Elusive Isabel, by Jacques Futrelle

by Unknown

  “It requires no great effort of the imagination, Mr. Grimm, to foresee that day when the traditional power of Paris, and Berlin, and St. Petersburg, and Madrid will be honey-combed by the steady encroachment of our methods. This alliance would indicate that already that day has been foreseen; that there is now a resentment which is about to find expression in one great, desperate struggle for world supremacy. A few hundred years ago Italy—or Rome—was stripped of her power; only recently the United States dispelled the illusion that Spain was anything but a shell; and France—! One can’t help but wonder if the power she boasts is not principally on paper. But if their forces are combined? Do you see? It would be an enormous power to reckon with, with a hundred bases of supplies right at our doors.”

  He rose suddenly and walked over to the window, where he stood for a moment, staring out with unseeing eyes.

  “Given a yard of canvas, Mr. Grimm,” he went on finally, “a Spanish boy will waste it, a French boy will paint a picture on it, an English boy will built a sail-boat, and an American boy will erect a tent. That fully illustrates the difference in the races.”

  He abandoned the didactic tone, and returned to the material matter in hand. Mr. Grimm passed him the despatch and he sat down again.

  “‘Will soon sign compact in Washington,’” he read musingly. “Now I don’t know that the signing of that compact can be prevented, but the signing of it on United States soil can be prevented. You will see to that, Mr. Grimm.”

  “Very well,” the young man agreed carelessly. The magnitude of such a task made, apparently, not the slightest impression on him. He languidly drew on his gloves.

  “And meanwhile I shall take steps to ascertain the attitude of Russian and Japanese representatives in this city.”

  Mr. Grimm nodded.

  “And now, for Prince Benedetto d’Abruzzi,” Mr. Campbell went on slowly. “Officially he is not in Washington, nor the United States, for that matter. Naturally, on such a mission, he would not come as a publicly accredited agent, therefore, I imagine, he is to be sought under another name.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Grimm acquiesced.

  “And he would avoid the big hotels.”

  “Certainly.”

  Mr. Campbell permitted his guileless blue eyes to linger inquiringly upon those of the young man for half a minute. He caught himself wondering, sometimes, at the perfection of the deliberate indifference with which Mr. Grimm masked his emotions. In his admiration of this quality he quite overlooked the remarkable mask of benevolence behind which he himself hid.

  “And the name, D’Abruzzi,” he remarked, after a time. “What does it mean to you, Mr. Grimm?”

  “It means that I am to deal with a prince of the royal blood of Italy,” was the unhesitating response. Mr. Grimm picked up the Almanac de Gotha and glanced at the open page. “Of course, the first thing to do is to find him; the rest will be simple enough.” He perused the page carelessly. “I will begin work at once.”

  III

  THE LANGUAGE OF THE FAN

  Mr. Grimm was chatting idly with Senorita Rodriguez, daughter of the minister from Venezuela, the while he permitted his listless eyes to wander aimlessly about the spacious ball-room of the German embassy, ablaze with festooned lights, and brilliant with a multi-colored chaos of uniforms. Gleaming pearl-white, translucent in the mass, were the bare shoulders of women; and from far off came the plaintive whine of an orchestra, a pulsing sense rather than a living sound, of music, pointed here and there by the staccato cry of a flute. A zephyr, perfumed with the clean, fresh odor of lilacs, stirred the draperies of the archway which led into the conservatory and rustled the bending branches of palms and ferns.

  For a scant instant Mr. Grimm’s eyes rested on a young woman who sat a dozen feet away, talking, in playful animation, with an undersecretary of the British embassy—a young woman severely gowned in some glistening stuff which fell away sheerly from her splendid bare shoulders. She glanced up, as if in acknowledgment of his look, and her eyes met his. Frank, blue-gray eyes they were, stirred to their depths now by amusement. She smiled at Senorita Rodriguez, in token of recognition.

  “Aren’t they wonderful?” asked Senorita Rodriguez with the quick, bubbling enthusiasm of her race.

  “What?” asked Mr. Grimm.

  “Her eyes,” was the reply. “Every person has one dominant feature—with Miss Thorne it is her eyes.”

  “Miss Thorne?” Mr. Grimm repeated.

  “Haven’t you met her?” the senorita went on. “Miss Isabel Thorne? She only arrived a few days ago—the night of the state ball. She’s my guest at the legation. When an opportunity comes I shall present you to her.”

  She ran on, about other things, with only an occasional remark from Mr. Grimm, who was thoughtfully nursing his knee. Somewhere through the chatter and effervescent gaiety, mingling with the sound of the pulsing music, he had a singular impression of a rhythmical beat, an indistinct tattoo, noticeable, perhaps, only because of its monotony. After a moment he shot a quick glance at Miss Thorne and understood; it was the tapping of an exquisitely wrought ivory fan against one of her tapering, gloved fingers. She was talking and smiling.

  “Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot!” said the fan.

  Mr. Grimm twisted around in his seat and regaled his listless eyes with a long stare into the senorita’s pretty face. Behind the careless ease of repose he was mechanically isolating the faint clatter of the fan.

  “Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot!”

  “Did any one ever accuse you of staring, Mr. Grimm?” demanded the senorita banteringly.

  For an instant Mr. Grimm continued to stare, and then his listless eyes swept the ball-room, pausing involuntarily at the scarlet splendor of the minister from Turkey.

  “I beg your pardon,” he apologized contritely. There was a pause. “The minister from Turkey looks like a barn on fire, doesn’t he?”

  Senorita Rodriguez laughed, and Mr. Grimm glanced idly toward Miss Thorne. She was still talking, her face alive with interest; and the fan was still tapping rhythmically, steadily, now on the arm of her chair.

  “Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot!”

  “Pretty women who don’t want to be stared at should go with their faces swathed,” Mr. Grimm suggested indolently. “Haroun el Raschid there would agree with me on that point, I have no doubt. What a shock he would get if he should happen up at Atlantic City for a week-end in August!”

  “Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash-dot!”

  Mr. Grimm read it with perfect understanding; it was “F—F—F” in the Morse code, the call of one operator to another. Was it accident? Mr. Grimm wondered, and wondering he went on talking lazily:

  “Curious, isn’t it, the smaller the nation the more color it crowds into the uniforms of its diplomatists? The British ambassador, you will observe, is clothed sanely and modestly, as befits the representative of a great nation; but coming on down by way of Spain and Italy, they get more gorgeous. However, I dare say as stout a heart beats beneath a sky-blue sash as behind the unembellished black of evening dress.”

  “F—F—F,” the fan was calling insistently.

  And then the answer came. It took the unexpectedly prosaic form of a violent sneeze, a vociferous outburst on a bench directly behind Mr. Grimm. Senorita Rodriguez jumped, then laughed nervously.

  “It startled me,” she explained.

  “I think there must be a draft from the conservatory,” said a man’s voice apologetically. “Do you ladies feel it? No? Well, if you’ll excuse me—?”

  Mr. Grimm glanced back languidly. The speaker was Charles Winthrop Rankin, a brilliant young American lawyer who was attached to the German embassy in an advisory capacity. Among other things he was a Heidelberg man, having spent some dozen years of his life in Germany, where he established influential connections. Mr. Grimm knew him only by sight.

  And now the rhythmical tapping of Miss Thorne’s fan unde
rwent a change. There was a flutter of gaiety in her voice the while the ivory fan tapped steadily.

  “Dot-dot-dot! Dash! Dash-dash-dash! Dot-dot-dash! Dash!”

  “S—t—5—u—t,” Mr. Grimm read in Morse. He laughed pleasantly at some remark of his companion.

  “Dash-dash! Dot-dash! Dash-dot!” said the fan.

  “M—a—n,” Mr. Grimm spelled it out, the while his listless eyes roved aimlessly over the throng. “S—t—5—u—t m—a—n!” Was it meant for “stout man?” Mr. Grimm wondered.

  “Dot-dash-dot! Dot! Dash-dot-dot!”

  “F—e—d,” that was.

  “Dot-dot-dash-dot! Dot-dash! Dash-dot-dash-dot! Dot!”

  “Q—a—j—e!” Mr. Grimm was puzzled a little now, but there was not a wrinkle, nor the tiniest indication of perplexity in his face. Instead he began talking of Raphael’s cherubs, the remark being called into life by the high complexion of a young man who was passing. Miss Thorne glanced at him once keenly, her splendid eyes fairly aglow, and the fan rattled on in the code.

  “Dash-dot! Dot! Dot-dash! Dot-dash-dot!”

  “N—e—a—f.” Mr. Grimm was still spelling it out.

  Then came a perfect jumble. Mr. Grimm followed it with difficulty, a difficulty utterly belied by the quizzical lines about his mouth. As he caught it, it was like this: “J—5—n—s—e—f—v—a—t—5—f,” followed by an arbitrary signal which is not in the Morse code: “Dash-dot-dash-dash!”

  Mr. Grimm carefully stored that jumble away in some recess of his brain, along with the unknown signal.

  “D—5—5—f,” he read, and then, on to the end: “B—f—i—n—g 5—v—e—f w—h—e—n g g—5—e—s.”

  That was all, apparently. The soft clatter of the fan against the arm of the chair ran on meaninglessly after that.

  “May I bring you an ice?” Mr. Grimm asked at last.

  “If you will, please,” responded the senorita, “and when you come back I’ll reward you by presenting you to Miss Thorne. You’ll find her charming; and Mr. Cadwallader has monopolized her long enough.”

  Mr. Grimm bowed and left her. He had barely disappeared when Mr. Rankin lounged along in front of Miss Thorne. He glanced at her, paused and greeted her effusively.

  “Why, Miss Thorne!” he exclaimed. “I’m delighted to see you here. I understood you would not be present, and—”

  Their hands met in a friendly clasp as she rose and moved away, with a nod of excuse to Mr. Cadwallader. A thin slip of paper, thrice folded, passed from Mr. Rankin to her. She tugged at her glove, and thrust the little paper, still folded, inside the palm.

  “Is it yes, or no?” Miss Thorne asked in a low tone.

  “Frankly, I can’t say,” was the reply.

  “He read the message,” she explained hastily, “and now he has gone to decipher it.”

  She gathered up her trailing skirts over one arm, and together they glided away through the crowd to the strains of a Strauss waltz.

  “I’m going to faint in a moment,” she said quite calmly to Mr. Rankin. “Please have me sent to the ladies’ dressing-room.”

  “I understand,” he replied quietly.

  IV

  THE FLEEING WOMAN

  Mr. Grimm went straight to a quiet nook of the smoking-room and there, after a moment, Mr. Campbell joined him. The bland benevolence of the chief’s face was disturbed by the slightest questioning uplift of his brows as he dropped into a seat opposite Mr. Grimm, and lighted a cigar. Mr. Grimm raised his hand, and a servant who stood near, approached them.

  “An ice—here,” Mr. Grimm directed tersely.

  The servant bowed and disappeared, and Mr. Grimm hastily scribbled something on a sheet of paper and handed it to his chief.

  “There is a reading, in the Morse code, of a message that seems to be unintelligible,” Mr. Grimm explained. “I have reason to believe it is in the Continental code. You know the Continental—I don’t.”

  Mr. Campbell read this:

  “St5ut man fed qaje neaf j5nsefvat5f,” and then came the unknown, dash-dot-dash-dash. “That,” he explained, “is Y in the Continental code.” It went on: “d55f bfing 5vef when g g5es.”

  The chief read it off glibly:

  “Stout man, red face, near conservatory door. Bring over when G goes.”

  “Very well!” commented Mr. Grimm ambiguously.

  With no word of explanation, he rose and went out, pausing at the door to take the ice which the servant was bringing in. The seat where he had left Senorita Rodriguez was vacant; so was the chair where Miss Thorne had been. He glanced about inquiringly, and a servant who stood stolidly near the conservatory door approached him.

  “Pardon, sir, but the lady who was sitting here,” and he indicated the chair where Miss Thorne had been sitting, “fainted while dancing, and the lady who was with you went along when she was removed to the ladies’ dressing-room, sir.”

  Mr. Grimm’s teeth closed with a little snap.

  “Did you happen to notice any time this evening a stout gentleman, with red face, near the conservatory door?” he asked.

  The servant pondered a moment, then shook his head.

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mr. Grimm was just turning away, when there came the sharp, vibrant cra-a-sh! of a revolver, somewhere off to his left. The president! That was his first thought. One glance across the room to where the chief executive stood, in conversation with two other gentlemen, reassured him. The choleric blue eyes of the president had opened a little at the sound, then he calmly resumed the conversation. Mr. Grimm impulsively started toward the little group, but already a cordon was being drawn there—a cordon of quiet-faced, keen-eyed men, unobstrusively forcing their way through the crowd. There was Johnson, and Hastings, and Blair, and half a dozen others.

  The room had been struck dumb. The dancers stopped, with tense, inquiring looks, and the plaintive whine of the orchestra, far away, faltered, then ceased. There was one brief instant of utter silence in which white-faced women clung to the arms of their escorts, and the brilliant galaxy of colors halted. Then, after a moment, there came clearly through the stillness, the excited, guttural command of the German ambassador.

  “Keep on blaying, you tam fools! Keep on blaying!”

  The orchestra started again tremulously. Mr. Grimm nodded a silent approval of the ambassador’s command, then turned away toward his left, in the direction of the shot. After the first dismay, there was a general movement of the crowd in that direction, a movement which was checked by Mr. Campbell’s appearance upon a chair, with a smile on his bland face.

  “No harm done,” he called. “One of the officers present dropped his revolver, and it was accidently discharged. No harm done.”

  There was a moment’s excited chatter, deep-drawn breaths of relief, the orchestra swung again into the interrupted rhythm, and the dancers moved on. Mr. Grimm went straight to his chief, who had stepped down from the chair. Two other Secret Service men stood behind him, blocking the doorway that opened into a narrow hall.

  “This way,” directed the chief tersely.

  Mr. Grimm walked along beside him. They skirted the end of the ball-room until they came to another door opening into the hall. Chief Campbell pushed it open, and entered. One of his men stood just inside.

  “What was it, Gray?” asked the chief.

  “Senor Alvarez, of the Mexican legation, was shot,” was the reply.

  “Dead?”

  “Only wounded. He’s in that room,” and he indicated a door a little way down the hall. “Fairchild, two servants, and a physician are with him.”

  “Who shot him?”

  “Don’t know. We found him lying in the hall here.”

  Still followed by Mr. Grimm, the chief entered the room, and together they bent over the wounded man. The bullet had entered the torso just below the ribs on the left side.

  “It’s a clean wound,” the physician was explaining. “The bu
llet passed through. There’s no immediate danger.”

  Senor Alvarez opened his eyes, and stared about him in bewilderment; then alarm overspread his face, and he made spasmodic efforts to reach the inside breast pocket of his coat. Mr. Grimm obligingly thrust his hand into the pocket and drew out its contents, the while Senor Alvarez struggled frantically.

  “Just a moment,” Mr. Grimm advised quietly. “I’m only going to let you see if it is here. Is it?”

  He held the papers, one by one, in front of the wounded man, and each time a shake of the head was his answer. At the last Senor Alvarez closed his eyes again.

  “What sort of paper was it?” inquired Mr. Grimm.

  “None of your business,” came the curt answer.

  “Who shot you?”

  “None of your business.”

  “A man?”

  Senor Alvarez was silent.

  “A woman?”

  Still silence.

  With some new idea Mr. Grimm turned away suddenly and started out into the hall. He met a maid-servant at the door, coming in. Her face was blanched, and she stuttered through sheer excitement.

  “A lady, sir—a lady—” she began babblingly.

  Mr. Grimm calmly closed the door, shutting in the wounded man, Chief Campbell and the others. Then he caught the maid sharply by the arm and shook some coherence into her disordered brain.