He was a very useful man for a certain sort of work, for his gentlemanly air made it possible for him to go without arousing suspicion into places where some of his colleagues would have been conspicuous. He was an adroit fellow, full of guile and ironic humor. Nothing in life gave him such pleasure as his “little surprises,” his neat traps for knaves of all sorts.
“If you’re around such and such a corner, at such and such a time,” he would say, “you might see something you could work into a story, old man.”
Hardy always followed such suggestions, and was always rewarded.
One evening Clendenning came into the little restaurant where Hardy almost always ate his dinner, and sat down at the table beside him.
“Want to see something interesting?” he asked.
“I do,” said Hardy.
“There’s a poor old feeble ass of a man who’s been complaining of a mysterious Persian woman,” he said. “He says she’s bewitched him, and he can’t keep away from her. He goes every night to get a psychic consultation, and she gives him advice about the stock market. He’s lost thousands already, but he says he thought he hadn’t interpreted her advice right, and kept going back for more. At last he came to headquarters with a complaint—says she’s a fraud. He says her place is crowded every evening with people clamoring for a chance to press ten dollars into the mysterious Persian’s hand and get a psychic message. Of course, it’s a pretty plain case for the police; but from what he said I thought it might be funny. I like to see how those things are done. It’s wonderful to see how easy it is to fool people. I like[Pg 23] to watch ’em work. She calls herself the Princess Zoraide. Ready?”
They rose and strolled out into the mild October night. They lighted cigars and sauntered uptown to a street of grim and moribund stone houses, given over to more or less mysterious enterprises. They stopped at one, rang the bell, and were admitted to a little drawing room furnished in moldy satin and poorly illuminated by a gas chandelier. Almost every seat was occupied, and the dreary light revealed a set of figures so dramatic, so interesting, that Hardy’s professional instincts were at once aroused.
He saw two women, probably a mother and daughter, sitting side by side, hand in hand, on a sofa, both weeping. He saw a white-bearded old man with his head thrown back and his dim eyes staring raptly at the ceiling. He saw a man who appeared to be on the brink of delirium tremens, his body twitching, his face contorted. He saw a great, fat blond woman in diamonds and silks and feathers, with a false, distrait smile on her painted face. In shadowy corners he saw other women whispering together. He was impressed by the atmosphere of pain, of terrible anxiety, that surrounded these people who came to receive relief and assuagement from the Princess Zoraide.
He sat down near the door with Clendenning, to await his turn. One by one he watched these people receive their summons, vanish into an inner room, and reappear again as shadows hastening through the dark hall to the front door. He would have liked to see their faces then, to see if the psychic consultation had in any way altered them.