When the Winner Lost/Chapter 12

EFORE going to bed that night—or rather morning for it was nearly five before I reached the hotel—I wrote and mailed the following note to Elise:

It was my first love letter, since sophomore college days, and it certainly was the first of my life that was thoroughly sincere. For that reason, probably, it sounded flat, stilted, and unconvincing to me. I felt better, however, when I knew it was on its way. It could do no harm, at any rate.

That evening I attended the gambling club again. The experience was a mere repetition of the former evening, except that nothing the slightest out of the way happened. At one o'clock, when I had lost eighteen hundred dollars, I took my leave. While the guard and I were passing back through the tunnel I noticed one peculiar fact, however. Two or three paces before we got to the elevator, the floor clicked! It was as if the metal of which it was composed had snapped, or two parts had come together. No noise of any volume accompanied this phenomenon, but the click was perceptible to touch even through the soles of my shoes. I made a mental note of the incident, though what bearing it could have upon the whole adventure I could not imagine.

Until the afternoon I slept. Then before dinner, when the desk clerk downstairs solemnly assured me there was no mail for me, I decided to call up Elise.

“I was just trying to decide whether or not I should answer your note, Mr. Trask,” she said after I had explained that anxiety for her safety had prompted my call. “Now it will not be necessary. I am perfectly willing to have you visit here if you wish to come and see me—as a friend. My mother, although she is partially paralyzed, would like to meet you, I am sure. You are—rather different at times.”

It was cold comfort, perhaps, but I left the phone hugely happy. Down in my heart I knew now that some time Elise would listen to me again. Only the dread specter of the danger Charles had conjured up spoiled my daydream. At any rate I would lunch with Elise and her mother next day, and then, perhaps, I could obtain some hint of the nature of the mysterious threat.

That evening at the club cost my employer a trifle over four thousand dollars. I played at every table and lost consistently I was beginning to lose interest in gambling, anyway, and dropping a few thousand was not as difficult as it had been the first time I attended. Though I conscientiously attempted to learn more about the arrangement of the place I found that indiscriminate meandering about was frowned upon by the owners. I came away satisfied that more information could be obtained only through accident. When “J. M.” was ready for the showdown I was ready.

He did not come near me next day though, and because I was more anxious to keep my appointment with Elise than to see my sharp-featured employer, I said not a word to Mitsui.

At twelve-thirty I made my way up the steps of the Latisse home. When the maid admitted me Elise came forward to take my wraps. I noted that she did not offer to shake hands, although her greeting was pleasant enough. Evidently she was willing to reëstablish friendly relations, but not to give me the slightest chance of presuming.

As I watched her hanging my hat, coat, and stick on the hall tree a sudden chill crept down my spine, and my eyes riveted themselves upon an object leaning against the wall in the corner. It was a curved cane of some Himalayan wood, and would not have been especially remarkable except for its head. Two carved serpents with garnets for eyes formed the handle, and I gazed at them spellbound as if their basilisk eyes had turned me to stone. Before he absconded my partner had carried just such a cane.

“That is a remarkable stick!” I said, a queer dryness in my throat. I picked it up and examined it more closely. “Is it your brother's?”

Elise frowned, as if in annoyance. “No,” she returned with some abruptness. “It was left by an acquaintance of my brother's.”

I had some difficulty assuming a careless manner. This stick might have belonged to Morris, but that would have to be proven. For the second or two I spent glaring into the garnet eyes the whole shame of my trouble came back to me, and for the time I thanked my lucky stars that Elise had not accepted me while the disgrace still clouded my real name. Morris was known to have come to Chicago. Might not this actually be his cane? At the thought my hands clenched so suddenly I nearly broke the slender rod.

“In college we used to say that a man's cane revealed his character.,” I went on, assuming a lighter tone. “Now from this I should say that the owner, if he lives up to the cane, is a slender, dapper chap with a black mustache trimmed and pomaded. Probably he is beginning to get a little gray around the temple but still he is extraordinarily fussy about his clothes and his clubs. Married, of course and henpecked when he is at home—which is seldom.”

The ghost of a smile came to Elise's lips. “I don't care much for that particular science you learned at college,” she said.

“Why, didn't I describe him?” I waited on her words with the most extreme anxiety, for I knew Morris did not look as I had said.

“No, not very closely. The real owner is squat, heavy-set, and almost entirely bald. He is not neat—rather piggish, I should say, although he spends enough money on his clothes. And his manners are as far from precise as one could imagine.”

“Really?” I simulated a laugh. “But I ought not to be surprised, I suppose. I have met a half-dozen cane carriers in this town of just that type. Bakewell, Maurice Morris, John Swazey.” I watched her face closely, but she did not recognize the name of Morris. Down the hall I saw the figure of her brother, so I did not pursue the subject further.

“Will Charles have lunch with us?” I asked, as we strolled through the living rooms.

“No; He never eats lunch now. We will just have a bite in with mother, if you don't object. I have to help her a little because she hasn't much use of either arm.”

She introduced me to Mrs. Latisse, who reclined in a wheel chair beside the table. She glanced at me searchingly out of anxious blue eyes, and I saw she was thinking of me in regard to Elise. The hollows in her cheeks, and the wrinkles kept her from looking well, but I saw that she must be a lovable lady to her family. I paid her as much respectful attention during the meal as I found possible, but all the while my thoughts were in a tumult. Elise was glorious as a hostess and nurse for her mother, and I could not help watching her avidly. Then the bitter memories of Morris kept coming to mind again and again. Withal I was happy when the meal was over. Elise's description fitted my partner, and a lump of angry desire kept rising to my throat whenever I thought of what finding him might mean to me.

After luncheon was over Elise asked me to wheel Mrs. Latisse to the music room. There Elise seated herself at the piano and sang to her own accompaniment for half an hour. There always has been magic in melody for me. For opera I care little or nothing, except for the few parts in those of the lighter variety where melody breaks through untrammeled. The songs Elise sang were new to me, but from their nature I imagined they must have been popular about the time I was born; they were ballads, and were innocent of any jazz strains. During the singing Mrs. Latisse closed her eyes, and then I knew why she had looked at me so sharply at first. Each man who visited Elise must have represented a chance for the greatest loss in the world to the dear old lady. I mentally promised that if I came to the beginning of the long straight road with Elise, I should take pains to have her mother know she would be gaining a son instead of losing a daughter.

During the music I noticed Charles wandering about uneasily in the hall. At first I attributed this merely to the nervous state in which I had seen him last, but finally I began to watch him closely. It soon became apparent that my presence bothered him for he glanced in about every five minutes to find out if I had gone. Then I heard wood rattle against the porcelain cane rack, and I was alert in an instant. When a second later I heard the front door close softly, I rose and made my adieus speedily.

In the hall I had a view of the street from a window as I was donning my wraps. A taxi, similar to one in which I had driven out to the gambling club, stood at the curb. Charles was speaking to some one whose face I could not see, but from the size of the man my heart jumped violently. Then Charles gave him the snake cane, and glanced back at the house. In that instant I saw the other's face. It was Maurice Morris!