_ CHAPTER X
There are many threads and many knots in a net; these can not be thrown together haphazard, lest the big fish slip through. At the bottom of the net is a small steel ring, and here the many threads and the many knots finally meet. Forbes and Haggerty (who, by the way, thinks I'm a huge joke as a novelist) and the young man named Webb recounted this tale to me by threads and knots. The ring was of Kitty Killigrew, for Kitty Killigrew, by Kitty Killigrew, to paraphrase a famous line.
At one of the quieter hotels--much patronized by touring Englishmen--there was registered James Thornden and man. Every afternoon Mr. Thornden and his man rode about town in a rented touring car. The man would bundle his master's knees in a rug and take the seat at the chauffeur's side, and from there direct the journey. Generally they drove through the park, up and down Riverside, and back to the hotel in time for tea. Mr. Thornden drank tea for breakfast along with his bacon and eggs, and at luncheon with his lamb or mutton chops, and at five o'clock with especially baked muffins and apple-tarts.
Mr. Thornden never gave orders personally; his man always attended to that. The master would, early each morning, outline the day's work, and the man would see to it that these instructions were fulfilled to the letter. He was an excellent servant, by the way, light of foot, low of voice, serious of face, with a pair of eyes which I may liken to nothing so well as to a set of acetylene blow-pipes--bored right through you.
The master was middle-aged, about the same height and weight as his valet. He wore a full dark beard, something after the style of the early eighties of last century. His was also a serious countenance, tanned, dignified too; but his eyes were no match for his valet's; too dreamy, introspective. Screwed in his left eye was a monocle down from which flowed a broad ribbon. In public he always wore it; no one about the hotel had as yet seen him without it, and he had been a guest there for more than a fortnight.
He drank nothing in the way of liquor, though his man occasionally wandered into the bar and ordered a stout or an ale. After dinner the valet's time appeared to be his own; for he went out nearly every night. He seemed very much interested in shop-windows, especially those which were filled with curios. Mr. Thornden frequently went to the theater, but invariably alone.
Thus, they attracted little or no attention among the clerks and bell boys and waiters who had, in the course of the year, waited upon the wants of a royal duke and a grand duke, to say nothing of a maharajah, who was still at the hotel. An ordinary touring Englishman was, then, nothing more than that.
Until one day a newspaper reporter glanced carelessly through the hotel register. The only thing which escapes the newspaper man is the art of saving; otherwise he is omnipotent. He sees things, anticipates events, and often prearranges them; smells war if the secretary of the navy is seen to run for a street-car, is intimately acquainted with "the official in the position to know" and "the man higher up," "the gentleman on the inside," and other anonymous but famous individuals. He is tireless, impervious to rebuff, also relentless; as an investigator of crime he is the keenest hound of them all; often he does more than expose, he prevents. He is the Warwick of modern times; he makes and unmakes kings, sceptral and financial.
This particular reporter sent his card up to Mr. Thornden and was, after half an hour's delay, admitted to the suite. Mr. Thornden laid aside his tea-cup.
"I am a newspaper man, Mr. Thornden," said the young man, his eye roving about the room, visualizing everything, from the slices of lemon to the brilliant eyes of the valet.
"Ah! a pressman. What will you be wanting to see me about, sir?"--neither hostile nor friendly.
"Do you intend to remain long in America--incog?"
"Incog!" Mr. Thorndon leaned forward in his chair and drew down his eyebrow tightly against the rim of his monocle.
"Yes, sir. I take it that you are Lord Henry Monckton, ninth Baron of Dimbledon."
Master and man exchanged a rapid glance.
"Tibbets," said the master coldly, "you registered."
"Yes, sir."
"What did you register?"
"Oh," interposed the reporter, "it was the name Dimbledon caught my eye, sir. You see, there was a paragraph in one of our London exchanges that you had sailed for America. I'm what we call a hotel reporter; hunt up prominent and interesting people for interviews. I'm sure yours is a very interesting story, sir." The reporter was a pleasant, affable young man, and that was why he was so particularly efficient in his chosen line of work.
"I was not prepared to disclose my identity so soon," said Lord Monckton ruefully. "But since you have stumbled upon the truth, it is far better that I give you the facts as they are. Interviewing is a novel experience. What do you wish to know, sir?"
And thus it was that, next morning, New York--and the continent as well--learned that Lord Henry Monckton, ninth Baron of Dimbledon, had arrived in America on a pleasure trip. The story read more like the scenario of a romantic novel than a page from life. For years the eighth Baron of Dimbledon had lived in seclusion, practically forgotten. In India he had a bachelor brother, a son and a grandson. One day he was notified of the death (by bubonic plague) of these three male members of his family, the baron himself collapsed and died shortly after. The title and estate went to another branch of the family. A hundred years before, a daughter of the house had run away with the head-gardener and been disowned. The great-great-grand-son of this woman became the ninth baron. The present baron's life was recounted in full; and an adventurous life it had been, if the reporter was to be relied upon. The interview appeared in a London journal, with the single comment--"How those American reporters misrepresent things!"
It made capital reading, however; and in servants' halls the newspaper became very popular. It gave rise to a satirical leader on the editorial page: "What's the matter with us republicans? Liberty, fraternity and equality; we flaunt that flag as much as we ever did. Yet, what a howdy-do when a title comes along! What a craning of necks, what a kotowing! How many earldoms and dukedoms are not based upon some detestable action, some despicable service rendered some orgiastic sovereign! The most honorable thing about the so-called nobility is generally the box-hedge which surrounds the manse. Kotow; pour our millions into the bottomless purses of spendthrifts; give them our most beautiful women. There is no remedy for human nature."
It was this editorial which interested Killigrew far more than the story which had given birth to it.
"That's the way to shout."
"Does it do any good?" asked Kitty. "If we had a lord for breakfast--I mean, at breakfast--would you feel at ease? Wouldn't you be watching and wondering what it was that made him your social superior?"
"Social superior? Bah!"
"That's no argument. As this editor wisely says, there's no remedy for human nature. When I was a silly schoolgirl I often wondered if there wasn't a duke in the family, or even a knight. How do you account for that feeling?"
"You were probably reading Bertha M. Clay," retorted her father, only too glad of such an opening.
"What is your opinion of titles, Mr. Webb?" she asked calmly.
"Mr. Webb is an Englishman, Kitty," reminded her mother.
"All the more reason for wishing his point of view," was the reply.
"A title, if managed well, is a fine business asset." Thomas stared gravely at his egg-cup.
"A humorist!" cried Killigrew, as if he had discovered a dodo.
"Really, no. I am typically English, sir." But Thomas was smiling this time; and when he smiled Kitty found him very attractive. She was leaning on her elbows, her folded hands propping her chin; and in his soul Thomas knew that she was looking at him with those boring critical blue eyes of hers. Why was she always looking at him like that? "It is notorious that we English are dull and stupid," he said.
"Now you are making fun of us," said Kitty seriously.
"I beg your pardon!"
She dropped her hands from under her chin and laughed. "Do you really wish to know the real secret of our antagonism, Mr. Webb?"
"I should be very glad."
"Well, then, we each of us wear a chip on our shoulder, simply because we've never taken the trouble to know each other well. Most English we Americans meet are stupid and caddish and uninteresting; and most of the Americans you see are boastful, loud-talking and money-mad. Our mutual impressions are wholly wrong to begin with."
"I have no chip on my shoulder," Thomas refuted eagerly.
"Neither have I."
"But I have," laughed her father. "I eat Englishmen for breakfast; fe-fo-fum style."
How democratic indeed these kindly, unpretentious people were! thought Thomas. A multimillionaire as amiable as a clerk; a daughter who would have graced any court in Europe with her charm and elfin beauty. Up to a month ago he had held all Americans in tolerant contempt.
It was as Kitty said: the real Englishman and the real American seldom met.
He did not realize as yet that his position in this house was unique. In England all great merchants and statesmen and nobles had one or more private secretaries about. He believed it to be a matter of course that Americans followed the same custom. He would have been wonderfully astonished to learn that in all this mighty throbbing city of millions--people and money--there might be less than a baker's dozen who occupied simultaneously the positions of private secretary and friend of the family. Mr. Killigrew had his private secretary, but this gentleman rarely saw the inside of the Killigrew home; it wasn't at all necessary that he should. Killigrew was a sensible man; his business hours began when he left home and ended when he entered it.
"Do you know any earls or dukes?" asked Killigrew, folding his napkin.
"Really, no. I have moved in a very different orbit. I know many of them by sight, however." He did not think it vital to add that he had often sold them collars and suspenders.
The butler and the second man pulled back the ladies' chairs. Killigrew hurried away to his offices; Kitty and her mother went up-stairs; and Thomas returned to his desk in the library. He was being watched by Kitty; nothing overt, nothing tangible, yet he sensed it: from the first day he had entered this house. It oppressed him, like a presage of disaster. Back of his chair was a fireplace, above this, a mirror. Once--it was but yesterday--while with his back to his desk, day-dreaming, he had seen her in the mirror. She stood in the doorway, a hand resting lightly against the portiere. There was no smile on her face. The moment he stirred, she vanished.
Watched. Why? _