The Tracer Of Lost Persons - free ebook by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

TO MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM A. HALL 1906

For the harmony of the world, like that of a harp, is made up of discords. —HERACLITUS....

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CHAPTER I

He was thirty-three, agreeable to look at, equipped with as much culture and intelligence as is tolerated east of Fifth Avenue and west of Madison. He had a couple of elaborate rooms at the Lenox Club, a larger income than seemed to be good for him, and no profession. It follows that he was a pessimist before breakfast. Besides, it's a bad thing for a man at thirty-three to come to the conclusion that he has seen all the most attractive girls in the world and that they have been vastly overrated

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CHAPTER II

Meanwhile, Gatewood was walking along Fifth Avenue, more or less soothed by the May sunshine. First, he went to his hatters, looked at straw hats, didn't like them, protested, and bought one, wishing he had strength of mind enough to wear it home. But he hadn't. Then he entered the huge white marble palace of his jeweler, left his watch to be regulated, caught a glimpse of a girl whose hair and neck resembled the hair and neck of his ideal, sidled around until he discovered that she was chewing

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CHAPTER III

"This is a list of particular and general questions for you to answer, Mr. Gatewood," she said, handing him a long slip of printed matter. "The replies to such questions as you are able or willing to answer you may dictate to me." The beauty of her modulated voice was scarcely a surprise—no woman who moved and carried herself as did this tall young girl in black and white could reasonably be expected to speak with less distinction—yet the charm of her voice, from the moment her lips unclosed, so

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CHAPTER IV

As a matter of fact, he was not. Too poor in imagination to invent, on the spur of the moment, charms and qualities suited to his ideal, he had, at first unconsciously, taken as a model the girl before him; quite unconsciously and innocently at first—then furtively, and with a dawning perception of the almost flawless beauty he was secretly plagiarizing. Aware, now, that something had annoyed her; aware, too, at the same moment that there appeared to be nothing lacking in her to satisfy his imag

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CHAPTER V

Gatewood, burdened with restlessness and gnawed by curiosity, consumed a week in prowling about the edifice where Keen &amp; Co. carried on an interesting profession. His first visit resulted merely in a brief interview with Mr. Keen, who smilingly reported progress and suavely bowed him out. He looked about for Miss Southerland as he was leaving, but did not see her. On his second visit he mustered the adequate courage to ask for her, and experienced a curiously sickly sensation when inform

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CHAPTER VI

All the way to the Whip and Spur Club he sat buried in a reverie from which, at intervals, he started, aroused by the heavy, expectant beating of his own pulses. But what did he expect, in Heaven's name? Not the discovery of a woman who had never existed. Yet his excitement and impatience grew as he watched the saddling of his horse; and when at length he rode out into the sunshine and cantered through the Park entrance, his sense of impending events and his expectancy amounted to a fever which

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CHAPTER VII

The news of Gatewood's fate filled Kerns with a pleasure bordering upon melancholy. It was his work; he had done it; it was good for Gatewood too—time for him to stop his irresponsible cruise through life, lower sail, heave to, set his signals, and turn over matters to this charming pilot. And now they would come into port together and anchor somewhere east of Fifth Avenue—which, Kerns reflected, was far more proper a place for Gatewood than somewhere east of Suez, where young men so often sail.

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CHAPTER VIII

Harren started, then walked slowly to the center of the room as the pretty stenographer passed out with a curious level glance at him. "Why do you say that photography plays a part in my case?" he asked. "Doesn't it?" "Yes. But how—" "Oh, I only guessed it," said Keen with a smile. "I made another guess that your case involved a cipher code. Does it?" "Y-es," said the young man, astonished, "but I don't see—" "It also involves the occult," observed Keen calmly. "We may need Miss Borrow to help u

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CHAPTER IX

When the Tracer of Lost Persons entered Captain Harren's room at the Hotel Vice-Regent that afternoon he found the young man standing at a center table, pencil in hand, studying a sheet of paper which was covered with letters and figures. The two men eyed one another in silence for a moment, then Harren pointed grimly to the confusion of letters and figures covering dozens of scattered sheets lying on the table. "That's part of my madness," he said with a short laugh. "Can you make anything of s

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CHAPTER X

"Come!" said the Tracer suddenly; "this won't do. There are too few symbols to give us a key; too few repetitions to furnish us with any key basis. Come, Captain, let us use our intellects; let us talk it over with that paper lying there between us. It's a simple cipher—a childishly simple one if we use our wits. Now, sir, what I see repeated before us on this sheet of paper is merely one of the forms of a symbol known as Solomon's Seal. The symbol is, as we see, repeated a great many times. Eve

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CHAPTER XI

During his first year of wedded bliss, Gatewood cut the club. When Kerns wanted to see him he had to call like other people or, like other people, accept young Mrs. Gatewood's invitations. "Why," said Gatewood scornfully, "should I, thirty-four years of age and safely married, go to a club? Why should I, at my age, idle with a lot of idlers and listen to stuffy stories from stuffier individuals? Do you think that stale tobacco smoke, and the idiotically reiterated click of billiard balls, and th

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CHAPTER XII

"Nothing," said Gatewood firmly, "can make me believe that Kerns ought not to marry somebody; and I'm never going to let up on him until he does. I'll bet I could fix him for life if I called in the Tracer to help me. Isn't it extraordinary how Kerns has kept out of it all these years?" The attractive girl beside him turned her face once more so that her clear, sweet eyes were directly in line with his. "It is extraordinary," she said seriously. "I think you ought to drop in at the club some day

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CHAPTER XIII

Gatewood, in the telephone booth, waited impatiently for Mr. Keen; and after a few moments the Tracer of Lost Persons' agreeable voice sounded in the receiver. "It's about Mr. Kerns," began Gatewood; "I want to see him happy, and the idiot won't be. Now, Mr. Keen, you know what happiness you and he brought to me! You know what sort of an idle, selfish, aimless, meaningless life you saved me from? I want you to do the same for Mr. Kerns. I want to ask you to take up his case at once. Besides, I'v

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CHAPTER XIV

In the meanwhile, at the other end of the wire, Mr. Keen, the Tracer of Lost Persons, was preparing to trace for Mr. Kerns, against that gentleman's will, the true happiness which Mr. Kerns had never been able to find for himself. He sat in his easy chair within the four walls of his own office, inspecting a line of people who stood before him on the carpet forming a single and attentive rank. In this rank were five men: a policeman, a cab driver, an agent of the telephone company, an agent of t

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CHAPTER XV

The dinner that Kerns had planned for himself and Gatewood was an ingenious one, cunningly contrived to discontent Gatewood with home fare and lure him by its seductive quality into frequent revisits to the club which was responsible for such delectable wines and viands. A genial glow already enveloped Gatewood and pleasantly suffused Kerns. From time to time they held some rare vintage aloft, squinting through the crystal-imprisoned crimson with deep content. "Not that my word is necessarily th

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CHAPTER XVI

"Good heavens!" he said, appalled, and dropped his suit case with a crash. "W-what are you d-doing—" She controlled her voice and the wavering weapon with an effort. "What are you doing in this house?" "Doing? In this house?" he repeated, his eyes protruding in the direction of the unsteady pistol muzzle. "What are you doing in this house—if you don't mind saying!" "I—I m-must ask you to put up your hands," she said. "If you move I shall certainly s-shoot off this pistol." "It will go off, anywa

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CHAPTER XVII

On the thirteenth day of March, 1906, Kerns received the following cable from an old friend: "Is there anybody in New York who can find two criminals for me? I don't want to call in the police. "J.T. BURKE." To which Kerns replied promptly: "Wire Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, N.Y." And a day or two later, being on his honeymoon, he forgot all about his old friend Jack Burke. On the fifteenth day of March, 1906, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, received the following cablegram from Alexandria, E

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CHAPTER XVIII

"When I left the Point I was assigned to the colored cavalry. They are good men; we went up Kettle Hill together. Then came the Philippine troubles, then that Chinese affair. Then I did staff duty, and could not stand the inactivity and resigned. They had no use for me in Manchuria; I tired of waiting, and went to Venezuela. The prospects for service there were absurd; I heard of the Moorish troubles and went to Morocco. Others of my sort swarmed there; matters dragged and dragged, and the Kaise

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CHAPTER XIX

"The ancient Egyptian word for the personal pronoun 'I' was anuk ," said the Tracer placidly. "The phonetic for a was the hieroglyph a reed; for n the water symbol for u the symbols for k Therefore this hieroglyphic inscription begins with the personal pronoun or I . That is very easy, of course. "Now, the most ancient of Egyptian inscriptions read vertically in columns; there are only two columns in this papyrus, so we'll try it vertically and pass downward to the next symbol, which is inclosed

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CHAPTER XX

For a full minute the two men sat there without moving or speaking. Then the Tracer laid aside his pencil. "To sum up," he said, opening the palm of his left hand and placing the forefinger of his right across it, "the excavation made by the falling pillar raised in triumph above the water garden of the deposed king, Meris, by his rival, was the subterranean house of Meris. The prostrate figure which crumbled to powder at your touch may have been the very priest to whom this letter or papyrus wa

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CHAPTER XXI

"What we want to do," said Gatewood over the telephone, "is to give you a corking little dinner at the Santa Regina. There'll be Mr. and Mrs. Tommy Kerns, Captain and Mrs. Harren, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Burke, Mrs. Gatewood, and myself. We want you to set the date for it, Mr. Keen, and we also wish you to suggest one more deliriously happy couple whom you have dragged out of misery and flung head-first into terrestrial paradise." "Do you young people really care to do this for me?" asked the Tracer,

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CHAPTER XXII

At one o'clock that afternoon a young man earnestly consulting a map might have been seen pursuing his solitary way through Central Park. Fresh green foliage arched above him, flecking the path with fretted shadow and sunlight; the sweet odor of flowering shrubs saturated the air; the waters of the lake sparkled where swans swept to and fro, snowy wings spread like sails to the fitful June wind. "This," he murmured, pausing at a shaded bend in the path, "must be Bench Number One. I am not to sit

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CHAPTER XXIII

When Rosalind Hollis found herself on her feet again a slight sensation of fright checked her for a moment. Then, resolutely suppressing such unworthy weakness, the lofty inspiration of her mission in life dominated her, and she stepped forward undaunted. And Carden, seeing her advance toward him, arose in astonishment to meet her. For a second they stood facing each other, he astounded, she a trifle pale but firm. Then in a low voice she asked his pardon for disturbing him. "I am Rosalind Holli

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