When the Winner Lost/Chapter 3

N Mitsui's suggestion I remained in my room during the next two days. Under any other circumstances forty-eight hours within walls would have been unendurable, but my ingenious valet showed me immediately that there was much for me to do. As I found out shortly, he never commanded, but the manner in which he consulted my pleasure in regard to necessaries told me unmistakably that he had previously received like “suggestions” himself.

Promptly at eight-thirty the next morning I was visited by the first of a procession of outfitters. Tailors, haberdashers, and shoe salesmen measured me, fitted me, and showed me samples of this and that until my patience was exhausted. I finally drew Mitsui aside. “Look here!” I whispered, standing on tiptoe to reach his ear. “Ordinarily I have no objection to buying clothes. You know more about this game than I do, though. You know just what I'm supposed to have. Go ahead and pick it out and don't bother me.”

“A'right!” he rumbled, nodding slowly.

The tailor who was to cut four of my new suits, I found out then, called himself a maker of “character clothes.” His plan, as he explained to Mitsui, was to measure and gauge a man, and then supply him with suits for the occasion desired according to his estimate of the man's character and temperament. This seemed to suit Mitsui. Slouched forward on the edge of the table, his heavy arm resting on his right knee, Mitsui described me at length.

As I listened I realized that Selwyn Trask was indeed a remarkable person. It seemed that he just had come from New Zealand, where he had been wool grower on a large scale. “Live in Auckland,” “several large ranch,” “eighty thousand acre of grazing land,” were a few of the descriptive phrases. My valet painted him as a young and ambitious multimillionaire who had become impatient with life in the provinces. He was visiting the United States, particularly the cities of New York and Chicago, for social and industrial purposes. Now and then I noticed the character-clothes tailor glance at me rather doubtfully, but Mitsui's heavy, even tone never varied. I began to suspect that he would have found a way somehow toward delineating my wardrobe character had I not offered him the assignment.

Lunch was served in the rooms, and more from curiosity than fellow feeling, I invited Mitsui to eat with me. I had not placed him satisfactorily in my own mind yet. He accepted with dignity.

In the course of the salad I completed the survey of his strange face I had been making. “Mitsui,” I asked, where on earth were you born?”

“Yezo.”

I stared blankly. The name meant nothing to me: it might have been a town, a river, or an ocean so far as knew.

“It is north island of kingdom of Nippon,” he explained gravely.

“Oh, Japan!” I exclaimed. “That's what your name sounds like, but one scarcely would take you for an Oriental. Except for your eyes I—why, I'd call you Scandinavian!”

To my surprise Mitsui grinned, exhibiting a wide mouthful of flashy gold fillings. Never before or since have I seen as much precious metal in the mouth of a human being. “Ye-ah?” he asked with that same rising inflection I had noted at first.

“Yes!” I retorted. “If I heard you talk and didn't see your face I'd name you as a naturalized citizen from Copenhagen.”

“Hammerfest,” he corrected, the grin fading. “My mother was Norsk. From her I got my size.”

I longed to hear the story of how the woman from Hammerfest came to Yezo, but his manner did not invite further questions. “Well, you seem to know your business as a rich man's valet,” I said. “Now, if it's not against the rules, will you tell me a little about why I'm being fitted out like a horse and buggy?”

“Horse?” he asked slowly, not comprehending.

“Yes. Why am I supposed to be a millionaire, and what's going to happen to me if some one asks me something about sheep raising in Australia? I had tea with an Anzac scout down in the ward of the clearing hospital at St Nazaire once, but that's the nearest I've been to New Zealand.”

Without a word, Mitsui arose and pulled open a drawer in the table. “These,” he said, placing three pamphlets before me, “describe raising of sheep. You read them. This,” and he dropped a tiny leather bound volume on top of the pamphlets, “describe New Zealand. You learn all necessary from it. A friend you trust come for dinner to-night. His name Hoffman. He tell about New Zealand all you want."

I nodded at him in admiration. “You fellows seem to have this all cooked up for me all right,” I commented. “Guess I won't need brains to get along.” Mitsui's slant eyes canned me carefully. “That's not so, sir!” he answered, emphasis in his tone. “J. M. want a much intelligent man for your place.” He stopped suddenly, and I would have sworn a look of terror flashed into his countenance, but instantly his broad face was immobile as ever.

“'J. M.?'” I queried, masking my curiosity with indifference. “Who is he?”

“I talk too much,” growled the valet, glancing away, and applying himself with, I suspected, more anger than appetite to the remainder of the meal.

“Perhaps you had better explain a little more,” I suggested, “for fear I might make some kind of break.” The further I went with Mitsui, however, the less respect I retained for my own inquisitorial abilities. He regarded me thoughtfully for a time, and then made some irrelevant observation concerning my wardrobe.

With an exclamation of impatience I left the table, seizing the printed matter on New Zealand I was to study. I was not in the habit of cross-questioning a valet to find out whatever I wanted to know. The reticence of every one connected with this affair piqued me, but since I had accepted the assignment blindly I would carry on. When the time came for me to show, I knew I could give a good account of myself, no matter who this mysterious “J. M.” might be.

While I skimmed through the pages of condensed information relative to wool growing in one of the pamphlets, Mitsui gathered the dishes on a tray. Halfway to the door with this burden he stopped. “Do not ask more,” he said, and I noted that his voice was deep with earnestness; “but 'J. M.' our boss. He sent you here.”

He turned slowly. “Tell no one I say this!” he concluded, and as I promised he balanced the tray on one arm and reached for the knob of the door. Before he could touch it, however, the door swung ponderously open! Mitsui stepped back, facing a scowling, Vandyke-bearded newcomer in the doorway.

“You needn't hurry, Mitsui,” darkly hinted the interloper, who must have had a pass-key to the outer door. “My name is Hoffman,” he flung at me, as if this would be a complete explanation.

My valet bowed, and seemed to be having difficulty in holding the tray. I took this from him in time and set it on the table.

“Just how much does he know?” demanded Hoffman, advancing menacingly toward Mitsui and jerking his thumb at me. “How much has your loose tongue given away?”

Mitsui seemed stricken dumb.

“If you mean about 'J. M.'” I ventured, “I know next to nothing, though I'll admit I am curious as all get-out. He sent me here. That's all.”

“Enough!” growled Hoffman.

“It was slip, sir,” said Mitsui humbly. “Anyway”—and he stepped to Hoffman's side and whispered a sentence in his ear I could not catch.

“So?” said the latter in a pleased but doubtful tone. His expression changed back again quickly, however. “Well, that is not a matter for your judgment. In there!”

He motioned to the bedchamber across the hall. With bowed head Mitsui preceded him.

I had no intention this time of missing anything, so I followed. Taking two pairs of handcuffs from his pocket, Hoffman snapped one cuff from each on each of my valet's wrists. The remaining cuff he locked over the pipes of the radiator. Throwing a chair back of the captive so that he could sit down, Hoffman turned brusquely away.

“Can't I give him a little air?” I questioned, for the closed room was heated almost to the suffocation point.

Hoffman looked me over coolly from head to foot, and then turned to the window. “Not likely to be any eavesdroppers on that ledge,” he remarked, glancing to the sidewalk below. “Open it three inches and turn off the radiator.”

I obeyed. Waiting until Hoffman's back was turned, I bent to Mitsui's ear. “Anything I can do?” I whispered. A single shake of negation was his only answer, as he stared out moodily at the lake.