Читать книгу The Riddle and the Ring; or, Won by Nerve - Gordon MacLaren - Страница 7

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Lawrence dropped his paper, and flashed a startled, bewildered glance at the man beside him. For a moment he was silent, unable to credit his senses.

"What did you say?" he gasped at length.

"I asked if you would care to earn a thousand dollars," the stranger repeated, in a quiet, precise voice.

Lawrence stared for a second longer, and then suddenly burst into a harsh, mirthless laugh. For an instant he had been thrilled to the very core. A thousand dollars! Good Lord!

In that fleeting space there flashed through his brain a dozen pictures—clear, vivid, and distinct. He saw restaurants such as he used to patronize, with food—real food, and not the gross, coarse stuff one ate simply to fill that gnawing, aching void. He saw theaters, with their glittering lights and stirring music. He saw his old rooms, cheery and homelike in the lamplight and the red glow of the grate fire. He saw an overcoat, well cut, and lined with thick, warm fur, into which he might snuggle and defy the bitter blasts which had sapped his vitality and tortured him almost beyond endurance. He saw everything that a thousand dollars would bring to him.

And then he came to earth with a thud. Of course, the man was mad!

"I can understand that this may seem a little odd to you," the stranger went on, in that same dry, unemotional tone, "but the circumstances themselves are somewhat out of the ordinary. I had hoped that you might consider the matter favorably."

Something in the other's calm, sedate, business-like manner made Lawrence eye him again keenly. There was nothing in the least savoring of insanity about the stranger. His whole personality fairly exuded respectability. His pale eyes were quiet and steady—the eyes of a man who might be utterly unemotional and lacking imagination, but scarcely the eyes of a maniac.

Somehow the glance steadied Barry, and brought him new hope. After all, it would do no harm to inquire further into this extraordinary matter. He could scarcely be worse off than he was now.

"You can hardly blame me for being surprised," he said, with a faint, whimsical smile. "I beg your pardon for laughing, but I couldn't help it. If you will be a little more definite, and explain what I shall have to do to earn this money, I'll be very glad to consider it."

The stranger did not smile in answer. He simply nodded in a manner betokening his satisfaction, and turned more directly toward Lawrence.

"Good!" he said briefly, in that same low tone, which made it impossible for any passer-by to hear him. "The matter is very simple. It will take exactly one week of your time, at the end of which the thousand dollars I shall hand you now will be yours, without further obligation on your part."

"You mean to pay me in advance?" Lawrence exclaimed incredulously.

"I am obliged to. I think, however, that I may safely leave it to your honor to fulfill the conditions I impose."

Barry frowned. The situation was growing more and more puzzling, and verging on the absurd.

"And those conditions are?" he questioned.

"Simply this," the unknown explained: "If you accept my proposition, you will at once provide yourself with an ample wardrobe, including proper evening clothes—provided, of course, that you are not already so equipped."

Barry's lips twitched as he remembered that empty hall bedroom over near Tenth Avenue, but he made no comment save an understanding nod.

"There are shops where a man of taste can obtain these things ready-made," the stranger continued quietly. "I should prefer to have them cut by a good tailor, but there is no time. Having secured the wardrobe—you understand that there must be no stinting in either quality or quantity—I will give you an additional sum for expenses. You will go to the St. Albans Hotel, and engage a suite of rooms. You know the house?"

Lawrence shook his head. It seemed that he could not speak. His brain was whirling, and he was beginning to wonder whether it might not be he himself who had taken leave of his senses. One or the other of them must be mad; there could be no doubt of that.

"It is on Forty-fifth Street, just west of the avenue." The precise, matter-of-fact tone of his companion's voice penetrated to Barry's disordered brain, and again he felt that odd, reassuring sense he had noticed before. "A quiet, high-class house. You will remain there for just one week, beginning to-day. During that week you will dine every night at the Waldorf; lunch each day at the Plaza, the Knickerbocker, Shanley's, or restaurants of equal standing, and next Tuesday afternoon, at three o'clock, the thousand dollars will be earned."

Lawrence sat staring at him, open-mouthed, waiting for him to continue. When it became evident that the little man had nothing more to say, Barry's eyes threatened to pop out of his head.

"Is that all?" he managed to stammer.

"Yes."

"You don't want me to do anything but that?"

"No."

"He is daffy!" Lawrence said to himself decidedly. "There can't be a doubt of it. He's probably given his keeper the slip, and is having the time of his life with me."

For an instant his heart sank, for, in spite of everything, he had been thrilled by the prospect opened up by the stranger's words. Then he shrugged his shoulders. After all, it would be rather diverting to see how the fellow would get out of the affair, and Barry was sadly in need of something to take his mind from his own difficulties.

"My time, then, except for lunching and dining and sleeping, will be my own?" he inquired seriously.

"Exactly."

"You wish me to register at the St. Albans under my own name?"

"That's a matter for you to decide. It's quite immaterial to me."

"I suppose it would be a waste of time to inquire why you are willing to pay such a sum for anything so very simple," Lawrence remarked tentatively.

"Quite so!" the stranger returned emphatically. "That is altogether my affair. Well, what do you say?"

Barry kept his face serious with difficulty. "Say?" he repeated. "Why, I accept, of course. I'd be a fool not to."

The unknown arose briskly.

"Good!" he said. "Suppose we take a stroll outside. This place is getting close."

Without question, Lawrence followed him out into the great vaulted space. What was the fellow going to do? How was he going to escape carrying out his side of the bargain with any plausibility or grace? Of course, he would get out of it somehow, for he was mad—mad as a March hare.

But, in spite of this conviction, Barry felt the blood tingling in his finger tips as they walked past the news stand, past the ticket offices, and on to the deserted extremity of the enormous marble hall.