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Authors: Hulbert Footner
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from outer office. BRICKLEY.
STOREY, Crillon, Paris July 11th.
Hasbrouck, James & Co., members N. Y. Stock Exchange, report on August 7th last year they purchased on Mr. Greenfield's account U. S. Liberty 3 ½s reg.; D. & H. cvt. 5s; L. & N. rfg. 5s; Iron Mountain gold 5s, totalling $263,000. [The numbers of the bonds followed.] None of these securities appeared among Mr. Greenfield's assets.
BRICKLEY.
This correspondence closed with a surprising piece of news from Mme Storey.
BRICKLEY, New York July 11th.
Hélie and Margaret sailed S.S. Paris Le Havre to-day. Booked under their own name without the title. Suite 625. Will arrive New York 18th. Have them kept under surveillance. I sail Mauretania Saturday; arrive New York 19th. Am booked as Mrs. Davidge in case you have to wireless. Meet me at pier. Should Hélie call me up on arrival, tell him I got back on the Berengaria . I am supposed to have preceded them home. Warn Matilda at my apartment to tell the same story.
STOREY.
VIII
On the day named, with Crider and another operative duly armed with passes, I made my way to the pier of the French line. With the jabbering on every side it was like a bit of Paris transplanted, that Paris which I only knew for three days, but which I shall be homesick for as long as I live. All we could see of the great ship were squares of black hull and white upperworks through the openings in the pier shed. She brought a good crowd for the westward voyage at this season. The majority of the passengers were foreigners coming to America for their vacations.
We stationed ourselves where we could get a good view of the first-class gangway. My job was to point out Margaret to Crider and his partner, who were to keep her in view until Mme Storey's arrival on the following day. I had not much fear that she would recognize me in my workaday clothes. Moreover, I was in the crowd, whereas the passengers had to pass one by one in review before us, as they gingerly picked their steps down the plank.
Hundreds of passengers descended before them, and I was growing anxious. Finally I saw them on deck, standing back with aristocratic reserve until the press should be over. It was Hélie's red cheeks that I spotted. He was quite unchanged, but in America he looked very French. As for Margaret, had he not been with her, I should have had to look hard before recognizing her. For with M. Craqui's assistance she had changed her role again. Nothing of the bizarre or the sensational in her appearance now. She was the high-born Princess on her travels. Her hat, suit, summer furs expressed the very perfection of well-bred distinction. Her make-up was absent—or discreetly appeared to be absent, and it surprised me to discover how good-looking she was without it.
But she was not extraordinarily good-looking; she was something rarer. For a thousand good-looking women there is I suppose one who can look and bear herself like a princess, and Margaret was that one. When she came stepping daintily and stiffly down the gangplank you could see all the lookers-on glance at each other as much as to say: "Here comes somebody. Who is she?" I could only ask myself helplessly: Where did she get it? Where did she get it? this daughter of the odd-jobs-man of Weddinsboro, Ind.
She looked around her with an amused interest, as might a Frenchwoman first setting foot on these shores. Technically, of course, she was a Frenchwoman now, and undoubtedly travelling under a French passport. She kept herself very much to herself, and left Hélie to attend to the luggage, of which they had a vast pile. Each expensive piece was marked with an R under a coronet. All the good Americans on the dock stared awestruck at the coronet. Yet nothing is easier, surely, than to have a coronet painted on one's trunks. I wonder if the million in securities was in one of the trunks. Probably not.
Leaving them there under the eyes of Crider and his partner, I returned to the office.
Later Crider
STOREY, Crillon, Paris July 11th.
Hasbrouck, James & Co., members N. Y. Stock Exchange, report on August 7th last year they purchased on Mr. Greenfield's account U. S. Liberty 3 ½s reg.; D. & H. cvt. 5s; L. & N. rfg. 5s; Iron Mountain gold 5s, totalling $263,000. [The numbers of the bonds followed.] None of these securities appeared among Mr. Greenfield's assets.
BRICKLEY.
This correspondence closed with a surprising piece of news from Mme Storey.
BRICKLEY, New York July 11th.
Hélie and Margaret sailed S.S. Paris Le Havre to-day. Booked under their own name without the title. Suite 625. Will arrive New York 18th. Have them kept under surveillance. I sail Mauretania Saturday; arrive New York 19th. Am booked as Mrs. Davidge in case you have to wireless. Meet me at pier. Should Hélie call me up on arrival, tell him I got back on the Berengaria . I am supposed to have preceded them home. Warn Matilda at my apartment to tell the same story.
STOREY.
VIII
On the day named, with Crider and another operative duly armed with passes, I made my way to the pier of the French line. With the jabbering on every side it was like a bit of Paris transplanted, that Paris which I only knew for three days, but which I shall be homesick for as long as I live. All we could see of the great ship were squares of black hull and white upperworks through the openings in the pier shed. She brought a good crowd for the westward voyage at this season. The majority of the passengers were foreigners coming to America for their vacations.
We stationed ourselves where we could get a good view of the first-class gangway. My job was to point out Margaret to Crider and his partner, who were to keep her in view until Mme Storey's arrival on the following day. I had not much fear that she would recognize me in my workaday clothes. Moreover, I was in the crowd, whereas the passengers had to pass one by one in review before us, as they gingerly picked their steps down the plank.
Hundreds of passengers descended before them, and I was growing anxious. Finally I saw them on deck, standing back with aristocratic reserve until the press should be over. It was Hélie's red cheeks that I spotted. He was quite unchanged, but in America he looked very French. As for Margaret, had he not been with her, I should have had to look hard before recognizing her. For with M. Craqui's assistance she had changed her role again. Nothing of the bizarre or the sensational in her appearance now. She was the high-born Princess on her travels. Her hat, suit, summer furs expressed the very perfection of well-bred distinction. Her make-up was absent—or discreetly appeared to be absent, and it surprised me to discover how good-looking she was without it.
But she was not extraordinarily good-looking; she was something rarer. For a thousand good-looking women there is I suppose one who can look and bear herself like a princess, and Margaret was that one. When she came stepping daintily and stiffly down the gangplank you could see all the lookers-on glance at each other as much as to say: "Here comes somebody. Who is she?" I could only ask myself helplessly: Where did she get it? Where did she get it? this daughter of the odd-jobs-man of Weddinsboro, Ind.
She looked around her with an amused interest, as might a Frenchwoman first setting foot on these shores. Technically, of course, she was a Frenchwoman now, and undoubtedly travelling under a French passport. She kept herself very much to herself, and left Hélie to attend to the luggage, of which they had a vast pile. Each expensive piece was marked with an R under a coronet. All the good Americans on the dock stared awestruck at the coronet. Yet nothing is easier, surely, than to have a coronet painted on one's trunks. I wonder if the million in securities was in one of the trunks. Probably not.
Leaving them there under the eyes of Crider and his partner, I returned to the office.
Later Crider
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