The Silent Barrier
for which he had provided the audience, the American grabbed the hall
porter.
"Say," he said, "do you know that gentleman?"
"Yes, sir. That is Mr. Mark Bower."
Spencer beamed on the man as though he had just discovered that Mr.
Mark Bower was his dearest friend.
"Well, now, if that isn't the queerest thing!" he said. "Is that Mark?
He's just gone round to the Wellington Theater, I guess. How far is it
from here?"
"Not a hundred yards, sir."
Off went Spencer, without his hat. He had intended to follow in a cab,
but a sprint would be more effective over such a short distance. He
crossed the Strand without heed to the traffic, turned to the right,
and, to use his own phrase, "butted into a policeman" at the first
corner.
"I'm on the hunt for the Wellington Theater," he explained.
"You needn't hunt much farther," said the constable good humoredly.
"There it is, a little way up on the left."
At that instant Spencer saw Bower raise his hat to the two women. They
hurried inside the theater, and their escort turned to reenter his
motor. The American had learned what he wanted to know. Miss Jaques
had shaken off her presumed admirer, and Miss Wynton had aided and
abetted her in the deed.
"You don't say!" he exclaimed, gazing at the building admiringly.
"It looks new. In fact the whole street has a kind of San
Francisco-after-the-fire appearance."
"That's right, sir. It's not so long since some of the worst slums in
London were pulled down to make way for it."
"It's fine; but I'm rather stuck on antiquities. I've seen plenty of
last year's palaces on the other side. Have a drink, will you, when
time's up?"
The policeman glanced surreptitiously at the half-crown which Spencer
insinuated into his palm, and looked after the donor as he went back
to the hotel.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" he said to himself. "I've often heard tell of
the way some Americans see London; but I never came across a chap who
rushed up in his bare head and took a squint at any place in that
fashion. He seemed to have his wits about him too; but there must be a
screw loose somewhere."
And indeed Charles K. Spencer, had he paused to take stock of his
behavior, must have admitted that it was, to say the least, erratic.
But his imagination was fired; his sympathies were all a-quiver with
the thought that it lay within his power to share with a kin soul some
small part of the good fortune that had fallen to his lot of late.
"Wants a fairy godmother, does she?" he asked himself, and the quiet
humor that gleamed in his face caused more than one passerby to turn
and watch him as he strode along the pavement. "Well, I guess I'll
play a character not hitherto heard of in the legitimate drama. What
price the fairy godfather? I've a picture of myself in that role. Oh,
my! See me twirl that wand! Helen, you shall climb those rocks. But I
don't like your friend. I sha'n't send you to Champery. No--Champery's
off the map for you."
CHAPTER II
THE FULFILLMENT OF THE WISH
Explanations of motive are apt to become tedious. They are generally
inaccurate too; for who can reduce a fantasy to a formula? Nor should
they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who
bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a
lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest
prank would be faulty in the extreme.
In all London at that moment there was not a more level headed man of
his years. He was twenty-eight, an expert mining engineer, and the
successful pioneer of a new method of hauling ore. Even in Western
America, "God's own country," as it is held to be by those who live
there, few men "arrive" so early in life. Some, it is true, amass
wealth by lucky speculation before they are fitted by experience to
earn the price of a suit of clothes. But they are of the freak order.
They are not to be classed with one who by hard work wrests a fortune
out of the grim Colorado granite. Spencer had been called on to endure
long years of rebuff and scorn. Though scoffed at by many who thought
he was wrong, he persisted because he knew he was right.
Ofttimes Fate will test such a man almost to breaking point. Then she
yields, and, being feminine, her obduracy is the measure of her
favors, for she will bestow on her dogged suitor all, and more than
all, that he desired.
The draft from Leadville, crammed so carelessly into a pocket when he
followed the three to the door, was a fair instance of this trick of
hers. A tunnel, projected and constructed in the teeth of ridicule
and financial opposition, had linked up the underground workings of
several mines, and proved conclusively that it was far cheaper to
bring minerals to the rail in that manner than to sink expensive
shafts, raise the ore to the top of a mountain, and cart it to its old
level in the valley.
Once the thing was indisputable, the young engineer found himself rich
and famous. To increase the feeders of the main bore, he drove another
short gallery through a mining claim acquired for a few dollars,--a
claim deemed worthless owing to a geological fault that traversed its
whole length. That was Fate's opportunity. Doubtless she smiled
mischievously when she gave him a vein of rich quartz through which
to quarry his way. The mere delving of the rock had produced two
thousand dollars' worth of ore, of which sum he took a moiety by
agreement with the company that purchased his rights.
People in Leadville soon discovered that Spencer was a bright
man,--"yes, sir, a citizen of whom the chief mining city of the Rocky
Mountains has every reason to be proud,"--and the railway magnate who
had nearly ruined him by years of hostility buried the past
grandiloquently with a _mot_.
"Charles K. Spencer can't be sidetracked," he said. "That K isn't in
his name by accident. Look at it,--a regular buffer of a letter! Tell
you what, you may monkey with Charles; but when you hit the K look out
for trouble."
Whereupon the miners laughed, and said that the president was a mighty
smart man too, and Spencer, who knew he was a thief, but was unwilling
to quarrel with him for the sake of the company, thought that a six
months' vacation in Europe would make for peace and general content.
He had no plans. He was free to wander whithersoever chance led him.
Arriving in London from Plymouth late on a Thursday evening, he took a
bus-driver's holiday on Friday. Finding a tunnel under the Thames in
full progress near the hotel, he sought the resident engineer, spoke
to him in the lingua franca of the craft, and spent several dangerous
and enjoyable hours in crawling through all manner of uncomfortable
passages bored by human worms beneath the bed of the river.
And this was Saturday, and here he was, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, turning over in his mind the best way of sending on an
expensive trip abroad a girl who had not the remotest notion of his
existence. It was a whim, and a harmless one, and he excused it to his
practical mind by the reflection that he was entitled to one day of
extravagance after seven years of hard labor. For his own part, he was
weary of mountains. He had wrought against one, frowning and stubborn
as any Alp, and had not desisted until he reached its very heart with
a four thousand foot lance. Switzerland was the last place in Europe
he would visit. He wanted to see old cities and dim cathedrals, to
lounge in pleasant lands where rivers murmured past lush meadows.
Though an American born and bred, there was a tradition in his home
that the Spencers were once people of note on the border. When tired
of London, he meant to go north, and ramble through Liddesdale in
search of family records. But the business presently on hand was to
arrange that Swiss excursion for "Helen," and he set about it with
characteristic energy.
In the first instance, he noted her name and address on the back of
the Leadville envelop. Then he sought the manager.
"I guess you know Switzerland pretty well," he said, when a polite man
was produced by a boy.
The assumption was well founded. In fact, the first really important
looking object the manager remembered seeing in this world was the
giant Matterhorn, because his mother told him that if he was a bad boy
he would be carried off by the demons that dwelt on its summit.
"What sort of places are Evian-les-Bains and Champery?" went on
Spencer.
"Evian is a fashionable lakeside town. Champery is in the hills behind
it. When Evian becomes too hot in August, one goes to Champery to cool
down."
"Are they anywhere near the Engadine?"
"Good gracious, no! They are as different as chalk and cheese."
"Is the Engadine the cheese? Does it take the biscuit?"
The manager laughed. Like all Londoners, he regarded every American as
a humorist. "It all depends," he said. "For my part, I think the Upper
Engadine is far and away the most charming section of Switzerland; but
there are ladies of my acquaintance who would unhesitatingly vote for
Evian, and for a score of other places where there are promenades and
casinos. Are you thinking of making a tour there?"
"There's no telling where I may bring up when I cross the Channel,"
said Spencer. "I have heard some talk of the two districts, and it
occurred to me that you were just the man to give me a few useful
pointers."
"Well, the average tourist rushes from one valley to another, tramps
over a pass each morning, and spends the afternoon in a train or on
board a lake steamer. But if I wanted a real rest, and wished at the
same time to be in a center from which pleasant walks, or stiff climbs
for that matter, could be obtained, I should go by the Engadine
Express to St. Moritz, and drive from there to the Maloja-Kulm, where
there is an excellent hotel and usually a number of nice people."
"English?"
"Yes, English and Americans. They select the best as a rule, you
know."
"It sounds attractive," said Spencer.
"And it is, believe me. Don't forget the name, Maloja-Kulm. It is
twelve miles from everywhere, and practically consists of the one big
hotel."
Spencer procured his hat, gloves, and stick, and called a cab. "Take
me to 'The Firefly' office," he said.
"Beg pawdon, sir, but where's that?" asked the driver.
"It's up to you to find out."
"Then w'at is it, guv'nor? I've heerd of the 'Orse an' 'Ound, the
Chicken's Friend, the Cat, an' the Bee; but the Firefly leaves me
thinkin'. Is it a noospaper?"
"Something of the sort."
"All right, sir. Jump in. We'll soon be on its track."
The hansom scampered off to Fleet-st. As the result of inquiries
Spencer was deposited at the entrance to a dingy court, the depths
of which, he was assured, were illumined by "The Firefly." There is
nothing that so mystifies the citizen of the New World as the
hole-and-corner aspect of some of the business establishments of
London. He soon learns, however, to differentiate between the spidery
dens where money is amassed and the soot laden tenements in which the
struggle for existence is keen. A comprehensive glance at the exterior
of the premises occupied by "The Firefly" at once explained to Spencer
why the cabman did not know its whereabouts. Three small rooms
sufficed for its literary and commercial staff, and "To let" notices
stared from several windows in the same building.
"Appearances are deceptive ever," murmured he, as he scanned the
legends on three doors in a narrow lobby; "but I think I'm beginning
to catch on to the limited extent of Miss Helen's earnings from her
scientific paragraphs."
He knocked at each door; but received no answer. Then, having sharp
ears, he tried the handle of one marked "Private." It yielded, and he
entered, to be accosted angrily by a pallid, elderly, bewhiskered man,