Works of robert w chambe.., p.267
Works of Robert W Chambers, page 267
“Exactly. Then you are not in love?”
“I don’t know whether I am or not.”
“I do,” said the Tracer of Lost Persons.
“Then you know more than I,” retorted Harren sharply.
“But that is my business — to know more than you do,” returned Mr. Keen patiently. “Else why are you here to consult me?” And as Harren made no reply: “I have seen thousands and thousands of people in love. I have reduced the superficial muscular phenomena and facial symptomatic aspect of such people to an exact science founded upon a schedule approximating the Bertillon system of records. And,” he added, smiling, “out of the twenty-seven known vocal variations your voice betrays twenty-five unmistakable symptoms; and out of the sixteen reflex muscular symptoms your face has furnished six, your hands three, your limbs and feet six. Then there are other superficial symptoms—”
“Good heavens!” broke in Harren; “how can you prove a man to be in love when he himself doesn’t know whether he is or not? If a man isn’t in love no Bertillon system can make him so; and if a man doesn’t know whether or not he is in love, who can tell him the truth?”
“I can,” said the Tracer calmly.
“What! When I tell you I myself don’t know?”
“That,” said the Tracer, smiling, “is the final and convincing symptom. You don’t know. I know because you don’t know. That is the easiest way to be sure that you are in love, Captain Harren, because you always are when you are not sure. You’d know if you were not in love. Now, my dear sir, you may lay your case confidently before me.”
Harren, unconvinced, sat frowning and biting his lip and twisting his short, crisp mustache which the tropical sun had turned straw color and curly.
“I feel like a fool to tell you,” he said. “I’m not an imaginative man, Mr. Keen; I’m not fanciful, not sentimental. I’m perfectly healthy, perfectly normal — a very busy man in my profession, with no time and no inclination to fall in love.”
“Just the sort of man who does it,” commented Keen. “Continue.”
Harren fidgeted about in his chair, looked out of the window, squinted at the ceiling, then straightened up, folding his arms with sudden determination.
“I’d rather be boloed than tell you,” he said. “Perhaps, after all, I am a lunatic; perhaps I’ve had a touch of the Luzon sun and don’t know it.”
“I’ll be the judge,” said the Tracer, smiling.
“Very well, sir. Then I’ll begin by telling you that I’ve seen a ghost.”
“There are such things,” observed Keen quietly.
“Oh, I don’t mean one of those fabled sheeted creatures that float about at night; I mean a phantom — a real phantom — in the sunlight — standing before my very eyes in broad day! . . . Now do you feel inclined to go on with my case, Mr. Keen?”
“Certainly,” replied the Tracer gravely. “Please continue, Captain Harren.”
“All right, then. Here’s the beginning of it: Three years ago, here in New York, drifting along Fifth Avenue with the crowd, I looked up to encounter the most wonderful pair of eyes that I ever beheld — that any living man ever beheld! The most — wonderfully — beautiful—”
He sat so long immersed in retrospection that the Tracer said: “I am listening, Captain,” and the Captain woke up with a start.
“What was I saying? How far had I proceeded?”
“Only to the eyes.”
“Oh, I see! The eyes were dark, sir, dark and lovely beyond any power of description. The hair was also dark — very soft and thick and — er — wavy and dark. The face was extremely youthful, and ornamental to the uttermost verges of a beauty so exquisite that, were I to attempt to formulate for you its individual attractions, I should, I fear, transgress the strictly rigid bounds of that reticence which becomes a gentleman in complete possession of his senses.”
“Exactly,” mused the Tracer.
“Also,” continued Captain Harren, with growing animation, “to attempt to describe her figure would be utterly useless, because I am a practical man and not a poet, nor do I read poetry or indulge in futile novels or romances of any description. Therefore I can only add that it was a figure, a poise, absolutely faultless, youthful, beautiful, erect, wholesome, gracious, graceful, charmingly buoyant and — well, I cannot describe her figure, and I shall not try.”
“Exactly; don’t try.”
“No,” said Harren mournfully, “it is useless”; and he relapsed into enchanted retrospection.
“Who was she?” asked Mr. Keen softly.
“I don’t know.”
“You never again saw her?”
“Mr. Keen, I — I am not ill-bred, but I simply could not help following her. She was so b-b-beautiful that it hurt; and I only wanted to look at her; I didn’t mind being hurt. So I walked on and on, and sometimes I’d pass her and sometimes I’d let her pass me, and when she wasn’t looking I’d look — not offensively, but just because I couldn’t help it. And all the time my senses were humming like a top and my heart kept jumping to get into my throat, and I hadn’t a notion where I was going or what time it was or what day of the week. She didn’t see me; she didn’t dream that I was looking at her; she didn’t know me from any of the thousand silk-hatted, frock-coated men who passed and repassed her on Fifth Avenue. And when she went into St. Berold’s Church, I went, too, and I stood where I could see her and where she couldn’t see me. It was like a touch of the Luzon sun, Mr. Keen. And then she came out and got into a Fifth Avenue stage, and I got in, too. And whenever she looked away I looked at her — without the slightest offense, Mr. Keen, until, once, she caught my eye—”
He passed an unsteady hand over his forehead.
“For a moment we looked full at one another,” he continued. “I got red, sir; I felt it, and I couldn’t look away. And when I turned color like a blooming beet, she began to turn pink like a rosebud, and she looked full into my eyes with such a wonderful purity, such exquisite innocence, that I — I never felt so near — er — heaven in my life! No, sir, not even when they ambushed us at Manoa Wells — but that’s another thing — only it is part of this business.”
He tightened his clasped hands over his knee until the knuckles whitened.
“That’s my story, Mr. Keen,” he said crisply.
“All of it?”
Harren looked at the floor, then at Keen: “No, not all. You’ll think me a lunatic if I tell you all.”
“Oh, you saw her again?”
“N-never! That is—”
“Never?”
“Not in — in the flesh.”
“Oh, in dreams?”
Harren stirred uneasily. “I don’t know what you call them. I have seen her since — in the sunlight, in the open, in my quarters in Manila, standing there perfectly distinct, looking at me with such strange, beautiful eyes—”
“Go on,” said the Tracer, nodding.
“What else is there to say?” muttered Harren.
“You saw her — or a phantom which resembled her. Did she speak?”
“No.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“N-no. Once I held out my — my arms.”
“What happened?”
“She wasn’t there,” said Harren simply.
“She vanished?”
“No — I don’t know. I — I didn’t see her any more.”
“Didn’t she fade?”
“No. I can’t explain. She — there was only myself in the room.”
“How many times has she appeared to you?”
“A great many times.”
“In your room?”
“Yes. And in the road under a vertical sun; in the forest, in the paddy fields. I have seen her passing through the hallway of a friend’s house — turning on the stair to look back at me! I saw her standing just back of the firing-line at Manoa Wells when we were preparing to rush the forts, and it scared me so that I jumped forward to draw her back. But — she wasn’t there, Mr. Keen. . . .
“On the transport she stood facing me on deck one moonlit evening for five minutes. I saw her in ‘Frisco; she sat in the Pullman twice between Denver and this city. Twice in my room at the Vice-Regent she has sat opposite me at midday, so clear, so beautiful, so real that — that I could scarcely believe she was only a — a—” He hesitated.
“The apparition of her own subconscious self,” said the Tracer quietly. “Science has been forced to admit such things, and, as you know, we are on the verge of understanding the alphabet of some of the unknown forces which we must some day reckon with.”
Harren, tense, a trifle pale, gazed at him earnestly.
“Do you believe in such things?”
“How can I avoid believing?” said the Tracer. “Every day, in my profession, we have proof of the existence of forces for which we have as yet no explanation — or, at best, a very crude one. I have had case after case of premonition; case after case of dual and even multiple personality; case after case where apparitions played a vital part in the plot which was brought to me to investigate. I’ll tell you this, Captain: I, personally, never saw an apparition, never was obsessed by premonitions, never received any communications from the outer void. But I have had to do with those who undoubtedly did. Therefore I listen with all seriousness and respect to what you tell me.”
“Suppose,” said Harren, growing suddenly red, “that I should tell you I have succeeded in photographing this phantom.”
The Tracer sat silent. He was astounded, but, he did not betray it.
“You have that photograph, Captain Harren?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“In my rooms.”
“You wish me to see it?”
Harren hesitated. “I — there is — seems to be — something almost sacred to me in that photograph. . . . You understand me, do you not? Yet, if it will help you in finding her—”
“Oh,” said the Tracer in guileless astonishment, “you desire to find this young lady. Why?”
Harren stared. “Why? Why do I want to find her? Man, I — I can’t live without her!”
“I thought you were not certain whether you really could be in love.”
The hot color in the Captain’s bronzed cheeks mounted to his hair.
“Exactly,” purred the Tracer, looking out of the window. “Suppose we walk around to your rooms after luncheon. Shall we?”
Harren picked up his hat and gloves, hesitating, lingering on the threshold. “You don’t think she is — a — dead?” he asked unsteadily.
“No,” said Mr. Keen, “I don’t.”
“Because,” said Harren wistfully, “her apparition is so superbly healthy and — and glowing with youth and life—”
“That is probably what sent it half the world over to confront you,” said the Tracer gravely; “youth and life aglow with spiritual health. I think, Captain, that she has been seeing you, too, during these three years, but probably only in her dreams — memories of your encounters with her subconscious self floating over continents and oceans in a quest of which her waking intelligence is innocently unaware.”
The Captain colored like a schoolboy, lingering at the door, hat in hand. Then he straightened up to the full height of his slim but powerful figure.
“At three?” he inquired bluntly.
“At three o’clock in your room, Hotel Vice-Regent. Good morning, Captain.”
“Good morning,” said Harren dreamily, and walked away, head bent, gray eyes lost in retrospection, and on his lean, bronzed, attractive face an afterglow of color wholly becoming.
CHAPTER IX
When the Tracer of Lost Persons entered Captain Harren’s room at the Hotel Vice-Regent that afternoon he found the young man standing at a center table, pencil in hand, studying a sheet of paper which was covered with letters and figures.
The two men eyed one another in silence for a moment, then Harren pointed grimly to the confusion of letters and figures covering dozens of scattered sheets lying on the table.
“That’s part of my madness,” he said with a short laugh. “Can you make anything of such lunatic work?”
The Tracer picked up a sheet of paper covered with letters of the alphabet and Roman and Arabic numerals. He dropped it presently and picked up another comparatively blank sheet, on which were the following figures:
He studied it for a while, then glanced interrogatively at Harren.
“It’s nothing,” said Harren. “I’ve been groping for three years — but it’s no use. That’s lunatics’ work.” He wheeled squarely on his heels, looking straight at the Tracer. “Do you think I’ve had a touch of the sun?”
“No,” said Mr. Keen, drawing a chair to the table. “Saner men than you or I have spent a lifetime over this so-called Seal of Solomon.” He laid his finger on the two symbols —
Then, looking across the table at Harren: “What,” he asked, “has the Seal of Solomon to do with your case?”
“She—” muttered Harren, and fell silent.
The Tracer waited; Harren said nothing.
“Where is the photograph?”
Harren unlocked a drawer in the table, hesitated, looked strangely at the Tracer.
“Mr. Keen,” he said, “there is nothing on earth I hold more sacred than this. There is only one thing in the world that could justify me in showing it to a living soul — my — my desire to find — her—”
“No,” said Keen coolly, “that is not enough to justify you — the mere desire to find the living original of this apparition. Nothing could justify your showing it unless you love her.”
Harren held the picture tightly, staring full at the Tracer. A dull flush mounted to his forehead, and very slowly he laid the picture before the Tracer of Lost Persons.
Minute after minute sped while the Tracer bent above the photograph, his finely modeled features absolutely devoid of expression. Harren had drawn his chair beside him, and now sat leaning forward, bronzed cheek resting in his hand, staring fixedly at the picture.
“When was this — this photograph taken?” asked the Tracer quietly.
“The day after I arrived in New York. I was here, alone, smoking my pipe and glancing over the evening paper just before dressing for dinner. It was growing rather dark in the room; I had not turned on the electric light. My camera lay on the table — there it is! — that kodak. I had taken a few snapshots on shipboard; there was one film left.”
He leaned more heavily on his elbow, eyes fixed upon the picture.
“It was almost dark,” he repeated. “I laid aside the evening paper and stood up, thinking about dressing for dinner, when my eyes happened to fall on the camera. It occurred to me that I might as well unload it, let the unused film go, and send the roll to be developed and printed; and I picked up the camera—”
“Yes,” said the Tracer softly.
“I picked it up and was starting toward the window where there remained enough daylight to see by—”
The Tracer nodded gently.
“Then I saw her!” said Harren under his breath.
“Where?”
“There — standing by that window. You can see the window and curtain in the photograph.”
The Tracer gazed intently at the picture.
“She looked at me,” said Harren, steadying his voice. “She was as real as you are, and she stood there, smiling faintly, her dark, lovely eyes meeting mine.”
“Did you speak?”
“No.”
“How long did she remain there?”
“I don’t know — time seemed to stop — the world — everything grew still. . . . Then, little by little, something began to stir under my stunned senses — that germ of misgiving, that dreadful doubt of my own sanity. . . . I scarcely knew what I was doing when I took the photograph; besides, it had grown quite dark, and I could scarcely see her.” He drew himself erect with a nervous movement. “How on earth could I have obtained that photograph of her in the darkness?” he demanded.
“N-rays,” said the Tracer coolly. “It has been done in France.”
“Yes, from living people, but—”
“What the N-ray is in living organisms, we must call, for lack of a better term, the subaura in the phantom.”
They bent over the photograph together. Presently the Tracer said: “She is very, very beautiful?”
Harren’s dry lips unclosed, but he uttered no sound.
“She is beautiful, is she not?” repeated the Tracer, turning to look at the young man.
“Can you not see she is?” he asked impatiently.
“No,” said the Tracer.
Harren stared at him.
“Captain Harren,” continued the Tracer, “I can see nothing upon this bit of paper that resembles in the remotest degree a human face or figure.”
Harren turned white.
“Not that I doubt that you can see it,” pursued the Tracer calmly. “I simply repeat that I see absolutely nothing on this paper except a part of a curtain, a window pane, and — and—”
“What! for God’s sake!” cried Harren hoarsely.
“I don’t know yet. Wait; let me study it.”
“Can you not see her face, her eyes? Don’t you see that exquisite slim figure standing there by the curtain?” demanded Harren, laying his shaking finger on the photograph. “Why, man, it is as clear, as clean cut, as distinct as though the picture had been taken in sunlight! Do you mean to say that there is nothing there — that I am crazy?”
“No. Wait.”
“Wait! How can I wait when you sit staring at her picture and telling me that you can’t see it, but that it is doubtless there? Are you deceiving me, Mr. Keen? Are you trying to humor me, trying to be kind to me, knowing all the while that I’m crazy—”
“Wait, man! You are no more crazy than I am. I tell you that I can see something on the window pane—”
He suddenly sprang up and walked to the window, leaning close and examining the glass. Harren followed and laid his hand lightly over the pane.
“Do you see any marks on the glass?” demanded Keen.
Harren shook his head.
“Have you a magnifying glass?” asked the Tracer.
