Hearts and Masks by Harold MacGrath (best short novels TXT) 📕

evening dress, and I could see that he knew very well how to wear it. All this was but momentary. He took up a revolver and balanced it on his palm.

By and by the proprietor came sidling along behind the cases, the slip-slip fashion of his approach informing me that he wore slippers.

"Do you keep costumes?" I asked.

"Anything you like, sir, from a crusader to a modern gentleman,"-with grim and appropriate irony. "What is it you are in search of-a masquerade costume?'"

"Only a grey mask," I answered. "I am going to a masked ball to-night as a Grey Capuchin, and I want a mask that will match my robe."

"Your wants are simple."

From a shelf he brought down a box, took off the cover, and left me to make my selection. Soon I found what I desired and laid it aside, waiting for Monsieur Friard to return. Again I observed the other customer. There is always a mystery to be solved and a story to be told, when a man makes the purchase of a pistol in a pawnshop. A man who buys a pistol for the sake of protection does so in the light of day, and in the proper place, a gun-shop. He does not haunt the pawnbroker in the dusk of evening. Well, it was none of my business; doubtless he knew what he was doing. I coughed suggestively, and Friard came slipping in my direction again.

"This is what I want. How much?" I inquired.

[Illustration: "This is what I want. How much?" I inquired.]

"Fifty cents; it has never been worn."

I drew out my wallet. I had arrived in town too late to go to the bank, and I was carrying an uncomfortably large sum in gold-bills. As I opened the wallet to extract a small bill, I saw the stranger eying me quietly. Well, well, the dullest being brightens at the sight of money and its representatives. I drew out a small bill and handed it to the proprietor. He took it, together with the mask, and sidled over to the cash-register. The bell gave forth a muffled sound, not unlike that of a fire-bell in a snow-storm. As he was in the act of wrapping up my purchase, I observed the silent customer's approach. When he reached my side he stooped and picked up something from the floor. With a bow he presented it to me.

"I saw it drop from your pocket," he said; and then when he saw what it was, his jaw fell, and he sent me a hot, penetrating glance.

"The ten of hearts!" he exclaimed in amazement.

I laughed easily.

"The ten of hearts!" he repeated.

"Yes; four hearts on one side and four on the other, and two in the middle, which make ten in all,"-raillery in my tones. What the deuce
was the matter with everybody to-night? "Marvelous card, isn't it?"

"Very strange!" he murmured, pulling at his lips.

"And in what way is it strange?" I asked, rather curious to learn the cause of his agitation.

"There are several reasons,"-briefly.

"Ah!"

"I have seen a man's hand pinned to that card; therefore it is gruesome."

"Some card-sharper?"

He nodded. "Then again, I lost a small fortune because of that card,"-diffidently.

"Poker?"

"Yes. Why will a man try to fill a royal flush? The man next to me drew the ten of hearts, the very card I needed. The sight of it always unnerves me. I beg your pardon."

"Oh, that's all right," said I, wondering how many more lies he had up his sleeve.

"And there's still another reason. I saw a man put six bullets into the two central spots, and an hour later the seventh bullet snuffed the candle of a friend of mine. I am from the West."

"I can sympathize with you," I returned. "After all that trouble, the sight of the card must have given you a shock."

Then I stowed away the fatal card and took up my bundle and change. I have in my own time tried to fill royal flushes, and the disappointment still lingers with a bitter taste.

"The element of chance is the most fascinating thing there is," the stranger from the West volunteered.

"So it is," I replied, suddenly recalling that I was soon to put my trust in the hands of that very fickle goddess.

He nodded and returned to his revolvers, while I went out of the shop, hailed a cab, and drove up-town to my apartments in Riverside. It was eight o'clock by my watch. I leaned back against the cushions, ruminating. There seemed to be something going on that night; the ten of hearts was acquiring a mystifying, not to say sinister, aspect. First it had alarmed the girl in Mouquin's, and now this stranger in the curio-shop. I was confident that the latter had lied in regard to his explanations. The card had startled him, but his reasons were altogether of transparent thinness. A man never likes to confess that he is unlucky at cards; there is a certain pride in lying about the enormous stakes you have won and the wonderful draws you have made. I frowned. It was not possible for me to figure out what his interest in the card was. If he was a Westerner, his buying a pistol in a pawnshop was at once disrobed of its mystery; but the inconsistent elegance of his evening clothes doubled my suspicions. Bah! What was the use of troubling myself with this stranger's affairs? He would never cross my path again.

In reasonable time the cab drew up in front of my apartments. I dressed, donned my Capuchin's robe and took a look at myself in the pier-glass. Then I unwrapped the package and put on the mask. The whole made a capital outfit, and I was vastly pleased with myself. This was going to be such an adventure as one reads about in the ancient numbers of Blackwood's . I slipped the robe and mask into my suit-case and lighted my pipe. During great moments like this, a man gathers courage and confidence from a pipeful of tobacco. I dropped into a comfortable Morris, touched the gas-logs, and fell into a pleasant dream. It was not necessary for me to start for the Twenty-third Street ferry till nine; so I had something like three-quarters of an hour to idle away. . . . What beautiful hair that girl had! It was like sunshine, the silk of corn, the yield of the harvest. And the marvelous abundance of it! It was true that she was an artist's model; it was equally true that she had committed a mild impropriety in addressing me as she had; but, for all I could see, she was a girl of delicate breeding, doubtless one of the many whose family fortunes, or misfortunes, force them to earn a living. And it is no disgrace these days to pose as an artist's model. The classic oils, nowadays, call only for exquisite creations in gowns and hats; mythology was exhausted by the old masters. Rome, Paris, London; possibly a bohemian existence in these cities accounted for her ease in striking up a conversation, harmless enough, with a total stranger. In Paris and Rome it was all very well; but it is a risky thing to do in unromantic New York and London. However, her uncle had been with her; a veritable fortress, had I over-stepped the bounds of politeness.

The smoke wavered and rolled about me. I took out the ten of hearts and studied it musingly. After all, should I go? Would it be wise? I confess I saw goblins' heads peering from the spots, and old Poe stories returned to me! Pshaw! It was only a frolic, no serious harm could possibly come of it. I would certainly go, now I had gone thus far. What fool idea the girl was bent on I hadn't the least idea; but I easily recognized the folly upon which I was about to set sail. Heigh-ho! What was a lonely young bachelor to do? At the most, they could only ask me to vacate the premises, should I be so unfortunate as to be discovered. In that event, Teddy Hamilton would come to my assistance. . . . She was really beautiful! And then I awoke to the alarming fact that the girl in Mouquin's was interesting me more than I liked to confess.

Presently, through the haze of smoke, I saw a patch of white paper on the rug in front of the pier-glass. I rose and picked it up.


NAME: Hawthorne
COSTUME: Blue Domino
TIME: 5:30 P. M.
RETURNED:
ADDRESS: West 87th Street

FRIARD'S


I stared at the bit of pasteboard, fascinated. How the deuce had this got into my apartments? A Blue Domino? Ha! I had it! Old Friard had accidentally done up the ticket with my mask. A Blue Domino; evidently I wasn't the only person who was going to a masquerade. Without doubt this fair demoiselle was about to join the festivities of some shop-girls' masquerade, where money and pedigree are inconsequent things, and where everybody is either a "loidy" or a "gent." Persons who went to my kind of masquerade did not rent their costumes; they laid out extravagant sums to the fashionable modiste and tailor, and had them made to order. A Blue Domino: humph!

It was too late to take the ticket back to Friard's; so I determined to mail it to him in the morning.

It was now high time for me to be off. I got into my coat and took down my opera hat. Outside the storm was still active; but the snow had a promising softness, and there were patches of stars to be seen here and there in the sky. By midnight there would be a full moon. I got to Jersey City without mishap; and when I took my seat in the smoker, I found I had ten minutes to spare. I bought a newspaper and settled down to read the day's news. It was fully half an hour between Jersey City and Blankshire; in that time I could begin and finish the paper.

There never was a newspaper those days that hadn't a war-map in some one of its columns; and when I had digested the latest phases of the war in the far East, I quite naturally turned to the sporting-page to learn what was going on among the other professional fighters. (Have I mentioned to you the fact that I was all through the Spanish War, the mix-up in China, and that I had resigned my commission to accept the post of traveling salesman for a famous motor-car company? If I have not, pardon me. You will now readily accept my recklessness of spirit as a matter of course.) I turned over another page; from this