Читать книгу The Fascinating Stranger, and Other Stories - Booth Tarkington - Страница 4

The pawnbroker set his eye on her—that is, he put on a pair of spectacles, picked up the ring and looked at it carelessly, but after his first glance his expression became more attentive. “So you say I needn’t think you don’t know the ‘ring part’ ain’t gold, George? So you knew it was platinum, did you?”

“Of course, I knowed it was plapmun,” Tuttle said promptly, rising to the occasion, though he had never before heard of this metal. “I reckon I know plapmun when I see it.”

“I think it’s worth about ten or twelve dollars,” Breitman said. “I’ll give you twelve if you want to sell it.”

Eager acceptance rushed to Tuttle’s lips, but hung there unspoken as caution checked him. He drew a deep breath and said huskily, “Why, you can’t fool me on this here ring, Mr. Breitman. I ain’t worryin’ about what I can git fer the plapmun part; all I want to know is how much I ought ast fer the diamon’. I ain’t fixin’ to sell it to you; I’m fixin’ to sell it to somebody else.”

“Oh, so that’s it,” said Breitman, still looking at the ring. “Where’d you get it?”

Tuttle laughed ingratiatingly. “It’s kind of funny,” he said, “how I got that ring. Yet it’s all open and above-board, too. If the truth must be told, it belonged to a lady-cousin o’ mine in Auburndale, Wisconsin, and her aunt-by-marriage left it to her. Well, this here lady-cousin o’ mine, I was visitin’ her last summer, and she found I had a good claim on the house and lot she was livin’ in, account of my never havin’ knowed that my grandfather—he was her grandfather, too—well, he never left no will, and this house and lot come down to her, but I never made no claim on it because I thought it had be’n willed to her till I found out it hadn’t, when I went up there. Well, the long and short of it come out like this: the house and lot’s worth about nine or ten thousand dollars, but she didn’t have no money, so she handed me over this ring to settle my claim. Name’s Mrs. Moscoe, Mrs. Wilbur N. Moscoe, three-thirty-two South Liberty Street, Auburndale, Wisconsin.”

“I see,” Breitman said absently. “Just wait here a minute, George; I ain’t going to steal it.” And, taking the ring with him, he went into a room behind the shop, remaining there closeted long enough for Tuttle to grow a little uneasy.

“Hay!” he called. “You ain’t tryin’ to eat that plapmun ring are you, Mr. Breitman?”

Breitman appeared in the doorway. There was a glow in his eyes, and although he concealed all other traces of a considerable excitement, somehow Tuttle caught a vibration out of the air, and began to feel the presence of Fortune. “Step in here and sit down, George,” the pawnbroker said. “I wanted to look at this stone a little closer, and of course I had to go over my lists and see if it was on any of ’em.”

“What lists?” Tuttle asked as he took a chair.

“From the police. Stolen goods.”

“Looky here! I told you how that ring come to me. My cousin ain’t no crook. Her name’s Mrs. Wilbur N. Moscoe, South Liberty Street, Auburnd——”

“Never mind,” Breitman interrupted. “I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t so. Anyway, this ring ain’t on any of the lists and——”

“I should say it ain’t!”

“Well, don’t get excited. Now look here, George”—Breitman seated himself close to his client and spoke in a confidential tone—“George, you know I always took a kind of interest in you, and I want to tell you what you need. You ought to go get yourself all fixed up. You ought to go to a barber’s and get your hair cut and your whiskers trimmed. Don’t go to no cheap barber’s; go to a good one, and tell ’em to fix your whiskers so’s you’ll have a Van Dyke——”

“A what?”

“A Van Dyke beard. It’s swell,” said Breitman. “Then you go get you a fine pearl-gray Fedora hat, with a black band around it, and a light overcoat, and some gray gloves with black stitching, and a nice cane and a nobby suit o’ clo’es and some fancy top shoes——”

“Listen here!” Tuttle said hoarsely, and he set a shaking hand on the other’s knee, “how much you willin’ to bid on my plapmun ring?”

“Don’t go so fast!” Breitman said, but his eyes were becoming more and more luminous. He had the hope of a great bargain; yet feared that Tuttle might have a fairly accurate idea of the value of the diamond. “Hold your hosses a little, George! You don’t need so awful much to go and get yourself fixed up like I’m tellin’ you, and you’ll have a lot o’ money left to go around and see high life with. I’ll send right over to the bank and let you have it in cash, too, if you meet my views.”

“How much?” Tuttle gasped. “How much?”

Breitman looked at him shrewdly. “Well, I’m takin’ chances: the market on stones is awful down these days, George. Your cousin must have fooled you bad when she talked about four or five thousand dollars! That’s ridiculous!”

“How much?”

“Well, I’ll say!—I’ll say seven hundred and fifty dollars.”

Tuttle’s head swam. “Yes!” he gasped.

•••••••

No doubt as he began that greatest period in his whole career, half an hour later, he thought seriously of a pair of blue eyes in a white kitchen;—seven hundred and fifty dollars, with a competent Swedish wife to take care of it and perhaps set up a little shop that would keep her husband out of mischief and busy——But there the thought stopped short and his expression became one of disillusion: the idea of orderliness and energy and profit was not appetizing. He had seven hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket; and Tuttle knew what romance could come to him instantly at the bidding of this illimitable cash: he knew where the big crap games were; he knew where the gay flats and lively ladies were; he knew where the fine liquor gurgled—not White Mule; he knew how to find the lights, the lights and the music!

Forthwith he approached that imperial orgy of one heaped and glorious week, all of high-lights, that summit of his life to be remembered with never-failing pride when he went back, after it was all over, to his limousine and the shavings.

It was glorious straight through to the end, and the end was its perfect climax: the most dazzling memory of all. He forgave automobiles, on that last day, and in the afternoon he hired a splendid, red new open car, with a curly-haired chauffeur to drive it. Then driving to a large hardware store he spent eighteen dollars, out of his final fifty, upon the best lawn-mower the store could offer him. He had it placed in the car and drove away, smoking a long cigar in a long holder. Such was his remarkable whim; and it marks him as an extraordinary man.

That nothing might be lacking, his destiny arranged that Mrs. Pinney was superintending Tilly in the elimination of dandelions from the front yard when the glittering equipage, to their surprise, stopped at the gate. Seated beside the lawn-mower in the tonneau they beheld a superb stranger, portly and of notable presence. His pearl-gray hat sat amiably upon his head; the sleeves of his fawn-coloured overcoat ran pleasantly down to pearl gloves; his Van Dyke beard, a little grizzled, conveyed an impression of distinction not contradicted by a bagginess of the eyelids; for it is strangely true that dissipation sometimes even adds distinction to certain types of faces. All in all, here was a man who might have recalled to a student of courts some aroma of the entourage of the late King Edward at Hombourg. There was just that about him.

He alighted slowly—he might well have been credited with the gout—and entering the yard, approached with a courteous air, being followed by the chauffeur, who brought the lawn-mower.

“Good afternoon, lady and Tilly,” he said, in a voice unfortunately hoarse; and he removed his pearl-gray hat with a dignified gesture.

They stared incredulously, not believing their eyes.

“I had a little trouble with your lawn-mower, so I up and got it fixed,” he said. “It’s the same one. I took and got it painted up some.”

“Oh, me!” Tilly said, in a whisper. “Oh, me!” And she put her hand to her heart.

He perceived that he dazzled her; that she felt deeply; and almost he wished, just for this moment, to be sober. He was not—profoundly not—yet he maintained his dignity and his balance throughout the interview. “I thought you might need it again some day,” he said.

“Mis-ter De Mor-ris!” Mrs. Pinney cried, in awed recognition. “Why, what on earth——”

“Nothin’,” he returned lightly. “Nothin’ at all.” He waved his hand to the car. “One o’ my little automobiles,” he said.

With that he turned, and, preceded by the chauffeur, walked down the path to the gate. Putting his whole mind upon it, he contrived to walk without wavering; and at the gate, he paused and looked wistfully back at Tilly. “You certainly got a good build on you,” he said.

Then beautifully and romantically he concluded this magnificent gesture—this unsolvable mystery story that the Pinneys’ very grandchildren were to tell in after years, and that kept Tilly a maiden for many months in the hope of the miraculous stranger’s return—at least to tell her who and what he was!

He climbed into the car, placed the long holder of the long cigar in his mouth, and, as the silent wheels began to turn, he took off his hat again and waved it to them graciously.

“I kept the pledge!” he said.