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Ghost Breaker, The

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VII THE ROMANCE OF THE CASTLE Warren hobbled painfully to the telephone on the wall. This connected with a central switchboard from which he knew he could reach his own stateroom—provided Rusty had not failed in his trust. "Great Scott! Suppose it is impossible to get accommodations! I'll have to ride as a stowaway in the hold, after all!" he thought. At any rate he knew that the ten minutes were rapidly dissipating, and from what he had learned by eavesdropping through the trunk, the Duke was not the kindliest person in the world for a man in such a predicament. "Hello!" he called. "Hello, there.... Yes. I want the stateroom of Mr. Jarvis.... Yes, Warren Jarvis.... No, I don't know the number of the room.... All right." There was a pause, and he improved the opportunity to unlimber his arms and legs, while waiting by the instrument. At last came the welcome voice with the African accents: "Yassir, hello. Who do you want?" "Hello, Rusty!... Good boy.... Listen, come up to this stateroom, and bring me an overcoat and a scarf. Yes, and bring me a damp towel with some soap on it. Yes, and stick a comb into the coat pocket." "Law, boss, I dunno whar you-all is?" "That's right. Wait a minute." He opened the door to the cabin passageway, and squinted at the number plate. Back again to the telephone he continued: "Stateroom A, Promenade deck.... And bring up that big bundle in the steamer rug. Quick now." Jarvis hung up the receiver and walked stiffly to the window, peering out at the disappearing shores. "Well, good-by, Uncle Sam. I don't know when I'll see you again. And as for you, Miss Liberty—I don't believe there will be any of your sisters or cousins around this precious castle where Fate is taking me. I don't know which of us two is the craziest—this Duke or myself." Then, after a pause, he added, "Well, his taste is not to be sneered at; that's certain." There was a knock at the door. Warren was uncertain as to the wisest thing to do. He called: "Go away—we're all very ill!" Then he darted for one of the side staterooms. But the door opened slowly, and the plump physiognomy of Rusty Snow appeared. Rusty stumbled awkwardly over the elevated threshold, dropping the large bundle, landing prone on the deck. "Wha'f-f-foh they want to build a dern fool door like that?" complained Rusty, scrambling up with a bruised shin, the tenderest spot of a negro. His master worked feverishly, untying the trays and fitting them into the trunk from which he had tardily removed his dress coat, and the revolver. Then he smiled at Rusty. "How in de name of Moses did you-all git on de steamboat, Marse Warren?" was his servant's next remark, as he helped on with the coat over the painful shoulders. "I came in the trunk—and it was almost as good traveling as some of those mountain railroads back in Kentucky. Quick, hand me that towel—my face is bleeding." A few quick movements, the use of the comb, and he looked more presentable, resembling Jarvis the clubman once again. "Did you see any signs of the police, Rusty?" "No, sir. Nary a sign." "Are you sure?" "Dead sartin, Marse Warren." "Did you look?" "No, sir. I cain't say as I did. I wasn't anxious to look." The door opened, with a suddenness which caused both men to jump. It was the Princess. She smiled with relief as she saw the rehabilitation. "How de do, Mrs. Princess?" was Rusty's polite greeting, with a bow. His formality was growing more impressive, as the acquaintance extended. Here was "quality" indeed—Rusty was a judge of "breed"! "How do you do, Rusty?" and she laughed girlishly. Then she turned toward her vassal. He wore a quizzical, friendly, and amusingly pathetic look. The bruises of his trip were evident upon the clear-cut features. "I am so glad that you made it all right. But how they must have bumped and banged and wabbled and whirled you!" "I believe I could go over Niagara Falls in a barrel now, without turning a hair." She saw the hand—with its red wound. She winced, and reached for the hand, womanlike. "Oh, that's dreadful. You must have it attended at once. Let me get something." Warren stoically drew it away from the gentle touch of the white fingers. "Oh, it's all right. The ship's surgeon will welcome a little professional exercise. I'll be the first patient, as we're not out far enough for the seasickness practice yet." He turned toward Rusty, who was making a mental comparison of the room with the steamboat cabins back on the Ohio River. Rusty decided that even the old Gallia Queen, in her palmiest days, could not have been much more resplendent than this "foreign" boat! "You can go back and rest yourself, Rusty," suggested Jarvis. "And, listen—what's the number of the stateroom?" "Seven-twenty-nine, sir." "How did you get the tickets, in my name? I was registered differently at the other hotel." "Oh, I jest told 'em dey was for Mr. R. Snow, a rich Southern gentleman. When I gits down here, I tells Mr. Snow has decided to send his repersentative! Den I had de name changed—dat's all, Marse Warren." Maria Theresa smiled again, and Rusty accepted it as a supreme compliment. "You are a diplomat, Rusty," she said. "No, lady—I mean, Mrs. Princess.... I'm a Republican," and Rusty started for the door. "Go lock yourself in there, and don't talk to anyone. Remember you are deaf and dumb. Understand, deaf and dumb!" "Yassir—dumb's de word!" As the door closed behind him, the girl turned toward Jarvis, a troubled cloud overshadowing her pleasant features. "There is something I must tell you ... my cousin, the Duke of Alva, is on board of the Mauretania." He smiled whimsically as he replied, "Yes, and he professes to love you devotedly." She flushed furiously, and looked at the pattern of the rug. "You overheard?" "I underheard. The trunk was not my idea but yours, you know.... You're afraid of that man, too. What's the trouble? He's very sure of himself, isn't he?" The girl hesitated, and then replied almost timidly: "Carlos is very powerful.... I may be driven into his hands." "You mean he may make you marry him?" "Yes ... if you fail," and she cast an apprehensive glance toward the door to the promenade deck. "If I fail," and Warren was dumbfounded, even after the unreal scenes which had prologued this situation. "If I fail. What do you mean? Wait a minute—let me get my bearings: things are coming too fast and furious for my poor intelligence.... I—you—the Duke—how do I fit in?" The girl tried to regain her composure. "You mustn't ask now: take things for granted until we can explain them together, alone. He may come in any minute. I can tell you before we get to the castle." Warren lost his patience. "I think I should know about this castle nonsense now. I admit you saved me from the police last night—although undoubtedly they may be on board the ship now, for we have not passed the three-mile limit yet. Can't you be frank with me, in spite of that ridiculous oath of allegiance which I took?" "It was not ridiculous, Mr. Jarvis. It was in life-and-death earnestness. I would not have felt that I could truly trust you unless you had gone through that. Remember, I am a product of a different civilization from your own: I am still superstitious, if you please to term it so, in the Old-World sense. I speak your language, and indeed think in it with you. But back in the inner shrine of my being I am a Spanish woman, true to my heredity. You are essentially an American—droll, well-balanced, cynical—and oblivious to any other national psychology than your own." The girl's earnestness was droll. "I am a bit hard and unsympathetic," agreed Warren softly. "I did not mean to be so. You and I came into each other's lives in a wild unreal way which an outsider would hardly believe possible. The truest thing in real life is its melodramatic, unbelievable unrealism. That's where the novelists, the poets, and the play-makers have a terrific handicap against them. Things which happen every day would be ridiculed in print. The great rule of actual existence is: 'It can't be possible, but it is!' But, while we have time, tell me my cues, for I share your opinion of the Duke of Alva. I would never nominate him for President!" The girl wrung her hands nervously—the first signs he had seen of a spiritual weakening. "I am completely in the dark," added Jarvis; "I'm just a plain man, not a mindreader. Let's get down to brass tacks!" She did not understand the local idiom. But she realized that at last she had found a sympathetic confessor. "I hardly know where to begin. It seems absurd—in this pleasant day-lit stateroom—to talk of ghosts. But the fact is that my family castle is haunted." Jarvis was lighting another cigarette from the battered silver case; he burned his fingers, as he studied her, in surprise. Then he laughed provokingly. "So I gathered from your amiable cousin. What kind of specters? Of the Hamlet variety or the old maid brand?" She answered very seriously. "Call it anything you like. But my castle is haunted, just the same. This is absolutely a case of facts, which mean so much to me that I would not exaggerate now! My grandfather was one of the wealthiest nobles in Spain. When he died my father went to take possession of the family estates in Seguro. The little town—as you count populations in America—was buzzing with weird stories of uncanny things and supernatural happenings in the old castle on the hill. It was deserted, after centuries of loyal occupancy. All the retainers had deserted their posts and fled. All told of a weird, horrible thing in armor which stalked the ancestral halls at night—of agonized groans, clanking chains, infernal fumes of sulphur—you know how ghost stories run?" "I know the ghost stories, and most of the people who tell them run because of their own yellow streaks!" retorted Warren. "But, go on, your Highness. It's fascinating—I haven't heard a good 'hant' yarn since old Mammy Chloe died, back at Meadow Green." She pouted, for his cynicism struck home. Yet was she earnest, and again she endeavored to impress him. "Laugh, sir, as much as you please. My father laughed the same way. He called them silly, ignorant peasant tales. He said he would show them that it was now the twentieth century, and teach them how foolish were their fears." She hesitated. Her dark eyes burned as she continued slowly: "He went there, Mr. Jarvis. He went there! He was never seen again!" The Kentuckian leaned forward, engrossed. "What happened?" "No one knows. He disappeared—vanished utterly, without the slightest clew. Grandfather's treasure was never found!" "Oh, what treasure?" Jarvis was almost rude in his impatient interest. "The fortune he left. You know, grandfather converted all his wealth into Spanish gold to finance a Spanish colonization scheme in the West Indies. It amounted to about a million dollars in your American money." Warren whistled, and twisted his intertwined fingers about an elevated knee—whose ache had been forgotten. "That's a ripping good yarn. When did all this happen?" "Fifteen years ago. Since then, two other men disappeared in the same horrible manner as my father did. Not a trace of their leaving: it is so horrible that it makes my heart creep to tell it. And yet you scoff!" "I'm sorry," he said penitently. "But what's the latest news from the trenches?" "Now the Duke tells me that my brother has entered the fatal castle ... you see that daring runs in the blood! Up to a week ago he had sent me a cable every day. Everything was well until Sunday. Then his messages stopped. All this week there has not been a word, not even answering my cables!" Warren digested this in silence for a moment. "Why did your Highness leave Spain, knowing all this?" "Well, Mr. Jarvis, a part of the legend tells that my grandfather had drawn a secret map showing exactly where his treasure was located. It was not safe to let the public know where wealth was located, fifteen years ago, in Spain." "From the extremely businesslike devotion of that ghost, it doesn't seem that conditions have improved in the district of your exalted estates!" "Oh, Mr. Jarvis, can't you be serious? I learned from an old letter to my grandmother, from her husband the Prince, that this plan had been hidden in the back-clasp of a locket containing her miniature. Without letting my brother know of the secret, for fear that he would foolishly tell it, I engaged a secret-service man from Paris to look the matter up. When my grandparents died, much of the estate was sold—for the Spanish-American War had wrought havoc with the family income. That locket had been sold to an American collector, and I came to America just in time to save it from being sold to some museum. I pawned my mother's jewels to buy it. That was the locket which dropped from the trunk, in my bedroom last night." "And you have the locket?" "Yes—but not my brother!" "Ah, then, my particular chore as vassal to this haunted family is to find your brother and solve the mystery? In other words, you want me to put this infernal, tin-plated, panhandling ghost out of his misery?" "Yes ... Mr. Jarvis!" and the Princess was more humble than he had noticed her during the hours of their acquaintance. "Are you frightened by the ghost?" "You asked that question before. Where I came from only negroes and poor whites fear the departed spirits. Perhaps this spirit is not as departed as circumstances would indicate. But, how about the Duke? What is his interest in the ghost?" "He fears it, too. He has begged me to stay away from the wretched castle altogether. If it were not for my brother's future, and the fortune of the family—his family, and perhaps ... my family ... some day ... I would shun the place. We are not completely destitute, you know!" Jarvis studied the luxurious furnishings of the cabin, the jewels and aristocratic modishness of the girl's attire, and nodded. "I imagine you're not! But this high, exalted, and altogether superior cousin of yours is far from being a fool. He will want to know how, where, why you met me. And what he doesn't know, contrary to the usual theory, is apt to interfere with his sleep. Beware, your Highness, of men who cannot sleep o'night—they think altogether too shrewdly!" The girl was worried. "He will ask dreadful questions. I know him, Mr. Jarvis!" "So do I. Will you tell him you have made of me a ... perfectly good vassal?" "I think not—just yet," and there was a shyness in her manner. Jarvis looked adown his nose, and there was a smile on the firm lips below it! "By the way, Mrs. Princess—as Rusty so beautifully phrases it—just how should a vassal, a fine A-number-One vassal, address his liege-lady and the owner of his soul? What is the au fait procedure in this case? You know I am only an ignorant pig of an American!" She hesitated, embarrassed, and then answered: "Highness—is correct!" "Highness! I had imagined so—incidentally we were introduced by Fate on the eleventh floor, as I recollect. Tell me, Highness: a vassal doesn't amount to much, does he? I always considered him a piker!" She was mystified. These phrases had not been in the curriculum of the exclusively proper English boarding-school. "A piker—a soldier who carries a pike?" "No, just a pawn in this human game of chess—along with the queens, and kings, and castles—and knights!... But I have known of a pawn saving a game, in the hands of an expert. By the way, and apropos of nothing-whatever-at-all, could a good, hard-working, reliable, moral, union-labeled vassal work his way up to a good job—such as a Duke or a Lord, or something like that?" She caught the drift of his quizzical humor, and retorted in kind. "You're an ambitious vassal. Such men have occasionally lost their heads—literally speaking. I'm afraid you wouldn't be content with anything less than a kingship." The Kentuckian spoke with meaning behind his jest. "A king—a prince—or a bandit!" "A bandit—why a bandit? That is essentially Spanish!" Jarvis lit another cigarette. "A king could command—a prince might request—a bandit generally seizes!" "What?" and the woman emerged from the hauteur of the royal personality. "That which a vassal can only admire!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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