CHAPTER XX.

A SUPPOSITION BECOMES A FACT.

“You remember when Phil Clark was running up on Fifth Avenue,” begins the major, after the wine has been brought and pronounced only half-iced.

“Rather,” responds Chauncey, dryly. “I dropped five hundred there one night and it wasn’t much of a game at that.”

“Well, I drifted into Phil’s one night three years ago, more or less, and found the place as quiet as a country village. There was no big game going on, and mighty few small ones. In one of the rooms I found Col. Dunnett. You remember Dunnett. We were chatting and commenting on the dullness of the evening, when two young men came into the room and, after a glance at us, one of them suggested a hand at poker.

“I knew one of the young men slightly. His name was Stanley, I believe. Quiet, reserved sort of a chap. He hadn’t been in New York long, he said. Made books out at the Sheepshead races. I did not fancy his friend, who had been drinking some and was inclined to be a bit noisy. His name—let me see—Fenton, or Fallon; no, Felton, that was what Stanley called him.

“We began the game and it broke up after the hand I started in to tell you about. The betting simmered down to Felton and Stanley. Felton held four aces and bet all the cash he had. ‘I ought to raise you,’ said Stanley; ‘still,’ he added, ‘if that is all the cash you have—’

“‘You needn’t worry about me,’ sneered Felton, as he took a check-book from his pocket. ‘I said that was all the change I had with me, but my check is good.’ He scratched off a check and threw it on the table. ‘You can see that, or call my previous bet, as you please.’

“Stanley was as calm as I am now. He leaned over to me, and, spreading his cards, asked: ‘Major, will you loan me a thousand a moment to bet this hand?’ I glanced at it and had a trifle of difficulty in restraining my surprise. He had filled, as he told me afterward, the middle of a straight flush, king up!

“‘Cert, my boy,’ I replied, cheerfully, to his request, and I passed over two $500 bills. Stanley tossed them on the table, and looked inquiringly at Felton. The latter, with a smile of sublime confidence, spread out four aces. ‘No good,’ was Stanley’s calm announcement. He exhibited his hand, and then pocketing the stakes, after returning me my thousand, he remarked: ‘Thank you, gentlemen, for your entertainment. I don’t believe I’ll play any more to-night.’ And putting on his coat and hat, he left the room.

“Felton sat like one dazed for some moments. Then he walked to the bar and after a stiff drink hurried off. I never saw either of them after that night.”

Ashley and Barker have been silent and interested listeners to this yarn by the major. As the latter and his friends rise Ashley rises also and taps the major on the shoulder. “Pardon the intrusion,” he says, with an engaging smile. “I have been vastly interested in your poker story, sir, for the reason that I think I know one of the players—Felton, I believe you called him. Do you happen to recall what sort of a looking chap he was?”

“Hanged if I remember,” replies the major, wondering at the other’s earnestness.

“Was he a rather tall, good-looking young fellow, with light-brown hair and eyes and a tawny mustache?” persists Ashley.

“Now that you speak of the mustache, I believe that your description fits him. He had a heavy, yellowish mustache, which he was in the habit of biting, as though his dinner did not suit him.”

“Thank you,” says Ashley. “Will you have something more to drink, gentlemen?”

But the major and his party take themselves off and Ashley resumes his seat with a satisfied smile.

“So, Barker, we hit it about right after all, eh?”

“It would appear so,” returns the detective complacently. “We now know what we have assumed to have been the case—that Ernest Stanley suffered imprisonment two years for another’s crime, and that the real criminal, the man who forged Cyrus Felton’s name, was none other than his son, Ralph Felton.”

As Barker pronounces these words Ashley hears a smothered exclamation behind him and turns quickly. But all he sees is a gentleman and lady gathering their wraps preparatory to taking their departure. The man’s back is toward Ashley, but the latter waits until the party faces his way and then for the space of a second their eyes meet.

“There is only one more selection, and it does not amount to much,” Van Zandt tells Mrs. Harding, and they join the crowd that is leaving the garden.

“Do you know those two men who sat at the next table to us? The younger looked at you as though he knew you and was waiting to be recognized.”

“Your imagination, cara mia. I know neither of them,” replies Van Zandt, lightly. Then, as he hands her into a carriage at the corner and says “Kensington” to the driver, he holds Isabel’s hand a moment at parting and inquires gravely: “So you are really going away then?”

“In two days,” she answers, and searches his face for some evidence of regret. It is as impassive as the sphinx.

“Well, I suppose I shall see you at the French ball to-morrow evening?”

“You may, if you care to look for a Russian court lady, attired wholly in black.”

“Rest assured that the festivities will be robed in sables until I find her. Good-night.” Van Zandt closes the carriage door, watches it a moment as it rattles up the avenue and then saunters toward Broadway.

Ashley and Barker have remained at their table in the garden and Jack is telling the detective that for the second time within twenty-four hours he has caught the stare of the man with the brown beard and piercing eyes. “I have seen that face somewhere,” he mutters, as he wrinkles his brow in a desperate effort to burst the memory cell that prisons the secret. Suddenly he smites the table a blow that sets the glasses jingling and invites the disapprobation of the waiter. “Oh, memory! Memory, thou sleepy, shiftless warder of the brain!” he cries.

“What is the matter now?” asks Barker.

“Keep calm, old chap,” returns Ashley, gripping the detective’s wrist. “Keep calm while I confess to you that we have let slip through our hands the key to the Hathaway mystery!”

“What!” almost shouts the detective, starting to his feet. “You mean—”

“I mean that the man with the brown beard and stiletto optics who just left us is my friend of the mountain gorge. He is Ernest Stanley!”

“Well, he has slipped us this time,” says the detective, disconsolately, as they stand outside the garden and sweep the street with anxious gaze.

“Not yet,” Ashley rejoins cheerfully. “See! There he is beyond that third light, handing his magnificent companion into a carriage.”

“Call a cab and follow them,” says the detective, starting toward the line of conveyances pulled up at the curb.

“No need of that,” Ashley interrupts. “He is not going to ride.” At that moment it was that Van Zandt closed the door to the carriage which bore Mrs. Harding to the Kensington, and as he starts toward Broadway the detective and the newspaper man follow at a cautious distance.

Unconscious of the espionage Van Zandt starts uptown at a swinging gait. At Thirty-second Street he branches into Sixth Avenue, and the two men behind him wonder that he does not ride. At the park he turns down Fifty-ninth Street and finally enters the Wyoming apartment house, leaving Ashley and Barker staring up at the brownstone elevation.

The former waits five minutes and then pulls the bell. “The name of the gentleman who has just gone upstairs?” he asks the colored attendant who responds.

“Mr. Phillip Van Zandt,” replies the sable youth, as he slips a half-dollar into his pocket.

“Van Zandt—is that his name?” queries Ashley, a trifle disappointed, although he might have expected a strange name. Then the porter tells him that the gentleman with the brown beard has been a resident of the Wyoming for several months; that he is a wealthy bachelor, and a variety of other equally important information.

“Well, what do you think now?” asks Barker, as they walk over to the elevated road.

“I haven’t changed my opinion,” is Ashley’s response. “I believe that Phillip Van Zandt is or was Ernest Stanley.”

“Well, we have him located, at any rate,” remarks the detective. “See you at the French ball to-morrow night? I am on the lookout for a couple of gentry whom I expect to be there. This is my station. Good-night.”