The Mystery of the Pink Pieces/Chapter 1

DVENTURES were always happening to Rose O'Hara. This was not remarkable. She ever preferred caviar sandwiches to plain bread and butter. And when one is young, lovely, and a famous opera singer, events naturally happen, especially if one is the possessor that doubtful blessing—a temperament. And it might truly be said of Rose O'Hara that although the gods had been most kind to her in the bestowal of various gifts, they had been particularly lavish in the matter of temperament.

She had just finished a tremendously successful season at the Metropolitan. Why not? Was not that assured her by a voice like amber velvet—rich and soft and golden—unmistakable beauty, and a magnetism that got over the footlights so definitely that it was as potent in the upper galleries as in the front row of orchestra chairs?

You must have seen and heard her. Every one has. Then shut your eyes, and recall her as she appeared in one of your favorite rôles—Marguerite, Juliet, Elsa. Can't you see her standing there before the curtain, bowing over those sheaves of Killarney roses with which the young person whose idol she was habitually showered her, naturally regarding them as singularly appropriate tributes, considering her name and personality? She is bowing in her charming, characteristic way; her gray eyes sparkle like stars, lighting up her irregular, fascinating face; and her smiling mouth trembles a little with excitement,

But this was the last night of the season, and after making various hasty adieus she hurried through the drafty passages of the Metropolitan, followed by her French maid, Ernestine, who was more than plain, and accompanied by Willy Gaines, who was interesting. She and Gaines got into the motor, and rolled away, while Ernestine climbed into a hansom, and smiled with desiccated vivacity at the onlookers over a bale of roses.

“It's over!” Miss O'Hara's voice was exultant even if muffled by the fur scarf that she had carefully drawn over her mouth. “I couldn't have endured it another day. Just think—to-morrow I shall be in the country, ready to welcome the gay, green spring, and among pleasant, normal people, not herded with a lot of counterfeits who fancy they can sing, and actually fool the public into believing it, when they have neither temperament, training, nor artistic fitness. Ugh!”

Gaines replied with an inarticulate and sympathetic murmur. When Rose O'Hara began to criticize her fellow artists, it was a sure sign of overstrained nerves; and when a prima donna's nerves are frazzled, next friends should maintain a wise silence.

The car stopped before Miss O'Hara's hotel. “Here we are,” she said, but not cheerfully. “Good-by, Willy. You will be down for the week-end? I may be there only a day or two. If it wasn't for those tiresome gowns, I should sail to-morrow.”

“Put your mind on your gowns,” he counseled, “and try to be happy. You should be when you think how soon you are to see me again.”

“Perhaps that is what is depressing me. But,” with a smile that made entire amends for the speech, “you will surely be down the last of the week?”

“Dear Rose”—his manner of taking her hand was so matter of fact and commonplace that she often assured him she was quite surprised to find he had been holding it five or ten minutes, or even half an hour, before she noticed it—“dear Rose”—he was methodically kissing each finger now—“did you ever see a bee that would stay shut up in the hive when the rose of the world was blooming near him?”

The next morning Miss O'Hara established herself at the Annesley, a smart country inn within easy motoring distance of town. No matter what her inclinations, she must remain in this part of the world for a few weeks. It was her custom to have all of her tailored gowns made in New York; consequently it was necessary for her to be near at hand when called upon for those frequent consultations which are essential when the wardrobe of a great singer is being built.

She was accompanied by Ernestine, and also by her English secretary, Miss Hodgkins, whose interests in life were divided between her own embroidery, Miss O'Hara's jewel box, and the struggle to secure a sufficient quantity of fresh air, which all Americans, she was convinced, were banded together to prevent her having.

True to his word, Willy Gaines came out to the Annesley on Friday night; too late to see Rose, but he sent up his name to her as early as possible the next morning, and while he breakfasted received word that she would be in the sun parlor any time after eleven o'clock.

Now, Gaines is an important figure in this story, and requires a word of explanation. He was not only Rose O'Hara's childhood friend and devoted admirer; he was also her lawyer and man of business; and in one or another of these capacities spent much time in her society. But in spite of all his ingenuity and persistence, he had not yet succeeded in winning her promise to marry him, and now he had followed her to the Annesley, not merely for the week-end, but to stay as long as she did, and with the firm determination to force a capitulation at last before she sailed to keep her London and Paris engagements.

On the stroke of eleven, therefore, he was in the sun parlor. It was a glorious morning; without, a blue sea tumbling on yellow sands; and within, a sun-warmed atmosphere and great pots of blooming plants giving out a pleasant fragrance.

But Rose's face did not reflect the obvious sparkle of the universe. She was sitting listlessly before a great window, a cloud upon her brow, and her attention apparently concentrated on the tip of her shoe, while Miss Hodgkins sat prim and upright by her side, sewing on a piece of embroidery that looked like magenta caterpillars, and that Gaines rightly judged to be crewel work, taking it for granted that the daughter of an English clergyman could not be engaged upon anything less staple and stable.

She looked up pleasantly to greet him, while Rose lifted somber eyes—and this, too, in the face of his smile. It was perhaps the first time that that delightful smile of his had failed to meet with a response. Just sober, everyday Willy Gaines was a tall, thin fellow, with a long, rather serious, face. He was a little freckled, and his hair was nearer red than brown, and he loafed about with a sort of awkward ease not lacking in distinction; and just as you were thinking what a pity it was that a man so noticeable should yet be so—almost ugly, he would smile. Mental analysis and criticism immediately ceased. You merely felt a warm rejoicing that there were things so delightful in this weary world.

“Rose,” he said reprovingly, after he had shaken hands with Miss Hodgkins, “I don't like to see you so gay this early in the day. You will probably be crying before night.” This in the face of her manifest boredom.

“I shall be crying all day soon if I stay here much longer among these Strasburg geese of women and stalled oxen of men. I wish I had gone to Palm Beach or to the Riviera, and taken my chances on my frocks turning out all right.”

Gaines attempted to conceal his alarm. He had two or three important cases coming on, and must remain in or near New York. If she darted off now, as she was quite capable of doing, he would not see her again for months with the exception of those unsatisfactory and unsettled moments of farewell at the steamer.

He racked his brains in search of something that would restore her interest in life and hold her in this part of the world until the dreary but inevitable moment of her sailing should arrive. Suddenly a conversation that he had held with the manager of the hotel only that morning flashed across his mind.

“Ah,” he said craftily, “but just think—somewhere among all these overfed people there is one—or perhaps there are two or three or more—who will soon be”

“Under treatment for their livers,” she interrupted him scornfully.

“My dear Rose, no.” He leaned forward, and lowered his voice so that Miss Hodgkins, on the other side of her, could not hear. “What I say is quite true. There is a person—or there are persons—in this hotel who will soon be making history for”

“The Sunday newspapers,” again interrupting him.

“The police,” he finished quietly.

“Willy!” She suddenly abandoned her languid attitude. “What do you mean? Are there thieves in the hotel? My jewels!”

“Not the kind you are thinking of,” quickly.

“Then what kind? Ah, Willy, don't be mysterious, but tell me!”

“I am afraid I know only enough to pique your interest, and not enough to satisfy your curiosity. But, such as my information is, you shall have it. This morning on my way to breakfast I stopped at the office to speak to Dandridge, the manager, who happens to be a client of mine, and he showed me a letter that he has just received from the French consulate in New York, asking for the name and a full description of every guest in the hotel whom the management may have reason to believe has recently returned from abroad.”

“Recently returned from abroad?” repeated Rose. “Why, what Oh, some smuggling investigation, I dare say.”

“No. There may be smuggling in it, but that is not the main issue. Here—these newspaper clippings that were inclosed in the letter may help you better to understand,” extracting them from his pocketbook and handing one of them over to her.

It was from the European edition of the New York Herald, under a recent date, and ran as follows:

But I don't see,” Rose glanced up, puzzled, as she finished reading, “how that could possibly apply to any one at the Annesley. It says here that the men are under arrest in Paris.”

For answer, Gaines extended another clipping. It was from the same paper the following day, and read:

Attached to this was a short note, bearing a date three weeks later, in which it was stated that Maître Gaboriau, one of the highest-priced advocates in Paris, had been retained for the defense of the prisoners, Biron and Cirofici.

“Anything more?” asked Rose, after she had duly digested the information submitted.

“Nothing from the newspapers, but the letter from the consulate, commenting on the incongruity of men practically destitute at the time of their arrest employing such eminent counsel, gives the explanation, as established through secret-service channels, that the arrangements with Maître Gaboriau were made by some one in America.

“Furthermore,” proceeded Gaines, “recalling that the woman, in the case represented herself as a designer, the foreign authorities seem to regard as of direct bearing the reported theft from several large dressmaking establishments in Paris of their carefully guarded new models—water-color drawings, as I understand it, showing what are to be the forthcoming styles.”

Rose looked up with a flash of aroused interest, and opened her lips as if about to interrupt, but evidently thought better of the impulse, and remained silent.

“In short,” concluded Gaines, too absorbed in his subject to note this fleeting interlude, “the presumption, as nearly as Dandridge and I can make out, is that this Anna Klaus, escaping with the incriminating documents, fortified herself before leaving by swiping a quantity of these designs, and is now engaged in peddling them out to dress-makers on this side of the water in order to raise cash for the benefit of her imprisoned confederates.

“At any rate, that is undoubtedly the line that the French detectives are following, for the letter closes by saying that the secret-service representative now in this country to investigate the affair is convinced that the disposal of the stolen models is being carried on here at the Annesley, and that the woman must consequently be enrolled among the guests of the hotel.”

“Do you really mean to tell me,” cried Rose incredulously, “that there is a creature with that much energy and daring among any of the stupid women here? I've been misjudging them.”

“S-sh!” murmured Willy cautiously. “Don't let Miss Hodgkins hear you uttering such immoral sentiments, or she would leave without notice, and deem herself fully justified.”

“Oh, don't tease, or I'll get irritable, and take the next train for Palm Beach. Tell me at once whom they suspect.”

“That is the fly in the amber,” shaking his head regretfully. “Anna Klaus, you must understand, is, according to all reports, an impersonator of wonderful skill and versatility, an artist in disguise. Able to assume the rôle of Englishwoman, Russian, French, or German, and do it to the life; fitted, too, by education and experience to take off any station, from the highest to the lowest, she has time and again walked out from under the very noses of the shrewdest detectives in Europe.

“If the woman they are seeking is she, and she is really here at the Annesley, she may be some frump or health crank, the bediamonded wife of an Indiana banker, an exclusive, soft-voiced spinster from Charleston, South Carolina, or even a chambermaid or waitress. She is protean in her poses, I tell you; and so the authorities are naturally compelled to go about the investigation with the utmost circumspection.”

“Why?”

Willy shrugged his shoulders. “Plain enough, Can't you imagine what a hullabaloo would be raised if by chance they should make a mistake, and put such an accusation up to the real Southern spinster, or Indiana banker's wife? Dandridge, too, you can see, is in rather a ticklish position. For the sake of the hotel, he is anxious to avoid the scandal and publicity of an arrest in the house; yet for obvious reasons he cannot afford to balk or oppose any steps that may be taken to land so dangerous a criminal.

“That is why he appealed to me, his hope being, if possible, to discover the woman for himself, and then, after getting her away on some pretext or other, to inform the French officer of her whereabouts.”

“But if she is as clever as you say, how does he ever expect to succeed?”

“Ah, that is the point,” Gaines admitted. “The one chance, and evidently the same one that the foreign secret-service agent is preparing to follow up, is to trace the sale of some of these stolen designs to her, or to catch her with some of them in her possession. On that charge she can be taken into custody without fear of a blunder, and held for extradition.”

“Wait a moment!” cried Rose. “I believe I know something that might have”

But she got no further. Ernestine stood before her, holding out a great blue Persian cat, which Rose immediately stretched out her arms to receive with many expressions of cooing endearment; and Willy Gaines knew from past experience that the moment for serious conversation was temporarily over.

This cat, Prince Ahmed by name, was a beast of incredibly long hair and pedigree, and unusually short temper, an arrogant, vain, and hardened winner of cups and medals and blue ribbons, before whom, to Gaines' intense disgust, the proud and beautiful Miss O'Hara, her cold and reserved English secretary, and the varied and voluble Ernestine were but as humble slaves, mere satellites revolving about this pampered brute's capricious and snarling humors.

“I 'ave jus' 'ad heem out for hees promenade,” said Ernestine. “Almos' he caught a grea', large bird. He ees so clevair!” She raised her hand to heaven, and rolled her eyes.

“You wonderful Ahmed!” exclaimed Rose, ruffling his fur affectionately; while Miss Hodgkins remarked, in her low, even tones, to Willy: “He is really possessed of an almost human intelligence.”

"He loves to see the birdies fly. He wouldn't hurt ums, or even touch ums,” Rose still cooed; while Ahmed purred deeply for the benefit of his feminine admirers, and winked at Willy as man to man.

“He wouldn't, eh?” Gaines laughed scornfully. “I feel as cynical as if you were talking to Bernard Shaw. His mental attitude toward his worshipers is exactly the same as Ahmed's when they try to convict him of sentiment.”

Three pairs of shocked and reproachful eyes were turned upon him; and, seeing more virtue in flight than in the impending argument, he was about to rise and stroll away, when Rose uttered a little exclamation, and sat upright, quite forgetting Prince Ahmed for the moment, her attention apparently concentrated on some one or something outside the window.

“Here, Ernestine,” she said; “take Ahmed upstairs, and let him have his nap.” She was ever quick of decision and action.

“Look!” She laid her hand on Gaines' arm. “Do you see those two women coming up the path? They are mother and daughter. I was playing bridge all yesterday afternoon with the daughter.”

It did not seem an important statement, and yet, struck by something in her tone, Gaines gave his attention to the two women who were now coming up the steps leading to the sun parlor. The elder of the two was a quiet, gentle, timid-looking woman in black, with white hair; while the daughter was a slender, athletic young woman of—so it struck Gaines—somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years of age.

“I've looked at them as you bade me,” said Willy. “And now what is it about them?”

“Nothing, perhaps,” said Rose. “But after we stopped playing yesterday afternoon we began to talk about clothes”

“Naturally.”

“And,” paying no attention to him, “Miss Mayhew—that is the girl's name—told us a story of stolen designs which, it seems to me, may throw some light on the affair you've just been recounting.”

“By Jove!” There was a quick flash in Gaines' eyes. “What sheer luck! Who are these Mayhews, and what have you learned about them? Tell me quickly; they have seen you, and are coming this way.”

“I have not an idea who they are,” returned Rose. “All I know is that mother and daughter write 'San Francisco' after their names on the hotel register; but, if one can judge from their conversation, they spend most of their time traveling. Also, Phil Wodeburn—you remember him?—is with them a great deal of the time.”

“See if you cannot persuade them to join us, and then, if possible, draw the subject around to the story she told you yesterday,” said Willy under his breath.