The Tracer of Lost Persons

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XII

  "Nothing," said Gatewood firmly, "can make me believe that Kerns oughtnot to marry somebody; and I'm never going to let up on him until hedoes. I'll bet I could fix him for life if I called in the Tracer tohelp me. Isn't it extraordinary how Kerns has kept out of it all theseyears?"

  The attractive girl beside him turned her face once more so that herclear, sweet eyes were directly in line with his.

  "It _is_ extraordinary," she said seriously. "I think you ought to dropin at the club some day when you can corner him and bully him."

  "I don't want to go to the club," said the infatuated man.

  "Why, dear?"

  He looked straight at her and she flushed prettily, while a tint ofcolor touched his own face. Which was very nice of him. So she didn'tsay what she was going to say--that it would be perhaps better for themboth if he practiced on her an artistic absence now and then. Younger inyears, she was more mature than he. She knew. But she was too much inlove with him to salt their ambrosia with common sense or suggesteconomy in their use of the nectar bottle.

  However, the gods attend to that, and she knew they would, and she letthem. So one balmy evening late in May, when the new moon's ghostfloated through the upper haze, and the golden Diana above Manhattanturned flame color, and the electric lights began to glimmer along FifthAvenue, and the first faint scent of the young summer freshened thefoliage in square and park, Kerns, stopping at the club for a moment,found Gatewood seated at the same window they both were wont to haunt inearlier and more flippant days.

  "Are you dining here?" inquired Kerns, pushing the electric button withenthusiasm. "Well, that's the first glimmer of common sense you'vebetrayed since you've been married!"

  "Dining _here_!" repeated Gatewood. "I should hope not! I am just goinghome--"

  "He's thoroughly cowed," commented Kerns; "every married man you meet atthe club is just going home." But he continued to push the button,nevertheless.

  Gatewood leaned back in his chair and gazed about him, nose in the air."What a life!" he observed virtuously. "It's all I can do to stand itfor ten minutes. You're here for the evening, I suppose?" he addedpityingly.

  "No," said Kerns; "I'm going uptown to Billy Lee's house to get my suitcase. His family are out of town, and he is at Seabright, so he let mecamp there until the workmen finish papering my rooms upstairs. I'm tolock up the house and send the key to the Burglar Alarm Companyto-night. Then I go to Boston on the 12.10. Want to come? There'll be afew doing."

  "To Boston! What for?"

  "Contracts! We can go out to Cambridge when I've finished my business.There'll be _etwas_ doing."

  "_Can't_ you ever recover from being an undergraduate?" asked Gatewood,disgusted.

  "Well--is there anything the matter with a man getting next to a littleamusement in life?" asked Kerns. "Do you object to my being happy?"

  "Amusement? You don't know how to amuse yourself. You don't know how tobe happy. Here you sit, day after day, swallowing Martinis--" He pausedto finish his own, then resumed: "Here you sit, day after day,intellectually stultified, unemotionally ignorant of the higher andbetter life--"

  "No, I don't. I've a book upstairs that tells all about that. I read itwhen I have holdovers--"

  "Kerns, I wish to speak seriously. I've had it on my mind ever since Imarried. May I speak frankly?"

  "Well, when I come back from Boston--"

  "Because I know a girl," interrupted Gatewood--"wait a moment,Tommy!"--as Kerns rose and sauntered toward the door--"you've plenty oftime to catch your train and be civil, too! I mean to tell you aboutthat girl, if you'll listen."

  Kerns halted and turned upon his friend a pair of eyes, unwinking intheir placid intelligence.

  "I was going to say that I know a girl," continued Gatewood, "who isjust the sort of a girl you--"

  "No, she isn't!" said Kerns, wheeling to resume his progress toward thecloakroom.

  "Tom!"

  Kerns halted.

  "_You're_ a fine specimen!" commented Gatewood scornfully. "You spentthe best years of your life in persuading me to get married, and thefirst time I try to do the same for you, you make for the tall timber!"

  "I know it," admitted Kerns, unashamed; "I'm bashful. I'm a chipmunk forshyness, so I'll say good night--"

  "Come back," said Gatewood coldly.

  "But my suit case--"

  "You left it at the Lee's, didn't you? Well, you've time enough to gothere, get it, make your train, and listen to me, too. Look here, Kerns,have you any of the elements of decency about you?"

  "No," said Kerns, "not a single element." He seated himself defiantly inthe club window facing Gatewood and began to button his gloves. When hehad finished he settled his new straw hat more comfortably on his head,and, leaning forward and balancing his malacca walking stick across hisknees, gazed at Gatewood with composure.

  "Crank up!" he said pleasantly; "I'm going in less than three minutes."He pushed the electric knob as an afterthought, and when the giltbuttons of the club servant glimmered through the dusk, "Two more," heexplained briskly. After a few moments' silence, broken by the tinkle ofice in thin glassware, Gatewood leaned forward, menacing his friend withan impressive forefinger:

  "Did you or didn't you once tell me that a decent citizen ought tomarry?"

  "I did, dear friend."

  "Did I or didn't I do it?"

  "In the words of the classic, you _done_ it," admitted Kerns.

  "Was I or wasn't I going to the devil before I had the sense to marry?"persisted Gatewood.

  "You was! You _was_, dear friend!" said Kerns with enthusiasm. "You hadalmost went there ere I appeared and saved you."

  "Then why shouldn't you marry and let me save you?"

  "But I'm not going to the bowwows. _I'm_ all right. I'm a decentcitizen. I awake in the rosy dawn with a song on my lips; I softlywhistle rag time as I button my collar; I warble a few delicious vagrantnotes as I part my sparse hair; I'm not murderous before breakfast; I godown town, singing, to my daily toil; I fish for fat contracts inGeorgia marble; I return uptown immersed in a holy calm and the eveningpaper. I offer myself a cocktail; I bow and accept; I dress for dinnerwith the aid of a rascally valet, but--_do_ I swear at him? No, dearfriend; I say, 'Henry, I have known far, far worse scoundrels than you.Thank you for filling up my bay rum with water. Bless you for wearingmy imported hosiery! I deeply regret that my new shirts do not fit you,Henry!' And my smile is a benediction upon that wayward scullion. Then,dear friend, why, why do you desire to offer me up upon the altar ofunrest? What is a little wifey to me or I to any wifey?"

  "Because," said Gatewood irritated, "you offered me up. I'm happy and Iwant you to be--you great, hulking, self-satisfied symbol of supremeself-centered selfishness--"

  "Oh, splash!" said Kerns feebly.

  "Yes, you are. What do you do all day? Grub for money and study how tomake life agreeable to yourself! Every minute of the day you areoccupied in having a good time! You've admitted it! You wake up singinglike a fool canary; you wear imported hosiery; you've made a soft, warmwallow for yourself at this club, and here you bask your life away,waddling downtown to nail contracts and cut coupons, and uptown todinners and theaters, only to return and sprawl here in luxury withoutone single thought for posterity. _Your_ crime is race suicide!"

  "I--my--_what_!"

  "Certainly. Some shirk taxes, some jury duty. _You_ shirk fatherhood,and all its happy and sacred obligations! You deny posterity! You strikea blow at it! You flout it! You menace the future of this Republic!Your inertia is a crime against the people! Instead of _pro bonopublico_ your motto is _pro bono tempo_--for a good time! And, dog Latinor not, it's the truth, and our great President"

  "Splash!" said Kerns, rising.

  "I've a good mind," said Gatewood indignantly, "to put the Tracer ofLost Persons on your trail. He'd rope you and tie you in record time!"

  Kerns's smile was a provocation.

  "I'll do it, too!" added Gatewood, losin
g his temper, "if you dare giveme the chance."

  "Seriously," inquired Kerns, delighted, "_do_ you think your friend, Mr.Keen, could encompass my matrimony against my better sense and the fullenjoyment of my unimpaired mental faculties?"

  "Didn't he--fortunately for me--force me into matrimony when I had neverseen a woman I would look at twice? Didn't you put him up to it? Verywell, why can't I put him on your trail then? Why can't _he_ do the samefor you?"

  "Try it, dear friend," retorted Kerns courteously.

  "Do you mean that you are not afraid? Do you mean you give me fullliberty to set him on you? And do you realize what that means? No, youdon't; for you haven't a notion of what that man, Westrel Keen, canaccomplish. You haven't the slightest idea of the machinery which hecontrols with a delicacy absolutely faultless; with a perfectlyterrifying precision. Why, man, the Pinkerton system itself has becomemerely a detail in the immense complexity of the system of control whichthe Tracer of Lost Persons exercises over this entire continent. Theurban police, the State constabulary of Pennsylvania, the rural systemsof surveillance, the Secret Service, all municipal, provincial, State,and national organizations form but a few strands in the universal webhe has woven. Custom officials, revenue officers, the militia of theStates, the army, the navy, the personnel of every city, State, andnational legislative bodies form interdependent threads in the mesh heis master of; and, like a big beneficent spider, he sits in the centerof his web, able to tell by the slightest tremor of any thread exactlywhere to begin investigations!"

  Flushed, earnest, a trifle out of breath with his own eloquence,Gatewood waved his hand to indicate a Ciceronian period, adding, asKerns's incredulous smile broadened: "Say splash again, and I'll put youat his mercy!"

  "Ker-splash! dear friend," observed Kerns pleasantly. "If a man doesn'twant to marry, the army, the navy, the Senate, the white wings, and thegreat White Father at Washington can't make him."

  "I tell you I want to see you happy!" said Gatewood angrily.

  "Then gaze upon me. I'm it!"

  "You're not! You don't know what happiness is."

  "Don't I? Well, I don't miss it, dear friend--"

  "But if you've never had it, and therefore don't miss it, it's timesomebody found some real happiness for you. Kerns, I simply can't bearto see you missing so much happiness--"

  "Why grieve?"

  "Yes, I will! I do grieve--in spite of your grinning skepticism and yourbantering attitude. See here, Tom; I've started about a thousand timesto say that I knew a girl--"

  "Do you want to hear that splash again?"

  Gatewood grew madder. He said: "I could easily lay your case before Mr.Keen and have you in love and married and happy whether you like it ornot!"

  "If I were not going to Boston, my son, I should enjoy your misguidedefforts," returned Kerns blandly.

  "Your going to Boston makes no difference. The Tracer of Lost Personsdoesn't care where you go or what you do. If he starts in on your case,Tommy, you can't escape."

  "You mean he can catch me now? Here? At my own club? Or on the publichighway? Or on the classic Boston train?"

  "He _could_. Yes, I firmly believe he could land you before you ever sawthe Boston State House. I tell you he can work like lightning, Kerns. Iknow it; I am so absolutely convinced of it that I--I almost hesitate--"

  "Don't feel delicate about it," laughed Kerns; "you may call him on thetelephone while I go uptown and get my suit case. Perhaps I'll come backa blushing bridegroom; who knows?"

  "If you'll wait here I'll call him up now," said Gatewood grimly.

  "Oh, very well. Only I left my suit case in Billy's room, and it's fullof samples of Georgia marble, and I've got to get it to the train."

  "You've plenty of time. If you'll wait until I talk to Mr. Keen I'lldine with you here. Will you?"

  "What? Dine in this abandoned joint with an outcast like me? Dearfriend, are you dippy this lovely May evening?"

  "I'll do it if you'll wait. Will you? And I'll bet you now that I'llhave you in love and sprinting toward the altar before we meet again atthis club. Do you dare bet?"

  "The terms of the wager, kind friend?" drawled Kerns, delighted; and hefished out a notebook kept for such transactions.

  "Let me see," reflected Gatewood; "you'll need a silver service whenyou're married. . . . Well, say, forks and spoons and things against animported trap gun--twelve-gauge, you know."

  "Done. Go and telephone to your friend, Mr. Keen." And Kerns pushed theelectric button with a jeering laugh, and asked the servant for a dinnercard.