Part 4

The small round table was conventionally set, but this only added to the grimness of the encompassing arsenal. A bowl of crimson roses in the centre of the snowy cloth would ordinarily have mitigated the effect of the grim walls; but I confess that the color reminded me a little too sombrely of the ugly business for which this steel had been designed. But for the presence of Miss Cecilia, who was essentially typical of our twentieth-century American woman, I think I might readily have yielded to the illusion that I was the guest of some eccentric chatelaine who had invited me to dine with her in a bastion of her fortress before ordering me to some chamber of horrors for execution.

There seemed to be no reason why one of those keen blades on the wall might not find its way through my ribs between a highly satisfactory plate of _potage a la tortue_ and a bit of sea-bass that would have honored any kitchen in the land. No reference was made to the character of the room; I felt, in fact, that Cecilia rather pleaded with her eyes that I should make no reference to it. And Miss Hollister remarked quite casually as though in comment upon my thoughts:--

"Consistency has buried its thousands and habit its tens of thousands. We should live, Mr. Ames, for the changes and chances of this troubled life. Between an opera-box and a villa at Newport many of my best friends have perished."

"I have thought myself that Thoreau had the right idea,"--I began hopefully; but she raised her finger warningly.

"Mr. Ames, the mention of Henry David Thoreau is wholly distasteful to me. A man who will deliberately choose to whittle lead-pencils for chipmunks and write a book about a moist sand-pile like Cape Cod arouses no sympathy in me. And these well-meaning women who are forever gathering autumn leaves, or who tire you in spring by telling you they have found the first pussy-willow feathering, and who make all Nature odious by their general goo-gooings, bore me to death. There is no such thing possible as the simple life. I give you my word for it that it is only in the most complex existence that the spirit of man can thrive."

I am only a chimney-doctor; I have never been able to make any headway in discussing things aesthetic, sentimental or spiritual with persons of sound conviction in such matters. A bishop with whom I once roamed the English cathedrals confessed to me his sincere belief that in the days of the inquisition the gridiron would have been my rightful portion. I was fearful lest my hostess should suggest the mediaeval church as a topic, and this I knew would be disastrous. As an abbess she would, I fancied, have ruled with an iron hand. But with startling abruptness she put down her fork, and bending her wonderfully direct gaze upon me, asked a question that caused me to strangle on a bit of asparagus.

"I imagine, Mr. Ames, that you are a member of some of the better clubs in town. If by any chance you belong to the Hare and Tortoise,--the name of which has always pleased me,--do you by any chance happen to enjoy the acquaintance of Mr. Hartley Wiggins?"

Cecilia lifted her head. I saw that she had been as startled as I. It crossed my mind that a denial of any acquaintance with Wiggins might best serve him in the circumstances; but I am not, I hope, without a sense of shame, and I responded promptly:--

"Yes, I know him well. We are old friends. I always see a good deal of him during the winter. His summers are spent usually on his ranch in the west. We dined together two days ago at the Hare and Tortoise, just before he left for the west."

"You will pardon me if I say that it is wholly to his credit that he has forsworn the professions and identified himself with the honorable calling of the husbandman."

"We met Mr. Wiggins while traveling abroad last summer," interposed Cecilia, meeting my eyes quite frankly.

"Met him! Did you say met him, Cecilia? On the contrary we found him waiting for us at the dock the morning we sailed," corrected Miss Hollister, "and we never lost him a day in three months of rapid travel. I had never met him before, but I cannot deny that he made himself exceedingly agreeable. If, as I suspected, he had deliberately planned to travel on the same steamer with my two nieces, I have only praise for his conduct, for in these days, Mr. Ames, it warms my heart to find young men showing something of the old chivalric ardor in their affairs of the heart."

"I 'm sure Mr. Wiggins made himself very agreeable," remarked Cecilia colorlessly.

"For myself," retorted Miss Hollister, "I should speak even more strongly. He repeatedly served us with tact and delicacy; and I recall with the greatest satisfaction his vigorous chastisement of our courier in Cologne, where that person was found to have treated us in the most treacherous manner. He had, in fact, in collusion with an inn-keeper, connived at the loss of our baggage to delay our departure, even after I had pronounced the cathedral the greatest architectural monstrosity in Europe."

"Oh, Aunt Octavia, you didn't really mean that!" And Cecilia laughed for the first time. Her color had risen, and her dark eyes lit with pleasure.

"I had formed so high an opinion of Mr. Wiggins," Miss Octavia continued, "that I learned with sincerest regret that his ancestors were Tories and took no part in the struggle for American independence. There are times when I seriously question the wisdom of the colonists in breaking with the mother country; but certainly no man of character in that day could have hesitated as to his proper course."

Then, as though by intention, Miss Hollister dropped upon the smooth current of our talk a sentence that drove the color from Cecilia's face. At once the girl was cold again, and I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable that a friend of mine had been brought into the conversation to my befuddlement. The situation was trying, but in spite of this it grew steadily more interesting.

"Hezekiah and Mr. Wiggins were the best of friends," was Miss Hollister's remark.

Cecilia's eyes were on her plate; but her aunt went on in her blithest fashion:--

"You may not know that Hezekiah is another niece, Cecilia's sister. She was named, at my suggestion, for my father, there being no son in the family, and I trust that so unusual a name in a young girl does not strike you as indefensible."

"On the contrary, it seems to me wholly refreshing and delightful. As I recall the Sunday-school of my youth, Hezekiah was a monarch of great authority, whose animosity toward Sennacherib was justified in the fullest degree. The very name bristles with spears, and is musical with the trumpets of Israel. Nothing would make me happier than to meet the young lady who bears this illustrious name."

"As to your knowledge of ancient history, Mr. Ames," began Miss Hollister, as she helped herself to the cheese,--sweets, I noted, were not included in the very ample meal I had enjoyed,--"it is clear that you were well taught in your youth. I am not surprised, however, for I should have expected nothing less of a son of the late General Ames of Hartford. As to meeting my niece Hezekiah, I fear that that is at present impossible. While Cecilia remains with me, Hezekiah's duty is to her father, and I must say in all kindness that Hezekiah's ways, like those of Providence and the custom-house, are beyond my feeble understanding. In a word, Mr. Ames, Hezekiah is different."

"Hezekiah," added Cecilia with feeling, "is a dear."

"Please don't bring sentimentalism to the table!" cried Miss Hollister. "Mr. Wiggins once informed me in a moment of forgetfulness,--it was at Fontainebleau, I remember, when Hezekiah persisted in reminding a one-armed French colonel who was hanging about that we named cities in America for Bismarck,--it was there at the inn, that Mr. Wiggins confided to me his belief that Hezekiah bears a strong resemblance to the common or domestic peach. As a single peach at that place was charged in the bill at ten francs, the remark was ill-timed, to say the least. But Mr. Wiggins was so contrite when I rebuked him, that I allowed him to pay for our luncheon,--no small matter, indeed, for Hezekiah's appetite is nothing if not robust."

The table-talk had yielded little light on the subject of Wiggins's predicament, whatever that might be; but these references to the absent Hezekiah had set a troop of interrogation points to dancing on the frontiers of my curiosity. Miss Hollister had given so many turns to the conversation that I could reach no conclusion as to her feeling toward Wiggins or Hezekiah Hollister; and as for Cecilia, I was unable to determine whether she was a prisoner at Hopefield Manor or the willing and devoted companion of her aunt.

In this bewildered state of mind, while we lingered over our coffee, the servant appeared with a card for each of the ladies. I saw Cecilia start as she read the name.

"Mr. Wiggins! How remarkable that he should have appeared just as we were speaking of him," said Miss Hollister. "Be sure the gentleman is comfortable in the library, James. We shall be in at once. Mr. Ames, you will of course be delighted to meet your friend here, and you will assist us in dispensing our meagre hospitality."

V

THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF A CHIMNEY

There was no reason in the world why Hartley Wiggins should not call upon two ladies living in Westchester County, and I must say that he appeared to advantage in Miss Hollister's library.

He had got into his evening clothes somewhere, perhaps at a neighboring inn, or maybe at the house of a friend; for he could not possibly have motored into town and back since his interview with Cecilia in the highway. He had impressed the clerk at the Hare and Tortoise with the idea that he had left New York for a long absence, and he had apparently camped at the gates of Hopefield to be near Cecilia.

When he had paid his compliments to the ladies, he turned to me with an almost imperceptible lifting of the brows; but he was cordial enough. If he was surprised or disappointed at seeing me, his manner did not betray the feeling.

"Glad to see you, Ames. Rather nice weather, this."

"Even Dakota could n't do better," I affirmed with a grin; but he ignored the fling.

"It is quite remarkable, Mr. Wiggins, that you should have appeared just when you did, for we had been speaking of you, and I had been telling Mr. Ames of our travels abroad and in particular of the thumping you very properly gave our courier at Cologne. And I shall not deny that I mentioned also our brief discussion of the peach-crop at Fontainebleau."

Cecilia stirred restlessly; Wiggins shot a glance of inquiry in my direction; and I felt decidedly ill at ease. Miss Hollister crossed to the fireplace and poked the logs.

Just what part Hezekiah Hollister played in the situation was beyond me. If I had not witnessed Wiggins's clandestine meeting with Cecilia, matters would have been clearer to my comprehension; but his appearance at the house, after the colloquy I had overheard from the briar patch, was in itself inexplicable. Cecilia was a woman, therefore to be wooed, and yet she had indicated by her words to him that the wooing, independently of her feeling and inclination, might not go forward with entire freedom. Miss Hollister's singular references to Hezekiah--a person about whom my curiosity was now a good deal aroused--added to the mystery that enfolded the library.

"Our American peaches are not what they were in my youth. Cold storage destroys the flavor. I have not tasted a decent peach for twenty years."

This was pretty tame, I admit; but I felt that I must say something. Responsive to Miss Hollister's energetic prodding, the flames in the fireplace leaped into the great throat of the chimney with a roar. She turned, her back to the blaze, and looked upon her guests benignantly.

"If all your flues draw like that one, they are not seriously in need of doctoring," I remarked, feeling that flues were a safer topic than the peach-crop.

"Flues are nothing if not erratic," replied Miss Hollister. The subject did not appear to interest her; nor had she, by the remotest suggestion, referred to the object of my coming. I had sniffed vainly in the halls above and below for any trace of the stale smoke which usually greeted me at once on my arrival at the house of a client. The air of Hopefield Manor was as sweet as that of a June meadow. Wiggins remarked to me that I doubtless knew the Manor had been designed by Pepperton, whom we both knew well.

"This is Pep's masterpiece. He need do nothing better to keep his grip at the top," he said.

"I consider it a great privilege to be permitted to visit a house designed by a dear friend and occupied by a lady peculiarly fitted to appreciate and adorn it."

I thought rather well of this as I spoke the words; but neither Cecilia nor Wiggins rose to it as I hoped they might.

"You have a neat turn for the direct compliment," said Miss Hollister promptly. "The house was built, you may not know, for a manufacturer of umbrellas, who died before he had occupied it, in circumstances I may later disclose to you; which accounts, Mr. Ames, for that figure of Cupid under a pink parasol on the drawing-room ceiling. At the first opportunity I shall remove it, as baby Cupids are irreconcilable with the militant love-making I admire. I consider umbrellas detestable, and never carry one when I can command a mackintosh."

"When I 'm on the ranch I wear a slicker," said Wiggins. "It's bullet-proof, and that I have found at times a decided advantage."

We discussed mackintoshes for at least ten minutes, with far more sprightliness than I had imagined the subject could evoke. Then Miss Hollister, after a turn up and down the room, paused beside me.

"Mr. Ames," she said, "would you care to join me in a game of billiards? I 'm not in my best form, but I think we might profitably knock the balls for half an hour."

I acquiesced with alacrity. I assumed it to be Miss Hollister's purpose to leave Cecilia and Wiggins alone. I should be rendering Wiggins and Cecilia a service by withdrawing, and I was glad of a chance to escape.

To my infinite surprise they both protested, not in mere polite murmurs but with considerable vehemence.

"It's quite cool to-night, and I don't believe you ought to use the billiard-room until the plumber has fixed the radiator," said Cecilia.

"And if you knew Mr. Ames's game I 'm sure you would n't care to waste time on him," piped Wiggins, whom I had frequently vanquished in billiard bouts at the Hare and Tortoise, where, I may say modestly, I had long been considered one of the most formidable of the club's players.

Both he and Cecilia had risen, and we stood, I remember, just before the hearth, during this exchange. At this moment, a singular thing happened. The fire that had been sweeping in a broad wave-like curve into the chimney was checked suddenly. I had repeatedly marked the admirable draught, the facile grace of the flame as it rose and vanished. The cessation of the draught was unmarked by any of those premonitory symptoms by which a fire usually gives warning of evil intentions. The upward current of air had ceased utterly and without apparent cause. We were all aware of a choking, a gasping in the deep flue, which could not be accounted for by any natural stoppage incident to chimneys--the dislodging of masonry, or a packing of soot. The former was hardly possible and the house was not old enough to make the latter theory plausible. From my survey of the flue on my arrival in the afternoon, I judged that this particular chimney had been little used.

The smoke now rolled out in billows and drove us back from the hearth. I seized the tongs and poker and began readjusting the logs, without, however, any hope of correcting a difficulty that lay patently in the upper regions of the flue itself. The smoke, after a courageous effort to rise, encountered an obstruction of some sort and ebbed back upon the hearth and out into the room. My efforts to stop the trouble by shifting the logs were futile, as I expected them to be, and I retreated quickly, making, I fear, no very gallant appearance as I mopped my face and eyes.

"Well," exclaimed Miss Hollister, who had rung for a servant to open the doors and windows, "this is certainly most extraordinary. What solution do you offer, Mr. Ames?"

"The matter requires investigation. I can't venture an opinion until I have made a thorough investigation. The night is perfectly quiet and the wind is hardly responsible. I think we had better abandon the room until I can solve this riddle in the morning."

The prompt opening of the windows and doors caused the slow dispersion of the smoke, but the lights in the room still shone dimly as through a fog.

"It's beastly," ejaculated Wiggins, coughing. "I did n't suppose Pepperton would put a flue like that into a house. He ought to be shot."

"It is fortunate," said Miss Hollister, "that Mr. Ames is on the ground. He now has a case that will test his most acute powers of diagnosis."

The logs that had burned so brightly before the chimney choked still held their flames stubbornly, and I had advised against pouring water upon them, fearing to crack the brick and stonework. We were about to adjourn to the drawing-room; Miss Hollister and the others had in fact reached the door, leaving me alone before the hearth. Then, as I stood half-blinded watching the smoke pour out into the room, and more puzzled than I had ever been before in any of my employments, the chimney, with a deep intake of breath, began drawing the smoke upward again; the flames caught and spread with renewed ardor; and when the trio still loitering in the hall returned in answer to my exclamation of surprise, the flue had recovered its composure and was behaving in a sane and normal manner.

There is, I imagine, nothing pertaining to the life of man (unless it be rival climates, motor-cars or pianos) that so inspires incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial criticism as wayward fireplaces. It is part of my business to listen respectfully to opinions, to receive with an appearance of credulity the theories of others; and those advanced in Miss Hollister's library were not below the average to which I was accustomed.

"A swallow undoubtedly fell into the chimney-pot and then got itself out again," suggested Cecilia.

"The logs must have been wet. The sap had n't dried out yet," proposed Wiggins.

"The wood was as dry as tinder," averred Miss Hollister, not without irritation. "And one swallow does not make a summer or a chimney smoke. It must have been a changing current of air. I was reading a book on ballooning the other day, and it is remarkable how the air currents change."

"That is quite possible, as the air cools rapidly after sunset at this season, and that is bound to have an effect on the quality and resistance of the atmosphere," I replied sagely.

"Perhaps," suggested Miss Hollister, with one of those flashes of animation that were so delightful in her, "perhaps it was a ghost! Will you tell us, Mr. Ames, whether in your experience you have ever known a chimney ghost?"

As I had no opinion of my own as to what had caused the chimney's brief aberration, I was glad to follow Miss Hollister's lead.

"I have had several experiences with ghosts," I began, "though I should not like you to think that I profess any special genius for the analysis of psychical phenomena. But there was a house at Shinnecock that was reputed to be haunted. The living-room chimney behaved damnably. The house was one of Buffington's. Buffington, you know, was quite capable of building a house and omitting any stairway. We used to say at the club that he ought to have specialized in fire-engine houses, where the men don't use stairways but slide down a pole. Well, the living-room chimney in this particular house could n't be made to draw with a team of elephants, and it had also the reputation of being haunted. Strange flutings of the weirdest and most distressing kind were often heard at night. The owner gave up in despair and moved out, turning the house over to me. After eliminating all other possibilities, I decided that the piping spook must be related to the disorder in the chimney. It served two fireplaces, and I proceeded to knock the kinks out of it so it did n't tie knots in a plumb-line as at first; but, believe me, when it stopped smoking it still whistled, in the most fantastical fashion. I was living in the house, with only the servants about, and for a week gave my whole thought to this flue. The ghostly flutist was an amateur, but he tried his hand at every sort of tune, from 'Sally in our Alley' to the jewel song in Faust. The whistling did n't begin till nearly midnight, and continued usually for about an hour. I tried in every way to lure him into the open, and I fell downstairs one night as I crept about in the dark trying to trace the sound. And to what palpable and mundane source do you suppose I traced that ghost?"

"I never should guess," murmured Cecilia, "unless it was merely the weird whistling of the wind."

"Nothing so poetical, I'm sorry to confess. It was the butler! In his nightly cups his soul inclined to music, and being a timid soul, fearful of the cynical tongues of the other servants, he crawled into the ash-dump in the cellar, which communicated with the several fireplaces above, and there indulged himself gently upon the tuneful reed. The night I caught him he was breathing the wild strains of Brunhilde's Battle-Cry into the tube, and it was shuddersome, I can tell you! I took it upon myself to discharge him on the spot, and the grateful owner returned the next day."

"The presence of a ghost in this house would give me the greatest pleasure," declared Miss Hollister, who had listened intently to my recital. "I should look upon a ghost's appearance at Hopefield Manor as a great compliment. If any reputable, decent ghost should by any chance take up his residence in this house, I should give him every encouragement."

Miss Hollister seemed to have forgotten the proposed game of billiards. The chimney's lawless demonstration had, in fact, given a new turn to the evening. We discussed ghosts for half an hour, and then, without having enjoyed any opportunity for a single private word with Cecilia, Wiggins rose to leave. He shook hands all around and bowed from the door. It was in my mind to follow, making a pretext of walking with him to the station or of helping him find his car; but nothing in his good-night to me encouraged such attentions, and as I pondered, the outer door closed upon my irresolution.

At the stroke of ten Miss Hollister rose and excused herself. "We breakfast at eight, Mr. Ames. I trust the hour does not conflict with your habits."

I assured her that the hour was wholly agreeable, and she gave me her hand with great dignity.

When I turned toward Cecilia she had moved to a seat close by the hearth and was gazing dreamily into the fire, now a bed of glowing coals.

"It was odd," I remarked.

"You mean the chimney?"

"Yes. It was quite unaccountable. I confess that I never knew a chimney's mood to change so abruptly."

She sat silent for several minutes, and then she lifted her head and her eyes met mine.