The Dark Star by Robert W. Chambers (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

Through the crowded Paris terminal Neeland pushed his way, carrying the olive-wood box in his hand and keeping an eye on his porter, who preceded him carrying the remainder of his luggage and repeating:

“Place, s’il vous plaît, m’sieu’, dames!”

To Neeland it was like a homecoming after many years’ exile; the subtle but perfectly specific odour of Paris assailed his nostrils once again; the rapid, emphatic, lively language of France sounded once more delightfully in his eager ears; vivacity and intelligence sparkled in every eye that met his own. It was a throng of rapid movement, of animated speech, of gesticulation. And, as it was in the beginning when he first arrived there as a student, he fell in love with it at first sight and contact.

All around him moved porters, passengers, railroad officials; the red képis of soldiers dotted the crowd; a priest or two in shovel hat and buckled shoes, a Sister of Charity from the Rue de Bac lent graver accents to the throng; and everywhere were the pretty bourgeois women of the capital gathered to welcome relatives or friends, or themselves starting on some brief summer voyage so dear to those who seldom find it in their hearts to leave Paris for longer than a fortnight at a time.

As he pressed onward he witnessed characteristic reunions between voyagers and friends who awaited 281 them—animated, cordial, gay scenes complicated by many embraces on both cheeks.

And, of a sudden, he noticed the prettiest girl he had ever seen in his life. She was in white, with a black straw hat, and her face and figure were lovely beyond words. Evidently she was awaiting friends; there was a charming expectancy on her fresh young face, a slight forward inclination of her body, as though expectancy and happy impatience alone controlled her.

Her beauty almost took his breath away.

“Lord!” he thought to himself. “If such a girl as that ever stood waiting for me––”

At the same moment her golden-grey eyes, sweeping the passing crowd, met his; a sharp thrill of amazement passed through him as she held out both gloved hands with a soft exclamation of recognition:

“Jim! Jim Neeland!”

“Rue Carew!” He could scarcely credit his eyesight, where he stood, hat in hand, holding both her little hands in one of his.

No, there was no use in trying to disguise his astonishment. He looked into the face of this tall young girl, searched it for familiar features, recognised a lovely paraphrase of the freckled face and thin figure he remembered, and remained dumb before this radiant reincarnation of that other unhappy, shabby, and meagre child he had known two years ago.

Ruhannah, laughing and flushed, withdrew her hands.

“Have I changed? You haven’t. And I always thought you the most wonderful and ornamental young man on this planet. I knew you at once, Jim Neeland. Would you have passed without recognising me?”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t have passed after seeing you––” 282

“Jim Neeland! What a remark!” She laughed. “Anyway, it’s nice to believe myself attractive enough to be noticed. And I’m so glad to see you. Naïa is here, somewhere, watching for you”—turning her pretty, eager head to search for the Princess Mistchenka. “Oh, there she is! She doesn’t see us––”

They made their way between the passing ranks of passengers and porters; the Princess caught sight of them, came hastily toward them.

“Jim! It’s nice to see you. Thank you for coming! So you, found him, Rue? How are you, Jim? And where is the olive-wood box?”

“I’m well, and there’s that devilish box!” he replied, laughing and lifting it in his hand to exhibit it. “Naïa, the next time you want it, send an escort of artillery and two battleships!”

“Did you have trouble?”

“Trouble? I had the time of my life. No moving picture can ever again excite me; no best seller. I’ve been both since I had your cable to get this box and bring it to you.”

He laughed as he spoke, but the Princess continued to regard him very seriously, and Rue Carew’s smile came and waned like sunlight in a wood, for she was not quite sure whether he had really encountered any dangers on this mission which he had fulfilled so well.

“Our car is waiting outside,” said the Princess. “Where is your porter, Jim?”

Neeland glanced about him, discovered the porter, made a sign for him to follow, and they moved together toward the entrance to the huge terminal.

“I haven’t decided where to stop yet,” began Neeland, but the Princess checked him with a pretty gesture:

“You stop with us, Jim.” 283

“Thank you so much, but––”

“Please. Must I beg of you?”

“Do you really wish it?”

“Certainly,” she replied absently, glancing about her. She added: “I don’t see my car. I don’t see my footman. I told him to wait here. Rue, do you see him anywhere?”

“No, I don’t,” said the girl.

“How annoying!” said the Princess. “He’s a new man. My own footman was set upon and almost killed by Apaches a week ago. So I had to find a substitute. How stupid of him! Where on earth can he be waiting?”

They traversed the court of the terminal. Many automobiles were parked there or just leaving; liveried footmen stood awaiting masters and mistresses; but nowhere was the car of the Princess Mistchenka in sight.

They stood there, Neeland’s porter behind with his suitcase and luggage, not knowing whether to wait longer or summon a taxicab.

“I don’t understand,” repeated the Princess impatiently. “I explained very carefully what I desired. That new groom is stupid. Caron, my chauffeur, would never have made a mistake unless that idiot groom misunderstood his instructions.”

“Let me go and make some inquiries,” said Neeland. “Do you mind waiting here? I’ll not be long––”

He went off, carrying the olive-wood box, which his grasp never quitted now; and presently the Princess and Ruhannah saw him disappear among the ranks of automobiles and cabs.

“I don’t like it, Rue,” repeated the Princess in a low voice. “I neither understand nor relish this situation.” 284

“Have you any idea––”

“Hush, child! I don’t know. That new groom, Verdier, was recommended by the Russian Embassy. I don’t know what to think of this.”

“It can’t be anything—queer, can it, dear?” asked Rue.

“Anything can have happened. Nothing is likely to have occurred, however—unless—unless those Apaches were––”

“Naïa!”

“It’s possible, I suppose. They may have attacked Picard as part of a conspiracy. The Russian Embassy may have been deceived in Verdier. All this may be part of a plan. But—I scarcely believe it.... All the same, I dislike to take a taxicab––”

She caught sight of Neeland returning; both women moved forward to meet him.

“I’ve solved the mystery,” he said. “Naïa, your car was run into outside the station a few minutes after you left it. And I’m sorry to say that your chauffeur was badly enough hurt to require an ambulance.”

“Where on earth did you learn that?”

“The official at the taxicab control told me. I went to him because that is where one is likely to receive information.”

“Caron hurt!” murmured the Princess. “What a shame! Where did they take him, Jim?”

“To the Charité.”

“I’ll go this afternoon. But where is that imbecile groom of mine?”

“It appears that he and a policeman went to a garage on the repair truck that took your car.”

“Was he arrested?”

“I believe so.” 285

“What a contretemps!” exclaimed the Princess Mistchenka. “We shall have to take a taxicab after all!”

“I’ve ordered one from the control. There it comes now,” said Neeland, as a brand new taxicab, which looked like a private car, drew up at the curb, and a smiling and very spick and span chauffeur saluted.

Neeland’s porter hoisted trunk and suitcase on top; the Princess stepped into the limousine, followed by Rue and Neeland; the chauffeur took the order, started his car, wheeled out into the square, circled the traffic policeman, and whizzed away into the depths of the most beautiful city in the world.

Neeland, seated with his back to the driver, laid the olive-wood box on his knees, unlocked it, drew from his breast pocket the papers he carried; locked them in the box once more, and looked up laughingly at the Princess and Ruhannah as he placed it at his feet.

“There you are!” he said. “Thank heaven my task and your affair have been accomplished. All the papers are there—and,” to Ruhannah, “that pretty gentleman you call the Yellow Devil is inside, along with some assorted firearms, drawing instruments, and photographs. The whole business is here, intact—and so am I—if that irrelevant detail should interest you.”

Rue smiled her answer; the Princess scrutinised him keenly:

“Did you have trouble, Jim?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Serious trouble?”

“I tell you it was like a movie in five reels. Never before did I believe such things happened outside a Yonkers studio. But they do, Naïa. And I’ve learned that the world is full of more excitingly melodramatic 286 possibilities than any novel or scenario ever contained.”

“You’re not serious, of course,” began Rue Carew, watching the varying expressions on his animated features; but the Princess Mistchenka said, unsmiling:

“A film melodrama is a crude and tawdry thing compared to the real drama so many of us play in every moment of our lives.”

Neeland said to Rue, lightly:

“That is true as far as I have been concerned with that amazing box. It’s full of the very devil—of that Yellow Devil! When I pick it up now I seem to feel a premonitory tingling all over me—not entirely disagreeable,” he added to the Princess, “but the sort of half-scared exhilaration a man feels who takes a chance and is quite sure he’ll not have another chance if he loses. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes,” said the Princess unsmilingly, her clear, pleasant eyes fixed on him.

In her tranquil, indefinite expression there was something which made him wonder how many such chances this pretty woman had taken in her life of intellectual pleasure and bodily ease.

And now he