She who sleeps A romance of New York and the Nile
“Hello, Micky,” he said--“all set?”
“Surely,” his aunt replied, lighting a very large cigarette and
replacing the lighter in the pocket of her jacket. “I have always
avoided your speak-easy, young Cumberland, because I don’t want to be
mixed up in a raid. But, as I don’t care for whisky with dinner, I
have fallen.”
“Splendid,” replied Barry, laughing. “We shall make you a complete
sinner yet.”
“I aim to be,” said Aunt Micky, “on my ‘night.’ The night over, there
isn’t a better citizen in the United States than Michael Colonna.”
“There isn’t a better sport in the world,” added Barry affectionately.
“Pity you never married again, Micky.”
“Don’t be a damn’ fool!” was the reply.
As they came down the steps to the street:
“Hello!” said Barry, “why have we got the big car?”
“John has taken the other,” his aunt replied.
She wore a French cape, red-lined, with which in the high wind she was
struggling valiantly.
“Where has he gone?” Barry asked, as Hemingway held open the door of
the car.
“He is dining with the man Danbazzar,” Aunt Micky answered, getting
in.
“That means he’s spending money,” Barry mused as he dropped down upon
the seat beside her. “What is it this time? A scarab or half the side
of a temple?”
“Can’t say.” His aunt shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t like Danbazzar.
Fascinating man, but don’t like him.”
“Oddly enough, I have never met him,” Barry said. “But I know he has
done business with Dad for years.”
Presently the car pulled up before an ordinary-looking chop house, and
Barry jumped out, helping Aunt Micky to alight. She stared in through
the open windows, beyond which rows of tables might be seen, some
already occupied; she glanced up at the signboard and looked into the
narrow doorway.
“Hardly Ritzy,” she commented.
“Not to look at,” Barry admitted. “But the wine is _bon_; so are the
liqueurs.”
“Ah, well,” his aunt mused, “sin leads our footsteps into strange
bypaths.”
They went in. Barry had reserved a table to which a very gentlemanly
Irishman conducted them.
“Haven’t my friends arrived, Pat?” Barry inquired.
“No, Mr. Cumberland. But you are a shade early.”
Barry glanced at his watch and then at the clock.
“You are right,” he agreed. “What about two special cocktails?”
“Precisely,” his aunt inquired, ignoring all offers of assistance and
throwing her cavalry cloak across the back of a chair--“precisely what
is a ‘special cocktail’?”
“It is clearly indicated to-night,” Barry assured her.
“Then let it be brought,” said Aunt Micky.
The cocktails had just been served and Barry was studying the menu
when Jim appeared in the open doorway, staring from table to table in
quest of his party. Beside him stood a pretty girl wearing a very
modern dance frock, a fragment of silvery gauze. Barry stood up,
waving, and Aunt Micky shaded her eyes with her hand, a mannerism
indicating disapproval. She drew a deep breath as the new arrivals
approached, Jack Lorrimer observed of many observers.
“H’m,” she murmured--“silver currency coming in again. Young Lorrimer
has a dollar in front, a dollar behind and no change. Barry, the
girl’s nude!”
“Shut up, Micky!” said her embarrassed nephew. “Hello, Jack! Hello,
Jim! They are bringing your cocktails.”
When everyone was seated, Aunt Micky shaded her eyes again, surveying
Jack from shingled nut-brown hair downward to the table edge.
“Are you liking my frock,” the girl asked, “or hating it?”
“Neither,” was the reply. “I am looking for it.”
Jim applauded softly, and Jack turned to Barry for sympathy, leaning
forward so that two curly heads were very close together.
“Do _you_ see anything wrong with me?” she pleaded.
Jim watched in tragic disapproval, then rested his hand upon Aunt
Micky’s shoulder.
“Look at them!” he said--“admired, self-satisfied--pink and white.
Micky, we brunettes must hang together!”
The dinner turned out a great success.
Aunt Micky followed a routine on these occasions: drinking red wine
because of its pleasing resemblance to blood, eating a prodigious
quantity of celery, taking the blue-plate item in the menu regardless
of its constitution, and winding up with rum omelette in flames,
because it was “so hellish.”
The notorious play bored her.
“I am going home to read in bed,” she declared, as they waited outside
the theatre for the car. “I shall read _The Sorrows of Satan_, by
Marie Corelli.”
They dropped her at the Cumberland town house, an old-fashioned
mansion in one of those sections of the big city where a few historic
families still linger. A tired-looking person was smoking a slightly
used cigar and supporting the iron post which decorated a neighbouring
corner. As the door closed and Barry came down to reënter the car,
the weary man saluted him.
“Bloated capitalist,” Jim murmured; “living in constant terror of the
honest but starving burglar. Your wretched treasures guarded night and
day by detectives----”
“Yes,” said Barry, laughing, and directing Hemingway through the tube.
“It seems funny to me. Because I can’t imagine the most hard-working
burglar staggering away with a couple of hundred-weights of granite
sphinx on his back.”
“I much prefer the detective’s life,” Jim continued irrepressibly.
“The detective’s life is the life for me. ‘All forms of shadowing
undertaken. Divorce and blackmail our specialties. Order your armed
guards by telephone. One to five thousand--in uniform--at a moment’s
notice. Our watchword: Shoot to Kill. Telegraphic address: Confidence,
New York’----”
“For the love of Mike,” Jack implored, “be quiet for five minutes!”
The car threaded its way through Fifth Avenue, and, at the very moment
of its turning into that thoroughfare sacred to prohibitive prices, a
traffic signal checked them. A French limousine shot past ahead, its
occupants clearly visible. They were two; and as the man was seated on
the off-side, Barry had never a glimpse of his features. But the girl
wore a curious black veil, of a fashion neither Oriental nor Spanish.
She had apparently just raised it, but dropped it again swiftly on
seeing another car so near. Yet she failed to veil quickly enough to
prevent Barry obtaining a glimpse of her face. He uttered a loud cry.
To the astonishment of his friends--even Jim was silenced--he wrenched
open the door and leaped out into the street!
He ran three or four paces and stood there like a madman, right in the
traffic fairway, glaring after the retreating car! Its number was
indistinguishable. He turned, staring back at Hemingway, who was
regarding him with deep concern.
“Am I really going mad?” he muttered.
The girl in the car was the girl of the balcony!
CHAPTER VI.
DANBAZZAR
The abstracted mood of Barry during the remainder of the evening was
too noticeable to pass without comment. His dance partner, Naomi, a
girl friend of Jack’s grew very petulant, until Jack was really sorry
for her. This wouldn’t have mattered, but Jack showed it. Whereupon
Naomi became furious.
Barry knew that he would not lack successors, however, for a lot of
their crowd were there, and Naomi was what Jim termed “a star looker.”
Accordingly he excused himself early on some imaginary pretext and
started for home. He had let Hemingway go, and he taxied back. He
longed for the solitude of his own room--for reflection.
He wanted to argue this thing out with himself once and for all. He
wanted to know if he had been purposely mystified by the occupants of
the hillside house, or whether he was succumbing to a delusion. This
he must determine, for his highly sensitive nature demanded it. The
family physician had warned him that the blow to his skull had been a
severe one, and that he must on no account overtax his brain for at
least a year to come. Somewhat belatedly he began to take this warning
to heart.
Had it been a covert intimation that he was threatened with insanity?
The detective on duty at the corner saluted him again as he discharged
the taxi. Jim Sakers’s words returned to his mind while he fumbled for
a key. He remembered too that his father had advocated a long vacation
abroad.
What did this mean? Should he regard it as confirming his worst
theories? Or did his father suspect that there was some deep plot
afoot? Reared from childhood in an atmosphere of luxury, he had never
hitherto appreciated, in all its significance, the fact that he was
the son of a millionaire.
As he was passing the library he heard voices; one of them
unmistakable, the other deep, resonant--equally unfamiliar.
John Cumberland as a rule retired early, and Barry paused, wondering
whom this late visitor might be. Curious, he rapped and opened the
door.
He looked down the long rectangular room. The Cumberland library was
one of the acknowledged “sights” of New York, but to Barry it was a
commonplace. It was lined with relics of that wonderful civilization
which flourished under the Pharaohs. Its very atmosphere was
reminiscent of the Nile land, of the indescribable smell of Egypt.
His father was seated in the big armchair, looking up at a wall
painting from Medinet Habu. Facing him, and seated on a corner of the
library table--a favourite perch of Barry’s--was a man of arresting
appearance.
He was in dinner kit, but in lieu of the more regular black bow
displayed a stock. His hair, brushed back from a fine brow, was
silver-gray; his head leonine; the pale chiselled features were of
Moorish severity. He wore a short moustache and a small tuft beneath
his lower lip, of that kind once known as an imperial. He was built
massively, imposingly. His eyes, which at Barry’s entrance had turned
in the direction of the door, were light brown and, in their piercing
regard, resembled the eyes of an animal. He stood up, revealing his
height, which Barry estimated to be more than six feet.
“Hello, Barry!” said John Cumberland. “Glad you looked in. I should
like you to meet Mr. Danbazzar.”
Danbazzar raised his hand in a slow, majestic movement, and:
“I am delighted to meet Mr. Barry Cumberland,” he replied, and his
voice possessed a deep organ note. “But you forget, Mr.
Cumberland”--turning to the elder man--“that I lay no claim to the
title of Mister. I am Danbazzar; neither Danbazzar Esquire, Sir
Danbazzar, nor Lord Danbazzar; merely Danbazzar.”
He came forward, extending his hand.
“Mr. Barry Cumberland, I hope you and I will be friends, as your
father and I have been for many years.”
Half attracted, half repelled, Barry took the extended hand--and
experienced a mighty grip, which greatly reassured him. He smiled.
“You can be sure of it, Mr.--I beg your pardon--Danbazzar,” he
returned. “I heard voices. That was why I came in.”
Danbazzar inclined his head graciously and placed a chair.
“Perhaps you would like to sit here?” he said. “We are discussing a
matter upon which I think your father would welcome your views.”
Barry sat down, and:
“Is that so, Dad?” he asked. “What’s the big argument?”
“There’s no argument, Barry,” was the reply; “there isn’t room for
any. It’s a proposition, and it’s up to me to say Yes or No.”
“Precisely,” Danbazzar murmured; and resumed his seat upon the corner
of the library table.
He had an odd trick of tensing and then relaxing his lips. He did it
now, looking from the older to the younger man. Then, from a box upon
the table, he selected a cigarette, lighted it, and reflectively blew
a puff of smoke toward the dancers and other ladies of Pharaoh’s
golden court displayed upon the wall above him.
Barry, his mind full of his own affairs, settled down rather
reluctantly to listen.
“I am afraid this is going to be right over my head,” he confessed.
“But it’s bound to be interesting, so fire away. What is it all
about?”