"Yes," said Minot bitterly. "Take me back to New York."
"Well—if I had a new front tire I might try it."
Two eager black boys were moving inside with Minot's bags, and he followed. As he passed the fountain tinkling gaily in the courtyard:
"What was it I promised Thacker?" he said to himself. "'Miss Cynthia Meyrick changes her mind only over my dead body.' Ah, well—the good die young."
Chapter 4
MR. TRIMMER LIMBERS UP
AT the desk of the De la Pax Mr. Minot learned that for fifteen dollars a day he might board and lodge amid the splendors of that hotel. Gratefully he signed his name. One of the negro boys—who had matched coins for him with the other boy while he registered—led the way to his room.
It proved a long and devious journey. The Hotel de la Pax was a series of afterthoughts on the part of its builders. Up hill and down dale the boy led, through dark passageways, over narrow bridges, until at length they arrived at the door of 389.
"My boy," muttered Minot feelingly, "I congratulate you. Henry M. Stanley in the flower of his youth couldn't have done any better."
"Yes, suh." The boy threw open the door of a narrow cell, at the farther end of which a solitary window admitted the well-known Florida sunshine. Minot stepped over and glanced out. Where the gay courtyard with its green palms waving, its fountain tinkling? Not visible from 389. Instead Minot saw a narrow street, its ancient cobblestones partly obscured by flourishing grass, and bordered by quaint, top-heavy Spanish houses, their plaster walls a hundred colors from the indignities of the years.
"We seem to have strayed over into Spain," he remarked.
The bell-boy giggled.
"Yes, suh. We one block and a half from de hotel office."
"I didn't notice any taxis in the corridors," smiled Minot. "Here—wait a minute." He tossed the boy a coin. "Your fare back home. If you get stranded on the way, telegraph."
The boy departed, and Minot continued to gaze out. Directly across from his window, looking strangely out of place in that dead and buried street, stood a great stone house tr at bore on its front the sign "Manhattan Club and Grill." On the veranda, flush with the sidewalk and barely fifteen feet away, a huge red-faced man sat deep in slumber.
Many and strange pursuits had claimed the talents of old Tom Stacy, manager of the Manhattan Club, ere his advent in San Marco. A too active district attorney had forced the New York police to take a keen interest in his life and works, hence Mr. Stacy's presence on that Florida porch. But such troubles were forgot for the moment. He slumbered peacefully, secure in the knowledge that the real business of the club would not require his attention until darkness fell. His great head fell gradually farther in the direction of his generous waist, and while there is no authentic evidence to offer, it is safe to assume that he dreamed of Broadway.
Suddenly Mr. Stacy's head took another tilt downward, and his Panama hat slipped off to the veranda floor. To the gaze of Mr. Minot, above, there was revealed a bald pate extensive and gleaming. The habitual smile fled from Minot's face. A feeling of impotent anger^ filled his soul. For a bald head could recall but one thing —Jephson.
He strode from the window, savagely kicking an innocent suit-case that got in his way. What mean trick was this fate had played him as he entered San Marco? To show to him the one girl in all her glory and sweetness, to thrill him through and through with his discovery—and then to send the girl scurrying off to announce her engagement to another man! Scurvy, he called it. But scurvier still, that it should be the very engagement he had hastened to San Marco to bring to its proper close—"I do," and Mendelssohn.
He sat gloomily down on the bed. What could he do? What save keep his word, given on the seventeenth floor of an office building in New York? No man had yet had reason to question the good faith of a Minot. His dead father, at the beginning of his career, had sacrificed his fortune to keep his word, and gone back with a smile to begin all over again. What could he do?
Nothing, save grit his teeth and see the thing chrough. He made up his mind to this as he bathed and shaved, and prepared himself for his debut in San Marco. So that, when he finally left the hotel and stepped out into San Sebastian Avenue, he was cheerful with a dogged, boystood-on-the-burning-deck cheerfulness.
A dozen negroes, their smiles reminiscent of tooth powder advertisements, vainly sought to cajole him into their shaky vehicles. With difficulty he avoided their pleas, and strolled down San Marco's main thoroughfare. On every side clever shopkeepers spread the net for the eagle on the dollar. Jewelers' shops flashed, modistes hinted, milliners begged to present their latest creations.
He came presently to a narrow cross street, where humbler merchants catered to the Coney instinct that lurks in even the most affluent of tourists. There gaudy souvenir stores abounded. The ugly and inevitable alligator, fallen from his proud estate to fireside slipper, wallet, cigar case, umbrella stand, photograph album and Lord-knows-what, was head-lined in this street. Picture post-cards hung in flocks, tin-type galleries besought, news-stands, soda-water fountains and cheap boarding-houses stood side by side. And, every few feet, Mr. Minot came upon "The Oldest House in San Marco."
On his way back to the hotel, in front of one of the more dazzling modiste's shops, he saw a limousine drawn up to the curb, and in it Jack Paddock, friend of his college days. Paddock leaped blithely from the machine and grasped Dick Minot by the hand.
"You here?" he cried.
"Foolish question," commented Mr. Minot.
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Paddock. "Been here so long my brain's a little flabby. But I'm glad to see you, old man."
"Same here." Mr. Minot stared at the car. "I say, Jack, did you earn that writing fiction?"
Paddock laughed.
"I'm not writing much fiction now," he replied. "The car belongs to Mrs. Helen Bruce, the wittiest hostess in San Marco." He came closer. "My boy," he confided, "I have struck something essentially soft. Some time soon, in a room with all the doors and windows closed and the weatherstrips in place, I'll whisper it to you. I've been dying to tell somebody." "And the car—"
"Part of the graft, Dick. Here comes Mrs. Bruce now. Did I mention she was the wittiest —of course I did. Want to meet her? Well, later then. You're at the Pax, I suppose. See you there."
Mr. Minot moved on from the imminence of Mrs. Bruce. A moment later the limousine sped by him. One seat was generously filled by the wittiest hostess in San Marco. Seated opposite her, Mr. Paddock waved an airy hand. Life had always been the gayest of jokes to Mr. Paddock.
Life was at the moment quite the opposite to Dick Minot. He devoted the next hour to sad introspection in the lobby. It was not until he was on his way in to dinner that he again saw Cynthia Meyrick. Then, just outside the dining-room door, he encountered her, still all in white, lovelier than ever, in her cheek a flush of excitement no doubt put there by the most important luncheon of her life. He waited for her to recognize him—and he did not wait in vain.
"Ah, Mr.—"
"Minor."
"Of course. In the hurry of this noon I quite overlooked an introduction. I am—"
"Miss Cynthia Meyrick. I happen to know because I met his lordship in New York. May I ask—was the luncheon—"
"Quite without a flaw. So you know Lord Harrowby?"
"Er—slightly. May I offer my very best wishes?"
"So good of you."
Formal, formal, formal. Was that how it must be between them hereafter? Well, it was better so. Miss Meyrick presented her father and her aunt, and that did not tend to lighten the formality. Icicles, both of them, though stocky puffing icicles. Aunt inquired if Mr. Minot was related to the Minots of Detroit, and when he failed to qualify, at once lost all interest in him. Old Spencer Meyrick did not accord him even that much attention.
Yet—all was not formal, as it happened. For as Cynthia Meyrick moved away, she whispered: "I must see you after dinner—on important business." And her smile as sh
e said it made Minot's own lonely dinner quite cheery.
At seven in the evening the hotel orchestra gathered in the lobby for its nightly concert, and after the way of orchestras, it was almost ready to begin when Minot left the dining-room at eight. Sitting primly in straight backed chairs, an audience gathered for the most part from the more inexpensive hostelries waited patiently. Presumably these people were there for an hour with music, lovely maid. But it was the gowns of more material maids that interested the greater number of them, and many drab little women sat making furtive mental notes that should while away the hours conversationally when they got back to Akron or Terre Haute.
Minot sat down in a veranda chair and looked out at the courtyard. In the splendor of its evening colors, it was indeed the setting for romance. In the midst of the green palms and blooming things splashed a fountain which might well have been the one old Ponce de Leon sought. On three sides the lighted towers and turrets of that huge hotel climbed toward the bright, warm southern sky. A dazzling moon shamed Mr. Edison's lamps, the breeze came tepid from the sea, the very latest in waltzes drifted out from the gorgeous lobby. Here romance, Minot thought, must have been born.
"Mr. Minot—I've been looking everywhere—"
She was beside him now, a slim white figure in the dusk—the one thing lacking in that glittering picture. He leaped to meet her.
"Sitting here dreaming, I reckon," she whispered, "of somebody far away."
"No." He shook his head. "I leave that to the newly engaged."
She made no answer. He gave her his chair, and drew up another for himself.
"Mr. Minot," she said, "I was terribly thoughtless this noon. But you must forgive me—I was so excited. Mr. Minot—I owe you—"
She hesitated. Minot bit his lip savagely. Must he hear all that again? How much she owed him for his service—for getting her to that luncheon in time—that wonderful luncheon—
"I owe you," finished the girl softly, "the charges on that taxi."
It was something of a shock to Minot. Was she making game of him?
"Don't," he answered. "Here in the moonlight, with that waltz playing, and the old palms whispering—is this a time to talk of taxi bills?"
"But—we must talk of something—oh, I mean —I insist. Won't you please tell me the figure?"
"All the time we were together this morning, I talked figures—the figures on the face of a watch. Let us find some pleasanter topic. I believe Lord Harrowby said you were to be married soon?"
"Next Tuesday. A week from to-morrow."
"In Sa1l Marco?"
"Yes. Tt breaks auntie's heart that it can't be in Detroit. Lord Harrowby is her triumph, you see. But father can't go north in the winter— ind Allan wishes to be married at once."
Minot was thinking hard. So Harrowby was auntie's triumph? And was he not Cynthia Meyrick's as well? He would have given much to be able to inquire.
Suddenly, with the engaging frankness of a child, the girl asked:
"Has your engagement ever been announced, Mr. Minot?"
"Why—er—not to my knowledge," Minot laughed. "Why?"
"I was just wondering—if it made everybody feel queer. The way it makes me feel. Ever since one o'clock—I ought never to say it—I've felt as though everything was over. I've seemed old! Old!" She clenched her fists, and spoke almost in terror. "I don't want to grow old. I'd hate it."
"It was here," said Minot softly, "Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of youth. When you came up I was pretending the one splashing out there was that very fountain itself—"
"If it only were," the girl cried. "Oh—you could never drag me away from it. But it isn't. It's supplied by the San Marco Water Works, and there's a meter ticking somewhere, I'm sure. And now—Mr. Minot—"
"I know. You mean the thirty-five dollars I paid our driver. I wish you would write me a check. I've a reason."
"Thank you. I wanted to—so much. I'll bring it to you soon."
She was gone, and Minot sat staring into the palms, his lips firm, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. Suddenly, with a determined leap, he was on his feet.
A moment later he stood at the telegraph counter in the lobby, writing in bold flowing characters a message for Mr. John Thacker, on a certain seventeenth floor, New York.
"I resign. Will stay on the job until a substitute arrives, but start him when you get this.
"r1chard M1not."
The telegram sent, he returned to his veranda chair to think. Thacker would be upset, of course. But after all, Thacker's claim on him was not such that he must wreck his life's happiness to serve him. Even Thacker must see that. And the girl—was she madly in love with the lean and aristocratic Harrowby? Not by any means, to judge from her manner. Next Tuesday—a week. What couldn't happen in a— Minot stopped. No, that wouldn't do, either. Even if a substitute arrived, he could hardly with honor turn about and himself wreck the hopes of Thacker and Jephson. He lost, either way. It was a horrible mix-up. He cursed beneath his breath.
The red glow of a cigar near by drew closer as the smoker dragged his chair across the veranda floor. Minot saw behind the glow the keen face of a man eager for talk.
"Some scene, isn't it?" said the stranger. "Sort of makes the musical comedies look cheap. All it needs is seven stately chorus ladies walking out from behind that palm down to the left, and it would have Broadway lashed to the mast."
"Yes," replied Minot absently. "This is the real thing."
"I've been sitting here thinking," the other went on. "It doesn't seem to me this place has been advertised right. Why, there are hundreds of people up north whose windows look out on sunset over the brewery—people with money, too —who'd take the first train for here if they realized the picture we're looking at now. Get some good hustler to tell 'em about it—" He paused. "I hate to talk about myself, but say— ever hear of Cotrell's Ink Eraser? Nothing ever written Cotrell can't erase. Will not soil or scratch the paper. If the words Cotrell has erased were put side by side—"
"Selling it?" Minot inquired wearily.
"No. But I made that eraser. Put it on every desk between New York and the rolling Oregon. After that I landed Helot's Bottled Sauces. And then Patterson's Lime Juice. Puckered every mouth in America. Advertising is my specialty."
"So I gather."
"Sure as you sit here. Have a cigar. Trimmer is my name—never mind the jokes. Henry Trimmer. Advertising specialist. Is your business flabby? Does it need a tonic? Try Trimmer. Quoting from my letter-head." He leaned closer. "Excuse a personal question, but didn't I see you talking with Miss Cynthia Meyrick a while back?" "Possibly."
Mr. Trimmer came even closer.
"Engaged to Lord Harrowby, I understand."
"I believe so—"
"Young fellow," Mr. Trimmer's tone was exultant, "I can't keep in any longer. I got a proposition in tow so big it's bursting my brain cells—and it takes some strain to do that. No, I can't tell you the exact nature of it—but I will say this—to-morrow night this time I'll throw a bomb in this hotel so loud it'll be heard round the world."
"An anarchist?"
"Not on your life. Advertiser. And I've got something to advertise this hot February, take it from me. Maybe you're a friend of Miss Meyrick. Well, I'm sorry. For when I spring my little surprise I reckon this Harrowby wedding is going to shrivel up and fade away."
"You mean to say you—you're going to stop the wedding?"
"I mean to say nothing. Watch me. Watch Henry Trimmer. Just a tip, young fellow. Well, I guess I'll turn in. Get some of my best ideas in bed. See you later."
And Mr. Trimmer strode into the circle of light, a fine upstanding figure of a man, to pass triumphantly out of sight among the palms. Dazed, Dick Minot stared after him.
A voice spoke his name. He turned. The slim white presence again, holding toward him a slip of paper.
"The check, Mr. Minot. Thirty-five dollars. Is that correct?"
"Correct. It's splendid. Becaus
e I'm never going to cash it—I'm going to keep it—"
"Really, Mr. Minot, I must say good—"
He came closer. Thacker and Jephson faded. New York was far away. He was young, and the moon was shining—
"—going to keep it—always. The first letter you ever wrote me—"
"And the last, Mr. Minot. Really—I must go. Good night."
He stood alone, with the absurd check in his trembling fingers. Slowly the memory of Trimmer came back. A bomb? What sort of a bomb?
Well, he had given his word. There was no way out—he must protect old Jephson's interests. But might he not wish the enemy—success? He stared off in the direction the advertising wizard had gone.
"Trimmer, old boy," he muttered, "here's to your pitching arm!"
Chapter 5
MR. TRIMMER THROWS HIS BOMB
MISS Cynthia Meyrick was a good many girls in one. So many, indeed, that it might truthfully be added that while most people are never so much alone as when in a crowd, Miss Meyrick was never so much in a crowd as when alone. Most of these girls were admirable, a few were more mischievous than admirable, but rely upon it that every single one of them was nice.
It happened to be as a very serious-minded girl that Miss Meyrick opened her eyes on Tuesday morning. She lay for a long time watching the Florida sunshine, spoken of so tenderly in the railroad's come-on books, as it danced across the foot of her bed. To-day the Lileth was to steam into San Marco harbor! To-day her bridegroom was to smile his slow British smile on her once more! She recalled these facts without the semblance of a thrill.
Love Insurance Page 4
