The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

by Wardon Allan Curtis

  _What Befell Mr. Middleton Because of the Sixth Gift of the Emir._

  "It is strange," said Mr. Middleton, "that after Clarissa had shownher devotion to the extent of saving his life, Captain Leadbury couldhave had, even for a moment, any misgivings that she loved him."

  "One cannot always be sure," said the emir. "A lover, being in ahighly nervous state because of his emotion, is always more or lessunstrung and unable to form a sound judgment or behave rationally. Itis because of this, that there are so many lovers' quarrels. But oneneed not be at sea as regards the question of the affection of theobject of his tender passion. It is only necessary for you to wear aphilter upon the forehead and you can obtain the love of any woman,"and giving Mesrour some directions, the Nubian brought to his master aminute bag of silk an inch square and of wafer thinness, which, bothfrom its appearance and the rare odor of musk which it exhaled,resembled a sachet bag.

  "Wear this on your forehead," said the emir, presenting it to Mr.Middleton.

  "But I would look ridiculous doing that, and excite comment,"expostulated the student of law.

  "Not at all," said the emir. "Put it inside the sweat-band of thefront of your hat and no one will perceive it and yet it will have allits potency."

  Which, accordingly, Mr. Middleton did, and having thanked the emir forhis entertainment and instruction and the gift, he departed.

  The close of the relation of the adventure of Miss Clarissa Dawsonleft Mr. Middleton in a most amorous mood. His mind was full of softdreams of the delight William Leadbury must have experienced as he satin the hack with Clarissa's cheek against his, pouring forth his loveinto her surprised ear. Before retiring for the night, he sat for sometime ciphering on the back of an envelope and kept putting down"$1,000, $500, $560; $560, $500, $1,000; $500, $560, $1,000; $500,$1,000, $560," but as the result of the addition was never over$2,060, whatever way he put it, and as the stipend he received for hislabors in the law offices of Brockelsby and Brockman was but $26 amonth, he did not feel that he had any business to snatch the younglady of Englewood to his breast and tell her of his love and his bankaccount.

  He went to see her on the following night. The exquisite beauty ofthis peerless young woman had never so impressed him as upon thisnight and he was gnawed by the most intense longing to call her hisown. As he thought of the fortunate William Leadbury with his richuncle, he fairly hated him, and anon he cursed Brockelsby and Brockmanfor refusing to raise his salary to a point commensurate with thevalue of his services. Surely, the young lady of Englewood, even werehe to believe her gifted with only ordinary penetration, instead ofbeing the highly intelligent and perspicacious person he knew her tobe, could see how he felt and must know that it was only a question oftime and more money, and assuredly, one so gracious could not, in viewof the circumstances, begrudge him the advance of one kiss and oneembrace pending the formal offer of himself and his fortunes. So as hestood in the doorway, bidding her good-night, right in the midst of anirrelevant remark concerning the weather, he suddenly and withoutwarning, threw his arms about her and essayed to kiss her. But theyoung lady of Englewood, with a cry commingled of surprise and horror,sprang away.

  "How dare you sir? What made you do that? What sort of a girl do youthink I am?" she said in freezing tones.

  Mr. Middleton replied, stuttering weakly in a very husky voice, "Ithink you are a nice girl."

  "A nice girl!" quoth the young lady of Englewood fiercely. "You knowno nice girl would allow it. Nice girl, indeed. You think so. You knowno nice girl would let you do such a thing," and she slammed the doorin his face.

  Away went Mr. Middleton with his heart full of bitterness because shewould not let him do such a thing, and in the hallway stood the younglady of Englewood with her heart full of bitterness because he hadtried to do such a thing and because she could not let him do such athing.

  "Much good was the philter," said Mr. Middleton, remembering theemir's gift, but almost at the same time, he recalled that the philterhad not been on his forehead when he attempted to embrace the younglady of Englewood, for he had held his hat in his hand.

  The farther he departed from her, the more his resentment grew, and hedeclared to himself that he would never have anything more to do withher. She was ungrateful, cold, haughty, not at all the kind of girl hecould wish as his partner for life. He would proceed to let her seethat he could do without her. He would cast her image from the templeof his heart and never go near her again. For a moment, he wasdisturbed by the thought that perhaps she would decline to receivehim, even if he should call, but he quickly banished this unpleasantreflection and fell to devising means by which he might make itclearly apparent to the young lady of Englewood that he did not care.

  "I'll make her sorry. I'll show her I don't care, I'll show her Idon't care."

  There is a restaurant under the basement of one of the larger and morecelebrated saloons of the city, where a genial Gaul provides, for themodest sum of fifty cents, a course dinner, with wine. The wine is butordinary California claret, but the viands are excellently cooked andof themselves sufficient inducement for a wight to part with half adollar without consideration of the wine. There are those who, in themelancholy state that follows a disappointment in love, go withoutfood and drink, while others turn to undue indulgence in drink. Thereare yet others, though few observers seem to have noted them, who turntoward greater indulgence in food, seeking surcease and forgetfulnessof the pains of the heart in benefactions to the stomach.

  It was very seldom that Mr. Middleton spent so much as fifty centsupon a meal, but the conduct of the young lady of Englewood havingdeprived him of any present object for laying up money, and, moreover,the pains of the heart before alluded to demanding the vicariousoffices of the stomach, he went to the little French restaurant thenext evening.

  It was somewhat late when he arrived and there were in the room buttwo diners beside himself. These were a man and a woman, who by manylittle obvious evidences made manifest that they were not husband andwife. They had arrived at the dessert and were eating ice cream withgenteel slowness, conversing the while with great decorum. Both weretall and fair, singularly well matched as to height and the ample andshapely proportions of their figures, and both were well, thoughquietly and even simply, dressed. They were nearly of an age, too, hebeing apparently forty, and she thirty-five. Their years sat lightlyupon them, however, and if upon her face there were traces left by thelonging for the lover who had not yet come into her life, that was allwhich upon either countenance betrayed that their lives had been otherthan care-free and happy. Assuredly, any one would have called them afine looking man and woman. All this Mr. Middleton observed in aglance or two and then addressed himself to the comestibles that wereset before him and doubtless would not have given the couple thoughtagain, had not the waitress at the close of the meal fluttered at hiselbows, placing the vinegar cruet and Worcestershire sauce bottlewithin easy reach, which services caused Mr. Middleton to look up insome wonder, as he was engaged with custard pie and he had never heardof any race of men, however savage, who used vinegar andWorcestershire sauce upon custard pie. The waitress, who was a youngwoman of a pleasant and intelligent countenance, met this glance withanother compounded of mystery and communicativeness, and bending lowwhile she removed the vinegar and Worcestershire sauce to a newstation, murmured:

  "That man over there has been here seven nights running, with adifferent woman every time."

  Mr. Middleton sitting quiet in the surprise this information causedhim, she repeated what she had said, adding, "and once he was here atnoon besides, different woman every time."

  Eight women in seven days! Certainly this was quite a curious thing.

  "Do you know who he is? Have you ever seen any of the women before?"

  "Nop. Don't know anything about him except what I have seen of himhere. Never saw any of the women before--nor since."

  Nor since. Mr. Middleton found himself asking himself if anybody hadseen any of the women since
. Had the girl in this chance remarkunwittingly hit upon a terrible mystery? Nor since, nor since.

  The man who had so suddenly assumed an interest in Mr. Middleton'seyes, arose, and going to the window, looked out at the street above,which was spattered with a sudden shower. He began to lament that hehad not brought an umbrella and said he would go after one, when thestorm so increased in violence that even a person provided with anumbrella--as was Mr. Middleton--would not care to venture into it, forsuch was the might of the wind now filling the air with its shrieks,that the rain swept in great lateral sheets which made an umbrella afutile protection. Yet notwithstanding this fury of the elements, theman of many women went out.

  A half hour went by. An hour, and the storm did not abate and the mandid not return. The good-looking waitress invited Mr. Middleton to sitat ease by a table in a rear part of the room, where lolling on theopposite side, with charming unconsciousness she let her hand liestretched more than half across the board, a rampart of crumplednewspapers concealing it from the view of the eighth guest of themulierose man. But whatever Mr. Middleton had done on previousoccasions and might do on occasions yet to come, he now wished toavoid all appearances that might cause the eighth woman to regard himas at all inclined to other than discreet and modest conduct, for hewas resolved to find out what he could about the man and eight women.So affecting not to note the hand temptingly disposed, he discoursedin a voice which was plainly audible in every corner of the room, notso much because of its loudness--for he had but little raised it--asbecause of a distinct and precise enunciation. This very precision,which always implies a regard for the rules, proprieties and amenitiesof life, seemed to stamp him as a man worthy of confidence, even hadnot his sentiments been of the most high-minded character. Hedescribed the great flood of 1882, which wrought such havoc inMissouri, in which cataclysm his Uncle Henry Perkins had sufferedgreat loss. He extolled the commendable conduct of his uncle insacrificing valuable property that he might save a woman; letting aflatboat loaded with twenty-five hogs whirl away in the raging flood,in order to rescue a woman from Booneville, Missouri, the wife of acounty judge, who was floating in the waste of waters upon a small redbarn. The dullest could infer from the approval he gave this act ofhis Uncle Henry, unwisely chivalrous as it might seem in view of thefact that whoever rescued the judge's wife farther down stream, wouldreturn her to the judge, while no one would return the hogs to Mr.Perkins--the dullest could infer from his praise that he was himself achivalrous and tender young man whom any woman could trust.

  The hour was become an hour and a half and both the pretty waitressand the eighth woman had grown very fidgetty. The waitress saw she wasto beguile the tedious period of emprisonment by the tempest with nodalliance with Mr. Middleton. The eighth woman was worried by theabsence of her escort. Mr. Middleton stepped to her side, where shestood staring out at the wind-swept street, and addressed her.

  "Madame, it would almost seem as if some accident had detained yourescort. May I not offer to call a cab and see you home? I have anumbrella with me."

  The lady thanked him almost eagerly, saying that she would waitfifteen minutes more and at the elapse of that time, her escort notappearing, would gladly avail herself of his kind offer.

  Twenty minutes later, they were whirling away northward. Crossing theWells Street bridge, they turned eastward only a few blocks from theriver. The rain had suddenly ceased. The wind having relaxed nothingof its fierceness, it occasionally parted the scudding clouds highover head to let glimpses of the moon escape from their wrack, and Mr.Middleton saw he was in a region whence the invasion of factories andwarehouses had driven the major portion of the inhabitants forth,leaving their dwellings untenanted, white for rent signs staring outof the empty casements like so many ghosts. The lady signaling thedriver to stop, Mr. Middleton assisted her to alight, and glancedabout him. Here the work of exile had been very thorough. Not yet hadthe factories come into this immediate neighborhood, but the residentshad retreated before the smoke of their advancing lines, leaving awide unoccupied space behind the rear guard. Up and down the street,in no house could he perceive a light. The moon shining forth clearand resplendent, its face unobstructed by clouds for a moment, he sawstretching away house after house with white signs that grimly toldtheir loneliness. Indeed, quite deserted did appear the very house towhose door they splashed through the pools in the depressions of thetall flight of stone steps. The lady threw open the door and steppedbriskly in, and her footfalls rang sharply upon a bare floor andresounded in a hollow echo that told it was an empty house!

  An empty house! An empty house! What danger might lurk here and howeasy might losels lure victims to their door! Mr. Middleton paused onthe threshold, staring into the gloom, but whatever irresolutethoughts he had entertained of retreat were dispelled by the sound ofa wail from the lady, and the sight of her face, white in themoonlight, as she rushed out to him.

  "Oh, oh," she moaned, gibbering a gush of words which, despite theirincoherence of form, in their tone proclaimed fear, consternation, anddespair.

  Lighting a match, Mr. Middleton stepped into the house. Standing inthe little circle of dull yellow light, he saw beneath his feetwindrows of dust and layers of newspapers that had rested beneath acarpet but lately removed, and beyond, dusk emptiness, and silence. Headvanced, looking for a chandelier, but though he found two, theincandescent globes had been removed from them. Throwing a mass of thepapers from the floor into the grate and lighting them, a bright glarebrought out every corner of the room. There was nothing but the fourbare walls.

  "They have taken everything, everything!" cried the poor lady.

  "Who?" asked Mr. Middleton, after the manner of his profession.

  "Who? Would that I knew!--Thieves."

  Mr. Middleton then realized she had been the victim of a form ofrobbery far too common, where the scoundrels come with drays and carryoff the whole household equipment, in the householder's absence. Thatwhich had been done in comparatively well-populated quarters was easyof accomplishment on this deserted street.

  Penetrated with compassion, he moved toward the unfortunate woman, whowith an abandonment he had not expected of one so stately andreserved, threw herself upon his breast, weeping as though her heartwould break.

  "They have taken everything. How can I get along now! My piano is goneand how can I give lessons without it! I will have to go back toPeoria!"

  Soothingly Mr. Middleton patted the weeping woman on the back. Withinfinite tenderness, he kissed her tear-bedewed cheeks and gently helaid her head upon his shoulder, and then with both arms clasped abouther, he imparted to her statuesque figure a sort of rocking motion,crooning with each oscillation, "There, there, there, there," untilthe paroxysm of her grief abated and passed from weeping intogradually subsiding sobs, and he began to tell her that he would beonly too happy to give his legal services to convict the villains whencaught--as they surely would be. The lady by degrees becoming morecheerful and giving him a description of the stolen property, hediscussed ways and means of recovering it, and to prevent her fromrelapsing into her former depressed condition, occasionally imprinteda consolatory salute upon her cheek, from which he had previouslywiped the wet tracks of the tears that had now some time ceasedgushing, for there had been a salty taste to the first osculations,which while not actually disagreeable, had not been to his liking.

  At length, the lady not only ceased even to sigh, but even to talk,and yet remained leaning upon him, which was whether because she wasweary, exhausted by grief, or whether because her supporter was such agood looking young man, is not evident. Doubtless it was true that atfirst her misery and unhappiness made her need the sympatheticcaresses of any one within reach and that with the return of herequilibrium she continued to make this an excuse for enjoying withoutany reproach of impropriety a recreation which ordinarily theconventions of society would compel her to eschew. As for the risinglight in the legal profession, he began to find the weight she leantupon him oppressive, and his
occupation, delightful at first, pallingand growing monotonous. The monotony he somewhat relieved byfrequently kissing her, now on one velvet cheek, now on the other, andagain her lips; slowly, one two, three, in waltz measure; and rapidly,one, two three, four, in two-step measure, when all at once in themidst of a sustained half note there came to him the reflection thatthis was no time of night for him to be there in the dark in adeserted house kissing a woman with whose social standing, whose veryname, he was unacquainted. He was about to ask a few leadingquestions, when there was the sound of wheels in the street; acarriage stopped before the door.

  Quickly extricating himself from the lady's arms, Mr. Middletonstepped to the door, only to see the carriage drive away, the sound ofvoices singing a solemn chant in a strange and unknown tongue floatingback to him. Wondering what all this could mean, he turned to find thelady standing at his side, silently regarding him in a wrapt manner.

  "The hour is late," said she, in a hollow, mournful voice, "and Iought to be seeking some shelter where I can lay my head, but where,oh, where?"

  The lady made a tragic gesture as she asked this question, and therein that lonely street with this lorn woman at this late hour of thenight in the eerie light of the cloud-obscured moon, with the wind,now howling and now sobbing and moaning, Mr. Middleton felt verysolemn indeed. But he pulled himself together and suggested alow-priced and respectable hotel not far away, and toward this theywere faring when they passed a house which, unlike most of the othersof the vicinity, bore signs of habitation, and unlike any of theothers, had a light showing in a window. In fact, there was a light inevery window of the two upper stories and in the windows of the firstfloor and even in the basement. Pausing to wonder at this unusualillumination, Mr. Middleton felt his arm suddenly clutched, and avoice which he would never have believed came from the lady, if therehad been any one else present, grated into his ear, "It's him."

  Though startled by this enigmatical utterance, he followed when sheascended two steps of the stoop for a better view in the uncurtainedwindow. There, with his face buried in his hands, seated on a roll ofcarpeting with a tack hammer and saucer of tacks at his side, sat themulierose man!

  "This house was empty at four this afternoon," said the lady."Heavens, that's my piano in the corner! That's my center table! Ibelieve that's my carpet! That's my watercolor painting I paintedmyself! _He's_ robbed me!"

  Her voice rose to a shriek, and at the sound a woman's head popped outof the window above and the mulierose man came running to the door. Hewas in his shirt sleeves but wore a hat.

  "You've robbed me, you've robbed me!" cried the lady.

  "I haven't," said the mulierose man with the utmost composure. "I canexplain it all satisfactorily. Come in. My Aunt Eliza is here and teais ready. Where were you when I went back to the restaurant? They saidyou had gone. Where were you?"

  To Mr. Middleton's surprise, the lady immediately quieted at the wordsof the mulierose man and instead of berating him, coughed nervouslyand hung her head sheepishly.

  "Where were you?" repeated the man.

  "At my house."

  "All this time? With this young man?" There was a tinge of hardnessand jealousy in the man's voice and he looked unpleasantly at Mr.Middleton. "What did you stay in that empty house all this time for?What-were-you-doing-there?"

  Mr. Middleton was at his wit's end to supply a hypothesis to answerwhy the mulierose man, from being a criminal and object of the lady'sjust wrath, should suddenly have become an inquisitor, sitting injudgment upon her conduct.

  "I--I--was afraid to start right away. It was dark in there and I wasafraid this young man might take liberties. Indeed, he did try to kissme."

  With a roar, the mulierose man launched himself at Mr. Middleton, whodexterously stepping aside, had the satisfaction of seeing hisassailant slip and fall on the wet sidewalk. The lady thereat raised acry of great volume, which was taken up by the woman looking out ofthe window above, and Mr. Middleton thinking he could derive neitherpleasure nor profit from remaining longer in that locality, fledincontinently.

  Upon his arrival home and preparing for bed, he found that he waswearing a stiff hat made in Kansas City, bearing on the sweat-band asilver plate inscribed "George W. Dobson." The mulierose man and hehad exchanged hats at the restaurant. The mulierose man now had thelove philter.

  It was not until four days had elapsed that Mr. Middleton found anopportunity to visit the street where these inexplicable events tookplace. The house where he had comforted the eighth woman was stillempty. At the house whence the mulierose man had issued, a veryunprepossessing old woman, with a teapot in her right hand, wasopening the front door to admit a large yellow cat whom she addressedas "Mahoney," an appellation which, while not infrequently the familyname of persons of Irish birth or descent, is of very seldomapplication to members of the domestic cat tribe, Felis cattus.

  Wondering greatly at the chain of unusual events, he went about hisbusiness. You may depend upon it that he gave much thought to anattempted solution of all these mysteries. But whether or no it wasafter all only a series of events commonplace in themselves, butseeming mysterious because of their fortuitous concatenation, or hereally had trodden upon the hem of a web of strange and darksome,perhaps appalling, mysteries, he has never been able to say. He wasminded to speak of these things to the emir and get his opinion onthem. Upon reflection, remembering how the philter had not been of anyavail in the case of the young lady of Englewood, he thought, despitethe explanation which might be offered for this failure, that the emirmight be embarrassed at hearing of the failure of the charm, andaccordingly he said nothing when once more he sat in the presence ofthe urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Havinghanded him a bowl of delicately flavored sherbet, Achmed began tonarrate The Unpleasant Adventure of the Faithless Woman.