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The Cab of the Sleeping Horse by John Reed Scott

J >> John Reed Scott >> The Cab of the Sleeping Horse



THE CAB OF THE SLEEPING HORSE

by

JOHN REED SCOTT

Author of _The Woman in Question_, _The Man In Evening Clothes_, etc.

Frontispiece by William van Dresser

A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with G.P. Putnam's Sons

1916







[Illustration: SHE THREW UP HER HAND, AND A NASTY LITTLE AUTOMATIC
WAS COVERING THE SECRETARY'S HEART. Drawn by William Van Dresser.
(Chapter 24)]




CONTENTS


I.--THE PHOTOGRAPH

II.--THE VOICE ON THE WIRE

III.--VISITORS

IV.--CRENSHAW

V.--ANOTHER WOMAN

VI.--THE GREY-STONE HOUSE

VII.--SURPRISES

VIII.--THE STORY

IX.--DECOYED

X.--SKIRMISHING

XI.--HALF A LIE

XII.--CARPENTER

XIII.--THE MARQUIS

XIV.--THE SLIP OF PAPER

XV.--IDENTIFIED

XVI.--ANOTHER LETTER

XVII.--IN THE TAXI

XVIII.--DOUBT

XIX.--MARSTON

XX.--PLAYING THE GAME

XXI.--THE KEY-WORD

XXII.--THE RATAPLAN

XXIII.--CAUGHT

XXIV.--THE CANDLE FLAME





I

THE PHOTOGRAPH


"A beautiful woman is never especially clever," Rochester remarked.

Harleston blew a smoke ring at the big drop-light on the table and
watched it swirl under the cardinal shade.

"The cleverest woman I know is also the most beautiful," he replied.
"Yes, I can name her offhand. She has all the finesse of her sex,
together with the reasoning mind; she is surpassingly good to look at,
and knows how to use her looks to obtain her end; as the occasion
demands, she can be as cold as steel or warm as a summer's night; she--"

"How are her morals?" Rochester interrupted.

"Morals or the want of them do not, I take it, enter into the question,"
Harleston responded. "Cleverness is quite apart from morals."

"You have not named the wonderful one," Clarke reminded him.

"And I won't now. Rochester's impertinent question forbids introducing
her to this company. Moreover," as he drew out his watch, "it is
half-after-twelve of a fine spring night, and, unless we wish to be
turned out of the Club, we would better be going homeward or elsewhere.
Who's for a walk up the avenue?"

"I am--as far as Dupont Circle," said Clarke.

"All hands?" Harleston inquired.

"It's too late for exercise," Rochester declined; "and our way lies
athwart your path."

"I don't think you make good company, anyway, with your questions and
your athwarts," Harleston retorted amiably, as Clarke and he moved off.

"Who is your clever woman?" asked Clarke.

"Curious?" Harleston smiled.

"Naturally--it's not in you to give praise undeserved."

"I'm not sure it is praise, Clarke; it depends on one's point of view.
However, the lady in question bears several names which she uses as
expediency or her notion suits her. Her maiden name was Madeline
Cuthbert. She married a Colonel Spencer of Ours; he divorced her, after
she had eloped with a rich young lieutenant of his regiment. She didn't
marry the lieutenant; she simply plucked him clean and he shot himself.
I've never understood why he didn't first shoot her."

"Doubtless it shows her cleverness?" Clarke remarked.

"Doubtless it does," replied Harleston, neatly spitting a leaf on the
pavement with his stick. "Afterward she had various adventures with
various wealthy men, and always won. Her particularly spectacular
adventure was posing, at the instigation of the Duke of Lotzen, as the
wife of the Archduke Armand of Valeria; and she stirred up a mess of
turmoil until the matter was cleared up."

"I remember something of it!" Clarke exclaimed.

"By that time she had so fascinated her employer, the Duke of Lotzen,
that he actually married her--morganatically, of course."

"Again showing her astonishing cleverness."

"Just so--and, cleverer still, she held him until his death five years
later. Which death, despite the authorized report, was not natural: the
King of Valeria killed him in a sword duel in Ferida Palace on the
principal street of Dornlitz. The lady then betook herself to Paris and
took up her present life of extreme respectability--and political
usefulness to our friends of Wilhelm-strasse. In fact, I understand that
she has more than made good professionally, as well as fascinated at
least half a dozen Cabinet Ministers besides.

"Wilhelm-strasse?" Clarke queried.

Harleston nodded. "She is in the German Secret Service."

"They trust her?" Clarke marvelled.

"That is the most remarkable thing about her," said Harleston, "so far
as I know, she has never been false to the hand that paid her."

"Which, in her position, is the cleverest thing of all!" Clarke
remarked.

They passed the English Legation, a bulging, three-storied, red brick,
dormer-roofed atrocity, standing a few feet in from the sidewalk; ugly
as original sin, externally as repellent as the sidewalk and the narrow
little drive under the _porte-cochere_ are dirty.

"It's a pity," said Clarke, "that the British Legation cannot afford a
man-servant to clean its front."

"No one is presumed to arrive or leave except in carriages or motor
cars," Harleston explained. "_They_ can push through the dirt to the
entrance."

"Why, would you believe it," Clarke added, "the deep snow of last
February lay on the walks untouched until well into the following day.
The blooming Englishmen just then began to appreciate that it had snowed
the previous night. Are they so slow on the secret-service end?"

"They have quite enough speed on that end," Harleston responded. "They
are on the job always and ever--also the Germans."

"You've bumped into them?"

"Frequently."

"Ever encounter the clever lady, with the assortment of husbands?"

"Once or twice. Moreover, having known her as a little girl, and her
family before her, I've been interested to watch her travelling--her
remarkable career. And it has been a career, Clarke; believe me, it's
been a career. For pure cleverness, and the appreciation of
opportunities with the ability to grasp them, the devil himself can't
show anything more picturesque. My hat's off to her!"

"I should like to meet her," Clarke said.

"Come to Paris, sometime when I'm there, and I'll be delighted to
present you to her."

"Doesn't she ever come to America?"

"I think not. She says the Continent, and Paris in particular, is good
enough for her."

Harleston left Clarke at Dupont Circle and turned down Massachusetts
Avenue.

The broad thoroughfare was deserted, yet at the intersection of
Eighteenth Street he came upon a most singular sight.

A cab was by the curb, its horse lying prostrate on the asphalt, its box
vacant of driver.

Harleston stopped. What had he here! Then he looked about for a
policeman. Of course, none was in sight. Policemen never are in sight on
Massachusetts Avenue.

As a general rule, Harleston was not inquisitive as to things that did
not concern him--especially at one o'clock in the morning; but the
waiting cab, the deserted box, the recumbent horse in the shafts excited
his curiosity.

The cab, probably, was from the stand in Dupont Circle; and the cabby
likely was asleep inside the cab, with a bit too much rum aboard.
Nevertheless, the matter was worth a step into Eighteenth Street and a
few seconds' time. It might yield only a drunken driver's mutterings at
being disturbed; it might yield much of profit. And the longer Harleston
looked the more he was impelled to investigate. Finally curiosity
prevailed.

The door of the cab was closed and he looked inside.

The cab was empty.

As he opened the door, the sleeping horse came suddenly to life; with a
snort it struggled to its feet, then looked around apologetically at
Harleston, as though begging to be excused for having been caught in a
most reprehensible act for a cab horse.

"That's all right, old boy," Harleston smiled. "You doubtless are in
need of all the sleep you can get. Now, if you'll be good enough to
stand still, we'll have a look at the interior of your appendix."

The light from the street lamps penetrated but faintly inside the cab,
so Harleston, being averse to lighting a match save for an instant at
the end of the search, was forced to grope in semi-darkness.

On the cushion of the seat was a light lap spread, part of the equipment
of the cab. The pockets on the doors yielded nothing. He turned up the
cushion and felt under it: nothing. On the floor, however, was a woman's
handkerchief, filmy and small, and without the least odour clinging to
it.

"Strange!" Harleston muttered. "They are always covered with perfume."

Moreover, while a very expensive handkerchief, it was without
initial--which also was most unusual.

He put the bit of lace into his coat and went on with the search:

Three American Beauty roses, somewhat crushed and broken, were in the
far corner. From certain abrasions in the stems, he concluded that they
had been torn, or loosed, from a woman's corsage.

He felt again--then he struck a match, leaning well inside the cab so
as to hide the light as much as possible.

The momentary flare disclosed a square envelope standing on edge and
close in against the seat. Extinguishing the match, he caught it up.

It was of white linen of superior quality, without superscription, and
sealed; the contents were very light--a single sheet of paper, likely.

The handkerchief, the crushed roses, the unaddressed, sealed
envelope--the horse, the empty and deserted cab, standing before a
vacant lot, at one o'clock in the morning! Surely any one of them was
enough to stir the imagination; together they were a tantalizing
mystery, calling for solution and beckoning one on.

Harleston took another look around, saw no one, and calmly pocketed the
envelope. Then, after noting the number of the cab, No. 333, he gathered
up the lines, whipped the ends about the box, and chirped to the horse
to proceed.

The horse promptly obeyed; turned west on Massachusetts Avenue, and
backed up to his accustomed stand in Dupont Circle as neatly as though
his driver were directing him.

Harleston watched the proceeding from the corner of Eighteenth Street:
after which he resumed his way to his apartment in the Collingwood.

A sleepy elevator boy tried to put him off at the fourth floor, and he
had some trouble in convincing the lad that the sixth was his floor. In
fact, Harleston's mind being occupied with the recent affair, he would
have let himself be put off at the fourth floor, if he had not happened
to notice the large gilt numbers on the glass panel of the door opposite
the elevator. The bright light shining through this panel caught his
eye, and he wondered indifferently that it should be burning at such an
hour.

Subsequently he understood the light in No. 401; but then it was too
late. Had he been delayed ten seconds, or had he gotten off at the
fourth floor, he would have--. However, I anticipate; or rather I
speculate on what would have happened under hypothetical
conditions--which is fatuous in the extreme; hypothetical conditions
never are existent facts.

Harleston, having gained his apartment, leisurely removed from his
pockets the handkerchief, the roses, and the envelope, and placed them
on the library table. With the same leisureliness, he removed his light
top-coat and his hat and hung them in the closet. Returning to the
library, he chose a cigarette, tapped it on the back of his hand, struck
a match, and carefully passed the flame across the tip. After several
puffs, taken with conscious deliberation, he sat down and took up the
handkerchief.

This was Harleston's way: to delay deliberately the gratification of his
curiosity, so as to keep it always under control. An important
letter--where haste was not an essential--was unopened for a while; his
morning newspaper he would let lie untouched beside his plate for
sufficiently long to check his natural inclination to glance hastily
over the headlines of the first page. In everything he tried by
self-imposed curbs to teach himself poise and patience and a quiet mind.
He had been at it for years. By now he had himself well in hand; though,
being exceedingly impetuous by nature, he occasionally broke over.

His course in this instance was typical--the more so, indeed, since he
had broken over and lost his poise only that afternoon. He wanted to
know what was inside that blank envelope. He was persuaded it contained
that which would either solve the mystery of the cab, or would in itself
lead on to a greater mystery. In either event, a most interesting
document lay within his reach--and he took up the handkerchief.
Discipline! The curb must be maintained.

And the handkerchief yielded nothing--not even when inspected under the
drop-light and with the aid of a microscope. Not a mark to indicate who
carried it nor whence it came.--Yet stay; in the closed room he detected
what had been lost in the open: a faint, a very faint, odour as of
azurea sachet. It was only a suggestion; vague and uncertain, and
entirely absent at times. And Harleston shook his head. The very fact
that there was nothing about it by which it might be identified
indicated the deliberate purpose to avoid identification. He put it
aside, and, taking up the roses, laid them under the light.

They were the usual American Beauties; only larger and more gorgeous
than the general run--which might be taken as an indication of the
wealth of the giver, or of the male desire to please the female; or of
both. Of course, there was the possibility that the roses were of the
woman's own buying; but women rarely waste their own money on American
Beauties--and Harleston knew it. A minute examination convinced him that
they had been crushed while being worn and then trampled on. The stems,
some of the green leaves, and the edges of one of the blooms were
scarred as by a heel; the rest of the blooms were crushed but not
scarred. Which indicated violence--first gentle, then somewhat drastic.

He put the flowers aside and picked up the envelope, looked it over
carefully, then, with a peculiarly thin and very sharp knife, he cut the
sealing of the flap so neatly that it could be resealed and no one
suspect it had been opened. As he turned back the flap, a small
unmounted photograph fell out and lay face upward on the table.

Harleston gave a low whistle of surprise.

It was Madeline Spencer.




II

THE VOICE ON THE WIRE


"Good morning, madame!" said Harleston, bowing to the photograph. "This
is quite a surprise. You're taken very recently, and you're worth
looking at for divers aesthetic reasons--none of which, however, is the
reason for your being in the envelope."

He drew out the sheet of paper and opened it. On it were typewritten,
without address nor signature, these letters:

DPNFNZQFEFBPOYVOAEELEHHEJYD
BIWFTCCFVDXNQYCECLUGSUGDZYJ
ENRYUIGYBSNRTDUHJWHGYZIPEPA
WPPOIMCHEIPRFBJXFVWWFTZNJPY
UFJDILDCEMBRVZDAYVAWALUMOFN
FCVDPGLPWFUUWVIEPTKVIPUMSFZ
NPSJJRFYASGZSDACSIGYUOFCEXA
AOIDJJFCJPSONPKUUYVCVCTIHDP
XMNOYKENHUSKHYMSFRRPCYWSLLW
SMVPPUNEIFIDJLZRWEHPQGODFUZ
TCEMQIQWNFYJTAALUMHJXILEEHY
ISOVOAZUCUDINBRLUZICUOTTUSV
LPNFFVQFANPVCYJHILTPFISGHCW
HYICPPNFDOUOCLDUWEIVIPJNQBV
ZLMIJRVKDSFRLWEGBKQYWSFFBEI
YORHMYSHTECPUTMPJXFNRNEEUME
ILJBWV.

"Cipher!" commented Harleston, looking at it with half-closed eyes....
"The Blocked-Out Square, I imagine. No earthly use in trying to dig it
out without the key-word; and the key-word--" he gave a shrug. "I'll let
Carpenter try his hand on it; it's too much for me."

He knew from experience the futility of attempting the solution of a
cipher by any but an expert; and even with an expert it was rarely
successful.

As a general rule, the key to a secret cipher is discovered only by
accident or by betrayal. There are hundreds of secret ciphers--any
person can devise one--in everyday use by the various departments of the
various governments; but, in the main, they are amplifications or
variations of some half-dozen that have become generally accepted as
susceptible of the quickest and simplest translation with the key, and
the most puzzling without the key. Of these, the Blocked-Out Square,
first used by Blaise de Vigenerie in 1589, is probably still the most
generally employed, and, because of its very simplicity, the most
impossible of solution. Change the key-word and one has a new cipher.
Any word will do; nor does it matter how often a letter is repeated;
neither is one held to one word: it may be two or three or any
reasonable number. Simply apply it to the alphabetic Blocked-Out Square
and the message is evident; no books whatever are required. A slip of
paper and a pencil are all that are necessary; any one can write the
square; there is not any secret as to it. The secret is the key-word.

Harleston took a sheet of paper and wrote the square:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZA
CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZAB
DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC
EFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD
FGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDE
GHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEF
HIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFG
IJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGH
JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHI
KLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJ
LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJK
MNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKL
NOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLM
OPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMN
PQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
QRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
RSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ
STUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQR
TUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRS
UVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST
VWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU
WXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV
XYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW
YZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWX
ZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY

Assume that the message to be transmitted is: "To-morrow sure," and that
the key-word is: "In the inn." Write the key-word and under it the
message:

INTHEINNINTH
TOMORROWSURE

Then trace _downward_ the I column of the top line of the square, and
_horizontally_ the T column at the side of the square until the two
lines coincide in the letter B: the first letter of the cipher message.
The N and the O yield B; the T and the M yield F; the H and the O yield
V, and so on, until the completed message is:

BBFVVZBJAHKL

The translator of the cipher message simply reverses this proceeding. He
knows the key-word, and he writes it above the cipher message:

INTHEINNINTH
BBFVVZBJAHKL

He traces the I column until B is reached; the _first_ letter in that
line, T, is the first letter of the message--and so on.

Simple! Yes, childishly simple with the key-word; and the key-word can
be carried in one's mind. Without the key-word, translation is
impossible.

Harleston put down the paper and leaned back.

Altogether it was a most interesting collection, these four articles on
the table. It was a pity that the cab and the sleeping horse were not
among the exhibits. Number one: a lady's lace handkerchief. Number two:
three American Beauty roses, somewhat the worse for wear and violent
usage. Number three: a cipher message. Number four: photograph of
Madame--or Mademoiselle--de Cuthbert, de Spencer, de Lotzen. There was a
pretty plot behind these exhibits; a pretty plot, or he missed his
guess. It might concern the United States--and it might not. It would be
his duty to find out. Meanwhile, the picture stirred memories that he
had thought long dead. Also it suggested possibilities. It was some
years since they had matched their wits against each other, and the last
time she rather won out--because all the cards were hers, as well as the
_mise en scene_. And she had left--

His thought trailed off into silence; and the silence lasted so long,
and he sat so still, that the ash fell unnoticed from his cigarette; and
presently the cigarette burned itself into the tip, and to his fingers.

He tossed it into the tray and laughed quietly.

Rare days--those days of the vanished protocol and its finding! He could
almost wish that they might be again; with a different _mise en scene_,
and a different ending--and a different client for his. He was becoming
almost sentimental--and he was too old a bird for sentiment, and quite
too old at this game; which had not any sentiment about it that was not
pretence and sham. Yet it was a good game--a mighty entertaining game;
where one measured wits with the best, and took long chances, and played
for high stakes; men's lives and a nation's honour.

He picked up the photograph and regarded it thoughtfully.

"And what are to be the stakes now, I wonder," he mused. "It's another
deal of the same old cards, but who are players? If America is one,
then, my lady, we shall see who will win this time--if you're in it; and
I take it you are, else why this picture. Yet to induce you to break
your rule and cross the Atlantic, the moving consideration must be of
the utmost weight, or else it's purely a personal matter. H-u-m! Under
all the circumstances, I should say the latter is the more likely. In
which event, I may not be concerned further than to return these--" with
a wave of his hand toward the exhibits.

For a while longer he sat in silence, eyes half closed, lips a bit
compressed; a certain sternness, that was always in his countenance,
showing plainest when in reflective thought. At last, he smiled. Then he
lit another cigarette, took up the letter and the photograph, and put
them in the small safe standing behind an ornate screen in the
corner--not, however, without another look at the calmly beautiful face.

The roses he left lie on the table; the steel safe would not preserve
them in _statu quo_; moreover, he knew, or thought he knew, all that
they could convey. He swung the door shut; then swung it open, and
looked again at the picture--and for sometime--before he put it up and
gave the knob a twirl.

"I'm sure bewitched!" he remarked, going on to his bedroom. "It's not
difficult for me to understand the Duke of Lotzen. He was simply a
man--and men, at the best, are queer beggars. No woman ever understands
us--and no more do we understand women. So we're both quits on that
score, if we're not quite on some others." Then he raised his hands
helplessly, "Oh, Lord, the petticoats, the petticoats!"

Just then the telephone rang--noisily as befits two o'clock in the
morning.

"Who the devil wants me at such an hour?" he muttered.

The clang was repeated almost instantly and continued until he unhooked
the receiver.

"Well!" he said sharply.

"Is that Mr. Harleston?" asked a woman's voice. A particularly soft and
sweet and smiling voice, it was.

"I am Mr. Harleston," he replied courteously--the voice had done it.

"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Harleston!" the voice rippled. "I suppose you
are rather astonished at being called up at such an unseemly hour--"

"Not at all--I'm quite used to it, mademoiselle," Harleston assured her.

"Now you're sarcastic," the voice replied again; "and, somehow, I don't
like sarcasm when I'm the cause of it."

"You're the cause of it but not the object of it," he assured her. "I'm
quite sure I've never met you, and just as sure that I hope to meet you
today."

"Your hope, Mr. Harleston, is also mine. But why, may I ask, do you call
me mademoiselle? I'm not French."

"It's the pleasantest way to address you until I know your name."

"You might call me madame!"

"Perish the thought! I refuse to imagine you married."

"I might be a widow."

"No."

"Or even a divorcee."

"And you might be a grandmother," he added.

"Yes."

"And doing the Maxixe at the Willard, this minute."

"Yes!" she laughed.

"But you aren't; and no more are you a widow or a divorcee."

"All of which is charming of you, Mr. Harleston but it's not exactly the
business I have in hand."

"Business at two o'clock in the morning!" he exclaimed.

He had tried to place the voice, and had failed; he was becoming
convinced that he had not heard it before.

"What else would justify me in disturbing you?" she asked.

"Yourself, mademoiselle. Let us continue the pleasant conversation and
forget business until business hours."

"When are your business hours, Mr. Harleston--and where's your office?"

"I have no office--and my business hours depend on the business in
hand."

"And the business in hand depends primarily on whether you are
interested in the subject matter of the business, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"I am profoundly interested, mademoiselle, in any matter that concerns
you--as well as in yourself. Who would not be interested in one so
impulsive--and anything so important--as to call him on the telephone at
two in the morning."

"And who on his part is so gracious--and wasn't asleep," she answered.

Harleston slowly winked at the transmitter and smiled.

He thought so. What puzzled him, however, was her idea in prolonging the
talk. Maybe there was not any idea in it, just a feminine notion; yet
something in the very alluring softness of her voice told him otherwise.

"You guessed it," he replied. "I was not asleep. Also I might guess
something in regard to your business."

"What?"

"No, no, mademoiselle! It's impertinent to guess about what does not
concern me--yet."

"Delete the word 'yet,' Mr. Harleston, and substitute the idea that it
was--pardon me--rather gratuitous in you to meddle in the first place."

"I don't understand," said Harleston.

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