The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold MacGrath (best classic literature TXT) 📕

/> "Blinking jackass! Got anybody out there?"

"All of 'em."

"I get you, old son of a gun! No flesh and blood, but they're ours all the same. Couple of old fools; huh?"

"Sure pop! What right have two old codgers got here, anyhow? What brought you out?"

"What brought you?"

"Same thing."

"Damn it! If I could only see something!"

Cutty put his hands upon the shoulders of this chance acquaintance and propelled him toward the curb. There were cries of protest, curses, catcalls, but Cutty bored on ahead until he got his man where he could see the tin hats, the bayonets, and the colours; and thus they stood for a full hour. Each time the flag went by the little man yanked off his derby and turned truculently to see that Cutty did the same.

"Say," he said as they finally dropped back, "I'd offer to buy a drink, only it sounds flat."

"And it would taste flat after a mighty wine like this," replied Cutty. "Maybe you've heard of the nectar of the gods. Well, you've just drunk it, my friend."

"I sure have. Those kids out there, smiling after all that hell; and you and me on the sidewalk, blubbering over 'em! What's the answer? We're Americans!"

"You said it. Good-bye."

Cutty pressed on to the flow and went along with it, lighter in the heart than he had been in many a day. These two million who lined Fifth Avenue, who cheered, laughed, wept, went silent, cheered again, what did their presence here signify? That America's day had come; that as a people they were homogeneous at last; that that which laws had failed to bring forth had been accomplished by an ideal.

Bolshevism, socialism - call it what you will - would beat itself into fragments against this Rock of Democracy, which went down to the centre of the world and whose pinnacle touched the stars. Reincarnation; the simple ideals of the forefathers restored. And with this knowledge tingling in his thoughts - and perhaps there was a bit of spring in his heart - Cutty continued on, without destination, chin jutting, eyes shining. He was an American!

He might have continued on indefinitely had he not seen obliquely a window filled with musical instruments.

Hawksley's fiddle! He had all but forgotten. All right. If the poor beggar wanted to scrape a fiddle, scrape it he should. The least he, Cutty, could do would be to accede to any and every whim Hawksley expressed. Wasn't he planning to rob the beggar of the drums, happen they ever turned up? But how the deuce to pick out a fiddle which would have a tune in it? Of all the hypercritical duffers the fiddler was the worst. Beside a fiddler of the first rank the rich old maid with the poodle was a hail fellow well met.

Of course Gregor had taught the chap. That meant he would know instantly; just as his host would instantly observe the difference between green glass and green beryl.

Cutty turned into the shop, infinitely amused. Fiddles! What next? Having constituted a guardianship over Kitty, he was now playing impressario to Hawksley. As if he hadn't enough parts to play! Wouldn't he be risking his life to-night trying to find where Stefani Gregor was? Fiddles! Fiddles and emeralds! What a choice old hypocrite he was!

Fate has a way of telling you all about it - afterward; conceivably, that humanity might continue to reproduce its species. Otherwise humanity would proceed to extinguish itself forthwith. Thus, Cutty was totally unaware upon entering the shop that he was about to tear off its hinges the door he was so carefully bolting and latching and padlocking between Kitty Conover and this duffer who wanted to fiddle his way through convalescence.

Where there is fiddling there is generally dancing. If it be not the feet, then it will be the soul.


CHAPTER XVIII


There are some men who know a little about all things and a great deal about many. Such a man was Cutty. But as he approached the counter behind which stood an expectant clerk he felt for once that he was in a far country. There were fiddles and fiddles, just as there were emeralds and emeralds. Never again would he laugh over the story of the man who thought Botticelli was a manufacturer of spool thread. He attacked the problem, however, like the thoroughbred he was - frankly.

"I want to buy a violin," he began, knowing that in polite musical circles the word fiddle was taboo. "I know absolutely nothing at all about quality or price. Understand, though, while you might be able to fool me, you wouldn't fool the man I'm buying it for. Now what would you suggest?"

The clerk - a salesman familiar with certain urban types, thinly including the Fifth Avenue, which came in for talking-machine records - recognized in this well-dressed, attractive elderly man that which he designated the swell. Hateful word, yes, but having a perfectly legitimate niche, since in the minds of the hoi polloi it nicely describes the differences between the poor gentleman and the gentleman of leisure. To proceed with the digression, to no one is the word more hateful than to the individual to whom it is applied. Cutty would have blushed at the clerk's thought.

"Perhaps I'd better get the proprietor," was the clerk's suggestion.

"Good idea," Cutty agreed. "Take my card along with you." This was a Fifth Avenue shop, and Cutty knew there would be a Who's Who or a Bradstreet somewhere about.

In the interim he inspected the case-lined walls. Trombones. He chuckled. Lucky that Hawksley's talent didn't extend in this direction. True, he himself collected drums, but he did not play them. Something odd about music; human beings had to have it, the very lowest in the scale. A universal magic. He was himself very fond of good music; but these days he fought shy of it; it had the faculty of sweeping him back into the twenties and reincarnating vanished dreams.

After a certain length of time, from the corner of his eye he saw the clerk returning with the proprietor, the latter wearing an amiable smile, which probably connoted a delving into the aforesaid volumes of attainment and worth. Cutty hoped this was so, as it would obviate the necessity of going into details as to who he was and what he had.

"Your name is familiar to me," began the proprietor. "You collect antique drums. My clerk tells me that you wish to purchase a good violin."

"Very good. I have in my apartment rather a distinguished guest who plays the violin for his own amusement. He is ill and cannot select for himself. Now I know a little about music but nothing about violins."

"I suggest that I personally carry half a dozen instruments to your apartment and let your guest try them. How much is he willing to pay?"

"Top price, I should say. Shall I make a deposit?"

"If you don't mind. Merely precautionary. Half a dozen violins will represent quite a sum of money; and taxicabs are unreliable animals. A thousand against accidents. What time shall I call?" The proprietor's curiosity was stirred. Musical celebrities, as he had occasion to know, were always popping up in queer places. Some new star probably, whose violin had been broken and who did not care to appear in public before the hour of his debut.

"Three o'clock," said Cutty.

"Very well, sir. I promise to bring the violins myself."

Cutty wrote out his check for a thousand and departed, the chuckle still going on inside of him. Versatile old codger, wasn't he?

Promptly at three the dealer arrived, his arms and his hands gripping violin cases. Cutty hurried to his assistance, accepted a part of the load, and beckoned to the man to follow him. The cases were placed on the floor, and the dealer opened them, putting the rosin on a single bow.

Hawksley, a fresh bandage on his head, his shoulders propped by pillows, eyed the initial manoeuvres with frank amusement.

"I say, you know, would you mind tuning them for me? I'm not top hole."

The dealer's eyebrows went up. An Englishman? Bewildered, he bent to the trifling labour of tuning the violins. Hawksley rejected the first two instruments after thrumming the strings with his thumb. He struck up a melody on the third but did not finish it.

"My word! If you have a violin there why not let me have it at once?"

The dealer flushed. "Try this, sir. But I do not promise you that I shall sell it."

"Ah!" Hawksley stretched out his hands to receive the instrument.

Of course Cutty had heard of Amati and Stradivari, master and pupil. He knew that all famous violinists possessed instruments of these schools, and that such violins were practically beyond the reach of many. Only through some great artist's death or misfortune did a fine violin return to the marts. But the rejected fiddles had sounded musically enough for him and looked as if they were well up in the society of select fiddles. The fiddle Hawksley now held in his hands was dull, almost black. The maple neck was worn to a shabby gray and the varnish had been sweated off the chin rest.

Hawksley laid his fingers on the strings and drew the bow with a powerful flourishing sweep. The rich, sonorous tones vibrated after the bow had passed. Then followed the tricks by which an artist seeks to discover flaws or wolf notes. A beatific expression settled upon Hawksley face. He nestled the violin comfortably under his chin and began to play softly. Cutty, the nurse, and the dealer became images.

Minors; a bit of a dance; more minors; nothing really begun, nothing really finished - sketches, with a melancholy note running through them all. While that pouring into his ears enchained his body it stirred recollections in Cutty's mind: The fair at Novgorod; the fiddling mountebanks; Russian.

Perhaps the dealer's astonishment was greatest. An Englishman! Who ever heard of an Englishman playing a violin like that?

"I will buy it," said Hawksley, sinking back.

"Sir," began the dealer, "I am horribly embarrassed. I cannot sell that violin because it isn't mine. It is an Amati worth ten thousand dollars."

"I will give you twelve."

"But, sir - "

"Name a price," interrupted Hawksley, rather imperiously. "I want it."

Cutty understood that he was witnessing a flash of the ancient blood. To want anything was to have it.

"I repeat, sir, I cannot sell it. It belongs to a Hungarian who is now in Hungary. I loaned him fifteen hundred and took the Amati as security. Until I learn if he is dead I cannot dispose of the violin. I am sorry. But because you are a real artist, sir, I will loan it to you if you will make a deposit of ten thousand