That night I dreamed of going down, down, down into the bowels1 of the earth after buried treasure, and finding at the end of my hours of travel the countess's mother sitting in bleak2 splendour on a chest of gold with her feet drawn3 up and surrounded by an audience of spiders.
For an hour or more after leaving the enchanted4 rooms near the roof, I lounged in my study, persistently5 attentive6 to the portrait of Ludwig the Red, with my ears straining for sounds from the other side of the secret panels. Alas7! those panels were many cubits thick and as staunch as the sides of a battleship. But there was a vast satisfaction in knowing that she was there, asleep perhaps, with her brown head pillowed close to the wall but little more than an arm's length from the crimson9 waistcoat of Ludwig the Red,—for he sat rather low like a Chinese god and supported his waistcoat with his knees. A gross, forbidding chap was he! The story was told of him that he could quaff10 a flagon of ale at a single gulp11. Looking at his portrait, one could not help thinking what a pitifully infinitesimal thing a flagon of ale is after all.
Morning came and with it a sullen12 determination to get down to work on my long neglected novel. I went down to breakfast. Everything about the place looked bleak and dreary13 and as grey as a granite14 tombstone. Hawkes, who but twelve hours before had seemed the embodiment of life in its most resilient form, now appeared as a drab nemesis15 with wooden legs and a frozen leer. My coffee was bitter, the peaches were like sponges, the bacon and rolls of uniform sogginess and the eggs of a strange liverish hue16. I sat there alone, gloomy and depressed17, contrasting the hateful sunshine with the soft, witching refulgence18 of twenty-four candles and the light that lies in a woman's eyes.
"A fine morning, sir," said Hawkes in a voice that seemed to come from the grave. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak so dolorously19 of the morning. Ordinarily he was a pleasant voiced fellow.
"Is it?" said I, and my voice sounded gloomier than his. I was not sure of it, but it seemed to me that he made a movement with his hand as if about to put it to his lips. Seeing that I was regarding him rather fixedly20, he allowed it to remain suspended a little above his hip8, quite on a line with the other one. His elbows were crooked21 at the proper angle I noticed, so I must have been doing him an injustice22. He couldn't have had anything disrespectful in mind.
"Send Mr. Poopendyke to me, Hawkes, immediately after I've finished my breakfast."
"Very good, sir. Oh, I beg pardon, sir. I am forgetting, Mr. Poopendyke is out. He asked me to tell you he wouldn't return before eleven."
"Out? What business has he to be out?"
"Well, sir, I mean to say, he's not precisely23 out, and he isn't just what one would call in. He is up in the—ahem!—the east wing, sir, taking down some correspondence for the—for the lady, sir."
I arose to the occasion. "Quite so, quite so. I had forgotten the appointment."
"Yes, sir, I thought you had."
"Ahem! I daresay Britton will do quite as well. Tell him to—"
"Britton, sir, has gone over to the city for the newspapers. You forget that he goes every morning as soon as he has had his—"
"Yes, yes! Certainly," I said hastily. "The papers. Ha, ha! Quite right."
It was news to me, but it wouldn't do to let him know it. The countess read the papers, I did not. I steadfastly24 persisted in ignoring the Paris edition of the New York Herald25 for fear that the delightful26 mystery might disintegrate27, so to speak, before my eyes, or become the commonplace scandal that all the world was enjoying. As it stood now, I had it all to myself—that is to say, the mystery. Mr. Poopendyke reads aloud the baseball scores to me, and nothing else.
It was nearly twelve when my secretary reported to me on this particular morning, and he seemed a trifle hazy28 as to the results of the games. After he had mumbled29 something about rain or wet grounds, I coldly enquired30:
"Mr. Poopendyke, are you employed by me or by that woman upstairs?" I would never have spoken of her as "that woman," believe me, if I had not been in a state of irritation32.
He looked positively33 stunned34. "Sir?" he gasped35.
I did not repeat the question, but managed to demand rather fiercely: "Are you?"
"The countess had got dreadfully behind with her work, sir, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I helped her out a bit," he explained nervously36.
"Work? What work?"
"Her diary, sir. She is keeping a diary."
"Indeed!"
"It is very interesting, Mr. Smart. Rather beats any novel I've read lately. We—we've brought it quite up to date. I wrote at least three pages about the dinner last night. If I am to believe what she puts into her diary, it must have been a delightful occasion, as the newspapers would say."
I was somewhat mollified. "What did she have to say about it, Fred?" I asked. It always pleased him to be called Fred.
"That would be betraying a confidence," said he. "I will say this much, however: I think I wrote your name fifty times or more in connection with it."
"Rubbish!" said I.
"Not at all!" said he, with agreeable spirit.
A sudden chill came over me. "She isn't figuring on having it published, is she?"
"I can't say as to that," was his disquieting37 reply. "It wasn't any of my business, so I didn't ask."
"Oh," said I, "I see."
"I think it is safe to assume, however, that it is not meant for publication," said he. "It strikes me as being a bit too personal. There are parts of it that I don't believe she'd dare to put into print, although she reeled them off to me without so much as a blush. 'Pon my soul, Mr. Smart, I never was so embarrassed in my life. She—"
"Never mind," I interrupted hastily. "Don't tell tales out of school."
He was silent for a moment, fingering his big eyeglasses nervously. "It may please you to know that she thinks you are an exceedingly nice man."
"No, it doesn't!" I roared irascibly. "I'm damned if I like being called an exceedingly nice man."
"They were my words, sir, not hers," he explained desperately39. "I was merely putting two and two together—forming an opinion from her manner not from her words. She is very particular to mention everything you do for her, and thanks me if I call her attention to anything she may have forgotten. She certainly appreciates your kindness to the baby."
"That is extremely gratifying," said I acidly.
He hesitated once more. "Of course, you understand that the divorce itself is absolute. It's only the matter of the child that remains40 unsettled. The—"
I fairly barked at him. "What the devil do you mean by that, sir? What has the divorce got to do with it?"
"A great deal, I should say," said he, with the rare, almost superhuman patience that has made him so valuable to me.
"Upon my soul!" was all that I could say.
Hawkes rapped on the door luckily at that instant.
"The men from the telephone company are here, sir, and the electricians. Where are they to begin, sir?"
"Tell them to wait," said I. Then I hurried to the top of the east wing to ask if she had the least objection to an extension 'phone being placed in my study. She thought it would be very nice, so I returned with instructions for the men to put in three instruments: one in her room, one in mine, and one in the butler's pantry. It seemed a very jolly arrangement all 'round. As for the electric bell system, it would speak for itself.
Toward the middle of the afternoon when Mr. Poopendyke and I were hard at work on my synopsis41 we were startled by a dull, mysterious pounding on the wall hard by. We paused to listen. It was quite impossible to locate the sound, which ceased almost immediately. Our first thought was that the telephone men were drilling a hole through the wall into my study. Then came the sharp rat-a-ta-tat once more. Even as we looked about us in bewilderment, the portly facade42 of Ludwig the Red moved out of alignment43 with a heart-rending squeak44 and a long thin streak45 of black appeared at the inner edge of the frame, growing wider,—and blacker if anything,—before our startled eyes.
"Are you at home?" inquired a voice that couldn't by any means have emanated46 from the chest of Ludwig, even in his mellowest47 hours.
I leaped to my feet and started across the room with great strides. My secretary's eyes were glued to the magic portrait. His fingers, looking like claws, hung suspended over the keyboard of the typewriter.
"By the Lord Harry48!" I cried. "Yes!"
The secret door swung quietly open, laying Ludwig's face to the wall, and in the aperture49 stood my amazing neighbour, as lovely a portrait as you'd see in a year's trip through all the galleries in the world. She was smiling down upon us from the slightly elevated position, a charming figure in the very latest Parisian hat and gown. Something grey and black and exceedingly chic50, I remember saying to Poopendyke afterwards in response to a question of his.
"I am out making afternoon calls," said she. Her face was flushed with excitement and self-consciousness. "Will you please put a chair here so that I may hop51 down?"
For answer, I reached up a pair of valiant52 arms. She laughed, leaned forward and placed her hands on my shoulders. My hands found her waist and I lifted her gently, gracefully53 to the floor.
"How strong you are!" she said admiringly. "How do you do, Mr. Poopendyke! Dear me! I am not a ghost, sir!"
His fingers dropped to the keyboard. "How do you do," he jerked out. Then he felt of his heart. "My God! I don't believe it's going."
Together we inspected the secret doors, going so far as to enter the room beyond, the Countess peering through after us from my study. To my amazement54 the room was absolutely bare. Bed, trunks, garments, chairs—everything in fact had vanished as if whisked away by an all-powerful genie55.
"What does this mean?" I cried, turning to her.
"I don't mind sleeping upstairs, now that I have a telephone," she said serenely56. "Max and Rudolph moved everything up this afternoon."
Poopendyke and I returned to the study. I, for one, was bitterly disappointed.
"I'm sorry that I had the 'phone put in," I said.
"Please don't call it a 'phone!" she objected. "I hate the word 'phone."
"So do I," said Poopendyke recklessly.
I glared at him. What right had he to criticise57 my manner of speech? He started to leave the room, after a perfunctory scramble58 to put his papers in order, but she broke off in the middle of a sentence to urge him to remain. She announced that she was calling on both of us.
"Please don't stop your work on my account," she said, and promptly59 sat down at his typewriter and began pecking at the keys. "You must teach me how to run a typewriter, Mr. Poopendyke. I shall be as poor as a church mouse before long, and I know father won't help me. I may have to become a stenographer60."
He blushed abominably61. I don't believe I've ever seen a more unattractive fellow than Poopendyke.
"Oh, every cloud has its silver lining," said he awkwardly.
"But I am used to gold," said she. The bell on the machine tinkled62. "What do I do now?" He made the shift and the space for her.
"Go right ahead," said he. She scrambled63 the whole alphabet across his neat sheet but he didn't seem to mind.
"Isn't it jolly, Mr. Smart? If Mr. Poopendyke should ever leave you, I may be able to take his place as your secretary."
I bowed very low. "You may ............