He took her for a walk on Riverside Drive, to be out of the way of dictographs, and laid before her not only the whole labyrinth of his perplexities but the best outline he could make of his dim conjectures. He had not failed to secure Signor Gabrielli's address from the Ingham office and he now put forward a petition which he tried not to feel monstrous. "Mrs. Deutch, there is a man who knows some strange things and strange people, who might perhaps send to Naples and receive from there a very enlightening cablegram. I am less than nothing to him, he will never send it for me. But I needn't tell you he is a man of great sensibility, very susceptible both to shame and pride. And still, after twenty-five years, he carries the miniature of his betrothed."
Mrs. Deutch looked out across the proud bright waters. Through the serene air the somber glory of an autumn leaf floated to her feet; its fellows were gathered everywhere in withered piles which shouting children rejoiced to trample into powder. "Yes," she said, by-and-by, "I will see him. There are always perhaps those of whom he is afraid. Perhaps he is like that. But it will be easy to say, 'We were very fond of each other, you and I, we were so young and you were so beautiful a person! It would be a great happiness to think that now you were brave!' I can tell him 'Christina is my youth and my prettiness and my true faith and all that you once knew.' Oh, yes, he will give them back to me! He will send your message!"
He had, indeed, sent it; but on Tuesday afternoon no reply had arrived. Having given up the countryside in despair Herrick could not keep away from the table d'hôte and, merely as a curious resort, he asked Stanley, who was returning to Springfield on Wednesday, to meet him there for dinner. He was able to show his guest the gorgeous Mr. Gumama with the knit, gloomy glories of his Saracen brow, but no mystery showed a feather. Inquiry, in his primitive Italian, elicited a statement that nearly wrenched a groan from his lips—his old lady had taken her eldest grandniece, Maria Rosa, to visit relations in the country! The mother of Maria Rosa insisted with a sweet smile that she could not remember the name of the place.
The young men sat for a while in the square, where Stanley's astuteness discovered so many blackmailers in the gentle, lolling crowd that even the statue of Garibaldi seemed scarcely safe, and then they started up Fifth Avenue; the austere, departing dignities of whose lower end never seem so faded, so historic, so composed, as in September dusks. When they made out the identity of an angular correctness sailing stiffly but handsomely some distance ahead of them, it seemed of all neighborhoods the most suitable in which to encounter Ten Euyck; yet they loitered, lacking the spirit to cope with their opportunities. And Stanley, who was still in favor with the powers, began to attempt the diversion of his moodier companion with an account of Ten Euyck's efforts to propel the Commissioner of Police. "Every little while you forget that he isn't anybody and can't do anything, even if there were anything to do. And you say to yourself, 'Golly! I'd rather Chris stayed lost than that he laid hands on her.' He looks so black and white and dried in vinegar he does get on your nerves all right. You remember what a lot of money he's got, after all, and pull and all the rest of it, and you feel as if he'd be able to find something against her—or, even if he didn't—"
In the warm still evening his voice had carried farther than he thought; Ten Euyck turned round and recognized them. Evidently without offense, since he stood waiting for them to overtake him. "Good news for you, Ingham," he greeted the boy. "Judge Fletcher does not consider a confession equivalent to pleading guilty in the first degree! Moreover, in strict confidence, the judge is a veteran with an extreme distaste for the artistic temperament! If the prisoner is brought before him we shall get a first degree sentence yet!"
"Oh, I don't care!" cried the lad, making a disgusted face. "It's all too horrible and—and queer, somehow! I don't want to hear about it."
"Oh, if your consideration is for the actor in the lady's cloak—what a symbol of his whole conduct!—I understand he prefers it." Ten Euyck gave a short laugh. He was evidently in his happy vein of inquisitorial power. "When a man's been ruffling before the public in lace and satin and diamonds of course he baulks at prison accommodations. Yet even there our temperamental friend is welching."—He had evidently approached his point and they could not deny him the tribute of a stare.
"We may be very foolish, my dear sirs, but we are not incapable of learning and I may tell you that we have acted on a hint."
"You mean by 'we' yourself and the law?"
"Perhaps I do, Mr. Herrick. At any rate, this time to-morrow we shall have rung the door-bell of the Arm of Justice."