Complete weird tales of.., p.1044
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1044
It had now become the coldest night on record in New York City.
Fortunately he didn’t know that; he merely sat there and hated Fate.
Up the street and into Fifth Avenue glided the car and sped northward through the cold, silvery lustre of the arc-lights hanging like globes of moonlit ice from their frozen stalks of bronze.
The noble avenue was almost deserted; nobody cared to face such terrible cold. Few motors were abroad, few omnibuses, and scarcely a wayfarer. Every sound rang metallic in the black and bitter air; the windows of the coupe clouded from his breath; the panels creaked.
At the Plaza he peered fearfully out upon the deserted Circle, where the bronze lady of the fountain, who is supposed to represent Plenty, loomed high in the electric glow, with her magic basket piled high with icicles.
“Yes, plenty of ice,” sneered Vaux. “I wish she’d bring us a hod or two of coal.”
The wintry landscape of the Park discouraged him profoundly.
“A man’s an ass to linger anywhere north of the equator,” he grumbled. “Dickybirds have more sense.” And again he thought of the wood fire in the club and the partly empty but steaming glass, and the aroma it had wafted toward him; and the temperature it must have imparted to “Bill.”
He was immersed in arctic gloom when at length the car stopped. A butler admitted him to a brown-stone house, the steps of which had been thoughtfully strewn with furnace cinders.
“Miss Erith?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Announce Mr. Vaux, partly frozen.”
“The library, if you please, sir,” murmured the butler, taking hat and coat.
So Vaux went up stairs with the liveliness of a crippled spider, and Miss Erith came from a glowing fireside to welcome him, giving him a firm and slender hand.
“You ARE cold,” she said. “I’m so sorry to have disturbed you this evening.”
He said:
“Hum — hum — very kind — m’sure — hum — hum!”
There were two deep armchairs before the blaze; Miss Erith took one,
Vaux collapsed upon the other.
She was disturbingly pretty in her evening gown. There were cigarettes on a little table at his elbow, and he lighted one at her suggestion and puffed feebly.
“Which?” she inquired smilingly.
He understood: “Irish, please.”
“Hot?”
“Thank you, yes,”
When the butler had brought it, the young man began to regret the
Racquet Club less violently.
“It’s horribly cold out,” he said. “There’s scarcely a soul on the streets.”
She nodded brightly:
“It’s a wonderful night for what we have to do. And I don’t mind the cold very much.”
“Are you proposing to go OUT?” he asked, alarmed.
“Why, yes. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Am I to go, too?”
“Certainly. You gave me only twenty-four hours, and I can’t do it alone in that time.”
He said nothing, but his thoughts concentrated upon a single unprintable word.
“What have you done with the original Lauffer letter, Mr. Vaux?” she inquired rather nervously.
“The usual. No invisible ink had been used; nothing microscopic. There was nothing on the letter or envelope, either, except what we saw.”
The girl nodded. On a large table behind her chair lay a portfolio.
She turned, drew it toward her, and lifted it into her lap.
“What have you discovered?” he inquired politely, basking in the grateful warmth of the fire.
“Nothing. The cipher is, as I feared, purely arbitrary. It’s exasperating, isn’t it?”
He nodded, toasting his shins.
“You see,” she continued, opening the portfolio, “here is my copy of this wretched cipher letter. I have transferred it to one sheet. It’s nothing but a string of Arabic numbers interspersed with meaningless words. These numbers most probably represent, in the order in which they are written, first the number of the page of some book, then the line on which the word is to be found — say, the tenth line from the top, or maybe from the bottom — and then the position of the word — second from the left or perhaps from the right.”
“It’s utterly impossible to solve that unless you have the book,” he remarked; “therefore, why speculate, Miss Erith?”
“I’m going to try to find the book.”
“How?”
“By breaking into the shop of Herman Lauffer.”
“House-breaking? Robbery?”
“Yes.”
Vaux smiled incredulously:
“Granted that you get into Lauffer’s shop without being arrested, what then?”
“I shall have this cipher with me. There are not likely to be many books in the shop of a gilder and maker of picture frames. I shall, by referring to this letter, search what books I find there for a single coherent sentence. When I discover such a sentence I shall know that I have the right book.”
The young man smoked reflectively and gazed into the burning coals.
“So you propose to break into his shop to-night and steal the book?”
“There seems to be nothing else to do, Mr. Vaux.”
“Of course,” he remarked sarcastically, “we could turn this matter over to the proper authorities—”
“I WON’T! PLEASE don’t!”
“Why not?”
“Because I have concluded that it IS part of our work. And I’ve begun already. I went to see Lauffer. I took a photograph to be framed.”
“What does he look like?”
“A mink — an otter — one of those sharp-muzzled little animals! — Two tiny eyes, rather close together, a long nose that wrinkles when he talks, as though he were sniffing at you; a ragged, black moustache, like the furry muzzle-bristles of some wild thing — that is a sketch of Herman Lauffer.”
“A pretty man,” commented Vaux, much amused.
“He’s little and fat of abdomen, but he looks powerful.”
“Prettier and prettier!”
They both laughed. A pleasant steam arose from the tall glass at his elbow.
“Well,” she said, “I have to change my gown—”
“Good Lord! Are we going now?” he remonstrated.
“Yes. I don’t believe there will be a soul on the streets.”
“But I don’t wish to go at all,” he explained. “I’m very happy here, discussing things.”
“I know it. But you wouldn’t let me go all alone, would you, Mr.
Vaux?”
“I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“But I’m GOING!”
“Here’s where I perish,” groaned Vaux, rising as the girl passed him with her pretty, humorous smile, moving lithely, swiftly as some graceful wild thing passing confidently through its own domain.
Vaux gazed meditatively upon the coals, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other. Patriotism is a tough career.
“This is worse than inhuman,” he thought. “If I go out on such an errand to-night I sure am doing my bitter bit. … Probably some policeman will shoot me — unless I freeze to death. This is a vastly unpleasant affair…. Vastly!”
He was still caressing the fire with his regard when Miss Erith came back.
She wore a fur coat buttoned to the throat, a fur toque, fur gloves.
As he rose she naively displayed a jimmy and two flashlights.
“I see,” he said, “very nice, very handy! But we don’t need these to convict us.”
She laughed and handed him the instruments; and he pocketed them and followed her downstairs.
Her car was waiting, engine running; she spoke to the Kadiak chauffeur, got in, and Vaux followed.
“You know,” he said, pulling the mink robe over her and himself, “you’re behaving very badly to your superior officer.”
“I’m so excited, so interested! I hope I’m not lacking in deference to my honoured Chief of Division. Am I, Mr. Vaux?”
“You certainly hustle me around some! This is a crazy thing we’re doing.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
“You’re an autocrat. You’re a lady-Nero! Tell me, Miss Erith, were you ever afraid of anything on earth?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Lightning and caterpillars.”
“Those are probably the only really dangerous things I never feared,” he said. “You seem to be young and human and feminine. Are you?”
“Oh, very.”
“Then why aren’t you afraid of being shot for a burglar, and why do you go so gaily about grand larceny?”
The girl’s light laughter was friendly and fearless.
“Do you live alone?” he inquired after a moment’s silence.
“Yes. My parents are not living.”
“You are rather an unusual girl, Miss Erith.”
“Why?”
“Well, girls of your sort are seldom as much in earnest about their war work as you seem to be,” he remarked with gentle irony.
“How about the nurses and drivers in France?”
“Oh, of course. I mean nice girls, like yourself, who do near-war work here in New York—”
“You ARE brutal!” she exclaimed. “I am mad to go to France! It is a sacrifice — a renunciation for me to remain in New York. I understand nursing and I know how to drive a car; but I have stayed here because my knowledge of ciphers seemed to fit me for this work.”
“I was teasing you,” he said gently.
“I know it. But there is SO much truth in what you say about near-war work. I hate that sort of woman…. Why do you laugh?”
“Because you’re just a child. But you are full of ability and possibility, Miss Erith.”
“I wish my ability might land me in France!”
“Surely, surely,” he murmured.
“Do you think it will, Mr. Vaux?”
“Maybe it will,” he said, not believing it. He added: “I think, however, your undoubted ability is going to land us both in jail.”
At which pessimistic prognosis they both began to laugh. She was very lovely when she laughed.
“I hope they’ll give us the same cell,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“Surely,” he replied gaily.
Once he remembered the photograph of Arethusa in his desk at headquarters, and thought that perhaps he might need it before the evening was over.
“Surely, surely,” he muttered to himself, “hum — hum!”
Her coupe stopped in Fifty-sixth Street near Madison Avenue.
“The car will wait here,” remarked the girl, as Vaux helped her to descend. “Lauffer’s shop is just around the corner.” She took his arm to steady herself on the icy sidewalk. He liked it.
In the bitter darkness there was not a soul to be seen on the street; no tramcars were approaching on Madison Avenue, although far up on the crest of Lenox Hill the receding lights of one were just vanishing.
“Do you see any policemen?” she asked in a low voice.
“Not one. They’re all frozen to death, I suppose, as we will be in a few minutes.”
They turned into Madison Avenue past the Hotel Essex. There was not a soul to be seen. Even the silver-laced porter had retired from the freezing vestibule. A few moments later Miss Erith paused before a shop on the ground floor of an old-fashioned brownstone residence which had been altered for business.
Over the shop-window was a sign: “H. Lauffer, Frames and Gilding.” The curtains of the shop-windows were lowered. No light burned inside.
Over Lauffer’s shop was the empty show-window of another shop — on the second floor — the sort of place that milliners and tea-shop keepers delight in — but inside the blank show-window was pasted the sign “To Let.”
Above this shop were three floors, evidently apartments. The windows were not lighted.
“Lauffer lives on the fourth floor,” said Miss Erith. “Will you please give me the jimmy, Vaux?”
He fished it out of his overcoat pocket and looked uneasily up and down the deserted avenue while the girl stepped calmly into the open entryway. There were two doors, a glass one opening on the stairs leading to the upper floors, and the shop door on the left.
She stooped over for a rapid survey, then with incredible swiftness jimmied the shop door.
The noise of the illegal operations awoke the icy and silent avenue with a loud, splitting crash! The door swung gently inward.
“Quick!” she said. And he followed her guiltily inside.
The shop was quite warm. A stove in the rear room still emitted heat and a dull red light. On the stove was a pot of glue, or some other substance used by gilders and frame makers. Steam curled languidly from it; also a smell not quite as languid.
Vaux handed her an electric torch, then flashed his own. The next moment she found a push button and switched on the lights in the shop. Then they extinguished their torches.
Stacks of frames in raw wood, frames in “compo,” samples gilded and in natural finish littered the untidy place. A few process “mezzotints” hung on the walls. There was a counter on which lay twine, shears and wrapping paper, and a copy of the most recent telephone directory. It was the only book in sight, and Miss Erith opened it and spread her copy of the cipher-letter beside it. Then she began to turn the pages according to the numbers written in her copy of the cipher letter.
Meanwhile, Vaux was prowling. There were no books in the rear room; of this he was presently assured. He came back into the front shop and began to rummage. A few trade catalogues rewarded him and he solemnly laid them on the counter.
“The telephone directory is NOT the key,” said Miss Erith, pushing it aside. A few moments were sufficient to convince them that the key did not lie within any of the trade catalogues either.
“Have you searched very carefully?” she asked.
“There’s not another book in the bally shop.”
“Well, then, Lauffer must have it in his apartment upstairs.”
“Which apartment is it?”
“The fourth floor. His name is under a bell on a brass plate in the entry. I noticed it when I came in.” She turned off the electric light; they went to the door, reconnoitred cautiously, saw nobody on the avenue. However, a tramcar was passing, and they waited; then Vaux flashed his torch on the bell-plate.
Under the bell marked “Fourth Floor” was engraved Herman Lauffer’s name.
“You know,” remonstrated Vaux, “we have no warrant for this sort of thing, and it means serious trouble if we’re caught.”
“I know it. But what other way is there?” she inquired naively. “You allowed me only twenty-four hours, and I WON’T back out!”
“What procedure do you propose now?” he asked, grimly amused, and beginning to feel rather reckless himself, and enjoying the feeling. “What do you wish to do?” he repeated. “I’m game.”
“I have an automatic pistol,” she remarked seriously, tapping her fur-coat pocket, “ — and a pair of handcuffs — the sort that open and lock when you strike a man on the wrist with them. You know the kind?”
“Surely. You mean to commit assault and robbery in the first degree upon the body of the aforesaid Herman?”
“I-is that it?” she faltered.
“It is.”
She hesitated:
“That is rather dreadful, isn’t it?”
“Somewhat. It involves almost anything short of life imprisonment.
But I don’t mind.”
“We couldn’t get a search-warrant, could we?”
“We have found nothing, so far, in that cipher letter to encourage us in applying for any such warrant,” he said cruelly.
“Wouldn’t the excuse that Lauffer is an enemy alien and not registered aid us in securing a warrant?” she insisted.
“He is not an alien. I investigated that after you left this afternoon. His parents were German but he was born in Chicago. However, he is a Hun, all right — I don’t doubt that…. What do you propose to do now?”
She looked at him appealingly:
“Won’t you allow me more than twenty-four hours?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why won’t you?”
“Because I can’t dawdle over this affair.”
The girl smiled at him in her attractive, resolute way:
“Unless we find that book we can’t decipher this letter. The letter comes from Mexico, — from that German-infested Republic. It is written to a man of German parentage and it is written in cipher. The names of Luxburg, Caillaux, Bolo, Bernstorff are still fresh in our minds. Every day brings us word of some new attempt at sabotage in the United States. Isn’t there ANY way, Mr. Vaux, for us to secure the key to this cipher letter?”
“Not unless we go up and knock this man Lauffer on the head. Do you want to try it?”
“Couldn’t we knock rather gently on his head?”
Vaux stifled a laugh. The girl was so pretty, the risk so tremendous, the entire proceeding so utterly outrageous that a delightful sense of exhilaration possessed him.
“Where’s that gun?” he said.
She drew it out and handed it to him.
“Is it loaded?”
“Yes.”
“Where are the handcuffs?”
She fished out the nickel-plated bracelets and he pocketed his torch. A pleasant thrill passed through the rather ethereal anatomy of Mr. Vaux.
“All right,” he said briskly. “Here’s hoping for adjoining cells!”
To jimmy the glass door was the swiftly cautious work of a moment or two. Then the dark stairs rose in front of them and Vaux took the lead. It was as cold as the pole in there, but Vaux’s blood was racing now. And alas! the photograph of Arethusa was in his desk at the office!
On the third floor he flashed his torch through an empty corridor and played it smartly over every closed door. On the fourth floor he took his torch in his left hand, his pistol in his right.
“The door to the apartment is open!” she whispered.
It was. A lamp on a table inside was still burning. They had a glimpse of a cheap carpet on the floor, cheap and gaudy furniture. Vaux extinguished and pocketed his torch, then, pistol lifted, he stepped noiselessly into the front room.
It seemed to be a sort of sitting-room, and was in disorder; cushions from a lounge lay about the floor; several books were scattered near them; an upholstered chair had been ripped open and disembowelled, and its excelsior stuffing strewn broadcast.
