The Place of Honeymoons
the Italian embassy in Berlin. Sunday noon Mademoiselle Fournier had
notified the authorities. She did not know, but she felt sure that the
blond stranger knew more than any one else. And here was the end of
things. The police found themselves at a standstill. They searched the
hotels but without success; the blond stranger could not be found.
Abbott's eyes were not happy and pleasant just now. They were dull and
blank with the reaction of the stunning blow. He, too, was certain of the
Barone. Much as he secretly hated the Italian, he knew him to be a
fearless and an honorable man. But who could this blond stranger be who
appeared so sinisterly in the two scenes? From where had he come? Why had
Nora refused to explain about the pistol-shot? Any woman had a perfect
right to shoot a man who forced his way into her apartment. Was he one of
those mad fools who had fallen in love with her, and had become desperate?
Or was it some one she knew and against whom she did not wish to bring any
charges? Abducted! And she might be, at this very moment, suffering all
sorts of indignities. It was horrible to be so helpless.
The sparkle of the sunlight upon the ferrule of a cane, extending over his
shoulder, broke in on his agonizing thoughts. He turned, an angry word on
the tip of his tongue. He expected to see some tourist who wanted to be
informed.
"Ted Courtlandt!" He jumped up, overturning the stool. "And where the
dickens did you come from? I thought you were in the Orient?"
"Just got back, Abby."
The two shook hands and eyed each other with the appraising scrutiny of
friends of long standing.
"You don't change any," said Abbott.
"Nor do you. I've been standing behind you fully two minutes. What were
you glooming about? Old Silenus offend you?"
"Have you read the _Herald_ this morning?"
"I never read it nowadays. They are always giving me a roast of some kind.
Whatever I do they are bound to misconstrue it." Courtlandt stooped and
righted the stool, but sat down on the grass, his feet in the path.
"What's the trouble? Have they been after you?"
Abbott rescued the offending paper and shaking it under his friend's nose,
said: "Read that."
Courtlandt's eyes widened considerably as they absorbed the significance
of the heading--"Eleonora da Toscana missing."
"Bah!" he exclaimed.
"You say bah?"
"It looks like one of their advertising dodges. I know something about
singers," Courtlandt added. "I engineered a musical comedy once."
"You do not know anything about her," cried Abbott hotly.
"That's true enough." Courtlandt finished the article, folded the paper
and returned it, and began digging in the path with his cane.
"But what I want to know is, who the devil is this mysterious blond
stranger?" Abbott flourished the paper again. "I tell you, it's no
advertising dodge. She's been abducted. The hound!"
Courtlandt ceased boring into the earth. "The story says that she refused
to explain this blond chap's presence in her room. What do you make of
that?"
"Perhaps you think the fellow was her press-agent?" was the retort.
"Lord, no! But it proves that she knew him, that she did not want the
police to find him. At least, not at that moment. Who's the Italian?"
suddenly.
"I can vouch for him. He is a gentleman, honorable as the day is long,
even if he is hot-headed at times. Count him out of it. It's this unknown,
I tell you. Revenge for some imagined slight. It's as plain as the nose on
your face."
"How long have you known her?" asked Courtlandt presently.
"About two years. She's the gem of the whole lot. Gentle, kindly,
untouched by flattery.... Why, you must have seen and heard her!"
"I have." Courtlandt stared into the hole he had dug. "Voice like an
angel's, with a face like Bellini's donna; and Irish all over. But for all
that, you will find that her disappearance will turn out to be a diva's
whim. Hang it, Suds, I've had some experience with singers."
"You are a blockhead!" exploded the younger man.
"All right, I am." Courtlandt laughed.
"Man, she wrote me that she would sing Monday and to-night, and wanted me
to hear her. I couldn't get here in time for _La Boheme_, but I was
building on _Faust_. And when she says a thing, she means it. As you said,
she's Irish."
"And I'm Dutch."
"And the stubbornest Dutchman I ever met. Why don't you go home and settle
down and marry?--and keep that phiz of yours out of the newspapers?
Sometimes I think you're as crazy as a bug."
"An opinion shared by many. Maybe I am. I dash in where lunatics fear to
tread. Come on over to the Soufflet and have a drink with me."
"I'm not drinking to-day," tersely. "There's too much ahead for me to
do."
"Going to start out to find her? Oh, Sir Galahad!" ironically. "Abby, you
used to be a sport. I'll wager a hundred against a bottle of pop that
to-morrow or next day she'll turn up serenely, with the statement that she
was indisposed, sorry not to have notified the directors, and all that.
They do it repeatedly every season."
"But an errand of mercy, the strange automobile which can not be found?
The engagement to dine with the Barone? Celeste Fournier's statement? You
can't get around these things. I tell you, Nora isn't that kind. She's too
big in heart and mind to stoop to any such devices," vehemently.
"Nora! That looks pretty serious, Abby. You haven't gone and made a fool
of yourself, have you?"
"What do you call making a fool of myself?" truculently.
"You aren't a suitor, are you? An accepted suitor?" unruffled, rather
kindly.
"No, but I would to heaven that I were!" Abbott jammed the newspaper into
his pocket and slung the stool over his arm. "Come on over to the studio
until I get some money."
"You are really going to start a search?"
"I really am. I'd start one just as quickly for you, if I heard that you
had vanished under mysterious circumstances."
"I believe you honestly would."
"You are an old misanthrope. I hope some woman puts the hook into you some
day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky princesses give
you the go-by?"
"You, too, Abby?"
"Oh, rot! Of course I never believed any of that twaddle. Only, I've got a
sore head to-day. If you knew Nora as well as I do, you'd understand."
Courtlandt walked on a little ahead of the artist, who looked up and down
the athletic form, admiringly. Sometimes he loved the man, sometimes he
hated him. He marched through tragedy and comedy and thrilling adventure
with no more concern that he evinced in striding through these gardens.
Nearly every one had heard of his exploits; but who among them knew
anything of the real man, so adroitly hidden under unruffled externals?
That there was a man he did not know, hiding deep down within those
powerful shoulders, he had not the least doubt. He himself possessed the
quick mobile temperament of the artist, and he could penetrate but not
understand the poise assumed with such careless ease by his friend. Dutch
blood had something to do with it, and there was breeding, but there was
something more than these: he was a reversion, perhaps, to the type of man
which had made the rovers of the Lowlands feared on land and sea, now
hemmed in by convention, hampered by the barriers of progress, and
striving futilely to find an outlet for his peculiar energies. One bit of
knowledge gratified him; he stood nearer to Courtlandt than any other man.
He had known the adventurer as a boy, and long separations had in nowise
impaired the foundations of this friendship.
Courtlandt continued toward the exit, his head forward, his gaze bent on
the path. He had the air of a man deep in thought, philosophic thought,
which leaves the brows unmarred by those corrugations known as frowns. Yet
his thoughts were far from philosophic. Indeed, his soul was in mad
turmoil. He could have thrown his arms toward the blue sky and cursed
aloud the fates that had set this new tangle at his feet. He longed for
the jungles and some mad beast to vent his wrath upon. But he gave no
sign. He had returned with a purpose as hard and grim as iron; and no
obstacle, less powerful than death, should divert or control him.
Abduction? Let the public believe what it might; he held the key to the
mystery. She was afraid, and had taken flight. So be it.
"I say, Ted," called out the artist, "what did you mean by saying that you
were a Dutchman?"
Courtlandt paused so that Abbott might catch up to him. "I said that I was
a Dutchman?"
"Yes. And it has just occurred to me that you meant something."
"Oh, yes. You were talking of Da Toscana? Let's call her Harrigan. It will
save time, and no one will know to whom we refer. You said she was Irish,
and that when she said a thing she meant it. My boy, the Irish are
notorious for claiming that. They often say it before they see clearly.
Now, we Dutchmen,--it takes a long time for us to make up our minds, but
when we do, something has got to bend or break."
"You don't mean to say that you are going to settle down and get
married?"
"I'm not going to settle down and get married, if that will ease your mind
any."
"Man, I was hoping!"
"Three meals a day in the same house, with the same woman, never appealed
to me."
"What do you want, one for each meal?"
"There's the dusky princess peeking out again. The truth is, Abby, if I
could hide myself for three or four years, long enough for people to
forget me, I might reconsider. But it should be under another name. They
envy us millionaires. Why, we are the lonesomest duffers going. We
distrust every one; we fly when a woman approaches; we become monomaniacs;
one thing obsesses us, everybody is after our money. We want friends, we
want wives, but we want them to be attracted to us and not to our
money-bags. Oh, pshaw! What plans have you made in regard to the search?"
Gloom settled upon the artist's face. "I've got to find out what's
happened to her, Ted. This isn't any play. Why, she loves the part of
Marguerite as she loves nothing else. She's been kidnaped, and only God
knows for what reason. It has knocked me silly. I just came up from Como,
where she spends the summers now. I was going to take her and Fournier out
to dinner."
"Who's Fournier?"
"Mademoiselle Fournier, the composer. She goes with Nora on the yearly
concert tours."
"Pretty?"
"Charming."
"I see," thoughtfully. "What part of the lake; the Villa d'Este,
Cadenabbia?"
"Bellaggio. Oh, it was ripping last summer. She's always singing when
she's happy. When she sings out on the terrace, suddenly, without giving
any one warning, her voice is wonderful. No audience ever heard anything
like it."
"I heard her Friday night. I dropped in at the Opera without knowing what
they were singing. I admit all you say in regard to her voice and looks;
but I stick to the whim."
"But you can't fake that chap with the blond mustache," retorted Abbott
grimly. "Lord, I wish I had run into you any day but to-day. I'm all in. I
can telephone to the Opera from the studio, and then we shall know for a
certainty whether or not she will return for the performance to-night. If
not, then I'm going in for a little detective work."
"Abby, it will turn out to be the sheep of Little Bo-Peep."
"Have your own way about it."
When they arrived at the studio Abbott telephoned promptly. Nothing had
been heard. They were substituting another singer.
"Call up the _Herald_," suggested Courtlandt.
Abbott did so. And he had to answer innumerable questions, questions which
worked him into a fine rage: who was he, where did he live, what did he
know, how long had he been in Paris, and could he prove that he had
arrived that morning? Abbott wanted to fling the receiver into the mouth