearance of a lazy man. Actually she
knew him to be a man of tremendous vitality and endurance. Eagles
when they roost are heavy-lidded and clumsy. She wondered if there
was a corner on the globe he had not peered into.

For thirty years he had been following two gods - Rumour and War.
For thirty years he had been the slave of cables and telegrams.
Even now he was preparing to return to the Balkans, where the great
fire had started and where there were still some threatening embers
to watch.

Cutty was not well known in America; his reputation was European.
He played the game because he loved it, being comfortably fortified
with worldly goods. He was a linguist of rare attainments,
specializing in the polyglot of southeastern Europe. He came and
went like cloud shadow. His foresight was so keen he was seldom
ordered to go here or there; he was generally on the spot when the
orders arrived.

He was interested in socialism and its bewildering ramifications,
but only as an analytical student. He could fit himself into any
environment, interview a prime minister in the afternoon and take
potluck that night with the anarchist who was planning to blow up
the prime minister.

Burlingame, an intimate, often exposed for Kitty's delectation the
amazing and colourful facets of Cutty's diamond-brilliant mind.
Cutty wrote authoritatively on famous gems and collected drums.
He had one of the finest collections of chrysoprase in the world.
He loved these semi-precious stones because of their unmatchable,
translucent green - like the pulp of a grape. From Burlingame
Kitty had learned that Cutty, rather indifferent to women, carried
about with him the photographs - large size - of famous professional
beauties and a case filled with polished chrysoprase. He would lay
a photograph on a table and adorn the lovely throat with astonishing
necklaces and the head with wonderful tiaras, all the while his
brain at work with some intricate political puzzle.

And he collected drums. The walls of his apartment - part of the
loft of a midtown office building - were covered with a most
startling assortment of drums: drums of war, of the dance, of the
temples of the feast, ancient and modern, some of them dreadful
looking objects, as Kitty had cause to remember.

Though Cutty had known her father and mother intimately, Kitty was
a comparative stranger. He recollected seeing her perhaps a dozen
times. She had been a shy child, not given to climbing over
visitors' knees; not the precocious offspring of the average
theatrical mother. So in the past he had somewhat overlooked her.
Then one day recently he had dropped in to see Burlingame and had
seen Kitty instead; which accounts for his presence here this day.
Neither Kitty nor Burlingame suspected the true attraction. The
dramatic editor accepted the advent as a peculiar compliment to
himself. And it is to be doubted if Cutty himself realized that
there was a true magnetic pole in this cubbyhole of a room.

Kitty, however, had vivid recollections. Actually the first strange
man she had ever met. But not having been visible on her horizon,
except in flashes, she knew of the man only what she had read and
what Burlingame had casually offered during discussions.

"Well, anyhow," said Burlingame, complacently, "the war is over.

Cutty smiled indulgently. "That's the trouble with us chaps who
tramp round the world for news. We can't bamboozle ourselves like
you folks who stay at home. The war was only the first phase.
There's a mess over there; wanting something and not knowing exactly
what, those millions; milling cattle, with neither shed nor pasture.
The Lord only knows how long it will take to clarify. Would you
mind if I smoked?"

"Wow!" cried Burlingame.

"Not at all," answered Kitty. "I don't see how any pipe could be
worse than Mr. Burlingame's."

"I apologize," said the dramatic editor, humbly.

"You needn't," replied the girl. She turned to the war correspondent.
"Any new drums?"

"I remember that day. You were scared half to death at my walls."

"Small wonder! I was only twelve; and I dreamed of cannibals for
weeks."

"Drums! I wonder if any living man has heard a greater variety
than I? What a lot of them! I have heard them calling a jehad in
the Sudan. Tumpi-tum-tump! tumpitum-tump! Makes a white man's
hair stand up when he hears it in the night. I don't know what it
is, but the sound drives the Oriental mad. And that reminds me
- I've had them in mind all day - the drums of jeopardy!"

"What an odd phrase! And what are the drums of jeopardy?" asked
Kitty, leaning on her arms. Odd, but suddenly she felt a longing
to go somewhere, thousands and thousands of miles away. She had
never been west of Chicago or east of Boston. Until this moment
she had never felt the call of the blood - her father's. Cocoanut
palms and birds of paradise! And drums in the night going
tumpi-tum-tump! tumpi-tum-tump!

"I've always been mad over green things," began Cutty. "A wheat
field in the spring, leafing maples. It's Nature's choice and mine.
My passion is emeralds; and I haven't any because those I want are
beyond reach. They are owned by the great houses of Europe and
Asia, and lie in royal caskets; or did. If I could go into a mine
and find an emerald as big as my fist I should be only partly happy
if it chanced to be of fine colour. In a little while I should lose
interest in it. It wouldn't be alive, if you can get what I mean.
Just as a man would rather have a homely woman to talk to than a
beautiful window dummy to admire. A stone to interest me must have
a story - a story of murder and loot, of beautiful women, palaces.

"Br-r-r!" cried Burlingame.

"Why, I've seen emeralds I would steal with half a chance. I
couldn't help it. Fact," declared Cutty, earnestly. "Think of
the loot in the Romanoff palaces! What's become of all those
magnificent stones? In a little while they'll be turning up in
Amsterdam to be cut - some of them. Or maybe Mister Bolsheviki's
inamorata will be stringing them round her neck. Loot."

"But the drums of jeopardy!" said Kitty.

"Emeralds, green as an English lawn in May after a shower, Kitty.
By the way, do you mind if I call you Kitty? I used to."

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.